Dining Improvements

An assortment of small improvements to the dining experience at restaurants. They can likely be installed in any combination, all or only some. For this reason there is some overlap & conflicts between the packages. It is possible that some changes don't play well with owned business.


Dining Actions Limited by Motives

Do not allow autonomy to enter dining when they are not hungry or their motives are low. Register on the podium only after successfully walking to it, to allow the interaction to be cancelled. Visitors will check the count of occupied tables before dining. They will choose counter islands if available. Normally 2 tables are reserved for playables, but this was checked only after the host lead them to a table. The visitor then walked away.


Dining Automatic by Selectability

Select manual dining if the person is selectable or in a group with a selectable person, otherwise select automatic. In rare cases the wrong type is chosen, and autonomous visitors may wait for their meal forever.


Dining Coupons Not for Rich People

Households with funds of at least $40,000 don't receive coupons after dates, attracting unnecessary attention to the mailbox and cluttering the inventory.


Dining Disallow Skipping Out on Bill

Do not show this action on restaurant podiums, and risk it be picked by accident when paying the bill. Skipping can still be initiated by clicking on a server.


Dining Do Not Drop Tray

Servers won't drop food on a customer unless they have negative relationship.


Dining Drink Less From Glass

A diner will not use his glass while a server is in his conversation to avoid the server getting stuck without breathing waiting for a reply, and have a really lively group talk take place. Auto-diners will look at a menu instead of the glass, and be more talkative instead of doing 5 sips in a row.


Dining Form Party With Anyone

Autonomous people may dine together with anybody not just townies. They will first look for friends on the lot who are not overly busy, then join to anybody currently at the podium with minimal relationship.


Dining Get Seated Without Delay

Enter dining immediately instead of following the host first. All group members will be called up before they have wandered off. It will look almost the same with slightly more bumping.


Dining Host Does Socials

The dining host will carry out socials or short interactions nested on the job, for example reactions to some emitters. This prevents his queue getting blocked and allows to build or maintain a friendship with him. He will also be more responsive to queued patrons, and he will run to a dine and dash suspect based on active personality.


Dining Meal Owner

Assign the patron as the owner to served meals to prevent them from being taken by other people. No snow on plates.


Dining Reliable Seating

Push out any other person sitting in the chosen dining chair. Handle maximum priority push from other people walking on stairs within the interaction, and continue trying to be seated quietly. Some members of a big group usually fail to reach the table in Bernard's Botanical Dining, and the host gets a push in his queue, unable to execute his greeting. Auto diners will talk and breathe after finishing their plate. Fixes a bug of "iterator that doesn't exist" when another host is invited and goes dining. The bug with stairs is better addressed in "Stair Penalty".


Dining Reserve Only One Table

Visitors will keep only one table open instead of two if there are fewer than 6 tables to make better use of small restaurants, such as the Rodney's Hideout. Tables will be counted before getting seated, and the host will refuse them.


Dining Return to the Seat and Plate

A person is able to restart eating from a plate after the action was cancelled if the plate is not being cleaned yet. In case any interaction would require standing up (pushed as insertion), the diner will return to his seat. He will breathe during pauses when waiting for food. If he never started eating because it was cancelled, he will wait for the party and end instead of waiting forever. After eating, people will re-enter conversation on the controller to be able to talk to the server. Food dish puts the conversation on Area which the server can't enter. There won't be a freeze before starting to eat.


Dining Restaurant Stove With Chef

The stove will wait until there is a car on the lot before generating the chef to avoid him being deleted by the lot load function, and having food appear without a chef.


Dining Server Cleans Limited Object Categories

The dining server will not clean toilets or showers, and will clean non-food items within limited distance only. The NPC will repair the sink, and wash hands less often to avoid breaking the sink again. Multiple servers will not attempt to clean the same item. They will not show route failure animations in the kitchen and wander around the stove less.


Dining Table Selection

The allowed distance for restaurant tables around the podium is limited. Tables will be tested for central slot occupancy. This avoids spawning too
many servers if more tables exist outside. The host will choose the smallest table that fits the party, but prefers to seat them indoors in bad weather. Tables without coffee drinkers are also preferred.


Dining Table Selection No Coffee

Same as Table Selection, but do not allow to sit at tables with coffee drinkers at all until they have finished. This is for shared rooms with the espresso machine.


Dining Toast to the Party

Only people in the same outing group will join in a toast. Visitor auto diners at a neighboring table can't join. Protection against an error when another diner has started dining but not yet sat down.

Not allowed to toast when eating with a plate in hand. Not allowed to toast or do any other seated socials towards one's back. It was previously possible to place chairs side by side facing opposite directions. This protects from some unwanted toasts with strangers. The range of toasting is extended to include a bigger dining table.

The accept result is now passed on correctly, and other bystander toasters will gain relationship towards both the receiver and the speaker if they know them a little and choose to raise the glass. They will only get a red minus if they don't drink.

Game edition: At least Open for Business.