Making a cancer hack/mod or other disease(s)
NOTE THAT THIS THREAD IS JUST A FEW IDEAS/QUESTIONS I HAD, figured I might as well share just cuz I felt like it. Oh, and some questions you guys MIGHT be able to help out with.
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Basically what I would want to make myself is a cancer mod/hack.
Here is a thread I once made, but after going into the files of another hack somebody here created seeing if it'd be possible to make a cancer mod/hack out of it (don't worry; nowadays I know I'd NEVER edit a mod and take credit for making it when I just used it as a base), I realized that it'd be a lot harder than I thought. Basically this is what I would do if I knew how to mod.
I. Triggering the Cancer
If I were to make this mod, I would have to first figure out how I'd cause the cancer to happen in the first place. I'd probably have to choose between a 1-15% chance of happening because I don't usually play many different sims, and making 100 sims just to have one get cancer seems like too much for me. Anyways, like the period hack which gives sims a token at random times, I'd probably have to find a way to make it happen only once (or twice!) for BOTH genders, aged adult and maybe elder. Maybe even kids and teens, too. I'd also have to figure out how to edit the dialogue that pops up (Let's use the period hack for an example. With the period hack, it says that the sim got their period. But I would have to change that to 'SimName just found out that they have cancer. Oh no! Better make the most out of life, starting now!'. Maybe I'd even make it mention leukemia or something rather than just the general word 'cancer.' Anyways, back to triggering the cancer. It would happen randomly and give the Sim a 'has cancer' token. (If you know
SimPE and other modding stuff, you should know what I mean by tokens. You can't get rid of them automatically without going into SimPE, additionally.)
II. Symptoms
Basically I might just edit a disease already in the game and maybe modify the symptoms to vomiting, decreased comfort and energy, etc. (Vomiting due to chemotherapy, and for maximum realism the player might decide to remove the Sim's hair or just pretend they're wearing a wig.)
First things first: The real question I have about making a cancer hack is, how in the world do I edit an in-game disease using SimPE? What file do I open and what directory of the game is it in? Can I even EDIT it in the first place? I'd probably edit the pneumonia or mystery disease, but one of my real problems is figuring out how I would even be able to make it so that they get cancer without having a cold first or using the medicine career reward thingy.
III. Chance of Dying
I'd probably give the Sim a 50/50 chance of survival, or I could just get off my lazy butt and look up real life statistics that show the actual average chance of survival.
IV. Dialogues (or however you spell it)
I'd basically make the game (when cancer is triggered) say stuff like, "You'll find that SimName will vomit due to chemotherapy that they receive when you're not playing The Sims 2." or something like that.
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Anyways, my REAL questions are:
1.) How would I be able to open up and edit the game's disease files, like pneumonia and mystery disease, if it's even POSSIBLE. I'm really not a good modder at all unless I have a tutorial that explains exact step-by-steps. So, would I just see a bunch of number/letter code if I CAN open/see/edit the disease files in the first place?
2.) Would it be possible to edit things like how it's triggered (randomly and not by using medicine machines or having a cold) and who/when it affects/occurs?
3.) Is there a way that I can edit the symptoms of a disease?
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Please note I have NO intentions of using the period hack as a base, especially since it is all only numbers and letters when you open the period hack file up. (You can download the period hack here at MTS, by the way. Smonaff made it, but his message inbox is full and so I cannot contact him.)