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#151 Old 10th Dec 2012 at 10:18 PM
Not my favorite, but I enjoy having a salon as a business!
Things that should be included in the salon:
1. Ugh-no-more makeover chair
2. Massage table
3. Perfume
4. Mirrors
5. Bathroom
6. Sauna
7. Hot tub
8. Outside have pretty landscaping- palm trees, flowers, and a pond
9. An office for your owner
10. Ticket machine

I enjoy the salon because it is fun to play as the owner and customer! The owner gets to give customers makeovers (including townies with hairstyles that don't go with their outfits or makeup that looks like a mess!) which may end up with a funny mistake or the customer looking better. Then a customer can visit and use the fun things like the sauna or hot tub. The ticket machine is needed, because I get annoyed when people come to sit in the hot tub and don't purchase perfume, a makeover, or a massage.
**Also, if you take your Sims on vacations to learn the massages, they can have customers purchase those too!
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Scholar
#152 Old 11th Dec 2012 at 12:46 PM Last edited by Simsica : 11th Dec 2012 at 1:56 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Mootilda
modyourpanties is a website which "provides free image hosting for users of the modthesims.info forums". So, transferring data from modyourpanties is a very reasonable message.


Oh, so it isn't meant as a joke, or rather: if it is, then it's an old joke I just haven't seen before.

Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
The only mod I had that affects massages as far as I know was Paladin's Massage Controller, I didn't even know XTPL had one. Will yours be added onto or replacing Paladins?


It will be a *semi-global* hack, while Paladin's is an *object* hack, which means that they can work together. That is actually the whole point of my mod: to make the Massage table semi-globals work better with Paladin's object, since I'd like using it in my salons.

But... and this is important... when you visit such a lot, the assigned employee will sell massages autonomously, and it will be very difficult to "Purchase" massage from such an employee, since the controller puts it "in use" state, which effectively disables any interactions on the table - including "Purchase" - for the duration of the employee's current interaction. Since the controller pushes the employee to sell very aggressively - practically non-stop, there simply isn't a good moment to jump in with your visitor Sim to engage such an employee.

Now, I like it that the controller does that while I play the owner family - that means less micro-management for me. But when I'm visiting, I like the service be available at my leisure, without me having to select the employee and end his/her current interaction.
So my goal is to make it so that when visiting I can depend on semi-global code to make the purchase available to the visitor Sims.

This will have to be done in the following way: when leaving lot with the owners, you'll need to "Assign Employee" the usual way, and clear all assignments from the controller, so that the semi-globals kick in. This way when the visitor arrives, the employee will be standing near her/his designated table and await for the visitor Sims' requests for "Purchase". Just like any other OFB service.

Quote: Originally posted by BeckyBoo8
**Also, if you take your Sims on vacations to learn the massages, they can have customers purchase those too!


I'm not sure this is possible. This is the very reason I had to mod this thing so that my visiting Sims could buy the vacation-specific massages types from an OFB employee.

Why do I then say that I am *not sure*? Remember when I said that this code is surprisingly sloppy? This is the reason why I'm not sure. For instance, Acupressure massage was allowed to be learned in home hoods - no reason why, no tests for learned massages tokens, nothing - just a mangle of useless code that half-works, half not. And this I discovered only after I enabled learning massages in home hoods.

And the semi-globals throw errors left and right, which is why I'm still not done with this mod.
It seems to me that EAxis had some ideas about the table in OFb context - or in any for that matter - but that they have given up on them mid-way, and simply "patched" the code to work in BV, disregarding all the other game configurations.

The best thing about a good thing is that it inspires a better thing. ♥ Receptacle Refugee ♥
Lab Assistant
#153 Old 11th Dec 2012 at 5:28 PM
Spa's of course!

Reasons:

-Good excuse to invest in a hottub or sauna
-keeps customers on lot longer than other stuff (if ticket machine used)
-customers won't complain(as long as you recycle old newspapers & clean dirty plates)
-your sim can meet new sims!
-hot tubs allow socialization for hours, which also helps boost loyalty stars..

All in all, clomping a couple ticket booths & a hot tub can create a good home business. I have several rank 10 home business so far...

Good luck
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#154 Old 11th Dec 2012 at 9:19 PM
Quote:
And the semi-globals throw errors left and right, which is why I'm still not done with this mod.
It seems to me that EAxis had some ideas about the table in OFb context - or in any for that matter - but that they have given up on them mid-way, and simply "patched" the code to work in BV, disregarding all the other game configurations.


Doesn't surprise me. EA are known for sloppy code after all. What is surprising no one looked into until now.

Not sure if I like the aggressive selling or not. I tend to only use dazzle on lots with very expensive items and only to townies who I know have bottomless wallets. Any time I've assigned someone to sell I get more negative interactions as they don't see that 'Jane' does not like them and instead of leaving her alone, they go back and pester her two more times before she throws a negative star. I think I'd rather the assigned masseuse didn't sell at all, like they do on the makeover chair.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
#155 Old 11th Dec 2012 at 9:30 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Simsica
I'm not sure this is possible. This is the very reason I had to mod this thing so that my visiting Sims could buy the vacation-specific massages types from an OFB employee.


I remember my Sims Ken and Barbie (both popularity Sims of course and Barbie had the high-ponytail from AL haha) learned all the massages for their salon and they could perform all the massages for customers. Although with that salon, if I play as the customer they could not purchase those massages.
Top Secret Researcher
#156 Old 11th Dec 2012 at 10:53 PM
This business-related question came to me last night when I had insomnia; what's the best way to run a coffee bar? With a bandatron (and chess tables, etc. to keep them in for a while), or with a cash register (and possibly later an attached bakery)?

You have to hire a townie to be the barista, right?
Scholar
#157 Old 12th Dec 2012 at 8:04 AM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
Doesn't surprise me. EA are known for sloppy code after all. What is surprising no one looked into until now.

Not sure if I like the aggressive selling or not. I tend to only use dazzle on lots with very expensive items and only to townies who I know have bottomless wallets. Any time I've assigned someone to sell I get more negative interactions as they don't see that 'Jane' does not like them and instead of leaving her alone, they go back and pester her two more times before she throws a negative star. I think I'd rather the assigned masseuse didn't sell at all, like they do on the makeover chair.


Aggressively in the sense it is constant - very little time left between sales.

And massages aren't sold like the rest is in OFB, through "sales" interaction. They have a separate code for determining if the customer will accept the purchase or not, and separate "sell" interaction.

Testing these days, I've realized that at times, customers will refuse sales. And Paladin's controller is coded smartly: almost never will a masseuse try to sell to the same person twice. Only when the sales has been refused will s/he try to re-sell again to the same Sim after a while. But there's no customer dis/loyalty for these (failed) sales.
This is because his code relies heavily on the EAxis coding in the execution of the massage - just like EAxis' code it operates through the "Social - Massage" object that spawns after all the checks have been made and takes over the actual execution of the massage. This has nothing to do with OFB. And it's a bit like working with a black box - you send it data and it takes over, without you having to even understand how it works or what it does.

And OFB related functions are coded so that they barely exist. What BeckyBoo8 said about Ken and Barbie: they couldn't sell massages to visiting Sims, though they could sell them when managing the store. Amazing. I never use stuff like that in my OFB stores.

The most important thing about an OFB store for me *is* the customer's side of the experience, because I'll spend more time in the shop as a customer than I do as the owner - I play rotations, and this is the simple consequence.

The best thing about a good thing is that it inspires a better thing. ♥ Receptacle Refugee ♥
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#158 Old 12th Dec 2012 at 9:06 AM
SusannaG, I started a thread asking about an owned coffe shop over here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=490963

I have found as soon as I add any other buyable item such as birthday cakes, the customers ignore the coffee bar and flock around the buyables items. So what I've done is taken away the buyables and placed the desert buffet from simwardrobe. Customers can then take a slice of cake as they want and they automatically get charged for doing so. This way I'm having customers sit with either coffee or cake. Would be nice if they did both, but I guess we can't have everything.

Simsica this whole selling massages is vastly more complicated then I can understand. Glad you can figure it out. It will be a great addition to our shops when you get this working. I play seasonal rotation and like both sides-as owners and as customers.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Scholar
#159 Old 12th Dec 2012 at 9:17 AM Last edited by Simsica : 22nd Dec 2012 at 11:31 AM.
I almost always play coffee shops the way Jo described too, and for the same reason - when something is set for sale through the usual OFB means in a shop, it will draw attention to the sales and the customers will buy and leave or complain about restock signs and drive the loyalty down. Why I mention this? Cause when playing bakery as a part of a coffee shop, almost as a rule you'll have just enough cakes to sell them all in a couple of Sim hours - there simply isn't enough time to make more. So if you are playing a coffe shop with a bakery at the side, then immediately after you've sold the cakes, unset the displays - decra-chills - and remove the empty restock signs and the shop will operate as the usual ticket service. No complains.

ETA: For all interested, I'm still modding and testing the Massage Mod, as I've come to call it.
It's become *huge*.

Many things had to be fixed and/or added so that all sides of OFB gameplay could be supported and smooth in execution, even the selection of customers (I do it all the time, and the hotel gameplay, as described earlier in this thread, depends on it).
There are several game objects and the globals involved in this massage thingy, and in the end I modded all of them. Implementing Learn Massage for OFB in itself is a huge undertaking, since it wasn't at all supported, and I'm still working out the kinks of this process for all of the possible situations, relating to both OFB and home lots.

I know I said this was going to be just an enabling thing, but this happens whenever I tackle anything - I dig through it like a bulldozer until it's upside-down so that I can see what it sits on. I found a lot of worms under this rock, especially regarding the OFB functions.

So, in a word, I was unable to leave it half-done and be content with any sort of compromise - it concerns *both* OFB - my #1 Sims EP ever - and the thing called "logic". As Tuvok would say: "Logic dictates," and it does. It dictates, for instance, that a customer makes a purchase decision based on their funds, and not what was made to be: if the budget transfer failed, then the message "$Me can't afford that!" was displayed. In a word, when deciding to buy, the customer was not looking at funds at all. Imagine that. Only when the funds went below ยง0 would the transfer be denied. Meaning that s/he would spend her/his last dime on the massage.

Now, *that* had to go. So Purchase Decision had to be written. I've actually built a safeguard in the semi-globals in case the conditions of the sales change during the, at times, very long route to the table. Maybe the customer came with another Sim who bought something else in the meantime, and thus made it impossible for the transfer to take place? I don't know. I just know that in an OFB shop anything is possible.

This is all necessary because of the customer's *autonomy* in making the purchase. Namely, I wanted them to auto-buy/learn when the salon is either played with the owner or a visitor. So "Purchase" and "Learn" were made autonomous. The auto action is tempered with attraction scores for various types of Sims - this needs to be tested and tweaked, of course.
When Paladin's controller is in place, the customers don't buy, at least as far as I was able to test it.

So that's that. Being very unknowledgable about the SimPE operations, I lost a lot of time on searching the resources and fixing the anim errors, and things like that. But I hope to be done with this soon - quite honestly, I have to make some cookies for the holidays, and this isn't leaving me be. I'm in the zone, and cuisine is not my OTH. Boyfriend even expects a cheese cake - I don't know where he got that idea .

The best thing about a good thing is that it inspires a better thing. ♥ Receptacle Refugee ♥
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