Well, that's nothing to do with this mod, but here's an idea: put this file in your downloads folder, and run HCDU. Most probably the mod that causes this will be the one that conflicts with this file (TEST.package).

That was very kind of you to whip up for me! Thank you.

Unfortunately, HCDU showed no conflicts with that package. I had been worried that it must be something hidden in the parameters that HCDU doesn't check...ugh, though, to have that confirmed.

So I did the 50/50, and based on half a dozen restarts after restoring each time from save, only one mod set so far seems to reliably be correlated with my no-customers bug whenever installed: PBK's Fetch Water.

That actually doesn't make any sense either, for some reasons I'll spoiler here---only for anyone who's curious anyway, because those aren't relevant to your mod. The good news here is that based on my 50/50, your mod alone does not cause the no-customers bug, and even if it is somehow involved in the complex interaction that seems to be causing it, that all seems pretty specific to my game and my particular mix of mods, so unlikely to happen to others. Thus, I have gone back to edit my first mention of that in this thread to make that clearer earlier for other readers! Really appreciate your help with the matter.



Edit to add: so far, what I can say from actual playtesting of your mod is that the token does indeed seem nice and stable, even with mods being yanked out and put back in. Thank you, thank you, thank you already for making a finance mod that does that.

Well, it is failing when it tries to get shopping tokens, so if you have something that modifies shopping tokens that might be a place to start? Does that hack cause the error when it's the only CC installed? If not, you could try a 50/50 always leaving that hack in.

I have a dumb question, dumb because I'm in the middle of rebuilding my downloads folder after a reinstall (Leaner! Cleaner! Shinier!) and can't test right now. For years I have used Simsky's Faster University Education with no conflicts. Does it change the same BCON and BHAV functions as Cyjon's Semester Changes? Do I need to use the Semester Changes version? Does it include compatibility with AncientHighways Term Paper Required mod?

I use that mod too, and none of the versions of this hack (or term paper required) should interfere with it. Semester changes might interfere with it, since I believe it does change semester length. I didn't notice any interference while testing, but that could just be because I have the faster uni mod set to set semesters to 48 hours (which is the same time scale semester changes uses).

Kestrellyn, thanks for your continued willingness to help me with my strange mod conflict issue.

I've decided that for now, I'm going to just pull Fetch Water entirely from my game. Next year, when I'm able to play in a bit more leisurely way, I'll start troubleshooting with it again, in the ways you suggest, since it's required for a number of their sets. Meanwhile, since resource management is a big part of what's fun for me in the game, it's actually not inconsistent with my playstyle that a founding resource of a subhood might just disappear---I'll enjoy playing through the repercussions of that for now. (And in the meantime, I guess if that bug still crops up again, then I'll know I've got even more work to do when troubleshooting again next year.)

But this way, I'll be able to enjoy the game now and save what time and energy remains to me with it in order to do a good job of observing how your mod is working.

In that regard, one thought I've had is that it might be nice to be able to change the per-semester tuition cost of university on the fly. For my hood, I'm thinking flexibility to make it more expensive would be welcome in certain cases (teen decides to pursue a science-heavy uni education that might cost more; some subhood or another stops subsidizing it for their residents...maybe because they're no longer rich with a particular resource that made them so comfortable formerly, heh; family that only planned to send their kids to the cheaper uni suddenly hits a good chance card and can afford the more expensive school). And it might be pleasant to make that happen without having to withdraw the funds and then re-initialize for each sim involved.

But...I'm also open to that being more trouble to code for you than it's really worth, and obviously I already can manage to do it manually as I just described.

My adult borrower sim (the one who borrowed a sum from another sim to take his family on vacation) has paid off all of his loan now except the interest. I deliberately wanted him to remain in debt only due to the interest on the original principal; yours is the first mod ever to allow my sim-sim loans to periodically (and reliably) accrue interest (instead of only once, which is how Monique's mod did it, and to do so regardless of the family funds balance at the time---one downfall of Inge's Mortgage Shrubs was that they would only charge their fixed amount of interest every day when it wouldn't set the family funds to a negative balance). And yes, I can see there's no particular reason why your mod would differentiate an interest-only balance from any other type of loaned monies. I'm just reveling in being able to have them accrue interest, not to mention interest on interest, so much more realistically now!

(Edited to add: sorry I keep forgetting to "mute" my signature here. Also FYI, I should be getting to the YA households again soon. I'm also hoping to have somesim need to inherit somesim else's loan soon, thanks to RNG on military service deaths...and I've been exploring as well how I can use your mod to stand in for child support due. More on all that later.)

I'm glad everything seems to be working for you! It wouldn't be too hard to make it possible to change tuition rate, and I'm pretty sure I know how to make it stop charging interest on hotel lots, although I can't actually test that at the moment.

Thank you for the checking on Simsky's Faster University Education mod for me, even though my initial question was sorely lacking in clarity. (I need to remember that nouns are good! )
For the record, I may have trouble writing intelligibly, but I do know better than to install two mods (Simsky's Faster University Education and Cyjon's Semester Changes) that do the exact same thing. I just needed to make sure that Simsky's mod didn't conflict with yours in the same way that Cyjon's does (or did before your latest revision). I appreciate your patience!

I finally found some time to actually look at the faster university education mod, and it appears that it does not actually modify any of the same resources as Semester Changes so it shouldn't conflict in the normal meaning of the term, but I believe Semester Changes will take priority in determining semester length, as that was my experience in testing.

I finally got around to playing my uni hood, and seeing this mod in action. I love it and haven’t had any problems with it in my heavily modded game. It’s simplified the financial process of college for my sims tremendously, and I no longer have to worry about making sure my sims grants are deposited correctly. Thank you!

Yay! That would be very useful.



Oh, I should have said: it doesn't charge interest on hotel lots now, so you don't need to change anything if that's how you want it. (I haven't tried vacation homes, though I think one family's about to buy one.) My vacationing borrower came home with the same balance that he left with; the interest he accrued on his sim-sim loan occurred during the first couple days after he was back in the regular hood.

No further problems or oddities to report as of yet. My uni-in-the-main-hood "dorm" students both had it behave as expected this rotation, and it also accrued interest correctly for not only an adult student loan holder in the same household but also for the college funds of the three teens living on the lot (accompanying their older brother, who's their guardian because they're orphans).

I should belatedly clarify that the one time when I had that student in my test hood (Graal) who couldn't complete his semester, I also had recently installed Abortable At-Class, by Dizzy. Unfortunately, I didn't see whether the student actually left and was brought back---he may have gotten to the portal much faster than I expected, but my camera focus was elsewhere. However, what I can say is that it was not the first time he'd tried to go to the final; I canceled the first so he could have coffee.

Therefore it's also possible that the error only occurred because that hack was involved. And that happens to also have been the only situation in which I used the hack's functionality to cancel a Go to Class push that was for a final, not just normal class.

Oh, interesting, I guess Hotels fail the "Lot - Is Liveable?" test. I wonder if Vacation homes are considered Liveable. There's one lot zoning constant in that test that isn't labeled, so I don't know what it is. It could potentially be "Vacation home" zoning, or it could be something else. Are you sure your sim was at the hotel between 3 and 4 AM?



Without looking at that hack, I believe this is probably just a coincidence. Making the action cancellable shouldn't affect the function that is run at the end of the semester, and the fact that deleting the token fixed it indicates that there was some corruption of the token that happened.

Yes, I am. My households always go for 7 days, though sometimes I send them home after 5 or so. And I do often have them on community lots during the vacation, but I am sure that this household spent at least 2 overnights at the hotel. However, I don't mind checking by sending another group; more evidence is always better. And it would be cool to send a different type of borrower or fund owner. I'll see if I can find a household with a good variety to send, or perhaps my uni dorm can go once someone else graduates and ages up with a balance one way or the other (and doesn't yet have to leave campus, thanks to Lamare's YA mod suite).

Ah, yeah, I'd meant to tell you a little more about general hotel and vacation home lot behavior since I think you said you don't have BV installed; glad you reminded me. I'll spoiler all that since it's definitely OT.





Good, I'm glad it didn't end up being info that changed the issue completely, since I still should have mentioned it earlier! Still watching for it.

Hmm, maybe Lamare can make it possible to age, advance pregnancies, and have babies on vacation lots and hotels? I would definitely be interested in that if I do wind up installing BV. The not-aging thing really wouldn't work well with my rotation.

Ok, it's now possible to change total education cost without deleting the token first.

Yay, thank you!

I'm thinking about writing up a run-through (maybe to start my journal here?) for how I use this mod after I've played as much as I can with it---because I seem to be coming up with lots of, er, alternative uses for it. (The possibilities of which I remain so grateful to you for!!) Will keep you posted. I'm not willing to tear myself away from the game to do it, but I'll have months of time after this when I won't be near my gaming setup anyway.

What happens if a YA graduates with a positive balance in their college fund (ie they put in/gained in interest more than the total cost of their education)?

Then they will maintain that positive balance as an adult. They can withdraw it whenever they like, or leave it in there to accumulate more interest. However, they won't be able to add more to the fund once they graduate.

Long time no write, and I'm sorry, kestrellyn; life got much busier, much faster, than I anticipated. But I've squeezed in a bit of time to escape play here and there, and I've certainly not forgotten you or this mod. Now finally, finally, this weekend (specifically, Saturday or Monday), I should have time to write up all my findings from my play (and paste them, ha) here.

The highlight, which just happened yesterday, is that I saw that corrupted-token bug again! I've never been so excited to spot a bug before, heh. I captured the stack trace (plus, I did a few iterations of token settings/presence once I found it to see if it changed the stack trace any [not that I'd know, but you will, I'm sure], in case that was helpful; I'll describe in detail when I post the various stack traces generated, or just will type the description of each into the file for each). So I'll have that for you also when I finally write. I'd be so happy if that would help you quash that bug.



@NatteryakToad Some of my good-with-money sims have been taking advantage of that, because although others of my sims have access to interest-earning savings vehicles (Monique's computer's saving accounts), not all are "allowed to" (headcanon). So those sims sell all teen and YA date gifts, for example, and stash all that and any other money they can in their "college funds" to take advantage of that window of time, the only time in their lives they will be able to open an interest-paying account. Of course, since they're good with money, they won't touch that stash until they really need it---like to help buy their first home (most of my sims don't buy their first homes until they've lived with family or roommates for a while after uni anyway; my hood is very expensive to live in). If they have, say, a YA fiance(e) who graduates sometime after they do, that means they may also be able to stash some of their first-job earnings in that person's account. Of course, funds only earn interest after the owner is no longer a YA, but in the case of these sims who'd never earn interest otherwise, several days or a couple weeks worth of interest is far better than none. (I use longer lifespans.)

Similarly, some of my sim parents who (headcanon, again) are "good with money" but also don't have access to personal savings accounts that pay interest will stash excess family funds in their children's college funds until the kids start uni. They can withdraw those funds (as legal custodians of their minor child) to help the family out, or if the family fortunes go well, can leave them as a "trust fund" for those kids.

All this is inspired by what's possible with various tax-sheltered savings vehicles available under the US tax code (though it's sort of a frankensteining of a few different options), so I don't see it as unrealistic.

Great, looking forward to your report! Hooray for long weekends!

As usual, I'm getting back here later still than I had thought! (Long weekends are a mixed blessing that way, heh.) But as promised, I've brought the stack traces and details from my most recent spot of that can't-finish-the-semester bug.

I've written up the details and included them just before each stack trace; the stack traces themselves are both in the same file, the PoorSally one attached. I thought it might be easier to use them that way. So, there are two error logs included in the attached file, each for a different but failed try of getting Sally to finish the semester. I also succeeded in the end at getting her to complete the semester, with a new token re-added; I describe that trial (C) at the end of the file.

First, some overall notes about the background of the main-hood uni student, Sally:



To jog your memory, the first and only other time a YA of mine had this bug (can't finish the semester), it was a uni-subhood YA, Graal. However, his token had not had nearly the amount of processing that Sally's had in the past; it was just set-and-forget as far as I was concerned. You have never seen the stack trace for Graal because, well, I panicked and never generated one, only deleted his token and got him correctly progressed that way.

Anyway, in all my other recent play in the main and uni subhoods involving the tuition tokens, there were not surprises other than this one. Both my subhood and main-hood unis had several new graduates each, and all went as expected: accounts or family funds were accurately credited, and no other students besides Sally had any trouble finishing their semesters. Yay!

I didn't pay careful attention to the accrual of interest in day-to-day play, but my pre-YA sims all seem to be having it credited as I expect. Same with interest accruing on sim-to-sim loans as well as on student loans with no payee (which I consider to be direct from the government): no problems that I have noticed.



Last but not least, about smaller increments.

Well, no token corruption, it was just trying to pay the payee the 0 simoleons of grant money your sim received, which is silly, but normally harmless, except that there being no payee or sponsor set caused the function to return false, which I for some reason forgot wasn't an error when I was writing the grant-handling function. Anyway, that's fixed now, and it also catches the situation of there being no grant money, so that it doesn't spawn a silly notification telling you that 0 simoleons went to pay student loans or whatever. Everything you did with the token was totally fine, the only thing that caused the problem was unsetting the payee and sponsor, which shouldn't have.

Regarding loaning smaller amounts - would it work to have an option to initialize with 0 simoleons, at which point you can set a sponsor or payee manually and borrow in increments of 1000 from the existing menu as you prefer?

Also, I think I found a way to ban interest from vacation hoods entirely without changing EP requirements, but I can't test it since I haven't actually installed BV yet. Can you try it out and tell me if it works?

Thank you for your explanation of what was going wrong with the tokens! Very interesting, and I'm glad it was fixable! It's important to me to be able to switch to different payees and sponsors as refinancing (and perhaps later, political maneuvering) occurs.

Oh, yes, initializing with 0 simoleons would be fantastic! I don't know if that would make redundant the bit where you can choose to make it a student loan or a loan from another sim...on the other hand, I suppose even with that, it's possible some folks might want to be able to initialize student loans at 0 anyway so they at least know that's what they were thinking for that sim---especially now that we can change the initialization amount on the fly.

I will be delighted to test the vacation-hood interest accrual in the current version! I regret to say it will have to be just one family, rushed through one vacation, but I can take them to their vacation home for a night, ensure they're on a community lot around 3 and 4 am, and also check them into a hotel to spend those late hours on another night. (You can check into a hotel even when you own a vacation home, and even when you have been to the vacation home during the trip.)

So I'll post again in a day or so to let you know what happened with that test!

Ok, it's now possible to initialize with 0 simoleons. No worries about the dialogs, it simply skips those in that case.

Vacation-hood test results: the change works! My vacationing couple spent 2 nights at their vacation home, 1 night on a community lot (massages helped keep their needs up) and 1 night at a hotel. They came home with her (the only one I gave a token to; she had previously graduated main-hood uni before I had your mod at all, so I initialized her first token prior to sending them away---he's never had one at all, since he never went to college and that all happened before this mod too) having the exact same loan balance as before. Hurray!

FYI, I did not test with payees and sponsors; she had neither.



I really appreciate how you think of all these details. Sadly, I've now completely run out of time to play, but I'll look forward to checking out that new feature when I can once more! And in the intervening months, as I said, I probably will write up and publish some thoughts on how I've been using your mod for all sorts of financial purposes. I think it needs more exposure. Thanks for being so willing to tweak it!