More Awesome Than You!

Awesomeware => The Scrapyard => Topic started by: J. M. Pescado on 2005 July 18, 10:54:49



Title: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: J. M. Pescado on 2005 July 18, 10:54:49
Experimental, untested fix for "mile wide mass of Zergs" barista spam.

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/terror/orange.gif)
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/zip.gif) nonpcspam.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/uni/alpha/nonpcspam.zip)

RTFM:
No NPC Spam (v1b) for TS2U v1.0
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado)

Special Thanks To:
Quaxi, for writing SimPE
Fairlight the Bitch

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place in your MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\DOWNLO~1 directory.

FEATURES:
This should cut down the "mile wide mass of Zergs" effect for Barista-spawning
in Uni. It also eliminates a lot of the "safety" checking for NPC-typing, so if
you try to create an NPC by simply setting his NPC type and dumping him into
the NPC pool, this hack will disable that check and you'll get your new,
non-functional NPC showing up to not work. Fortunately, this should never
actually happen unless you are actively trying to do something stupid and not
recommended. So don't.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS Hacks. Untested alpha for TS2U v1.0.

SIDE EFFECTS:
May cause computer damage, incontinence, explosion of user's head, coma, death,
and/or halitosis.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: pioupiou on 2005 July 18, 11:32:18
Thanks !! I run to see if it works !! This bug annoyed me to no end.
pioupiou


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 July 18, 13:10:29
Don't know if it'll solve my problem, but I'll try it and let you know if I actually get a barista to work at my empty espresso bars! Thanks for getting back to me so quickly about my problem!8)


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Ancient Sim on 2005 July 18, 18:29:31
Is this going to be extended to other NPC's?  I had a llama mascot die in a dorm recently and the game immediately spawned another one, even though there were still 2 left in play.  I think I read somewhere that mascots are allocated to certain areas, which would explain it.  Is this actually the case?  Seems stupid to create extra characters when I am trying to reduce the number of character files.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: J. M. Pescado on 2005 July 18, 19:14:12
That's unrelated to this: The game naturally attempts to maintain a pool of 3 NPCs of any given type. Baristas were an exception, as the game would never previously attempt to reuse a Barista, instead always generating more and more and more Baristas.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: themaltesebippy on 2005 July 19, 02:11:21
I removed all Way Cooler bars because of that spam crap.  I would like to have a couple on certan lots, will download.  Hope someone can report quickly if this works or not.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 July 19, 08:00:35
Well, it worked!  I finally have baristas turning up for work.  My problem must have been the opposite, in that my game just wasn't creating any of them at all, except in Pleasantview!  Thanks, Pescadp, this is a really useful hack!


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: pioupiou on 2005 July 19, 10:45:21
It works !
After 5 trips to the expresso bar, I have only two barista NPC and I have seen them twice !!
Thank you so much !!!
pioupiou


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: lakota on 2005 July 20, 02:14:35
Awesome......


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: sara_dippity on 2005 July 23, 07:58:09
Ahh the sensation of releif. I hated having to replace all my coffee bars with juice bars. How the hell can you have a bohemian art major sim go for a group study session on a community lot WITOUT COFFEE!! It's insane, I tell you!!!


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: J. M. Pescado on 2005 July 24, 17:11:11
So, unrelated problem, then.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: sarianastar on 2005 July 25, 08:09:45
I must bow down to JM for being more awesome than me. I've been searching for a solution to my missing baristas and useless espresso bars for days now. I haven't installed this just yet (I JUST downloaded it), but seeing ZephyrZodiac's posts stating that this fixed the problem with the missing baristas as well as the endless spawning of baristas, I wanted to post my thanks before I install it and reboot my computer. So thanks.  :D


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: draranha on 2005 July 28, 12:57:08
I think this explains the fact that I"ve got about 200 baristas in my characters folder!


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Benazir on 2005 July 28, 13:24:33
Thank you! It works! :)


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: pioupiou on 2005 July 28, 14:21:33
After some hours of gameplay and a lot of trip to the coffee, it really works well, three baristas, no more !!
Thank you so much for this one !!!
Pioupiou


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: themaltesebippy on 2005 July 29, 02:33:51
My game made two, though I only saw one on a comm lot.  I saw the other one in SimPE.  The first lot in regular hood no bartender showed up, but I was using a custom bar, which I ditched.  In college town, they showed up at regular way cooler bar.  Will experiment more later.

Game made 3 and I went from lot to lot and no more seem to have been made.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Hairfish on 2005 August 16, 14:12:59
I could have sworn I wrote this already, but maybe it was just prescient deja vu...

The hack worked. Those coffee bars that were missing baristas (some neighborhoods had them, some didn't) now have them back. And the same baristas are there when I return to a lot.

My lips are yours.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Entgleichen on 2005 August 18, 16:31:11
I've played with this only in the normal neighborhood yet, but there it doesn't work for me. Still new baristas generated.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: J. M. Pescado on 2005 August 19, 01:28:08
The game always insists on a total of 3 NPCs of each type, meaning you'll get 3 baristas, 3 bartenders, and ones will be spawned until this quota is met. If more continued to be spawned, something is wrong.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: gali on 2005 August 19, 03:33:19
I don't have this fix, but I don't have baristas missing in the community lots. All my sims order coffee, and even befriend the baristas workers.

But, I have downloaded Danny's bordello from DMA, in which I have baristas for the visitors. Is it the reason I don't miss baristas?


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: J. M. Pescado on 2005 August 19, 03:52:51
Sorry, DMA stuff is considered evil and I don't touch it.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: gali on 2005 August 19, 04:16:23
Lol, well, I needed it, because I built a "Romance Neighbourhood", with 4 generations of romance sims...:).

My females couldn't fulfill  all the woohoo wishes of their spouses, especially the Public Woohoo - and Danny's bordello solved this problem quite good...:).

Now all my sims have  Knowledge aspiration (I change all aspirations to knowledge with the SimPe), so I don't use it anymore, but it's still in my inventory.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: themaltesebippy on 2005 August 20, 01:35:31
I don't have this fix, but I don't have baristas missing in the community lots. All my sims order coffee, and even befriend the baristas workers.

But, I have downloaded Danny's bordello from DMA, in which I have baristas for the visitors. Is it the reason I don't miss baristas?

The baristas for Danny's DMA have to be called with the booth each time you visit community lot.  The only bartender/baristas should should have with that pack are Randy and Oliva.  Randy has a white suit and Oliva has a Hula dress.  Your game may or may not be making more and more different NPC's.  If they have green or black apron outfit they are Maxis, not Danny's.  Also you need special bar from DMA for them to work.  They are a good alternative to the Maxis NPC if you have room on lot for booth controller.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: gali on 2005 August 20, 03:37:34
I don't have this fix, but I don't have baristas missing in the community lots. All my sims order coffee, and even befriend the baristas workers.

But, I have downloaded Danny's bordello from DMA, in which I have baristas for the visitors. Is it the reason I don't miss baristas?

The baristas for Danny's DMA have to be called with the booth each time you visit community lot.  The only bartender/baristas should should have with that pack are Randy and Oliva.  Randy has a white suit and Oliva has a Hula dress.  Your game may or may not be making more and more different NPC's.  If they have green or black apron outfit they are Maxis, not Danny's. Also you need special bar from DMA for them to work. They are a good alternative to the Maxis NPC if you have room on lot for booth controller.

No, I put the original baristas in the community lot (usually I have only one, sort of all-purpose community + hotel with beds and showers, remodelled from "King's Landing Tavern", downloaded from the exchange, made by wintermuteai1,  before TSU was issued - it's still there, search for "king", oldest lots, community), and the workers come there autonomously - I don't call anyone of the Danny's workers. I just don't have the barista bug - strange.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Hairfish on 2005 August 21, 18:33:37
I have the bug only in my testing neighborhood, where Sims have visited a downtown lot with coffee bar many, many times. In other neighborhoods, where they spend more time at home, the bug never appeared.

So, whether you have the bug or not seems related to the number of times you've asked the game to generate baristas by visiting a lot with a coffee bar.

Note that my problem was missing baristas, not too many baristas. The same fix seems to alleviate both problems, though. Barista Fiber!  ;D


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: pioupiou on 2005 September 15, 05:46:51
This bug seems to be fixed in NL, as far as I can tell after one afternoon of playing NL. My sim went to the coffee shop and each time it was the same barista. I will play again later today and keep you informed.
Pioupiou.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: pioupiou on 2005 September 19, 03:45:14
After some days of playing nightlife without hacks (except crammyboy's no censor blur) I am positive that the barista bug has been fixed. After a lot of visits downtown or in campus I only have 3 baristas.
Pioupiou


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: sara_dippity on 2005 September 19, 20:56:35
I on the other hand played with a hack free game in Nightlife, wrote down the files I had in my char folder, went to a coffee bar a couple of times, and did indeed find that more baristas had spawned. I even checked the new files in SimPE, several baristas and a ton of gardeners (from another bug).


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Hairfish on 2005 October 08, 09:10:00
Mutiple Baristas are generating again with Nightlife.  :-\ Not only that, but if I have my Sims chat with them, they become useless statues that stand there doing nothing. They won't even serve coffee to "Townie" Sims who try to order it ~ those Sims get "stuck" in the action for a while, but it eventually times out and they go do something else. If it's my Sim, I can cancel the action from the queue.

It's only a matter of time before Baristas disappear again altogether, I guess.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 October 11, 13:08:40
You make me reluctant to install NL when it arrives!  Can Maxis never get anything right?  Surely that was a known bug that they ought to have fixed in this EP.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Hairfish on 2005 October 11, 15:52:54
I would have thought they'd fix it, too, especially since it has the potential to make one's game totally un-playable! But then, I still have Sims rolling up empty Wants, so they didn't fix that, either.

In your shoes, I'd still install NL. JMP will have it soon, and make it all sparkly for us.  ;)


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 October 11, 17:51:10
Well, I ordered it on sunday from amazon, and I think it should arrive any time now - depending on the GPO.

Seems to me, though, that the people at Maxis are being pushed so hard to develop the next EP or whatever that they never have time to research and make patches - they just leave it all to JM!


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: syberspunk on 2006 January 20, 13:39:31
I couldn't remember, and I did a quick search and did not find a definitive response, but is this still required for NL?  ???

Or has this been "fixed" by the patch? Can anyone confirm whether npcspamming occurs in NL if you don't have this hack?

Thanks,  :)

Ste


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: jrd on 2006 January 20, 14:06:03
Without this hack in place, I still don't get too many NPCs. So it appears fixed in a patched NL.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: ZephyrZodiac on 2006 January 20, 15:27:39
I'd go along with that, I don't have it in either.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: miramis on 2006 January 20, 16:34:18
It seems to have been fixed with the patch.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: ZephyrZodiac on 2006 January 20, 18:45:53
Yes, it was evidently a fault and not a "feature"! ;D


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: J. M. Pescado on 2006 January 20, 20:51:34
So you've verified that no extra baristas spawn even without this hack, and you're seeing the same baristas consistently, instead of random baristas every time?


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: jrd on 2006 January 20, 20:57:50
Yup. After extensive playing I still have just three baristas in my main 'hood. Same for other types of NPCs.


Title: Re: No NPC Spam - Experimental Barista Fix
Post by: Entgleichen on 2006 February 02, 21:44:49
Yup. After extensive playing I still have just three baristas in my main 'hood. Same for other types of NPCs.
I can confirm this. I reported the endless spawn in the old times at varioussimmers, but I play now without this bugfix for awhile, and no new baristas.