Ghost Buster - Anti Ghost Device (07/21/05)

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, here's a handy anti-ghost device for keeping annoying ghosts out of specific areas. I finally had enough ghosts to appearing to actually test and finish it.



ghostbuster.zip

Ghost Buster (v1b) for TS2 v1.0p2 & TS2U v1.0
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado)
Mesh Assembly By: Queen

Special Thanks To:
Quaxi, for writing SimPE
Fairlight the Bitch

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place in your MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\DOWNLO~1 directory.

FEATURES:
Any ghost that comes to a stop inside a room with one of these objects is
banished back to its urnstone. If the ghost is already *AT* its urnstone,
it will be zapped. Available as an aspirational award, for 12K. Because we all
have way too many ASPs to burn.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS Hacks. Tested for TS2U v1.0.

SIDE EFFECTS:
May cause computer damage, incontinence, explosion of user's head, coma, death,
and/or halitosis.

[reggikko]

Would this be compatible with Jeff's Ghost hack?

[J. M. Pescado]

In theory, yes. It's a standalone object with no overrides.

[reggikko]

In theory, yes. It's a standalone object with no overrides.

I like this a lot. I like having ghosts about but it'll be cool to have "safe zones". I also like that you make people pay a reasonable fee to have convenience. It removes it from the outright cheat category.

[veilchen]

Posted by: J. M. Pescado
Because we all have way too many ASPs to burn.

Posted by: reggikko
I also like that you make people pay a reasonable fee to have convenience. It removes it from the outright cheat category.

Too true. I always end up with a lot of ASP's that follow the sim into oblivion when it dies, since unfortunately, they can't be passed along as the regular money can via inheritance. I like the idea of safe zones too, I don't want to ban ghosts outright (they are too much fun to watch), but I hate that they interfere with the sims need fulfillments, such as sleep.

G.

[reggikko]

Speaking of Asp. points....Is there any way to pool them in the game? IE, sometimes, especially when first starting out, an individual Sim may not have yet accumulated enough points for something, but two together would.

[J. M. Pescado]

Nope, 'fraid not. ASP aren't really a kind of currency that you trade with.

[Torkle]

Speaking of Asp. points....Is there any way to pool them in the game? IE, sometimes, especially when first starting out, an individual Sim may not have yet accumulated enough points for something, but two together would.

Well, how does the SimVac work when draining aspiration instead of skills?  Do you just get the mood boost, or do you get aspiration points as well?  Maybe you can trade relationship points for aspiration points.

[J. M. Pescado]

You only get the meter. Points are unaffected. Plus, the SimVac itself is pretty expensive already! Its primary function is more a torture device than a purposeful thing.

[Ancient Sim]

Not sure whether I'll be able to use this as I enjoy seeing people scared to death by ghosts, but I love the idea of using aspirational points.  My Sims accumulate hundreds because I hardly ever spend them as I can't resist using TwoJeffs' aspirational rewards collection.  The only time I do spend them is when they haven't enough money to buy the items in it because for some reason, although they're free, you still need the specified amount to actually get the reward.  Anyway, I would really love to see more objects made like this, it's a great idea.  I didn't even realise it was possible.

[nectere]

Well since 2jeffs ghost hack doesnt seem to work for me, (I tell it to only scare knowledge sims and the ghost goes away forever until I take the hack out, even though I may have one or more knowledge sims living on the lot) hopefully this will be a viable fix...I think. Hmm...if they are banished back to ther urn/tombstone though then I cant have the knowledge sim go outside to fullfill the ghost want. gah! I have taken to making almost all of the sims knowledge aspiration.

Regarding aspiration points, generally I use move objects on and then fill the attic (or build a special room without doors) with smart milk and thinking caps. Its a good way to use up grams and gramps aspiration points before they kick the bucket. Thus whenever a sim has a kid and its at the toddler stage I set the sim to making mass quanities of smart milk which I store under the house for future use/generations. I set both mom and dad to making it at the same time with freewill off. I can get about 10-12 canisters of smart milk out of them in no time.

Most of my sims are already maxed in skills by first day of teenhood.

[schmoopee]

Oh, this is excellent, thank you. I have been currently using Inge's teleporter bush to "clear all visitors" when the ghosts get to be too much ... but I like the idea of allowing them in certain zones and not others. This way my sims can get a frigging lousy cup of coffee, having the lovely ambience of ghosts floting around without choking on their espresso in fright. 

[themaltesebippy]

I have mausoleums on some lots but that certainly isn't feasable for every lot.  Will try this out.

[J. M. Pescado]

The Ghostbuster works particularly well with Mausoleums, since if the ghost manages to escape by spawning outside of it, when it runs into a Ghostbuster, it will get zapped back to the mausoleum.

[pet_peeve]

This is a great idea! I find it really irritating that, should you WANT to leave your dear departed relative's tombstones in a place of honor, you face constant harrassment. There's no way you can keep urns in the house unless you like mopping up pee. And the damn stereo keeps getting turned on. Woo, scary.

Ghosts should be limited to situations where actual disruption happens - say if you move their stone around, dig in the area, move-ins of strangers, stuff like that. On the other hand, ghosts should make life totally miserable for the enemies they had in life. It gives you some incentive to patch up those relationships before grandma dies, or you ain't getting any sleep no more.

How about a makeover of the haunting code as the next big thing?

P.S. What's this about mausoleums? I've tried putting the tombstones in a seperate building or fencing them off, but it doesn't seem to stop the differently corporeal from floating all over the place anyway.

[J. M. Pescado]

Mausoleums are structures elevated on foundations wherein urns are placed. It exploits a weakness of ghosts, namely, the inability for them to cross a foundational boundary without using the stairs like everyone else. Once a ghost is trapped in a mausoleum, since ghosts spawn at the last place they manifested, unless so clogged with ghosts that they can't spawn there, they will not be able to leave. Of course, there's no telling where a ghost will appear the first time, although it seems to be localized around site of death, and if the ghost spawns outside, he'll be able to move again.

The Ghostbuster will prevent this, because if a ghost stops moving in a room with a Ghostbuster, he will get zapped back to his urnstone, which is probably located in aforementioned mausoleum, trapping him.

Other weaknesses of ghostly movement include the inability to cross a pool without using the pool ladders or boards, and the inability to cross water created with the water tool under any circumstances. Basically, with regards to foundations, pools, and water, ghosts are limited to the same movement methods are regular sims.

[themaltesebippy]

This didn't work exactly right for me.  The ghosts took a several seconds to get zapped in the room that had the sign.  They still interrupted sims and still were able to scare the crap out of one.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, it does have to wait for the ghost to stop routing, since otherwise the ghost will get a weird teleporting-back-and-forth effect without actually going AWAY. I could try increasing the pulse rate again, though.

There: Tripled the pulse rate on the device. It should scan slightly more often. See if that helps.

[themaltesebippy]

Yes this one works better thank yew.

[crazypinecone]

By banishing, do you mean "killing" the ghost so it does not interact with anything anymore? Or, if it goes to the room where the Ghost Buster is, it just relocates to the urn?  This sounds like a really great hack, but I'd like to understand what it does before I download it

[Diala]

Does this stop ghosts from raiding the fridge should the Anti Ghost Device be in the kitchen? I did just that, and the death-by-hunger ghosts still raided the fridge. However, maybe the fact that the house isn't on a foundation could be a problem.

[J. M. Pescado]

It takes awhile for the device to kick in if your ghost is in motion. If your house is on a foundation, you have some bottlenecks where the ghosts must pass through, but if you're just on flat ground, your ghost can clip through the wall at leisure and enter anywhere. This makes your house hard to defend. Digging a moat can help if you don't want to deconstruct everything and make a foundation.

[Melanija]

I just wanted to let you know that this hack shows up as having a corrupt OBJD with DatGen's File Maid plugin: "OBJD File name corrupt (via SimPE);" I don't know what the effect of that is, but I thought I'd bring it to your attention in case you can or want to fix it. Your clothingtool shows up with this error as well, but the rest of the million hacks of yours I have don't. And while I'm here, thank you for all your mods that make this game playable. 

[J. M. Pescado]

Hmm. That's interesting. Yet the object appears without any problem in the game, and SimPE says nothing is wrong. I don't use this "File Maid" but all empirical evidence suggests it's smoking asscrack.

[aqualectrix]

It's got something to do with how the mesh or object is saved by SimPE; DatGen folks think there's a better way to do it.  It's not harmful, though.