StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

The mod that's bigger than 80's hair. We promise to help tame the beast.
Post Reply
User avatar
95mmaa
Reactions:
Posts: 186
Joined: January 18th, 2019, 10:31 am
Location: Earth?
Contact:

StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

Post by 95mmaa » January 25th, 2019, 5:59 pm

Hello!

I just started using SP and have been testing it out and modified its settings to my liking. I have some questions about things I found or noticed during gameplay...

First thing is pregnancies. I'm currently using the Not Active Caste and have set pregnancies to be not allowed according to the suggested settings here. The point is to make sure inactive households do not get pregnant on their own. However, I've applied or added the Not Active Caste to all households, including the active one, to avoid having to take households in and out of castes when switching in between. At first, I thought the Not Active Caste would only come to play with inactive households, but apparently, the pregnancy setting is also affecting the active household and it has terminated a pregnancy (I have saved before conception, so it's not a big deal :yes: ). So, I was just wondering what would be the workaround here? Which pregnancy setting should I allow in the Not Active Caste?
"
  • Pregnancy: Allow Can Be Pregnant = False
  • Pregnancy: Allow Participation = False
    • Note: If one of your sims to become inactive is already pregnant, you will need to set an exception for them on the Sim level or else SP will terminate the pregnancy."
I'm not sure which one of these two to change...? Also, is there anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance!
Last edited by 95mmaa on January 25th, 2019, 6:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
My Mod The Sims Account

My Youtube Channel (Mostly Tomb Raider related stuff...)

User avatar
igazor
Organizer
Reactions:
Posts: 17102
Joined: April 8th, 2013, 6:00 pm
Answers: 203
Location: Everyone should strive to find their inner platypus.

StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

Post by igazor » January 25th, 2019, 6:16 pm

Whoa there, let's go back a step. There are two kinds of castes, Manual and Automatic. It's Manual Castes that we can and are meant to add sims to or take sims out of. Automatic Castes have criteria associated with them (age, for example, or whether the household is the active one or not). You cannot apply Automatic Castes to sims and households manually -- I mean you can, but will get totally unreliable results.

If you wish to use a Manual Caste so you have this level of control, that is what the suggested Rotations caste is for. But "adding" a household to the Not Active caste is a contradiction in terms. It would be like adding an elder to the Teens caste, a non-vampire to the Automatic Vampire caste, or a male to the Female caste -- you can't do this.

A sim or household is a member of an Automatic Caste when and only while it fulfills its criteria for membership. The entire point of using them to manage rotations is that you don't need to worry about who is in the caste and who is not, the mod takes care of that all by itself.

The difference between the two pregnancy settings --
Allow Can Be Pregnant means this sim is or is not allowed to stay pregnant, no matter how the pregnancy came to happen.
Allow Participation, if False, would render the sim sterile. That means if False they cannot become or be pregnant, nor can they impregnate another sim, regardless of whose household the other sim is a member of.

User avatar
95mmaa
Reactions:
Posts: 186
Joined: January 18th, 2019, 10:31 am
Location: Earth?
Contact:

StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

Post by 95mmaa » January 25th, 2019, 6:25 pm

igazor post_id=62749 time=1548458169 user_id=6716 wrote:
The difference between the two pregnancy settings --
Allow Can Be Pregnant means this sim is or is not allowed to stay pregnant, no matter how the pregnancy came to happen.
Allow Participation, if False, would render the sim sterile. That means if False they cannot become or be pregnant, nor can they impregnate another sim, regardless of whose household the other sim is a member of.
So, i'm guessing I should simply leave those as they are, since I'll be removing the Not Active castes from my playable households...?
My Mod The Sims Account

My Youtube Channel (Mostly Tomb Raider related stuff...)

User avatar
igazor
Organizer
Reactions:
Posts: 17102
Joined: April 8th, 2013, 6:00 pm
Answers: 203
Location: Everyone should strive to find their inner platypus.

StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

Post by igazor » January 25th, 2019, 6:36 pm

Oh I'm sorry, I just edited your post instead of mine and thus lost half of what you were saying.

There is nothing more dangerous than a moderator trying to post while getting over a migraine, I'm surprised I haven't deleted half the wiki by now while doing things like this. :(

Here is what I was trying to add, I wasn't intending to erase the first part of what you said:

Yes, with the understanding that if you have an active household where a sim is already pregnant and you switch gameplay to another one, the household becomes not active and the pregnancy will then terminate once SP "notices" it. Hence the warning about granting such an already pregnant sim permission to Be Pregnant on the Sim Options level, as that will trump Caste Options. Of course, if you never switch out of a household where a sim is already pregnant then this point is moot.

User avatar
95mmaa
Reactions:
Posts: 186
Joined: January 18th, 2019, 10:31 am
Location: Earth?
Contact:

StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

Post by 95mmaa » January 25th, 2019, 6:45 pm

igazor post_id=62751 time=1548459408 user_id=6716 wrote: Oh I'm sorry, I just edited your post instead of mine and thus lost half of what you were saying.

There is nothing more dangerous than a moderator trying to post while getting over a migraine, I'm surprised I haven't deleted half the wiki by now while doing things like this.

Here is what I was trying to add, I wasn't intending to erase the first part of what you said:
Hehe! Oh no worries! It happens! :yes: :) Sorry to hear about your migraine! Hope you feel better soon! <3
igazor post_id=62751 time=1548459408 user_id=6716 wrote: Yes, with the understanding that if you have an active household where a sim is already pregnant and you switch gameplay to another one, the household becomes not active and the pregnancy will then terminate once SP "notices" it. Hence the warning about granting such an already pregnant sim permission to Be Pregnant on the Sim Options level, as that will trump Caste Options. Of course, if you never switch out of a household where a sim is already pregnant then this point is moot.
Ok, cool! I guess I'm good to go for now. Thanks! :D Let's just hope I don't run into the birth-loop glitch! :|
My Mod The Sims Account

My Youtube Channel (Mostly Tomb Raider related stuff...)

User avatar
95mmaa
Reactions:
Posts: 186
Joined: January 18th, 2019, 10:31 am
Location: Earth?
Contact:

StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

Post by 95mmaa » October 12th, 2019, 6:14 pm

Hi again!

I stumbled on something as I was playing and checking SP castes on certain Sims. If the Active and Non-Active Family Castes are supposed to automatically change/update upon switching households (I'm playing a TS2 style aging system), should a Non-Active sim still hold the Active Family Caste? I have come to notice this on some of my playable Sims who were inactive during my last game-play session. Should I remove the Active Family Caste myself from playable Non-Active Sims? I quit without saving just in case.

Also, I'm not sure if this is related but the Active Family Caste Priority is set to 0, which I believe is the default setting, while I have changed the Non-Active Caste Priority to 10, similar to Option Two. Should I change it to 5 like under Option One?

The reason why I was checking was that I sometimes turn aging off using the Game Options, and when I enabled the option again after I no longer need it to be disabled, I have to use Debug Enabler on City Hall or a PC to enable 'Aging for All' properly as the age bars for the Active Family are stuck on 'Never'. Only problem is that, sometimes, the next household I switch to still has 'Never' on their age bars... I'm concerned as to why this happens...?

Sorry for blabbering! :D
My Mod The Sims Account

My Youtube Channel (Mostly Tomb Raider related stuff...)

User avatar
igazor
Organizer
Reactions:
Posts: 17102
Joined: April 8th, 2013, 6:00 pm
Answers: 203
Location: Everyone should strive to find their inner platypus.

StoryProgression - Gameplay Testing and Questions Along the Way...

Post by igazor » October 12th, 2019, 8:43 pm

95mmaa post_id=69442 time=1570918489 user_id=19578 wrote: I stumbled on something as I was playing and checking SP castes on certain Sims. If the Active and Non-Active Family Castes are supposed to automatically change/update upon switching households (I'm playing a TS2 style aging system), should a Non-Active sim still hold the Active Family Caste? I have come to notice this on some of my playable Sims who were inactive during my last game-play session. Should I remove the Active Family Caste myself from playable Non-Active Sims? I quit without saving just in case.
If you already have or are going to continue adding and removing what are defined to be Automatic castes like Active and Not Active to sims manually as if they were Manual castes, then I am afraid you will continue to get random, unpredictable results. Automatic castes are not meant to have sims added or removed from them by the player, they are meant to be...automatic. I think what you are seeing is a delay in the caste membership information being displayed to us, the player, when play situations change. This is normal and it doesn't necessarily mean that the sims in question are still part of the Active caste (provided again that the player didn't add them at some point) just because they still appear that way for a difficult to define amount of game clock time to us.
95mmaa post_id=69442 time=1570918489 user_id=19578 wrote: Also, I'm not sure if this is related but the Active Family Caste Priority is set to 0, which I believe is the default setting, while I have changed the Non-Active Caste Priority to 10, similar to Option Two. Should I change it to 5 like under Option One?
Priority does not dictate caste membership. When sims belong to two or more different castes, and I mean really belong to two different castes and not just appear to because of delays in the caste membership information showing up properly in-game, and those two or more castes have different conflicting settings associated with them, then on a setting by setting basis in each case the one with higher priority "wins" the race and overwrites the others but only for the setting under consideration. Think of multiple caste membership as being overlays onto the sims. The overlays are all applied regardless of Priority, but the ones with the higher Priority are applied "later" so that any settings they carry that already impact the sims overwrite the lower Priority ones.

Suppose for example you have Males set to age and the Male caste has a Priority of 1. You have Vampires set to not age, and the Vampire caste has a Priority of 2. And finally you have Elders set to age, and the Elder caste has a Priority of 3. The result will be:
Males will age
Male vampires will not age
Elder male vampires will age

The other things that the male and Vampire castes may do are not affected by the Elder caste having a higher Priority unless the Elder caste also explicitly impacts those settings.

There is no difference in a caste Priority setting of 10 vs. 5 unless there are other castes with Priority settings in between those values (6 through 9). Note that if two or more different castes apply to a sim but have the same Priority as each other, then on a setting by setting basis the results will be random. That's why players whose castes are all of Priority 0, for example, don't necessarily get the results they are after when multiple castes carrying conflicting settings apply to the same sims.
95mmaa post_id=69442 time=1570918489 user_id=19578 wrote: The reason why I was checking was that I sometimes turn aging off using the Game Options, and when I enabled the option again after I no longer need it to be disabled, I have to use Debug Enabler on City Hall or a PC to enable 'Aging for All' properly as the age bars for the Active Family are stuck on 'Never'. Only problem is that, sometimes, the next household I switch to still has 'Never' on their age bars... I'm concerned as to why this happens...?
This is the same effect as with the caste membership apparent issue. It can take a while in game clock time for the sims' information tab to update for display properly when things change, it is not instant. So if a sim who should be aging by way of your Game Option and caste or other settings still shows as Aging Up: Never and there is no age progress bar, the game is most likely lying to you but only temporarily. :)

Post Reply