I have never seen WA merchants complain about motives either, which is why I wondered if there was any validity to the post. I guess I never saw the needs objects on those lots, but that debunks that theory, and saves me alot of experimenting to see if it works.

How do you lock motives by individual sim (not just disabling it globally on all sims)? I have been looking for a way to do that as a workaround, but havent been able to find one (other than maybe giving them LTRs for Steel Bladder, Hardly Hungry, etc. via MC -- but that only locks Bladder and slows down the rest). I've been doing the whole Max Mood thing as needed, but it gets tedious, and I am looking for a more permanent solution.

Yes, SP *should* solve the problem, but doesnt for me, so something just isnt working at a fundamental level here It cropped up a month or so ago and has been plaguing me off and on across various saves. Everything seems fine for a while, but as the game file ages, it starts creeping in, even when I dont have alot of "bloat" from too many sims or objects.

You can set SP static motive options on individual sims. Click on the sim>NRaas>SP>Sim Options (or something similar)>Static Motive: (name of the motive). Requires SP Extra. You mentioned that setting motives static with SP didn't work at the caste level. I wondered if it would work at the sim level. I don't know if that's something you tried or not.

I honestly dont remember if i tried it or not. I finally wound up uninstalling SP, because it simply was not helping and it can be so processor-intensive, and at the time I thought the problem might have been because my processor was somehow being overtaxed. I dont think that was the issue, because I removed all of the things that might have been causing that, and it is still happening.

I may give SP another whirl and see how it goes. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yeah, I hear you about SP being a fairly intensive mod. I usually run it at Slow speed or Snail even in some worlds. I use it to customize my game too much to give it up though.