Death By Flies! (Free Preview Post, Mod in Early Access Now!)

Did you see my post Modding Sucks and is Hard? It tells the tale of how this mod broke at some point, and in several hours of trying to fix it, nothing was going right. It was going so bad I cried for real lol

Well, I redid the whole thing and now it works and has more features. Note that because this is a remake of an existing mod, you'll want to remove the old mod if you have it- it no longer works correctly and this is a full replacement.

Here's how it works!

The Short Version:

The mod checks for dirty items on the lot. If there's a certain amount, there's a chance you get a hidden buff that ticks down a timer that causes death by flies. It'll re-check the environment every so often and when it gets especially close to scary, you'll get a visible buff warning you things are too dirty, but if you've cleaned up, you'll lose it and be safe again. Sims who are at risk have flies buzzing around them they intermittently swat at!

The Long Version

(And guess what? There's another Long Version with pictures further down if you want just the main details. Yes, I wrote two long form explanations. The picture one is the "Medium Version".)

Every Sim is given a hidden motive for a dirty environment. This motive slowly ticks down at all times. When it hits 0, it checks the environment for trash. It checks for trash piles, dirty dishes, pet poop, dust piles, ash piles, horse manure, mold, and a couple other things. (At present, the mod does not support dirty counters or appliances due to some oddities with testing for them.)

If it detects a certain amount of those things on the lot, your Sims will get a hidden buff that starts them on the path of destruction. When it gets even worse, you'll get a visible buff that warns of an encroaching threat of flies.

At this point, you have a limited time to clean up a little bit. The next time the hidden motive checks the environment, which is not always the same amount of time for every sim, it'll allow the warning buff to expire if you've cleaned up enough! If not, you keep it. When this buff is active, it's ticking down (in secret, no visible timer for you!) another counter that results in a fly attack. When it reaches zero...Flies attack! Maybe.

When the danger buff is supposed it appear, it'll first check your Sim's traits to see how likely an attack is. If your Sim is Squeamish, a Snob, Proper, or even a Maid, they'll have a HIGHER chance of an attack...the Flies sense their fear. But Slobs also are at risk...the flies sense their cookie crumbs.

If your Sim is Neat or has the Antiseptic Reward Trait, they are safe from the flies, and will not be feasted upon. They'll even get a special moodlet when they'd otherwise have been in danger! This means having a Neat or Antiseptic Sim on hand can warn the rest of the family before it's too late, and they are in REAL danger.

If your Sim is Lazy, Erratic, or a Freegan, they'll have a lower risk, due to a kinship with the flies, but still a risk.

Sims who are At Risk will also have flies buzzing around them, and will swat at them intermittently!

Additionally, if your Sim is currently dirty (low hygiene) or has one of a handful of nasty buffs, like having recently wet their pants, or been hit by a dirty diaper blowout, or are in a dusty environment, they'll have an even higher chance of death. But if they're very clean, they'll have a slightly lower chance of death.

All of these factors multiply onto each other, so a Lazy Sim has some immunity, but if they're dirty and just peed themselves, they have less immunity.

Remember: The hidden fly attack countdown is only active while you have this danger buff. Because of the randomness described above, you might get the buff for a while, and then lose it for a while, recovering some time to make sure the environment gets cleaned up. If you leave the lot and head to clean safety, you'll be fine too- the buff will go away if you're not in a dangerous place, allowing the flies to lose your scent.

Don't worry- when the actual death happens, it, too, will check the environment. So even if you've cleaned up but haven't lost the danger buff just yet, there's one final check to see if you were being tidy or not. This means whenever your lot is sufficiently dirty, you have an incomplete idea of how much time there is until you're safe...or if you're even safe at all.

Picture Guide (Basically the Long Version but with pictures)

You won't see this in-game unless you're using another mod to view it, but here are Waffle's two hidden motives: One that triggers a check if his environment is dirty, and one that determines his risk of a fly attack. When the first reaches 0 it'll check the environment, and give him a hidden buff, that starts lowering the second.

He's in a pretty dirty environment. But he's currently safe. It just got dirty! So when that first one reaches 0 in 45 minutes...it'll check to see if his surroundings are too dirty, and secretly start lowering that second number. Meanwhile, while safe, the second number is going back up to maximum in the background.

Waffle's reached the environment check threshold, and now the first value is reset to a random number within a secret range. This means it won't always check after the same amount of time passes, it varies. But look! The fly attack has gotten ever closer, because now he's in the danger zone. You can't see that on the moodlet panel yet, until the fly attack is particularly close...

At which point you'll get a visible moodlet telling you to WATCH OUT!

This moodlet has no timer on it. It expires in secret. Sometimes that's because you cleaned up enough. Sometimes it's because you got lucky on an environment check, and are given a safety break, during which the attack number goes back up a little. (Watch out! Because this chance-based, other Sims in the household may not have lost the moodlet!)

Since Waffle is trapped in this room with no way to clean it, all this keeps happening, until...

His Fly Attack tracker is only 14 minutes away from hitting 0, but he has an entire 76 minutes left until the danger check happens again. Don't worry- if he miraculously cleaned up in those 14 minutes, the attack won't happen. But he'll still have the scary buff for another 76 minutes. You'll never be sure if you're TRULY SAFE until the buff goes away!

Remember, there's still a chance when the Fly Attack is set to happen that it won't actually happen, and will try again after a while. It's all up to luck. (The luck system is not actually implemented into this at present)

But for Waffle, there was no such luck. 15 minutes later...

He dies! BY FLIES!

Death By Flies is an EA Death, just very hard to get. So there are special effects for it and everything.

Death By Flies requires Eco Lifestyle (for the actual fly death!) and Lot51 Core Library (for everything else!).

Early Access?

Because this mod took so much time to debug and rebuild and test, as it also did the first time, and was such a pain in the ass, and has more feature tweaking to be done, I've decided to put it up in Early Access, as I try to figure out ways to get appliances/plumbing/counters/etc to work with it, and make sure it feels reasonably balanced.

Planned Updates include different balancing for Landfill and Grody lots, hopefully for dirty furniture to count towards things, some balance tweaks if needed, and probably some bug fixes for unexpected stuff that comes up. If possible, I'd like to figure out a way to adjust the threshold for a fly attack based on the size of a lot, or how much furniture is on it, too. That way, a huge lot with what feels like "not that much trash lying around" won't be treated like it's swarming with flies.

As always, if you experience any specific issues or notice any specific weirdness, please say so in the comments or on my discord.

You can download it in Early Access for 2 weeks here!