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Mad Poster
#76 Old 10th Jun 2021 at 8:50 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Peni Griffin
If you go to Cyjon's page (http://cyjon.net), he has a Study of Chemistry which breaks down how boltage is figured. Factors include star sign, aspiration, turn-ons/offs, relationship status, and personality. All of these have numeric values that they add or subtract from the total chemistry store, and they function in relationship to each other. Romance gets +35 for Romance and Pleasure, +0 for Fortune and Popularity, and -35 for Family and Grilled Cheese. Other things being equal, Romance/Family is one of the least chemically attractive combinations. This can be offset by the other factors. Relationship strength does not add or subtract numbers, but affects the baseline.

Once you've grasped the basics, this is fairly easy to manipulate, without having to track specific numbers (which I am incapable of doing). You just remember which aspirations and starsigns are most compatible when pointing sims at each other, and you can easily fine tune the turn-ons and turn-offs if you want a certain couple to be more or less passionate.


Yeah. I think that Romance Sims should have an attraction boost possibly for all Aspirations, or at least have a mod that includes a toggle object so the town badboy or badgirl is going to do some homewrecking. But yeah, I love Rom/Fam pairings because of the Ottomas family. Should the Aspiration chemistry be nerfed in favor of Zodiac, TOs, and personality points, or is it fine as it is? What, if anything, could use some tweaking?
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Mad Poster
#77 Old 11th Jun 2021 at 3:08 PM
Thanks Peni! It really is my own fault that I didn't know. I saw Cyjon's study of chemistry, but quite irrationally I decided not to read it, because, although I know intellectually that Sims are controlled by algorithms, I prefer to play them almost as real people. So, to try to assess how two Sims will get on together, I will ask the same kind of questions as I might ask if they were real people. Look at their individual personalities as I've met them in the game, look at their life experiences, and try to assess their compatibility. I always prefer to look for a psychological explanation for Sims' actions, rather than an explanation in terms of algorithms and programmed probabilities. Sometimes there are things that I prefer not to know. For much the same reason I never read Cyjon's study of death. I thought it could upset me and probably depress me. I don't want to see things that are a matter of life and death for characters that I love, reduced to known percentages of probability.

Sometimes (despite being a bit of a Knowledge Sim) I really believe that ignorance can be bliss. This does occasionally mean that, as in the current instance, I fail to understand another member's post. Sorry about that!

On the thread's substantive topic, I like playing Romance Sims, and play both Sims like Gloria and Garry who are trying to live in a monogamous relationship, and highly promiscuous ones like Jack Gill and Gordon Cornton (see his contribution above). I don't believe any of them are wholly evil. I'm sure they are all guided by their varying moral compasses.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Mad Poster
#78 Old 12th Jun 2021 at 12:10 AM
The way I think about understanding the code, Andrew, is that it's much like understanding the basics of human physiology. Sure, you can manage without knowing about how sugar, seratonin, lactic acid, atmospheric pressure, dietary fiber, etc., act with the body's systems - but it sure makes it easier to make good choices when you do!

Human emotions depend on brain chemistry; that's just a fact. Sim emotions depend on coding; also a fact. A lot of people recoil from that, as if having a definite physical manifestation somehow cheapens or lessens the reality of emotions, but I'm here to tell you - it doesn't. What it does do, is give you a basis for distinguishing between what I think of as "real" emotions (which have their roots in exterior reality) and "unreal" ones (which only exist as brain chemistry). The love I feel for my husband is real in this sense. My husband exists outside me and has reciprocal brain chemistry going on. Love manifests in the real world in a number of different ways, and motivates both of us to behave in mutually beneficial ways and be better together than we would be apart, even when one of us screws up. My depression, on the other hand, is in this sense unreal. It's just my stupid brain chemistry telling me that nobody loves me or ever could, that nothing I do matters, that I'm useless if I can't do XYZ thing, that nothing will ever get better and there's no reason for me to be alive. Well, that's all BS and can be addressed by adjustments to my brain chemistry. I haven't experimented much with pharmaceuticals, but I can normally manage the feeling by first recognizing it as a straightforward chemical problem and then hunting up ways to get my chemicals into a better state. I can even sic my good brain chemistry on my bad brain chemistry, because no matter how thoroughly the depression seems to have taken over my brain, it can't change how much I love my husband, and just crossing the hall to see him and tell him I feel lousy can alter the lousy very slightly for the better. A similar interrogation of circumstances can be used to address an array of emotions that, if left uninterrogated, can greatly complicate a life. Is there really something to be angry about, in which case I should investigate taking action; or do I need to eat something and retreat to a comfortable location and do something soothing? Do I actually want to do this thing, or is it just a pleasant fantasy better addressed by reading a book or playing a game? Is this person yelling at me because I have done something wrong or because I happen to be in front of them when the stress toxins in their blood reached critical mass? Asking these sorts of questions makes it much easier to make constructive decisions about what actions to take to deal with whatever's going on.

Just so for sims. Is that a real want to flirt outside the marriage, or is it just a random impulse? Does that teen want to hurt people or are they in aspiration failure? What needs have to be met in order to enable this child to keep their grades enough to keep the social worker away and still have a worthwhile childhood? And, yes, what qualities are most favorable for giving this sim the kind of romantic relationship (if any) that will make them happy?

Chemistry is certainly not the be-all and end-all of life partnership, in sims or in real life. You can introduce a sim to any number of triple bolters and find them gravitating inexorably toward a single-bolter whom they want above all others. But when you understand the nuts and bolts, it's a lot easier to see the dynamics at work, and understand what's actually happening.

At least, I find it so.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
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