Works in Progress Update

I took a week of staycation after July 4th and used the opportunity to work on some smaller 'proof of concept' mods that I may finish up into releases. I plan to post them here first when they're ready. Here they are in order of most-finished to not-working-yet.

Urban Dumpster

It's not really 'urban', but that's what I've been calling it since I like to put them in San Myshuno. Name subject to change.

When the normal Dumpster object is in Evergreen Harbor or on a Community Space lot, it generates a some activity all on its own, such as filling up with garbage (so you can look through it) and having NPC dumpster divers show up and dig around in it. When you put the Dumpster object on a non-Community Space lot in a different region, it's just a glorified trash can. Only your own garbage ends up in it, so it rarely has any, and nobody comes along to look inside it.

This mod creates a clone of the dumpster that is active everywhere, in every region, even off-lot. As I mentioned, I love to put them in San Myshuno and then use the T.O.O.L. mod to stick them in an alley. It's also super-handy for rags-to-riches games, since it provides a place for your sim to 'look for deals' that they can sell for cash without having to travel to Evergreen Harbor or a Community Space. Go ahead and put one behind the Karaoke bar in the Spice District, for example.

This one is about ready to release, but I have a vague suspicion that somebody already released a mod that does this. I can't seem to find it anywhere, though, so maybe they were just talking about making it, idk. Once I'm a little more certain that it doesn't already exist, I'll post it here for testing.

Auto-Staffing Cafeteria Station

There are mods to get the vendor stalls working anywhere, but nothing works to get the Cafeteria Station to automatically staff itself unless you hire a vendor. This mod changes that. 

It's a clone of the Cafeteria Station that automatically has a Cafeteria vendor show up three times per day during meal time on any lot. Even residential lots. If you want a cafeteria in your house, who am I to stop you? In fact, I have this on residential lot of my own that functions as a YMCA, with roommates in the residential rooms, a cafeteria downstairs, and a live-in gym (thanks to the live-in business mod) in the basement. Remember old fancy department stores with lunch counters? You can build one with this mod.

It's working great as a basic cafeteria station, but I want to get the NPC sims to order food from it more often (for atmosphere). Normally only a few types of sim 'roles' from Discover University will get food from the Cafeteria station, and then only on a couple of types of venues (University Commons and Housing types). I'm working on having it both attract hungry sims on the current lot to use it, and also generate its own customers so that you can drop it on a generic lot and still have NPCs show up.

I'm also considering a variation on this, either a separate clone or a type of mode it can use, where it provides free food and lets your Sim be the vendor. You know how you can Volunteer to work at a Soup Line rabbit hole? How about an active version of it? This would probably be a post-release addition.

Betting on Darts

There aren't enough ways to gamble in the Sims 4, so I would like to add more of them. I started with Darts, since it doesn't get enough love to begin with. The Dart game built in is surprisingly sophisticated, and can handle team play. 

The Betting on Darts mod provides a 'Play Darts for Money ($50)' interaction that allows you to choose up to 4 sims to play a dart game with. The winner gets $50 from each of the losers. This relies on the built in 'hidden throwing skill' used by Darts, Snowball Fights and Water balloon fights. Since I wanted to make testing easier, I added a debug menu item to max out your Sims throwing skill, so they can become a dart shark, if they wish.  

I'm looking at adding some other betting games, including Poker, and have been working out how to implement slot machines and other betting games. I want a casino. 

The last bit of work I need to do on Betting on Darts is to ensure that the win/lose payouts work correctly when there are uneven teams (2 vs 3, etc). If that continues to be problematic, I might just restrict it to 1 vs 1 betting games.

Occupied Lot Trait

I want more sims in the background on my lots acting like they actually live there. I have motels and hotels operating as Bars or Restaurants with floors of empty rooms that nobody uses. 

This lot trait brings sims to the lot to 'act normal'. They read, watch TV, sleep, shower, cook, eat, and pretend to talk to one another. It tries to give a venue lot its own roommates. 

The first iteration of this specifically brought the homeless sims with the 'Lives on Street' hidden trait from City Living to the lot, but I might be running into trouble with that. Those sims aren't always 'permanent' (there's a limit to the number of Sims that the game can keep track of at once), and I've hit a few errors using this mod for a while (in sim days) when the game maxes out the number of sims it can manage. OTOH, the save in which I was testing it is kind of old, so probably has a large number of existing sims.

I've been avoiding that error so far by allowing non-homeless sims to show up and act the parts. Let's say they're on vacation...idk. 

Also working on adjusting the tuning of how many of them show up at once, and how long they stay. When I was first working on it, an enormous horde of sims kept showing up way too fast, and caused some lag problems....to say the least. 

Other Ideas Still Not Working

I started working on a vendor stall that looks like a cash register, since I want both a food court lot, and a fast food restaurant that doesn't require a host and wait staff. I'm also working on a variation of it that uses the in-wall Chef Station to do the same thing. Getting there.

Poker: I didn't know it until I dug through the tuning files, but the built-in card game is actually Canasta. I have the sim 'game' definition set up for Poker (it's a tuning thing that describes the rules of a game in The Sims, like cards, horseshoes, etc), but there is some wacky stuff (overrides and such) going on with the Card game when you install Batuu, which I own. So I need to figure out how to wire it up to work both with and without Batuu installed. Also, a Poker mod for the Sims needs to be really, really good, not just a regular card game. So I'm looking at the implementation of Sabaac in Batuu, and taking inspiration from it. The finished Poker mod will not require Batuu, of course.

Aliens additions: Still working on polishing up the Travel by Saucer feature. It works, but I need to ensure it handles all the possible failure cases (users cancelling it in the middle, etc). I still really want to buff up the Sixam aliens, since I think they're underserved with features. I also keep getting this idea in my mind: How could I simulate Sixam taking over Batuu? :D That would definitely take a while to do, if it's even possible. The basic mechanics are already in the game, but I doubt it's going to be easy to simulate 'another faction' in addition to the three existing Batuu ones without overriding game tuning, which I kind of hate to do. 

Archaeology Kit Additions

I also started work on a major addition to the Archaeology Kit. I will leave that for another post (but it will include some screenshots...).