Okay, I think I've asked this before, maybe as long ago as the other message board, but I never did get a solution. When Sims play catch with the American football, the baseball or Frisbee my active Sims can only play with other active Sims when on a home lot, be it their own home lot or a neighbor. Why is this?? I've looked in Retuner and everything and cant get it to give me any other sim but my actives. HOWEVER, if I'm at the park or other public venue I can play catch with these 3 objects with any Sim at the park, active-Sim or not. Why is there a restriction to play catch on my home lot with NA Sims? It doesn't even matter if they are greeted or at a party. I cant get the option to play with any other sim but my active Sims! Again, I tried Retuner and Debug to see why this restriction is set or if I can alter that, but I cant seem to find anything. It's stupid and since I often have family over I would like my sims to be able to play catch with NA siblings and friends without being on a public lot.

With the soccer ball and hackysack I can play with any Sim at anywhere, unless there's, "too much snow on the ground" (which is also highly irritating since 90% of the times Sims will play indoors!) Anyway, I can't seem to find the place to turn this restriction off either. I mean you can get sims to play soccer at the goals if there's snow, so why not just the ball??

One more question not in the same topic, but I had 2 of my Sims visiting a friends home and all went really fine (except they couldn't play catch with anyone but each other.) And after being there for a few Sim-hours they just took off and went home out of nowhere! I have Go Here set to not let my actives leave autonomously, so what is going on there? It wasn't even late, like 7pm or something. And the Sims there didn't leave to a party or anything. Mother and daughter just suddenly had to get home for no reason. ??:huh:

JohnL83 wrote: ↑

August 31st, 2019, 6:00 pm

And after being there for a few Sim-hours they just took off and went home out of nowhere! I have Go Here set to not let my actives leave autonomously, so what is going on there? It wasn't even late, like 7pm or something.

I'm assuming no one in either household works a night shift. One way to cut through that when the early evening hours arrive might be to Ask to Spend the Night. Even if you have no intention of really spending the night "giggling with your friends" or whatever, that should prevent the daytime visit from timing out on you and you can send your sims home when the visit really does feel like it should be over.

igazor wrote: ↑

August 31st, 2019, 6:19 pm

One way to cut through that when the early evening hours arrive might be to Ask to Spend the Night.

I will keep that in mind. Shame I can't Retune that option somehow though. I have curfew off, but my child and teen Sims often still try to head home around 9 or 10 respectively, which on school days is generally fine for me so I can get them to bed on time. I can usually catch them on weekends before they jet to the car, but on this occasion mother and daughter ran like lightening and were in the car before I could even click! I wish they'd run that fast to catch the school bus! Most of the time they walk their slowest heading to the bus...but run like wildfire for everything else. At least that makes some sense. I was rarely anxious to get to school either.

I hope someone here knows about the play catch thing though. It's one of my favorite things to have my Sims do together and the limitations are bothersome.

I think I found how you can change that restriction, but you need to do your own tuning by exporting the
PlayCatchInteraction_PlayCatchObject from the EA gamepladata package (Installation path Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Game > Bin > Gameplay)
This one you can edit and put it in your mod folder: how?
This part
<Lot AllowNonGreetedSimsIfObjectOutside="False" AllowNonGreetedSimsIfObjectOutsideUserDirected="True" AllowGreetedSims="True" AllowOnCommunityLots="True" AllowOnAllLots="False" />
Change it to TRUE
Also the <AskJoinInteraction joinable="False" />


I wonder how to tune that all inactive children will get a baseball into their inventory, because if they have not, the inactives do not play autonomously catch at all - they simply cannot without.

C-Dark, thank you so much.
I will try this out and see if it works and report back. I've only ever tuned my games during game-play, so IDK what the outcome will be attempting this for the first time, but we shall see.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

September 1st, 2019, 4:33 am

This part
<Lot AllowNonGreetedSimsIfObjectOutside="False" AllowNonGreetedSimsIfObjectOutsideUserDirected="True" AllowGreetedSims="True" AllowOnCommunityLots="True" AllowOnAllLots="False" />
Change it to TRUE
Also the <AskJoinInteraction joinable="False" />

That doesn't control this I'm afraid. If the Sims are lot greeted, they are allowed by that tuning already.

It looks like there's a bug in the core. The lot greeted check is inverted. It's not possible to fix that via tuning.

Chain_Reaction wrote: ↑

September 1st, 2019, 7:30 pm

It's not possible to fix that via tuning.

Yeah, I tried this and go nothing. I made sure to revert back to my saved file in case I buggered else up by doing this of which I was unaware. Bummer, but thanks. At least we can play catch with NA's at parks and public places (if there's room). Perhaps I can have my Sims family reunions at the park instead of their home.

So, I tried the tuning too and added from the gameplaydata package this file in addition:
PlayCatchInteraction_PlayCatchObject

Now I'm on my home lot, I invited via MC a two homeless teenager, when they arrived
- I first greeted one and then YEAH I could play catch ball with her
- the second I did not greet, but accidentally she talked to another sim of my household, I broke up catch a ball and used frisby this time AND YEAH - I can lay frisby with the homeless teenager on my home lot

I'm not sure if it is really necessary to greet or talk first to NPCs, but try it again. It works good.
If putting out a mod do the Cache cleaning in your Sims3 Documtent folder:

• CASPartCache.package
• compositorCache.package
• scriptCache.package
• simCompositorCache.package
• socialCache.package

PS: I think the Ask to join will not work, because it is a play for only two sims

Also the distance from one sim to another is relevant. In retuner you can adjust this
Sims3.Gameplay.Objects.Toys.PlayCatchObject
kMaxDistanceToAsk
Default: 30 (maybe meter?)

I will try this again C-Dark. I must have made a mistake somewhere. (trust me that isn't unusual, I'm barely a step above an idiot when it comes to inner workings of games and such) Thank you for this info! I'm so very glad to know it worked!