Lifetime Want Chooser

Summary
This object lets you manually choose a lifetime want for your sim. No cycling one by one, just pick from a list! Has an option to ignore restrictions and choose an LTW that isn't normally available to a sim of certain aspiration. All known lifetime wants are updated and have slightly changed prerequisites to consider interests and hobbies, as a side bonus.


What you get

• Custom object that lets you choose a lifetime want and looks like a dream catcher decoration.
• Changed preconditions for original and a few custom lifetime wants. Random LTW will be a bit more personalized, but should you not like it, new restrictions are easy to overcome with the Chooser, anyway.
• Optional update for Life Stories careers lifetime wants (only if you use them, ignore it if you don't).

What you need

• Apartment Life or Mansion & Garden, or Ultimate Collection, otherwise consider yourself a tester. Free Time or Bon Voyage probably good, too. I worked on compatibility with lower game versions, potentially anything after Night Life, but I have less confidence in those. Reports appreciated!
• Look through Supported wants below and make sure you don't have any unsupported custom lifetime wants. If you have extra ltws that are not updated for the chooser, it won't work as expected (those wants may pop up instead of chosen ones).
• Look through Conflicts below and make sure the Chooser loads after any conflicting mods, if there are any. Run a conflict detection program to double check.

How to use LTW Chooser
Buy the dream catcher for 5 simoleons in General/Miscellaneous (where most hacks hang out).
You have four options.
Choose LTW from Personally Available - from a list of wants that your sim may normally roll and meets requirements for (aspiration and so on). Chooser runs all checks before showing you the list.
Choose LTW from All (Ignore Restrictions) - from the whole list of lifetime wants you have in your game, original and custom, even those that don't match aspiration or already fulfilled. Use your own judgment when choosing, since not every want is suitable for every sim.
Reroll LTW - random lifetime want will be assigned to your sim.
Shapeshift - changes object model from dream catcher to various plants.

Supported wants
You don't have to have all supported wants in your game, the chooser won't offer you what you don't have.

• 37 original from all packs
• 50 of mine from Set 1
• 4 of University careers - Artist, Show Biz, Paranormal, Natural Science
• 2 of Life Stories - Game Development and Entertainment (my edits of them)
• 2 Rio's - Firefighting and Social services
• As of July, 27th it supports any unlisted LTWs if they are specifically updated for it.

If you're a modder who wants to make compatible lifetime wants, see the tutorial at the bottom of this page.

Changes to wants
These changes affect random rolls and the list of personally available wants.
Common rules:

• Grilled cheese sims normally get only Eat X Grilled Cheese Sandwiches lifetime want, unless they also have another aspiration. Note that sims do not automatically reroll Grilled Cheese ltw after completion, this is by maxis design.
• Reach career top type of wants are available to elders if they already work in those specific careers.
• All wants updated to work with the Chooser.

Specific conditions:


Conflict resolving
Will conflict with other mods that override the same resources and change LTWs' prerequisites.

• AnyLTWforallaspirations and its edits. Remove it, if you want to use the Chooser.
• Pescado's ltwvariety and its edits. Remove it, if you want to use the Chooser. Both our mods change prerequisites of maxis original lifetime wants from various packs.
• Nopke's noPetsLTWs. Remove it, if you want to use the Chooser.
• Cyjon's Wealth LTWs. Remove it, if you want to use the Chooser.
• Cyjon's Free Time LTW Fixes. Remove it, if you want to use the Chooser.
• Alexx58's Expanded and Reduced LTW. The Classic version doesn't conflict, but the one that changes prerequisites does. Remove it or let the Chooser load after it and see how it works. If your version also has University career LTWs and you decide to remove it, get the separated Uni LTWs from my 50 LTW bundle. If you'd like to customize your LTW values, see this tutorial.
• My ltw_support package from custom lifetime wants set. Ignore it, I purposely included some needed functions in both packages, in case someone uses only one of these projects.
• Rio's Firefighting and Social services career LTWs (from here). Make sure the Chooser loads after Rio's files, specifically the check trees - CT_Firefighter and CT_SocialWorker files - my file replaces them with chooser-ready versions. You could also disable Rio's CT_ files by changing ".package" file extension to ".OFF" or something like that (this is what I do instead of deleting, when I think I might need the files one day).
• Pescado's Life Stories career lifetime wants (uni_ltws file). If you use them, get my edited versions from this thread. Then, if you use custom LTWs from me or someone else, edit the WantTuning package in your downloads to add these wants to the list (never edit the package in program files). If you don't know what I am talking about, leave the original Pescado's package in your Downloads and let my update load after it to override some things. If you don't use these wants from Pescado, don't download my update and ignore this paragraph.

Make the Chooser load after all conflicting mods, otherwise it will become useless.

Troubleshooting

• If your sim gets a wrong lifetime want instead of what you chose. 1. You have an LTW that is not supported by this mod. Let me know, and I'll add it. 2. There's a conflict with a custom LTW or a mod that changes maxis wants' conditions. Make sure the Chooser loads last, and it should work as intended.
• If your sim gets no lifetime want (blank panel) after choosing a custom want. Most likely, you have a custom want, but it's not listed in the WantTuning package (UI Data), or that package has a mistake in it that prevents the game from reading it correctly. Go look. If not that, you probably have a bad copy of this UI Data resource sneakily hiding somewhere and conflicting with your good UI Data resource.

Technical details

• The model is a clone of in-game dream catcher decoration, stripped of specific EP requirements. Maxis made textures and mesh. 440 faces, 435 vertices. Additional models available through shapeshifting interaction directly reference in-game objects.
• Nice list you see when choosing pulls icons and descriptions from memories for convenience, but doesn't do anything with the memories.
• Overrides check trees of all supported lifetime wants (see list above). BHAVs: CT - Test - Lifetime Want - ... in group 0x7F739728. This is to make those wants work with the chooser.

Recommended mods

• veetie_InterestAgeMod - makes sim's interests more varied when randomized, despite their age. For example, it gives adults a chance to have high interest in animals or toys.
• ltw_icons_fixed - resized and edited icons for lifetime wants and some memories from Pets, Seasons and Free Time, to reduce visual glitches.
• Medieval Default Career LTWs - complementary replacements for careers at Plumb Bob Keep - icons and descriptions of lifetime wants and corresponding memories.

Credits
Rio for Firefighting and Social services lifetime wants.
Pescado for Life Stories career LTWs. (I didn't know how to contact him, MATY wouldn't let me register, so if he sees this and has objections, well, I'm sure we'll figure something out. In no way this was an attempt to appropriate any part of his work.)
All the wonderful people behind SimPE, unluac, PhotoScape, Sublime and other helpful tools, tutorials and wikis.
Especially Adidas and Dizzy for the Lua notes.

Tutorial on making custom LTWs compatible with the Chooser
This is for modders who make their own LTWs and want them to be picked up by the Chooser.
Upd 4th August 2022