Testers Wanted: Less Autonomous College Assignment (Updated 4/11/2006)

Edit4: 4/11/2006
Yet another bug. This one was actually preventing dormies from autonomously doing assignments due to erroneous retrieval of max grade points. I've tested this and it should be fixed now.

Edit3: 3/29/2006
It looks like there were actually bugs that I never caught before. Hopefully it should be fixed now.

Edit2: I forgot to mention, the "new" fix for the bathrooms should work when sims try to create New assignments. So, from this point on, sims should never attempt to do assignments if they are standing in a bathroom. However... if an assignment Already exists in the bathroom, they may attempt to do/finish it. You can either let them finish it, or move it manually. But after that, sims shouldn't be doing assignments in the bathroom. Please test/play with this and let me know if it works properly (so far it has in my game, but needs more testing). Thanks!

Edit: I have placed this in the EP2 - Nightlife Category only because I wasn't completely sure if it would work in just University. That's why I want testers to tell me whether or not it does work. I suspect that it should, since the BHAVs for this were introduced in Uni and most likely have not changed since. If anyone is willing to test this out and report back, as soon as it is confirmed to work in Uni, then I may edit the category as well.

This hack was made to fulfill a little request made by CuriousSpurious over at the MATY forums. I decided to give it a try because I wanted a small, hopefully somewhat easy project to "cut my teeth" so to speak on modding. Upgrading Risky Woohoo was good practice, but it was pretty easy to do having a template to pretty much copy (Thanks sweatm. ). I wanted to do something pretty much from "scratch" and (mostly) on my own. This "simple" hack represents the fruit of my labor. :P

What this hack does:

• Autonomous college assignments are restricted to dormies/YAs who live on the current Dorm lot.
• Autonomous college assignments are disabled for all visitors. This includes YAs who "live" elsewhere (another Dorm, Residence, limbo i.e. the magical space from which randomly generated passerby YAs appear from and disappear to...) as well as any YA NPC (Cheerleaders, Mascots, Streakers, etc.)
• Autonomous college assignments are disabled on Residences, Greek Houses, and Secret Societies (to prevent visitor litter).
• Autonomous college assignments are disabled if a Party (of any type: House, Sports, etc.) is in progress.
• Autonomous college assignments are disabled if the Sim has fulfilled their maximum grade.
  
• Autonomous college assignments are disabled if the Sim is currently in a bathroom (which is defined as being in the same room as a Terlet, Showah, Bathtub, or Showahtub).
  
  Note: Maximum grade is the current possible maximum, so if you have not upgraded your meter yet, and the meter has been maximized at that current level, this hack should prevent your sim from trying to do an assignment.
  
  Note 2: It is sort of pointless for dormies to do assignments anyway, since they are essentially "frozen" in time. But of course it is meant to give the illusion that they are "normal" like your playable sims. Dormies usually always have a fully upgraded meter. With that in mind, this hack will pretty much stop dormies from doing assignments once their meter is full. So if you have the same dormies in a particular dorm through several generations, they may no longer do assignments, unless you make them playable some how (by moving them in or with some hack) or if you use some hack to reset their grade point status.

Exceptions:

• Playable (selectable) sims will still be able to do college assignments (if user directed i.e. the player selected/clicked on College.../Do Assignment or clicked on an existing Assignment and chose Do Assignment).
• Dormies/YAs who live on the current Dorm Lot who are very serious (Playful < 300) will still autonomously do college assignments.
• Dormies/YAs who live on the current Dorm Lot who are very shy (Outgoing < 300) will still autonomously do college assignments.
• All YAs will be allowed to autonomously do college assignments IF the current lot is a Community Lot in a University Neighborhood (for libraries, student centers, etc.)
• Any sim that has been influenced (i.e. the influencee will obviously do the college assignment of influencer).

As usual, sims should be in a relatively good mood (Mood > 0 = essentially "in the green") in order to autonomously do assignments.

User directed playable sims should always still do assignment if ordered to do so.

It should still be possible to influence almost any sim to do your own sim's assignment.

This mod is meant to help reduce the number of assignments that created, so that the only assignments littering your Dorm Lot are the assignments of your playable sims and the dormies that live there. It was the original intent to prevent excessive clutter, especially from visiting sims and NPC sims who end up leaving unfinished assignments all over your dorm. This specific issue may already be dealt with by the latest patches, which I believe cause those types of assignments to essentially "magically" evaporate. Nevertheless, I really hated seeing visitors and NPCs do their assignment at my dorm and leave it behind and unfinished. So, hopefully, this prevents that from happening in the first place.

Caveat:
However, because of how this mod works, it pretty much will also prevent valid visitors from doing their assignments on your dorm (as intended to prevent litter). So... you can't really have a "study date" or "group assignment" scenario when you call/invite/greet other YA sims to your Dorm Lot. These sims will be unable to create new assignments for themselves, and you can't really "ask" them to. Perhaps, if I ever get that advanced and figure out how to add interactions, I may consider that for a possible, future upgrade. But I'm lazy so don't hold yer breath. :P

Additionally, I believe the restrictions during a Party go into effect when the Party Controller gets created. This probably happens when the dialog box with the countdown timer pops up. So... any sims that are already autonomously doing assignments will continue to do so until they stop on their own. In other words, this mod does not STOP sims from doing assignments while in the middle of the interaction. It merely prevents them from attempting to start. Once a sim stops, if the party is going, and they meet appropriate criteria, then they should not try to go back to the assignment. Only after the party ends, dormie/YA sims will be able to autonomously do assignments again. Certain sims (very serious or very shy) will still autonomously do assignments.

INSTALLATION:
These MUST be in your Downloads folder, typically found under:

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Downloads

Possible further updates:
I am also working on a similar, related mod for group research (i.e. no group research during a party). It will probably have looser/fewer restrictions. I also have possible plans involving tutoring and teaching how to study requiring the "Learned How to Study" memory. I am also considering a mod that may force sims to try and find all existing assignments on the lot before starting/creating a new one if they attempt to do assignments autonomously.

Compatibility:
Nightlife
University - possibly, currently untested (as I will not uninstall and reinstall just to do so). However, this hack requires University (since College Assignments only make sense in Uni :P). This is where Testers Wanted comes in. If you only have Uni, please test it and let me know. I can't imagine why it shouldn't work, but to be on the safe side, I need testers.

I have tested this in several lots on in my game, and it appeared to work in all situations as described above. The appropriate sims were able to do assignments and the appropriate sims were restricted from doing them. I was going to try and include screenshots, however, since there are far too many variables - how would a picture of sims doing or not doing assignment for certain prove that it works? The screenshots don't really do this justice anyway. I tried to show that dormies were doing assignments as normal, but when there was a party on, no one did assignments. However, the dialog box with the countdown timer did not show up in the pics that I took in-game. Anyways, this is the kind of a hack that you would probably have to observe over a length of time to really see if it is working for you. This is why I am requesting Testers and hoping for some positive feedback as to whether it really works in other people's games or not.

So please, help me out and let me know if you have any problems. If you do have a problem, please try to describe what you were doing before and after the problem occurred. Please try running the game in debug mode (using the boolprop testingcheatsenabled true cheat) and posting your error log (if you get one). If you encounter an "error" where a sim wasn't supposed to do assignment but IS doing it, try shift clicking and forcing an error on that sim, and posting the log.

Before you do this, please make sure that the situation meets the criteria for NOT doing assignment:

• Current lot is a DORM in a UNIVERSITY neighborhood
• Sim is NOT a YA
• Sim DOES NOT live on the current DORM Lot
• Sim has NOT been influenced to do assignment
• Sim has reached current maximum grade
• There is a Party in progress
• IF there is a Party in progress THEN Sim is NOT VERY serious (has 3-10 Playful)
• IF there is a Party in progress THEN Sim is NOT VERY shy (has 3-10 Outgoing)

If the situation meets any combination of the above, then a sim should NOT do an assignment autonomously. If they DO meet the criteria, but are STILL doing assignments autonomously, then there might be something "wrong" (either the mod doesnt work properly and I missed something or you may have another mod that conflicts with this one).

This hack is compatible with most, if not all mods by MATY crew (Pescado, TJ, and CBoy), dizzy, and probably more. Again, up to you to help me determine any possible conflicts. This should not conflict with JenFlower's "homework sometimes faster fun" mod, since her mod does not affect Univeristy assignments.

REMINDER and fine print (to cover my ass :P) :
Remember to ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA BEFORE INSTALLING NEW HACKS. By using this hack, you agree to absolve me of any responsibility or liability for any potential loss of or damage to your data. You have been warned. :P

HOW TO REPORT: Conflicts, problems, or errors
I would appreciate any constructive criticism and feedback that is actually helpful. With that in mind, it would be helpful, when reporting any conflicts or issues, that you include the following:

1) thorough but reasonably brief description of what you were doing
2) clear, comprehendible explanation of your problem
3) list of hacks that may be related to college assignments
4) archived (.rar or .zip) of log produced by error

Posts which do not include a clear description of what your problem is will be pretty much ignored. (i.e. posts such as "This does not work! I am taking it out! You suck! Nice try! etc.") I can't and won't help you if you don't explain what's wrong.

Please be nice when trying to explain your problem and I might be nice and help you.

:grouphug: Finally, my Thank Yous go to:

CuriousSpurious for the request over at MATY. J.M. Pescado, twojeffs, dizzy2, and jase439 for being excellent tutors and providing excellent models in their mods. And thanks go to them again, as well as Inge Jones, ebruere, christinalov, and Flyby for putting up with and answering all my annoying questions. As always, thanks to those creators who've put out some excellent modding tutorials, Quaxi and co for SimPE, and dizzy2 for disaSim2, and the finally letters T and S, and the number 2, all of whom, without which this mod would not be possible. :D

If I left anyone out, I apologize in advance. You know who you are and you deserve my thanks.

Revision History:
v1.01 - Fixed possible bug regarding missing stack object
v1.02 - Converted format to 8007 to ensure backwards compatibility for users with Uni Only (No need to update if you have NL)
v1.03 - Added Fix to Prevent Autonomous College Assignments in Bathrooms
v1.04 - Fixed bug concerning Error: Missing neighbor for data access.
v1.05 - Really fixed possible bug regarding missing stack object, I think... *crosses fingers*
v1.06 - Fixed issue preventing sims from doing assignments due to erroneous retrieval of max grade points