Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
Routing of the sinks!
Brd709
Posts: 2,092 Member
Has anyone else noticed this get very out of hand recently? Before my sims would have washed their hands and dishes in the sink that's in the same room as them. Lately it's got so bad that in the Bheeda house, they wash dishes in the sink in downstairs toilet instead of the kitchen sink. I've seen sims upstairs walking between bathroom to bathroom to wash their hands instead of the sink that's right next to them in the same room.
Was it always like this or did it get patched at some time?
Was it always like this or did it get patched at some time?
Post edited by EA_Solaire on
8
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Maybe they did something so the radius in which Sims look for objects to clean up has been expanded due to the new bottles and diapers.
Not sure about the hand washing part.
@Brd709 This has been an issue a long time. The game is programmed to go to the nearest sink. To use the metaphor "as the bird flies". So think 3 dimensional, the sink upstairs is technically closer. The up and down doesn't seen to count either for actual distance, actually. If you flattened all floors of the house out onto a 2 dimensional plane, the 'closest' sink is where they go first.
I have a build now that I downloaded from the gallery. A really nice large building. But the Sims will go through a maze of hallways and stairs to reach the sink in the 3rd floor bathroom after using the first floor bathroom because the sink on that floor is directly above the toilet on the first floor. The sink in the bathroom on the first floor is about 6 tiles away from the toilet.
I haven't tried it yet, but I'm guessing since the toilet on the 3rd floor is above the sink on the first floor, when they use the toilet upstairs, they'll make their way down to the sink on the first floor.
Crazy I know. Something I watch for when playtesting my own builds.
The first floor:
The second floor:
Recently i've directed the Bheeda's to use the toilet upstairs at the front of the house (behind the first bedroom) They'll use the right toilet but they'll finish up on the toilet to walk right down the hall and use the sink to wash their hands in the en-suite!
Same goes for meals. They'll eat in the dining room, but they'll wash their plates up in the sink in the downstairs toilet!
I can see the toilet and the sink in the 1rst floor bathroom are technically overlapping. Try putting the sink in that square you're not using below the toilet in the screenshot. Have the sink pointing the same direction as the toilet instead of overlapping.
EDIT: This is what I mean by overlapping.
I'll give this a try and see if it improves. The column in the downstairs toilet doesn't really need to be there in the game, if i'm building a house from real life i just like to add these details for accuracy if anything.
Recently I realized that it's not smart placing the toilet stall in a residential house. In this case the building is a high school, Principal resides 2nd floor. On 3rd floor sleeps students, and in their common bathroom there are toilet stalls. Sims on ground floor will choose to walk up to 3rd floor to use the toilet even if they originally stood next to the 1st floor bathroom.
I've also noticed an increase in events where a sim - say in a bathroom, in need of washing hands, will ignore the bathroom sink to walk over to another floor or end of the house to use a sink there instead. It feels totally insane, and although I think sims have always chosen a questionable route to a sink, I think this has become worse recently.
So, it got me wondering - do we have sinks intended for various use, like some sinks meant for bathrooms while others are meant for kitchens? Could it be that I placed a kitchen sink in that bathroom? I never saw such categories in BB, but the sinks could still be slightly differently coded like some attracts "wash hands" and others attract "clean plate". Anyone know?
In my game they rarely use the sink in the bathroom next to the toilet to wash their hands. They mostly go to the kitchen sink or a sink in a different bathroom, including on different floors. This has happened in all houses I’ve played with all different families.
What mod corrects this please?
Have you tried to see if the sinks are accessible? Maybe there are clutter objects blocking access to them? I rarely have issues with sinks, and for most part they work as intended in my game and I play vanilla.
You have summed it up right there. This game does not work like real life.
As a real-life former construction architect and engineer myself, I have to laugh sometimes and just enjoy the game and it's silly quirks.
That bathroom actually in real life would be better with the toilet and sink placement you have. But HEY! This game is fantasy fiction.
I guess I'm saying, don't expect the "Sim People" to behave like real life people. It's all A.I. programming algorithms. Don't get me wrong though, I still love this game.
All the sinks are accessible. They use them occasionally but most of the time they walk miles to get to a different one. As I said it’s happened in several houses with several families and there’s no reason for it. I have checked all the rooms and there’s nothing to block them from using the obvious one.
Some sinks are definitely meant to be kitchen sinks, the ones with long water faucet are kitchen sinks, but I don't know if they are coded differently. I just put what looks like a kitchen sink in the kitchen and bathroom sink in the bathroom. Very often I use the cheapest sinks too, and they still keep using the right sinks. Some objects do cause preferential behaviour, like a sim will prefer to use a pee bush further away over a closer toilet. I am playing a sim now whose first floor bathroom sink is closer than the kitchen sink, by a few tiles only and she used to wash her dishes in the bathroom sink but that was solved by just adding a dishwasher and now that is the preferred method of cleaning dishes, unless it is already in use.
Just found a massive thread in the big reports section with this exact problem. Seems people think it started happening a lot after the HSY patch.
Ah.... ok. I haven't noticed a difference yet. But that seems plausible then.
They are not coded differently. A sink is a sink. The only difference I could see is it's stats. Like for beds, the more comfortable ones are usually chosen first. Same with chairs couches, etc.
The "sink" thing actually drove me nuts before and I removed all of them in the house. So for hygiene, only option is shower or bath. For dishes, only option is garbage (or dishwasher if I put one in).
Yep I use a mod to disable autonomous handwashing. My Sims have been scandalous for years!
I think easiest way to solve the issue with washing dishes in kitchen sink is to place the table in the kitchen or right next to the kitchen. If you have the dining room on the other side of the house and bathroom between the kitchen and diningroom, they are bound to use the bathroom to wash dishes. I have never encountered sims washing their hands in other bathroom, maybe that has to do with other stats than standard hygiene level. Would be interesting to know if sims behave the same in such a house if the house is placed in different games, maybe it has to do with various upgrades added or maybe it's caused by the house design. Or maybe it's a stuck object that needs to be reset.
Since the latest patch my Sims go downstairs to wash their hands. The OP is 100 % right.
Would you upload the house in question to the gallery?
Edit to add: It's happening in every household, and on lots that I used without this problem for years.