PTME - Emotional Overcharge (Social Interaction Tuning)

Finally working with all patches (07/31/2016), all game packs, stuff packs, etc. available for the game - Please read additional FAQ for the release!

PTME - Emotional Overcharge (Release Version)

When I started playing "The Sims 4" I instantly fell in love with the emotion system. However, after just a couple of hours into the game I got incredibly bored. Every sim I met had pretty much the same behaviour and going out got dull very soon because everyone was only dancing, chatting, drinking and having a good time. While there is nothing wrong with having a good time per se I missed all the little dramas I encountered in Sims 3 with mods like the wonderful ones by NRaas Industries. Unfortunately nothing like NRaas is available for Sims 4 at the moment so I switched to rotational play for a while. But even in a new neighbourhood filled with handmade households and all their different relationships set up in hours of playtime my sims are usually dodging all the drama that could potentially occur.

Addition for Release (07/30/2016):

As most of you might have figured by now, this mod has been unsupported for quite a while. First I do apologize for that, please read the FAQ for a further statement. This release version is completely rewritten, tested for three weeks now and as far as I am concerned stable. From now on it should be updated on a regular basis if life does not get in the way.

So... What does the mod do?

First, many of the possible social interactions are disabled for the autonomy by default. If they don't get magically enabled later based maybe on the situation (I haven't found anything like that in the code though) we won't see any of them in the game. So I enabled pretty much all of them. Also the mood preference settings for the different interactions are quite... "flattened" in my opinion. So there is still a very high chance that a sim would say enough friendly things to push everyone back in the happy mood/pleasant conversation state as soon as possible. So I also changed pretty much every interaction to a much more emotional state dependent setting (meaning angry sims would more likely pick a mean action over a friendly one). I also tuned different buffs like jealousy and the invisible ones from traits (they also provide bonus points for certain interactions) to some more aggressive values than before.

That means everyone goes ballistic now?

No. It might sound more dramatic and game changing than it actually is.There is still an okay-ish enough chance that sims will pick an interaction that actually settles the situation instead of pushing it further. But sims that are feeling flirty should prefer flirting over an engaging story way more than before and angry sims with mean and evil traits probably won't tell a lot of jokes. Also sims have a tendency to occationally walk away from a situation to read a book or watch some TV so you still have to push for some drama (I might address that in a future version if I can figure out how to tune that). While I had some spectacular results with sims fighting and dying of anger because they couldn't resolve their issues in time it's nothing you should expect to see regularly.

It's a Beta, is it a good idea to use it?

I tested the mod with the latest patch, it works and produces quite pleasing results (at least how I intended it work). But I changed A LOT so feel free to save your game before you install the mod. In its current state it works well enough for now, so I'd like to share it with the community. If you don't like it, don't use it. If you like it and have some ideas I will be happy to hear them. I tested the mod with different sims in different situations and I quite like the results I got. But after all it is a simulation so I can't promise that nothing weird will ever happen.

Addition for Release (07/30/2016):

Technically it's not a Beta anymore but I left this part as it is because it still keeps its relevance. Please save your game and use at your own risk.

Are there any known issues with the mod?

Not exactly that I am aware of. I am using this mod since I started developing it and the only real instability has been removed with version 0.04 Alpha. It's getting very good feedback from the community so far and I am experiencing nothing strange in my own game during my play sessions.

However, some (but very few) players have reported that it *might* cause a little weirdness when it comes to finding a place to sit when your sims are dining but in my opinion this feels more like a base game glitch. Please check out the comments for more information. If someone can provide me with a save game file that actually is able to reproduce the problem I'd be happy to debug it. But so far I can't confirm this is related to this mod.

Ok, how do I install it?

It's only a tuning mod so unpack the .rar file and install the package. Right now there is no unpackaged version.

Wait, there are new versions now? And where are the old ones?

Since I moved this mod to the release stage I have removed all other versions. If you like to check out the old ones for whatever reason please send me a message. Here is the version history:


In my own play sessions the mod is working very well and everything *seems* to be stable so please try the new version if you like and report your experience. There is also an additional hardcore edition now to unlock more dramatic interactions like "try for baby", "propose", "break up" and "divorce". These things shouldn't appear very often but please use this at your own risk!

Addition for Release (07/30/2016):

Of course do not use any other versions except the new one, I kept this part just for the history.

How do I know if it works?

You should see sims using interactions that fit their mood, their traits and their relationship to your sim a lot better than before. If you want to be really sure then orchestrate an extreme situation like two married sims that are home alone and both have the passionate moodlet. Or make an evil/mean sim, let him despise another one, get both angry and let them meet again. There should definitely be a difference although you might want to save your game and try it out a couple of times (randomness is always a decent factor).

Will my sims WooHoo autonomously?

Yeah, that can happen. They gotta be in the right mood with the right person though. I don't think it can happen when many other sims are around although it should be possible in theory. But your sims won't make any life changing decisions like getting married or divorced and they won't get pregnant (at least not in the basic edition).

I am using the mod but now some things happen that I don't like because they are... (insert complaint)

The whole system is somewhat complicated. To make the sims do something autonomously based on a rule set you like to establish you have to balance pretty much every interaction regarding their mood preferences and still there is a good amount of randomness involved. If you have some comments though I will be happy to look into it. Also I'd like to add that this mod is way more about enabling actions than disabling them from the autonomy. So if you want the full control of your sims the whole time this is probably not the right mod for you.

Will it be incompatible with other mods?

The mod will basically conflict with every mod that tunes the values of buffs from moods, traits and pretty much every social interaction I could find. You will find a complete list at the end of the post.

Addition for Release (07/30/2016):

I did not use any other mods for my three week test except MC Command Center but this works just fine.

Is there nothing I can do about that?

Well, if you have several mods you could repack them to a single one using S4PE. I am using the mod myself and it works well together with Zerbu's buff changes for example. If your sims perform certain interactions now that you don't like to see them do please feel free to unpack the mod, delete everything you don't like (interactions are easy to find, you can use Windows Grep to do a search in all the files) and repack it.

Can I get a complete list of all the overwritten XML files please?

Of course! You can find the files in the folders "buff" and "interaction". They are many I know - but if you are worried about conflicting mods you should try the method mentioned above. Load my package into S4PE and then all the packages you want mine to be overwritten with. Then save it as a complete new mod and use this instead. Even if you change some resources I use you should still see some good results (a technical thread about this mod can be found in the modding forum). Just give it a try.


Will you do different flavors of the mod like... (insert variation here)

Well, I could... But it's around 500 files to tune so... probably not. But please feel free to comment and share your ideas. It is in the beta stage now so I am very open for your suggestions.

Will you continue to develop the mod?

I won't be stopping playing Sims 4 any time soon. So yes, I will update the mod with every new patch until it becomes obsolete because either Maxis does a complete overhaul or another brilliant mod is released. Because it's beta now I won't add too many new features at the moment but if you have some ideas then let me know in the comments.

Addition for Release (07/30/2016):

Well, apparently that was not exactly true. Please refer here:

FAQ for Release

Technically these questions have not been very frequently, meaning at all. But I imagine these might be the questions one could have regarding the state of the mod at the moment.



I hope you enjoy! Feel free to share your ideas!


Additional Credits:
- S4PE (https://github.com/Sims4Group/Sims4Tools)
- Sims4XMLExtractor by Velocitygrass (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=534316)
- Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus-plus.org)
- Windows Grep (http://www.wingrep.com)
- weebl_101 for keeping this alive in my absence