The Birth Control Mirror

[Buzzler]

The scope of this mod thing...
The BCM is supposed to be a tool that helps you in the effort of sustaining your 'hood, and getting it back into shape if things went bad, i.e. if whatever Storymode you use, didn't/doesn't manage to sustain you 'hood. You'll still need a Storymode to create couples, because Parthenogenesis is bad, m'kay, and the BCM will only pollinate sims who have a valid pollinator in store.

If you basically like ASM, but don't like the crib dependency, this might be the solution you seek. The BCM doesn't perform checks for crib presence (or bed slots). I'd still recommend to place at least a couple of cribs, just for means of immersion.

Be aware, though, that the BCM can only increase the birth rates in your 'hood, so there's a possibility it will lead to over-population in the long-term. I thought about implementing automatic and/or random abortions, but I think this would be just as bad as BusKills.

What this is...
This is an object-less scripting mod. All interactions are added to all Hi Def Mirrors listed under "Birth Control".

The added interactions are...
- Raw Data
Just some numbers I found helpful in the progress of making this. Might come in handy if you use the other interactions or mess around in your neighbourhood manually.

'Normalized Birth Rate' is pretty much the same as the 'Buzzler Factor' in twallan's NRaas Supercomputer. The exact numbers might differ a little, though, because I did some additional tuning to it. Chances are, if the figure wasn't as useless as a barrel of skunks before, it is now.

'Demographics' Deviance' shows you the discrepancy between the current numbers of Sims in every lifestage and the number of Sims a theoretically perfectly stable 'hood would have. Elders aren't taken into account, because the goal is to reach a stable amount of fertile adults.

'Current Limit of Reason' is yet again based on an awful lot of completely dirty and possibly invalid math. It tells you how much births per day your hood needs to sustain itself, plus one. Sustain-o-Mat uses this figure.

- Pollinate...
Exactly what it says: Takes a random female Sim of the chosen type and pollinates her. See below for rules.

- Mass Pollinate...
Exactly what it says: Pollinates all female Sims of the chosen type. See below for rules.

- Specifically Pollinate...
Lets you choose from a list of all female Sims of the chosen type. See below for rules.

- Sustain-o-Mat...
Activate/Deactivate Sutain-o-Mat to auto-pollinate Sims. Depending on the mode setting pollinations will be executed at different times. Every night at 2:30 am for the classic mode, and spread over the day for smooth and maintain mode. Configurate the scoring system it to your likings. Use the ShowScoredBCMVictims cheat to see how the potential victims are scored. Sustain-o-Poll does the same thing as Sustain-o-Mat, only it's doing it only once and immediately.

Classic Mode is pretty much the same thing as the gentle mode in previous versions. Smooth Operator Mode is based on the same principles but will spread the pollinations over the day. Maintain-o-Mat will try to uphold a certain, adjustable population.

- List Of Untouchables
Use it to protect sims from the fangs of the BCM. If you use the AwesomeMod, this is kinda pointless, since making the concerning sims sacred is more convenient and will have the same effect.

- Inform on Births
Well, what could that mean? I wonder...

- Extract Stuck Chicken
Allows you to abort specific pregancies. Despite the name, there are no checks if the chicken is really stuck. All Sims with a true IsPregnant-Flag or a non-invalid Pregancy-Handle are listed.

- Dragons' Dance
If you've read Douglas Adams, you'll get the idea. If not, your loss. See below for rules.

The pollination rules...
Victims are only Sims which are female, are YA or Adult, aren't pregnant already (Duh!), aren't homeless or ServiceNPCs, live in households with less than 8 members, don't belong to the currently active household and aren't marked chosen/sacred with AM.

All pollinations come in plenty of flavors. FYI: 'Married' is just a further limitation to 'partnered', since 'partnered' means married, engaged or going steady.

Some advice...
Have a look at the current number of victims and the current BR, before doing anything. Stupidly pollinating a massive amount of Sims, resulting in clusters of equally-aged Sims in the future, is what you don't want! That is, unless you're desperate to re-populate your hood. What you want is a smooth demographics distribution, so if NBR is significantly lower than 1 and there are lots of victims available, be hesitant to perform Mass Pollinations. In that case it's your choice if you want to intervene manually by Single-Pollinating Sims or if you want to give Sustain-o-Mat a chance.

The usual thanks...
Big thanks to twallan for enduring my questions, and for answering them, too.

Compatibility
Supported for game version 1.24 aka code version 0.2.0.154.


Bug reports and general feedback are appreciated.

Disclaimer...
Do I really need to tell you to make a backup of your 'hood, or that this comes without a warranty? If your answer is 'Yes, you do!', please don't download the file and just go away.

Updates
2011-07-26 - Updated to game version 1.24.

[nanisim]

Woa! I can't believe you did it, just what I needed, without infinities or so...
Ready to pollinate my infinity Buzzler hood! 

[veezee]

Only Pescado gets away with cryptic, unspecified commands 

So, what does Dragon's Dance do..?

[witch]

So, what does Dragon's Dance do..?

There's a little known app on the web that helps you locate information. Here, let me show you: www.google.com

[veezee]

So, what does Dragon's Dance do..?

There's a little known app on the web that helps you locate information. Here, let me show you: www.google.com

Should've expected that really, chastisement fair in this case. Although, that said, google was of no use in finding the answer as was Wikipedia. Shall try it and if anyone would like to know they can then ask me.

[nanisim]

I've tried the Dragonsdance and I see tant every fertile woman is now growing. I'm only waiting for the births to know who is/are the fathers.

[simwit]

Pollinate a specific sim would be nice. If AwesomeStory decides to leave a couple childless, I'd like to use the mirror to select the woman from a list and get her pollinated by her husband, without having to switch households.

Pollinate all childless sims (meaning only married women) would be useful to.

[Exiled]

I've tried the Dragonsdance and I see tant every fertile woman is now growing. I'm only waiting for the births to know who is/are the fathers.

The Pokemon move "Dragon Dance" raises Attack and Speed by one stage.  Perhaps the command speeds the births up?

[Buzzler]

Updated to Version 2. See first post for changes.

Only Pescado gets away with cryptic, unspecified commands 

Didn't know that. It are fact? You know from your learnings?

I'm unable to track down the reference as well. This one is too obscure.

You guys really know how to spoil someone's fun.

Ok, the basic idea: There's a planet. On this planet be dragons and humans. Whenever the dragons dance in the sky, the humans get all horny and crazy for unknown reasons. So when the Dragons dance, half of the humans rush into the woods together with the other half of the humans. The next morning all humans wake up all sweaty and exhausted not remembering anything.

Read Douglas Adams, you guys. It's great fun... well, except the last of the Hitchhiker's series, just pretend it doesn't exist.

Pollinate a specific sim would be nice.

Hmm, this is more within the scope of twallan's Pollinator. The primary purpose of this one is that you don't have to choose a specific Sim. This is no rejection, though. I'll think about it.

Pollinate all childless sims (meaning only married women) would be useful to.

I'll see about it. I really can't give a time scale, though.

[veezee]

Only Pescado gets away with cryptic, unspecified commands 

Didn't know that. It are fact? You know from your learnings?

No, not really. I see you failed to acknowledge the presence of a certain yellow orb displaying its tongue in a non-serious fashion.

Anyway, before this topic becomes too hostile, would like to let you know I do appreciate this obj.

[Buzzler]

@simwit: After a little digging in the dlls, I can say it shouldn't be much of a problem to implement your wishes. Expect it in the next update, probably Saturday afternoon (CET).

No, not really. I see you failed to acknowledge the presence of a certain yellow orb displaying its tongue in a non-serious fashion.

Or, maybe I didn't and it's just that I rarely use yellow orbs myself, thus leading you to the impression my non-serious statement was actually meant serious?

[simwit]

Great. This mirror will be very useful then. There's bound to be a few couples I'd like to have children, even if el presidente decides otherwise.

I have a backlog of thanks-buttons to click. Gonna do that now. Hope it doesn't backfire.

EDIT:
I don't really want anyone to read this, but I suddenly felt the stupid urge to edit this old message, just to add that clicking on a thanks-button leads to a page cannot be displayed error. I was at least expecting an insult, to be honest.

And is the icon on the thanks-button a sheep? I only noticed that today, and if it means what I think it means, well fuck me sideways!

But thanks anyway.

[Jelenedra]

Psst...

apparently this reference just didn't stuck!

Should be stick?

[Solmyr]

Excellent mod, AM storymode is being slow with pollination in my current game. Would it be possible to extend the pollination availability also to females who have fiancees and boyfriends? We need some single mothers out there!

[dedust]

Now only if it would have the option to abort. Buskill turns to bus abort. I have a pregnant elder ghost (don't ask) and need to get rid of the spawn. It doesn't come out EVER, elders aren't supposed to breed. Can't edit in CAS, it gets stuck, so abortion should work.

GIEV ABORTIONS NAO!

[Kyna]

Now only if it would have the option to abort. Buskill turns to bus abort. I have a pregnant elder ghost (don't ask) and need to get rid of the spawn. It doesn't come out EVER, elders aren't supposed to breed. Can't edit in CAS, it gets stuck, so abortion should work.

GIEV ABORTIONS NAO!

If you have AwesomeMod in your game, try the falconpunch command to abort the spawn.

[J. M. Pescado]

You know, when I saw "birth control mirror", I expected something more...Captain Falcon Themed.

[Buzzler]

Updated to Version 3. See first post for changes.
Unfortunately I couldn't really test all new interactions. I couldn't find a hood with married&childless Sims (shouldn't be a problem, though, the check is stupidly simple) or Sims without partner but with multiple romance interests (this is more severe, because I couldn't test if the Phonelist to choose the potential daddy is getting built correctly). I'd appreciate it, if someone would test this in his/her game.

Pollinate a specific sim {...}Pollinate all childless sims

Done. Took a little longer because I didn't want to upload an "intermediate" update with just these two options.

GIEV ABORTIONS NAO!

You're lucky, I had this on my ToDo anyways. I'm usually extremely bad in obeying orders...

You know, when I saw "birth control mirror", I expected something more...Captain Falcon Themed.

Originally, it was just meant to be a device to 'control' as in "monitor'. Because that would have been totally lame, and because I could, I added stuff. With V3 there's at least some Captain Falcon Flavour on board...

[simwit]

My first Buzzler mirror pregnancy is a fact, but when I try to specifically pollinate a childless (married or not) sim I get no victims available. To make absolutely sure there were childless married sims I played until a teenage girl became a YA and was married by AwesomeStory. Immediately after the wedding message I still couldn't get a childless (married) sims list. I can still get her pregnant by selecting married sims, but there seems to be a problem with listing childless sims.

[nanisim]

I'm just upgrading to version 3 but not tested yet. Former versions worked perfectly fine for me and I want you to say that this is a revolutionary tool in TS3, at least for me, that love to take all under my control. So, I have one question before to destroy something in my new buzzler hood (there is now an oscilation from 0'95 to 1,30 in factor): Is it possible to choose the group of victims in a random or mass pollination? What if I only want to pollinate married or couples living together? Are the 5 flavors to pick and choose, activate/deactivate some flavors? I like some single simmies in miscarriage to put the cherry up in realism but I don't want a hood full of bastards.

[Buzzler]

I can still get her pregnant by selecting married sims, but there seems to be a problem with listing childless sims.

Yes, pretty stupid mistake on my part, based on a wrong assumption. Should be fixed now.

I'm just upgrading to version 3 but not tested yet. Former versions worked perfectly fine for me and I want you to say that this is a revolutionary tool in TS3, at least for me, that love to take all under my control. So, I have one question before to destroy something in my new buzzler hood (there is now an oscilation from 0'95 to 1,30 in factor): Is it possible to choose the group of victims in a random or mass pollination? What if I only want to pollinate married or couples living together? Are the 5 flavors to pick and choose, activate/deactivate some flavors? I like some single simmies in miscarriage to put the cherry up in realism but I don't want a hood full of bastards.

You can choose the same 5 five victim types for Random Pollinations, Mass Pollinations and Specific Pollinations. There are no activate/deactivate Interactions in BCM except Sustain-o-Mat, though, therefore the distinction between "married", "childless" and "married childless".

There's a bit of redundancy in the choices (or a little more, depends on your POV). "partnered Sim" lists all Sims with a valid partner (married, engaged or at least going steady), "married Sim" additionally checks if the Sim is married to her partner, "childless Sim" checks for the number of children. "Single Sim" is the only exception, since it's checking for Sims with no valid partner but romance interests instead.

I could implement "couples living together" without difficulties, but I think it'd be kind of pointless. Married Sims live together anyhow, and they're pretty much the only partnered Sims which the Storymode pushes to live together.

Don't take the NBR/BF thing too serious. I wanted it to react fast (so an algorithm would have something to rely on), therefore it's pretty much bound to oscillate to some degree. That's why I always say "significantly" higher/lower than 1. If it's uniformly oscillating between 0.95 and 1.3, your population should be increasing, though, probably pretty slowly, might take weeks to show. Is that with Sustain-o-Mat activated?

[nanisim]

Activated. And it seems to work by itself. It is a great, great, great mod, believe me. My questions didn't where to bother you, but to learn to use it.

[LVRugger]

I've recently installed this and it is helping so much. My hood has been aging up, partly due to my having a heartbreaker sim this generation. I think he caused too many broken hearts so there are a bunch of single sims who are not romancing.
I had 124 sims, and 51 are elders. There were about 25 each ya and adult, rest kids. In order to get a jump on the next generation, I have been running around when ASM gives me a romance notice and using Twallan's pollinator on a victim. This makes it easier to do that. I bumped my BF up to about 2 right now, it should come down as the kids age up.
I'll let you know how the hood turns out.

[Buzzler]

Updated to Version 4. See first post for changes.
'Inform on Births' is Alarm-based, and triggered every 20 minutes. This is kind of like a retinal operation performed via the rectum, but I couldn't think of any other way, while keeping this thing a non-core mod... Therefore there's a really slight chance it will miss a birth under certain circumstances. Really slight, though.

Activated. And it seems to work by itself. It is a great, great, great mod, believe me. My questions didn't where to bother you, but to learn to use it.

I think I didn't really get it last time. Sustain-o-Mat is now configurable, too. You might want to give the gentle mode a try.

[twallan]

'Inform on Births' is Alarm-based, and triggered every 20 minutes. This is kind of like a retinal operation performed via the rectum, but I couldn't think of any other way, while keeping this thing a non-core mod... Therefore there's a really slight chance it will miss a birth under certain circumstances. Really slight, though.

You are not using an EventListener to handle birth announcements? 

Look up Sims3.Gameplay.StoryProgression.Notifications:  That class has many examples of various messages sent out from the system that you can catch.  One of them being baby birth notification.

Check out EventTypeId for a full list of all the messages you can catch.

Cheers.