No modded abductions, as I like the sporadic surprise when it does happen. I've had a few Fortune sims get abducted quite fast and last night had an elder female get abducted in less than a sim hour, and right after got abducted again quite fast. Most often it takes quite awhile, maybe the aliens knew she didn't have much time left and gave her a final joy ride. Pt Smith was there to witness her return and laughed his butt off.

Oh, I do now have a mod for females, it seemed odd that mainly it was guys who got abducted and rarely a female. Equal rights for females, yes! (:

@Pizzatron-9000

Fun "learning" post! Just FYI: Those harvestable trees from Castaway Stories do eventually run out of fruit. It takes a day or two for them to replenish. For the coconut and papaya trees, when there's no fruit, then the only options available are the non-food-related ones. There are no other options for the banana trees when there's no bananas. I know this stuff because I'm playing a castaway scenario and, for the moment, the castaways' only food source is those trees.

Also, for the toilet bush, I made a version that nukes the hygiene drain because that was just ridiculous. It's over here on my Tumblr , if you or anyone else is interested. It's on the same GUID as the original one, though, so you can't have both at the same time. It's a one-or-the-other deal.

There's a veg out action? And BAS made a mod for it? Seriously, I've never seen it!

I just learned that a young adult can teach a younger relative how to study. Gavin Newson had gotten aged up via Squinge's cake and was attending Uni from home. When I went to have Ginger do homework, I noticed an "Ask for homework help" option. I had her ask Gavin and he helped her along. She might only have a few days left herself before Uni (due to my finagling of ages), but at least she won't completely tank her fun for them!

So I was poking around the pet personalities and discovered this:



I understand the mailman, the spray bottle, and the pet carrier being "scary." I'm guessing the alarm clock is supposed to be loud noises. But....rocking chair? Is there something the Maxis developers know that I don't? All the cats I've ever had pretty much either love or ignore rocking chairs, not be afraid of them. Or is it supposed to be an abstract symbol for something else?

Have you never heard an anxious person being described as, "More nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs?" Although if you're not a native English-speaker, maybe you haven't... Or maybe just a US-English native speaker. Or maybe just a regional US-English native speaker...

I'm Canadian, and far too literal-minded for my own good. I never heard that idiom before. Thank you.

Uh oh. Guess I'd better make those bananas count. It's agreeable that there's at least some drawback to using the tropical fruit trees for food, though.

I wonder if cancelling the action before a Sim eats the fruit will result in an intact fruit that can be sold in a private business. There's something else to try out in some future mini-experiment.


Does the mod completely do away with the Hygiene drop or does it reduce it to a more reasonable level? A lessened Hygiene drop might be acceptable (since I'd be worried about peeing on my own feet if I squatted like that), since as the Nature's Commode stands, they'd have to be planting their nether bits right in the bugs and the mud for a Hygiene drop that serious.


My mistake. It was one of Squinge's mods from Inseminator, not BAS.

http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,22165.0.html

I downloaded a lot of Squinge's mods around the same day when I downloaded about as many BAS mods; hence, the confusion. Enjoy.


I heard Rogue say that to Cyclops in one episode of the X-Men cartoon series back in the 90's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujPF9k1llZA

It is indeed a thing.

The bananas are kind of precious. They fill hunger the best, but there are fewest of them. You can eat them right away or gather them to put in inventory (and thence to a fridge, where they will result in sparkly food). Eating them one by one, they last for a while, but if you gather them, they're all gone in one go and those take longer to replenish than the papayas and coconuts. (You can't eat them from inventory, but I believe you can sell them in a business, yes. But you have to choose the "gather" option, not the eat/drink option.) You can "gather" from the papayas and coconuts more than once before the supply needs to replenish, so you get more from a papaya or coconut tree than you get from a banana tree but they aren't as filling. So...balance!

Also: They're all set such that they can be "gathered" autonomously, which I'm finding kind of frustrating because, although I usually like autonomous actions so much so that I fiddle around to make MORE things autonomous, in this case my castaways gather when I'd rather they not (since they don't yet have a fridge to put gathered fruit in), and if I'm not paying attention, I don't catch them in time to stop them. Sooooo, I think I'm going to make non-auto versions on new GUIDs, too. That way, I can have both, for different situations.



The version I made, it does away with the hygiene drop completely. This is because I'm playing a pair that, currently, only has a hot spring for hygiene, and that replenishes hygiene very slowly. However, this is something that is easily adjusted in SimPE, simply a matter of changing one number in one of the object's BCONs. I can tell you how to do it, if you like.



I believe the idiom is one more commonly used in the US South, so since Rogue is from...Mississippi, I think?...it'd make sense for her to use it.

Wait a minute. Bananas can be saved in a fridge to make sparkly food?

To the lab!

(And why is it that Jazz didn't get a single banana in her inventory when she went to Gather Bananas? Is there a different version that I need to download in order for that to happen?)


Oh, it's probably not worth the trouble; Sims already do plenty enough to make themselves stinky, and too little Hygiene drop is more tolerable than too much. Gimme. .


Yes, Rogue is from Mississippi (Caldecott County, to be exact). You know your X-Men lore well.

Now for the bonus round: Magneto formerly maintained a series of asteroids and space stations in low Earth orbit, each known as Asteroid M and each engineered to serve as an orbital refuge for mutantkind. After the last Asteroid M was destroyed, Magneto gathered pieces from all previous incarnations of Asteroid M and assembled them into a new, larger, more secure and more powerful space station, which endured for several years before it was destroyed in a magnificent battle between Magneto's lieutenant Exodus and the reality-jumping renegade Holocaust. What was the name of this "Super Asteroid M"?

Yup, you can put gathered bananas, papayas, and coconuts in a fridge and get sparkly food. Before I started my little scenario, I extensively tested this so that I knew all the possibilities, given they were going to be used as a major food source. The only thing I didn't test is selling in a business, because my castaways will never do that, but I'm pretty sure it'll be possible.

Gathering bananas ought to give the gatherer a few single bananas and few bunches in their inventory per gather. However, it IS possible that there are different versions out there. Does yours have a separate "Gather" and "Eat" function? In any case, mine came out of MeetMe's big damn download of all the CS conversions, which is here: http://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/118101.html She did tweak some things, although I don't know if those trees were something she tweaked. If your gathering function isn't working right, maybe take out what you've got and put those in and see if it works?



Have at it. And yeah, Sims get stinky enough, but...Well, that bush was a little ridiculous. My castaways could spend all day in the spring and they'd still never get clean after doing their business.



Oh, I'm afraid I really don't know X-Men well at all! I've only ever watched the movies that have Hugh Jackman in them because *cough* I kinda have a bit of a thing for him. (Well, OK, I played on the soundtracks of all the X-Men movies, so technically I've seen all of them...in bits and pieces...with no sound/dialogue...and often unfinished CGI shots or even just plain storyboards...so I don't think that counts. ) And I have this thing where I easily remember stupid trivia that has no application in the real world, but I can't remember things that are important to know. So, I remember Rogue being from MS thanks to the first movie. But other than that? Not much, I'm afraid. So...Afraid I have no idea about your question. I COULD cheat and ask my husband, who's a big, huge X-Men nerd (Has all the comic books, all the cartoons videotaped or on DVD, has all the movies, all the books about X-Men, all the action figures, even has a bunch of fanfic saved, for heaven's sake), but...Well, that would be cheating.

I've actually downloaded that two-parter before! I wonder if the later CS downloads from MATY might have overwritten those fruit trees.

Well, even though the banana trees were on the same vacation lot as a refrigerator, it was still a vacation lot (which have certain limitations to things that Sims can normally do), so maybe that has something to do with it. I'll wait until I test the trees on a residential lot before I go re-overwriting anything. Danke.

Your husband would probably have me whooped as far as the movies; I lost faith in them after watching X-Men 3, so I've never seen either Wolverine movie, X-Men: First Class, et cetera. But I'd do my best to match him pound-for-pound as far as the comic books go.

I'm not all that anal-retentive about fun questions. Go ahead and ask him. I'll wait. .

Is it because she was on vacation?



The Death Star? :P

It's certainly possible they work differently in vacation hoods. Possibly even on community lots in non-vacation hoods. I've only tested them on residential lots, so...Probably a good plan. If there IS another version out there, they're probably on different GUIDs, and if so you'd have to overwrite files and then replace all the trees on all your lots. Which might be a pain.



Oh, he froths at the mouth over the movies, kind of like how I'll froth at the mouth over the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies because I'm a huge old-school Star Trek nerd, but he still has to have them. And also watch them on occasion to get himself riled up. I don't get it, but...Well, it's him. He's a masochist and all. He's been collecting the comics since he was a kid. He's not missing that many of them, all the way back to the 60s or whatever it is. His favorite aspect is the cartoons, though, since he grew up with those. (He was born in '82.)



*sigh* Unfortunately, I had to go clean up after a sick cat and then got involved in a few other chore-like things, and now he's asleep because he has to be up early in the AM. (It's 1AM, where I am.) But I'll ask him tomorrow. Or later today, as the case may be.

I remember watching X-Men Evolution when I was a kid.

Also, I liked First Class. It was far better than preceding ones, IMO.

What did I discover today while playing The Sims?

That odd things can happen in restaurants. I suppose I knew that already, but these were new odd things. Well, new to me anyway.

David Turner and Alec Christie went to dine at New Desconia's only restaurant, Tyler's Diner. (It's an unowned restaurant; Tyler is the NPC host.) The chef didn't spawn -- nothing unusual about that, but the restaurant sort of works ok without him. The waiter came to take the order before Alec sat down. David (the only controllable Sim) ordered for himself. Alec sat down but still no thought bubble about food, so David guessed what he might like and ordered for him. I played on a few seconds. Then there was no "Done ordering" option on the waiter, but the waiter clearly considered that the ordering was finished and wrote it down. There then followed what seemed a longer than usual wait. Then, as usually happens when the chef hasn't spawned, the food just appeared on the table. But only one plate, and it was in front of David. At this point Alec, who was by far the hungrier of the two, stood up, came to David's side of the table, took David's plate, went back to his own side and ate it. David froze and stayed "frozen" for the rest of the meal. I thought I would probably have to use Force Error on him. But, with no conversation from David, Alec ate quickly, and when Alec finished, David "unfroze" and paid for the meal -- a ridiculous §12, when it should have been §48 for what they ordered and §23-§25 for what they actually ate. It actually worked out reasonably well because Alec needed the food far more than David did, and they didn't have to pay for stuff they didn't get.

But has anyone any idea what was going on?

No, but for future reference, "Chef's Choice" tends to glitch up less than the "order for" option. The waiter brings the sim's favorite food - I've never had the order get lost when using this option - and the only things that are likely to happen are the waiter dropping the food or a townie stealing a sim's food - in which case, the sim who got it is blocked from eating it (because it's in somebody else's queue) and will quietly wait for it to be stolen.

There is never a "done ordering" option - the waiter just hangs up after taking an order sometimes, zones out for a big, then takes the order and heads off. I only ever notice it when I have a particularly hungry sim.

That option does exist Peni. You probably don't see it since you choose Chef's Choice. If you order dishes separately for each Sim you have to pick that option to tell the waiter you are done with your order. Until you say you are done, you can change the order for each Sim, and as opposed to Chef's Choice you don't have to order for every Sim seated with the group/date. Useful if you have one Sim that's hungier, or you have a Sim that you think is likely to eat dessert and one that isn't

Possibly. I still haven't gotten around to testing that because I was on YouTube all night, watching scary videos intermingled with depressing ones. I must really hate myself for some reason.

Victorian post-mortem photography. Now there's a sad topic that'll stay with you.


No, that would be Darth Vader's turf. And Vader doesn't lay out the welcome mat for any filthy mutants. Or is that Jedi? They're so easy to mix up.... .


Well, fortunately, I only have banana trees and papaya trees on those three new vacation campgrounds, and coconut trees on those lots plus two residential lots in my tropical neighborhood. If it comes to that, cleaning up the trees and replacing them won't be much trouble. Thank you.


Aw, come on. Watching Spock rage out (for a change) and smack Khan around wasn't that terrible, was it?


Aw, poor kitty. How's he feeling now?

And give hubby our regards, will you?

I usually do get a "Done Ordering " option but then I usually order with the game paused. On this occasion though I let the game run on to see if Alec would come and sit down and tell me what he wanted. At the time the waiter arrived to take the order, I couldn't see him at all (admittedly I was zoomed in close to the table) and wondered whether he was indeed going to eat with David, or whether he'd found something more interesting to do. (I've seen that happen too -- even though my Sims are on an outing together!) And, since I've had the game, the waiters hardly ever add up the bill correctly. Occasionally it's too dear, but far more often it's too cheap, so my Sims who dine out regularly save money in the long term.

I know about the chef's choice, but I've been playing a little game trying to identify the meals in their thought bubbles, and see if what I order, when it comes, matches the picture in the thought bubble. Sims eat some dishes I'm not familiar with myself, and I'm fascinated to see what they look like. Plus, I like to vary their food and not give them the same stuff all the time. As far as the game is concerned, Andrew's favourite food is spaghetti, but I like to play him as a foodie, so I often make him choose more exotic dishes. Julian's favourite food, if I remember rightly, is nectarine tartlets, and even Julian himself, as an intelligent knowledge Sim, knows in his heart of hearts that nectarine tartlets are not ideal as a main course. So he can maybe have them for dessert if he's still hungry. And finally, I usually choose their dishes individually because I think they deserve individual attention. I think it even said something in the little Maxis manual that came with my game, that Sims do best on a varied healthy diet. So I try to pick food for them that's healthy but tasty. I want my Sims to know how much I love them by the attention I pay to them! I am of course completely mad!

[Way off Topic!!] I'm sure iCad's right (post #15382 above) but it reminded me of an incident years ago. I used to have big dog called Sally. She was half boxer and half everything else. We also had a cat called Ginger who had a legendary temper. Both humans and animals were fascinated by Ginger's temper. Her reactions were lightning-fast: touch her and she would scratch you. She was scary but fascinating at the same time. Well, one night Sally had come upstairs and climbed onto the rocking chair in my bedroom to sleep. Ginger went round behind the chair, reached up with her claws, and started to rock the chair with Sally lying on it. A look of abject terror appeared on poor Sally's face. She knew who was rocking her chair, but could not understand how she was dong it. I think she must have thought that Ginger had some sort of supernatural powers!

I'm pretty sure that's just flavour text. I have always envied my sims' ability to eat nothing but cake and still be healthy.

Today I learned that toddlers in Create-a-Sim make the absolute cutest noises.

Because I was curious about this issue, I poked around in the Castaway conversion files I have, and it looks like what I have is the trees, which probably originated from MATY because of similar file names to the rest of the stuff, BUT I also have what looks like a further mod of them (by Gwenke, the maven of adding seasonality and such to flora) that I believe adds the Seasons-style harvesting to them. That file is named cs_harvesttreeGetsRealHarvest_Gwenke, and then there are also separate files called "harvestablebananabunch," "harvestablebananasingle, "harvestablecoconut," etc., and they're all in a separate folder from the "Plants" in Meetme's archive. So, given the structure here, I'm thinking that you have the trees but might be missing the additional "real harvest" functionality. If that's the case, then I'm thinking all you'll need to do is snag that folder out of MeetMe's archive and you'll be set.



*laughs* No, actually Spock's characterization is one thing I like about AbramsVerse! It's actually very similar to how I wrote him when I was heavily active in the fanfic end of Star Trek fandom, back in the 80s. In fact, watching the first Abrams movie, I was blinking at the screen because it was like Orci and Kurtzman were channeling my fic. More emotional Spock? Check. Epic Spock/Uhura romance? Check. Destroyed Vulcan? Check. GEEEEEEEZ! I mean, yeah, my backstory/plot was completely different and the mechanism of Vulcan's destruction was entirely different with no time-traveling Romulans involved, but there were all these little convergences, and the deja vu was kind of creeping me out.

But no, I froth because of the more minor characters. Who, aside from Spock, are my baybeeeeez!



"She," actually. She's OK. She's 17 years old and has had tummy issues since she was a kitten, (Runt of the litter, taken from her mama too soon.) So, it's pretty normal for her. She's just having a particularly bad phase at the moment. So, lots of cleaning up after her to do. It's a good thing I love her...

And hubby says hi. And "Pax Utopia." Although if that's wrong it's probably because I asked the question wrong.

I've been playing Jill Smith, her adopted sister Sarah.. and Isaiah Gavigan in La Fiesta Tech recently.. I encountered something I hadn't before. Isaiah isn't attracted to Jill what-so-ever (They have negative chemistry) but when she checked him out, she thought he was super hot. This never happens for me, it's almost always mutual dis-taste. So her sister, Sarah and Isaiah hit it off and got engaged. Jill started rolling wants to kiss, go on a date and even fall in love with her sister's fiancé! (Shes a romance sim) has this one-sided love ever happen to anyone else before? It's def. making things interesting!!

I have a situation like that too, coincidentally, it's also between sisters and one guy. Georgia really likes Katherine's boyfriend, and maybe due to ACR (I'm not sure how far she'd go without that mod), she keeps trying to act on it. Once, she tried leaping into his arms. He took a step back instead of catching her, and she fell on the floor. She keeps persevering, though.