coolspear

I hope it works for you as it now does Icarus. The organic tweaking of that mod through most of last year meant I eventually had to exclude low level docs if I want the mod to raise the fun stakes. The career only gets good once a doc can treat collapsed patients and deliver babies. And gearing the mod up to expand on those emergencies meant it could no longer cater for low level docs. And me, personally, I have absolutely no interest in ever starting the career from scratch again with a newbie doc. So that definitely pushed the organic tweaking in one direction - high level docs only.

I highly recommend players who are new to the career to play the Maxis rules for as long as they can stand it. That's what I had to do, all the way to level 10 when GTW was new. Ahhh! The agony!!! Never again!!! Now a player will have to do that, (if not using promote cheats) at least until level 8.

Hi @Icarus& @DolphinLuvr5I'll certainly look into this when I have the time. Hopefully later on tonight when I'm satisfied the science career mods are working as they should. There was nothing wrong with them. But due to all the new changes to the mods being put through a big patch, I just had to double-check everything works. It does, so I can move on and check these reports next.

But for the interim, I'll quickly ask are you using the newly reworked doc career mod from Part 3? The big one, with all the new staff and such the like? If so, are you aware it now only works for doctors of a high career level? Anything less than level 8 and it will break the career, probably in the way that's been reported here.

Either way, I'll know by tonight if it's something I need to fix or not. 

They're not uploaded yet, I need to check something in game first.

Good question. Where I know this mods kills the autonomous use of barbeques at home, its effect on those world lots is still up for questioning. From my own experience building this mod and testing its overall effects, I can say the public grilling areas were also shut down. Like you, I know just how much of a pain those areas can be.

For a long while, thanks to the debug delete option available, (MCCC or weerbesu)  I've been deleting a great many things from those world lots I cannot stand. Too many fecking grills being one of them. But the few that do remain in my world, this mod seems to stop all the fricken stupid, unwanted grilling as well. So, yeah, your question is a valid thing on my mind, too. And I'm confident this mod covers it.  In my game it seems to have died off. (As it should) But, of course, feedback from users will confirm the true, world status. 

For a long time I've held back releasing this particular "No Auto" mod. I always want sims to have their own freedom to do as they will, without too much redefining from mods. (Huh, as if...) But even at that, they tend to make the stupidest, stupidest autonomous choices when left to their own devices. Especially when in the kitchen.

I cannot promise this mod will miraculously make your sims as masters of their own kitchens. Or, more importantly, that other sims realise what the first sim did in a kitchen, so there's no need for the second sim to make another frikken meal.

What I can tell you is this mod bars them from using all small kitchen appliances autonomously. And, as such, will give higher chances they'll look for food that already exists to fill their hunger, before thinking they should make more new food on any given small kitchen appliances - Because they cannot! Ha!

Once you put this mod in your game, sims will no longer try to autonomously use small kitchen appliances for sources of food, drinks or energy.  

I can tell you from my own experience, I get frikked-right-off, when I tell a tired sim to go to bed, yet they think brewing a pot of coffee is the answer. No, it ain't, Maxis. Go to frikken bed!

Or an apartment neighbour comes to visit, and a sneaky affordance code tells them to go microwave a meal. No! There's plenty of food on the Buffet Table if you're hungry. So leave the appliances alone FFS!

This mod helps with all that. It makes all small appliances non-autonomous. Outdoor Grills (Barbeques),  Microwave Ovens, Popcorn Makers, Ice Cream Makers, Tea Machines and Coffee Machines. Sims will no longer use them autonomously, because otherwise they'll use them like idiots when they can, so this mod stops them. (Our sims are never the idiots. Maxis are!)

Does not effect sims autonomously cooking meals on the oven nor grabbing non-microwave snacks from fridge, as I don't want to starve the poor tykes completely, surely you can agree. Ovens & Fridges are not small appliances, though I have used the "Autonomous Grab Snack From Fridge XML" in this mod to rip out the microwave foods. Don't worry, you can still command your sims to cook microwave foods.

Note

Please keep in mind the game may force sims into position cooking meals or using small kitchen appliances during the lot load, if their hunger motive is low. What happens during lot load and the forced positions sims are placed in is outside the influence of mods, especially when it comes to making sims tend to their low motives.

cool1_sim_NoAutoUseSmallAppliances.rar  - Updated for 1.55

For patch version compatibility status, please see most recent Patch News thread for the TS4 General Mods section.

XML Resource Used:

This will conflict with any other mod using same resources. Mod first made and uploaded with Game Version 1.36.99.1220

Thanks and Credit: Simsasylum, Sims4Studio, our sims community, EA Maxis

Updated for 1.36-1.39

Two new mods also added for Feb 2018

Updated for Patch Version: 1.36-to-1.39

Yep, I missed that one. That's become my regular (signature) gaff when it comes to new stuff from new packs. Where I'll update the old stuff to be compatible, but miss adding new stuff until I spot it in game or members report it. So thanks for the report, as I hardly ever use the tea/coffee machines due to all the drink tray flavours I have, and would not have spotted the new drink for a long while.

Would it be worth making the new drink into a drinks tray, I wonder? Further to that, I wonder if this new drink is somehow connected to the strange Last Exception I'm now getting when trying to use the Fountain Drinks tray, as one of them is apple cider? I removed the Fountain Drinks tray from the set as I could not fathom where the strange LE started coming from or why, but you may have given me a new lead. I'll certainly be looking into that.

Funnily enough, I have half a restaurant mod still sitting here, the only community venue mod that survived when I purged that big project a few month back. Making restaurants generic lots like the other community lots I did in my game would obviously kill them, so I have been meaning to finish just that restaurant mod seeing as I put so much work into tweaking so many things about it. The only other community lot mods I kept were the ones for the 3 Dance Party venues from Get Together, tweaked to be always active when visiting, with stuff going on both where the dj/bartender usually are and at the close by lots which are normally ghost towns. I've recently updated them for 1.36, and just last night my sim went to the Ancient Ruins and I was gobsmacked at how well it worked. Like two parties going on at once with different types of visitors at each. My sim was spoilt for choice with fun things to get involved in. I feel I could release them as is, so look for them coming real soon, if that sounds interesting for you.   

Updated for Patch Version: 1.36-to-1.39

There you go, LarsV, my friend.

It's all good to go now. Get your home labs back on track.

2 hours ago, aparkison said:

I was wondering though if you tweaked the foods from the espresso bar from Get Together or just the drinks? I had my Sim visit a cafe with her mother for a girl's day out and it seemed like people were not wolfing their food down like hungry hyenas like they usually do (even on vanilla, it seems like they eat cafe foods too quickly). I actually had an enjoyable visit to a cafe for a change.

Those café foods would fall under the Main Food mod. I found no unique entries for them by Maxis, so that would mean they piled them in with the other base game rules, seeing as they don't have any unique animations when eating. Citly Living - chopsticks  - Dine Out Experimental food,  and toddlers, new animations, ergo new Maxis files to tweak.

I'm thrilled it's doing the job for you. When I first saw the group dynamic unfold during the final round of tweaks, I was so enamoured with it, I too wanted to jump for joy.

Update: And I should have noted in main post that not all foods have 16 bites. It's between 14-16 (depending if the default was 4 or 6) and toddlers around 8 bites. As forcing their tiny physiques into 16 arduous mouthfuls would be borderline child abuse.   The social worker comes to take them away for over-feeding the child! That's new.

Thanks for the feedback. I especially appreciate it from a fellow veteran player who knows what they want from any iteration of the game. Cheers, aparkison.

Another February update!

Sheesh, I'm probably going to keep on making this repeat gaff every time some new produce comes to the game. I update all the old stuff to be compatible, release the updated mod, go in game and find new pack stuff not included in the mod. Rinse and repeat till the end of TS4. At least I'm consistent.

So, yep, please re-download the most recent version of Chefs Purchase Perfect Produce mod that now includes the 4 new catnip flowers. (You know the drill. )

Another February update for new purchasing options. I forgot to add these in the recent 1.36-139 update, so please re-download this latest version for the new features.

New Flowers - catnip normal, catnip mad, catnip nap, catnip nuzzle.

New Feathers - Pigeon, seagull, crow, duck, finch, cardinal, heron, blue jay, pheasant, puffin, parrot, spotted sixam.

All new flowers and feathers come from Cats & Dogs EP. Normally, for the feathers, the pet goes out and kills the birds in the bush, so your sim can collect each type and finally build a bird sculpture made of feathers. A truly wholesome practice, of course. Making one big dead thing from lots of bits and pieces of many small dead things. Maxis been reading too much Mary Shelly? For those players who have no pets in their sim families as yet, or the needed "slaughter bush" is not available (The WooHoo Bush from Get Together EP from what I've seen in game so far.) then buy the feathers from the vase to complete the set and make the sculpture.

As some of you may know, for a good while I had continued maintaining Madame Butterfly's original Faster Eating and Drinking mod after she had retired from modding TS4. I'd also maintained Dr Chillgood's mod of the same name (on MTS) when he went awol for a bit, as it worked well with MB's one and did not conflict. But then Dr C came back to modding for a short while and wanted to do his mods again, so I just carried on with MB's.

All the while the game was evolving with new foods and drinks and new eating animations (chopsticks, toddlers, etc) and MB's mod was becoming less and less relevant. Not that it ever stopped working, still good to this day if maintained - as I believe it is now on MTS along with Dr Chillgood's. It's been a game of pass the parcel with those mods, especially the latter.

About six months ago I decided I was going to rework the whole system, bring it up to speed with all the game's newer XMLs and eating animations, that have thus far been ignored by modders. Not just to keep it in line with the game's food and drink evolution, but to better suit an idea I have how I want sims to eat and drink, especially the group dynamic, because I really want family meal times to be more like events, than the higgledy-piggledy, uneven free-for-alls they are. Family meals mean a family together, where with a little helpful setting up by the player as the group gather at the dinner table, they'll eat, drink and chat as a group, as an event, without silly distractions, dopey animations a general, pointless timewasting. The player can sit back and enjoy the show as these mods keep it all flowing for a comfortable length. Giving the player time to select conversations choices between sims, drag drinks from trays in front of them as they eat and really feel like the gathering is a true dinner party. As I say, an event.

Also works at a nice pace for single sims eating and drinking alone, with all the tweaking behind the scenes of a few important timing tunings regarding interaction speeds, the rate at which food is devoured, the animations speeds and lengths, adding new hidden affordances that came with later packs to speed up eating even further yet still keep smooth pacing. (You don't need these packs for this hidden affordance. The XMLs are already in everyone's game via patches, so I'm just putting them to use here.)

Yep, quite a bit different from the original mods of MB and DR C. So much so I could even squeeze in more bites for food and more sips for drinking to make it even more natural-looking, and still the meals finish quicker than Maxis speeds  - certainly with none of the silly animations in between bites making the default eating a painful, often ridiculous slog. Eating a full plate of spaghetti bolognaise in 4 default bites, which also included 4 snapshots on a phone, a selfie and one or two sniffs at the food, all in 25 minutes? Natural? I think not.

This set of mods tidies it all. In essence, these mods can be seen as the spiritual successor to those two early food and drink mods by MB and Dr C, so I will thank them both for getting that ball rolling so many moons ago that inspired me to take it to the next level of evolution.

The 16 bites & Single Baked Items Always Decorated can be, I suppose, considered optional. But it was very much devised to fit in with all the other mods of this set and its intricacies, to pull the whole experience together into a greater effect. But, of course, that is only my opinion. Also, all my Excellent Drinks mods were likewise retuned to match this set. Again optional, but again tweaked and blended to highlight the greater effect when all are combined. Those drinks mods can be found here - http://simsasylum.com/tfm/index.php?/topic/12295-true-excellent-drinks-all-game-drinks-now-in-this-thread/

Note: Not all bites are 16 bites. It's between 14-16 (depending if the default was 4 or 6) and toddlers around 8 bites. As forcing our toddlers' tiny physiques into eating 16 arduous mouthfuls would be borderline child abuse.   The social worker comes to take them away for over-feeding the child! That's new! So then, none of that here. 

Experimental Foods are from Dine Out GP, and Cultural Foods are from City Living EP. You will need these packs installed if you wish to use the mods here that deal with their specific food types.

Update - October 2018 - Okay, I finally caved in and forced this mod so that all food starts at Excellent Quality, no matter the skills and traits of the sim who cooked the meal. Just like I've done for all the True Excellent Drinks mods. I've been reluctant to do this since the beginning, as I'm okay with low skilled sims making low quality food. But restaurants, oh boy restaurants and those pesky chefs, have made me rethink the influence of this mod. For player-owned business restaurants, there's this whole other mechanism going on for chefs, their skills, traits, buffs and the quality of their meals. But for default restaurants, nada, zip, pot luck. Doesn't matter if you have the most top skilled chef in existence, traited up to the eyeballs, buffs coming out the wazoo and an imagination inspired beyond the realms of possibility, the food put on the table is still going to be a hotchpotch of random quality BS. Even when cooking four of the exact same meals for a table, the probability of random quality should be a near impossibility, the fucking four bowls of soup all came from the same pot! How the frick did you manage to get such random qualities simply transferring it from said pot to bowls using only a ladle? What the frick is up with your ladles? Is it all in the wrist action?! Get to fuck. No more! Excellent meal quality now guaranteed at restaurants. Period. And considering it only takes five skill points in cooking for sims to produce Excellent quality at home without fail, it's not as if this mod is a big cheat. Just removing the need for five skill points. No big deal. (Anyway, there Is always Impeccable Quality to strive for when at home, screw Excellent Quality. I consider all food a failure if it's not Impeccable Quality. Hence all the Impeccable Food mods.) That's what I've convinced myself to now believe, and I'm sticking to it. Frikken restaurant wrist-action ladles, indeed. I ask you.

cool1_food&drink_16Bites&SingleBakedItemsAlwaysDecorated.rar  - Updated for 1.55

cool1_food&drink_FasterEatDrinkImproved1_MainFoods.rar   -  No update required 

cool1_food&drink_FasterEatDrinkImproved2_ToddlerFoods.rar  -  No update required 

cool1_food&drink_FasterEatDrinkImproved3_ExperimentalFoods.rar  -  No update required 

cool1_food&drink_FasterEatDrinkImproved4_CulturalFoods.rar  -  No update required 

For patch version compatibility status, please see most recent Patch News thread for the TS4 Food & Drink Mods section.

Now that you have a general idea of what they do, I think it fair to mention that I do prefer playing the game on a slower default world speed. Using MCCC, I like my world to cruise along at half default speed, and that is going to have some bearing on these mods if you like playing the default time speed. Hopefully, not to any intolerable woodpecker scoffing and slurping effects. I'll also say that I am a believer in the majority vote, so I will be looking forward to feedback on this grand experiment. And as much as I'm happy with what the whole mod set does when in unison, it still might not be what the majority enjoy once you've truly experienced it all. So I'll be listening, and willing to tweak to some degrees, when I see which way the crowd prefers to go. (My way, or the highway! )

XML Resource Used:

This will conflict with any other mod using same resources. Mod first made and uploaded with Game Version 1.39.74.1020

Thanks and Credit: Simsasylum, Sims4Studio, our sims community, EA Maxis, Madame Butterfly, Dr Chillgood.

Maxis did not assign the Impeccable quality availability to these, so I have. In order for your sims to make Impeccable quality food, they will need to have the Stoves & Grills Master buyable trait. Although they are pretty much a snack that is just grabbed from a fridge rather than prepared, again with the right skills and traits the sim pulling it from a fridge should be enjoying it at this new, ultimate quality.

cool1_food&drink_ImpeccableToddlerFood.rar  - Updated for 1.47

For patch version compatibility status, please see most recent Patch News thread for the TS4 Food & Drink Mods section.

XML Resource Used:

This will conflict with any other mod using same resources. Mod first made and uploaded with Game Version 1.39.74.1020

Thanks and Credit: Simsasylum, Sims4Studio, our sims community, EA Maxis

Maxis did not assign the Impeccable quality availability to these, so I have. In order for your sims to make Impeccable quality food, they will need to have the Stoves & Grills Master buyable trait.

Cats & Dogs EP is a required install for this mod to be of any use in your game.

cool1_food&drink_ImpeccableSeafood_C&D.rar  - Updated for 1.47

For patch version compatibility status, please see most recent Patch News thread for the TS4 Food & Drink Mods section.

XML Resource Used:

This will conflict with any other mod using same resources. Mod first made and uploaded with Game Version 1.39.74.1020

Thanks and Credit: Simsasylum, Sims4Studio, our sims community, EA Maxis

As the title says, sims will autonomously prefer to sit at a dining table after they grab a meal.

If a group conversation is happening around the livingroom sofas, then a hungry sim may choose to grab their food and return to their seat. Though could, and probably more often will, sit at a dining table instead. Where some of the sofa-sitters may up their butts to join at the table to continue their chin-wagging in close proximity.

Single sims go to the dining table almost every time. Unless otherwise directed by you. "Hey, you haven't sat eating your dinner on a toilet in ages. I need a laugh. So off you go then, eat on the crapper for my amusement." 

Yep, you'll have to be telling (degrading) them to do that from here on in.

(Does not effect drinking. Tried making a version for that. What I saw down at the local watering holes afterwards was a little unnerving. You cannot un-see that once you see it. Let's just say if I'd designed it to work for drinking in a religious temple, all that bizarre kneeling and drinking would not seem out of place. I'll probably try again soon, though. God demands it!)  

Update - April 2018 - Just some tweaking to bolster and cement the original Maxis coding that plantsims do not, cannot and should not ever attempt to eat plates of food. They did a half-baked job, where it does not cover all scenarios to block plantsims outright, so plantsims still grab plates of food when hungry. I finished the other half of the job with these tweaks so that plantsims have no business whatsoever with human food nor any drinks other than precious, righteous water. If you are worried about their hunger being low when there is no sunlight for their unique photosynthesis feeding, I have special interaction on several of the Motive Manager Machines to help plantsims make it through the night. (I feel a Kris Kristofferson song coming on.) 

Update - May 2018 - And still the plantsims find ways to grab food, even though they cannot eat it, only to put it down, then stupidly grab another plate. Though this latest attempt by the plantsims was with specific food types. Decorated Baked Items, to be precise. When I looked into it, I found yet more XMLs that define decorated food, but also have a hunger push on them. FFS, Maxis why?! The Banana Cream pie already has a hunger push on its own! Why the frikken extra, extra push on it being decorated?! No wonder this has been a bonkers, chase-your-tail-ride to try and lock down. Why did Maxis even start the idea of banning plantsims from food, if they knew their own XMLs are this littered with unnecessary pushes? I really hope this is finally the last of it. I have not seen plantsims try to eat any more food, including banana cream pies and other decorated stuff, with these tweaks. It really better bloody-well be the last of it.

cool1_food&drink_PreferToEatAtDiningTable&PlantsimsNoEatFood.rar  - Updated for 1.61

For patch version compatibility status, please see most recent Patch News thread for the TS4 Food & Drink Mods section.

XML Resource Used:

This will conflict with any other mod using same resources. Mod first made and uploaded with Game Version 1.39.74.1020

Thanks and Credit: Simsasylum, Sims4Studio, our sims community, EA Maxis

More so, yes. With the default 4 mouthfuls, even with all that silly, default messing about in between bites, calling a family of 8 to a group meal is always a heartbreakingly bodged affair. By the time the last sits down, the first is almost done and ready to spring onto the computer to blog about how much they must hate family group meals.

My idea is to have them all sat at once, drag drinks from a tray in front of each and tell to drink, have them all chatting around the table, and just sit back and watch it flow like an event. Eating, drinking and talking, and nothing else! (Except the odd sniff food because I cannot nuke that outright no matter what I try.)

Even at that, single sims eating and drinking alone don't give in to too much repeat, woodpecker face shovelling. The way I've tried to balance three important, separate time factors behind the scenes keeps that at an enjoyable pace, and still beats the default eating speeds and all its phone-fiddling malarkey.

Updated for Patch Version: 1.36-to-1.39

New features to coincide with upcoming new eating and drinking mod set.

I'll take it! And thank you for it!

Cheers, Freezzle

Man, my head is in a tail spin. You've thrown me out of kilter, LarsV, buddy.

I have not even made a Patch News - 1.36-1.39 thread for this Career Mods section yet that lists the mods that need changing, let alone actually uploaded the updates. I'm still working through the Food & Drink section before I finally get to work on this Careers section.

Okay, now that my head's back in order, I hope to be making a start on this section by tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest.

You'll be happy to know the updates do actually work in my game, - as I've mentioned - so they'll be good in your game once I finally upload them to this section.

Cheers, larsV 

Hi @mathi555

I'll certainly look for them when I next update this mod.

I'm pretty sure I saw a new Animal Lover Trait, or some such, in Cas for human sims. So I'll be working that into the mod soon.

Cheers.  

Hi larsV

I've just checked in game and it's still working perfectly fine for me, just like it did the other day before I uploaded the updates.

I don't know why your actual Robot Constructor Machine would not show up in build mode. I haven't actually done any modding to the object itself. Maxis put all the GTW stuff in build mode after players complained about them locking all the stuff away as hidden at first.

I suggest you download all mods again, and double check you have deleted the older versions so they're not still in your mods folder causing conflicts.

Also, getting to the pie menu options for the Sim Options.../Scientist.../All Breakthroughs... is reliant upon your debug access mod. So make sure that mod is not the culprit.

Let me know if you get it working. Cheers, larsV  

Updated for Patch Version: 1.36-to-1.39