Automated Baby Controller

[jennydeenyc]

Ok, reporting back with another example of Baby Controller madness in my game. Now that Sabrina Marlowe is a child, I'm playing the Somerset home so Pixie could give birth & I could get their kid to catch up to Sabrina agewise. Immediately after Pixie gives birth to baby boy Kalen, I purchase a set of nursery stuff, including a Baby Controller (naturally). Pixie & hubby Dexter decide to Try for Baby with ACR right after Kalen is settled in his crib, and as luck would have it, Pixie conceives & both parents fall asleep. I set the controller to manage babies, and Pixie is awakened soon after to tend to her son's diaper, but she's nearing starvation what with the new pregnancy and all, so I send her to have a snack & wake Dexter up (who's needs are almost all maxed out anyway) so he can deal with Kalen. Dexter goes into the nursery, picks up Kalen, then the Get Bottle icon comes up and disappears, and Dexter puts Kalen back in the crib. This happens about 4 times. Meanwhile, Pixie, who is in the kitchen downstairs, still almost starving & now in Hygiene failure because I couldn't get her to pee fast enough after drinking her juice, gets called to the nursery, stands like an idiot while Dexter moves out of the way of the crib, picks up Kalen & takes him downstairs for a bottle! All this time, Dexter just stands in the nursery like a lump with all his needs nicely in the green. Wouldn't it make more sense for the parent who is starving to take care of themself and let the need-free person tend to the infant? I'm always having starving or exhausted or smelly sims rush over to the nursery to bug the baby/toddler when there is a perfectly able teen or adult or elder around (usually lurking next to the crib & caught in that Hold Baby/Stow Baby loop). In this regard, the Controller seems to cause more issues for me than it solves.

[kutto]

You can go beyond that in Pets. (Maybe also earlier, never tried it). I've had toddlers get IQs over 450.

Well, I have up to OFB, and I had one toddler at 360. Perhaps it starts earlier than Pets.

[J. M. Pescado]

'm always having starving or exhausted or smelly sims rush over to the nursery to bug the baby/toddler when there is a perfectly able teen or adult or elder around (usually lurking next to the crib & caught in that Hold Baby/Stow Baby loop). In this regard, the Controller seems to cause more issues for me than it solves.

I've never seen that. Make sure you're not allowing sims to try to autonomously take decisions involving babies! The default behaviors love to pointlessly pester, poke, and prod babies, and if you don't smack them down for trying, they'll end up duelling with the baby controller when they think the baby should be out when the baby controller (which is right), disagrees and thus tells them to immediately put the damn thing back.

[jennydeenyc]

Hmm....

I thought the nobabyharrassment hack would keep sims from autonomously prodding their infants/toddlers? I guess the only foolproof way to avoid the issues I'm having is to turn free will off, which I know you fully endorse JM, but its just not a fun way for me to play, sigh. I wish I could tell which actions were Controller-spurred as opposed to autonomous, as I often find my sims dueling to take care of the baby, whether they need it or not, and as soon as I cancel one action, another identical one pops up in the queue!

[RainbowTigress]

Sometimes I have to stop the BC because I want the parent to cuddle or play with the baby to satisfy a want.  If I don't, they never get to cuddle, they just put the baby back in the crib.  Sometimes I can get them to teach toddlers to walk or talk without turning off the BC, but other times I have to fight with it because it keeps wanting to send the baby to skill.

[J. M. Pescado]

There's a reason the controller comes with an easily accessible "emergency stop" button, you know.

[RainbowTigress]

Yes, and I use it.  I wish the BUY had such a feature at times. 

[witch]

Sometimes I have to stop the BC because I want the parent to cuddle or play with the baby to satisfy a want.  If I don't, they never get to cuddle, they just put the baby back in the crib.  Sometimes I can get them to teach toddlers to walk or talk without turning off the BC, but other times I have to fight with it because it keeps wanting to send the baby to skill.

I just queue stuff up and the baby controller doesn't stomp it. I also delete the toy if I want the toddler's attention.

[sloppyhousewife]

I let the toddler procrastinate (macrotastics) to stop it from skilling before the sim sent to it to play with/talk to/whatever can get there. Very helpful especially when the sim in question drops a command because something is blocking its way.

[RainbowTigress]

Yeah, sometimes I can queue stuff up, but sometimes things will get in the way and cause stuff to fall out of queue.  Pausing the game helps, using macro>procrastinate helps, and using Emergency stop helps.  Depends on my mood at the time.  I try not to use Emergency stop if I can because I sometimes forget to turn it back on and then wonder why no one is tending to the kid. 

[jennydeenyc]

I've never been successful queuing tasks up for toddlers with the Baby Controller active. I usually find them skilling on their toddler toys & while I can queue up activities and cancel their skilling, but unless the queued action occurs immediately, it'll usually get squashed by another Controller-given command for the tot to go skill again.

[V]

I have been having baby madness lately also. My way of playing hasn't changed, but all of a sudden the sims are picking up the baby every chance they get and standing around not taking care of anything else except bugging the baby. I thought it had to do with the "Feed Baby" hack from (too lazy to look it up right this second), but when I removed that it was still a problem. I have been working around it, though. I haven't had an excess of smashed queues. I have had a few that caused cursing & pausing to correct, but mostly I have gotten through the two baby days without too much aggravation.

The Feed Baby hack is supposed to be non-autonomous, but they go running to that baby to feed it every few minutes whether the baby is hungry or not.

It is annoying. I was thinking about mentioning it myself.

[aussieone]

I have been having baby madness lately also. My way of playing hasn't changed, but all of a sudden the sims are picking up the baby every chance they get and standing around not taking care of anything else except bugging the baby. I thought it had to do with the "Feed Baby" hack....(snip)

 I don't have the "feed baby" hack, so that's not an issue for me but I'm still having the same problem as V.

The controller used to work perfectly, but now I have a sim picking up a baby and not doing anything but standing there with the baby in it's arms for hours at a time or constantly feeding the baby. I have to tell the sim to put the baby back into the crib and go and do something else!?

[RainbowTigress]

I have noticed this also. 

[miros]

If you have twins, do you need two baby controllers or will that make the chaos worse?

I did notice that twins make the get baby from crib/put baby in crib loop more frequent.  I even had Sims get an exhausted baby out of the crib and put him on the floor to play. 

Um, that one needs to be in the crib, please leave him there.  And leave his brother on the floor playing with the logic toy, thank you very much!

[RainbowTigress]

One BC per house will handle all tots and babies in the house.  Two might cause problems.

[kuronue]

regarding hungery sims feeding baby:

doesn't the game's own autonomy system involve the baby advertising that it'll fill the parents' needs so they'll tend to it?  therefore the sim who is more needy at the moment will be the one autonomously trying to harass the baby, without any mods in place. Did your CC get turned off when you installed OMGPets? The behaviors described sound to me like normal, pre-awesome game behavior.

[V]

Nope. My CC button is in the on position.

[RainbowTigress]

All my other hacks and CC are present in the game and have been for months.  But the nobabyharrassment hack does not seem to be working as it should.

[aussieone]

Pescado, are you looking into this problem or are Rainbow, V and myself the only ones having these issues?

[HelloKit]

The baby controller is in the Seasons directory but lobonanny isn't... just an oversight or is it broken?

[J. M. Pescado]

Fixed.

[Assmitten]

My baby controller is unclickable, to the point where it's almost hard to pick it up in buy mode and get rid of it.

Please tell me what I broke. 

[aussieone]

My baby controller is unclickable, to the point where it's almost hard to pick it up in buy mode and get rid of it.

Please tell me what I broke. 

I don't think you broke anything Assmitten.

I have the same problem sometimes. It's just a matter of zooming out enough and rotating around a bit to be able to click on the bloody thing to do whatever.

[RainbowTigress]

It's cloned from a ceiling light, and they fade out as you get closer, so like  aussieone says, try zooming out a bit.