AutoYakYak Macro Phone Caller (10/25/06)

[sloppyhousewife]

Also, it doesn't show the "Call... Targets" option as soon as you have a certain amount of friends (I think, it's 20).

[Emma]

I think it is 15-I noticed that too shw. I wish it always showed the call>targets option as it would be so much easier for my Popularity sims. Hint, hint, Pescado

[J. M. Pescado]

I think it is 15-I noticed that too shw. I wish it always showed the call>targets option as it would be so much easier for my Popularity sims. Hint, hint, Pescado

Your dumb Emma-type suggestion has been noted. Something to accomodate your dumb Emma-type urges will be made available in the next version. If I remember it. Death to Emmas.

[sloppyhousewife]

I think it is 15-I noticed that too shw. I wish it always showed the call>targets option as it would be so much easier for my Popularity sims. Hint, hint, Pescado

That's why I thought it's 20, because of the 20 Best Friends LTW. But if I'm not imagining things, you can call any old sim now with the normal "call... sim" option, too, and they will talk until they're friends, not just until the social bar's full. That's how I got the 30 BF impossible want .

[Emma]

I think it is 15-I noticed that too shw. I wish it always showed the call>targets option as it would be so much easier for my Popularity sims. Hint, hint, Pescado

Your dumb Emma-type suggestion has been noted. Something to accomodate your dumb Emma-type urges will be made available in the next version. If I remember it. Death to Emmas.

Thanks, you old git

[Ness]

I'm finding that I'm not really liking autoyak deciding that it doesn't need to call particular sims.  It seems to leave my teen sims in permanent social desperation unless I want to sit there and manually call sims.  I've got several teen sims in different houses where the social is in the absolute red, they have several friends with STR in the 60-80 range (or thereabouts) and autoyak isn't even making the call friends option available for them.

Please fix?  Doesn't seem so bad with other ages, but this feature is killing my teens!

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm finding that I'm not really liking autoyak deciding that it doesn't need to call particular sims.  It seems to leave my teen sims in permanent social desperation unless I want to sit there and manually call sims.  I've got several teen sims in different houses where the social is in the absolute red, they have several friends with STR in the 60-80 range (or thereabouts) and autoyak isn't even making the call friends option available for them.

Dead Ness Mode added so that low-priority calls where LTR is simply cooking will be made anyway if Social is lower.

Please fix?  Doesn't seem so bad with other ages, but this feature is killing my teens!

This isn't likely to REALLY fix the issue, since I've seen sims go into social whine even making full 30-friend calls a day, but Dead Ness Mode has been added, for whatever good it will do. Death to all Nesses.

[Orikes]

I've been experiencing some oddness with this one. At least, I'm pretty sure it's this one. I have both the phone hack and autoyak, as well as the phone hack module.

Anyway, I've got a popularity sim who just went to Uni and aged up as a young adult. She has a cell phone and has had for a while. There are two weird things that are happening:

1. Sometimes the 'Call ... Friends' option does not appear for her. I haven't figured out if it's random or associated with anything, but sometimes when I send her to call Friends, the option isn't there. I keep forgetting to test it out on anyone else, but she's the first one I noticed this problem with.

2. The priority in which she calls her friends is completely messed up. She will call those with the highest LTR/STR first. When the option to call friends appears and I click on it, she invariably calls all the folks she's already 100/100 with and ignores the folks that she's 70/42 with. She is a pop sim, so I've been working on the 30 best friends want, so this is killing me that the phone isn't working like I had become accustomed to. She has enough best friends with high relationships now that by the time she gets through all those high ones to get to the ones I need her to be calling, she needs to hang up and go pee.

Anyway... Not sure what might be going on here, but it seems directly related to this hack.

[J. M. Pescado]

Call Friends is primarily a damage-control algorithm. It will NEVER, however, call anyone at 100 STR, because that would be pointless. What you're PROBABLY seeing is damage-control efforts being performed on 98/100s. Since 98 is less than 100, this means that LTR will decay down if this situation is not corrected post-haste. Thus, this situation receives higher priority for resolution than a 70/42, as 70/42 is still "cooking". AutoYak will assign relationships that are still in the "cook" phase a lower priority than those which require damage control, and will not call them at all if social is adequately high, as little would be gained by such an action.

Basically, the Computer is smarter than you are. Trust the Computer. The Computer is your Friend.

[Orikes]

Okay. I'll take your word for it. I tested it on some other sims and it did seem to be working as expected.

[mk]

I've read through the last two pages of posts, and I think I've got how this works now with relatoinships still in the 'cooking' phase.  I'm assuming, however, that if a friendship was in danger of being lost due to decay this would also be given priority?  If so is it possible that such cases receive a higher priority than the 98/100 relationships?  There are times when I want to use it to just save losing any friends, but these are generally the last to be called after hours spent calling those in no real danger.

I've also noticed that some friends aren't being called.  I'm presuming now that this is by design with the 'cooking' phase, and it's saying that there is nothing to be gained.  It seems to be ignoring those cases though were it's possible for the sims to become best friends.  This is leaving those wants unfulfilled unless I call them manually.  Any way this check could be added?

[Zazazu]

You can always use the phone hack and do Call...Targets for that purpose. I usually have new sims do that, then switch to Call...Friends when all their targets (or sufficient to provide them with all the promotions they'll need) have turned to friends.

[mk]

Yeah, I use the call targets option (or socialize ... friendly if the other sim is on the lot) to make them friends.  I then tend to ignore the relationship unless it's in danger of being lost, or when there is the possibility of them becoming best friends rather than just friends when the LTR goes over 50.  I suppose it's more relevant to popularity sims, and the wants to best friends appear.  At the moment though the call friends seems to ignore them until I guess the LTR gets very high so they don't become best friends unless I call them manually. 

[rohina]

I suppose it's more relevant to popularity sims, and the wants to best friends appear.  At the moment though the call friends seems to ignore them until I guess the LTR gets very high so they don't become best friends unless I call them manually. 

More punctuation is needed. Also "wants to best friends" does not appear to make sense.

Grammar Day 2007 - thank you for participating.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've read through the last two pages of posts, and I think I've got how this works now with relatoinships still in the 'cooking' phase.  I'm assuming, however, that if a friendship was in danger of being lost due to decay this would also be given priority?  If so is it possible that such cases receive a higher priority than the 98/100 relationships?  There are times when I want to use it to just save losing any friends, but these are generally the last to be called after hours spent calling those in no real danger.

98/100s are at a high priority because STR is less than LTR, which means you are at extreme risk for losing points. Loss-avoidance ranks higher than your perception of danger. The Computer is smarter than you are.

I've also noticed that some friends aren't being called.  I'm presuming now that this is by design with the 'cooking' phase, and it's saying that there is nothing to be gained.  It seems to be ignoring those cases though were it's possible for the sims to become best friends.  This is leaving those wants unfulfilled unless I call them manually.  Any way this check could be added?

Yes, but at the same time, you may specifically want those done in a specific order, so as to maximize ASP gained for hitting the best friend wants in correct order.

[mk]

Okay, I'll put more trust in the computer lol. 

As usual, there's an explanation for the behaviour which at first seemed wrong to me, but now makes sense 

[BastDawn]

I've read through the last two pages of posts, and I think I've got how this works now with relatoinships still in the 'cooking' phase.  I'm assuming, however, that if a friendship was in danger of being lost due to decay this would also be given priority?  If so is it possible that such cases receive a higher priority than the 98/100 relationships?  There are times when I want to use it to just save losing any friends, but these are generally the last to be called after hours spent calling those in no real danger.

98/100s are at a high priority because STR is less than LTR, which means you are at extreme risk for losing points. Loss-avoidance ranks higher than your perception of danger. The Computer is smarter than you are.

When the relationship is that high, loss of points seems irrelevant.  Just so long as it doesn't dip below 70, I can't see how it really matters.  Is the LTR good for anything after 70 points?

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes. Not MUCH, but loss-avoidance still rates higher on the scale of things to do than, especially as patching a 55-point friend can take much longer, and depending on the combination of things you have installed, the loss-avoidance window can be very tight.

[cwykes]

I guess I'd rather have the marginal friendships boosted 10-20 points out of the danger zone first so my sim can go do something else for a couple of days.  When the ritual starts with the highest relationships, you have to do the whole thing again the next time the sim has a few hours to spare.  I'm not sure what the magic about 70 is, but I'd certainly vote for re-arranging the priorities so relationships over 85/90 are ignored completely.

[Avalikia]

I believe over 70 is when your friends stop calling you to harrass you about how much they miss you.

[J. M. Pescado]

I believe over 70 is when your friends stop calling you to harrass you about how much they miss you.

There's nothing special about 70, it's just BastDawn's comfort number. The whining about how they miss you was quashed by the Phone Hack, anyway, and that occurs somewhere around 55.

I guess I'd rather have the marginal friendships boosted 10-20 points out of the danger zone first so my sim can go do something else for a couple of days.  When the ritual starts with the highest relationships, you have to do the whole thing again the next time the sim has a few hours to spare.  I'm not sure what the magic about 70 is, but I'd certainly vote for re-arranging the priorities so relationships over 85/90 are ignored completely.

The ritual chooses what it does because it is running damage avoidance first. It's sort of like a situation where the house is on fire at the same time that the dog wants to play. You deal with the immediate concerns that result in damage if neglected first. The AutoYak is prioritizing the avoidance of LTR loss over the loss of inconsequential points. And frankly, if you have problems with "whole thing again the next time your sim has a few hours to spare", either your sims have an unmanageable number of friends, or your time management sucks. Installing Enemies Accumulate can also reduce the amount of timesink involved.

[cwykes]

Preventing relationship decay isn't the only reason for using call friends.  This is the situation I hit again yesterday:- I wanted to send the sim to work in platinum by filling his want to make a new best friend - didn't matter which one.  I'd worked up several relationships so they just needed a call to tip over the boundary from friend to best friends.  He has an hour or so to spare before he goes to work to use the phone.  If I use call friends, the sim spends the hour before work calling all his best friends.  He doesn't make a new best friend, goes to work non-platinum and comes home unpromoted.  Next morning I set him to call friends all over again.  If I want to send him to work platinum, I have to do it the Eaxis way by tracking who he's sucking up to and which of them is at work when.  Then I have to queue him to call them all in turn until I hit one that isn't at work, then cancel the others from the queue so he can fill another want later.  Surely I'm not the only one with this problem?  And yes, my time management has always sucked in RL and sims.

Maybe what I'm wanting could be described as a BF target.

[J. M. Pescado]

If you want to satisfy a SPECIFIC want, you have to do it manually: There is no current way to retrieve any useful information about a sim's want status in code to target their behavior more intelligently. If you want a best friend, you should pick one manually to do, as AutoYak does not have any specific bias on this decision. If it were to intentionally focus on making best friends, you might be cheated out of an opportunity to do when it occurs while it is not a want, or when your ASP meter is full already and the excess points will be wasted. Therefore, as there is no special benefit conveyed by the formalization of the relationship, it will work simply on loss-avoidance. If you have a specific objective in mind, you will still have to do it yourself: Macro systems are just meant to cover generalized behaviors and micromanagement, and not highly specific want-related goals. There's still SOME game to be played. If your time management is really that bad, Power Idle Moar.

[cwykes]

I can see you wouldn't want to link it to wants - that wasn't actually what I meant.   I hadn't really understood that "call targets" and "call friends" are fundamentally different in intent even though the names suggest they are the same.  Call targets is a tool to identify sims actually at home whereas call friends is macro to automate routine relationship maintainence.  I find sometimes that I'd like to be able to pick which friends to call off a list filtered down to "friends at home" i.e.an option similar in intent to call targets.  It's not that important, I can do it manually; my time management isn't that bad, honest! 

[BastDawn]

I believe over 70 is when your friends stop calling you to harrass you about how much they miss you.

There's nothing special about 70, it's just BastDawn's comfort number. The whining about how they miss you was quashed by the Phone Hack, anyway, and that occurs somewhere around 55.

I thought 70 ltr was required to fall in love.  I didn't know about the whine thing at all; I guess the Phone Hack has made me complacent.      If it's not that important, then why bother unless there's a risk of losing best friend status? 
(I don't really care.  But that doesn't mean I can't argue!)