Charles Object Editor

Sets properties for instantiated objects to enable unusual placement, and allows emergency removal of any misbehaving object, including people.

Create by executing “Spawn.../Scenario Tester” on any person in debug mode or in the catalog under Electronics/All.

Possible applications:

• Allow an object to intersect others such as blocked doors or gates.
• Quickly find objects used by a sim or their user.
• Make objects invisible fading or for wall cutaway.
• Unusual placement persists without activating the move objects cheat.
• Delete objects that block paths and are impossible to click on.
• Collect abandoned objects out of world such as dating rewards.
• Crash objects that can't be clicked on to choose force error.
• Teleport unmovable objects to the Editor.
• Report objects in range without modifying them.
• Make changes on all objects of the same kind at once.
• Measure distances and angles in the world for setting ranges in bhavs.
• Read attributes, temps and arrays without crashing the object.
• Report the effects of objects in range to the environment score.
• Temporarily unlock career rewards and a few other special objects.
• Enable Build mode in emergencies and on commlots.
• Place items into normally inaccessible slots.
• Find the ID and technical name for objects.
• Make sims selectable and return to their original person type.
• Cancel unwanted interactions.
• Transport objects from one lot to another.
• Copy objects.

To activate the options, first Select an object. The Distance to Object filter is generally the most useful and includes the area of 9 tiles centered on the Editor. To affect all objects of type, put a checkmark under All.../Affect All Instances of GUID. The last used filter will apply, and all objects in the room/outside/in-world or any will be affected.

If the Editor is placed on a lot in build mode, when there are no sims, you will be offered a choice to spawn a townie who can run around and interact with the lot. He can be deleted when not needed anymore. This will make the lot "played" if saved, and cause trash and weather to be created, and will only work one or a few times. It is useful for debugging community lot features and can be repeated as many times as needed if not saved. This can also be used to resume play if all people accidentally become unselectable, leave or die. Does not work in Castaways.

If there are any items in the Global inventory, the editor will ask to spawn them for placement on the lot. This can be used to copy those objects in the particular state they are in.

The game should be paused when invoking information dialogs, otherwise the Editor might misbehave and skip some messages. Most actions designed to work in paused mode in the editor's stack and avoid crashing the active sim.


Status Display

Name, object id, r: room; dist: distance in 100ths of a tile between object and the Editor (affected by snapping to tile), dir: absolute, relative and in degrees direction from the selected object towards the Editor box.


Select Object

The most easy way to find objects is to put the Editor near them and use the filter "Dist to Obj," which will find everything on a 3 by 3 grid, or objects on one of the 4 directly adjacent tiles. If the box isn't fully obstructed, you can click on it and directly select an object on the same tile.

Center View zooms in on the selected object's lead tile if far from the box. The object will be flashed red. Useful for identification or finding lost people.

Move Editor to the Object will teleport the box on top of the target tile to identify it on a bigger object like a big door or a soccer field. The box may be obstructed under the object.

Under the menu Select Object you can find other objects currently linked to the selected one to quickly jump to them. Most of them are read from the person data or object data. For example, you can select a person and then find his interaction food dish, then a food on its slot, to look at the attributes. Or see where the person is going under his route goal.

Objects Masquerading are controllers with misleading catalog entries.

For persons:–

ci: Current interaction object
subq: Current subqueue interaction object
running: Current interaction object, sometimes different with nested actions
route: Object the person is walking or has recently walked towards
cn: Next queued interaction object
visitor: Visitor controller, work object for NPCs or walkbys
socmenu: Object providing additional interactions
conv: Group talk controller
group: Date or outing controller
idle: Idle animations container
react: For awareness reactions
influ: Influencing person
preg: Pregnancy controller
phone: Related to conversations over telephone
idf1, idf2: Private data related to interactions, only sometimes an object
rel: var 0 relationship (association, ownership, use) from selected object towards the other, from other towards selected
npc: last attempted cleaning/gardening object

For all objects:-

slot: contained within the selected obj, recursively
contnr: where the selected object itself is contained (jump back from above)
lead: lead tile of the selected multi-tile obj
multi: next other tile of a multi-tile obj
objlnkf: for stairs, linked steps - forward/backwards
portal1: for connected objects like sectional couches in downtown
user: people who may be using the selected object
tile: objects on the same tile as the Editor
adj: everything on adjacent tiles, same room


Behavior State

Notify Out of Idle: Interrupts sleep in 118 Idle as if it had expired. Applicable to any object. For example, an object waits for 30 minutes, and you want to see the effect immediately.

Crash Object: As if Force Error had been pushed.

Simulate on Pause: Makes the object continue running when game is paused. Examples are Stairs, Secret Society controller, my cheat objects. May be unstable if they show dialogs, which need Idle around them. Can be used to run most time-consuming actions with an Immediate command.

Stop Anims on Person: Stops carry poses and some overlay anims.

Disabled: Shows the object's disablement status if is put on sale or inside a dormitory/hotel room. A click switches to the next type of disabled. 1 = fully disabled, 2 = disable main (for sale) All interactions will also be disabled. Available for non-persons. A disabled object will not be found by people trying to use it. To un-disable persons, use Notify out of interaction.

Hurried: If the person's animations are sped up when rudely interrupted. Will set hurry if invoked.

Lockout Ticks: Shows if the object is hidden from automatic searches for being inaccessible. Invoking will set and increase lockout. Unlike Idle, there are 60 lockout ticks in a second. Useful for checking how a person searches for the best chair or surface.

Notify Out of Interaction: Shows the current priority and non-interruptible state (shown as 200). Useful for troubleshooting unintended exit of interactions. Invoking this option will snap the person out of the current action as quickly as possible, negating non-interruptible and with hurry, set them as greeted and not disabled. Hurry is like when jealousy or sunlight strikes. Disabled are dormitory/hotel residents. Applicable to persons and pets.

Use Count: How many people are interacting with the current tile. Usually prevents automatic deletion. Note that they may click on any tile and be registered as a user only on it. Invoking the menu action clears this, but it usually shouldn't be done.

Stop All Visual Effects: Makes the object fully opaque, stops glow and thought bubbles and fading currently in progress. Useful for fixing interrupted fades of college students, or to take screenshots without overhead icons.

Teleport to Editor: Moves the selected object(s). They will ignore some placement restrictions.
Move Out of World: Put the object in room -1. It can be pulled out again.

Copy Object: Make one or more replicas. Inventory preserves all of the current state, being broken, etc. May be invalid on a copy (like when a computer is moved to another lot, or associated with the same sim). Can copy some special objects that can't be bought like novels.

Selectable: Makes people selectable while retaining their type and rights. Useful for seeing what interactions are available to a visitor. Person type is saved in person attribute 0x39 bits 10 to 16. The current person type is shown.

Selectable Family: Fully selectable as a family member. He will lose his special rights and has to go to work, maybe subject to aging. People not actually part of the family will be deleted on lot load.

Unselectable: Returns a selectable person into his original state or a visitor if none. The saved previous person type is shown. There is a protection from unselecting all people if Affect All is active.

Show Object's Attributes: Show attributes, semi-global attributes, temps, object arrays and part of the object's data, name and GUID. Useful for monitoring a modded object without crashing it. OK to continue with the next page, Cancel to stop. Wait just returns to give the time to read. Old objects on prebuilt lots don't show all semi attributes because the variable indicates they don't have them. The values are interpreted as a bitfield, object ID or neighbor. The Editor doesn't know their meaning. Labels are read from the object's text lists. Attributes are read only from the lead tile, which is a limitation for convenience.

Show Person Data: Only for people. Lists all person data with some interpretation for hexadecimal, flags fields and object references.

Snap an Object Into Slot: Puts another single-tile object into the selected object's slot when this might normally be not permitted (head, near the wall of a counter). Objects are temporarily set to have no weight, and their size per business shelf is faked. Those are then restored. Some objects have a functional tree "Prevent Placement in Slot" and won't accept a wrong snap (such as only as sink being allowed into its counter slot).

Remove Instance: Delete the object from the lot. Also gives option to delete (uninvite) people for convenience in large groups.


Flags

Self explanatory, affecting placement, intersection, ability to be moved. Will persist until the object is reset, which may be a long time if no new mods are loaded. Can set intersection on trees, gates and near doors.

Movement Flags -> All Flag Fields Movable: quickly set everything to let the selected object(s) be movable anywhere. Like with the cheat.

Movement Flags -> Allow to set for sale: allow to sell this object type on a business until restart. It can still be restocked in another session. Some objects can only be bought in wholesale mode because they have a CT prohibiting sale.


The Menu All

Indiscriminate actions that generally don't expect an object selection, except for a few because they had nowhere else to go.

Affect All: Makes most actions apply to all objects of the GUID. For example, they may be all teleported, or all made visible, movable. When a person is selected, actions will apply to everyone of his template: all bartenders, all regular persons, all dining servers, etc. The way I have implemented it makes the selected object jump to all those instances, and may be different to what it was originally.

The last used filter will be used on the selection: in world, out of world, my room, object's room, outside. Distance to Obj will include all. When a person is selected, all persons on the lot will be affected, regardless of location. This is indicated in the upper status menu. For example, it is possible to set movable all objects of a kind in the room where the Editor box is, and leave those in other rooms alone.

Permanently Opaque Alpha: Make everything on the lot not transparent. Undoes fading like ghosts and when walking near portals.

Permanently Opaque Unobstruct: Make everything on the lot not transparent. This cannot be undone! Will stop objects disappearing when close to the camera. Trees, stairs, lamps, hanging flowers.

Permanently Movable: Clears restrictions on movement. Dangerous and can't be undone. Individual objects can instead be targeted with the flags menus. Useful in Castaways.

Permanently Shiftable: Allow movement up/down on all normal objects if Apartments EP is present and quarter-tile snap if Mansion EP is present.

Start Fire: Creates a large number of fires on the lot for a scenario/event. Extinguish/Remove Fires: Softly stop or immediately remove. Fire Immunity for Me: Sets the option like a fireman on self (not selection).

Enable Build: Activates build mode when disabled, optionally keeps reactivating

Unlock Objects in Catalog: Makes hidden career/reward and commlot objects available for purchase until the next restart. Taken from expandable BCON lists. Objects are put in logical categories specified in those lists.

Unlock the Selected Object: Makes the selected object available to buy. Better than the above option, since it works on anything without making a mod. An unlock on one lot remains in effect on another. It is effective without saving the lot. The object will appear under Miscellaneous near garbage cans.

Report Environment Score: List objects with crapness and niceness.

Walk to Slot: Check where the active person would be if instructed to walk to a slot of the currently selected tile, to see if it is appropriate in a mod. Some slots walk away from the obj some distance (0x6, 0x8) walk as close as possible (0xC) or on top (0x2D). Some turn the body towards the object, others do not.

Show Overhead Effect: Makes a person show a thought bubble about the selected object. The Affect All switch makes all people of a template show it.

Misc Obj Data: Adjust Weight, Crapness and Niceness, Current Graphic (fresh, spoiled, etc), Shadow, Route Penalty, Portal Penalty. Useful for experimentally finding a value with a good impact. The shadow can be hidden on objects pulled out of a wall off-tile. Applies to the selected object(s), despite being in the menu All.

Fix Broken Food: Set ready state on foods that have no state in Jacquet's shop. After a deep reset of food items, their state is not initialized, which this action does. No change to normal foods.

Property Value: Statistics about the value of all objects on the lot. Billable is so called in the flags, but the bills amount is actually taken from the appraised lot value. Bills amount is estimated according to the vanilla method.

Set to Sell on Evict: Mark everything to be sold when the family moves out.

Set to Leave on Evict: Mark everything to be left on the lot if the family moves out. The default billing system considers these objects not chargeable. Not available on apartment lots.

Set Current Value of All: Undoes depreciation or sets max depreciation.

Copy the Object Into Inventory: Makes a copy in memory for tranferring the object to another lot. When the Editor is placed on a community lot, it will ask to spawn all copied objects from the global inventory. This is useful for moving objects in a specific configured state (turned on, with intersection set, associated with a person, etc.). Objects from the personal inventory need to be taken out by hand. Objects normally not permitted in personal inventory can be put there now. Use judgement about when it makes sense.

Copy Nearby Objects Into Inventory: Takes objects in the room around the Editor and places them into the inventory without requiring to select one kind at a time. Only catalog objects are taken to avoid collecting invisible markers and emitters. If a service object has been unlocked in the catalog, it may be taken. This action should be targeted on a clump of items, but it is possible to take from the whole lot.

Take Out Objects From Global Inventory: Spawns objects previously copied there. With people present, this can be called from an interaction. The global space is mostly unused. The menu item will be disabled if nothing is there.

Show Simulator Globals: Shows all globals with some interpretation. Avoids the need to crash an object and going out to read the log.


Debug Menus

Sale Price: Experimental, for setting catalog definition field 0x22 where Quarter Tile placement of Mansion resides.

Search Unusual Flags: Show objects with set flags that are unknown to me or out of world with value.

Get Front Door: Find what the front door is believed to be from global 2D7 and from my Chinese food mod. Shows outside and inside tiles, the closest routable object for single diagonal doors, and a gate. Normal front door would only ask for one of those at a time.

Game version: Open for Business and later.
Most actions work in Castaway Stories.