lazarusinashes

Better Autonomy Preview

Added 2021-06-15 00:39:39 +0000 UTC

If you read the last update, you know that I'm working on a mod called Better Autonomy (used to be called "Less Fun Autonomy"). The way autonomy works now drives me absolutely nuts. Sims never talk to each other, they just watch TV and play chess.

I envisioned a typical family, left to its own devices, would function something like this: family members predominantly talk to each other. When they've talked for a while, they go do something productive on their own before watching TV or playing chess; in other words, the fun actions are something they do on the side rather than something they predominantly do.

And, happy to say, I've got it to work:

Before the mod, these two who are talking would stop talking and watch the TV. In fact, everyone would flock to the fucking TV. Now, these two talk and enjoy each other's company while one or two people watch it.

The dorm feels much more alive like that. Instead of having autonomy for all of these actions disabled, Sims can do them if they want to, but prioritize talking to one another.

Initially the mod functioned by editing the Autonomous Desire data (ad_data) for every StaticCommodity which is about as annoying as it sounds. It also barely worked. What I ended up doing instead is making a global trait that modifies their autonomy to prefer actions that build their social need x20 (a score_modifier). I also reduced the desire for Sims to perform fun actions by 20%. It needs some more balancing; you can never be sure with these things. So far, it seems to work just fine.

The big thing I want to figure out is getting them to be productive. For example, I want Sims to autonomously practice writing and prefer that over watching TV. Once I get that down, I can carry it over to other productive activities: painting, for example. Playing guitar is a fickle one as it builds fun and that's the only reason Sims even bother.

No telling when this will be done. It's been quite the undertaking.