This is one thing that has always annoyed me in TS4. Let's say you're doing a challenge file, so you're starting off pretty short of simoleons. You take your Sim to the bar to meet people, only for them to often be immediately drawn to the drinks. Those cost money! This is completely autonomous, and most of the time, the action takes forever to fully cancel so your Sim has already purchased the drink by the time it drops from their queue. The action is cancelled, but the money is already subtracted from the household funds and you do not get a refund. It certainly doesn't help when they insist on buying the most expensive drinks the bartender has to offer.
I've also noticed this happening in active careers as well, especially in the Doctor career. Often, the second the work day starts, they immediately try to go to the fridge for a snack, even when they're not hungry at all! Seriously, thank goodness we at least have the ability to cheat the lost money back! It kind of stinks that we have to cheat to get their money back, though.
All in all, at least to me, any action that entails buying something should NOT occur autonomously, especially given how autonomy works in its current state. As of now, it takes FOREVER to fully cancel an action, so Sims will usually already be almost totally through with the action by the time it finally drops from their queue.
Yes, I am aware of mods that prevent this, but from what I've heard, they were broken by Cats and Dogs.
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It works with dogs and cats. I don't use it so I don't know how it works, but maybe you can turn off autonomy for buying drinks
Am I too lost?
Oh gosh, I almost completely forgot about that before you mentioned it. Now I remember! The last time I took a pregnant Sim to the hospital, her husband immediately bought a sandwich instead of following her into the delivery room. Seriously, your wife's going to have a baby and your first instinct is to grab a sandwich? Like I said, I've noticed that Sims are especially drawn to the food vending fridge on the hospital lot. I wonder why that is?
Probably because they cycle through looking for objects they can interact with and there aren't many at the hospital.
Like I said before, any action that costs money should NOT be autonomous, especially since it's such a pain in the rear to actually get them to stop. It's super annoying! NPC Sims buying things? Sure, why not? But not our controlled Sims!
This made me lol
Thanks for the suggestion! I got this mod to prevent my sims from getting water from the tap, but for some reason it never occurred to me that it could also be used to stop them from buying stuff. I'll try it out today to cure my doctors' gluttony, because they have the worst case of it!
Speaking of gluttony, my first doctor actually has that trait, so I thought that was the reason for him constantly running to the fridge even when he's not hungry. But my other doctor does it too, and she's not a glutton. It wouldn't even be that bad if they only had to pay the moment they get their hands on the food, but the money gets subtracted the moment my doctor just thinks of it! Who thought that was a good idea?
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
I actually made a thread on this problem in Answers HQ. As it turns out, it's probably a bug. Not only are Sims buying snacks when they aren't even hungry, but money also isn't being refunded when the action is cancelled. Strangely, though, I have not observed this same level of obsession with the snack machine on the detective and scientist career lots. It only seems to be a problem at the hospital for some reason.
I have an aspiring artist in the city who neither has Glutton or Foodie, but man did he let himself go eating out in the Arts Quarter where he lives; and he's only started getting chubby when I wasn't playing him!
In TS4 if you see your own Sims (when not playing them) at the food stands, and or cafes etc. then they will have gained weight (a lot) when you finally return to them. The game (to me) seems to use those Sims in the background to say they will be going to the cafes and food stands in the Matrix while you are away. It was so bad I had to stop going to cafes at all right after GT because any Sim I wasn't playing got huge just because one time they showed up at cafes. ETA: Another Sim I had named Burke showed up at all the restaurants my other households visit and or ran, and he is huge, too. It seems all he does is eat and jog when I see him, and the jogging doesn't seem to be helping him last time I played this past Aug. He seriously needs to stop going to every restaurant in my game. lol ( He wasn't a foodie/glutten, either).
Ha Ha me to lol!
If only sims could get drunk lol!
They could in one of the sims games. I forget which?
This was a really old problem I saw in 2014. It finally cleared up few years later. Guess it's back. I recently reinstalled my games and started playing again, first thing I notice is if you don't give a Sim something to do following the first command they will get in a loop. Like my Sim was out digging for things to sell (not employed) and if I didn't command the Sim to go do something else before that was finished he goes running back to house to get a drink of water.
The AI still needs a huge amount of work for these Sims to think of other things to do while no one is commanding them to do anything, and it's clear they are right back into the 2014 loop of repeating something over and over.