Testers Wanted: Move Out (Evict) Dormies *EXPERIMENTAL BETA* Updated 9/20/2008

[syberspunk]

Move Out (Evict) Dormies *EXPERIMENTAL BETA* v1.05 for TS2AL v1.0p0
Made by: syberspunk

Have you hated the fact that, for some stupid reason dormies will forever stay in a dorm after the last playable sim on the lot leaves after they graduated (dropped out or was expelled)?

This hack will now prompt you to move out/evict all dormies on the lot after the last playable sim leaves.  What purpose does this serve?  Well, if you're like me, I like to play different dorms, but I found out that the game will continue to generate YAs endlessly (if you are NOT using Pescado's nodormieregen hack).  As we all know, too many sims is a VBT that can lead to a BFBVFS.   With this hack, you can now evict dormies from a lot that no longer has any playable sims.  When you move a new playable YA(s) to a new dorm lot, the game should now reuse previously existing dormies and not generate new ones.

Note: Dormies will only be reused if you have existing ones that are NOT already associated with another dorm lot (i.e. they do NOT have a dorm key).  Thus, you should evict dormies from a lot if you want to reuse them later, on a different lot.

Known Issues:

1) This will only work (well, it should) when the last playable sim on the lot leaves as a result of graduating, dropping out, or being expelled.  (I have not tested all situations yet, but I am pretty sure the game uses the same code to move the sim back to the main hood).

2) There may be a small window of time in between the moment that you receive the notice for all dormies being evicted and the moment that the game actually pauses/freezes the lot.  During this time frame, there is a chance that the dorm lot controller may attempt to assign a new dormie to the lot.  As a result, the game will try to generate a new YA if there are no other existing ones that are homeless (i.e. not already associated with another dorm lot).  Even though you just evicted a bunch of dormies, the game will not reuse those right away, unless (theoretically, I am assuming) they managed to actually leave the lot.  If they are still present or in the transitionary state of being "off-world" (on the lot, but just blinvisible ), they will not be reused.  If a new YA managed to get created because of this, I am uncertain what might happen if you exit the lot and choose to not save changes (obviously, this part needs testing in various scenarios with different choices - feedback is always appreciated).



INSTALLATION:
This MUST be in your Downloads folder, typically found under:

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Downloads

:!!: Note: You can use subfolders, however, be aware of 'benign' conflicts that depend on the load order of hacks.


Compatibility:

Obviously this requires University.

This hack is compatible with most, if not all mods by MATY crew (Pescado, TJ, and CBoy), dizzy, and probably more. Again, up to you to help me determine any possible conflicts.

REMINDER and fine print (to cover my ass ) :
Remember to ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA BEFORE INSTALLING NEW HACKS. By using this hack, you agree to absolve me of any responsibility or liability for any potential loss of or damage to your data. You have been warned.

HOW TO REPORT: Conflicts, problems, or errors
I would appreciate any constructive criticism and feedback that is actually helpful. With that in mind, it would be helpful, when reporting any conflicts or issues, that you include the following:

1) thorough but reasonably brief description of what you were doing
2) clear, comprehendible explanation of your problem
3) list of hacks that may be related aging, moving in sims, or inheritance
4) archived (.rar or .zip) of log produced by error

HOW TO PRODUCE AN ERROR LOG:
1) Open the cheat menu - Ctrl + Shift + C
2) Enable the debug mode - Type: boolprop testingcheatsenabled true
3) Hit Enter
4) Play as normal until an error occurs. If an error dialog box pops up, note the location of the error log and choose Reset. If the error pops up repeatedly, choose Delete and exit WITHOUT SAVING!
5) Post your error log here, preferably as a .zip or .rar archive.

Posts which do not include a clear description of what your problem is will be pretty much ignored. (i.e. posts such as "This does not work! I am taking it out! You suck! Nice try! etc.") I can't and won't help you if you don't explain what's wrong.

Please be nice when trying to explain your problem and I might be nice and help you.

Finally, my Thank Yous go to:

J.M. Pescado, twojeffs, dizzy2, and jase439 for being excellent tutors and providing excellent models in their mods. As always, thanks to those creators who've put out some excellent modding tutorials, Quaxi and co for SimPE, and dizzy2 for disaSim2, and the finally letters T and S, and the number 2, all of whom, without which this mod would not be possible.

Version History
v1.01 - Added feature to erase dormie memories
v1.02 - Added feature to reset dormie relationships
v1.03 - Fixed bugs, tweaked dialog options
v1.04 - Updated for Bon Voyage
v1.05 - Updated for Apartment Life

The regular message you receive when the last sim on a dorm lot is graduating (dropped out or was expelled).


The sim age trasnitioning as normal.


The taxi comes for the sim as normal.


A second new message prompting you to evict all dormies or not.


Notice that all dormies should have been evicted.


As you can see in the background, all the dorm doors are now unclaimed.

[syberspunk]

Same features as above.

Contains additional code that prompts you if you would like to erase the memories for each dormie.

Anyone brave enough to test this?   Feedback is encouraged.

This version is very experimental.  I haven't tested it out myself.  I'm pretty much trusting that the code will work correctly.   I'll probably try it out tonight, but I figured I would post it, in case anyone else wants to give it a go.

If all is well, then I will keep it available as a separate version (since there may be people who just want to evict sims without being prompted everytime to erase their memories - I could just have another prompt with different options, but I don't want to have to hack the Dialog strings too much, cuz it just gets messy and annoyinig when updating for future EPs. ).

ETA - I added a feature to reset dormie relationships.  Please test it out and let me know if it works and if there are any problems.


Ste

[jsalemi]

Hmm -- my experience has been that when I move a YA into an empty dorm, the game usually fills it back up with the same dormies that were there previously.  I do use TJ's dormie gender controller, so I get a slightly different mix, but the same-old-same-olds.

Since my 4th gen in Pleasantview is going to be hitting Uni soon, I have gone on a bit of 'let them die' spree to clear the decks of dormies that were there when their grandparents went to uni and get some new faces in the game.  But I'll give this a go and see how it works when I cycle back to the colleges again.

[syberspunk]

Well, this was mostly born out of what I experienced and from discussion in chat:

[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:50:51 PM] ste|simming: does the nodormieregen hack conflict with twojeffs dorm controller mod? i forget
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:51:06 PM] LilBrudder: Ste, the dormies won't generate.
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:51:48 PM] ste|simming: LB: will they not generate new ones at all? or will it try to reuse old ones?
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:51:57 PM] LilBrudder: Nope
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:51:59 PM] ste|simming: i have a couple of dorms that i played. and i graduated all those sims
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:52:00 PM] LilBrudder: No new ones at all.
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:52:07 PM] ste|simming: so the dorm should be empty no?
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:52:28 PM] ste|simming: i have twojeffs dorm gender controller. i thought it would reuse the dormies from the old dorms
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:52:34 PM] ste|simming: but it seems to be generating new ones...
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:52:35 PM] Amber: "NOTE 2: This hack will conflict with J.M. Pescasdo's No Dormie Regeneration Hack. Do not use both hacks at the same time."
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:53:04 PM] * Pescado icks and stomp Syberspunk.
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:53:08 PM] * Pescado savagely beats Amber.
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:53:10 PM] ste|simming: i wasnt sure about this before. because i couldnt remember the names and the faces kinda looked the same
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:53:27 PM] ste|simming: i actually am not using any of the noregen hacks
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:54:13 PM] ste|simming: anyways. so i are confused
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:54:24 PM] ste|simming: i wish twojeffs would be on so i could nag him
[Wednesday, July 11, 2007 23:54:34 PM] ste|simming: i suppose i could/should just post in the thread maybe...
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:07:21 AM] ste|simming: back to sim dorms: if u graduate all the playables in a sim dorm. what happens to the dormies of that dorm? are they supposed to get "recycled" somehow? or... if you move a new sim into that (now empty dorm) will those dormies still be there?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:07:59 AM] Strangel-PSing: From what I remember, the dormies stay till you move in a new student.
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:08:23 AM] ste|simming: Strangel: and then what happens? do they all get recycled?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:10:20 AM] Strangel-PSing: They SHOULD stay as members of the dorm until you move in so many students you have no space left, then the dormers start moving out.
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:10:58 AM] ste|simming: Strangel: ahh well that sucks then. i really shouldnt be using too many different dorms then
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:12:05 AM] Marhis: hmm yeah, they go out only when you put a new playable in the dorm
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:12:31 AM] Marhis: and then OTHER dormies will take place
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:12:41 AM] Marhis: sort of totally idiotic system
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:12:59 AM] Marhis: I usually bulldoze the dorm
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:13:06 AM] Marhis: so they are around againb
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:13:17 AM] ste|simming: too bad the game doesnt automatically evict them when you move all the playable sims out
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:13:23 AM] Marhis: indeed
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:13:44 AM] Marhis: also because without nodormieregen
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:14:02 AM] Marhis: the old dormies go away, and new dormies will populate the dorm
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:14:43 AM] Marhis: the old dormies will be recycled only in new dorms, maybe
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:15:01 AM] Marhis: and only if you have a block to their regeneration, apparently
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:16:05 AM] ste|simming: hrm. wish there was a way to know for sure
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:16:31 AM] Marhis: The first time I played uni, when my playables graduated, I had a dormie population twice the regular townies
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:17:45 AM] ste|simming: the thing is. i dont want to use noregen dormie or whatever if it means that, when i go to a new dorm. my sim will be all by himself
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:18:03 AM] Marhis: bulldoze the old dorm
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:18:11 AM] Marhis: I do this way
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:18:17 AM] Marhis: create a dorm
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:18:30 AM] Marhis: evict it so you have a perfect copy in lot bin
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:18:34 AM] ste|simming: i dont want to do that tho either cuz i eventaully want to reuse those old dorms. just not right now. i was plannin to use them for later generations
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:18:36 AM] Marhis: put it again in place, play
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:18:41 AM] ste|simming: so that their kids could go to the same dorm
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:19:04 AM] Marhis: when the last playable graduates, bulldoze the dorm and then put a new copy in place
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:19:54 AM] ste|simming: well ok what if the situation si this
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:20:03 AM] ste|simming: i use a default dorm.
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:20:06 AM] Marhis: I've not tried, but if you evict the dorm after graduation and then re-put it in game, probably you'll have an empty dorm anyway
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:20:36 AM] ste|simming: i play sims thru. graduate them. and i alter the dorm. putting new objects there, or even changing the design.
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:21:24 AM] ste|simming: the dorm is now empty. can you still evict it? and put it in the lotbin?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:22:05 AM] Marhis: yup
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:22:15 AM] Marhis: if it's empty, yes
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:23:11 AM] ste|simming: ok if i put it in the lotbin. it creates its own template i guess?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:23:37 AM] Marhis: yes, exactly
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:23:39 AM] ste|simming: that i can like forever use and put multiple copies of it. and it keeps all the changes i made? to the layout and any objects that are left?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:24:08 AM] Marhis: it will have the changes you made the moment you put it in the lot bin
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:24:21 AM] ste|simming: hrm. ok... i'll give this a try then
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:24:30 AM] Marhis: if you change something again, you should make another copy
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:24:36 AM] ste|simming: my hood is like getting overrun with too many dormies being created that i thought would be recycled
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:24:37 AM] Marhis: or package it, etc
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:24:41 AM] Marhis: me too
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:25:37 AM] Strangel-PSing: I definitely suggest spawning a set number of dormies and putting in nodormieregen.
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:25:42 AM] Marhis: heh I made a carnage with the lot debugger
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:26:37 AM] Marhis: but if you don't evict the dorm, you'll end with an empty dorm
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:26:58 AM] ste|simming: what do you mean by "empty
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:27:04 AM] ste|simming: +"?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:27:13 AM] Marhis: with no dormies
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:27:19 AM] Marhis: I mean
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:27:36 AM] Marhis: suppose you have a dorm with 1 playable
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:27:41 AM] Marhis: and 5 dormies ok
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:27:51 AM] Marhis: when that playable graduates and move out
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:28:03 AM] Marhis: those 5 dormies remains
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:28:14 AM] Marhis: when you move in another playable
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:28:24 AM] Marhis: those 5 morons will leave the dorm and go away
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:28:38 AM] Marhis: but you have nodormieregen, so no new dormies will be generated
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:28:49 AM] Marhis: therefore, the old dormies will not return
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:28:57 AM] Marhis: and your playable will live alone
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:29:10 AM] Marhis: sort of
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:29:16 AM] Marhis: not sure at 100%, but still
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:29:23 AM] Marhis: it sucks, a lot
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:29:47 AM] Invisigoth: Marhis, what causes this?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:29:54 AM] ste|simming: wait thats retarded
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:29:56 AM] Marhis: no idea
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:29:59 AM] ste|simming: why would the 5 morons leave?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:30:04 AM] Invisigoth: Where do they go?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:30:05 AM] Marhis: totally retarded, I concur
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:30:16 AM] Marhis: to the portal, then fade out
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:30:25 AM] Marhis: you  may meet them again on comm lots
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:30:26 AM] ste|simming: why dont they stay if youre only moving one new sim in? thats weird
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:30:43 AM] Marhis: I agree, it doesn't make sense a t all
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:30:53 AM] ste|simming: and thent he game doesnt call them back to fill in the empty rooms?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:31:03 AM] ste|simming: this happens if you have nodormieregen?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:31:04 AM] Marhis: not immediately
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:31:23 AM] ste|simming: but eventually...? or not at all not ever?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:31:24 AM] Ella|sims: so either you are stuck with the retardation of empty dorms, or you neighborhood is forever adding new character files?
[Thursday, July 12, 2007 00:31:26 AM] Marhis: yep, if you don't have nodormieregen, though, the game will generate NEW dormies

Log edited so only the (mostly) relevant discussion was left in.

The problem for me was, I assumed that, after playing a household of YAs in a dorm lot through to completion (where all playables had graduated and moved back to the main hood sim bin), I had assumed that the dormies would be re-usable.  I moved a new YA into a separate/different, new dorm lot, and assumed that, since there were dormies that already existing, the game would re-use them.  I thought that, since all the playables from the other dorm moved out, the lot was supposed to be reset, and all the dormies would get evicted automatically.  However, on this separate/different, new dorm lot, I noticed for the first time, that the game was creating totally new dormies.  I never thought about it before, because they all have a tendency to look the same, not just with the same face archetypes, but often the same clothes and hairstyles.  This time around, I actually bothered to check their names, and sure enough, they were totally new dormies.

I went back to the previous lot, that was now "unoccupied" (no playables at least ), in build mode, and I noticed that the doors still had the faces of the dormies that were previously living there.  Apparently they were not evicted.  Pescado suggested deleting and replacing the doors.  I went back to the new dorm lot to see if the game would then reuse those dormies, but it still attempted to create completely new ones.

According to Marhis, if you move a YA back to a previously used, but now "empty" (i.e. no playables) dorm lot, supposedly, the dormies will leave (stupid dormies ) and then they might end up returning (or not...? I was unclear about this).  I have yet to test this myself, but I eventually will sometime down the line.

For the moment, I just decided to throw this hack together.  I tested it by going into a dorm lot that has a single playable YA.  I moved him out back to main hood sim bin, by having him drop out (he was like 4 semesters away from graduating).  I stepped through the prompt messages, evicted all the dormies, saved and quit the lot.  I then went to the other separate/different, new dorm lot with the newly moved in YA, and sure enough, the game reused the dormies that were evicted.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, this is limited to only when the last playable sim moves out by graduating, dropping out, or being expelled (I only tested dropping out, but assume the others would work in the same way, using the same code to move the sim back out into the main sim bin).  I have not figured a way to do this if you try to move the last playable sim (or all the playable sims) out of the dorm.  Since the game now prevents you from doing this while playing the lot; it stops you and then tells you that you must use the Move Students tool from neighborhood view mode.  So... unfortunately, if you move sims out via that method, I am uncertain whether the dormies will be evicted as well.  If I understand Marhis correctly, supposedly the dorm lot should be reset. *shrugs*

Anyhew, I'll be testing it more, sporadically, when I find time.  But since other people complained about this, I figured I'd try to see if I could fix it or at least create some way to work around it.  Hopefully it will work as described and other peeps might find it useful.


Ste

[Kyna]

According to Marhis, if you move a YA back to a previously used, but now "empty" (i.e. no playables) dorm lot, supposedly, the dormies will leave (stupid dormies ) and then they might end up returning (or not...? I was unclear about this).  I have yet to test this myself, but I eventually will sometime down the line.

Not quite correct.  The exact same dormies do return.

I make my own uni and my own dormies in YACAS.  Because I'm a lazy simmer, I re-use the same dorm for all my sims, often for several generations.  When a playable sim moves into a vacated dorm, the existing dormies leave the lot and the doors are blank.  Those same dormies then return to reclaim the doors, even though I usually make 32 dormies.  They always arrive in the order they were created in YACAS, so if there's room for 5 dormies I'll get the first 5 dormies I made.

I can suspend disbelief about townies being around for generations (pretending that's the niece of the original townie, or the grandchild of the original townie, etc).  But it's a bit hard to suspend disbelief with the exact same group of dormies in the dorm after several generations, and seeing the same dormies fight with each other and the same dormies woohooing each other via ACR.

I wouldn't mind a hack that allowed some variation in the dormies upon re-use - which is what I hoped this hack might be able to do when I saw the title of the thread.

[pixiejuice]

I wouldn't mind a hack that allowed some variation in the dormies upon re-use - which is what I hoped this hack might be able to do when I saw the title of the thread.

Oooh, ditto!  I was just wondering if this mod would be useful for this.  I too have probably about 30 or 40 YAs in my game, but keep seeing the same 10 of them over and over again. 

It's a little creepy actually, since my fathers and sons or mothers and daughters usually end up sharing a lot of the same traits, personalities, aspirations... they usually sleep with the same dormies too.  Ick! LOL.

Good point about pretending they're relatives of the original townies.  With a makeover and some new clothes, maybe I'll try to think of it that way.

[jsalemi]

I wouldn't mind a hack that allowed some variation in the dormies upon re-use - which is what I hoped this hack might be able to do when I saw the title of the thread.

Well, TwoJeffs dormie gender controller does give you some control over that -- by varying the mix of male/female you can get some new dormies in.  But it's my experience too that the same dormies tend to refill the now-empty dorm.  I've only seen 'new' ones when I move a YA into a dorm that's never been played before.  (I put 'new' in quotes because I can't say I've ever checked to see if the game made entirely new dormies, or just used existing ones that were previously just walk-bys.)

[syberspunk]

According to Marhis, if you move a YA back to a previously used, but now "empty" (i.e. no playables) dorm lot, supposedly, the dormies will leave (stupid dormies ) and then they might end up returning (or not...? I was unclear about this).  I have yet to test this myself, but I eventually will sometime down the line.

Not quite correct.  The exact same dormies do return.

Well... to be fair, I did say that they might return, and that I was unclear about this.  From what was described to me, it seemed like those dormies left... and then the dorm was empty for awhile, with no other sims except playable ones.  And perhaps it took some time for them to return?

I have not played my sims long enough to even have generations yet, to re-use old dorms.  As of now, I have several dorms occupied with different sims, that are all part of the same generation.  I just haven't gotten to playing them all through Uni yet.  I do not have any particular set rotation schedule.  I kinda just play whatever dorm lot I wanna play, for however long I want to play them.

Anyways, this hack will most likely not add randomization as you were hoping for.  As I described in my post, when I evicted the dormies from the older dorm, the same dormies showed up in the separate/different, new dorm.  I don't recall the order, but I suspect it is most likely the same order they arrived in the first dorm.  From the way the searching works... I think it must iterate through sims pretty much in the order that they were created.  In my initial testing, I found that the search, for some reason, was only going through playable sims.  When I tossed in a dialog message so that I could actually see each sim that it was iterating through, it always started with Mortimer (who by default, in Pleasantview, is first non-dead character file).

I could look into the possibility of throwing in some randomness here, perhaps randomly skipping a sim.  But... I am not sure if that means, it will just skip the sim and come back to it later again, or if it will ignore the existence of that sim by skipping it... and therefore, potentially result in creating new sims rather than using old, pre-existing ones.  I will be gone for the rest of the day, but maybe tomorrow I can tweak it and make a randomized version, which would of course need testing.

ETA:  I just realized... this hack wouldn't contain the code that decides what dormies show up to to populate a dorm.  It's twojeffs gender dorm controller that would need to be changed.  So... you'd/we'd probably have to ask him if he would be willing to look into this.  I could probably tweak it myself... or see if there is some other BHAV that I could hack which would be called by his hack.  I'd have to take a look at it sometime later.


Ste

[Magicmoon]

I can't test this theory in my game as I currently have no dormies at all, but what would happen if right before you moved a Sim into an empty (but previously used) dorm, you run the randomizer on the lot debugger? Is it possible that it would cause a different (not newly made) pool of dormies to show up to claim the myne doors?

I love playing with dormies with nouniprotect in place. But I got tired of the same old idiots being there every generation. And with fight club and ACR in the game, that means the dormies get an advantage because they have generations of fights under their belts compared to your young Sim. And as mentioned earlier, the same ones woohooing over and over again. That is why I finally went to no dormies at all.

Just thought of something. Is there a way to make a mod where dormies are reset?

What I mean is, it seems we would rather have new dormies each generation, but yet we don't want the bloat that new characters would add. If we could reset the dormies so that they lost all their memories, fight experience, loves, etc. then they would be like new Sims. Their names could be changed to another random name, and if renaming isn't possible, we could do it manually with the lot debugger after they moved in, give them fresh clothes, and then we would have new dormies without adding a single character file. It would be even better if we could also re-roll their aspirations and and personalities. Most of this we can do in game already, except for the amnesia part. When moving out your last playable, a pop-up window could go through each dormie asking if you want that one reset so that if there was a particular dormie you wanted to keep to marry, or whatever, then that one wouldn't get the reset.

I have to thank you, syberspunk, for continuing to make mods to improve the playability of Uni. It seems most modders have given up on Uni because they personally don't play that sub-hood.

I actually like the break Uni gives me from playing the same Old 'go to work, have a kid, teach kid, get promotion, pop out another kid, routine that the regular neighborhood offers. I depend on Uni to keep the game interesting.

[syberspunk]

I can't test this theory in my game as I currently have no dormies at all, but what would happen if right before you moved a Sim into an empty (but previously used) dorm, you run the randomizer on the lot debugger? Is it possible that it would cause a different (not newly made) pool of dormies to show up to claim the myne doors?

I am not totally positive, but I suspect that the lot debugger randomizer would not have the effect you expect.  If I understand correctly, I believe that the randomizer pretty much mimics the effect of running through the create a "random" sim option in CAS.  So, I think, this would only effect the personalities of new dormies that the game might create.

In my limited testing, just by simple observation, it appears that the search function will always iterate through sims in the order that they were created.  Again, I am not completely certain about this, but that is what it appeared like to me.  In a couple of my test runs, when I actually bothered to show which sims were being looped through, it always started with Mortimer.  However... this was the first few times that I tested it, and I was using an option from existing code.  Specifically, it appears that, if you use the search function to iterate through sims based on neighbor id, it seems that the game will only look at playable sims.  I had to change the option to search for sims based on object id.  So... it might be possible that this option doesn't iterate in arithmetic order.

Just thought of something. Is there a way to make a mod where dormies are reset?

What I mean is, it seems we would rather have new dormies each generation, but yet we don't want the bloat that new characters would add. If we could reset the dormies so that they lost all their memories, fight experience, loves, etc. then they would be like new Sims.

<snip>

When moving out your last playable, a pop-up window could go through each dormie asking if you want that one reset so that if there was a particular dormie you wanted to keep to marry, or whatever, then that one wouldn't get the reset.

Although this is possible... I don't think it would be a good idea to wipe out those memories.  Although I'm not quite sure how the game handled things normally for townies that you moved in, but wiping out the memories would be bad if it were one-sided.  Meaning... if you only did it for the townies, it would probably be bad if you had playables who had the reciprocating side of those memories still intact.  Now... there might be a way to iterate through all the sims and erase the corresponding/matching memories as well... but I personally don't see an easy way to do this.  I guess... if the lot debugger already does this with the prepare for deletion option (erasing memories for the sim to be deleted, And all memories, from other sims, relating to that sim), one could adapt that code. *shrugs*

I have to thank you, syberspunk, for continuing to make mods to improve the playability of Uni. It seems most modders have given up on Uni because they personally don't play that sub-hood.

I actually like the break Uni gives me from playing the same Old 'go to work, have a kid, teach kid, get promotion, pop out another kid, routine that the regular neighborhood offers. I depend on Uni to keep the game interesting.

I actually like Uni myself.  I don't think it's all that horrible.  True, it can get boring and monotonous sometimes, but ACR can definitely make things more interesting by mixing things up romantically.  Hehe.  And I like to view Uni as a break from the "real world" as well.

Anyways, I may toy experiment with tweaking the dorm controller.  I'll think about the amnesia option.  If anyone knows for sure, it would be great if someone could check and see how Maxis EA "normally" treats townie amnesia.  That is... if you don't use hacks to keep townie memories... what happens when you move in a townie and their memories get wiped?  Do the corresponding memories of other sims get wiped as well?  Or are they sorta left like dangling pointers to garbage?


Ste

[J. M. Pescado]

Anyways, I may toy experiment with tweaking the dorm controller.  I'll think about the amnesia option.  If anyone knows for sure, it would be great if someone could check and see how Maxis EA "normally" treats townie amnesia.  That is... if you don't use hacks to keep townie memories... what happens when you move in a townie and their memories get wiped?  Do the corresponding memories of other sims get wiped as well?  Or are they sorta left like dangling pointers to garbage?

Nothing. Only the townie is wiped. Memories are all unidirectional, anyway, and most have no function. Certainly nothing performs bidirectional checking, so a sim can remember having won a fight with someone without that someone needing a corresponding "lost fight" memory, and even if there is, the two are not physically linked to each other by any method, other than that they simultaneously were formed, and to us, they refer to the same event. Similarly, sims can continue to gossip about an event that the flashy-thingied townie no longer remembers.

[syberspunk]

Nothing. Only the townie is wiped. Memories are all unidirectional, anyway, and most have no function.

Okay... so long as it's "safe" to have those memories wiped, then I think I can probably figure out a way to do it.  I'll tinker around with it.  Also, stupid me, I just realized that I could easily wipe the memories as each sim is evicted, instead of having to hack twojeffs' dorm controller, wiping the memories as they arrive.  Duh!

I don't know why I thought I had to do it the other way.  Well... actually that's a bit of a lie, I was thinking that because townie memories were normally wiped when you moved them in and made them playable.  I was thinking about it, to my self, on my way home riding the bus.   I could probably just use the code that same piece of code to wipe the townie memories and sorta "reset" them.  It will need testing to make sure they get appropriate memories.

ETA: Version with option to erase dormie memories now available in the 2nd post here.


Ste

[pixiejuice]

I tried out the evict and erase memories version.  It works as described. 

Not a problem, but maybe something to think about - her memory panel was completely reset, but she retained her relationships with everyone she had known.  Her relationship panel lists all her friends with the same friendship levels, all the guys she dated still have the crush symbol.  I used one of my playables (a guy she used to date) to invite her over, and just by chance, her current boyfriend walks by.  So I greeted her, and the boyfriend, and the two of them proceeded to head straight for the hot tub for some auto woo  

My very long-winded point is that if the reason we want to erase her memories is so that we can make her over and pretend she is a different Sim, then it seems strange when she retains her relationships.  Does that make sense?  Would there be a way to erase her relationship panel as well?

Thinking ahead now, once all of her memories and relationships are wiped, and I have made her over, renamed her, rerolled her personality and aspiration like she was a completely new Sim, all of her exes would still remember dating her, except their memories would be of the new girl, not the old one that they dated.  Which is still just as weird as having the grandsons date the same girl their grandfathers dated.  And so maybe this doesn't accomplish quite what we had in mind, and the only way to get what we really want is to kill off the old girl and create fresh new dormies, which creates new character files, and basically, we just cannot be pleased

[Magicmoon]

Sounds like the relationship flags didn't get reset. Is that something that can be added to this mod?

If not, take the dormies and use Insim to reset all their relationship flags. Do this before letting them interact with other Sims for best results.

EDIT: This can also be done in SimPe.

[syberspunk]

If it can be done with other mods, then I should be able to add it.  How easy that would be depends on how quickly I figure out how to do it.

Also, just curious... but for townies... when you move in townies and have their memories erased, do their relationship panels also get reset?  My guess is no.  I think the memory wipe thing was just a quick and dirty type fix/workaround for the early jump bugs related to too many iterations/memories.

I'll look into this sometime later this week as well.


ETA - I added a feature to reset dormie relationships.  Please test it out and let me know if it works and if there are any problems.

For now, I'll keep it as a separate version.  But if it works without any problems, I'll deprecate the first version and make the erase memories version the default.

Ste

[jsalemi]

Also, just curious... but for townies... when you move in townies and have their memories erased, do their relationship panels also get reset?  My guess is no.  I think the memory wipe thing was just a quick and dirty type fix/workaround for the early jump bugs related to too many iterations/memories.

Your guess is correct -- they keep their existing relationships.

[syberspunk]

Your guess is correct -- they keep their existing relationships.

Yeah, I figured as much.  I've been using pinhead's move in hack for so long, that I never erase townie memories.  I guess it made sense way back when you would get those too many iterations jump bugs.  But now, as a personal preference, I think townies should keep their memories, even if they have lived like forever.

I suppose... if the new features work, with erasing the memories and reseting the relationships for dormies... I could add reseting relationships to the move in all hack too.  For those people who would like that option, since it may also seem to make sense.


FYI: With regards to the added feature for resetting relationships, I decided to only ask you once, if you want to reset the relationships for all dormies.  This is following the assumption that, if you are erasing their memories, and you want to reset relationships, you also want to do this for all dormies.

However, if people prefer... I could move the dialog so it asks you on a per dormie basis, the same way that it asks you, per dormie, if you want to erase their memories.  So, a question to users:

Is it safe to assume that, if you are erasing memories, you also always want to reset relationships too?  This makes sense to me, since it would seem silly for sims to have lost their memories of meeting and interacting with other sims, but still have a pre-existing relationship and/or flags set (crush, love, etc.).

On the other hand, I can possibly see that some people might prefer to have more control, and decide whether they want to  reset relationships in addition to erasing memories, or just erasing the memories and leaving the relationships alone.  It could make for an interesting storyline, like... maybe the dormie actually got amnesia.  And then, when they find their true wuv, they still have a rapport with them, after all this time.  Or... you could even think of it as a dormie being reborn/reincarnated, but still having feelings for their loved one from a previous lifetime.  lol.


If all goes well, I am also considering adding another feature, possibly to rename the dormie.  I'll have to look into the code to see how that might be done.  I vaguely recall someone mentioning that the Lot Debugger might do this, but I don't think I've seen that option.  Anyhew, this is tentative at best.  Depends on how unlazy I feel.


Ste

[Magicmoon]

Most of the time, I am going to want to reset all memories and relationship flags. On the rare occasion that I want to save one for possible matrimony, I would want both the memory and relationships to stay intact. So basically, the best for my play style would be to ask:
 
Do you want to reset all dormies?
 >yes=remove memories and relationships
 >no=ask about each dormie separately, resetting both memories and relationships on a yes answer.

That would be cool to rename the recycled dormies, if you can. Cooler yet would be to randomize their interests and personalities. There are randomizers to do this on InSim, perhaps that is something portable to this mod? It was something that I planned on doing manually after dormie resets, but would even be cooler incorporated into this mod.

[pixiejuice]

Is it safe to assume that, if you are erasing memories, you also always want to reset relationships too?  This makes sense to me, since it would seem silly for sims to have lost their memories of meeting and interacting with other sims, but still have a pre-existing relationship and/or flags set (crush, love, etc.).

Yes, I would want the relationships reset too.

I don't suppose anyone knows yet what this will do to the Sim whose relationship is being erased?  Is this going to work on both sides?  Like if Grandpa thinks he dated a girl named Rose years and years ago in college, and you reset Rose, would he still remember her?  Would he still have the memory, but under the girl's new name and picture?  I suppose I should test it and find out, huh

I very much like the idea of having a rename function in this as well.  I know there are other ways, but it would be handy.  I also second rerolling interests and personalities. 

On a side note, does anyone know of an easier way to change dormie/townie clothing?  The only ways I know of is the tedious age up, age down method (which I've never actually tried on a dormie, since I'm guessing their school panel wouldn't work again afterwards) - or selling to them in an owned business.  Neither of those two options is very easy.

And finally, I don't mean to be a pain in the butt, but would it be possible to make this mod available any time, rather than only when the last dormie moves out?  Reason being that I like to keep the family name on the dorm matching the dorm's name, for easy use of the familyfunds cheat, so I try not to ever move out the last sim in a dorm.  And I don't know if it would work, but if available any time, maybe I could also use this on a few regular townies that have been hanging around my 'hood too long  

ETA:  I tried it, and can't get it to work in erasing the relationships.  I got the prompt, clicked yes on the sim I wanted erased, and she even got the "boing" sound and the negative relationship points above her head, but when I checked her from another lot, she still had all her relationships and flags.  Memories were gone though.

[syberspunk]

Yes, I would want the relationships reset too.

I think what I might do... is make the prompt to reset relationships separate, and per sim.  Unfortunately, it would mean more prompts, 2 per dormie.  However, I think I will also have two initial prompts, one for memories and one for relationships, with 3 options where yes = for all dormies, no = per dormie, and cancel = do nothing (keep memories or relationships).

So, as magicmoon suggested, if you choose yes, then you will do it for all dormies, and you won't get prompted per dormie.  But, if you choose no, then you will get a prompt per dormie, to give you more/individual control.

I don't suppose anyone knows yet what this will do to the Sim whose relationship is being erased?  Is this going to work on both sides?  Like if Grandpa thinks he dated a girl named Rose years and years ago in college, and you reset Rose, would he still remember her?  Would he still have the memory, but under the girl's new name and picture?  I suppose I should test it and find out, huh

Theoretically, from the looks of the code, it seems like it should reset the relationships on both sides.  But... I think the memories are only erased on one side.  So, I think that Grandpa here will still remember Rose (he should still have the memory), but the relationship will be reset to 0 at least.  On Rose's panel, her memories should be reset, And the relationship should be set to 0.  Now, I'm not sure yet if the flags will be removed and if the sim on the relationship panel will be removed as well.  I just added the code, but I haven't had time to test it myself yet.

I very much like the idea of having a rename function in this as well.  I know there are other ways, but it would be handy.  I also second rerolling interests and personalities. 

I'll think of these, as it would be convenient to have all these options bundled together, but I'm lazy, so who knows if I'll find the time to get to adding them.   I do like the idea of having it all done altogether, but it will most likely mean that I'm gonna have to add a bunch of options to the dialog text, which will be a pain, because it will mean that I will have to update this for all future EPs.  I guess it won't be so bad, if there willl only be a few more EPs left.  It's just annoying is all.

On a side note, does anyone know of an easier way to change dormie/townie clothing?  The only ways I know of is the tedious age up, age down method (which I've never actually tried on a dormie, since I'm guessing their school panel wouldn't work again afterwards) - or selling to them in an owned business.  Neither of those two options is very easy.

I think, in OFB, isn't there a suggest outfit option?  I dunno how it works tho, since I've yet to even play any businesses in my game.

And finally, I don't mean to be a pain in the butt, but would it be possible to make this mod available any time, rather than only when the last dormie moves out?  Reason being that I like to keep the family name on the dorm matching the dorm's name, for easy use of the familyfunds cheat, so I try not to ever move out the last sim in a dorm.  And I don't know if it would work, but if available any time, maybe I could also use this on a few regular townies that have been hanging around my 'hood too long

I'll think about it.  I'll have to attach it to an object, or possibly add it as an option on the sim pie menu...

ETA:  I tried it, and can't get it to work in erasing the relationships.  I got the prompt, clicked yes on the sim I wanted erased, and she even got the "boing" sound and the negative relationship points above her head, but when I checked her from another lot, she still had all her relationships and flags.  Memories were gone though.

Hrm.  Ok, obviously still needs work.  When you checked her from the other lot, how did you do it?  Did you summon her to the lot?  Or was she already on that lot?  And the relationships, were they at least zeroed out?  I mean STR and LTR are at 0?  I'll have to toy around with it more when I have time.  Thanks for testing it.  Let me know anything else you might find out.

Ste

[pixiejuice]

When you checked her from the other lot, how did you do it?  Did you summon her to the lot?  Or was she already on that lot?  And the relationships, were they at least zeroed out?  I mean STR and LTR are at 0?

I checked her from her boyfriend's lots.  He invited her over with the e-card on Monique's computer.  She still had 95/95 with him, and he did with her as well, as well as crush and love flags.  She still had relationships with all of her other friends too.

On second thought about adding a function to reroll personalities and aspiration, don't bother.  It's VERY simple just to mind-control and use the college adjuster (or one of about a billion other mods I already have on the lot) to do this before resetting.

Off-topic, but how do you select parts of quotes like you did in your reply?  Or are you just selecting "insert quote" and erasing the part you don't want?  I've been trying to figure this out for ages!

[syberspunk]

I checked her from her boyfriend's lots.  He invited her over with the e-card on Monique's computer.  She still had 95/95 with him, and he did with her as well, as well as crush and love flags.  She still had relationships with all of her other friends too.

Ahh.  I see.  Hrm... curious.  I'll have to play around more and see why you would get the -- signs and the sounds, but then, the game doesn't save that the relationship changed.  That is very odd.

On second thought about adding a function to reroll personalities and aspiration, don't bother.  It's VERY simple just to mind-control and use the college adjuster (or one of about a billion other mods I already have on the lot) to do this before resetting.

That's cool.  Less work for me to do. lol. The college adjuster is definitely very handy for this sort of thing.  What I might do... alternatively... is steal borrow twojeff's code, and see about maybe adding the function to the dressers, so when you give townie's make overs, you can also "make over" their personalities as well.  Hehe.

Off-topic, but how do you select parts of quotes like you did in your reply?  Or are you just selecting "insert quote" and erasing the part you don't want?  I've been trying to figure this out for ages!

Yep.  Nothing special.  I quote the whole thing, then delete stuff and only keep the things I want to specifically reply to.  I just 'manually' copy the first line of quote tags (the part that has quote, author, link, etc.) and put that at the beginning of each 'section' I want to be a separate quote.  Then, I 'close' each section with the end quote tag.    I know some peeps just use regular ole quotes, without keeping the author and link info, but I'm a tad anal retentive that way.   I prefer keeping the author and linky info there, that way, if other peeps want to see what I might be quoting, if it happens to be on a different page of the thread, they can clink on the link and go directly to the quoted post, instead of having to scroll upwards and see who or where I was quoting.


Anyhew, I hope to find time this week to take a peek.  But... heh. I actually finally got a Wii this Sunday, so... I might be 'busy' for the next couple of days.

Ste

[Magicmoon]

Here's my report:

I sent 6 Sims, a few at a time, to a dorm that contained 6 Myne Doors. Dormies took the unused doors and moved out appropriately as I moved in new Sims. In the end, there were just playables in this dorm.

The first Sim graduates and moves out. I get the message that this is the 'last playable Sim' Do you want to reset dormies?

I said no. A dormie took the open door. Then the next Sim graduates. Again, I get the 'last playable Sim/reset dormies' message. I get it every time a Sim moves out. I answered no to the question until the last playable actually did move out. At that time, I chose 'yes'.

I got the question about the relationship flags. I said yes. Then it asked about the memories of each dormie individually. That's odd that the relationship flags were being reset on the whole, while memories were being asked about on an individual basis.

I also got the 'last playable Sim/reset dormies' message when moving Sims out of Uni residential housing. I haven't had a chance to check Greek Houses, but would assume that it happens there too.

At this point my computer started complaining that it had the same IP address as another computer on the network, so I had to leave the game to reboot, so I did not have time to check whether any of the dormies had been reset properly, which I wanted to check since Darcee reported problems in this area. I won't have time to check until late tonight or tomorrow, so I wanted to at least report what I had before I start forgetting what happened.

On second thought about adding a function to reroll personalities and aspiration, don't bother.  It's VERY simple just to mind-control and use the college adjuster (or one of about a billion other mods I already have on the lot) to do this before resetting.

That's cool.  Less work for me to do. lol. The college adjuster is definitely very handy for this sort of thing.  What I might do... alternatively... is steal borrow twojeff's code, and see about maybe adding the function to the dressers, so when you give townie's make overs, you can also "make over" their personalities as well.  Hehe.

I vote the opposite. This mod is specifically for reusing Dormies, so I would want it to do as many changes as possible. It would be nice if you could borrow TwoJeff's code and either just reset the personalities and skills, or tie it to the something like the dresser. Actually, I don't use the dresser because you usually have to buy new clothes first, so I end up just using the clothing tool do redress since it does both, bui I'll work with whatever you need to tie it to.

[syberspunk]

Hrm.  Ok.  That's a bit more problematic.  I had only tested it in dorms with a single sim.  I will have to look through the code again to see why it's being triggered for every move out, instead of the last move out.

Also... in my tests last night, I found that it seemed to be removing relationships, but only for those sims that were actually on the same lot.  So... if the dormies had met and/or had relationships with any of the sims present on the dorm lot at the time (the playable, the other dormies, the cook, etc.) then only those relationships were set to 0 STR/0 LTR.  I think the friendship/crush/love flags were removed too.  But the icon still remained in the friendship panel.  I need to look into this further, since I am not sure why it is only going through sims currently located on the lot, instead of all sims in the 'hood.  The code looks exactly the same to me as in another place that I use it, which does search through all sims.  So, it is really weird.   I'm thinking that I may have to post in the bowels of trogdor to get help with this.

As for the other options... again, depends on how motivated I am.  I'll address those after/if/when I manage to actually get the relationship resetting to work.


ETA:

Ok, updated.  Please download the new erase memories version (in the 2nd post).  Now, I've only tested it in a household with one sim, but... I think I managed to fix the problem with the option showing up for any sim moving out.  It should now only prompt you if it actually is the last sim.  But of course, this still needs some testing.

But I think I did manage to fix the relationships issue.  It looks like the relationships are properly removed now, on both sides (the dormie themself and the other sims that they were on their relationship panels.  I didn't check all those sims, but I did see that a sim who used to have a crush on the dormie no longer had that dormie on their relationship panel.  Please test it out and let me know if you still have any problems.


Ste

[twojeffs]

I wouldn't mind a hack that allowed some variation in the dormies upon re-use - which is what I hoped this hack might be able to do when I saw the title of the thread.

Well, TwoJeffs dormie gender controller does give you some control over that -- by varying the mix of male/female you can get some new dormies in.  But it's my experience too that the same dormies tend to refill the now-empty dorm.  I've only seen 'new' ones when I move a YA into a dorm that's never been played before.  (I put 'new' in quotes because I can't say I've ever checked to see if the game made entirely new dormies, or just used existing ones that were previously just walk-bys.)

The dorm controller always picks the lowest available neighbor ID for the new dormie so yes, you basically always end up with the same ones. This has been something I've wanted to randomize better with the Dormie Gender Controller for a long time. No time like the present I guess.