(UPDATE: 24-APR-2017) Autonomous Fun In The Sun

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Uploaded: 8th Aug 2014 at 11:57 PM
Updated: 23rd Apr 2017 at 6:07 PM - Mod update


Updates

24-APR-2017: Fix for a potential conflict with Arsil's Toddlers Extra Activities. If you use both mods, toddlers should be encouraged to play in the sand autonomously as well.

14-MAR-2016: Sims can now autonomously initiate water balloon/snowball/dew fights on the Family Fun Water Arena.


Mod Description

This is a script mod that allows and promotes sims to snorkel, windsurf, go boating, use pool loungers, build sandcastles and have water balloon fights autonomously. Also sims can rent boats for fun from mooring posts/boat trailers on community lots using a new custom interaction. Read below for more details.



Details

The mod allows sims to perform following interactions autonomously without being directed by the player:
  • Go Windsurfing
  • Snorkel
  • Go Boating
  • Have Water Balloon/Snowball/Dew Fight (using the Family Fun Water Arena from Seasons)

You may be asking why I made this script mod specifically, since most usually to make an interaction autonomous/more autonomous an ITUN tuning mod should suffice?


I've also made the following changes to these interactions as well as the "Relax" interaction for pool loungers and the "Play In Sand" interactions:

InteractionDefaultChanges
Go WindsurfingSims tend to surf far away from where they started and end up in the middle of nowhereSims will be made to surf back to where they started from after they finish (unless the interaction is cancelled or they started from too far out in the sea in the first place in which case they'll be directed back to land instead)
SnorkelSims could not
  • snorkel in bodies of water (besides pools) above the world's sea level and were simply blocked from snorkeling in Twinbrook/Lunar Lakes/Moonlight Falls because of this
  • find objects when snorkeling in ponds/lakes only at sea
Sims can now
  • snorkel in bodies of water above the sea level (such as the lakes in Twinbrook/Bridgeport/Lunar Lakes etc) (wish I could've done the same for boating/windsurfing but the game simply refuses to place or route boats on non-default water levels )
  • find objects (excluding seashells) when snorkeling in ponds/lakes
Go BoatingPlayer has to manually click on a point in the water for the sim to route in the boat toIf a sim has a boat in their inventory and autonomously decides to use this interaction they will route a to a nearby point in the water chosen by the game and then go boating around autonomously from that point
Relax (Pool Lounger)Inactive sims could autonomously grab loungers out in the open even if they didn't own them but since they couldn't return them back on their own that was a botherSims will no longer use pool loungers that they do not own.
Play In SandOnly child sims could autonomously be pushed to play in the sand despite Island Paradise unlocking the activity for sims teens and above. Also nothing was preventing sims from building sandcastles under snow.Sims aged children and above can autonomously be pushed to play in the sand. They can't do this if the sand is covered in snow.

In addition:
  • Sims will now only autonomously consider going windsurfing or snorkeling if they are on either a Beach lot or a commercial lot that is partially in the water.
  • The same restrictions on the default Go Play In the Ocean interaction so sims should no longer spam (and fail) the interaction whenever they are on the world lot.
  • In addition to on residential lots they are greeted on, Sims can use pool loungers in community lots autonomously ONLY on lots zoned as either Pool / Resort / Pool Club / Beach (so you don't have to worry about the market in China for example) OR a lot partially in the water UNLESS there is an unowned pool lounger already on the lot (so say if you wanted sims to autonomously lounge in the pool at the gym just place a pool lounger on the lot)



Windsurfing Board, Pool Lounger and Boat "Rentals"

Similar to the in-game windsurfing interaction, the mod makes possible for sims to relax in a pool lounger even if they didn't have one in their inventory. A temporary lounger will be created for them to use in that case, which will eventually be automatically deleted after they are done using it. In addition, if you placed pool loungers/windsurfing boards on a community lot the temporary board/lounger created for sims doing these activities on the/from the lot will copy the CASt style set of one of the loungers/board on the lot, making it seem like they "rented" (for free) from the lot as demonstrated in the screenshots (This is mostly so sims don't have to use the exact same one default preset for the object every time)

And speaking of rentals, I've added an interaction to rent boats on mooring posts and boat trailers on community lots. It's simply called Go Boating... (since I didn't want to bother needing a new line to be translated and just used an existing interaction name that would appear correctly translated in all languages already). With it you can choose to rent a boat (costs money this time) of your choice if the mooring post/trailer is empty OR if there is an unowned boat moored to the post/placed on the trailer you can choose to rent it and a copy of that boat (CaSt patterns/colors included) will be temporarily placed in the sim's inventory. The sim will then be pushed to go boating with the rented boat (which will be deleted sometime after they are done). (Note: This is NOT to be confused with the default Purchase vehicle interaction which buys your sim a permanent boat)



Known Issues

Issues that I've experienced even without the mod:
  • For some reason using the lounger in the lakes of Lunar Lakes is impossible, no such problem in every other world I've tested on.
  • When snorkeling in shallow water sims may start clipping into the land beneath the water.
  • Sims can only Play In Sand on terrain painted with sand (obviously), but I've noticed that the game doesn't read certain sandy ground paints as sand (usually custom ones or ones from the Store Worlds), the interaction doesn't appear/is unusable on certain beaches in Dragon Valley for example. You'll have to manually edit the lot and paint over the ground with one of the default sand paints in that case (you don't have to do the whole lot, just any small portion you'd like to see sims build sand castles on, though the wider it is the easier it is for sims to find a spot to build on by themselves)

End Notes

Built and tested on patch 1.67

Requires Island Paradise EXCEPT for the lounger interactions that require Seasons (The mod will still work if you have only one of the two expansions, you just won't get the interactions from the expansion you don't have)

In the package you'll find custom ITUNs for these activities, I've left the advertising for them pretty high, mostly to be in line with the default advertising values for the beach towel relaxing interaction (since that was what sims seem to like to do the most on beach lots, at least in my games) Feel free to adjust them as you wish (though I assume if you're downloading this mod you actually want to see sims performing these activities over seeing them just lie on the ground for hours on end which is why I decided to leave them high in the first place)

If you're looking for these interactions using NRaas Retuner, they are found under


Should not conflict with any other mods since this is a script mod and all the ITUNs in the package are custom ones unique to the mod.


Additional Credits:
The Jones' for S3PE All the script modding tutorials out there.