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- Sims Autonomy Tunings
Replies: 9 (Who?), Viewed: 1297 times.
#1
2nd Aug 2020 at 9:05 AM
Posts: 845
Thanks: 369 in 3 Posts
Sims Autonomy Tunings
This thread is dedicated to Autonomy tuning fans. Let's brainstorm, troubleshoot and support each other in our attempts to make active and townie sims do more autonomously the actions of our choice.Please share your ideas, work-in-progress projects and testing files and let's work on them!
My own tuning file which started this discussion (and where @jje1000 originally suggested the creation of this very thread) can be found here. It's an override ITUN file (to put in the Overrides folder) for @Buzzler's Moar Interactions mod. It pushes townies to read skill books more autonomously because I found it *very* frustrating after 7 generations of sims in my save, to keep seeing 90-day old townies stuck at level 3 of their careers and only at level 1 in just a few skills. Stop idling, start reading!
What would YOU like to see happen more autonomously in your game?
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Mad Poster
#2
2nd Aug 2020 at 2:13 PM
Last edited by jje1000 : 2nd Aug 2020 at 2:41 PM.
Posts: 3,443
Thanks: 937 in 5 Posts
As someone who likes to play the Sims 3 really more as a community simulator and more as the sim's 'conscience' rather than as an all-intrusive god, my personal dream is:
I think this could end up being a whole suite of Tuning mods + other minor mods/NRAAS settings to improve the game in those manners. They could be divided into several parts:
On the note of Needs Fulfillment- I always found it strange that sims basically enter existence failure after a day or two of neglect- to this end:
Also- I wonder if any of Thalassicus's Sims Enhanced mod might come in handy? https://modthesims.info/d/489873/si...anced-pack.html
Just some thoughts!
- Have sims live their lives as autonomously as possible. They should be able to run their daily routine on their own- keep their needs relatively high (under normal circumstances), go to work, and pay their bills on their own. Autonomously, sims should be able to satisfy most of Maslow's hierarchy of needs on their own.
- The player's role is to act on their wants, and introduce disruptions into their lives. We are that spur-of-the-moment whim! We don't need to micromanage lizard brain activity!
- Sims should engage in self-improvement, and if possible, some level of self-actualization towards their aspiration.
- Not sure if it's completely autonomous atm, but sims should be able to initiate major relational changes in-person without StoryProgression abstractly assigning relationships. Lots of in-Sim drama, please!
- Some autonomous actions sims currently overprioritize (i.e. the computer, smart phone, books) should be toned down so that they do more things
- Active Sims should be able to travel around with their families- Arsil has an unfinished mod here that can do some of it, but I think it needs some tuning to optimize (and possibly expand on).
- Preset NRAAS settings could be helpful as well, since it's sort of overwhelming to find optimal settings (took a few months to develop something for my own world).
I think this could end up being a whole suite of Tuning mods + other minor mods/NRAAS settings to improve the game in those manners. They could be divided into several parts:
- Needs
- Self-fulfillment (Aspirations, careers & skills)
- Relationships
- Miscellaneous (Other tuning tweaks + mods to improve the experience)
On the note of Needs Fulfillment- I always found it strange that sims basically enter existence failure after a day or two of neglect- to this end:
- I think the needs bars need to be rethought- possibly extended to give sims more wiggle room since humans tend to be more durable.
- For instance, the sleep bar. Currently, sims will basically get completely exhausted in a day- but I think that 1 day should take 50% off the bar, and add a hefty negative moodlet (Tired, with an even more extreme Exhausted coming in at maybe 25%)- this allows sims to pull off all-nighters, but at the cost of their mood!
- Needs fulfillment below the halfway point should usually take priority over other tasks, and could be tweaked to be filled faster.
Also- I wonder if any of Thalassicus's Sims Enhanced mod might come in handy? https://modthesims.info/d/489873/si...anced-pack.html
Just some thoughts!
#3
2nd Aug 2020 at 7:59 PM
Last edited by MissPat : 5th Aug 2020 at 4:38 AM.
Posts: 845
Thanks: 369 in 3 Posts
Thank you for your first post! Going to see how we can work on some of your ideas:
1) "...likes to play the Sims 3 really more as a community simulator and more as the sim's 'conscience'...": if you were down to 2-3 words, how would you call your gameplay? My gameplay is different because I still like to heavily direct my active sims, but I do want townies to do well, so for instance, I dubbed my gameplay "towniecracy" so people quickly grasp the core idea.
2) Maslow autonomy tuning: I guess we could start by listing existing mods that influence 1) physiological needs; 2) housing needs, 3) social needs, 4) deamtree (aka wishes) needs (feeling of accomplishment); 5) lifetime wish achievement requirement needs (or create Maslow-flavored custom LTWs). What do you think?
3) "The player's role is to act on their wants, and introduce disruptions into their lives." Could you provide 2-3 practical examples of what you mean by that?
4) "Sims should engage in self-improvement, and if possible, some level of self-actualization towards their aspiration." That's a healthy take on autonomy! I've seen simmers who didn't want this at all. In your view, what would "autonomously engaging in self-improvement" and "autonomously engaging in some level of self-actualization" translate into, in terms of game content (new interactions? new moodlets? new scenarios? new pushes? new wishes and dreamtrees and LTWs?)
5) "sims should be able to initiate major relational changes in-person": would love a game content example here too if you can
6) "Some autonomous actions sims currently overprioritize (i.e. the computer, smart phone, books) should be toned down so that they do more things": could you list your top pet peeves? Then we can try to find existing tunings that modify these actions' autonomy - or create such ourselves.
7) Thanks for pointing out Arsil's work-in-progress mod! It's definitely interesting.
- One way I was looking at it, was with the creation of a "Macro", much like Buzzler has created a social macro in his Moar Interactions mod. It's basically a game functionality that pushes active sims (unsure about townies, have yet to troubleshoot that) to do a set of activities of your choice, in loop. I was thinking: how cool would it be, to only manually direct one active household sim at a time, and lock other active household sims on a "macro" loop for achieving stuff around the homeworld, pertaining to their unique traits? Like, if they had the "Natural Cook" trait, I'd expect those sims to be on a loop for visiting restaurant lots but also hunting down the ice cream and food trucks (and actually autonomously buying and eating ice creams / junk food, and having the related moodlets showing up when I switch back to them), or even going autonomously to that grill-a-thon event on Sunday. At random moments, you'd be like "where's that gourmet sim at, now?" And you would switch off your main active sim and zoom in on that household gourmet sim, and surprise yourself to find s.he's autonomously doing a picnic in the park. That's the kind of realism in the game that I feel can be achieved with the code and could be quite game-changing even in 2020.
- Of course, you'd define overarching "persona / archetype macros" like "foodie", "artsy", "intellectual", etc. so sims have a greater amount of things to loop through in the homeworld, rather than obsess over one activity type over and over again.
- Would this be close to your vision or?
8) "Preset NRAAS settings could be helpful as well" > would love to brainstorm that with you. How do you suggest we get crakin'? What do you think it would involve, to go from the massive documentation down to a ready-to-use file for users, that they can *still* configure at their heart's content? An override file? An online configurator generator? How would you call your first preset?
9) I like these 4 categories. Let's call the first one "physiological needs" because the 3 other categories are needs too, just not physiological ones.
10) "sims basically enter existence failure after a day or two of neglect": I think this is more of a question of gameplay preference and maybe this can be influenced by a hidden trait? Like, there are LTRs that basically grant sims to have less bladder issues, less need for sleep, etc. so I guess EA 'rigged' sims that way so you'd find it fun to spend hours in your game striving towards LTHPs acquisition and then spending it on these "rewards". What we could do is put all these LTR effects together into a fancy-named custom trait and tie that custom trait to custom moodlets the way you mentioned them.
11) "Needs fulfillment below the halfway point should usually take priority over other tasks, and could be tweaked to be filled faster." Do you know of a mod that somehow works like that? I'd need to look at the code not so much for the priority thing (though that'd help), but to see whether you can only *temporarily* achieve certain tasks faster, like, if your sim had a specific mood bar status / moodlet.
12) Thanks for the link to Thalassicus' mod! Is it addressing the point #11 above? It's definitely going to be helpful with various aforementioned points and our autonomy quest in general.
1) "...likes to play the Sims 3 really more as a community simulator and more as the sim's 'conscience'...": if you were down to 2-3 words, how would you call your gameplay? My gameplay is different because I still like to heavily direct my active sims, but I do want townies to do well, so for instance, I dubbed my gameplay "towniecracy" so people quickly grasp the core idea.
2) Maslow autonomy tuning: I guess we could start by listing existing mods that influence 1) physiological needs; 2) housing needs, 3) social needs, 4) deamtree (aka wishes) needs (feeling of accomplishment); 5) lifetime wish achievement requirement needs (or create Maslow-flavored custom LTWs). What do you think?
3) "The player's role is to act on their wants, and introduce disruptions into their lives." Could you provide 2-3 practical examples of what you mean by that?
4) "Sims should engage in self-improvement, and if possible, some level of self-actualization towards their aspiration." That's a healthy take on autonomy! I've seen simmers who didn't want this at all. In your view, what would "autonomously engaging in self-improvement" and "autonomously engaging in some level of self-actualization" translate into, in terms of game content (new interactions? new moodlets? new scenarios? new pushes? new wishes and dreamtrees and LTWs?)
5) "sims should be able to initiate major relational changes in-person": would love a game content example here too if you can
6) "Some autonomous actions sims currently overprioritize (i.e. the computer, smart phone, books) should be toned down so that they do more things": could you list your top pet peeves? Then we can try to find existing tunings that modify these actions' autonomy - or create such ourselves.
7) Thanks for pointing out Arsil's work-in-progress mod! It's definitely interesting.
- One way I was looking at it, was with the creation of a "Macro", much like Buzzler has created a social macro in his Moar Interactions mod. It's basically a game functionality that pushes active sims (unsure about townies, have yet to troubleshoot that) to do a set of activities of your choice, in loop. I was thinking: how cool would it be, to only manually direct one active household sim at a time, and lock other active household sims on a "macro" loop for achieving stuff around the homeworld, pertaining to their unique traits? Like, if they had the "Natural Cook" trait, I'd expect those sims to be on a loop for visiting restaurant lots but also hunting down the ice cream and food trucks (and actually autonomously buying and eating ice creams / junk food, and having the related moodlets showing up when I switch back to them), or even going autonomously to that grill-a-thon event on Sunday. At random moments, you'd be like "where's that gourmet sim at, now?" And you would switch off your main active sim and zoom in on that household gourmet sim, and surprise yourself to find s.he's autonomously doing a picnic in the park. That's the kind of realism in the game that I feel can be achieved with the code and could be quite game-changing even in 2020.
- Of course, you'd define overarching "persona / archetype macros" like "foodie", "artsy", "intellectual", etc. so sims have a greater amount of things to loop through in the homeworld, rather than obsess over one activity type over and over again.
- Would this be close to your vision or?
8) "Preset NRAAS settings could be helpful as well" > would love to brainstorm that with you. How do you suggest we get crakin'? What do you think it would involve, to go from the massive documentation down to a ready-to-use file for users, that they can *still* configure at their heart's content? An override file? An online configurator generator? How would you call your first preset?
9) I like these 4 categories. Let's call the first one "physiological needs" because the 3 other categories are needs too, just not physiological ones.
10) "sims basically enter existence failure after a day or two of neglect": I think this is more of a question of gameplay preference and maybe this can be influenced by a hidden trait? Like, there are LTRs that basically grant sims to have less bladder issues, less need for sleep, etc. so I guess EA 'rigged' sims that way so you'd find it fun to spend hours in your game striving towards LTHPs acquisition and then spending it on these "rewards". What we could do is put all these LTR effects together into a fancy-named custom trait and tie that custom trait to custom moodlets the way you mentioned them.
11) "Needs fulfillment below the halfway point should usually take priority over other tasks, and could be tweaked to be filled faster." Do you know of a mod that somehow works like that? I'd need to look at the code not so much for the priority thing (though that'd help), but to see whether you can only *temporarily* achieve certain tasks faster, like, if your sim had a specific mood bar status / moodlet.
12) Thanks for the link to Thalassicus' mod! Is it addressing the point #11 above? It's definitely going to be helpful with various aforementioned points and our autonomy quest in general.
Field Researcher
#4
2nd Aug 2020 at 9:19 PM
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
10) "sims basically enter existence failure after a day or two of neglect": I think this is more of a question of gameplay preference and maybe this can be influenced by a hidden trait? Like, there are LTRs that basically grant sims to have less bladder issues, less need for sleep, etc. so I guess EA 'rigged' sims that way so you'd find it fun to spend hours in your game striving towards LTHPs acquisition and then spending it on these "rewards". What we could do is put all these LTR effects together into a fancy-named custom trait and tie that custom trait to custom moodlets the way you mentioned them. 11) "Needs fulfillment below the halfway point should usually take priority over other tasks, and could be tweaked to be filled faster." Do you know of a mod that somehow works like that? I'd need to look at the code not so much for the priority thing (though that'd help), but to see whether you can only *temporarily* achieve certain tasks faster, like, if your sim had a specific mood bar status / moodlet. |
I'd be interested in helping with these mods if they need scripting! We talked over at NRaas (I'm aede_ofThuul, hi!) about my not being a fan of LTRs, and I often use MC to just give my sims the need-decay-slowing LTRs as soon as I create them, so a mod that handles that automatically would be nice to have. From a quick look into the code it looks a little challenging to do this as a non-core mod, but I'd be willing to give it a shot!
#5
2nd Aug 2020 at 10:07 PM
Posts: 845
Thanks: 369 in 3 Posts
Hey there! I remember the forum thread in question, I actually refer back to it every now and then!
Great to have you join the Autonomy Unite :D. Let's hear back from jje1000 and evaluate our best next step.
Great to have you join the Autonomy Unite :D. Let's hear back from jje1000 and evaluate our best next step.
Mad Poster
#6
3rd Aug 2020 at 4:06 PM
Last edited by jje1000 : 4th Aug 2020 at 1:35 PM.
Posts: 3,443
Thanks: 937 in 5 Posts
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
Thank you for your first post! Going to see how we can work on some of your ideas: |
Thanks! More answers below:
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
1) "...likes to play the Sims 3 really more as a community simulator and more as the sim's 'conscience'...": if you were down to 2-3 words, how would you call your gameplay? My gameplay is different because I still like to heavily direct my active sims, but I do want townies to do well, so for instance, I dubbed my gameplay "towniecracy" so people quickly grasp the core idea. |
I would call it "hands-off sustainability" - you can have the option to directly control your active sims, but I want non-active/uncontrolled sims (even in the same household) to be able to not complain about depleted needs or spend all their time playing on their phone. Currently the autonomous baseline for active households is generally unstable- I hope that active households can be made self-sustainable even without player input.
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
2) Maslow autonomy tuning: I guess we could start by listing existing mods that influence 1) physiological needs; 2) housing needs, 3) social needs, 4) deamtree (aka wishes) needs (feeling of accomplishment); 5) lifetime wish achievement requirement needs (or create Maslow-flavored custom LTWs). What do you think? |
Maybe making a public chart and categorizing behaviour accordingly could be a start?
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
4) "Sims should engage in self-improvement, and if possible, some level of self-actualization towards their aspiration." That's a healthy take on autonomy! I've seen simmers who didn't want this at all. In your view, what would "autonomously engaging in self-improvement" and "autonomously engaging in some level of self-actualization" translate into, in terms of game content (new interactions? new moodlets? new scenarios? new pushes? new wishes and dreamtrees and LTWs?) |
Basically what you want for townies- more autonomy! Active Sims should also work on their skills on their own, and maybe subtly be pushed towards doing actions that fulfill LTW requirements- if that's possible at all.
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
5) "sims should be able to initiate major relational changes in-person": would love a game content example here too if you can |
Not 100% sure on this, but I don't think sims can autonomously become engaged or married on their own with SP assigning relationships. While I don't think that this needs to happen to active sims, it would be nice to be able to see sims in the world doing this on their own. Pretty sure there are mods that exist for this, but we could integrate and tweak them into ours. Maybe as a start, we could start looking for autonomy mods to use as references (i.e. on Simsasylum)?
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
6) "Some autonomous actions sims currently overprioritize (i.e. the computer, smart phone, books) should be toned down so that they do more things": could you list your top pet peeves? Then we can try to find existing tunings that modify these actions' autonomy - or create such ourselves. |
Maybe another chart would be useful- maybe making notes of what sims seem to overprioritize/underprioritize autonomously. I think the bigger issue is tied with active sims being autonomously housebound outside of work, unless you use Arsil's mod.
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
7) Thanks for pointing out Arsil's work-in-progress mod! It's definitely interesting. - One way I was looking at it, was with the creation of a "Macro", much like Buzzler has created a social macro in his Moar Interactions mod. It's basically a game functionality that pushes active sims (unsure about townies, have yet to troubleshoot that) to do a set of activities of your choice, in loop. I was thinking: how cool would it be, to only manually direct one active household sim at a time, and lock other active household sims on a "macro" loop for achieving stuff around the homeworld, pertaining to their unique traits? Like, if they had the "Natural Cook" trait, I'd expect those sims to be on a loop for visiting restaurant lots but also hunting down the ice cream and food trucks (and actually autonomously buying and eating ice creams / junk food, and having the related moodlets showing up when I switch back to them), or even going autonomously to that grill-a-thon event on Sunday. At random moments, you'd be like "where's that gourmet sim at, now?" And you would switch off your main active sim and zoom in on that household gourmet sim, and surprise yourself to find s.he's autonomously doing a picnic in the park. That's the kind of realism in the game that I feel can be achieved with the code and could be quite game-changing even in 2020. - Of course, you'd define overarching "persona / archetype macros" like "foodie", "artsy", "intellectual", etc. so sims have a greater amount of things to loop through in the homeworld, rather than obsess over one activity type over and over again. - Would this be close to your vision or? |
Unfortunately Arsil isn't active anymore, so the existing mod is all we can look at, unless we can get someone to help expand it. I totally agree with traits being useful for behaviour as well, maybe friendships being useful as well (i.e. an autonomous outing with friends to the park). Would agree that macros could be interesting (i.e. fulfill needs, traits-related behaviour).
I also wonder if there could be an autonomous macro that pushes sims into performing certain chains of actions (i.e. when directed to go to sleep, sims brush their teeth first).
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
8) "Preset NRAAS settings could be helpful as well" > would love to brainstorm that with you. How do you suggest we get crakin'? What do you think it would involve, to go from the massive documentation down to a ready-to-use file for users, that they can *still* configure at their heart's content? An override file? An online configurator generator? How would you call your first preset? |
I would say a preset file with some documentation should work- I have one that I think could be a good start, I'll see if I can upload it.
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
10) "sims basically enter existence failure after a day or two of neglect": I think this is more of a question of gameplay preference and maybe this can be influenced by a hidden trait? Like, there are LTRs that basically grant sims to have less bladder issues, less need for sleep, etc. so I guess EA 'rigged' sims that way so you'd find it fun to spend hours in your game striving towards LTHPs acquisition and then spending it on these "rewards". What we could do is put all these LTR effects together into a fancy-named custom trait and tie that custom trait to custom moodlets the way you mentioned them. |
I personally think that LTRs are gameplay breaking (and I don't how savegame-friendly custom traits are)- but there should be a bit more wiggle room (with associated penalities) in the tuning of the needs just to make things more realistic.
Quote: Originally posted by MissPat
11) "Needs fulfillment below the halfway point should usually take priority over other tasks, and could be tweaked to be filled faster." Do you know of a mod that somehow works like that? I'd need to look at the code not so much for the priority thing (though that'd help), but to see whether you can only *temporarily* achieve certain tasks faster, like, if your sim had a specific mood bar status / moodlet. 12) Thanks for the link to Thalassicus' mod! Is it addressing the point #11 above? It's definitely going to be helpful with various aforementioned points and our autonomy quest in general. |
Not really, but I think there's tuning concerning fast needs are depleted, and when moodlets are rewarded. I think we may be able to work within the existing non-core game boundaries for this.
Thalassicus' mod is depreciated, but it could be a good investigation into what things are changed.
Let's see if this chart works: https://ethercalc.org/nyicwgq4fcym
Can anyone else add more things to it?
Field Researcher
#7
3rd Aug 2020 at 5:42 PM
Last edited by lizcandor : 3rd Aug 2020 at 6:57 PM.
About making major relational changes autonomous - I'm pretty sure you could change that by just changing the SocialData and ITUN for the go steady/propose marriage/get married interactions? SocialData can definitely be changed with a script mod, which in my opinion is easier to do en masse than editing XML files and also avoids conflict with other SocialData edits. I've done that recently for a different purpose, so I can say with certainty that it's possible and I know how to do it; and I imagine it's possible to do the same for ITUN modding, to change the advertising of the interaction to something that makes sense once it's enabled autonomously.
Overprioritizing of actions could also definitely be changed with tuning mods, or with a scripting mod that changes interaction advertising if I can figure out how to do that.
About the safety of custom traits - I'm working on a mod that uses them so I've been thinking about this. The conclusion I came to was I'm going to figure out how the mods I've seen that make their own cheat codes do that, and then add an "uninstall mod" cheat that removes the custom trait and substitutes a standard one for every sim in the world that has it, so it's safe to remove the mod afterwards. Haven't tested that yet but it seems like it should work! Also though, I'm not sure a custom trait is the best way to mod motive decay, from what I've seen of how it's controlled; but we could change the motive decay multipliers for the LTRs with a tuning mod and then automatically apply them to every sim, that's the simplest fix I can see. If we want to leave the LTRs alone I think we'd have to somehow freeze the standard motive decay entirely (could check how NRaas SP does that), and then create our own motive decay system in parallel.
That looks great! About fulfilling wants - since there are some that just aren't possible to do autonomously (like using build/buy mode) I wonder if it would be useful to have a notification pop up whenever a sim outside the active household gets a want like that so you can switch to them and fulfill it if desired. Since I'm pretty sure non-active sims don't get wants at all without SP's dream catcher enabled, it would also be possible to control how many sims are being monitored like this so it's not overwhelming.
Overprioritizing of actions could also definitely be changed with tuning mods, or with a scripting mod that changes interaction advertising if I can figure out how to do that.
About the safety of custom traits - I'm working on a mod that uses them so I've been thinking about this. The conclusion I came to was I'm going to figure out how the mods I've seen that make their own cheat codes do that, and then add an "uninstall mod" cheat that removes the custom trait and substitutes a standard one for every sim in the world that has it, so it's safe to remove the mod afterwards. Haven't tested that yet but it seems like it should work! Also though, I'm not sure a custom trait is the best way to mod motive decay, from what I've seen of how it's controlled; but we could change the motive decay multipliers for the LTRs with a tuning mod and then automatically apply them to every sim, that's the simplest fix I can see. If we want to leave the LTRs alone I think we'd have to somehow freeze the standard motive decay entirely (could check how NRaas SP does that), and then create our own motive decay system in parallel.
Quote: Originally posted by jje1000
Let's see if this chart works: https://ethercalc.org/nyicwgq4fcym |
That looks great! About fulfilling wants - since there are some that just aren't possible to do autonomously (like using build/buy mode) I wonder if it would be useful to have a notification pop up whenever a sim outside the active household gets a want like that so you can switch to them and fulfill it if desired. Since I'm pretty sure non-active sims don't get wants at all without SP's dream catcher enabled, it would also be possible to control how many sims are being monitored like this so it's not overwhelming.
#8
5th Aug 2020 at 4:38 AM
Last edited by MissPat : 5th Aug 2020 at 4:53 AM.
Posts: 845
Thanks: 369 in 3 Posts
For @jje1000:
1) "I would call it "hands-off sustainability"" - got your concept! Thanks for explaining.
2) "Maybe making a public chart and categorizing behaviour accordingly could be a start?" - Works for me!
3) "Active Sims should also work on their skills on their own, and maybe subtly be pushed towards doing actions that fulfill LTW requirements- if that's possible at all." Gotcha! Have you ever used AwesomeMod? It has a "Supreme Commander" feature which is basically a macro with multiple options. One of the macros is called "career & skills" and it pushes your active sims to work on tasks pertaining to their career & skills. Also: school stuff (homework mainly).
4) "I don't think sims can autonomously become engaged or married on their own with SP assigning relationships [...] it would be nice to be able to see sims in the world doing this on their own." I actually have this happen in my game all the time, SP pushes townies to date and a big chunk of them end up hosting an engagement party and another chunk of those end up autonomously getting married and even autonomously getting the female sim pregnant.
5) "Maybe as a start, we could start looking for autonomy mods to use as references (i.e. on Simsasylum)?" Sounds good to me! Love Simsasylum. Do you want to use Ethercalc for that purpose? Please let me know where I can contribute and I'll get started!
6) "[M]aking notes of what sims seem to overprioritize/underprioritize autonomously." I'd see the solution closer to defining what *we* want sims to overprioritize/underprioritize. I guess we want them to overprioritize little things like brushing their teeth, washing their hands (especially after going to the bathroom!), making their beds, etc. Tiny details that would make a difference in terms of realistic gameplay.
- "I think the bigger issue is tied with active sims being autonomously housebound outside of work [...]. I totally agree with traits being useful for behaviour as well." Glad we agree on this! I actually believe traits and LTWs are at the centre of autonomy tuning. Traits influence sims' behavior in a big way and LTWs help give a purpose to their behavior.
- "maybe friendships being useful as well (i.e. an autonomous outing with friends to the park)." I see my townies go to the park with family & friends constantly, do you have the Nraas SP "Relationships" module? I can see what you mean though, that this could be pushed on the active household as well (I have yet to see if the mod allows it somehow, with a setting). Regardless - what do you mean by "being useful", like it could generate some new positive, relationship moodlets?
- "I also wonder if there could be an autonomous macro that pushes sims into performing certain chains of actions (i.e. when directed to go to sleep, sims brush their teeth first)." That's a very good idea, definitely to troubleshoot.
- "have one that I think could be a good start, I'll see if I can upload it." Yes please, upload your preset file! Curious to know what you have.
- "I personally think that LTRs are gameplay breaking (and I don't how savegame-friendly custom traits are)- but there should be a bit more wiggle room (with associated penalities) in the tuning of the needs just to make things more realistic." I see what you mean.
- "Thalassicus' mod is depreciated, but it could be a good investigation into what things are changed." Sounds good.
- The chart looks great! I agree 100% with the current content. I was able to add and remove test content to it without a problem.
For @lizcandor
1) Regarding SocialData: could you potentially look into Nraas SP Relationship code, see if it could serve as an inspiration for pushes on the active household?
2) "we'd have to somehow freeze the standard motive decay entirely (could check how NRaas SP does that), and then create our own motive decay system in parallel" I think that'd be a great first step! Based on the outcome, we can decide whether or not we should shift to a custom trait.
3) "since there are some [wants] that just aren't possible to do autonomously (like using build/buy mode) I wonder if it would be useful to have a notification pop up whenever a sim outside the active household gets a want like that so you can switch to them and fulfill it if desired." Personally I'm more hands off with townies and avoid switching to them at all costs so I'd not use it, but maybe that's a perfect fit for your gameplay and/or jje1000's?
- "Since I'm pretty sure non-active sims don't get wants at all without SP's dream catcher enabled, it would also be possible to control how many sims are being monitored like this so it's not overwhelming." I would suggest you look into AwesomeMod's code, they have a "Radar" and "Chosen Sim" features that sound a bit like what you describe. I did have townies who had upwards of 15K accumulated LTHPs mainly from getting married and having kids, so I would think non-active sims do get those bigger "life events" wants somehow sticking long enough to accumulate the related LTHPs? Have you noticed anything like that in your game?
1) "I would call it "hands-off sustainability"" - got your concept! Thanks for explaining.
2) "Maybe making a public chart and categorizing behaviour accordingly could be a start?" - Works for me!
3) "Active Sims should also work on their skills on their own, and maybe subtly be pushed towards doing actions that fulfill LTW requirements- if that's possible at all." Gotcha! Have you ever used AwesomeMod? It has a "Supreme Commander" feature which is basically a macro with multiple options. One of the macros is called "career & skills" and it pushes your active sims to work on tasks pertaining to their career & skills. Also: school stuff (homework mainly).
4) "I don't think sims can autonomously become engaged or married on their own with SP assigning relationships [...] it would be nice to be able to see sims in the world doing this on their own." I actually have this happen in my game all the time, SP pushes townies to date and a big chunk of them end up hosting an engagement party and another chunk of those end up autonomously getting married and even autonomously getting the female sim pregnant.
5) "Maybe as a start, we could start looking for autonomy mods to use as references (i.e. on Simsasylum)?" Sounds good to me! Love Simsasylum. Do you want to use Ethercalc for that purpose? Please let me know where I can contribute and I'll get started!
6) "[M]aking notes of what sims seem to overprioritize/underprioritize autonomously." I'd see the solution closer to defining what *we* want sims to overprioritize/underprioritize. I guess we want them to overprioritize little things like brushing their teeth, washing their hands (especially after going to the bathroom!), making their beds, etc. Tiny details that would make a difference in terms of realistic gameplay.
- "I think the bigger issue is tied with active sims being autonomously housebound outside of work [...]. I totally agree with traits being useful for behaviour as well." Glad we agree on this! I actually believe traits and LTWs are at the centre of autonomy tuning. Traits influence sims' behavior in a big way and LTWs help give a purpose to their behavior.
- "maybe friendships being useful as well (i.e. an autonomous outing with friends to the park)." I see my townies go to the park with family & friends constantly, do you have the Nraas SP "Relationships" module? I can see what you mean though, that this could be pushed on the active household as well (I have yet to see if the mod allows it somehow, with a setting). Regardless - what do you mean by "being useful", like it could generate some new positive, relationship moodlets?
- "I also wonder if there could be an autonomous macro that pushes sims into performing certain chains of actions (i.e. when directed to go to sleep, sims brush their teeth first)." That's a very good idea, definitely to troubleshoot.
- "have one that I think could be a good start, I'll see if I can upload it." Yes please, upload your preset file! Curious to know what you have.
- "I personally think that LTRs are gameplay breaking (and I don't how savegame-friendly custom traits are)- but there should be a bit more wiggle room (with associated penalities) in the tuning of the needs just to make things more realistic." I see what you mean.
- "Thalassicus' mod is depreciated, but it could be a good investigation into what things are changed." Sounds good.
- The chart looks great! I agree 100% with the current content. I was able to add and remove test content to it without a problem.
For @lizcandor
1) Regarding SocialData: could you potentially look into Nraas SP Relationship code, see if it could serve as an inspiration for pushes on the active household?
2) "we'd have to somehow freeze the standard motive decay entirely (could check how NRaas SP does that), and then create our own motive decay system in parallel" I think that'd be a great first step! Based on the outcome, we can decide whether or not we should shift to a custom trait.
3) "since there are some [wants] that just aren't possible to do autonomously (like using build/buy mode) I wonder if it would be useful to have a notification pop up whenever a sim outside the active household gets a want like that so you can switch to them and fulfill it if desired." Personally I'm more hands off with townies and avoid switching to them at all costs so I'd not use it, but maybe that's a perfect fit for your gameplay and/or jje1000's?
- "Since I'm pretty sure non-active sims don't get wants at all without SP's dream catcher enabled, it would also be possible to control how many sims are being monitored like this so it's not overwhelming." I would suggest you look into AwesomeMod's code, they have a "Radar" and "Chosen Sim" features that sound a bit like what you describe. I did have townies who had upwards of 15K accumulated LTHPs mainly from getting married and having kids, so I would think non-active sims do get those bigger "life events" wants somehow sticking long enough to accumulate the related LTHPs? Have you noticed anything like that in your game?
Field Researcher
#9
5th Aug 2020 at 2:35 PM
1) I've used Woohooer's method for action data editing to change the availability and rules of interactions without directly editing the SocialData XML in the other mod I'm working on, and yesterday I found what appears to be a similar method for editing interaction tuning without using the ITUN file, which I've attempted but haven't gotten it to work yet (not sure if the method itself is the problem, or if I just broke something unrelated in the process of inserting it into my mod - I suspect the latter). I haven't looked at how SP does pushes, though; actually I feel like I've seen "push" used to mean different things by different people/in different contexts, what do you mean exactly? Encouraging sims to do it autonomously depending on what commodity kinds apply, or something specific to SP?
2) Cool, I'll give freezing motives a try when I get time! Might not make real progress until this weekend, got to get that education I will report back!
3) I've played rotationally since starting to use the NRaas mods and like to switch households whenever the currently active one is doing something boring, so getting a notice when one of my rotational households needs me to switch over and make them do something they can't do autonomously would be good for me; I prefer to only make big purchases like cars and appliances when my sims roll a want for them instead of making that decision from on high (I believe that's the same style @jje1000 was describing) so not missing those wants when I'm "away" would be nice. It wouldn't be that useful if you don't play that way, though, yeah. I've never tried AwesomeMod, but SP handles what I'm describing if you make a caste of sims whose dreamtrees you want to preserve (for me that's just the rotational sims caste) and turn on "retain dreams and promises" for it.
2) Cool, I'll give freezing motives a try when I get time! Might not make real progress until this weekend, got to get that education I will report back!
3) I've played rotationally since starting to use the NRaas mods and like to switch households whenever the currently active one is doing something boring, so getting a notice when one of my rotational households needs me to switch over and make them do something they can't do autonomously would be good for me; I prefer to only make big purchases like cars and appliances when my sims roll a want for them instead of making that decision from on high (I believe that's the same style @jje1000 was describing) so not missing those wants when I'm "away" would be nice. It wouldn't be that useful if you don't play that way, though, yeah. I've never tried AwesomeMod, but SP handles what I'm describing if you make a caste of sims whose dreamtrees you want to preserve (for me that's just the rotational sims caste) and turn on "retain dreams and promises" for it.
#10
6th Aug 2020 at 12:10 AM
Posts: 845
Thanks: 369 in 3 Posts
1) "yesterday I found what appears to be a similar method for editing interaction tuning without using the ITUN file, which I've attempted but haven't gotten it to work yet" -> Fingers crossed you figure it out eventually!
- "I've seen "push" used to mean different things by different people/in different contexts, what do you mean exactly?" I mean something specific to SP. Essentially, when I switch to a townie family and pause the game, some of the household members have SP leftover queued "collecting" actions. More details here: https://www.nraas.net/StoryProgress...#What-is-a-Push
2) No rush! Keep us posted on how it went.
3) Thanks for the extra insights - it makes sense why you'd want these notifications! I think I could warm up to them as long as they can be toggled on and off (optional type feature).
- "I've seen "push" used to mean different things by different people/in different contexts, what do you mean exactly?" I mean something specific to SP. Essentially, when I switch to a townie family and pause the game, some of the household members have SP leftover queued "collecting" actions. More details here: https://www.nraas.net/StoryProgress...#What-is-a-Push
2) No rush! Keep us posted on how it went.
3) Thanks for the extra insights - it makes sense why you'd want these notifications! I think I could warm up to them as long as they can be toggled on and off (optional type feature).
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