Active Classes For The Sims 2

Purpose Of Thread:
This is a mod I have been working on for a few months, on-and-off. I am pleased that it is nearing completion, but I have decided that I would prefer all the features are tested with fresh eyes. There are also specific details regarding timing and tuning that I would love to get feedback on. See the 'For The Testers, Please:' section of the post for more information regarding feedback.

Base Features:
• Taking inspiration from Sims 3 University Life and Simological's School System, this mod adds active classes to Sims 2.
• Two new objects: Black notebooks indicating where students are meant to sit, and a black podium that controls the professor and lectures. Place at least one of each in the same room to create a lecture hall. They are under Recreation/Knowledge.
• The lecture podium automatically schedules, summons, and dismisses the professor and dormie students. On residential lots, only the professor is summoned, so you can to furnish your Greek House with a private tutoring hall if you are so inclined.
• The podium will randomly choose one professor from the pool if unassigned, but you can manually assign one too
• Notebooks are invisible outside of Build/Buy and when they're being used - the idea is that your Sims brought them. . .
• High customisation: Lecture length and periods are calculated in-game based on the .package. This means you can tune when lectures start, when they end, and how long a lecture and a break period is, while the game handles the rest
• Non-playable Sims and Professors are scheduled randomly, along a line equation. The less time there is to a lecture, the more likely they are to show up. Late non-playable Sims will run to make it to their lectures.
• Loading a community lot mid-lecture will 'auto-populate' it - selling the illusion of your Sim arriving late (naturally, this will cause a momentary lag spike)
• Nice, Shy Sims will be unhappy when directed to interrupt a lecture by arriving late

What makes these classes active?
• Attending lectures fulfils 'Go To Class' Want
• While in class, Sims can be directed by clicking on their notebooks to:
- Sleep in class: Quick Energy at the cost of some Comfort
- Take Notes Casually, Adequately, or Feverishly
Casually: Slow Academic Performance increase, but mild Fun gain
Adequately: Moderate Academic Performance increase, average Fun loss
Feverishly: Slightly higher Academic Perfomance increase, substantial Fun loss. Stress your Sims OUT!!
• Sims seated in the lecture hall will chat with each other whenever the Professor isn't giving a lecture
• Professors react to certain kinds of disruptions! Setting off sprinklers, throwing water balloons at Sims, shoving Sims and streaking will cause the professor to interrupt their lecture, leave their podium and lecture the offending Sim. Note that repeated infractions can lead to a loss in Academic Performance...

QOL and polish
• If a professor is in the middle of a social interaction with a playable Sim when lectures recommence, a special notification will appear before they go back to giving the lecture; You cannot 'stall' the professor with interaction spam
• If a Sim arrives at a previously unused space to find it occupied, they will attempt to find another seat
• Playable Sims are directed to attend lectures via the Lecture Podium and thus, their seat is randomised. BUT, a playable Sim who is already sitting will attempt to use the notebook in front of them first, allowing you to choose where they sit this way.
• Planned absence - there will always be X number of seats not filled in a lecture hall. This sells the realism and also ensures that there will be room for your playables to attend. Note that absence is capped to the size of the lecture hall; a lecture hall with 10 spaces will have maximum two seats free, so if you're the sort of player that sends eight Sims to a community lot in one go, aim for a hall of 26 spaces. (Though you can also tune these limits.)
• 'When's The Next Lecture?' Interaction, available when Lecturer is waiting by or routing to the podium.

Installation/Uninstall
This mod comes in three .packages; One contains the podium, the other the notebook, and the third is a necessary override to the Professor NPC. Maxis made it so that all Professors are indiscriminately converted to visitors, with normal motive decay, meaning that they won't stay on the lot like 'on-the-job' NPCs are intended to. To install, simply drop all three .packages into the downloads folder. To uninstall simply delete the .packages. The Lecture Podium references the Basegame Podium as its fallback GUID, so any leftover podiums on lots will turn into the Politics Career Reward.

I strongly recommend you combine this mod with my No College Time Progression On Community Lots mod.

Conflicts
The podium and notepad are original code that shouldn't conflict with anything. The professor override is very unlikely to conflict with anything, I don't know who else would change that function. As always, run HCDU or HCDU+ before installing new mods.

Game Compatibility
Made with all EPs.

For The Testers, Please:
Here are the areas I would like feedback on.

Responsivity - The 'Feel' Of The Mod
Do the students arrive consistently, over long periods of time? Do the professors? How about when the lecture lengths and start, end, and break hours are changed?

Known issue: The game will push dormies to leave the lot while they are mid-lecture. How often does this occur in your game? Is it a notable annoyance, should there be a way to prevent it?

Does the professor react consistently and correctly to disruptions, and does the ensuing interaction between professor and troublemaker play out as expected? Should other things count as 'disruptions'? Please make note of any 'jank' that could be polished.

There is a way to stop dormies from leaving the lot mid-lecture, but it will also prevent them from reacting to things like sprinklers, fights and fire. Is the trade-off worth it, in your opinion? Should I spend time on implementing a work-around, instead?

Should the rate of Academic Performance gain be buffed? Any other tweaks?

Most importantly: Is it fun and easy to use? Does it feel like it meshes well with the game? Should certain interactions be available more frequently?

I'm looking forward to seeing your thoughts and suggestions.

Attached is a pre-built lecture hall, for those who may wish to test the mod but don't wish to build Included are two lecture halls, a cafeteria, library and a shower.

Images:






Please use the Clean Installer, as the lot was erronously packaged with IJ's buyable portals. Clean Installer will allow you to remove them. This is now corrected.

I downloaded the mods and the lecture hall.
The lecture hall looks good, and when I sent my student Sim there, a professor appeared and gave a lecture - to a completely empty room! My Sim drank a lot of coffee, relieved himself, and only entered the lecture room when directed. He sat down - but no notebook appeared.
What have I missed?

Hi!

It kind of sounds like the .package with the notebook wasn't installed at all. Are you sure there's one in your Downloads folder?

If there wasn't an 'Attend Lecture' option available from the professor or lectern, there almost certainly were no notebooks in that room. This also accounts for the lack of students, as the notebooks are responsible for managing that.

If you're sure it's installed, check Buy Mode in Recreation/Knowledge to see if the notebook is there.

You may need to replace the notebooks from Buy Mode if they've disappeared from the lot. How odd!

The Professor will lecture even when there are no students, in case one wants one for decoration... but perhaps this should be changed?

Mea culpa! Everything was present. Nothing happened because I missed the point that I was supposed to click on the podium or the professor!
That said, I'm not sure that my Sim's academic performance changed as a result of attending the lecture. Also, as the lecture came to an end, my Sim dashed off to attend a class and returned to the Lecture Room afterwards which rather spoiled the effect.

I'll have another go on a 'live' campus, rather than one created just to test your mod, and see how it goes.

I like the creativity of this mod. More reasons to make my uni students leave their dorms.

As for feedback, students arrive in a crowd when my Sim first arrives at the lot. Later new Sims arrive from time to time keeping the lot alive.

Leaving the lot mid-lecture doesn't bother me that much - it didn't happen too often during my tests, and frankly it adds a bit realism - there always will be students that arrive too late and leave too early.

However, I ran into one issue. A dormie Sim who arrived too late for the lecture (all seats were already taken) tried to use professor's desk. He put his notebook on the desk, even though the desk had no chair.

Haha no worries! Glad to hear there wasn't an issue. I few testers have already mentioned that they would like a 'Go To Class' suppressor mod. I had assumed that already exists, but I can't find it, so I will create one.



Thanks for the feeback!

Hm, that's odd - that shouldn't be possible, as the notebooks are not allowed to be moved from their placed positions. It wasn't a blue Assingment notebook, was it?

Thank you for letting us test this mod! I am having fun with it so far with the lecture hall you created. Love the lot! I tested the mod two different ways: In a Uni hood and in a downtown hood (cuz I want to create a community college type lot).

1. Both YAs and Adults showed up to the Lecture Hall in both hoods. The difference between the two, my playable YA ended up going to Uni class while at the Lecture Hall when playing in the Uni Hood. While on the downtown lot, he was able to attend both lectures.

2. YAs did leave in the middle of the lecture, both playable and dormies. Most times they came back to the lecture. This happen every sim day I played. My playable sim would get up to get something to eat for example. The dormies would get up and leave out the building, then come back.

3. I would like to see the academic performance increase a bit more. The "take notes feverishly" really does drain the fun! hahha

3. Is there a way to trigger more YAs to attend the lecture? Using your lot, there are 8 seats in room1 and 6 seats in room 2. The max I have had in room 1 was 3 non playables and my one playable. Upstairs, just one non playable.

4. Unfortunately, I have not had any disruptions so I cannot comment on this as of yet. Will the professor react to someone outside the classroom putting off sprinklers or having a water balloon fight? Should it happen autonomously? I will continue to play around and see it I can get it to trigger.

Thank you again for allowing us to test. So far it has been a great addition to my hood, Chocolate City. Will continue to test this week and hope to provide more feedback.

Thank you for the feedback! I'm glad the mod has been fun so far.

1. Do you mean that they showed up to the lot? Adults cannot Attend Lectures as they are currently barred, but they would be able to come to the lot in non-uni hoods, so that's all right.

2. Was it too distracting? Would it have been better for them to stay the whole way through, if you had that option?

3. :D

4. Hmm, this might be related to intprop MaxNumOfVisitors x. I think if the fewer Sims are allowed on the lot, the more often dormies will be pushed to leave the lot mid-lecture.

5. The professor only cares about disruptions happening in the same room as them, while a lecture is in progress it should happen automatically, but you can force it to happen by directing a playable Sim to set off sprinklers, streak etc. etc.

I'm sorry - I don't remember if it was blue notebook or black one. I didn't take any pictures.

As for "Go To Class" suppressor mod, it'd be cool if it was a separate mod and not obligatory part of your uni classes. Would it be possible for suppressor to work only on lots with podiums and notebooks? I think I'd enjoy still having the default "Go To Class" as an alternative if I don't feel like sending my Sim to a lecture hall lot.

That's quite alright, no worries.

Yes, I think so too, a separate .package in two flavours, one that kills going to class automatically completely and one that only runs on lots with lecture podiums.

I just saw your post on Tumblr about this, never would have noticed otherwise.
Some questions, how does your No College Time Progression On Community Lots play with Chris Hatch Community Lot Time?
Will this play nicely and be able to be used with Squinge's College pack that allows young adults to do uni in the main hood? I have no YA at college right now but I do have some teens who will soon be YA in the main hood due to this being a new BACC there is no uni hood yet. I would love if this would work there.
Can I still send my YA to class if I want?
Will shorter semesters by I think its cyjon clash or the mod that lets YA to get jobs play nicely with this? I have a lot of YA mods.
Will this clash in anyway with Simlogical school?

Hi!

1) They do not interact. No College Time On Community lots only affects the college timer, which is different from actual time.

2) Yes! You can use them together.

3) Yes, this mod is meant to supplement Maxis Go To Class rather than replace it.

4) Neither of those mods will interact with this mod.

5) This mod and the Simological school system do not interact.

hth

ive been playing uni in the mainhood for YEARS and have always wanted something like this!!! i have a lecture hall shell that i made for the hood so it LOOKS like sims go there but they just kinda hang around outside right now lol. BUT NO MORE WITH THIS MOD!!!
however: i manage multiple sims at a time, id like to just be able to send one or two to the lecture hall and have the others default to "go to class" on their own so i can catch a break lol - some of the sims go to class in the middle of a sim already at class OR need to go to class the SECOND another siim is returning so sending each sim to the lecture lot could be quite taxing on me.
id REALLY prefer the "go to class" mods to def be 2 different mods for sure so i can utilize the default "go to class" for some of my sims and take the others to the lecture hall.

Hello there! Great work! I just have some questions, I think I may have missed something.
Do I need to send my sims to University, so they will age up to YA, and then access this in a subhood? Or I can keep them in the main hood as YA?
I subscribed the post to have the most recent news <3

Hi!

Only Young Adults can attend these lectures so you do need to age them up first, but the lecture podium works on any lot, anywhere, no need for subhoods.

In other words, yes, you can use this with the 'College In Main Hood' mods

This sounds great beestew -also good to see you around modding still
I may even load up another hood that I know has 1 YA doing uni in the main hood just to test this. I assume no dormies will turn up in the main hood. As I play YA as a life span not just as college students I probably have just about every YA mod you can think of. (not using Lions gold record anymore if you know that mod) I will cross my fingers I find no conflicts in the HCDU but from what you said it sounds very promising.

PS. I reblogged your Tumblr post.

No conflicts found.

You might want to open your lot in Clean Installer, untick both red hacks showing. Portal car and portal pedestrian. Then do 'save as' and slightly change the name. Even adding a gap or removing a gap in the lettering will do. Then upload the lot file here. There could potentially be people here who don't know to do this.

The lot contains a lecture pad but also a podium, I assume these are repeats of what is in the mod file and not needed.

Edit: The only option I can see on the podium is 'manually assign lecturer' which does nothing. Okay after a while 'wait for next lecture' came up. How do I schedule things?

Okay, maybe I have no prof to come and lecture... I do use clean and empty templates but I thought one would spawn after first class? I can't see any on the teleporter so I may have to fix that.

Correct, those are repeats since the podium and workbooks are pre-placed on the lot.

To change the lecture hours, see the 'Tuning' section in post #3. The default hours are 9 a.m. to 11, a three hour break and then another lecture from 2 p.m to 4 p.m.

I'm not sure if the podium will spawn a professor if there are none in the hood - I will double check that. Edit: The podium should not spawn a professor if it cannot find one. That said, the current version will throw an error if no professors are found in the hood. This will be corrected.

I sent him back after reading up on making a Professor hoping to make one by boolprop but Prof is not listed. I had testing cheats on and got the error. Maybe the podium could spawn one?

If not I will have to try my Uber hood that has a uni.

I loaded up my Uber hood which has a uni attached and tried it out with the pre-made Frances J Worthington. It worked a treat. I had him wait, then tried all the option of note speed, sleep in class then had him attend where he moved seats. A few other uni students attended as well. 2 were from Frat houses and 1 dormie

None ran in during the lecture.
One frat boy left before lecture was over.
I also saw a few adults from the main hood wandering around, mostly outside. Not sure about why they were there as this is a UNI hood. Probably one of my other mods.
A few more students attending would be nice but that is not that important.
Proff ended her lecture dead on 11am at which point the frat boy ran back inside.
After lecture was finished I also tried clicking on her and she told me when next lecture was as well.

I love it, think it works really well.
If the podium could spawn a Proff in a hood without a uni attached would make a great addition. Otherwise I don't know how else to get a Proff to spawn without attaching a UNI hood and sending a teen there, which I don't always want to do.

One thing I forgot was to check his performance bar before going, but since I have not played him before I assume it had nothing in it and this is what he gained from the lecture. (in the picture)

Amazing, now i can create my uni at my main hood! Thaaanks

@beestew any feedback? I posted about a week ago now.
I am about to have some YA in a clean and empty neighbourhood and wondering about the no proff spawning and using this mod.

The mod worked well for me. I was playing in a university hood and still had adults/elders walking around the lot but only the Young Adults attended the lectures. I was hoping that by manually assigning a professor, that I would be able to assign any Sim I wanted, such as those working in the Maxis Education or Science career as professors and was disappointed to see only NPC Professors showing up. Otherwise, it worked well. Thanks!

P.S. I should also add that my students had just started at college and I could see that their Class Peformance was going up a little bit during the class.

I've found some time to play some more with your mod. Indeed, it was the blue notebook, so no worries. I guess some Sims really like interrupting lectures by trying to do their assigments on professor's desk.