More Awesome Than You!

I have a deliberately inefficient micro-campus which is essentially a large lot with several small buildings on it - dorm, cafeteria, library, gym, and rec hall.  It's mostly flat, unlike my first pass at the concept, which has helped the frame rate issues.

Part of the aesthetic of the campus is that the official dorm "rooms" are 1x1 squares that the dormies won't use, and there are several ordinary bedrooms without the MyneDoor.  This means dormies actually go to bed, and are locatable when they're in their rooms.  I just don't care for the regular mechanic where dorm rooms are mysterious black holes.

It's fine for my playables, but 4 semesters, I have 8 dead dormies.  The regular Uni AI is just really stupid, and with No Dormie Invulnerability, they pass out, piss themselves, and eventually starve because they'd rather do asignments or stand around brain-dead than eat.

I don't mind a death or two, it can lend a little drama to the otherwise dull college grind.  But this is to the point where my playables never develop relationships with the mayflies, they just die too quickly.

I assume it's due to inefficiencies, and that the only real answers are to either design a more conventional dorm or give up on No Dorme Invulnerability.

 - Gus

Do you have a cafeteria worker serving food, or is it pretty much self-serve? I am wondering how your dormies die off so easily. Sure, mine stink, piss themselves, pass out, and do everything else, but they don't die. I want to start a campus cemetery.

Yes, I have a cafeteria worker.  Occasionally there's a bit of a problem with food, as I have a Put Away Leftovers mod (Dizzie, I believe), and sometimes the playables get into this loop of putting away all the food served on the cafeteria island, while the cafeteria worker is busy making more.

 - Gus

On a related note, does anyone know of a graceful way to resurrect Dormies?  Obviously the Resurrect-o-Nomicon is out, and using simPE to remove the Ghost flag and the I Am Dead token is annoyingly clumsy.

 - Gus

Why is the reaper phone out?  There's one at the Secret Societies in the pre-made hoods.  If you have a custom hood, add one to your custom secret society lot.  Once they're resurrected, use Inge's cat statue to send them back to the townie pool.

An alternative is to use the gypsy lamp to resurrect.  You can spawn one in debug mode by shift-clicking on a sim then using the spawn menu.  If you use the lamp, save first so that you can retry if you get a zombie when you didn't want one (or vice versa).  Then send them back to the townie pool with the cat statue.

   Another Dizzy hack -    - no-leftovers-in-dorms1b-ft: Disables all storing of leftovers in dorm fridges. Does *not* conflict with my leftover hacks. Also disables autonomous storing of leftovers during a meal. Note: This hack does not require Uni, although you must have Uni to play in dorms. 
   It's in the AL Anthology file.  I don't have FT so i'm not aware if i can use it.

True, but I'm not aware of any hacks to give instant access to the Secret Society lot.  I vaguely remember that there was a collection of buyable career rewards floating around at one point, and just as vaguely recall that it stopped working after one of the expansions.

It's useful to know that you can spawn the lamp.

I'm well aware of that.  I referenced it twice in my original post as "No Dormie Invulnerability", though that's the proper name, and I'm aware I could solve the deaths by taking it out.  However, there are behaviors I remember not liking that it fixes, like Dormies getting stuck on tasks like Study Together.  That, and on occasional death adds some flavor... though I could do without the peeing and the poor hygene.

I wasn't aware of that one, I should look for it.  I'm not too clear on where the AL anthology is, though, and I haven't purchased AL yet anyway.
EDIT: found the FT version on the Laden Swallow.

This, incidentally, is what the Campus of Death looks like:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/2817751404_1fcf7c8433_o.jpg)

2nd floor:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3165/2816901201_50dbff7d3d_o.jpg)

 - Gus

   If you know where the ft version is, then you'll be able to find the al version, it's right below it.   
http://www.nectere.net/smf/index.php?topic=1140.0 (http://www.nectere.net/smf/index.php?topic=1140.0)

magic-al1d.zip

TwoJeff's college adjuster has the option to make a sim a member of the secret society.

GJS: I downloaded the FT version because that was the version I wanted.  I don't own AL.  I do want what AL offers, but I'm not yet convinced that I'll return to the Sims long enough to justify the money.

Kyna: thanks.  I have the College Adjuster, I just hadn't actually installed it.  Most of what it does is too cheaty for my taste, but this could be useful.

 - Gus

I *really* like the idea of the "dummy rooms" for them to claim while leaving other actual bedrooms open for use. This would definitely alleviate the problem of those stupid mascots following dormies into their rooms and then getting stuck in there for 2 semesters until I enable Buy/Build for something and notice them in there. Will give this a try when I send the next gen of YAs through!

If you don't mind being totally cheaty about getting access to the Secret Society lot, you can always, with cheats enabled, simply shift-click your sim and say "Add to Secret Society" if they aren't already a member, and they can call the limo (I haven't tried to resurrect any dormies not a member of the society, so I don't know if that's a necessary element of the SS Bone Phone route or not). Alternately, you could place Bone Phones in your occupied dorms via some simple cheatery: 'unlockcareerrewards' does exactly what it says (at least through FT - I'd say I can't imagine why AL would break that, but I think we all know better than to presume upon EA's sensibility in these matters). So once you have a sim living in a dorm it's easy enough to 'unlockcareerrewards' for a phone to plonk in the corner, and if you want to erase temptation to use the others, simply sell off the other rewards for §0.

I didn't know about UnlockCareerRewards, either.  That's really the most direct solution to the problem, though I'll have to use the money cheats (which I dislike) to fix the damage to the dorm's funds after undoing dormie stupidity.  I won't find it at all difficult to ignore the temptation of the other career rewards - I ordinarily ignore them, much as I ignore the aspiration rewards, as making the game easier than it needs to be.

 - Gus

Just had an idea, Gus! If you dislike money cheats and typically ignore the other rewards, it just occurred to me that you could actually put a couple of the other rewards to use... sort of cheat more to cheat less... and have a dorm "bake sale" with the chocolate station or make public speeches via the law podium to replenish the resurrection funds.

Sorry, but I'd just leave 'em dead. But then, I never play Maxis created sims. Never. shudder.

When I do use the dorm concept, I tend to use it a little differently, I don't actually change the lot zoning to 'dorm'.  I make a 6 or 8 bedroom 'house' and give it the amenities I want and move students in... one thing this does is that it makes the sims cook for themselves so they grow their cooking skill.

I also use TwoJeffs college adjuster and visitor controller (there just are no cheerleaders and mascots in my game...oops) to keep the unwanted off the premises.

Basically it looks like a dorm (or a greek house) and it plays like one save for the kitchen area... oh yeah - and I don't bother with the MyneDoors...sim students sleep in whatever bed I direct them, too.

Yes, I micro-manage my simmies.

These aren't game-generated Dormies, either.  I created them in CAS and then turned them into Dormies with Inge's shrub.  This avoids ugly hairstyles and clothes and iffy names.  I have NoDormieRegen to avoid Maxis dormies.

The thing I like about a formal dorm as opposed to a dorm-style house is that if I only have a few active students, I have quite a few uncontrolled students with which to interact.  I also like a certain amount of autonomy in the game, mainly to inject randomness.  I'd never bother to form deliberate enemies if I were micro-managing everything, for example.

 - Gus

Oh, I've made enemies... sometimes on purpose, sometimes not...there's been more than a few nasty divorces, etc.

I think that the great thing about this game is that we can all play the way we want to play...and it is fun to see how others play and sometimes it gives one ideas, no?

I recently replaced nouniprotect- took it out originally because the autonomy bugged me, but put it back because I'm sick of seeing the same old dormies and wanted to see some deaths.  I've only had maybe one death a month since reinstalling it.  One thing that helps keep the death rate low is to actually allow the dormies to stay in their rooms.  If you want to keep it realistic (making them sleep in real beds rather than just stand around, invisible, to regain needs) the way you are doing it is great- but I find that the more "realistic" the requirements to keep a dormie alive, the more likely they are to fail at meeting those requirements.  Another thing you can do is to pepper the lot with snapdragons.  These don't fill the Energy need bar, so your dormies will still pass out, but at least they won't starve to death while sprawled across the floor or nose-down in the mac 'n' cheese.

Snapdragons crossed my mind, but I didn't want to make the real student's lives any easier.

I think the biggest threat to Dormie lifespan is the floor sleeping, which happens quite a lot.  It's inefficient, and I suspect it's causing motives to bottom out because almost everything hits zero while they regain energy.  It's possible the deaths I've been attributing to starvation are actually the 3-motive death instead.

One thing I did recently was put a boom box near the mailbox, where the dormies stop walking after returning to class.  This forces them to wake up immediately after passing out, and they usually make it to a bed afterward.  I'm not sure yet whether this will result in fewer deaths.

 - Gus

I know what you mean about the inefficiency leading to the 3-motive zinger. I don't especially long to kill off my dormies, as I made them all myself, but I'm not heartbroken if a few of them kick it. What I mind a lot more is the slow, lingering deaths they've been on about this first go-around. After a couple of generations, though, once there's a more impressive body count per dorm, I think the hauntings will be likely to assist in the lulzy and more efficient deaths of further dormies. Must remember to replenish their numbers before I send the next generation's kids through - and this time, make more of them I wouldn't mind seeing expire in various and stinky ways. I also think I'll be giving more of them rubbish personalities in hopes of wacky hijinks and so-forth.

I have a radio in my dorms' dining/living area for this purpose. Problem with this is, they wake up briefly, start dancing, wear themselves out further, start to stink, then pass out briefly again, only to attempt to rinse and repeat until they're hungry now and/or have to pee, in addition... plus they aren't really getting any social... so the 3-motive zing is still too likely in my setup. Hopefully with increased bedrooms available this will mix things up for the better.

Putting the box out by the mail is a good idea to keep the sidewalks free of crashed-out dormies. Knowing my playables, they would all then come back from class and dance for the next 14 hours straight if left unattended... which, I suppose, would be refreshing change from the birdwatching that's so the rage with college kids these days.

You could try using the wall speakers? I can't remember if they can dance to those, but if they can then they don't do it very often at all.