lazarusinashes
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Better Autonomy Beta [OUTDATED]
🕑 Added 2021-08-26 18:21:49 +0000 UTC
Autonomy is a nightmare in Sims—for me, at least. During my first (successful) legacy challenge, I turned off autonomy for over 400 interactions using MC Tuner because the whole thing drove me nuts. Stop playing games. Stop watching TV. Stop mixing drinks.
I was content with that for a while, but I noticed that when playing University, the dorm felt kind of... lifeless. My roommates talked to each other all day, which is what I wanted, but I also wanted it to feel like people actually lived there. I began work on a mod that would allow me to enable autonomy for certain actions without Sims obsessing over them. That became this mod: Better Autonomy.
The Bullet Point List
Short for time? Here's what this mod does:
- Alters Sims' autonomous behavior, making them more likely to socialize and build skills rather than mindless actions that build fun
- Less Chess, video game playing, and TV watching without having to disable autonomy for them entirely
- Time limits on TV; Sims cannot endlessly watch TV and will be forced to exit out after an hour
- More useful skill building; gardening, handiness, and cooking are prioritized
Overview
Better Autonomy does a number of things to Sims, autonomy, and interactions. Put simply, is drastically shifts how Sims prioritize activities and puts a much stronger emphasis on socialization and skill building. Sims are now far more likely to talk to others and far less likely to do mindless activities like watching TV. They also put a much stronger focus on useful skill building—that is, they'll be more drawn to practicing writing, handiness, cooking, and gardening, among other things.
The goal of this mod was to leave these interactions available for autonomy when Sims have nothing to do without them prioritizing doing them. No more finding a mod to disable every single action you find annoying.
How It Works
This mod operates with two mechanisms: the first is a global trait that is added to every Sim in the game. This trait is hidden and alters a Sim's autonomous behavior. Traits can be used for autonomy modifiers. For example, each age in the game has a "trait" and, for some reason, Maxis saw fit to make every Age Trait have an autonomy modifier to build fun. Better Autonomy's global Trait reduces Sims' draw to fun building actions by 50% and raises their draw to socialization by 400%.
The second is that it modifies StaticCommodities. These are incredibly complicated, but in short, these files list how much a Sim wants to do something, which is represented by ad_data. Better Autonomy lowers the ad_data for several interactions—watching TV, playing Chess, making coffee, dancing to the stereo, and more.
This beta version also, as stated, introduces time limits to the TV by adding code to prevent Sims from mindlessly watching it forever. If they break away from a conversation to watch something, they'll only do it between 30 minutes to an hour, at which point they'll turn it off and do something else.
It also disables "Watch Toddler" and "Check Toddler (Minor)" to prevent Sims from constantly watching and checking on toddlers for absolutely no reason. Can you tell it's a pet peeve?
More is planned for the future.
Potential Conflicts
This mod alters the following files:
- 51077643!00000000!0000000000006B51.StaticCommodity_Chess.StaticCommodityTuning
- 51077643!00000000!0000000000007EB2.staticCommodity_PlayMusicalInstrument.StaticCommodityTuning
- 51077643!00000000!00000000000066A9.StaticCommodity_Dance_Stereo.StaticCommodityTuning
- 51077643!00000000!000000000000699A.StaticCommodity_Watch_TV.StaticCommodityTuning
- 51077643!00000000!0000000000004033.StaticCommodity_Socialize.StaticCommodityTuning
- 51077643!00000000!0000000000008693.staticCommodity_PlayGames.StaticCommodityTuning
- 51077643!00000000!00000000000066B2.StaticCommodity_MakeCoffeeTea.StaticCommodityTuning
- 51077643!00000000!0000000000006C77.StaticCommodity_UseComputer.StaticCommodityTuning
- E882D22F!00000000!00000000000250EA.TYAE_Watch_Toddler.InteractionTuning
- E882D22F!00000000!00000000000266CD.sim_Toddler_CheckToddler_Minor.InteractionTuning
- E882D22F!00000000!000000000000389B.tv_PickChannelAutonomously.InteractionTuning
- E882D22F!00000000!000000000000862B.tv_WatchCurrentChannelAutonomously.InteractionTuning
- E882D22F!0000000B!000000000001F8B9.tv_MovieWatchCurrentChannelAutonomously.InteractionTuning
- Every TV station (except the one that came with Dream Home Decorator).
Installation
- Download and unzip the file attached
- Put it in your mods folder not more than one folder deep
- That's it!
Please keep in mind that this mod is in Beta. More will be added and if necessary, fine tuning will as well! :)
EDIT: Quick update to add the UseComputer StaticCommodity. Please redownload if you already have.
EDIT 2: one more round of additions. Sorry for the last minute changes! I added a few StaticCommodities. I lowered the ad_data for molding clay bobs, grabbing drinks, and a few other things and raised it for gardening and writing. No need to redownload if you're satisfied with the mod already; this is just some fine tuning.
EDIT 3: fixed an error that would prevent Sims from dancing at the night club or swimming at the pool. Optional if you've already downloaded.
Outdated—download the up-to-date version here.
Comments
Adam Washington
Definitely can look into that!
instantmagic
Feed back: I love this mod so much. However, can you fix the talking to plants so much? Or is it linked to socials?
Adam Washington
Definitely not good! Thanks for the feedback.
I finally updated my game, so I'm able to try this mod out. So far, I do really like it but I have a little feedback. I love that my sims focus on socializing more instead of dropping their conversations for dumb things. It did happen a couple of times though. They would stop talking to rush to the computer to chat. I also really love that guests don't rush to the TV or other fun activities and instead, they focus on socializing. That makes sense, you know, because in real life it would be rude to go to a friend's house just to ignore them and watch TV. However, I do think that socializing is prioritized too much. I noticed my sims would prioritize talking to each other instead of taking care of their needs. One morning, my sim woke up with orange hygiene, yellow bladder and food. Normally, he would go to the bathroom or eat first. He ignored all of that just to chat with his husband. Also, I went to the gym and not a single sim was working out. Everyone was just standing around talking to each other.
