Testers Wanted: Grow Up Townies (Updated 3/15/2008)

[veilchen]

I won't have those letters on my keyboard, but I think the Windows character map still has them. So, if you want to edit your post and use the exact phrase with the exact letters, I can most likely just copy and past the text into SimPE.

True, I forgot about the Character Map. I just checked, and it does indeed have those letters, even the ß. The second phrase translation for Say good-bye forever is the more intimate one, so no problem there. However, the Die of old age one is trickier.

Stirb an hohem Alter is the more elegant phrase, because it basically says: Die of high age. The phrase: Stirb an Altersschwäche on the other hand, translates literally to Die of old age weaknesses. Both are grammatically correct, so it's up to you, the Creator, to choose the one you want. Like I said, the first one is the more elegant one, the second one is to the point, and very direct, no ands, ifs, or buts . I know, I know. German is a complicated language. That's why you will be hard pressed to find a German laughing at people attempting to speak our language. We are simply to busy being impressed that people are even trying.

Ask to grow up - Bitte zu Wachsen

Grow up - Wachse

Say goodbye forever - Verabschiede dich für immer

Die of old age - Stirb an hohem Alter

Second choice:

Ask to grow up - Bitte zu Wachsen

Grow up - Wachse

Say goodbye forever - Verabschiede dich für immer

Die of old age - Stirb an Altersschwäche

Joe, you know what, you are right. I've never seen a cashier/etc. NPC walk by either. I've seen professors, delivery people, and the like. I even saw the mascot once in my OFB shopping district neighborhood, but never the cashiers, coffee bar people, and the like. I also never saw the cooks, waitresses/waiters, and podium people. I have to keep an eye out for that.

I tried --after reading through this thread-- to use the agesimscheat on the restaurant podium person, but it failed. The Nanny however, aged back to adult without any difficulties.  I wonder now...

[JenW]

Regular cashiers are teens, baristas are YAs, I believe.

[jrd]

Ducth translation:

Ask to grow up - Vraag op te groeien
Grow up - Groei op
Say goodbye forever - Zeg voorgoed vaarwel
Die of old age - Sterf van ouderdom

All literal translations. Dutch is far more simple ;-)

--
The only NPCs I've seen walk by are policemen, firemen, repairmen, maids, gardeners, pizza delivery persons, paperboys, mailmen -- all base game NPCs.

On Uni lots obviously the Uni NPCs.

Nowhere the NL or OFB NPCs (except obvious cases like divas, slobs, and vampires)

[syberspunk]

Minor update. Just added some translations:

v1.05 - Added German and Dutch Translations thanks to veilchen and jordi, respectively. Danke schein.

You don't really have to update if you're already using the last version and do not require these translations. No code changes since 1.04.

And I knew there were teen shop people. I just wasn't sure which ones were which, and if sims aren't standing right next to each other, I find it hard to tell the difference between teens and YAs. Heh. I have yet to see policemen and some of these other NPCs. I think I'd really like to try and meet a policeman. The few times I had burglers, I tried that letting them out thing, but I've never managed to actually do it. It makes me wonder if it's just a thing that doesn't really exist in the game, but other people perpetuate just to pull the wool over us guillible sheep.

Regardless, I think it would be more interesting to actually have this scenario as the only real way to kind of "meet' the burglar. Although the furious system is kind of ok, and although you might get upset at someone who burgled your house... you don't usually get to meet them and know who they are, and then persistently have them as an enemy for life. Heh. I think it's funnier and funner to actually meet the burglar by letting him out of the car, if this even does work in the game.

On the other hand, I think you should be able to meet the police officers right away. Especially when they come by and nab the burglar and definitely when they come back to bring home your busted sneak out teens. If that happens in real life, cops normally introduce themselves, so you do actually "meet" them.

As for NL NPCs, other than the divas, slobs, and vamps, what other NL NPCs are there? DJs? Well, I don't think wander around, nor the NL bartenders or restaurant podium peeps and waiters... but you basically can meet them since you'd only see them in downtown anyways.

Ste

[jrd]

Burglar escapes exist, but it requires very precise timing.
You need to click the car AFTER the cop has put the burglar in, but BEFORE he has thanked your Sims for catching the criminal. Since the next immediate interaction in the cop queue is this thank notice, send your Sims immediately to the car once you see the burglar get locked in. You should then have a chance of letting him out.
If you wait too long the cop ‘thank you’ interaction will run, and you'll have missed your chance.

The period between catching and thanking is also the only time you have to chat with the cop, ‘meeting’ them.


As for NL NPCs: only the "special townies" listed are normally meetable. The service NPCs are just NPCs, and you can meet them on the job: bartenders and DJs can be met by a Sim if another Sim takes over their job temporarily, servers and hosts are automatically met, and the gypsy will turn into a visitor after being invited and greeted.
BTW, I've never been able to tip my waiters. The timing for that is extremely strict: AFTER the meal is finished, but BEFORE the ‘order’ icon reappears. It doesn't matter anyway: with the exception of befriending the host and headmaster, there are no benefits of getting a good relationship with any service NPC.

[jrd]

:!!: Note: I am also unsure whether townies aged to Young Adult will become part of the dormie pool, and can thus be used to populate dorms. Conversely, I am also unsure if dormies aged to Adults will roam around the normal hoods as adults or if they are removed from the dormie pool used to populate dorms.

Teens in the ‘townie’ family, if aged to Young Adult, become available as dormies and will begin frequenting uni lots. Teens in the ‘downtownie’ family if aged to YA will effectively disappear unless you have a hack in place which allows YAs to frequent non-uni lots.
Use the teleporter shrub to move them in and then make them a townie to prevent this (or use SimPE).
Or enhance your mod to force any YA to become a member of the townie family

Dormies aged to adults become adults in the normal townie family, since they belong to that family anyway: there is no special dormie pool. Dormies are just YA townies.

[Kyna]

I've tried having a sim stand next to the door of the cop car, while the cop is heading back inside to talk to another sim in the household.  Constantly trying to click on the car door.  Never had any luck, at least with just the base game and also with Uni installed.  Once I got NL I no longer tried, as they meet the burglar anyway.

[Emma]

You need to wait until the build/buy buttons are no longer greyed out, and the cop is nearly to where your sim is. I then click on the back door of the cop car and the selected sim runs to open the door even lazy ones Or you can keep one sim selected until the buttons are back, and quickly switch to another adult sim to open the door. I've noticed teens and younger can't set the burglar free.

[syberspunk]

Thanks for the tips everyone. Next time I get a burglar, I'll give it a try.

Teens in the ‘townie' family, if aged to Young Adult, become available as dormies and will begin frequenting uni lots. Teens in the ‘downtownie' family if aged to YA will effectively disappear unless you have a hack in place which allows YAs to frequent non-uni lots.
Use the teleporter shrub to move them in and then make them a townie to prevent this (or use SimPE).
Or enhance your mod to force any YA to become a member of the townie family

Dormies aged to adults become adults in the normal townie family, since they belong to that family anyway: there is no special dormie pool. Dormies are just YA townies.

Ahh... ok. About the downtownie YAs disappearing, are you saying that a hack to allow YAs to frequent non-uni lots will fix this? I thought YAs already show up on non-uni lots? I could have sworn I saw YAs showing up at least on comm lots and/or downtown lots, no? Or do you mean, a hack to allow downtownies to show up on uni lots? I don't recall if I've seen downtownies as walkbys or visitors on residence or comm lots in the uni hood.

So, with that in mind... I'd like to ask everyone how you would like me to handle this. Here's a couple of options:

1) When aging Downtownie teens to YAs, move them into the townie family so they become available in Uni. Note: I assume that as a result, aging them from YA to adult sets them as townie adults, so they are 'lost' from the downtownie pool.

2) Same as a above, but somehow 'save' the fact that they were once downtownies, and when aging them from YA to adult, move them back into the downtownie pool instead. This option may be a tad more difficult. I'd have to think of a way to save this, probably using a token.

3) Enable YAs to frequent non-uni lots (or YA-aged downtownies to frequent uni lots - whichever makes sense).

4) Disable YA aging for downtownies only. Always make downtownie teens age into adults.

Ste

[jrd]

Ahh... ok. About the downtownie YAs disappearing, are you saying that a hack to allow YAs to frequent non-uni lots will fix this? I thought YAs already show up on non-uni lots? I could have sworn I saw YAs showing up at least on comm lots and/or downtown lots, no? Or do you mean, a hack to allow downtownies to show up on uni lots? I don't recall if I've seen downtownies as walkbys or visitors on residence or comm lots in the uni hood.

Well, I see downtownies as shoppers of course, even if I accidentally aged them to YA (but only if either Pescado's or Squinge shopper mod is in the game, in vanilla downtownies don't shop). But downtownie YAs simply do not appear on uni lots, and are not assigned to dorms. You shouldn't ever see any YA walkbys either.

So, with that in mind... I'd like to ask everyone how you would like me to handle this.

I'd go for #1. This requires the least changes and is less likely to conflict, and for those of us playing with Pescado's mods there is no advantage to having a downtownie population anyway: townies also populate downtown community centres.

[Chienne]

Wonderful!  We've needed something like this for a long time.  Thank you!

I'm always sad when my child sims have to leave their child friends behind as they grow up, and my teen sims have to leave their first crushes behind when they become adults.

Thanks!

[jsalemi]

First choice #1, second choice #4 -- the other seem to complicated to bother with.

[J. M. Pescado]

So, with that in mind... I'd like to ask everyone how you would like me to handle this.

I'd go for #1. This requires the least changes and is less likely to conflict, and for those of us playing with Pescado's mods there is no advantage to having a downtownie population anyway: townies also populate downtown community centres.[/quote]
Townies always populate downtown lots. Downtownies normally only attempt to visit downtown lots, never lots in normal neighborhoods. YAs only visit Uni lots, non YAs never visit Uni lots. Anyone will visit any lot if invited to do so. You can arbitrarily change the visitor composition if you use the Customer Selector for generation.

[veilchen]

I agree with Joe and Jordi, # 1 as first, but if not doable for any reason, # 4 as second choice.

[ElfPuddle]

Ditto. #1 seems best.

[LilAbner]

Here's the swedish translation for you!

Ask to Grow Up - Be att växa upp
Grow Up - Väx upp
Say Goodbye Forever - Säg farväl för alltid
Die of Old Age - Dö av ålderdom

[syberspunk]

Majority rules, even if only a few of you replied about it, lol, so I went the simple, easy route, and all downtownies that are aged to YA should be moved into the "Townie" family so they can show up in the dormie pool. Also added some new shiny features that might be useful.

Edit: 9/11/06
:new: Added features:

• Fixed - Downtownies aged to YA will be moved into the "Townie" family so they become available in the dormie pool. Note: As a result, these YAs will be "Townies" when aged to Adult. They will NOT revert back to "Downtownie" status.
• Added - You can now send dormies to their final exam. They should transition to the next semester like normal and they should gain all the regular benefits (wants, fears, want locks, etc.) This option is available under College.../Go to Final Exam when clicking on a dormie. Note: Dormie age meters will still remain frozen.
• Added - You can now declare and change majors for dormies. The appropriate option will show up under College.../Registar - Declare Major (or Change Major) when you click on a dormie.

These features still require testing.

I wasn't sure if dormies ever randomly get different majors. Since they never age transition, they are stuck with whatever they begin with, which is usually undeclared. I figure, why not have the ability to mix things up and let the end user declare majors for their dormies so that you can have some variety. If I'm not lazy, I may consider adding options to declare a random major for the current target sim, and/or to randomly declare majors for all resident dormies present on the lot. Don't hold yer breath too soon tho. Heh. In the meantime, feel free to test this version out and let me know if there are any problems.

Incidentally, I only tested sending a couple of dormies to their final a few times. I actually have not tested what happens when they finish a year and/or what happens when they finish all four years. I sorta just assumed that dormies would be treated the same as playables. I'm too lazy to test that out right now atm. Anyhew, enjoy!

Ste

[jrd]

Cool new options Ste

A ‘random major’ would indeed be nice.

If I give a dormie a new major, will his class times change?

[syberspunk]

Cool new options Ste

A ‘random major' would indeed be nice.

If I give a dormie a new major, will his class times change?

Thanks. I'll probably add the random major options sometime this week, if I'm not too lazy. Hehe.

And I'm not sure... but I think that the dormie's class times will change. It should behave just as if they were a playable. I'm pretty sure that, when you change a playable's major, the class time changes. I'm just basically invoking a call on the same bhavs/interactions on the dormies stack. The dialog box for choosing majors pops up as if you were using a computer (or phone) to change a playable's major.


Now for a bit of a warning/update so far:

I did a little testing with this, and I am uncertain about what might happen when you send a dormie YA to their final exam in their 8th semester. I tested several semesters, and so far... it appeared to look ok. At the end of the 1st year, my test dormie got another want slot. At the end of the 2nd year, they got the option to change Aspiration. I forget what comes next. I think the end of 3rd year is the last chance to switch majors and they get a want lock, right?

Anyhew, I got fed up and even with 3 speed on, it was too slow, so I used the twojeffian college adjuster to skip forward in semesters... however, I think I ran into a potential problem. I am unsure whether the semester flags were set properly, but when I skipped to the 8th semester and sent the dormie to their final, when the dormie returned, he was set as graduated BUT the Go to Final Exam option was still available. Out of curiousity, I tried it out, just to see what would happen. The sim runs off to class, as if they have a final. But the meter is not a normal semester meter. It is the meter you get, with the diploma over it, showing the 3 day countdown before a sim gets removed from Uni and sent to the base 'hood sim bin. Well... when the sim returned, his graduated diploma meter was full, and I got the message that, he was the last sim to graduate from this dorm, and it gave me the option to exit and save or not save. Only... he Wasn't the last sim. He was actually just a dormie and I had one, real playable sim in the dorm. Anyways, I chose the option to exit without saving because I didn't know what would happen.

So, this definitely needs more testing. I am hoping that... if you actually spend the time to manually send the dormie to all 8 of their final exams, when they return from their last final, the option to Go to Final Exam should NOT be available anymore. The game code is supposed to check if a certain semester info flag is set. This flag should explicitly be set when the sim completes the At Class/Final interaction. But I'm afraid that, by fastforwarding through the semesters via the college adjuster, I might have screwed something up. When I get a chance, I will test it out myself as well, and go through all 8 semesters.

However, if anyone would be kind enough to test it out and report back your results, I'd appreciate it. Theoretically, if you use the option to send a dormie to all 8 finals... hopefully they would return from each final (assuming they have a passing grade) with the proper semester info flags set. And after returning from the last final, the Go to Final Exam option should disappear.

I have noticed that, once a dormie has finished and has the graduated/diploma timer meter, time will continue to pass for them, as if they are a normal playable sim, but only if you make/keep them selectable (shown in the skewer). This is potentially a bad thing to do, because I do not know what happens if the dialogue to move them out as the final sim living in the dorm pops up and you choose to save. If you choose not to save, everything will reset to normal, since the last time you saved. I do not know what might happen if you choose to exit and save. I don't know if the dormie suddenly becomes playable and ends up in the sim bin. And I don't know what happens to any playables that are still in your dorm. For some reason, the game seems to ignore that there are still real playable sims in the dorm.

If you choose to send a dormie through all 8 semesters finals, DO NOT make/keep them selectable after the last final. My hack shouldn't make them selectable anyways. I was just using the puppy killer to make them selectable so I could use the college adjuster to fast forward through semeseters. At the end of the last final, you should still have the option to 'Ask to Grow Up' and that option should behave as 'normally' as this hack usually does i.e. it should age that dormie into an adult. Again, I need to test this myself to see if the dormie aged into an adult will keep their Uni upgrade (extra wants, want lock, diploma, etc.).

Anyways, consider yourself warned at least, in case you don't want to try testing those options yourself. So please use those options with caution, unless you don't mind potential, unexpected and undesired results. But if you do test, I'd appreciate any feedback.

Ste

[syberspunk]

Yet another update.

v1.07 - Fixed bug where Go to Final Exam option showed up for dormies even if they finished their last final
   Added other language translations for 'Grow Up' using existing Maxis text

I fixed that bug I mentioned in my previous post. However... further testing is still needed, specifically in the case whereupon having a dormie finish all 8 semesters, what happens if you try to use the 'Ask to Grow Up' interaction. I tried this and it seemed to fail, and then the option no longer showed up. I will have to test/debug this more to determine what might be going on (in other words, expect another update when I find out if this is an actual, reproduceable bug, and manage to figure out how to fix it ).

NOTE: Be cautious when using the college adjuster to set a sim's semester. I am not sure if the kEP1 - Semester Info Flags field in the Person Data is getting set properly. I had some weird things happen in my game, where I would set my playable sim to the 8th semester and then 2 hours left to exam, but the option to Go to Final Exam wasn't showing up. This might not actually be a problem with the college adjuster, since I was screwing around with a bunch of things, and forcing errors via boolprop as well as debugging my own code. So that might have completely screwed up my sims person data during testing. If you ever find that your sim is in their 8th semester, and you lose the option to go to their final exam, even if the clock says it's in progress or close to the time that they are supposed to actually go to their final exam, then I would exit without saving. Consider yourself warned.

Ste

[syberspunk]

Yet another update. Hopefully this will be the last one for a whiles. I think I've managed to stamp out all the bugs, well at least the ones I've noticed while testing.

If you are using my Secret Society Finals Fix, you MUST use the growuptownies compatible version to fix the "bug" where grants from non-playable dormies finals "magically" go to the dorm lot funds.

v1.08 - Fixed bug where Ask to Grow Up interaction on dormie that has graduated does not transition properly
   Fixed "bug" where non-playable dormies grants from final exams go to dorm lot funds

I know that some of you might not consider that last issue as bug, hence the "" quotes. What happens is, since I enabled the Go to Final Exam interaction for dormies, I just realized in testing that, when dormies come back, the grants they were getting were going to the dorm lot. Well... that's pretty much free money for your playable, unless you actually go to the trouble of making the dormie a playable sim. However, since the whole point of this hack is to keep non-playable/townies as non-playable/townies, you should still be able to ask the dormies to grow up, once they've finished their 8th semester and taken their last exam. And since they would pretty much move out and still be townies, you're getting their grant money for free. Rather than figure out how to remove the money, I decided to disable the money being added in the first place.

You can obviously exploit this "bug" to your advantage if you wish. If you still want this bug, you have two options:

1) Do NOT upgrade the controller package. That is the only change I made between the controller package between v1.08 and v1.07. So if you still use the controller for v1.07, then you should still be able to get free money. However, you then will have to deal with what may happen if make any futher updates in the future. That's why the 2nd option might be better:

2) Open your controller package in SimPE and simply delete the BHAV Group 7F17E3A4, Instance 200C. This might be the easier, cleaner option, should I ever update the controller in the future, you can probably just delete this BHAV again.

Also note... if you are using my sslotfinalsfix, and you DON'T want the bug, then you MUST use the new growuptownies compatible version. However, if you DO WANT the "bug" to get free money, then keep using the older version 1.01 of the sslotfinalsfix.

I hope that isn't like totally confusing.

Anyways, that will probably be the last update for a whiles, unless anyone else manages to spot any major bugs. In my testing, I found that I was able to successfully send a dormie through all 8 semesters of Uni, and then ask them to Grow Up. They graduated with honors, and their life stage/age bar reflected this properly, with the graduation star instead of the drop out'X' icon.

Note: If you ever ask a dormie to grow up, who hasn't graduated on their own, then theoretically it will depend on the asking sim's graduation status. This is because I cloned that bhav from what happens when you ask a dormie to move in. So... the dormie is supposed to get the same status as the playable sim that is asking i.e. if the playable sim graduated, then the dormie should be graduated too, and if they are not, then the dormie won't either.

Ste

[Ancient Sim]

I just updated this to try out the new dormie menu.  I use the normal version and I noticed that the College menu only shows-up if the Sim has a best friends relationship with the dormie, which seems a bit strange!  Obviously if a Sim has only just moved to Uni, chances are he won't know many or any of the dormies and I wouldn't want to wait until he became best friends with them all, but I'd rather stick to the best friends version. 

Can the College menu appear on ALL versions?  It doesn't seem to have any relevance as far as being best friends is concerned and I'd like to be able to set-up all the dormies with majors, but with this version I can't as a lot of them aren't best friends with anyone, let alone my playables.  Otherwise, it seems to be working fine and with this version I am able to ask townie kids to grow-up.

[syberspunk]

I was kinda just lazy and tacked the options at the end of the add/change string for the grow up option. Heheh. Ok, so I moved the college related options further up, so they should now be available regardless of the relationship. I have done this on all the controllers, cuz again me lazy and me did no wanna think too hard 'bout it. Anyhew, let me know if there are any problems.

Ste

[Ancient Sim]

OK, I've got the option to change majors for dormies and send them to final exams, but nothing happens.  No icon appears and the dormies don't do anything, so I don't think it's working.  I'm using the lotfinalsfix mod as well, the one that pays out the money, because I thought it would be a good way to get some more money for the Secret Society if I send dormies to finals from there. 

Will try using the noagechecks version, to see if that makes any difference as that one doesn't appear to have been updated.  If not, I'll try one of the others, or maybe the other lotfinalsfix (hope it doesn't come to that, I WANT THE MONEY - could be payment for teaching them to study, providing them with beds to sleep in, YA's to woo-hoo, that sort of thing).

[syberspunk]

Nope, it's a bug. I changed the Object Menu, but I forgot to change the corresponding Object Menu Command. I'll have a fix out shortly.

Ste

ETA: Alright, new controller versions are up for the regular one and the notypecheck one. If you were using the norelcheck or noagecheck controllers, then you don't have to update anything. Those should have been working correctly. Let me know if you have any other problems.

Thanks Ancient Sim for keeping on the ball. I've been busy actually playing the past day or two, and I actually didn't test that part in my game since, until yesterday, I was playing back in Pleasantview instead of Uni. What would I do without you?