Please accept my apologies if this these questions have been asked elsewhere before but....

How are you supposed to use...

1) The stock bar feature on the mixologist bars. How are you supposed to use the items placed there? I cannot find any sort of command to prompt their use. And,

2) What exactly is the purpose of owning additional homes when they are not fully functioning? By this I mean I can't separate my household members to live in the additional home with any success. The bookcase cannot be opened, the fridge is tied to the "active" home (I can work around this using storage containers), sleeping there always seem to trigger a 'go home' response. Plus, I cannot store anything in EA storage containers (alchemy or bug cabinet) So, what is their purpose? Can they be rented out (roommates) so-to-speak? How exactly are they supposed to be played with?

If anyone has any ideas or insights into these baffling sim-mysteries I will be forever grateful.

Thanks.

When the bar is stocked with fruit, there should be a Choose Ingredients for Next Drink... option that allows you to toggle whether it's choosing them at random or prompting you to choose. Then your drinks can inherit moodlets from the fruit in use, like the buffs from life fruit and flame fruit. There might be some skill level or lot type restrictions at play if it's not appearing.

For the latter, the answer varies a little bit between the EA default and what is possible with mod intervention.
As it was, the only real utility of owning a second home is that you can switch which one is the 'main' one to regain the functionality that the inactive one lacks. Useful for beach homes and the general rich person experience of living in different houses at different times for whatever reason.
The freedom to edit and hang out on the lot also allows for extra storage or workspace, or one could improve the lot and sell it on for profit.

With mods the options get a bit more expansive, as GoHere can stop the autonomous Go Home trigger to let you more freely cohabitate your owned lots. And SP's Money module has rental lot and landlord features, as this feature never got added to the game itself.
The object weirdness is likely an oversight.

@CardinalSims - (Clever name by-the way )

Firstly, Thank You for the explanations - I do not and have never gotten an option on the bars to choose ingredients even when fruits have been added. My mixologist is level 10, he has been moonlighting in just about every drinking establishment there is, and the option doesn't show up in venues nor on the private professional bar in his home. Does he have to do something special for this feature to appear? He has made and named a couple of custom drinks and the option still remains hidden. **Also, and this is going to sound terrible but, can mixologists add 'elixirs' to sims drinks? I saw the option on an elixir bottle, not promoting or suggesting 'quietly slipping' things into unaware sims drinks; just want to know if it is possible.

Concerning the homes, I don't currently have the 'Go Here' mod installed will have to add it. Here's my situation: I have a traveling circus which all together consists of eight sims which are actually four different families/households combined. I need to be able to control and guide all of the sims involved but I don't want them all living together as it has gotten awkward. Using 'Go Here' would it be possible to separate the households into their own dwellings and play forward or are there any other mods which would make this doable?

The matter of the bar, you have to place inside in the inventory of the bar fruits to create cocktails. Then, you use the "manage bar" interaction, and when your sim goes into barista mode, you choose the "manually choose ingredients for the next drink" interaction, and then you create the drink. This drink will have the ingredients you have selected.
Very annoying is that it costs a lot to create drinks in a non-putrid state, at least the times I've tried to create drinks at the bar I've gotten tired of throwing them away. In the end I use a mod that makes them be perfect from the first moment, I don't remember which one it is, if you're interested I'll look for it.
And about the additional houses, when I'm rich I always have one or several, but I also don't like that I can't take inactive sims there, for example, the son who lives with his parents and wants to take the girlfriend home, but the one on the beach, the girlfriend can't go in there because "no one lives here", and your sim can come in and she stays outside watching. For me, the best use I've given them is when I live far from the city center and have an additional house nearby, I temporarily take them there to sleep or spend some time, and that's it. Another use is to evade taxes, since those houses can be worth millions of simoleons without affecting the bills
Sometimes I have also played with large families and I have tried to use the additional houses to separate them but it doesn't go well, if they are playable I like to have them at hand, and some living in one place and others in another makes it very tedious to play with them, at least I don't like it. If I want to separate the family what I do is buy the rental house with SP Money and send them there with MC, so they live their life in houses that are all family, if I want to play with them I change playable family and that's it. There is something I love about doing it like this and that is that my playable sims have free access to the rental house, and I can visit relatives without ringing the doorbell, it's great. But well, you need all playable, then, this option is not for you.

Sunshine_25 wrote: ↑

April 5th, 2024, 12:27 am

. Here's my situation: I have a traveling circus which all together consists of eight sims which are actually four different families/households combined. I need to be able to control and guide all of the sims involved but I don't want them all living together as it has gotten awkward.

That sounds like a lot of fun!
If you switch "Disable Active Go Home" to True in GoHere's settings, you could have all 8 in one household and it wouldn't force any of them to go back to the main home lot if you want them to live and sleep elsewhere.

If you'd rather keep some of them in inactive households, there are also couple of ways to seamlessly switch households using NRaas mods.
With Selector, you can right-click an active sim and it will switch control to their household.
Or with MasterController, you can use the Make Active command to do the same.
Both are instant, and there are toggles to protect promised wishes and opportunities if you desire.

I'll check out the Late Night bar next time I'm near one in-game and see if I was forgetting another step and take a screenshot if so.

@jseg and @CardinalSims - Thank you both for solving these sim mysteries for me. I especially could not have figured out the bar interaction without you. I finally have seen (and now) used the stocked items.

jseg - I love playing with a large number of sims, for me it's "the more the merrier", I just love watching what they get into or up to on their own. However, 13-15 sims under one roof is just about my limit. In the case of my circus sims, I purchased one pre-built home and one empty lot. The pre-built home was for x1 family (husband, wife and toddler). On the empty lot I built a four-suite apartment building which houses 3 of the single members (each in their own unit). I use the door locking mechanics to keep them out of each other's bedrooms. I don't care if they visit each other's suites because they all practice, work and perform together. The last x2 sims (father and his teenage daughter) live in a house.

I solved the 'connected fridge' issue by using kitchen storage containers (ATS3 chest-like containers). Each sim does their own grocery shopping according to their needs, ingredients are stored in the chests instead of the fridge. For meals, I place the ingredients in their personal inventory and use the 'have' meal interaction instead of the 'serve' one. so, there are no leftovers, everybody eats what they like. I also use Butterbot's 'Canning Station Overhaul' mod and 'Split Group Servings' mod for when I want to pre-make meals. Sims will use these meals autonomously as long as they are placed within their reach. The only non-issue I have had with this method is remembering which meal jars can be 'open and eat' by children sims and which meals cannot.

Because friends are usually invited 'out' instead of 'over', I haven't run into the guest problem which you described. Yet.

CardinalSims - I am downloading the 'Go Here' mod today and will set it up. I do have one question though, were you saying that I should be able to open the bookcases and other EA storage objects in each of the additional homes? Currently I am unable to.

Sunshine_25 wrote: ↑

April 5th, 2024, 6:05 pm

I do have one question though, were you saying that I should be able to open the bookcases and other EA storage objects in each of the additional homes?

No, it seems to be an EA oversight that these objects are limited to their inactive lot functions even if those lots are owned. Not sure if there are any mod remedies for that.

Sunshine_25 post_id=100720 time=1712354700 user_id=23385 wrote: I solved the 'connected fridge

Well, there are always ways to fix the problems in this game.
The fridge thing, have you tried something like that? I have used this sometime but I don't know if really this fridge stays attached to the other one too:

https://aroundthesims3.com/objects/room ... r_05.shtml
https://aroundthesims3.com/objects/func ... e_01.shtml

There is a camping fridge, you can try it. Edit: or the second option, but I don't know how this objects work.
Although in this case I would use this:

https://aroundthesims3.com/objects/func ... g_02.shtml

These machines with the food maker work great at home or in community lots, to do are options.
The most I've played in my saves have been 8 sims and since I'm a perfectionist I go crazy, the AI is stupid in general and I always cancel 95% of the actions they do, so I can't leave them wandering around for a long time with the free will, they don't even know how to take care of themselves. I always have the free will active but as a bit of support for my actions, I usually let them talk alone but they always end up losing the friendships that I generate for them, it's that even the annoying AI doesn't know how to do that.
And the curious assails me, what is it about the circus? Something from the TS3 store or some expansion?

Jseg wrote: ↑

April 5th, 2024, 12:44 am

If I want to separate the family what I do is buy the rental house with SP Money and send them there with MC, so they live their life in houses that are all family, if I want to play with them I change playable family and that's it. There is something I love about doing it like this and that is that my playable sims have free access to the rental house, and I can visit relatives without ringing the doorbell, it's great. But well, you need all playable, then, this option is not for you.

I'm chiming in, but this sounds like something that could be of use to me! Would you elaborate with details how to set this up, Jseg? I haven't tried renting so I'm not sure how it pans out in the game.

Kukko69 wrote: ↑

April 10th, 2024, 3:12 am

I'm chiming in, but this sounds like something that could be of use to me! Would you elaborate with details how to set this up, Jseg? I haven't tried renting so I'm not sure how it pans out in the game.

Of course.
You need to install StoryProgression and the Money module first, otherwise you can't rent the houses. Then, on the phone you can buy a rental house, you use the interaction and buy the rental house.
Once you have the house you can move the Sims with MasterController, and I don't know if it has dangerous but I have done it many times with the playable sims and there is no problem at all. You approach with the camera to the rental house and click on the wall, Nraas -> MC -> Add Sim, you can select the Sims you want to move there. You will only have to adjust the family's money a little because it looks a little weird, but what I do is use the money I have in the family, distributing between the two places.
And that's all.
There is a mod that adds more things to this rental system, but I don't think it's necessary. Through the SP option "Household: Rent Multiple" (if I remember correctly), you can assign how much they pay you, as they are relatives I set it to not pay anything, it is a family house and there is no rent to pay.
The mod is this:
https://modthesims.info/download.php?t=554197

I hope it helps you and that I didn't leave anything out. It's been a long time since I've done these tricks xD