More Awesome Than You!

Does anyone know of a hack to minimize the cuss-mumble pillow fights that doesn't conflict with Inge's No Smuggled Toys hack? I want my prison to work, but I'm getting annoyed enough to put noroadpillows (which managed it nicely) back in. Sigh!

Monique over at MTS2 has a bucket full of no autonomous mods. Just do a member or downloads search with the keyword Monique and she should come up.

Squinge, over at InSim (and MTS2) also has a lot of non autonomous mods. Squinge has his own section at InSim, so it should be fairly easy to find.

However, I don't know about compatibility issues. I have Moniques no autonomous pillow fight. I don't know whether you can still order them to do it or not, because it never entered my mind to actually do that. Even with CB's fish-pillow, I still hate that stupid pillow-fight thing with a passion.

Pescado's hack was awesome (ok, yeah...) allowing just enough, but not too much, chance of the behavior occurring. Unfortunately the hack scan showed it conflicted with Inge's hack, necessary to run a prison (along with twojeff's school bus hack, another one I waved good-bye to with great regret).  :'(

I'd hate seeing pillow fights go away entirely. I'd never click on it as an elective behavior, but with noroadpillows it happened appropriately and for a limited duration, nicely realistic...mostly I saw it in the Broke family where Brandi is up to seven sons now. Pillow fights and other pranks belong in that household!  ;D

It is also not too inappropriate for Uni. Students can be rather silly at times.

Ahem, well, not me. I was a concientious, hard-working, mature, student in my younger days, I can.....

----Mother? Mom? Mom, are you ok? Dad, come here quick, Mom just fainted.-----

I use all three mods and my game hasn't exploded (yet). I'm not awesome enough to understand how to use the hack scanner, unfortunately.

Really??? Then, noroadpillows, you are going BACK into my game! Yay!!!

And the hack scanner I use is amazingly easy. I use the Sims 2 Hack Conflict Detection Utility from http://www.simwardrobe.com/ (by Paladin) an invaluable little tool that has saved me no end of grief.

Using two hacks that "conflict" is like putting the wrong kind of tires on your car. No telling what will really happen, but it could work.

Yea, you can tell them to have a pillow fight even with Monique's hack.  It may be annoying, but sometimes it's a fast (if strange) way to build a relationship fast.

Ooooooooh, I did not know you could still tell them to do that! I'm going to MTS2!

Runs after Brynne to get it too. :)

The "No Autonomy" just prevents them from indulging in the activity when left alone on free will, I think. It doesn't usually disable the option of ordering it manually.

Ah, so it works just like her No Autonomous Kicky Bag then.

Yup.

My Sims appear obsessed with base game play interactions (Red Hands, Punch Me Punch You) instead of later expansion packs additions (Pillow Fights, Rock Paper Scissors*). *personal favourite

Clearly, they need more cowbell.

Most of the time, I let them get on with it since removing one autonomous interaction means Sims will loop continuously an equally obnoxious action in its place.
A few clicks, patience and tolerance can handle that - for everything else - there is free-will OFF. :)

I wouldn't mind having my Sims obsess over having a pillow fight again. Some how the option has disappeared entirely from the game, for me. I have no idea what could have caused that.

Have you checked through custom content? (My Documents > EA Games > The Sims 2 > Downloads)

There is a hack (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=94208) that completely removes the menu option.
File name for the package is: Targas_No_PillowFights.package

If there is no hack removing the entry purposefully (you can test easiest by moving the "Downloads" folder to your desktop and launch the game) you may have a corrupted University installation.

Alright, at the moment it appears that Targa's hack was missing from my downloads folder. So in an attempt to remove my downloads folder and prep the game for loading, which I have been meaning to do for awhile, I am notified by my computer that something is using my downloads folder at the moment. In an attempt to muck around with the folder to make the folder removeable, I completely screw up my TS2 folder and now require a reinstall anyway, so this problem should be fixed. Thank god I have my downloads folder still on my desktop and wasn't that far into the game yet, or this would be quite tragic.

Did you delete the "The Sims 2" folder from My Documents?
Those saved game files regenerate but you should definitely attempt to recover the files.

The message about being in use is typically a program reserving and locking permissions to the file. SimPE, Bodyshop, The Sims 2 or even a separate Windows Explorer window open can be the possible cause. There's also that possibility that an application is awfully hung up on the process. :P

Well, yes, after restarting the explorer application I got it to work. Also, I noticed that everything did regenerate after a very quick loading time. All I really lost was my neighborhood, I guess.

It turns out that I do get the pillow fight interaction back after removing the folder, though. I still have no idea what could be causing it and I definitely don't want to do the awful "Remove half of your downloads" thing, so I guess I'll just live without until I can find what's causing it using some other method.

Edited for my atrocious grammar.

If you deleted the previous files you can pull them out of the Recycle Bin (Config and Neighborhood are most important, IMO).

SimWardobe has a Hack Conflict Detection Utility (http://148.122.173.174/pplace/Sims_2_HCDU.htm) available which scans for potential clashes.
Alternatively, if you can post a list of possible hack culprits, we can pick out the offending file.

The thing that happened was I thought I had merely made a copy of the EA Games folder when I inadvertantly just took a good chunk of it out, then emptied the recycle bin. I have the HDCU and the last time I scanned, nothing came up that seemed relevant to the pillow fight problem. If I can't find anything again, then I'll just boot up Clean Installer and make a list.

Are any other interactions affected (Hang Out / Pranks) at the same time?

My current guess is friction between multiple hacks causing a conflict.
Larger game mods that change considerable amounts of code are usually the incentive.

You can use a tool like Restoration (http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html) to recover deleted files, should you feel inclined.

I didn't know a program like that existed. That's quite a scary thought, though, that all those files that have been deleted are seemingly not entirely gone.

At any rate, I'll attach all the errors found if you wish. I don't really see anything that would lead to that, but perhaps you will.

Alright, I may be reviving a dead thread here, but I just found out that the cause of the problem was something to do with Crammyboy's fish pillow hack thing. At any rate, simply removing it fixed the problem.

Pillowfighting is not an effective relationship builder at all. It's lengthy and does not even begin to compete against ABGX, which is what AutoSoc tends to preferentially lock on to. Considering that ABGX is generally available well before pillow-fighting becomes positive, it's a moot point.

ABGX -- hmm, the A is 'admire', and the G is 'gossip', but I can't figure out what the other two are...

Wait, I just got B -- that would be 'bust a move'?  So X would be friendly hug, maybe?

I Heart Bust a Move. Much better relationship builder than jokes and hugs.

Yeah...if only it didn't look so gosh darned stooopid when they did it.

X is "something else". The original loop was just ABG, but Maxis changed it as of NL or OFB, and made so cycles had to be 4-moves instead of 3.  Friendly Hug would fill in for X, but it's a slightly dodgy interaction with much higher prerequisites than the previous 3, so is not reliable. Joke is serviceable also, but it's very low-yield and mildly slow, making it only filler material. There is not currently an obvious uber-move that is either extremely fast or provides high +rel, especially +LTR, with the same rel requirements and acceptance as the old ABG.

It changed as of OFB.  I was playing with just NL for the longest time, and noticed that AutoSoc uses a 4-move cycle.  Before seeing the light that is Macrotastics, I always used ABG by clicky finger, you see.  Under NL, it always niggled at me that AutoSoc was slightly less efficient than I.

Not that I think this is worth the overhead of tweaking the NL version of AutoSoc, but I do note with some satisfaction that some Awesome hacks play less awesome-ly than I.  :-*

There is no NL-specific version of AutoSoc, all versions of the game use a unified AutoSoc.

I mis-wrote.  I knew there was no NL-specific AutoSoc when I installed OFB, because if there were, I know you would have coded NL-AutoSoc to use a 3-move cycle, and OFB-AutoSoc to use the 4-move.

Having a unified AutoSoc saves maintenance overhead for MATY, but makes the hack slightly less efficient in the NL-only game regime.  It's a small but noticeable difference, only because Awesome hacks are above all, incredibly efficient.  ;)

Is there a hack somewhere that stomps the want to pillow fight? I don't see how it could possibly be replaced by a stupider want.

There's a want like that? I don't think I've ever seen it, but then again my memory sucks. In any case pillow fight is just horrible. Sims are always trying to beat the crap out of each other with pillows. Now if they would play something like "knife tag" or "chainsaw massacre" every now and then...

There is definitely a more stupid want. That is when my Sim pulls out their mobile phone to fulfill the "Call X to Chat" want and has it replaced by the "Buy a Mobile Phone" want because their mobile is no longer in their inventory. I guess that's my fault for sending a single Sim to buy mobiles for the whole household. However, just because I'm stupid doesn't mean my Sims' behaviour isn't.

I hate that want, it takes too much time to fulfill the want and my date meter is ticking!

(Although it is kinda nice when I get "Play With" and "Pillow Fight With" on both of my sims at the same time during a date, that makes the bar go up really fast.)

This can be fixed by each sim having two mobiles instead of one. As an added bonus, it also allows you to queue up multiple phone calls.

I think one of my gizmo wants hacks fixes the "want a phone the moment I have one in hand".

On the other hand, maybe they should want one because having two enables them to queue a call while on the phone.