Modded vending machines?

shakeninsane

So here's a question. Has anyone made modded vending machines of any sort?
Clearly Sims 3 will never get any store content etc, and I always really wished there was a way to get a quick snack at community lots, that wasn't just a chocolate bar or something. I love the vending machines we got, but I wish they had more options. I alsow wish we had a hot-food option. (I know we can use those stands from Seasons, like summer/fall etc, I love those, but they require staff and we know how annoying the staff in Sims 3 is).

I like making arcade halls and stuff for my sims, just i general a place where they can hang out that doesn't require any staff that's just gonna go do something else all the time. (I've got the mod for them to be forced to work, but still.)

Are there any mods that have a hot food option, like pizza or a hot dog or noodles or something? That doesn't require staff?

igazor

If you have the bakery store set, the NRaas Cupcake mod will allow you to keep bakery displays and racks auto-stocked it with whatever kinds of prepared foods you specify and single serve portions become available. The bakery register does not have to placed or staffed for sims to be able to "shop" from it, the sim behind the counter is optional and only there to make things look more realistic.

shakeninsane

Oh wow, I do have that mod infact, but I never really touched upon that bakery set because it didn't suit my needs.

So I can place a bakery display (any kind?) and stock it with any food available (will it show the food in the display?), and sims (mainly my own) can purchase and eat the goods without any staff? That would be really great if so.

igazor

Yes to all of the above. I have snack bars, all day breakfast counters, pizza joints, sandwich/salad stands in addition to actual baked goods on offer all over town. With the mod, inactives as well as your actives will shop them to satisfy hunger, not fun as was EA's standard, and will actually sit down and eat what they have purchased if you provide seating. And you can still opt to purchase full multi-serving platters (to take home) if you want to. It is sort of a vending machine for full meals, hadn't actually thought of it that way before.

It does take some time to "bond" with the mod and get used to its controls if you wish to limit exactly which dishes each shelf of each display is allowed to carry rather than a fully random assortment of everything imaginable on each one.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Cupcake FAQ

shakeninsane

Ahhhhhh!! Pizza joint here I come!! Oh my GOD. This changes everything. I only ever tried the mod in relations to setting up a bakery shop the way they worked in Sims 2, but I grew bored of at some point and didn't consider the abilities that nraas mods always bring with them, haha.
I've mainly used the coffee/cake barista thing that came with Uni I think, (which is pretty neat and I don't get why they didn't make more of these), but well, you know the staff isn't exactly reliable. Ah, I'm so exicted to try this now!

TadOlson

One option is to use the ITTF food replicators and use NRaas Register to disable the assingments of waiter to these replicators.

Pary

Oh wow, I didn't know that, thank you @igazor! Because of past problems with the bakery set, and that I thought it had to be staffed at all time, I have never used Cupcake because I've not used the bakery set. Wow, this is so exciting !

igazor

Yes, I did think of the food replicators but I never use those because they seem unhealthy (where exactly does that food come from, have studies been conducted as to any long term effects of eating that stuff) and unrealistic in the present to me. Of course, sims waving their hands in front of an unstaffed bakery display and walking away with a hot pizza or sandwich isn't very realistic either, so I guess I don't have much of an argument here.

In other settings, all you can eat IP style pay buffet tables where we can set the menus work well. And of course there's the bistro set, with a mod to fix its often broken chefs/waiters. And then there's the restaurant rabbit holes with Eat Outside modded in. We don't have a tremendous number of options when it comes to dining out on-screen, so I like to mix them up whenever possible.

Buffet Tables: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523377
Bistro Mod: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Business As Unusual Bistro
Eat Outside: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=524698

@Pary - Yes, the mod was great as it was for actual bakeries and in a few other select places. But when Icarus later showed up at NRaas and made the current version that allows for shopping them to relieve hunger and the single portion stuff, that really did change everything.

igazor

Found some screenshots (click to enlarge). Here is one of my deli counters upstairs in a bowling alley/arcade. The 1st and 2nd shelves from the bottom are sandwiches, salads, onion rings, etc. The third offers a small selection of bakery desserts. It's dark so a bit hard to see, but I like the juice bottles on the top row because they look like condiment squeeze bottles and some of them are plasma (orange) juice to accommodate any thirsty vampires who stop by after bowling.




There are some dining options in the big park in Bridgeport. Here is a combo pizza joint/coffee barista. Both cash registers are staffed, but I had just MC Reset the entire town before taking this screenshot (poor timing on my part) so the staff hadn't made it back to their positions behind the counter yet. They usually behave themselves, sometimes they go off and throw snowballs at each other or have water balloon fights but they work such long shifts that I go ahead and let them have their fun occasionally. The barista counter of course needs to be staffed to order from, the pizza display does not.

Since my sims don't own this lot, the wood fire ovens, cooking equipment, and recipe books (bah, most of them are hidden by the overhead lights in that shot) in the background are really just there for decoration. There are picnic tables outside for more seating on busier days and for those who prefer to enjoy their pizza and coffee outdoors in the rain and snow.

Pary

If we put the registers in there, will they be staffed automatically @igazor? I would rather they not be, so is there something special I need to do?

I'm sorry if I missed the answer, I am finding concentrating on the mod FAQ and all that stuff a bit difficult right now. I've got a terrible upper respiratory infection and apart from needing new glasses because I'm almost blind even with them ON right now ( lol ) my eyes are also grainy sore and tired. Reading is a bit tiresome at the moment so I may have missed the glaringly obvious.

I like those lots!

igazor

@Pary - On the bakery registers, those are admittedly a pain but I don't believe they staff themselves until you click on them and choose to hire a cashier. NRaas Register refuses to control this position, so I find that it keeps getting restaffed with new sims and I don't want the extra homeless NPCs around with nothing to do even though I don't mind homeless sims generally. So don't let the register be staffed. Or instead, don't let it be staffed but use Arsil's Custom Generic Role Sim mod and position them behind the register. They don't really do anything back there and for me are only really there for show. Register controls the Custom Role Sim properly so they do show up for work as assigned and they don't keep getting replaced unless they age up out of the workforce.
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=559243

The pizza/barista building in the park is an example of what happens when those of us with no building design skills whatsoever attempt to create something from scratch and don't have tremendous amounts of space to work with. Everything looks like rectangles. I should have made some stick figure sims to go with it. But I guess this also proves that fast food buildings designed for efficiency don't really require the same skill set as building houses or something more intricate.

Hope you feel better real soon!

SPARKY1922

igazor wrote: »

If you have the bakery store set, the NRaas Cupcake mod will allow you to keep bakery displays and racks auto-stocked it with whatever kinds of prepared foods you specify and single serve portions become available. The bakery register does not have to placed or staffed for sims to be able to "shop" from it, the sim behind the counter is optional and only there to make things look more realistic.

I normally use this mod so my bakery looks pretty when my sims visit but normally my sims cannot sit and eat the purchased product on the same lot? which is why I often have a uni barista object on the same lot or a food register to combat this so would I be able to use the cupcake mod so my sims could actually buy and eat baked goods on the bakery shop premises? If so could you please let me know how I can do this.. I have wanted my sims to be able to do this for so long..

I have used the bistro mod and the eat outside mod which is great because i like groups to eat together as much as possible but never dare try the buffet tables mod in case it conflicted with the buffet tables in my resorts.. can that buffet mod be placed anywhere on community lots and if so do they have to be owned by a sim who gets paid or does it not matter?

I get tons of those the normal cashier could not make it today so sim x will do the job are you saying every time I get that message another homeless sim in the world is created roaming about freely? if so i will un-staff the resisters to stop the extra homeless sims and use register to give the townie the job I think that's how it works?

and lol re your comments on the food replicators it's strange but I like to see them getting used in ITF when my sims visit but in my ordinary home worlds prefer my sims cook or eat in a group as much as possible which is why i like the bistro and the eat outside mods as they allow for that.

As someone else who has terrible design and building skills myself I know the feeling but your pic shows you are not as bad as you think you are

Oh and slightly off topic I spent ages removing all the fridges (including any outdoor types) from all my homes in IP that I am redesigning and then placed the 4 inhabitants the game had created into a house together and put back the fridge in that one and an hour later got a message stating these 4 named sims had moved out and into another lot that i know for sure had no fridges so can you possibly tell me why that happened when there were no fridges present on that lot?

@shakeninsane

I love the bakery items but like most players when I bought it had no idea my sims would have to slave over a hot stove for 24/7 just to see those lovely shelves filled with tasty baked goods so when i found the Nrass cupcake mod I was ecstatic until I found that my sims could only purchase said goods but not eat them on the premises so i am hoping @igazor can show me how my sims can do that and I will be a happy bunny because sometimes I send my sims to the bakery just to see all the food on the shelves (I have a thing for bakeries from living abroad and seeing one on every corner which was like a local community hub-) so I would love to make the most out of my bakeries so thanks for asking the question

TadOlson wrote: »

One option is to use the ITTF food replicators and use NRaas Register to disable the assingments of waiter to these replicators.

Something else I did not know I will add that to my notes thank you-)

@Pary

I hope you feel better soon being poorly is no fun at all..

igazor

SPARKY1922 wrote: »

I normally use this mod so my bakery looks pretty when my sims visit but normally my sims cannot sit and eat the purchased product on the same lot? which is why I often have a uni barista object on the same lot or a food register to combat this so would I be able to use the cupcake mod so my sims could actually buy and eat baked goods on the bakery shop premises? If so could you please let me know how I can do this.. I have wanted my sims to be able to do this for so long..

I have used the bistro mod and the eat outside mod which is great because i like groups to eat together as much as possible but never dare try the buffet tables mod in case it conflicted with the buffet tables in my resorts.. can that buffet mod be placed anywhere on community lots and if so do they have to be owned by a sim who gets paid or does it not matter?

When the actively controlled sim purchases a single serving ("Buy Food" I think it is), not a group platter, it goes into their personal inventory and they may then sit down and eat it. When an inactive does so, they may sit down and eat it of their own accord. But the latest version, v6, of the Cupcake mod is required to get these features. It was in beta testing for a while, then fully released in July 2016 summer so that was around two years ago.

On the IP buffet table mod, its behavior is different depending upon whether the buffet is on a resort or a regular community lot and who owns it. This isn't one of ours, but icarus explains the community lot thing near the end of the mod's description page under "Bonus Features." An additional add-on file is provided and required for community lots. I've never had a minute's worth of trouble with it on any kind of lot.
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523377

I did experience some initial confusion when I originally had a different, older buffet table mod from Simlogical in play that I believe had nothing to do with IP, but I since removed that one.

SPARKY1922 wrote: »

Oh and slightly off topic I spent ages removing all the fridges (including any outdoor types) from all my homes in IP that I am redesigning and then placed the 4 inhabitants the game had created into a house together and put back the fridge in that one and an hour later got a message stating these 4 named sims had moved out and into another lot that i know for sure had no fridges so can you possibly tell me why that happened when there were no fridges present on that lot?

Afraid I don't have the slightest idea how that could have happened, sorry.

SPARKY1922

Thanks @igazor

I downloaded all my nrass mods again recently when I went to the disc version of the game so i will check if my sims can buy and eat as they have never been able to before and even if I drag whatever they bought out of their inventories they would not eat it either so i stopped trying a long time ago.

After I add all my other mods back and test I may try the buffet mod I have most his other Mods so i am sure that one will not be a problem I will just have to learn the differences between the resort tables and the ones on community lots and so on..

I will report back when I test the bakery and no I have no idea how they all managed to move without fridges I hope it does not happen again

igazor

SPARKY1922 wrote: »

Thanks @igazor

I downloaded all my nrass mods again recently when I went to the disc version of the game so i will check if my sims can buy and eat as they have never been able to before and even if I drag whatever they bought out of their inventories they would not eat it either so i stopped trying a long time ago.

If this still seems to be a barrier, it's probably because the community lot you are on is not letting you drag the food to a surface. Try clicking on the single sized portion of food while it's still in inventory, there ought to be a command to eat it which should prompt the sim to find a place to sit down if they can, and in front of a table, if one is available.

Pary

Thank you @igazor and @SPARKY1922
I'll be fine in a few days ( I hope ) my kids are sick too, so I'm just hoping we're not going to keep passing it around

Thanks for the help!

yagwit

I poorly painted a vending machine. Does anyone have contacts for a real modder? I want to make sure they don't get food from it anymore.

https://twitter.com/Yagwit/status/1028019059617480704