Business Controller: Business Runs YOU!

[starrling]

I use moveobjects and hid both the controller and the lot sync thingy (I'm lousy with names) inside plants and now I'm quite pleased.  They're still easily clickable too:

[dadditude]

I'm not going to replace the mesh, but I might make it morphable in-game into something. What objects do you suggest as morphs?

Here's a thought: Make it morphable into an open/closed sign, and add the open/closed functions to its menu when in that morphed state.

[RainbowTigress]

I'm having trouble with inviting sims over with this in my game.  Don Lothario is running a venue out of his home with the ticket machine, and whenever he invites Dina over, she shows up and leaves immediately.  I tried taking out all hacks and he was able to invite her over and have her stay.  I then put back only Pescado hacks, and Dina left immediately again.  I've narrowed it down to this hack.  Don wants to hire Dina, but he couldn't because she didn't show up in the list of sims to hire, and she wouldn't stay long enough when he invited her to be able to hire her.  He asked her out on a date, and they went to a community lot and had a dream date, but when he asked her back to his place, she left as soon as she got out of the car at his home, even though they still had a good 2 hours and some minutes left.  I thought it might be the no playable shoppers, but I tried taking it out, and that didn't fix it.  When she'd ask to bring a friend, she always brought Brandi over, and she would leave immediately also.  I don't understand what is causing this, because over in the No Playable Shoppers thread, JM says that if you invite a playable sim over, they will still be able to come over.

[idtaminger]

Open closed sign would be good, as it's easily distinguishable and unobtrusive.

I myself am fond of either the Maxis hanging fern (plants go in any decor, from modern thru traditional), or an unobtrusive little painting (like the small modern painting that came w/ OFB - good for modern, easily recolourable/hideable for traditional). Both look better than that gaudy green sign. I mean, what if you decorated in pastels?

[J. M. Pescado]

I don't understand what is causing this, because over in the No Playable Shoppers thread, JM says that if you invite a playable sim over, they will still be able to come over.

I think this is the bum ejector at work. Dina Caliente probably has no money, and therefore makes an extremely bad, whiny shopper. I should update the tuning test to verify that the ejected bum is, in fact, originating from the Lot Populator as a shopper, not an invite. It will be included in the next update.

[witch]

Yes please, just had that tonight at a birthday party. Had to keep scanning the guests for the complainers, then sic a member of the family onto the moaner with the socialise macro. At least 3 of my 7 guests complained.

[Ancient Sim]

I tried this out last night with Malcolm Landgraab on his latest business lot, the 1-2-3 Gym.  He had two members of staff, one persuading punters to buy a ticket (Ridiculously Expensive) and the other cleaning-up.  I noticed that both the staff members were going yellow, then orange, then approaching red, but I had no option to get them to take a break.  In the end, I had to unassign them, then assign them again.  Is it meant to work like that?  I thought they were automatically sent for breaks when they needed them.  The only possible explanation is that I've just realised I didn't have Bathroom Uses You on the lot, although it's in my Downloads folder.  Could that have made any difference?

Oh, is it possible to add something to this so that an individual member of staff can be sent home but not all of them?  I'm sure I could do that before, but if so I don't have that option now.  Didn't have it when I deleted the controller either, so maybe I imagined it. 

[J. M. Pescado]

I tried this out last night with Malcolm Landgraab on his latest business lot, the 1-2-3 Gym.  He had two members of staff, one persuading punters to buy a ticket (Ridiculously Expensive) and the other cleaning-up.  I noticed that both the staff members were going yellow, then orange, then approaching red, but I had no option to get them to take a break.  In the end, I had to unassign them, then assign them again.  Is it meant to work like that?  I thought they were automatically sent for breaks when they needed them.  The only possible explanation is that I've just realised I didn't have Bathroom Uses You on the lot, although it's in my Downloads folder.  Could that have made any difference?

If you don't have Bathroom Uses You, the system won't be able to locate anywhere to use the bathroom, so yes, that's a problem.

[RainbowTigress]

There was an option somewhere to send an employee home, and then to summon an employee.  I was trying this with different employees when I noticed their little ball overhead was getting orange, and they started hitting the espresso machine.  I thought, why am I paying them to drink espresso and pee when I can send them home and then call them right back and they'll be all fresh?  So I did this a couple of times, and it seemed to work fine.  Could something like this be built into BRY so that when an employee reaches critical energy levels, it would send them home and then summon them back automatically?  That would be awesome.  Perhaps it could be a feature you could turn off and on.  I put showers in the bathrooms, so the only thing they can't do on the comm lot is sleep.  As long as they keep up their energy with espresso or some other means, they can stay there indefinitely.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, strictly speaking, you're not supposed to be able to dismiss and immediately summon back, because ordinarily they bitch and moan about being too tired to return, or whatever. There was also a bitch and whine somewhere about them refusing to come in because you didn't pay them enough (although I've never seen it), but I think I may have overshot when trying to bypass that, too, since you can't fire their lazy asses unless you drag them in first.

Besides, the espresso actually works faster than sleep, you can refill to max energy in about 60% of the time it would take to regain it by  sleep.

[RainbowTigress]

I thought it was odd that you could send them home and call them right back and they were all green again!  But I figured this was just one of the quirks of the game, like when you call a sim to your house and they leave because they are tired or hungry, and you can immediately call and invite them over again.

[J. M. Pescado]

This doesn't work quite as well as of OFB, since sims no longer show up in a healthy shape and instead show up crabby and looking to pee. Instead of, you know, peeing at home like sensible people.

[RainbowTigress]

Yeah, that's what mom's always tell their kids before they leave the house:  Do you have to use the bathroom?  No?  Well use it anyway!

[RainbowTigress]

I'm getting errors with the controller when one of my employees is very low on energy and hunger.  He drinks espresso trying to restore his energy, but when he tries to eat from the serving plate that my sims prepared, an error pops up.  I also get errors when I assign him as janitor.  I think it was when he was trying to clean up a plate off the floor someone left in the bathroom, and the toilet paper must have kicked them out so they left the plate on the floor.  I have maybe a dozen error logs, so I'm not sure which would be most beneficial, but I'll post a couple of them.  They are all different.

Actually, I've posted three, and then the fourth is relating to trying to clean up the plate in the bathroom.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'll look into it. Hunger is always a sticky point with visitors, particularly if the food has gone bad or is otherwise unavailable. Can you describe the exact scenarios that produce this, and what kind of equipment your business has?

[RainbowTigress]

Club Dante.  Malcolm married Marcia, the woman who was working for him at his electronics store.  They are running the place together, and his employee at Club Dante, Chase, I have assigned as bartender/janitor.  So he stands at the bar most of the time until BRY sends him to tend to his needs.  I have Marcia or Malcolm prepare a plate of pork chops in the kitchen, which I have remodeled with a dishwasher, espresso machine, refrigerator, and stove, plus I removed the double archway and replaced it with a door that's locked so only household and employees can enter.  I put TP in all the stalls in the bathrooms, configured for the appropriate gender, of course, and put uni showers in there for hygiene needs.  Chase is usually very tired and can't hold the espresso cup for very long before he puts it in the dishwasher and gets another cup.  I think when his energy gets up a little bit, though, BRY sends him to get a plate of food, but that's when the error pops up.  The food isn't bad because there are no greed clouds or flies.  Malcolm also has several plates of pork chops in his inventory.  I had him make several and I put out a plate for Chase, Malcolm, and Marcia to eat.  I use Monique's hack to keep food from spoiling as quickly.  The club guests eat from Inge's pay buffet with no problem.  Any other info you need?

[Ancient Sim]

I noticed today that when one of my business owners was more or less fully in the red on fun, the controller didn't send him to "Kick Stuff", which I would have expected it to.  Is it supposed to and if not, can that be programmed in, like it is when they're under the influence of the Skillinator?  It doesn't appear to send them to eat either, although that may be because there was only a barbecue on the lot and not a fridge or cooker or anything.

[BlueSoup]

What do you have for kicking apparatus on the lot?  If you had a flamingo and it was stuck or something, then it wouldn't recognize it.

[witch]

My flamingoes often get stuck in OFB. I usually have about 3 lined up, because they seem to get stuck more frequently than before. When the fun is in the red for an employee I try clicking the flamingoes. If you don't get an option to interact with them, you need to replace them. (The flamingo not the employee. )

[RainbowTigress]

I had this before OFB, and even prior to NL.  That's why I quit using flamingos.  Forcing an error on them works as well, but I got so tired of having to do this all the time.  I once had 12 flamingos on the lawn of a Greek house, and every freaking one of them got stuck eventually.  At first I couldn't understand why my students on a College Rampage were in the red on fun and would sit down to write a term paper and stand right back up, go get a book to study, sit down, jump right back up, and on and on.  JM suggested rotating the flamingos so they would kick them from the other side, but this is only a temporary fix, and it's hard to know which side they will kick it from anyway.  So I quit using flamingos.  If you're going to have to keep replacing flamingos at a loss, then it's worth spending a little more on a gnome which doesn't tend to get stuck.  If you're worried about them getting stolen, there are things you can do to prevent that, such as SaraMK's no gnome theft mod or placing them so they face a wall or fence.

[Ancient Sim]

The flamingos were fine, they were newly-placed and had never been used.  When I instructed the owner to "Kick Stuff", he was able to use them with no problem.  It may be because I placed them while he was on the till (i.e., after the business opened), although I wouldn't have thought that would make any difference.  I always place at least 3 because of the constant errors anyway.

[RainbowTigress]

No, it wouldn't matter if you placed them after, because I've seen them immediately run over to kick them after I've placed them (seems that's one thing I often forget when setting up a new lot ).

[Ancient Sim]

I've encountered another problem with this.  What is supposed to happen when the workers start getting tired?  I had one who was totally in the red on energy, yet she was still being kept selling.  Another one on another lot was almost in the red on energy, but he wasn't stopped either.  With the first one, there were no beds, but with the second he is a downtownie Romance teen on the door of my bordello, so there isn't exactly a shortage of beds!  I had to temporarily take control of them all the time to bump their energy up - I used to use Inge's PYP to keep their stats high, but I haven't been doing since using BRY because of possible conflict.  Quite often I see them in the orange and red and have to stop them manually - they are sent to the toilet and sent to eat, but nothing seems to be done about their energy, fun and social, so they're sent back to work when these haven't improved at all.  They do occasionally get sent on breaks, but most of the time they don't actually deal with their fun and social, they just use the bathroom, eat and go back to work, so I have to override it so they can sort those things out.

[jsalemi]

TJ's energy statue works well for keeping energy values high on business lots.  Squinge has a sign that keeps all stats high (can be set for just the owner, just the employees, or both), which makes it really easy to run multiple businesses in one day.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've encountered another problem with this.  What is supposed to happen when the workers start getting tired?

If workers become tired, they attempt to macrocaffeinate. You will, naturally, require a proper caffeination station to enable this. Otherwise, energy is incurable.

Quite often I see them in the orange and red and have to stop them manually - they are sent to the toilet and sent to eat, but nothing seems to be done about their energy, fun and social, so they're sent back to work when these haven't improved at all.

Fun is dealt with by, naturally, THE SPORT OF KINGS. Your lot is properly equipped for the Sport of Kings, right? Energy is handled by macrocaffeination. You do have a station for this, right? Social is handled by AutoYak, if you have a phone or they own a cellphone, but once they run out of people to call, it becomes incurable, since there isn't any practical way for a lone sim to do anything about it. The problem is partially alleviated by the occasional coffee break where they chat a bit. Some jobs(foodmaking, any restaurant function), BRY will force them to keep chugging on, but other jobs (cashier, bartender), they balk at. At this point, without snapdragons, you have three options: Assign them to a task where they will either gain social from it(sales), assign them to a task where they can always manage to complete one iteration regardless (restaurant, food prep), or bitchslap the whiny loser upside the head a few times. Let them hate you, so long as they fear you!

Remember, flamingos frequently get stuck from repeated abuse, particularly when you have a million employees trying to do it as well. Gnomes are much more reliable, but have to be placed in some kind of locked enclosure, preferrably with APO (APO does not allow exceptions for people who have decided to leave, so people who have decided to "leave" can't bypass the lock!).

Also, I just updated many of the macro objects (Macro/AutoSoc/BRY) with some algorithm improvements to reduce deadlock and abandonment, so it's worth trying that out.