Eco Lifestyle interaction Fix (26/07/2023)  

Tweaks to some of the interactions in Eco Lifestyle expansion pack to prevent some issues, like future cubes and clay spawning out of control in sim inventories; reduces certain interactions from being pushed too often (like baking cakes or giving fake bad news); puts some limitations on NPCs stealing furniture from non-residential lots and fixes issues with NAP Inspectors and NAP autonomy.

Bugs fixed by this mod

• Future cubes, blobs of clay and mystery novels spawning in sim inventories
• Important items being swiped by sims
• Toning down behaviour caused by NAPs
• Fixes for the NAP Inspector
• Clears stuck NAP autonomy from played sims

You can read more details about these issues below.

Future cubes, blobs of clay and mystery novels spawning in sim inventories

The neighbourhood action plans (NAPs) which sims can vote for in Eco Lifestyle include some background idles that NPCs can do, which let you see which NAPs are active in the area.

• The Tech Support NAP will make sims consult future cubes for advice.
• The Promote Creative Arts NAP will make sims play with blobs of clay.
• The Back to the Old Days NAP will make sims read mystery novels.

The game will spawn the appropriate items for the sims to use. These are meant to be temporary items that disappear after one use, but there seems to be an error causing them to remain in sim inventories.

You can read more about this bug at EA Answers HQ: Future cubes/clay spawning in inventories. Visit the thread and click “me too” to raise its importance for hopefully getting an official patch fix.

This mod reduces the chances the items will spawn and stay in inventories.

Important items being swiped by sims

If the Sharing is Caring NAP is enabled, sims will be encouraged to swipe items. Similar behaviour can be performed by sims with the Recycle Disciple trait – if they haven’t recycled anything for a while, they get tense and autonomously begin swiping items to break down.

While this behaviour is intentional, this can cause issues if the sims choose items that are out in the open world area where you can’t go into build mode and replace them. This seems to happen for festival furniture in San Myshuno, although the items seem to remain in place and get labled as stolen instead of actually being swiped.

The items chosen for swiping can be unlimited value and from these types of furniture: lights, easel, couch, computer, TV, stereo, instrument, living chair, video game, vase, stool, art, pet bowl, pet toy, book, sink, counter and table.

You can read more about this bug at EA Answers HQ: Objects disappear from lots/NPC stealing (with and without NAP). Visit the thread and click “me too” to raise its importance for hopefully getting an official patch fix.

To protect important items from being stolen, this mod makes the following changes:

• Sims will only target objects on the active lot (the buildable area) and not items in the open world (off-lot public areas).
• Sims are not allowed to target objects in apartment lobbies – this caused lot breaking issues if the apartment trash chute was stolen by sims with the Recycle Disciple trait.
• On non-residential lots, some items have been removed from the list of swipeable goods including stereos, musical instruments, TVs, computers, living chairs, stools, sinks, counters and tables which are considered as required items for multiple venue types including bars, lounges and more.
• Homework books are not allowed to be stolen.
• The maximum value of an item that can be stolen has been limited to 1000 simoleons for non-residential lots.
• The mod does not change stealing behaviour on residential lots, where the default Eco Lifestyle gameplay is unchanged and the full list of items can be swiped at unlimited value – at home you have the option to lock your doors, limit the amount of guests, tell people to leave and repeal the NAP.

Toning down behaviour caused by NAPs

There are some cases where sims seem to over-do particular actions being pushed by some neighbourhood action plans.

The official bug reports for these issues can be found at EA Answers HQ: Sims are obsessed with cooking and baking, Sims keep getting into brawls with everyone, Sims being tormented with fake bad news social, Sims are obsessed with programming and Sims constantly making De-Stressing Decoction. If you’re experiencing these issues, visit the bug threads and click “me too” to raise their importance for hopefully getting an official patch fix.

This mod will try to tone down the following things:

• Autonomy pushes for all NAPs will now test for uncomfortable moods and low motive moodlets for bladder, energy, hunger and hygiene. Sims who are too uncomfortable will not want to do any NAP stuff.
• Roughhousing Encouraged: added the default autonomy checks for mean socials, so only sims who would normally be mean and aggressive are encouraged (the defaults include sims with bad relationships, erratic/mean/evil trait sims, sims in angry moods or having extremely boring or offensive conversations).
• Free Love: added the default autonomy checks for romance socials, so sims will follow the standard rules for romance (such as selecting targets based on gender preference, being in a flirty mood, having suggestive conversations, etc.), rather than being completely free to do whatever goes.
• Fun Community: removed an autonomy push for pranking that triggered a version of “Give Fake Bad News” from Parenthood Game Pack to be spammed. The default base game version of “Give Fake Bad News” was not affected by this.
• Fun Community: sims will now consider their needs and only perform actions if their fun need falls out of the green range. If their fun need becomes low, then they will start to perform NAP actions to bring their fun back up (which includes mischief, comedy and video games).
• Foodies Unite: reduced the priority for white cake and carob cake, which were being chosen as cooking recipes above all other food options.
• Foodies Unite: sims will now consider their hunger needs and the hunger of other sims around them before deciding whether or not to cook meals or grab snacks, in order to prevent the overproduction and waste of food.
• Juiced Community: sims will now consider their thirst needs and the thirst of other sims around them before deciding whether or not to make bar drinks or tap a juice keg.
• Support the Performing Arts: the autonomy pushes for this NAP will now check if the sims are in an inspired mood. If the sim is not inspired, then it will check their fun need instead. Sims who have low fun will start to perform NAP actions to bring their fun back up (which includes playing instruments and dancing). Sims with the creative, music lover and dance machine traits will be pushed to do this sooner than sims without these traits.
• Rock Your Body: the autonomy pushes for this NAP will now check if the sims are in an energized mood. If the sim is not energized, then it will check their energy need instead. Sims will be less likely to perform NAP actions as they become more tired. Sims with the active and bro traits will last longer than sims without these traits before becoming too tired to do NAP exercises (which are pushups and stretches).
• Self Sufficiency: the autonomy pushes for brewing stress relief herbalism potions will now check for stressed mood. Only sims who are tense will want to make a potion to relieve it.
• Tech Support: the autonomy pushes for practicing programming will now check for high social need. As the sim gets more lonely, they will be less likely to want to do any programming sessions.
• Tech Support: replaced the default push for practicing programming with a shorter custom session that only lasts for a maximum of one hour (instead of the default version the game uses which lasts unlimited length until your sim’s needs fail).

Fixes for the NAP Inspector

For some NAPs, an inspector will randomly visit your home to check whether or not you are in compliance with the rules set by active NAPs. If you fail the inspection you’ll get a penalty applied to your bills. If you pass inspection you get a bill discount.

Under the Eco Friendly Appliances NAP, there’s a condition where the inspector will fail the inspection and fine you, even if you have eco upgrades on your appliances.

You can read more about this bug at EA Answers HQ: NAP Energy Efficient Appliances Fines Despite Upgrades. If you’re experiencing this issue, visit the bug thread and click “me too” to raise its importance for hopefully getting an official patch fix.

This mod has these fixes for the NAP Inspector:

• Fix for the “Invite In” interaction for NAP Inspectors. You’ll be able to invite the inspector to enter your property and inspect items inside.
• Fix for Eco-Friendly Appliances NAP inspection check. You’ll pass inspection if the appliance the inspector checks has at least one eco-friendly upgrade completed.

Clear stuck NAP autonomy from played sims

All of the autonomous behaviours pushed by NAPs are only meant for NPCs (sims which the game is currently controlling). The sims that you are currently controlling (actively played sims) are not pushed to do any autonomous actions by NAPs.

Your played sims do get hidden NAP traits depending on which NAPs have been enacted in their home neighbourhoods, but these don’t cause any autonomous behaviour – they only exist to give you influence points when you make your sims comply with the NAP. Don’t try to remove these, or you will stop getting influence.

There is a bug which happens if sims switch between being actively played sims and NPCs without changing lots – for example, if you are playing the Pancakes family, and invite the Goth family over to visit the Pancakes house. Then you switch control to the Goth family while they are still over at the Pancakes house. The Goth family were previously the NPCs on the lot, but now they’ve become the active played sims – they might have NAP autonomy commodities stuck on them from when they were in NPC mode which haven’t been cleared, which makes them do autonomous actions usually NPCs only do.

You can read more about this bug on EA Answers HQ: NPC autonomy commodities being incorrectly saved on sims. If you’re experiencing this issue, visit the bug thread and click “me too” to raise its importance for hopefully getting an official patch fix.

This mod changes the status of all of the autonomy commodities used by NAPs to be non-persistent, meaning they can’t be saved on your sims.

Notes

• This mod fix is for players who own the Eco Lifestyle expansion pack on PC/Mac since game update version 1.63.134.1020.
• This mod rewrites the tuning files for NPC autonomously pushed actions for all NAPs and their related commodities. It also changes the tuning files for autonomously picked target objects for Sharing is Caring and Recycle Disciple; the base game interactions for autonomous cake baking and grabbing snacks; and the tuning files for the Civic Inspector situation. If you have any other mods that change the same tuning files, they may clash with this mod.
• This mod reduces the number of times the game tries to spawn new future cubes, clay blobs and mystery novels. In the cases where they do spawn, they are flagged to be treated as temporary. It can’t guarantee to catch all cases though – you might find some stick around after going through loading screens while sims have them in use.
• Updated on 17 June 2020: the previous fixes to stop clay blobs, future cubes and mystery novel spawning didn’t work. Redesigned it from scratch. Limited swiping of items from non-residential lots to a maximum value of 1000 simoleons and blacklisted some critical items to try and stop some venues (such as bars) being made incomplete.
• Updated on 5 July 2020: blacklisted a few additional items from being stolen on non-residential lots, added protection for items in apartment lobbies from being stolen and added tweaks to tone down various spammy actions caused by NAPs.
• Updated on 19 July 2020: added fixes for NAP Inspectors not being able to be invited in and failing eco-friendly upgrade inspections on appliances. Tweaks to practice programming interaction pushed by the Tech Support NAP.
• Updated on 27 July 2020: moved over the stuck commodities fix from my retired NAP Autonomy Fix mod; added new fixes to cover NAPs previously missing from the mod, including Free Love, Support Performing Arts and Juiced Community; made some additional tweaks and enhancements to tone down overactive NAP behaviour including trait, buff and mood based checks.
• Updated on 26 July 2023: added a new blacklisted buff to the civic policy tuning files that prevents NAP behaviour triggering while mounted on a horse, to match the tuning files updated with the Horse Ranch patch. Removed the fix for the NAP inspector’s energy efficient device checks – these have now been incorporated into the game with update 1.99.264.1030 (July 2023).