lazarusinashes
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Better Autonomy Preview
🕑 Added 2021-06-15 00:39:39 +0000 UTCIf you read the last update, you know that I'm working on a mod called Better Autonomy (used to be called "Less Fun Autonomy"). The way autonomy works now drives me absolutely nuts. Sims never talk to each other, they just watch TV and play chess.
I envisioned a typical family, left to its own devices, would function something like this: family members predominantly talk to each other. When they've talked for a while, they go do something productive on their own before watching TV or playing chess; in other words, the fun actions are something they do on the side rather than something they predominantly do.
And, happy to say, I've got it to work:
Before the mod, these two who are talking would stop talking and watch the TV. In fact, everyone would flock to the fucking TV. Now, these two talk and enjoy each other's company while one or two people watch it.
The dorm feels much more alive like that. Instead of having autonomy for all of these actions disabled, Sims can do them if they want to, but prioritize talking to one another.
Initially the mod functioned by editing the Autonomous Desire data (ad_data) for every StaticCommodity which is about as annoying as it sounds. It also barely worked. What I ended up doing instead is making a global trait that modifies their autonomy to prefer actions that build their social need x20 (a score_modifier). I also reduced the desire for Sims to perform fun actions by 20%. It needs some more balancing; you can never be sure with these things. So far, it seems to work just fine.
The big thing I want to figure out is getting them to be productive. For example, I want Sims to autonomously practice writing and prefer that over watching TV. Once I get that down, I can carry it over to other productive activities: painting, for example. Playing guitar is a fickle one as it builds fun and that's the only reason Sims even bother.
No telling when this will be done. It's been quite the undertaking.
Comments
Adam Washington
Oh yeah, Check Toddler is super annoying. There are two versions of it: there's an interaction for when the toddler is feeling fine and there's one for an emergency. I turned autonomy off for the former and it's so much better now. I can probably include that in the mod.
instantmagic
It certainly seems you are on the right track! And I think it would help with something that drives me batty. 2 sims conversing and one runs off to do something dumb like paint, instead of continuing their conversation. Plus, does everyone in the house have to stop and check on toddler? Same with a baby crying everyone goes to the crib and stands there! I wish I could assign one sim per house to autonomously look after the baby so everyone does not drop what they are doing. Anyway I wish you luck with it.
