Simple abduction question

[Zazazu]

Is it possible to get an abduction to occur while a home business is open? If not, must the business just be closed or must it not exist on the lot?

I have an adult male who needs to be alien pregnant in order to secure the Guardian line, but even with his Science interest maxed and TJ's higher abduction hack, in six days there has been no abduction. He is only Knowledge secondary, so no option to summon aliens. I have a ticket/veggie sale business running so that the heads of Farming and Business can get their trade practice before moving out and taking up their roles. It's a strict matriarchal caste system. If no abductions can occur while the biz is present, I'll quit wasting Jon's time until his sisters are out of the house and I have to close the business down anyways. No harvestables or businesses are allowed on a home lot of a sim not in the appropriate castes, and the Guardian is casteless.

[rufio]

I haven't had an abduction from a home business yet (I don't think...) but I don't think there's any restrictions on getting abducted from one.  TJ's higher odds hack is not really that effective, I've found - I actually modified my version slightly to make extreme higher odds (i.e. high chance that stargazing for one entire night results in abduction).  If you set the numbers high enough it will be insta-abduct, pretty much.

[DrNerd]

TJ's higher odds hack only REALLY amps up the odds for Knowledge Sims; not sure how it works with Knowledge as a Secondary.

Have you tried creating a test lot in another 'hood with a home business and 2 Sims to stargaze, one of whom is Knowledge and the other whatever Jon is, and having them stargaze while the business is open?  Stargazing all night every night, a straight-up Knowledge Sim should get abducted within 7-8 nights.  If that doesn't happen, close the business and try again.

[rufio]

Unless TJ made a new version of the hack since I downloaded it, it does what it does regardless of aspiration.  If FT added something that made abduction more likely for knowledge sims, that might stack onto that, of course.

ETA:  Just checked again, and yeah, nothing related to aspiration.

Here's how you mod it if you want even higher odds:
1.  Open it in SimPE, click on Nighttime Activity - Loop.
2.  Click on line 3.  There are a number of while boxes with two-digit numbers on the right-hand side of the screen.  The third one from the left on the top row should say '01'.  Change it to something bigger.

NB:  Changing this number even a small amount has large effects on abduction chance.  I have mine set at 3, which makes skilling with the expensive telescope somewhat dangerous.  Anything higher than 4 will pretty much guarantee insta-abduct.  2 might be good for most people - I'd test it out in a testing neighborhood before playing your main hood with it.

[DrNerd]

You're probably using a more recent version of the hack than I am, but the bit where it said the odds were higher for Knowledge Sims was buried pretty far down in the RTFM.

[rufio]

Huh, it does say that in the RTFM.  I'll look at the logic again.

[J. M. Pescado]

There is nothing which prevents abduction on home business lots. However, the harder you try to get an abduction, the less likely it happens.

[rufio]

Well, it does compare the first parameter to values from a BCON called "Nighttime Activity IDs" to determine a sort of starting percentage, but I don't see any other references to outside variables.  *shrug*

[Zazazu]

There is nothing which prevents abduction on home business lots. However, the harder you try to get an abduction, the less likely it happens.

Yeah, of course. That's good to know...I prefer to let them happen naturally. If for some reason Jon gets too close to elder without being probed, I believe Tombstone of L&D insemination still works, as does another hack I have to sledgehammer spawn in. Since he is terminally casteless, he cannot breed with any of the caste sims (who are his sisters, anyway) or the townies, who are just yet to be defined.

Rufio/DrNerd, I think at one point it only benefited Knowledge sims, but he changed it.

[J. M. Pescado]

If you want to force the issue legitimately, there's a perk for that.

[Kuroineko]

Yes, it is possible, and it really depends on your luck. My sims got abducted 3 times on a home business lot. First time was a sim using the Summon Alien ability for 6 sim hours. The second one was a complete fluke, I just had the servo look for UFOs with no intention of abduction and it happened within seconds, third time was with Summon Alien because the servo wanted to be abducted again and I wanted to see if it would happen, and amazingly it did, in about 2-3 sim hours I think.

[J. M. Pescado]

Using Summon Alien isn't an unusual thing, that is supposed to always happen when you do that. So you really had one abduction, predictably, when you weren't trying.

[Kuroineko]

True enough, but the question is if it's posible to get abducted on a home business lot and yes, it can happen. Doesn't Summon Alien just have an even higher chance of abduction compared to the other options? So if you're really unlucky, you could still be doing it for days.

[Zazazu]

Yeah, it's just a really high percentage but not 100%. I had one girl do it for three or four nights before she could get abducted. This was in an old 'hood, where the founder's half-alien children believed that breeding with humans was dirty.

[haifen]

Omg just go into debug mode, and shift-click the telescope. Is anyone ever gonna tell the difference? You gotta get a little cheaty, just to compete with EAxian coding, after all.

[Zazazu]

I know how to cheat. I've outlined that already. I'd rather not. I was asking a situational question that I hadn't seen before. Some of us like to play within parameters unless necessary.

EDIT: Success. Business present and open.