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Story Progression Settings

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I hope it's okay to ask about this here. I came back to TS3 after playing just TS4 for a bit and I wanted to try and play a whole world in TS3. I did try playing with the included story progression in TS3, but some sims I cared about just vanished or had randam babies added, who looked nothing like either parent. That's not what I want.

I am not sure, if that would stop with story progression disabled. I used to play with nraas SP and I wouldn't mind to keep that, but I just want a light story progression. It would be great, if sims didn't get married, vanished, were imported or had babies on their own. I'd like for them to keep aging, add some skills, maybe get promoted and it would also be okay for them to change their relationships, as long as their wouldn't move or get married on their own. It would also be great, if pregnancies continued, when I switch families. And I don't want them to add pets on their own either.

Basically, I'd like to control when a sim or pet gets added to a household or when a whole family moves. I've been trying to figure out how to set up nraas SP to achieve that, but I am not sure, if I did it right, because it's kinda hard to test.

Does anybody play like this or with similar settings?

Comments

  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    edited September 2019
    Did you look at this page: https://www.nraas.net/community/Story-Progression-Rotational-Caste-Settings
    That's what I follow, and it works great.

    Btw, it looks more complicated than it actually is. It's just very thorough to make sure you don't need to ask any follow-up questions.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    Rotational Play as @Turjan linked to is essential for the way I play TS3, as it is for many others. SP gives us all the options we need to tailor progression to what we want to be allowed or disallowed and for whom. There is no way to do this otherwise. EA's story progression only offers an on/off switch and unwanted things will still tend to happen when it's in the off position thus making full rotational play almost impossible to manage. AwesomeMod does offer a third alternative, but with far fewer controls available than NRaas SP.

    I would never try to play ALL of the households in a given world, most of mine are far too heavily populated for that to make sense to me. Hence the option to protect a caste (subset) of households from unwanted forms of progression while they are not actively played vs. the rest of the town doing whatever they want, within reason. Other players engage with more lightly populated worlds and have different takes on this.

    Perhaps you could bring any more specific/advanced questions you have along the way about the Rotational settings to us at NRaas? Helping players find their way through the mods and how they can be leveraged is kind of what we are there for. :)
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  • KatyFernlilyKatyFernlily Posts: 738 Member
    I like to use Sarah's settings (or most, I tweak to my own taste). It's very helpful to at least get a start on setting up mods..then tweak to your own liking. All credit to Sarah...and thanks again for your informative website!
    https://simsarahsarah.tumblr.com/nraassettings
  • awellenblawellenbl Posts: 2,970 Member
    That's an interesting link. Thank you @KatyFernlily. Maybe taking a look at those settings and why they were changed will help me figure them out.

    I did go read through that Caste-Setting link @Turjan and you are right, it is a thorough explanation, but I really do want to play the whole town at least to some degree. Seems like NRaas is still the way to go for this, though. And I love how flexible those mods are, but I don't always understand what to change to get the result I want. And sometimes I'm not even totally sure what result I want, because there are so many different possibilities.

    But I did just start a test game last week to fiddle with the settings and try out the caste system and the relativity mod, which is amazing. The game is probably twice at much fun to me at half the speed. ;)

    I'll go and ask more specific questions at the NRaas site, when I figure out what they are. :D
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited September 2019
    It should be noted that Sarah is one of my colleagues at NRaas, she does not have a presence on this forum. But she is always happy to answer any questions regarding her settings and how she plays. Either her option or mine on the Rotational Play page would be conducive to playing or somewhat controlling the entire town provided it has what we might call a sane number of residents -- I still think that actively playing upwards of 200 residents x the number of Traveler mod connected worlds (yet another way to expand gameplay) is not really a recipe for sanity. As slowly as I play, it would take something like twelve real time years to complete one full rotation that way, but of course we each have our own individual play styles and we don't all play connected homeworlds within the same game save.
    Post edited by igazor on
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  • awellenblawellenbl Posts: 2,970 Member
    Somewhat controlling is probably a more apt description of what I am trying to do. I do want them to still age and progress with money, skills and careers.

    I play very slowly as well. Aging is supposed to have roughly a sim day for each month of their lives. So each sim lives nearly a 1000 days. And Traveler is not in use, but I did forget about the vacation worlds. The sims there would just grow old and die without having babies. I'll play around in my test game some more to figure out how I want it to work and I'll go an activate that account on Nraas for more specific questions.
  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    I was just getting ready to start a thread and tag @igazor to ask this question about what I want to do. Background: I have never used a single mod in TS3 and only ONE mod in TS2 (friends not required to gain career promotions). So I'm a novice at mods who doesn't particularly like them.

    Having said that, I've seen you mention many times here in these forums about how you have a mod(s) that let us TS2 lovers do rotational play in TS3. So here is what I want:

    * Create my own town
    * Create my own founding families
    * Play those founding families rotationally, aging each family up 5 Sim days
    * The families I'm not playing don't age, get promoted, have babies, move - just remain frozen until I play them again

    Basically TS2 type play. Is this possible with your mods? Keep in mind I don't understand how mods work and had to have a good bit of help for my TS2 mod I finally got installed.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited October 2019
    @Rhiannon58 - The tools to arrange Rotational Play are within NRaas StoryProgression. The first decision is whether there will be one group of sims in town who get played rotationally while the rest are left up to SP to move their lives forward, or whether every household in the entire town is to be under your control in turns. As I've already mentioned, I play the first way because my worlds have far too many households in them for me to want to ever play all of them.

    So for the entire town, a modified version of the strategy outlined in Option One here, or perhaps consider Sarah's Option Two. Instead of doing up a custom caste for Rotational households, you could use the built-in Not Active caste to make the protections you choose to put into place while families are not being controlled happen more automatically upon switching households. Five sim days is a bit short for a rotation, I find that I lose momentum for longer-term goals when my rotations are shorter than two sim weeks. It also depends on how long the life spans are to be. In the mid to high hundreds or thousands, five sim days is almost nothing as a percentage of each sim's life. With shorter lifespans, the five sim day period is a more significant part of each sim's life. But that's more a matter of strategy and player preference than anything technical.
    https://www.nraas.net/community/Story-Progression-Rotational-Caste-Settings

    What you might want to do first though is experiment with SP, with its progression enabled, on default settings in a test game, so you get a sense of how the mod works without the Rotational Play element. This is all considered an intermediate to somewhat more advanced application of the mod's feature set. I would also say that SP is not the easiest mod to become accustomed to if one has never used mods before. You might want to consider starting with MasterController, which actually on its own doesn't do anything to or for the game other than provide its collections of menu commands on sims, lots, and City Hall for the player to use on demand as they wish. SP is more like set it up and then watch it take over and see what happens (or in the case of rotational control, what doesn't happen).
    Post edited by igazor on
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  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    I also consider the usual, like Overwatch, ErrorTrap or DebugEnabler, necessary to kick the game into submission. But yeah, MC is already complex, but I wouldn't want to play without it. Then there's Dreamer for the "on the fly" switching, ...
    It's hard to stop.
  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    Ok. Limited amount of families makes sense. In TS2, I created a custom city, put down 6 cheap houses, created 6 families and off we went. I don't know how many families I had for sure when I lost my hard drive years ago. 19 maybe? I like "normal" lifespan so I think that usually takes them to their mid to late 90s. So for me, 5 days rotation was enough to stay in touch with everyone and get them aged together. So when I got to the top of my rotation again, for any kids that were college age, I sent them to school together to rush through it, doing one semester per 5 Sim days. This let the parents age up while the kids were in school and they were usually seniors by the time the kids graduated and became adults.

    Having said all that, it might be fun and different to have those 6 founding families but let other families live in the town. This will give match making choices.

    I'm pretty techy so reading your description of SP Rotation makes sense in terms of basically stopping any progression on any family I'm not playing. I understand that they are still around which is kind of how it is in TS2. I've had family events and invited family that I wasn't working with so it was kinda cool to see them show up while I wasn't playing them.

    I assume once I install this mod, I can use it on a particular town I create, and choose not to use it on other towns like my existing legacy challenge town.

    One more clarification: if I understand correctly, if a Sim is pregnant, you can't stop that progression. Correct? This was how I first learned about TS3 when my Sims were having babies without my control, being auto-named, etc.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    It is totally optional to play with mods or not in each ongoing game. The settings you put into place are also saved game/world specific. If you actually did want to use the same NRaas mod(s) and the same settings in a different ongoing game without having to set them all manually again, you could export the settings from the first game and import them into the next one. Players who always (or almost always) use the mods tend to have sets of exported settings all ready to use as that which makes sense in a crowded urban world might not so much in a sparsely populated rural one or a tropical island world. Or they might have a "minimalist" collection of settings that they use to test out new worlds they have never played before, or they prefer a different set of things happening or not happening in connected worlds within the same game like vacation destinations, Uni, and Oasis Landing.

    Point is, the mod settings you put into place exist only within the saved game, within the world-specific nhd file.

    The mods are also removable if you don't like them and the saved game can be played forward without them. Once a game that has seen, let's say StoryProgression, has been played and saved without the mod in place, the mod settings are erased going forward. There are a small number of things to be careful of when removing mods should this be necessary, such as yanking Traveler out when your sims are visiting a custom vacation world will result in them not being able to get back home, taking out a modded career/school while a sim is working/going to that school will leave them doing something undefined, etc. But none of these really apply to SP. If SP is removed from an ongoing save or if it's progression is disabled within its General Options, then either EA's story progression takes over or there will be no progression (to the limited extent that actually helps at all) as per the Game Options checkbox as if the mod had never been there.

    Pregnancies are challenging to control when playing rotationally, but many of us see that as a welcome challenge. I take it you do not want your sims to become pregnant or impregnate others while they are not the active household. But you can allow them to be pregnant so that a pregnancy formed but that has not yet come to term when it's time to move to the next household can remain. The baby will be born when you aren't playing the household though as the pregnancy will continue to progress even if aging is off for that household unless you stall/pause the pregnancy (this is what I do) using MasterController. The MC Cheats module is required to pause pregnancies. There are other mods that can do this as well that are compatible with NRaas, such as CmarNYC's Pregnancy Controller mod from MTS. I haven't missed a birth among my many controlled households in years, and even then it was due to user error on my part -- I forgot at the time that MC Resetting the world, which I did for other reasons, removed the stalled state from one pregnancy so I just had to correct my mistake and replay a couple of sim days.
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  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    I have successfully installed NRass and am following your suggestions for Story Progression.

    I see this note:

    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.

    So if I understand that correctly, unless I have other mods installed, if my Sim is pregnant and I rotate out, it will cancel out the pregnancy. Correct?

    What I specifically don't want is for a baby to be born while I am not actively playing the family
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited October 2019
    That comment in italics is meant to apply to the entire Pregnancy block of settings, not the one it immediately follows.

    I believe the exception you want to set on Sim Options for a sim who has become pregnant while you are playing them, so that they stay pregnant after the household is no longer active, is Sim Options > Pregnancy: Allow Can Be Pregnant > True.

    If the pregnancy is to be continued when the household becomes inactive, and it is not terminated, again MasterController is required to stall the pregnancy or else you will miss the birth. Unless you want the pregnancy to be terminated so that you do not miss the birth, because then there would be nothing to miss?

    The other perhaps simpler way to approach this is just not rotate out of a household where any sims are pregnant; extend your rotation and wait for the birth(s) to happen. Pregnancies in my game are 7 sim days long so that would be really inconvenient for me if conception happened near the end of my rotation cycle, but I could see feeling differently if pregnancies were the standard 3 day length.
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  • awellenblawellenbl Posts: 2,970 Member
    Rhiannon58 wrote: »
    Ok. Limited amount of families makes sense. In TS2, I created a custom city, put down 6 cheap houses, created 6 families and off we went. I don't know how many families I had for sure when I lost my hard drive years ago. 19 maybe? I like "normal" lifespan so I think that usually takes them to their mid to late 90s. So for me, 5 days rotation was enough to stay in touch with everyone and get them aged together. So when I got to the top of my rotation again, for any kids that were college age, I sent them to school together to rush through it, doing one semester per 5 Sim days. This let the parents age up while the kids were in school and they were usually seniors by the time the kids graduated and became adults.

    I played TS2 just like that. I think I started with 5 families, but I ended up with more than 200 and I still rotated through all of them and some Uni rotations thrown in. I did play that neighbourhood for many years, though.

    My test is still running. It's not quite working the way I want it to yet. There are still pregnancy announcements and I didn't want my sims to get pregnant through SP, but I am not using the caste system. My two caste system test household hasn't been up to anything that was reported through stories, while I played other families.

    Good luck with setting up your rotation. :)

  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    Maybe, I can use this topic for a question I have. Where is the setting to keep SP from changing the traits of my rotation families around? Yeah, it's certainly funny when, within one play session, it takes a family and gives the first member "Slob", the second "Evil", and the third one "Dislikes Children". I laughed last time. It's getting old. None of those sims aged up or anything like that.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    Turjan wrote: »
    Maybe, I can use this topic for a question I have. Where is the setting to keep SP from changing the traits of my rotation families around? Yeah, it's certainly funny when, within one play session, it takes a family and gives the first member "Slob", the second "Evil", and the third one "Dislikes Children". I laughed last time. It's getting old. None of those sims aged up or anything like that.
    There are only three instances where sims' traits should be changing. One is if a sim has the Unstable trait (ITF), their other traits are subject to change. That's the nature of that trait.

    The second is if they are sneaking in some Crazy Drinks (LN) on you when you aren't watching, but the effects of those beverages are supposed to be temporary. I don't think I've ever seen a sim order one from a LN bar autonomously though, they always seem to order generic drinks on their own.

    The third is if you have SP set to Disallow traits on purpose by way of Sim, Household, Caste, or Town Options. Or if you have it set to Force specific traits on them (SP Extra add-on module for both of these options). But by default, none of this should be happening.

    Okay, there is a fourth way. If your sims have empty trait slots, SP will fill them up for you when a sim becomes inactive as per its settings on General Options. But that's not changing existing traits, that's adding new ones to the empty slots.

    Might any of these be matching up with what you are seeing happen?
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  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    edited October 2019
    I guess it's filling up slots. It shouldn't fill up slots of teenagers though who already have four traits plus a social trait. The adult had a free university slot, but SP generally gives the new traits as base traits.

    Edit: Not sure whether it matters, but the "story" was in all three cases one of hanging out with a bad person, SV's Sandi French in this case.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @Turjan - Hmm. This still sounds strange.

    A teenager with five traits (four base plus one social) has no empty slots. The Uni one doesn't count (unless you have sent them through Uni by way of the Traveler mod and they graduated?) and the fifth base one doesn't count because it doesn't yet exist for them. We can use MC to shove more traits on a sim than that which they have slots for, but that's the reverse of what you are describing.

    I'm assuming you do not have a mod from another source in play that increases the number of sims' base trait slots? The only NRaas mod capable of doing so would be Retuner, but it would be virtually impossible to have done this by accident.
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  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    I'm not aware of having a mod that allows for this. Of course, some mods do weird things.
    Maybe, I should disable the two University mods (one for enrolling students, one for adding missing professors on repeat visits) that mess up world generation in other scenarios.
    I'll have a look at the exact stats of the concerned sims first before I post more.
  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    edited October 2019
    OK, I looked at the sims, and it's definitely a replacement.

    Sim1 YA (3 days in): Excitable, Eccentric, Brave, Dramatic, Dislikes Children, Bookworm (S)
    That's the right number of traits, and she got "Dramatic" on aging up. I would probably have to look at an old save what was replaced by "Dislikes Children"

    Sim 2 Teen (11 days to transition): Unlucky, Excitable, Evil, Ambitious, Loves the Outdoors
    Should have a social trait instead of a fifth base trait. Not sure which trait got replaced, either.

    Sim 3 Teen (11 days to transition): Slob, Excitable, Ambitious, Dramatic, Genius (S)
    Right number of traits, and Slob replaced something.

    Alternatively, the sims all lost a trait during some game glitch, as the fourth sim in that age range had a similar issue last time. It's also weird that it's all the same family. I guess I should leave it at that and hope it doesn't repeat. MC to the rescue.

    Sim 2 had all of his traits except one replaced at some point in the past.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited October 2019
    @Turjan - Okay, I don't yet know why this is happening. But I am almost positive it's not SP changing those traits, we would have had tons of complaints about that if it were a common thing. I would next want to know if this happens (and I know this would be a bit difficult to test because it's not easy to prove a connection if something doesn't happen 100% of the time) with only NRaas mods in play and no other. If it's really only happening to one household though, I would have to say something is not quite right with them.

    The entire point of Rotational Play is that nothing significant, subject to the player defining what "significant" means, happens with households that are not in active play. Hairstyles getting messed up just as an example by comparison is not significant to me and those are easy to put right with no real impact on gameplay. Traits changing can be pretty significant under just about any definition.

    Nothing interesting being reported on by way of Overwatch or ErrorTrap script logs?
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  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    The error messages after game start usually concern some IF dolls that never went anywhere. That's also what I find in the ScriptError xml files.
    The sims in question are former IF's, btw (but not the ones mentioned in the logs). I removed their occult state via MC. They were out of lockstep with their "real" friends due to ITF.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    How to resolve the current IF errors would depend on what the script logs are saying exactly. You may want to bring those to us at NRaas for review. On the sims who used to be IFs, aha. Sounds like there may be some mild corruption with them if their traits are not stable. Have you tried MC Resetting them or the entire household?
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  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    edited October 2019
    I do a full town reset via MC from time to time. Not that that solves everything, like that eternal butler in the bulldozed and replaced Koffi house.
    Edit: Which reminds me that that butler last worked for the same family with those trait issues. Hmm. Maybe, I can try some console resets.
    Edit2: And stay with this out of this thread :wink:
  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    edited October 2019
    Hey @igazor . Still working on setting up my town. So I created 6 families, put them in 6 houses. My only problem is I'm not 100% sure the order of getting the families setup with caste:manual order. I went into family #1 that I want to be active and I believe it's set to be active. I went into family #2 and set caste:manual to 1. I went into family #3 and tried to set caste:manual to 2 but it also says 1.

    Is there a particular order I need to go into get these all setup properly so I can start rotation? Do they ALL say 1? Or should they be consecutive numbers for each family set to caste:manual?

    Also, while playing my test city, one of my supposed "paused" family had one of the Sims get a job while I was playing my first family. Is that a setting I can change? Alternately, I assume that once I play that family who had someone take a job, I can quit the job and put them in the one I want and/or register them as self-employed.
    Post edited by Rhiannon58 on
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