Newer Shinier Comm Skilling hack at MTS2

[BlueSoup]

Yep, all my custom-made townies will eventually be married into families at one point.  So, I definitely want them to be gaining skills on their own, who knows what the game randomly assigned them?

[syberspunk]

Does the game even randomly assign them skills? I thought they all started out with none. See how much I don't play the game.?

Anyways, I compared the two hacks, and it looks like the reason why the FFS one might not work, is because there are changes to other BHAVs in the Skill Tracker globals. They all seem to test for a controller that is called a FunBandatron. Any idea what that is? I suspect that it is the ticket booth thingie... but I could be wrong. I haven't even played any Businesses yet, so I have no idea what this thing is. Maybe the intention is to have skilling only on lots where visitors actually pay to use the objects? *shrugs*

The FFS version does change the Main BHAV, but that BHAV calls these other BHAVs which all have that same test. If this controller doesn't exist, then the BHAVs return False, which probably prevents them from gaining skills? At least that's what it seems to me, just looking at it superficially. I'd probably have to dig deeper and investigate what's really going on, but I"m lazy.

Ste

[Renatus]

The game does randomly assign them skills, but (if I remember correctly) only for whatever job it assigns to them. If it assigns them a job that doesn't need any skills, they don't get any skill points. Always makes me a little pissy to send a playable's townie teen sweetheart off to uni with them and find out that they don't know a blasted thing. Uni is tedious enough without having to make them gain skills my playable had by the sim-equivalent of age 10.

[BlueSoup]

The game does randomly assign them skills, but (if I remember correctly) only for whatever job it assigns to them.

I think you're right, after I made them townies, I would nab them when I was playing a lot and make them selectable to check their skills and LTW's - some of them had quite a lot and some of them had barely any at all.

[Motoki]

Ste: Actually, I wouldn't complain at all if someone nuked the 'be saved from death' 'defeat the grim reaper' 'be a zombie' 'be a vampire' (woudn't this be better for romance?) etc wants. You wanna try?  

Also, if it's even doable, a hack that makes the want to see a ghost only show up on a lot where there actually is a grave and/or urn would be nice.

Lastly, I train my sims to do what I want them to want by ignoring the wants I don't want to fill. In some cases it works quite well. I have a romance sim who's quite monogomous and mostly just gets wants to interact with his wife. And I've trained fortune and knowledge to be more family and/or friend/popularity oriented.

The reverse is a little harder though. It's hard to get non-knowledge sims interested in skill building. It happens sometimes but not nearly as frequently.

I also think there's room for overlap in some areas that Maxis didn't exploit. Like learning to cook meals. I'd much rather have a knowledge sim get these than be saved from death for the umpteenth time.  

[Nec]

I saw this yesterday, and I was like meh. Wasn't this already done (by a certain you know who)?

I use the one from here, myself. I am quite happy with it.

[Klaatu]

The FFS comm-skilling hack has worked fine for me since OFB. At least it does what it says it does in the RTFM, which is your current controllable sims gain skills on community lots. With that said, I think I'm gonna try this new hack, as I like the idea of other playable sims and townies gaining skills as well.

[Motoki]

I use the one from here, myself. I am quite happy with it.

Does it work for you? Like does it actually do anything different than if you didn't have it in? I never noticed any sims other than the ones I was playing gaining skills with it in. I don't recall what happened without it in.

I think OFB was supposed to allow for visitors on business lots at least to gain skills. The Prima Guide mentions sims will look for skill building objects when deciding whether or not to buy a ticket if you have a business with a ticket machine. Of course wouldn't be the first time they were wrong.

[Motoki]

The FFS comm-skilling hack has worked fine for me since OFB. At least it does what it says it does in the RTFM, which is your current controllable sims gain skills on community lots. With that said, I think I'm gonna try this new hack, as I like the idea of other playable sims and townies gaining skills as well.

Well I guess I am guilty of not RTFM then because all his previous versions of comm skilling never worked that way.

Also, I'm wondering if it actually removes skilling for shoppers that OFB enables. Can someone confirm this?

[Motoki]

And another thing, don't playables already gain skills on community lots now with OFB? I know the guide says that cooks and waiters on community business lots gain skills and they have been in my game. Or is it just the community business lots and not the regular community lots you visit that they gain skill on without using any hacks.

[Klaatu]

No, I'm wrong, you're right Motoki. I just went and looked at the RTFM for comm-skilling and this is what it says:

Controlled sims, NPCs, and townies may gain skills while visiting community lots, including non-college community lots. Notifications of skill-point gain will only be displayed for controllable sims.

I've never noticed any other sims but my controlable sims gaining skills on community lots since NL, I believe. So I guess it is broken (or so it seems anyway). Sorry.

[Klaatu]

And another thing, don't playables already gain skills on community lots now with OFB? I know the guide says that cooks and waiters on community business lots gain skills and they have been in my game.

Maybe it's just the new OFB "skills". Badges, in other words. Of course, I've not played OFB without the FFS comm-skilling hack in, so I can't answer your question one way or the other.

[uaintjak]

One of my nannies got a cleaning and (I think) a cooking point.  That was nice, until she tried to make Baked Alaska and went up in flames. 

On second thought, her burning to the ground was actually kind of nice too.

[idtaminger]

Y'all should know that I'm s super slow player. I even restarted my whole 'hood after installing NL, and I still haven't graduated anyone from Uni yet, I still haven't gotten through the first generation, I have housesholds that I set up which I haven't even played yet. And now that OFB is in, I still haven't attached a Shopping District.

You think you're slow? I've had the same neighborhoods since the game first came out, and to date I've only had 1 person die of old age - PT9 in Strangeville - and 0 deaths otherwise. I've only sent 1 batch of sims who've graduated from Uni - a whopping total of 6 sims!

Of course, it's not like I get a lot of time to play. I'm limited to free hours on the weekends. But still, I think I might just be one of the slowest simmers around.

[JadeEliott]

I've really been noticing how Squinge has been shoving out some VERY useful hacks at a very surprising rate. Awesomeness.

[Theo]

It may not be related, but since I installed this hack, syberspunk's dance skilling hack also works on visiting sims and townies.
Let the dance parties begin...

[Motoki]

One of my nannies got a cleaning and (I think) a cooking point.  That was nice, until she tried to make Baked Alaska and went up in flames. 

On second thought, her burning to the ground was actually kind of nice too.

LMAO

I had one die in a fire from cooking a grilled cheese. She had 10 cooking too. Now you tell me, how does a sim with max cooking skill start a fire making something that you can't leave cooking unattended. It's not like a tv dinner that you can put in the oven and walk away.

Oh well, leave it to those nannies!

Theo: I noticed oddly that some of the townies in OFB with Bluewater already started with dancing skill. I moved one of the new Bluewater Village townies in right after I got the game and never had played anywhere with a stereo on with sims dancing and yet he could Bust A Move. I guess he must have started with high dancing skill already somehow. Weird.

[Nec]

Does it work for you? Like does it actually do anything different than if you didn't have it in? I never noticed any sims other than the ones I was playing gaining skills with it in. I don't recall what happened without it in.

Well, I was about to reply, and then I thought about it and realized that I have been so busy forcing burglaries, arson  and playing home businesses, that I haven't actually been to a community lot where one could gain skill points since installing OFB. I tried out separately and together the comm-skilling and dancefitnessbodyskill on my other Windows account that has no hacks or custom content, and what I found was this: At home businesses, both work for visiting sims/customers. At community lots they only work for the playable sim. The progress bar shows up and then disappears for the other sims. Without any hacks installed at all, there was no skill point gain at any community lots. I did not test out the cook or waitstaff thing. Before OFB the progress bar always showed up at community lots for all sims. I also realized how much I hate playing without hacks! 

Edit: I took out comm-skill and put in Squinge's version and now my controllable sims do not gain skill points, but non-playables do. I prefer JMP's one. If I want townies to gain skill points I will invite them over.

[liegenschonheit]

Squinge has been making some very cool hacks for OFB, and I am appreciative. It never hurts to have more modders to hack the game, and it gives JMP more time to go around kicking over trashcans and scaring babies, or whatever it is he does when not working on hacks.

I would like to have a more informed opinion about the hacks though, as to how clean they are and whether they seem like they are the type that will cause more problems in the long run. So far, all of the hacks have worked fine for me, but inquiring minds still want to know.

[magic cookie]

Motoki, I love you!

This is my favorite hack, now having a gym finally makes sense again

[gali]

 

Well, we were exited too soon!!!

Now we have the opposite condition - I took my playable sim to the community lot, and she didn't have the skilling bar over her head, i.e. - can't gain skilling points. The test was done on the body-training tool.

But when a townie went to the body-training - the skilling bar appeared over his head.

I went back to JMP's comm-skilling, until MTS2 update this hack again - I'll report it for sure....

[Motoki]

Ack, that's not good Gali. Did you let Squinge know? I'm sure that's not what he intended. And he's always noted in all his posts to let him know if there are problems in his hacks and he'll correct them.

As for the rest of his hacks, I've been using some of them for a while know without problems. Particularly, No Townie Memory Amnesia and and Adopt Teens of his I've had since NL and they work fine, though I've just upgraded to the OFB versions.

He seems to really have gone into overdrive lately though. He's got tons of hacks now. Some real useful stuff too like objects to count how much money a sim made, how many dates they went on, and how many grilled cheeses they've eaten lol.

[Hitch]

I got the same thing Nec and Gali did. I PMed Squinge at MTS2 to let him know.


Update: Squinge just added another coat of polish, so we can try beta-testing this again.

[JadeEliott]

Can you believe it, he fixed it already. Man, I like this dude:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=142007

[liegenschonheit]

Yeah, he fixed it, and on top of that he PMed everyone who posted in his thread to let them know. Or at least, he PMed me about it. I agree, I like this dude too