Dance Sphere Abductions

[kutto]

Just a few simple questions. Can a sim be adbucted with the sphere? Does it have to be at night? Do they have to be abducted via telescope beforehand? Are the chances higher with the sphere?

[J. M. Pescado]

Just a few simple questions. Can a sim be adbucted with the sphere? Does it have to be at night? Do they have to be abducted via telescope beforehand? Are the chances higher with the sphere?

Yes, no, yes, not really.

[kutto]

Excellent. Just got to get abducted with the telescope now. It's kind of sad, that I've never had an abduction this whole time. Sadorandomness I suppose.

[jsalemi]

Excellent. Just got to get abducted with the telescope now. It's kind of sad, that I've never had an abduction this whole time. Sadorandomness I suppose.

You want Twojeff's hack that slightly increases the odds of an abduction: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,1194.0.html.

There's also hacked telescopes around on MTS2 and insimenator.net that let you force an abduction.

[Ness]

or there is simply testing cheats...

[kutto]

Would you call that hack an uber-cheat, or even a regular cheat? I have serious moral issues. 

[neriana]

I wouldn't call it a cheat. It just makes it likely that you will someday actually see an abduction with your own Sims. Without it, the likelihood of ever having an abduction in a non-Curious house is extremely slim. I've had it in my game since TJ made it, and only have one abduction so far, so it doesn't make abductions happen often at all.

[kutto]

Oh, ok. With what some of the people were saying on that thread, they made it seem like the probability was too high!

[BeckerCheez]

I've only had an alien abduction happen naturally one time, and it produced twins!  

I have the TJ hack and it's not really a cheat; it's more of a convenient boost.  So in the new neighborhood I have now, I've had a total of two alien abductions---one with my Sim and one with my brother's Sim.  Not bad, eh? 

[neriana]

Oh, ok. With what some of the people were saying on that thread, they made it seem like the probability was too high!

There was a time when the abduction rate was too high, but TwoJeffs fixed that.

Happily, my one abduction so far was a knowledge Sim. Of course, now he wants to get abducted again and again and again...

[kutto]

I've never had twins either.  My brother got 3 sets of twins in a week, and made fun of me for it. But I got back at him. OFB came out soon afterwards, and he had three sets of twin toddlers. He told me he never wanted twins again. I tricked him into giving cheesecake to his pregnant sim. 

[RainbowTigress]

I like to send my knowledge teens out to stargaze with the telescope at night in the hopes that they will get abducted for the scholarship.  It's so funny.  I've had two of them so far, but I make them caffeinate and all their needs green before they go.  I have TJ's hack, and if they stop and start again, their chances start over again instead of ramping up every hour.  Of course, teens don't get pregnant, but they do collect $1500 in scholarship money!  So that kinda makes up for traumatizing the poor parents.  Once, my sim was running his home business, and when the teen got abducted, all the customers ran out to the telescope to gasp and cry and carry on.  Then a few hours later, they did the same, all gathering around on the curb cheering her return home. 

[J. M. Pescado]

or there is simply testing cheats...

The debug-mode abduction is bugged and doesn't work properly, don't use it.

[RainbowTigress]

or there is simply testing cheats...

The debug-mode abduction is bugged and doesn't work properly, don't use it.

What is bugged about it?  I used it the other day and saw no apparent problems. 

[Katze]

I use it too and had no problem.

[J. M. Pescado]

What is bugged about it?  I used it the other day and saw no apparent problems. 

It doesn't generate all the abduction memories properly.

[rohina]

TreyNutz had a comprehensive discussion of orbital abductions on the BBS. If you feel brave, you can go search for it.

Basically, what he discovered is that there seems to be a one abduction per sphere limit, so if your sim isn't getting abducted, try buying a new one.

[Ness]

it seems to generate the abduction memories properly for me...  The only time I've had issues like that is what I now know to be from the stuck invisible spaceship that Ste has a fix for.

[Gwill]

I have no increased chance of abduction mods, but I've had a lot of abductions.  Most of them accidental and on sims who did not enjoy it at all.
I had one (sor of) legacy family, start with the poor (litterally; poor) guy getting abducted and impregnated, followed by the alien son (as a teen) also getting abducted.
In another family I had mother and daughter get abducted within a few days.  At that time I was sort of trying (the mom wanted to be abducted, and she was retired, so she didn't have anything better to do), but I was quite surprised when it worked.  When the mother died a while later, her daughter got every possible scholarship for college, without cheating.
Inh my current family (late 3-rd generation) only the servo has been abducted, and he wants it to happen again, so I guess I should try the sphere.

[J. M. Pescado]

it seems to generate the abduction memories properly for me...  The only time I've had issues like that is what I now know to be from the stuck invisible spaceship that Ste has a fix for.

Trust me, it doesn't. I have a test-fix for that when I was playing with it.

[Gwill]

I had a buggy abduction once, but I think that was a portal issue of some kind.
A teen got abducted (naturally), both his parents witnessed it and had memories of it happening, but then at midnight he just dropped out of the sky without any cinematics or the usual fancy stuff, and he had no memory of being taken (and he did not qualify for the scholarship).
I tried to use the cheat to get him re-abducted hoping that would fix the memory, but the same thing happened.  After that I didn't bother with any more testing.

[seelindarun]

I have no increased chance of abduction mods, but I've had a lot of abductions.  Most of them accidental and on sims who did not enjoy it at all.

Sometimes I think Maxis' randnum generator gets stuck or caught in some sort of loop.  Not implying that's the case with your 'hood Gwill, just mine.
I didn't have any abductions for a whole generation of 6 couples, and then I had 5 within the space of 10 sim days.  One poor sim got taken for a second time while he was still pregnant (autonomous gazing).

I think partially it became more likely because I was actively trying for abductions by making sure that at least 1 or 2 sims spent the entire night dedicated to stargazing in each household, each night.  It wasn't always the same sims, but I always had someone on the telescope, and everyone else went about their business.  This made the wait easier for me, probably.

Anyway, I appear to have exhausted my allotment of abductions for the time being.  I haven't had any more abductions and that first bunch of abductees is just about to turn elder.

[twooflower]

I do well in my game at getting abductions without any kind of hacks since reading a thread on the BBS a long time ago (probably by TreyNutz).  I have as many sims as I can stargaze on the lots that I desire an abduction from about 7pm-4:30am.  It seems that it is often the last one to begin stargazing that gets abducted.  Sometimes they have to take breaks to pee or use the energizer, but I always have the sim/sims I want abducted go back to stargazing last.  I have had much more success with multiple sims stargazing, and have had multiple abductions.  All it takes is one abduction of a male sim, and then the dance sphere allows future alien babies.  They don't get an abduction memory with the dance sphere, but they do get a baby as long as they aren't an elder (or a few days before elder).

[eve_ftw]

What is bugged about it?  I used it the other day and saw no apparent problems. 

It doesn't generate all the abduction memories properly.

Just curious as to how it doesn't generate them properly?  I use the testing cheat all the time for abductions for my teenagers to get the scholorship and they have the memory of being abducted and the family members have the memory too... what is different about it?  I've only had 2 natural abductions and I didn't notice any difference? The only time they don't get the memory is when the thing that Gwill was talking about happens.  It seems to happen on only certain lots, and once it happens once it happens all the time on that lot, maybe the invisiable spaceship thing someone was talking about getting stuck?  If I have testing cheats enabled it says something about a car-shaceship something or other, apparently somthing to see if there is a car near, I'm not sure. I have to reset the person and they just appear with no memory of the abduction.  It sucks cuz I don't know what causes it and I'm too lazy to look so I just move them to a new home and it's fixed.  It's not anything in the design of the lot, I have some idendtical lots and some do it some don't.  It doesn't seem to help to leave the lot and come back either...not for me anyway.

[Avalikia]

I heard somewhere that the game actually tries to detect if you're trying to get your Sims abducted or not, and increases the odds that they'll be abducted if you're not.  Of course, the person who said this (I don't even remember who said it) never mentioned how the game determines this.  Is there any truth to this?