Automated Baby Controller

[akatonbo]

Or add a scanner similar to the one in BUY so it can find the clones of the Maxis objects?

I would also love to see that feature added. I want froofy cribs and cute toddler beds AND Sims minding their spawn sensibly.

[kuronue]

When I have a fight with the baby controller I just click the emergency stop.

I was worried by the time I had it all sorted out my triplets'd be screaming bloody murder. But, on general principle, good idea.

[Mesha]

For some reason, ever since my reinstall, this does not work. All of my other hacks work and I'm not using anything non Awesome.  They'll still push the smart milk, but that's it.

[jsalemi]

Yea, yea, scary guy, whatever.

I'm having a slight annoyance with this in FT. At random times while the toddler is playing with the new toddler table, the 'A baby needs attention' dialog pops up.  There's no reason for it, as the kids motives are all high, and no parent gets the command to do anything pushed into their queue.  It's just a random, weird thing.

I checked with HCDU, and nothing is flagged as conflicting.  I have most of the latest FT DC in, and no other hacks/mods that affect toddlers that I'm aware of.

[Blueblood]

At jsalemi: I had, and I think still have, that happen with the table too. I haven't had a toddler recently and I always have a hard time trying to find a place for the table anyway, but it seemed like it always popped up when the table wasn't completely clear of junk. But that wasn't what I was initially going to post about.

Is the controller supposed to be ignoring Servos or is there a conflict in my game? I often have a Servo in my larger families, but it kinda sucks that even if I leave the kid alone with a Servo the controller doesn't call him or her to take care of the baby/toddler. I can still manage manually thanks to that nifty warning pop-up, but I'd like to have the controller do my job for me if possible. xD I do have Paladin's chore controller dealy, so I was thinking maybe it's stopping the BC from calling the Servo if the BC isn't designed to ignore Servos. If is a conflict, then I'll probably ditch Paladin's controller. It's sort of a remnant from before I knew about Macrotastics anyway.

[jsalemi]

I would say it's most definitely Paladin's servo controller causing the problem -- I don't have that, and my servos take care of infants and toddlers just fine with the baby controller.

[Blueblood]

Okay, cool. Thanks for letting me know. Definitely taking the Paladin controller out now.

[jennydeenyc]

Hmm, I don't have the Paladin Servo controller and I find that the Baby Controller doesn't call upon them to tend to the little ones in the family. I'm also finding (post recent Pets, BV & FT install) that commands issued by the Baby Controller fall out of my sims queue with annoying regularity. My newest toddler alternates between regularly passing out on the floor (while also nearly starving) or being stuck in his crib for hours because the commands to "stow" and "release" don't stick in any sim's queue, nor do they even show up for my resident Servo.  I have the most recent version of the Baby Controller for FT, but its not nearly as effective as it used to be for childcare in my game. I don't have any other hacks that affect babies or toddlers, and the only other servo hack I have is noservochores, so not sure what might be causing this problem in my game.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that the babycontroller doesn't seem to cap skilling at 8 points for one skill before moving on to the next one toddlers can get, even with items available for multiple skills. It used to be that toddlers would go for charisma first, then mechanical, then logic. Now my toddlers have to max out mechanical (on the FT toddler/child table), before the controller makes them skill anything else.

[Kyna]

I'm wondering why they are skilling mechanical first.  I'd much prefer they skilled charisma first, because unless there is a charisma-training career reward on the lot they can't skill charisma as a child (I'm ignoring the caged things from Pets, because I never give those to my sims).  The baby controller used to check for available career rewards, and choose charisma first if there was no law, politics, business, or education reward on the lot, and I wish it would continue to do so.  Yes, I realise training mechanical as a toddler is faster than training it as a child, but a smartmilked kid is going to max out on all available skills before they turn teen anyway.  It's irritating to have them maxed out on mechanical as a toddler if they can't train charisma as a child on that particular lot.

I guess the answer for me at the moment is to stick the toddler table in their inventory until they have trained charisma.

[J. M. Pescado]

I will review the priorities a bit again in the next version. And stuff.

[jennydeenyc]

After a little more experimentation in my new Pleasantview hood, it seems that much of the trouble I'm having with ABC commands dropping out of queue is due to using cribs from EPs rather than the base game crib. The first 2 190 Sim Lane makeover houses I moved my "ready to pop" sims into came furnished with Maxis cribs, but not the base game one. The 3rd house had the base game crib in the nursery, and when that family got its new addition, the controller kicked in like I'm used to. Mind you, this has only been observed with early baby care so far, not toddler care, and I haven't yet had the chance to test it out in my household with a Servo to see if she'll be issued commands like she's supposed to. Just thought I'd mention this development.

EDIT: Apparently if a sim is in the middle of a macro routine, or has a macro queued, the ABC doesn't issue a command at all until all current & pending actions are cancelled. It's not even a matter of the babycare command dropping out of queue, because it isn't even issued to "busy" sims. Just now, my single mother Artemis Nixie was called to sleep by the sleep clock with queued commands to skillinate Charisma & Body. While asleep, the BUY controller kicked in and queued up so she'd use the facilities in the morning. Then at 6am, Monique's (yes, I know, non-awesome) auto serve meal hack queued up the command to make breakfast. Artemis woke up, and headed to the kitchen. At this point, her infant Fergus started screaming his head off cause he needed a diaper change. No command to take care of him appeared in her queue, and there are no other sims in the household. I cancelled the command to cook, and Artemis started for the bathroom, still no babycontroller command. I cancelled the BUY icon, as well as the skillinate Charisma & Body icons. Only then did the "change diaper" icon pop up, and that's when I realized I'd seen similar behavior on my other lots, where a "busy" sim doesn't get called on to care for the baby/toddler until they are idle.

[jolrei]

Last time I used the baby controller, I set it to "always use smart milk", which resulted in the parent sim constantly making and offering smart milk to the toddler, who was already full of smart milk and skilling away happily.  This only ended when the smart milk dispenser was completely empty.  Is this a known issue, or is it a conflict? 

I have just downloaded the latest update (a bit late there I know).  If this persists, I will assume "tight pants" and do some checking in my hacks directory.

[seelindarun]

Not tight pants.  That's the controller attempting to uber-smart the sprog.  Multiple doses of smartmilk can jack their IQ into the 400s, and will stick with them all the way to teenhood if you don't ever smartmilk them again.  If I want this, I do it right after they age up, 'cause why bother skillinating until they're hungry, when you can get quad- to quin-tuple learning rates after stuffing them with smartmilk?

Also, ABC has never interrupted a sim with a command-level task.  Except for sleepclock on maximum force bed calls, none of the MATY hacks stomp user-issued commands.  Most of the time, I have a PowerIdle zombie sitting around somewhere for baby care, or if no one is available for dedicated duty, I turn the warning box on.

[jolrei]

Not tight pants.  That's the controller attempting to uber-smart the sprog.  Multiple doses of smartmilk can jack their IQ into the 400s, and will stick with them all the way to teenhood if you don't ever smartmilk them again.  If I want this, I do it right after they age up, 'cause why bother skillinating until they're hungry, when you can get quad- to quin-tuple learning rates after stuffing them with smartmilk?

Cool.  Will try this.

[Emma]

I use a full container of smartmilk (5 bottles per Toddler) once-the first time they are hungry after aging up. Then it is deleted when empty and they are fed from the fridge, otherwise the toddler is completley stuffed with smartmilk and I never select 'always use Smartmilk'. I check periodically to make sure the stupid hasn't crept back, but it never does. 

[jennydeenyc]

Well, I know that prior to my new EP installations, I could often have the only adult in the house doing a Macro...Garden routine, and they would be called by the babycontroller to tend to an infant/toddler's needs, then return to gardening when the kid was ok to be left alone again. The babycontroller command wouldn't kill the Macro...Garden command, it would just usurp it momentarily. I know I noticed this behavior specifically, because I was worried about having my designated babysitter running on macros and not being able to tend to the little ones, but it was never an issue until now.

[J. M. Pescado]

That hasn't specifically changed. All the "placeholder" actions like macro Be Farmer are considered stationkeeping, so the babycontroller will grab them.

[seelindarun]

Well, I know that prior to my new EP installations, I could often have the only adult in the house doing a Macro...Garden routine, and they would be called by the babycontroller to tend to an infant/toddler's needs, then return to gardening when the kid was ok to be left alone again. The babycontroller command wouldn't kill the Macro...Garden command, it would just usurp it momentarily. I know I noticed this behavior specifically, because I was worried about having my designated babysitter running on macros and not being able to tend to the little ones, but it was never an issue until now.

I think you're mistaken.  You were probably using Business... Be Farmer, as Pes says.  It has the same icon as Macro... Garden, but BeFarmer (also BeFisherman) is like PowerIdle.  The latter two allow user-issued commands into the queue.  They did before your new EPs, and they still do!   Besides the Baby Controller, you can also manually issue any command you want and after the current task completes, the sim will go do what you ask, even if it isn't one of the macro options.  Macro... Garden, Clean, Skill, all of those options aren't interruptable.  They assume that your highest priority for that sim is to garden, clean or skill.

[jennydeenyc]

I've never ever used Business...Be Farmer. I've only ever used the Macro...Garden command to force sims to tend to their crops. In fact, until you mentioned it, I didn't even know there was a Business...Be Farmer option at all.

[seelindarun]

Hack conflict, or old-versioned?    I dunno what to tell you except that you could use BeFarmer now, instead of MacroGarden.  I only have BV right now and the baby controller doesn't interrupt MacroGarden now, or previously with Seasons.

[jolrei]

I use a full container of smartmilk (5 bottles per Toddler) once...I check periodically to make sure the stupid hasn't crept back, but it never does. 

Okay, I did that, but I'm not sure about the stupid.  Perhaps it's because she was an older toddler, but the Emmaspawn (Joanne) did not keep her smartmilk glow, in spite of Emma forcefeeding her 5 bottles of smartmilk.  Will try again with the next toddler.

[Emma]

They don't keep the glow, but if you 'test IQ' on the babycontroller with the toddler selected, it will show you the IQ of the toddler. Mine are typically between 300-400. They don't permanently glow with the smartmilk effect.

[Millie]

k, apologies for resurrecting this. I got the baby controller from the directors cut last night.

I am having a problem with it though - I have quads, and I'm using the maxis base game cribs. The adults won't take the babies out of their cribs to change the dirty diapers. They go to the crib, but just stand there. Using the emergency stop function and doing it manually solves the problem, but obviously I can't do this with the nanny.

Any ideas?

[Roux]

Have you tried running HCDU to see if you've got a conflict?

But I've also noticed that sometimes with multiple spawn, the adults get a little ADD about which spawn to care for first. Let's say three babies need a diaper change. Both parents will go for the same baby, one parent gets there first, but he just stands there. I cancel that parent's queued action, so the other parent handles the first baby, and after a moment the first parent goes to the second or third baby.

I think it's a case of too many competing priorities. Given enough time they will sort things out, but if it goes on for too long I click Emergency Stop and intervene manually, like you. Most of the time now with more than two babies in a household, I just use the warning box and process things manually.

What I really wish for would be a way to mark caregivers in the household. If I already have a stay-at-home parent, I want that parent to be prioritized for processing babies and toddlers. Some kind of inventory token would be cool. But, Pescado will tell me that it is inefficient, and therefore I suck. Ah, well, I can always dream...

[Millie]

No Roux, that would be cool.

So therefore at least two of us suck