AutoYakYak Macro Phone Caller (10/25/06)

[J. M. Pescado]

Did it always pop up with a list of people to call? I thought it used to autocall, like call/friends did. Maybe I'm remembering wrong. But I have it back now, at least. I'll just have to have them call each family member individually.

Yes. It always popped up the list so you can pick which one to call, since you could have lots of them and they might be all at 0/0, so maxing them out could take days.

However, once they are friends, they're included in the Call Friends loop.

[laylei]

Did it always pop up with a list of people to call? I thought it used to autocall, like call/friends did. Maybe I'm remembering wrong. But I have it back now, at least. I'll just have to have them call each family member individually.

Yes. It always popped up the list so you can pick which one to call, since you could have lots of them and they might be all at 0/0, so maxing them out could take days.

However, once they are friends, they're included in the Call Friends loop.

That's right, I'd forgotten. I'm glad to have this feature back. Now my Legacy can actually acknowledge all those cousins, nieces, nephews and grandchildren that are hanging around.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Also, once they appear in the phone list, even if you only get your sim to speak for one minute, you can put them into your groups.  They probably won't come on an outing until they are around 40 - 50 friendship score, but once they reach that, you can invite them on an outing at your house and just for fun, and if you have a few things for them to do together, the friendship scores should go up fairly quickly.

[vcline]

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but why is AutoYak not in the "Index of /ffs/nl/hacks" with all the other zip files?  I see that it is in the NL Director's Cut, so it must be OK for NL.

[V]

I have a menu "Call... Targets"

Targets for what? Love? Hate? Friendship? This Sim doesn't have any enemies and, as it turns out, only one friend who isn't a relative (he's young).

I totally LOVE this item. THANK YOU!!! I had to turn off aging for two days so that my former townies could catch up with all their friends, but now they can maintain their relationships in a relatively short period of time and I don't have to have one of them dedicate her life to answering the phone and hearing how sad it is they've all lost touch.



I have NL and it works great. The Call... friends is in the expected place. I haven't played a family with lots of outside family yet but when I do I expect it will work there also.

Hoorah!

[BlueSoup]

As discussed in this thread,

Call --> Targets, which will identify those Sims that are known to your Sim, but not yet family friends, so you can cultivate the friendship with them first.  It will bring up a panel, much like calling a Sim that you choose manually, and you can choose (or not choose) whomever you wish for your Sim to friendify.  It will pull up any random Sim that's known to your Sim that isn't already a family friend.

[V]

Oh Very Cool. Thank you. I was afraid to use it because I didn't want my nice Sim to start making harassing phone calls without provocation.

This is going to be very useful for my Popularity Sim who doesn't have any friends except his mom & brothers!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I always think it's a pity there isn't something like the campus directory for non-uni sims!  After all, if random townies can call your sims when they move in and ask them on dates when they've never met, why shouldn't your sim be able to do the same?

[jrd]

ZZ: "call anyone" by dizzy2: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=72672

I don't use it myself, but this seems like it is what you want.

[RainbowTigress]

I was hoping when I saw the Campus Directory for Uni that the same thing would be available in the regular neighborhood, but I was disappointed when it wasn't.  I tried Dizzy2's "Call Anyone" hack, but my neighborhood is too big for it to be useful to me.  It lists every single Sim in your neighborhood, including all three Social Bunnies, although you can't call them.  (Dizzy did say not to try this because it can cause problems.)  On my machine, it lags sometimes between scrolling through the pages, so it took too long for me to find who I wanted to call even when I was just calling a sim that was already a friend.  So I took it out.  I would prefer to use Inge's teleporter shrub to bring in Sims who I want to introduce to my Sims.

So I'm not saying you shouldn't use it, but just be aware if you have a very large neighborhood.  Even if you don't have a lot of playable sims, there are so many townies and NPCs and now dormies and downtownies floating around that you don't even see.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yes, I did know about the hack, but it wasn't really what I had in mind - just like the uni campus directory only lists sims who are on the campus (whether playables or not) I had in mind that in the main hood there would just be sims attached to that hood, then the same for downtown!  And not including NPCs, that your sims can meet easily enough anyway.  And the uni campus directory is a separate list from your sims list of friends and acquaintances, so their own list doesn't suddenly become unmanageable!  But if there is a sim you particularly want your sim to meet, then you can do it at Uni without resorting to teleporters etc. so why not in the other hoods?

[RainbowTigress]

Because Maxis is stupid.   

[J. M. Pescado]

I wouldn't say "stupid". In this case, there's a perfectly good reason: Because if you list every single sim in your neighborhood, this comes out to a few hundred sims. As people have reported, "Call Anyone" can very well lock up your game from the sheer weight.

[RainbowTigress]

So they figure it should work ok on campus because there tends to be fewer sims there?  I still think that a text list of playable sims shouldn't cause too much of a load, and you'd only call it up when you want it, not everytime you place a call.  From the counts I've seen, there are far more nonplayable sims than actual playable ones, so only listing playable sims should result in a much smaller list.  Sorting it by household much like the teleporter shrub should help as well, because it wouldn't have to list all sims at once.  To look someone up in the phone book, you have to know their last name, so it should work the same way.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I agree with that, Rainbow - the teleporter shrub actually lists every available sim, which can be over 600 of them, but since it doesn't list them all at once, it doesn't seem to cause any perceptible lag.  And I find that calling sims on the phone results in making friends with them far more quickly than even living in the same house!  How many family members never get beyond about 20 on a daily relationship until one of them moves out?

[J. M. Pescado]

And I find that calling sims on the phone results in making friends with them far more quickly than even living in the same house!  How many family members never get beyond about 20 on a daily relationship until one of them moves out?

There's a reason for this: Befriending a lot resident is over twice as expensive in terms of sim-time as befriending non-residents: You occupy BOTH sims for the same amount of sim-time, meaning you pay twice the cost, AND there are extended handshaking delays involved if both sims are not simultaneously idle.

Conversely, the time of a visitor is effectively free, because visitors require no resources to sustain, nor does having a visitor over consume its time: Therefore, you pay only for the time of your resident sim, and the visitor's time is free. Even better is socializing visitor to visitor, but unfortunately, there is no reliable way to make this happen, and when it occurs randomly on community lots, the results are often undesirable and/or counterproductive. Even arranging the scenario at one of your lots tends to be an annoying exercise due to the extremely short attention spans of sims.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Plus quite a few visitors actually dislike each other (especially, it seems, in Veronaville!) on sight, and spend their time arguing and poking each other, totally ignoring your sims' attempts to make friends!

There seems to be some kind of programming involved when sims come to welcome new arrivals - pick the three most incompatible sims possible!  And when you've done picking fights with each other, why not go and pick a fight with the sims you're supposed to be welcoming!

Until sims are actually good friends, I prefer to keep them apart and to interact on the phone!

[RainbowTigress]

It seems that if you can get a sim to come over, or they walk by your house where you can greet them, the auto socializer is faster at making friends than the phone, because they can use interactions such as telling jokes, admiring, and if they have the skill, Bust A Move.  LTR also gets more of a boost for those best friend wants.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, maybe I'll try it sometime..........although I tend not to use mods that take over my role as Supreme Being!

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, maybe I'll try it sometime..........although I tend not to use mods that take over my role as Supreme Being!

Don't think of it as having it take over your role as Supreme Being. Think of it as acquiring a sergeant to scream at your recruits for you.

[ZephyrZodiac]

   Well, maybe.... (but I get bored if I'm simply the onlooker, even if it means I do see most of the game!!!!)

[RainbowTigress]

That's why I prefer larger households.  That way I can set up a scenario with the autosoc or Skillinator, saving my wrists from the strain of constant clicking, and pay attention to my other sims.  I love when everything hums along like a well-oiled machine.  Then when I want to do something special, I slow things down and take control again.  I always use the spacebar to continuously scan through my sims, watching them, seeing how they are doing, giving commands, etc.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I always have problems with large households, the game just gets very jerky.  Maybe it's all my downloads.......

[J. M. Pescado]

  Well, maybe.... (but I get bored if I'm simply the onlooker, even if it means I do see most of the game!!!!)

Well, maybe you feel like just an onlooker, but for me, those scriptations are basically rote procedures I was going to have to do anyway, exactly as written. I don't really feel a sense of greater involvement for having to manually issue those commands, merely a sense of irritation and repetitiveness. This is the sort of thing you delegate to underlings.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I usually just get them started, then wait to see what happens once they stop congratulating each other!