"Assign Baby To" hack..? Possible or Not?

[Strangel]

Hello oh great gods (and goddesses, where applicable) of the mod....

The wife an I are having a huge problem in any house containing more than one adult & teens. Infant gets hungry, six people swarm the crib. For the next five minutes, they all bitch that someone is in the way and they can't get to the baby.
Now.. we really don't want to turn off the whole autonomous "baby needs something" bit as both of us tend to forget to check up on the infants. After all, for the time they're infant they don't do much but lay there or get held, stink up the place, and scream. I recently dl'ed a set of assignable cribs and it got me thinking.

We'd be forever grateful for a setup that allows you to choose ONE person to take care of baby A and ONE person to take care of baby B (as their "baby needs something" autonomy pops up) or at least to have whoever gets the pop up first cancel out everyone else mindlessly draggin-ass upstairs. If there's any way to combine it with a "DON'TDROPTHEBABY!" type thing so much the better.



Recap: Click on infant, assign infant A to mom, infant B to dad, etc.. If possible, once caretaker is finished fixing infant's issue or tires of carrying it, infant is immediately taken back to the crib and put in.
OR
Adult/Teen A pops up "baby needs something" and heads to take care of action, whilst every other adult & teen in a ten mile radius STOPS recieving the siren call and wanders off to pop a new action. If possible, Adult/Teen A, on finishing or tiring as above, carries it back to the crib rather than placing it on a cold tile floor. >.<

[jsalemi]

You need Pescado's hacks -- the Baby Controller, 'nobabyharrassment',  and the 'nodroptiredbaby' hack.

In fact, you should just download the entire Director's Cut, since there's  a ton of hacks there that make managing anything from single to large multi-sim households tolerable.  You'll find more info on them in the FFS Hacks & Support forums further down.  And while you're there, check out TwoJeffs' stuff and Crammyboy's stuff, and the Peasantry forum -- you'll find many other hacks, mods and objects that fix bugs/problems Maxis left in the game, and make playing the game much more enjoyable.

[KittKitt]

Agreed.

JMP is the master of macro, and his various controllers are absolute godsends.  The various items that deal with your infants can be set up pretty much however you'd like them, and they don't perform any "magic" in that they actually cheat for you.  They use the game's native routines to handle the child, but just remove the endless micro-management required on your end due to the utter stupidity of parent and/or nanny sims.

Essentially then, once configured as you wish them to be, they'll basically act like a nanny that's worth having (whether you use lobonanny or just let the playable adults deal with it), and you'll be infinitely more free to actually enjoy the game instead of worrying the social worker is going to come every 10 seconds because someone decided it was a grand idea to take a stinky baby who's so tired it passed clean out and just drop it on the floor while they go have a shower. 

I don't know how modded a game you're interested in, but as jsalemi said, the other hacks are well worth having a look at as well.  I use a large number of the hacks available here, and I honestly can't remember how I ever played the game without them -at least not without just burninating the entire neighborhood out of sheer frustration about once a day. 

-Kitt

[Inge]

Another way is to keep everything the baby can use (cribs, bathtubs, full-featured fridge) behind a door that is locked to the person or peoeple who you want to look after the baby.   In the rest of the house only use non-autonomy or mini fridges and showers and dishwashers etc.   The options to care for the baby are on the objects, not the baby, so if a sim can't use the baby care objects because they are locked away, then they shouldn't try to care for the baby.

[Dragon Slave]

Actually, I've wanted something like this for a long time.  

I'm constantly flipping through every other sims que's to cancel out that stupid baby icon which always pops back up the moment I switch to another sim.  It's a constant battle of them vs. me and nothing else gets done for the time I spend fighting them back.  

I don't want the no baby harrassment hack because I prefer autonomy,  so free will is always on as well.  I don't mind the parents caring for the baby, and usually it's not them that I'm warding off, but the sims I don't want to have any interactions with the kid at all.  Why should every siim flock to babies as if there's no greater joy than carrying it around and then dropping it on the floor?  Are they all baby-crazy?  Cause I don't want them to be.  Take one of my sims for example who lives with his brother and his family. The guy used to make a past time of luring in female sims just to ditch them on the streets a few months later.  Now he pimps his own set of girls out and runs a stripclub.  He lives in the basement of his brothers home which is fashioned like an apartment so he rarely needs to go to the main floors, but every time I'm flipping through, there he is, on his way up to the 3rd floor nursery or back down with the baby in hand, wearing nothing but his thong.  Nevermind that he's fathered 5 illiegitamate kids, none of which he's ever met, or cared to.  Sims don't know the difference.  And this is something that really bugs me because I at least try to pretend that they do, untill the scenerio described above happens and then comes crashing down all my notions that there exists in these virtual lifeforms, any lick of character other than the meager differences that show through personality points..  

I've thought about requesting a hack that would run a check through aspiration/personality/relationship to determine whether the sim would autonmously interact with the baby, that way it would be more realistic.  Family sims would love to hold the baby, but mean sims probably wouldn't....Good freinds of the famiily and relatives would be inclined to do so as well, given their apsiration and personality...but total strangers wouldn't dare waltz in to the nursery uninvited...which they tend to do quite often in my game.

Something like this would be a great autonomous approach to baby harrassement.  But it's extensive.  Which is why I'm for this assignment idea.  At least I won't have to worry about who's taking care of the baby, and who is -  but shouldn't be.  And it would be really helpful in another scenerio I'm dealing with which involves a live-in maid who I'd like to see exclusivley caring for her twin charges while the masters of the house go about their buisiness. but that isn't happening at this moment due to the regular baby obsession that always has them in the nursery instead of wherever they need to be.  




So yeah, It would be nice to have more baby oriented hacks out there to choose from.  I think most everyone finds aspect of sim behavior unbearable.

[Roux]

I am definitely Not Awesome, but I think you can achieve this using the Automated Baby Controller:

Process/Babies/Toddlers: Select Manage for the sims you want to care for it, and Ignore for your male slut. 
Process/Bottles: Ignore
Option/Manual Override: On
Always Smart Milk: Off

So, you'll get the assignment functionality you're looking for, but you'll have more control over your sims' interactions with the baby.  The controller will still direct the "manage" sims to care for the baby/toddler when his/her needs get low, but you'll override the controller when an adult is in the same room as the baby/toddler.  And you'll be able to make the decision on how to dispose of bottles and when to feed smart milk.

Just a thought. 

[jrd]

Nope. These options are for the controller object, not the Sim setting them.

[jsalemi]

Actually, I've wanted something like this for a long time. 

I'm constantly flipping through every other sims que's to cancel out that stupid baby icon which always pops back up the moment I switch to another sim.  It's a constant battle of them vs. me and nothing else gets done for the time I spend fighting them back. 

I don't want the no baby harrassment hack because I prefer autonomy,  so free will is always on as well.  I don't mind the parents caring for the baby, and usually it's not them that I'm warding off, but the sims I don't want to have any interactions with the kid at all.  Why should every siim flock to babies as if there's no greater joy than carrying it around and then dropping it on the floor?  Are they all baby-crazy?  Cause I don't want them to be.  Take one of my sims for example who lives with his brother and his family. The guy used to make a past time of luring in female sims just to ditch them on the streets a few months later.  Now he pimps his own set of girls out and runs a stripclub.  He lives in the basement of his brothers home which is fashioned like an apartment so he rarely needs to go to the main floors, but every time I'm flipping through, there he is, on his way up to the 3rd floor nursery or back down with the baby in hand, wearing nothing but his thong.   Nevermind that he's fathered 5 illiegitamate kids, none of which he's ever met, or cared to.

Well, this is exactly the behaviour that 'nobabyharrassment' is designed to control -- every sim in the house doesn't go running every time the baby burps. Combine it with the baby controller, and the baby will only be tended to when necessary, by the first available sim, and every other sim will be pretty much blocked from taking any action.  Neither stops you from directing a sim to interact with the baby, but both combined prevent the behavior you're complaining about here.

[Ancient Sim]

I used nobabyharassment for a long time, then I took it out.  I had various reasons for doing this, but mainly because it stops visitors interacting with the baby and this meant that if their father was a non-resident, he couldn't communicate with his own child.  It was actually a Servo who caused me to take it out, though.  This poor Family Sim Servo female kept constantly trying to hold a baby and being thwarted and I felt so sorry for her.  She was allowed to interact with it if the Controller felt like allowing it (she stayed for at least 24 hours at one lot and basically took care of all the baby's needs in that time, the family never got the chance!), but she still wasn't allowed to autonomously cuddle the baby or play with it when she wanted to, only if the baby needed it, everytime she took the baby out of the crib she was forced to put it back in again and she looked so sad!

[J. M. Pescado]

That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. What possible use is repeatedly harassing the creature, anyway? Leave the damn baby in its cage and let it do its thing! The +rel boost for baby-harassment is nearly entirely nonexistent anyway, because you only have two interactions, one of which simply results in you being puked on if you keep screwing with it, and it takes a minimum of 4 to create a rel-cycle. So it's pointless to even try. Just wait until it's a toddler, then you can socialize them on the rabbit head. And then no baby harassment will keep sims from repeatedly picking the thing up and dropping it on the head until it suffers brain damage.

Stupid Ancient Sim. And why was the Servo harassing it at all? No Baby Harassment should have shut off the attempt to pick it up at all...

[Issy]

Recently I put the baby harrassment mod in simply because it was unbearable.  I've been using/making apartments, so as soon as a couple have a baby I had all other residents standing outside the door trying to pick the baby up :/

The baby thingy is bugged though.  You feed the baby (or someone esle feeds it) as soon as you put the baby in the crib, the same sim will come take out the baby and feed it again.  I even tried feeding ababy like 2-3 bottles after one another to see if they would do the same thing and they do.  Seems like nothing checks to see if the baby is hungry or not, they just keep trying to feed a baby who just ate.

[Ancient Sim]

Well I know it sounds ridiculous and it is in one sense.  But you see, I like my Sims to starve to death if that's what they want to do and nobabyharassment sort of stops that because they feed themselves instead of trying to feed the baby that doesn't need feeding.  It's all down to my desperate need for more nasty things to happen.  I get so b-o-r-e-d otherwise, all that perfect cereal advert existence, it just ain't NORMAL.

(And I know I'm not either, that's the whole point really).

[Roux]

Nope. These options are for the controller object, not the Sim setting them.

Just checked a house with a baby where I thought I'd painstakingly assigned sims to manage or ignore him by clicking on their portraits.  Point and laugh, people... point and laugh.

 

(Now that my dreams of one day being even slightly in the know have been so publicly shattered, I'll RTFM more carefully next time.  I did read it, honestly I did!)

[jsalemi]

The baby thingy is bugged though.  You feed the baby (or someone esle feeds it) as soon as you put the baby in the crib, the same sim will come take out the baby and feed it again.  I even tried feeding ababy like 2-3 bottles after one another to see if they would do the same thing and they do.  Seems like nothing checks to see if the baby is hungry or not, they just keep trying to feed a baby who just ate.

I've never seen that happen -- one sim feeds the baby, and none of the others bother it again until it needs diaper changing (which happens more often) or feeding again. Are you sure you told the controller to manage babies?  And that you haven't accidentally stopped it from running?

[syberspunk]

This usually happens if you do not have nobabyharrassment. And... I think Squinge's feed/nurse baby hack might conflict with nobabyharrassment (which normally disables autonomous baby feeding).

The constant feeding of the baby is due to the borked advertising system in the game. Objects often falsely advertise to motives that they actually don't satisfy at all. This is Maxis "ingenious" way of making sims actually look like they are purposefully deciding to interact with something to satisfy their needs. Most objects tend to advertise to fun, which is like the most pressing "need" for sims to fill. Sims will do certain things because the objects are advertising to them, telling them "hey, I'm fun, interact with me" even if they aren't fun at all, like doing homework or dormie assignments.

In that respect, when the baby's needs drop, at least how I think Pescado explained it (or my interpretation of that explanation) it advertises to those needs. That's why sims who are hungry will feed the baby when it's hungry, and sims who need to pee will try to change the baby's diaper or whatever. It's kind of backasswards in a way. It kind of works, in that at least it is a way to keep the baby alive if you leave the sims to their own free will. If the baby didn't advertise in this manner, then sims would probably never autonomously interact with the baby.

Ste

[jsalemi]

This usually happens if you do not have nobabyharrassment. And... I think Squinge's feed/nurse baby hack might conflict with nobabyharrassment (which normally disables autonomous baby feeding).

Yes, it does conflict, and it's also not recognized by the baby controller as being a way to feed the baby.  It's kinda goofy anyway, so I prefer having Pesc's two hacks and not doing the nurse baby thing.

[Dragon Slave]

Well, this is exactly the behaviour that 'nobabyharrassment' is designed to control -- every sim in the house doesn't go running every time the baby burps. Combine it with the baby controller, and the baby will only be tended to when necessary, by the first available sim, and every other sim will be pretty much blocked from taking any action.  Neither stops you from directing a sim to interact with the baby, but both combined prevent the behavior you're complaining about here.

Oy okay, I was under the impression that the hack turned autonomous baby managing off.  I can give it a try, because anything is better than nothing.     I'd still like to see a hack that weighed the sims personality and relationship before sending them off after the baby.  I favor realistic gameplay, and a decision tree based on more personal factors would sure be helpful.  But then, there are so many other areas that could stand for improvements of this nature as well.    

[jsalemi]

Oy okay, I was under the impression that the hack turned autonomous baby managing off.  I can give it a try, because anything is better than nothing.   

Well, it does to a certain extent -- that's why you also use the Baby Controller, to control who autonomously manages the baby when necessary.