Oke, I just downloaded the newest version to try in my new game The Sims 2 UC.
I'll try it out asap.

@Lamare
You're welcome.

I'm away from my game. I'll try when I'll be back to my home.
Truth is I'm missing my motorbike more than my game.
I'm looking forward to trying the new files as soon as I can though.

Lamare, thank you so much for this mod. I wasn't thinking I'd have time to test it soon, probably not even this year, but a bit of a schedule change made me willing to pop it into my game. I still won't have much time with it after this month, but I'm glad to have experienced it a bit already!

It's great fun so far. I started by putting it in only a few of my households (I figured the most established and well-off households might have long since paid to have their home wiring perfected...and would of course live in the most power-stable areas anyway). However, I am finding I miss it in the ones who haven't got a box!

An observation that I didn't see reported earlier in the thread (though I haven't ever read the whole thing through in one sitting, I admit, always continuing where I thought I left off): when the power is off, sims can't Find Own Place using the newspaper either. I do have the UC and your move-out mod that allows sim households to move to uni subhoods as well as within the main hood, if that makes a difference. (Let me know if you need me to list exact mods and versions.) When I had this occur, the power had failed in the neighborhood for a household with one box, set for terrible conditions in the home and terrible area as well. Two teens in the house aged up just before the outage, one to YA (I also have installed Squinge's Mega College Pack) and one to adult (using the Sim Blender). Neither was able to see the Find Own Place option on that day's paper until the outage ended. Once the outage was over, they could see and use the option on the paper again, and of course it was available on the computer.

I understand if that function is inextricably tied to being able to use the computer. Still thought I would mention it because from a strictly real-life logical perspective, there is no reason the paper couldn't be used without electricity to move out, as long as the telephone system remains fully operational (for calling the taxi). (And in that household, the phones had not been not affected.)

Another idea: this one would probably be a heckuva lot of work to implement, but it would be interesting if sims had to (as an extensive project they might have to spread over several simdays) renovate the wiring over their entire house in order to upgrade from terrible to normal (for the house only, not the area). This is sort of an expansion on the concept that you hint at, by already making the Settings and Upgrade menus unavailable when an outage is in progress. I was thinking that there ought to be no way to improve the house setting unless they go through some arduous (and, in my hood, very expensive---but I'll certainly handle the pricing manually on my end rather than expecting any modder to get it just to my needs!) process.

I wrote a detailed explanation of that idea, so I'll put it under this button so as not to be too obnoxious in the thread!



Thank you again for your excellent, enriching work for our games.

Oh, man, @natboopsie, sims renovating their house by doing actual work instead of us players just magically changing things in build mode - is one of my favorite dream projects! I've been planning to implement repairing wall cracks and that sort of thing for months now. So I really, really like your idea. Thank you so much for such a detailed description, it's very inspiring to read. It certainly goes on my to-do list. Even if it doesn't make it into main release, I can always do it later as a separate module or something like that.

Newspaper issue haven't been reported, indeed. Thank you for letting me know about it. I looked into it. As it turns out, newspapers share "find own place" interaction with computers and therefore suffer the same restrictions, so your guess was right. Technically, the game checks for power before allowing this interaction, which makes sense for computers, but not for papers. I'll have to make a fix for that.

As for well-off households, I tried to make sure the electric box may be used there as well. With normal settings, it's less likely to create problems, although I still have to do more testing to see if the chances are balanced enough.

Hi, Lamare! I finally had time to play the game and I just wanted to leave a couple of notes.

When you have an apartment resident call a fellow resident (in the same building) while an electric box is in the unit, the Sim B will suddenly appear in their apartment, sometimes in color and sometimes completely black; each time, they went through the sounds and motions of talking on the phone. When I ended the call, the person was trapped in their apartment and I had to ask them to come outside/if I could come in to remove them from the area.

I had other apartments without the box and it never happened there though, so I removed the boxes from the units and had them call each other - the receiver never appeared in their owned apartment. Just to be sure, I placed the boxes back and had them call each other again and the receiver reappeared. The same thing happened when I used their roommates to call each other.

Gah, I forgot to test the landlord phone repair option. I'll get back to you if I spot anything else, but thank you so much for the Fix Disabled Objects interaction. I haven't had any non-working lights in apartments and broken fridges so far - hopefully, it'll never happen again!

Also, maybe I'm being silly, but I can't seem to find the updated collection file in-game. I sifted through all of the collections yet it eluded me somehow. I'm not sure what happened there. EDIT 1: I found it in the collections - sorry about that. It appeared at the end after I renamed one of my older collections. Strange, but hey, it worked.

EDIT 3: Okay, it disappeared again... There is strangeness afoot. I can see the icon when I organize collections yet it's not there when I want to access it. It's most likely my game playing with me, but still!

The pop-ups are easier to read now; I'll also extend my thanks to BkajnlConcepts. I haven't noticed anything unusual about the rent clipboard but I'll let you know if I find anything else. Thanks for your hard work!

EDIT 2: I realized how useful the restriction options are - I had an idea for certain lots that don't have power at all but wasn't sure how to simulate it without outright banning all electrical items. Then I had a thought that it'd be nice to have something like an object that, when placed, renders the lot powerless from the get-go though you can use the power back-up options to harness electricity. Is that possible with the current set-up? My understanding is that when I restrict power, there'd be no way whatsoever to harness or use electricity, yet I might be mistaken.

EDIT 4: So sorry for spamming you with notes! I noticed that playing with testing cheats on will give notices about the weather conditions affecting the electric box. I was wondering if it was possible to have the option to toggle it on and off because the right side of the screen was suddenly covered with notices about the ongoing storm/blizzard.

Similarly, imagine if our simmies had to wait a wee for most things out of the catalogue (longer times for larger objects). Say a new bed or fridge meant a 1-3 day wait before a freight courier rocks up with it (from Sim City ). Anything to make the catalogue feel less cheaty.

Hey @Sketching!
I updated the electric box file in the post #93 (http://modthesims.info/showpost.php...0&postcount=93).
It's not a big update, just quickly fixed the newspaper issue and removed the storm/blizzard notifications (sorry about that! I use them for testing, but you don't have to see them).
Haven't looked into black phone call neighbors, yet. Nice bug! Thanks for letting me know.
No clue about the collection. If it keeps being iffy, I'll just make a new file for you. Maybe it's corrupted somehow.
When you restrict power... I forgot whether you can use back-up or not, so I'll get back to you on that.

Bubblebeam, I've actually played with such made up restrictions. It can be challenging and interesting, but it's easy to simulate without mods, so I probably won't do it as a mod.

Thanks, Lamare (especially for the quick update on the storm/blizzard notifications)! The collection's still acting weirdly for some reason; it's there when I try to organize the collections but not actually in the collection set; I wonder what's up with that. I got the update and I'll report back if I notice anything else.

Updated the collection file in the post #93.
The problem was it's become community lot collection. Oops! I must have accidentally un-ticked the residential tick box before uploading.

Tested a few apartment phone calls. No neighbor teleportation. @Sketching, I'm going to have to torture you with questions again... I can tell you are going to get sick of the electric box and me long before I officially upload it. Anyway, could you please tell me some more about the circumstances of the bug? I tried to call during the phone outage on the other end, the power outage on one end and on both ends, without outages, before and after toggling the phone and the power, with both playable and unplayable (townie) neighbor. Couldn't get the bug. I don't even know what to ask you (that's a really weird bug), but if you can think of something else that might be related, let me know. Can't say how thankful I am for your constant feedback

Thanks, Lamare! The collection's all right now - why didn't I realize that was the problem? I guess it's because I never used anything from the collection on community lots.

Now that I think about it, does that mean the box works on community lots? If so, I can place it in my rundown lots and have sims grumble in the bar when the sports game is cut off. But then would the settings stick or do I need a playable to set them every visit? I should test it out.

I'm also not sure what to say specifically for the strange appearances of the call receivers, but if it helps:

• Both units had electrical boxes but there weren't any boxes on this lot prior to installation of the updated utilities set. There aren't any boxes in the common area. Settings were 1-tile, normal building and unit conditions.
• There were no power or phone outages in either apartment at the moment. None of the boxes had been completely upgraded, though the first apartment had bought the parts.
• No fiddling was done with the boxes on this lot (I didn't try the various new options just yet nor did I use the other items related to the set).
• In one instance, the receiver was in color and performing the actions and sounds usually done while talking on the phone; it was as if she really was there.
• In another apartment, the receiver was in black and moving around as if on the phone but there weren't any sounds.
• After the calls ended, the receiver was trapped in place in their room. Once, I had the playable knock on their door, go inside and talk to the receiver, and left the apartment to turn the apartment state back to normal (by normal as in she wasn't visible and trapped inside). Next time, I tried asking them to come outside, which also worked.
• After removing all electric boxes from the building, none of the receivers appeared in their apartments.
• I'm not sure if it's relevant, but I don't have any custom phones and the weather was clear.

It's kind of strange - I wanted to test it further yet it seems to be random; the bug doesn't always happen and it's actually been absent for a while. Hopefully it won't rear its head anytime soon, but I'll keep an eye out for anything else.

Oh, another thing - I had a sim work out in front of the TV when the screen filled with static and turned off. She continued to work out even though the TV wasn't functioning at the time and she only stopped when the power went out about an hour later. I'm not sure if that's intended since we can actually exercise without the TV but since it's tied to the object, I thought the action would abort. (Well, she needed a body point to get a promotion to pay the bills - I'd be desperate too!)

No problem, Lamare. Glad to be of help! The mod set adds so much depth to my gameplay - even if we exclude the amazing features of the electrical box, the candle that needs to be replaced has seen much use in certain hoods of mine. It's great for storytelling purposes too; I have sims who, despite their workaholic ways being interrupted by the power outage, would rather spend time with their diaries than interacting with their housemates. There's also the unfortunate occasion wherein sims hope to find another job after a tiring day at a much disliked job only for the power to go out and render them unable to use the computer to job-search. But hey, that meant that he was able to visit his next-door neighbor to borrow her computer, and well, they're now happily married with kids.

Don't sell yourself short either - you give us constant updates and listen to our feedback to provide us a better simming experience. Thank you so much for your hard work.

Random is the worst kind. Thanks for the report anyway. I'll try to find out what causes the bug as soon as I can reproduce it.


You're right, it's more logical that a person would be interrupted in this case. I'll fix it.


Aww, the electric box brings sims together! It's fun to read these stories.

___
Edit. To answer some questions.
1. The box does work on community lots. The settings are randomized when you place the box without family (unowned com.lot), those settings will stick when you save the lot. If it's an owned community lot, you can save it anytime even in live mode.
2. If you manually restrict the power, the solar & wind back-up wouldn't work, but you can use the bike generator and the gas generator to power individual objects. I figured, if you want to cut off the power for story or challenge purposes (that's what it's there for), you may still want to use individual back-up in some cases, but you can also easily avoid that and put your sims in the complete dark.

Thanks, Lamare! I'll take note of anything else that might be useful.


I love how it throws wrenches like this into the works and events snowball from there, just like in real life.


Good to know for sure - I forgot to mention that I was talking specifically about unowned community lots.


I see. I was wondering if it was possible to use the solar and wind back-ups as the sole sources of electricity instead of being fall-back options, but I guess it's redundant since they'll almost always work anyway. I'm happy to hear about being able to use the bike and gas to power up certain objects while the entire lot is restricted otherwise though - that's exactly what I was hoping for!

Lamare I am only just now seeing this. I never got the ping and got busy with my contest and other things and forgot to check back.

Welcome back, @joandsarah77. New files are in the post #93.

Hey, Lamare. No big notes yet - just wanted to let you know that I tested the landlord phone repair option and it works; they just a while to fix it for some reason like you said. Lazy landlords - the repairmen are faster even though they aren't paid as much. I also had some computers lose their interactions after a blackout disappeared. I used the fix disabled objects option and it seems to work as well but it didn't turn back on though.

Edit: Oh, yeah, I had one funny incidence of sending my sim over to a townie apartment resident's unit and somehow being able to use her TV during a blackout. The lights came back an hour later, but it was hilarious to me anyway.

By the way, if you don't mind me asking, personality-wise, what determines the reactions to the blackouts? I was curious since I had a married couple wherein the outgoing, extremely playful husband just shrugged while his shy but moderately playful wife laughed at the event; I'd have thought it'd be the opposite but this was cute too since it happened while he was trying to propose to her. Post 93 states that there are revised reactions, which I'm wondering about.

Thank you for your hard work!

Hey, Sketching

Mood and aspiration affect reactions as well. Also, I was sick of seeing playful sims always laughing, so I thought I'd make it more random.

TV at neighbor's means the power was on. What kind of event was it, if you remember?

The fix disabled objects option doesn't affect computers. Did the computers' interactions came back eventually? How much time did it take?

Hey! Ugh, I'm an idiot, I somehow accidentally typed in the opposite of what I meant. 'Tis the power of pain medication - sorry about that!

I corrected my post - I meant that the computer no longer worked afterwards and it had no options; trying to force an error on it didn't work either since the option swiftly disappeared. I had no choice but to sell the computer, just like the EAxis fridge from before. I forgot the exact scenario for the functioning TV; I only ended up getting a picture of the scene.

Ooh, it's nice to have variety for the reactions - far more interesting that way.

Haven't made a post here for a while but I have another idea.
Recenetly (June, maybe?) the electrical company came to my property and switched my power off to do scheduled maintenance on my power box.

So here's my idea;
Maybe someone from SimCity Electrics will come every 2 seasons and do maintenance on their end of the electrical box. A worker (maybe they'll send out the repairman) will tinker and hover around the box for a set amount of time until it is done.

As I was typing this I also had another idea.
We have Power, Water and Telephone in the works for this mod... but these simmies have no Internet restrictions!
(It will be hidden under this spoiler as I expect to elaborate a lot.)


And another idea. Power, Water, Phone, possibly internet and, what about Natural Gas?
Alright, thats all from me for now. This mod is progressing quite well and I hope to see another update soon.

Working great for me. I'm impressed that even a CC computer that I placed and tried didn't work.

I did notice on a general blackout that the hot chocolate maker that was present on the lot before the blackout was still working, although the new one that I grabbed from catalogue didn't work during the blackout.

I also think a readme going over all the options in more detail would be good since some of them I am not really sure of.

Whew! I just read all 5 pages and am so amazed by this mod, and just wow; Lamare, you are a magical sim wizard! Also very impressed by all the wonderful people that have tested it, as well as those that contributed ideas! I just downloaded the most recent version and am going to give it a try.

I will update if I come across any problems.

Hi, Lamare,

I apologize for not coming back to the thread sooner. I am within a few days now of ending my window to play for the next many months, so having to choose lately between playing and coming to the forums, I've been choosing the former. Should be around the forums more in another couple of weeks, allowing for transition time. I did want to at least reply now, though!



This was such a delight to read in return! So glad that you liked the idea. I think your module concept is a perfect solution as well, since I also was not comfortable about maybe forcing everyone into doing renovations just because I thought they would be a nice addition to your mod.

I don't know whether it is possible to cause build-mode items to appear as a result of anything a mod can trigger, but I wanted to mention Pixelhate's wall overlays. If you were thinking of making the mod a separate module anyway, perhaps placing one or more of those (would you have to make it a Buy Mode object?) on a wall in the room in question would be an alternative way of triggering the renovation process to begin for that room. Then you would have both the appearance of the wall being under construction (or needing work!) as well as whatever actual process the box could trigger. But again, I have no idea whether it's doable to link the two like that (box with overlay).



Excellent, so happy I could help---and that it can be fixed!



Yes, I have actually been playing with at least one household to represent each combination of settings that your box can do, and so my boxless households have become sort of an additional level of problems (the "no problems ever" level, heh). I always like to have many options with my depth-creating mods, so I may simply designate a particular boxless subhood as having exceptionally strong building and wiring codes and well maintained local utilities. (But of course, it will be expensive to live there, and there will never be a starter-priced home built in that area! Not to say they won't have other problems...)

Bug report: I have had a few instances now of the same issue as Sketching, where a computer (and so far, only computers, that I notice---and I pretty much only use Monique computers in my hood) ceases having any power even while the rest of the home has power returned. However, this even occurs for me when there has been no recent outage. Basically, just as @Sketching says (hello, Sketching! nice to see you), the computer just loses all options. I have not come across a case where this happens to a broken computer, so I don't know whether it would occur with only the Repair option being present in that situation. For me, entering debug mode and using the box to restore power to everything has always fixed the computer. I have not thought to try and capture a stack trace, though as Sketching describes also, attempting to Force Error on the computer directly during those times is fruitless, because the Force Error option only flickers in and out of existence, too fast to humanly click.

I enjoy your backup Candle, also as Sketching mentions! One suggestion I have would be to remove from the bike generator's Connect menu (and I assume the gas generator too; I have not used that) all the lights that do not need powering because they are candle-based. And another suggestion about candle-based lights: for consistency, could all the Maxis ones be made to burn out and need new candles after a certain number of hours, just like your original? Would it need to be done using a global mod?

And one more big idea: if you're already doing electrical and phone problems, it would be cool to be able to use the box to trigger car problems also. Of course, this may be different enough that you would not enjoy developing such a branch of this mod. But in case you might find it of interest, my ideas are under the button.



Finally, Lamare, I have seen you mention how much you dislike writing documentation, and I would like to volunteer to help draft some for this mod. Let me know how I can assist, though again I will be scarce for the next two weeks and may not be here at all during that time. But it sounds like there is time before you release the mod!

Sketching: I have been using the box on my unowned community lots in bad areas. So far I've only had a power outage at a coffee shop, so they didn't have to worry that the register would have been unusable (plus, the antique register still works), but they couldn't buy coffee either, from the barista, by design. For such lots with boxes, my experience has been as Lamare said: the setting sticks once the box is placed and throughout subsequent visits. At all businesses (owned or unowned) where I've placed a box, I use Numenor's Courtesy Lamps at exits, at least; I figure local fire code would require something like that!

Hey, Lamare! I've been busy as of late, so I haven't had much time to test, but I was wondering if it would be possible to exclude the Teen Style Stuff radio from the blackout options, just like the cheap BG radio? It looks battery-operated, so I thought to suggest it. I'd also be interested in a module that incorporates your candle settings into the EAxian candles, as natboopsie mentioned. I understand if you'd rather not though.

I've had instances when restricting the power or phones and turning it back on doesn't immediately take as well; I'm not sure if that's a glitch or by design, though I thought you might want to know anyway.

Hey to you too, @natboopsie. Like you, I designated boxless households and areas as the "no problem" level to add to the variety. I've placed the boxes on unowned community lots with specific settings as well, mostly rundown areas without registers since I'm currently playing apocalyptic neighborhoods (so no emergency lights there, but they're in other hoods) I haven't noticed any problems, yet I haven't tried testing what might happen if I sent a sim via taxi and the phones went down. Thanks for your input.

Speaking of which, Lamare, is the community phone booth affected by the mod? None of my sims have cell phones nor cars, so taxi-riders might be stranded if there isn't a bus stop. Then again, I should check if there's a mod that allows you to walk home or take a taxi regardless of which option you took to get to the lot in the first place (except for a car since it'd be nonsensical to leave one behind)... I could just play it off as lack of public transportation, though it might be a bad idea if the blackout lasts several hours.

Thank you for your hard work! I'll be back if I find anything else.

Edit: I had a few instances of computers suddenly losing functionality without a blackout; I couldn't click on it quickly enough to force a stack trace.