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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 6th Jan 2022 at 8:19 AM Last edited by chitownriverscum : 6th Jan 2022 at 8:44 PM.

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Seasons
Default Native simming, part 4: The 18th Century Cup O' Noodles?
Hello again. Does anyone know what would cause all food options to disappear, except for the lousy, stupid, disgusting Instant Meal? Ahem - I should preface this - for those who haven't read my previous posts - by telling you that my lot is a mostly outdoors Illinois Native village, circa 1745, with a few lodges around a central "cooking area", or at least that's the ideal that I'm aiming for. I've finally got everything looking passably cool, so now it's time to serve dinner... Dad has defended the village from marauding predators, so there's plenty of dead bears. Unfortunately, I'm missing some vital step in the Sun & Moon Hunting mod from Plumbob, and my Sims just shrug when I point them at the skinning rack, but never mind - I can always use the meat as food stocks, right? And, cramming the giant, hairy beasts into the (carefully hidden) Shiny Time fridge gives the youngsters something to do in the evenings. Below: Nowatuwa casts a spear at a bear outside the stockade.

But what can I make out of all this delicious bear meat, not to mention all the harvested corn, pumpkin, peppers, chestnuts -- oh yeah, I've even got a persimmon tree that drops fruit periodically. My Sims are ROLLING in foodstocks. But sadly, as it turns out, absolutely zilch to be done with them. When I click the fridge, the only option for dinner is the [expletive] motherbleeping Instant Meal. Sorry kids, the fridge is full of food, but looks like it's... RAMEN again tonight. (Collective groan.)
So what gives? After trying every outdoor, primitive-looking cooking device that's been created, I gave up on that plan of action, and settled on just using a regular stove, and keeping it out of sight so as not to offend my living-history sensibilities. But still, all I can cook is the instant meal. I have a real, full-sized fridge. I've artificially jacked up everyone's cooking skills, so it's not that. I moved my stove into a lodge... is it because my houses have no doors, and the game thinks everything is outside? Would that even make a difference? I swear that I had a sim make some blackened catfish a while back, and then I did a big cleanup and trashed a bunch of giant downloads (possibly including the cooker used to fry the fish). But still, I have all the usual Maxis-made stoves to choose from. Mostly, what my Sims do when they're hungry is let the Medieval Food-Spawning Platter (which I installed, in desperation, rather than let them starve) generate a random shepherd's pie or gooseberry tart. But I'd rather have them cook their own meals - I spent enough time acquiring all the above-mentioned goodies for them. The platter is visible atop the barrel outside the lodge.


SO... I'm going to try buying ALL the cooktops in my catalog, and ALL the fridges, and see if any of them work better than others (I feel like I'm on America's Test Kitchen) but what I'm asking is: what's the logic here? Do some stoves work differently than others, given that their "hunger stats" are the same? Is it an indoor/outdoor thing? Should I put invisible doors on the lodges? Does that even make sense? I mean, if nothing else works, I can always go back and re-install the Russian Stove, or whatever one I had before, but I like to understand what's going on. I know, I know... could be I have some other funky CC installed, like a post office mod that somehow is affecting things totally unrelated to it, right? But before I go sifting through everything AGAIN, I thought I'd see if there's a more obvious issue at play here that someone could clue me into.
Below: The nicely deco, but otherwise totally useless kettle, bubbling on the fire; while inside the big lodge, we see the Highland Hearth stove, taking up lots of living space while looking cute, but performing no other useful function.

Thanks for letting me rant.
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Instructor
Original Poster
#2 Old 6th Jan 2022 at 8:44 PM
So... the moral of the story is, do your homework before you post, no matter how irritated you are with the investigation. In case anyone is interested, here's the scoop:
After, like I said, purchasing everything in the catalog and turning my 18th Century village into a Best Buy appliance department, all my food choices returned... on all the fridges, even the mini. I deleted the mini, and the choices went back to only the cup o' noodles, or if I clicked the stove itself, also a TV dinner.

That sparked a memory, and looking back through my recent downloads I found the "Supa Fridge", which turns your mini motel-room model (AND ANY OTHER FRIDGE YOU MIGHT HAVE ON THE LOT WITH IT) into a deluxe, what-Gordon-Ramsay-would-buy kind of thing. Back in the game, I click on the mini-fridge, and discover that I have a recolor that turns it into a basket. Bingo, problem solved.

So now I can get rid of every other fridge, and get back to preparing Michelin 3-star bear hot dish for the kiddies, and save the ramen cups for when that annoying Jesuit priest comes around, looking for new words for his Illiniwek-French dictionary.
Below: Nowatuwa pauses to thank the bear for giving up its life, to spare his children from the Maxis Instant Meal.


P.S. - I include this last picture for entertainment purposes. One of the methods of hunting in the Sun & Moon mod from Medieval Sims is to "hunt with sword", which action was cloned from a pirate dueling mod, forcing your Sim to get up close and personal with the intended prey. This shot of Yaranwe Makwake (Five Bears) running the buck through with an invisible cutlass makes it look like he's got hold of it by the antler, and it reminds me of a story that the real-life Y.M. (John White) once told me:
He's out walking the land with his son Jonah during deer season, and Jonah manages to shoot a buck as it's standing in the creek. It has nice antlers, and Jonah wants to take his picture with it, only he's left the camera back at the house, so he runs to get it while his dad hangs onto the deer by the antlers so it won't get all wet in the stream. Then a car drives by on the road along the creek, and slows down as the driver spots him standing mid-stream, holding the deer. He leans out the window and calls out: "You want any help with that?" whereupon John starts splashing around in the creek, pretending to be wrestling with the thing, puts a horrified look on his face, and yells: "Yeah - you - you got anything I can kill it with?" The driver declined to offer further assistance.



Quote: Originally posted by chitownriverscum
Hello again. Does anyone know what would cause all food options to disappear, except for the lousy, stupid, disgusting Instant Meal? Ahem - I should preface this - for those who haven't read my previous posts - by telling you that my lot is a mostly outdoors Illinois Native village, circa 1745, with a few lodges around a central "cooking area", or at least that's the ideal that I'm aiming for. I've finally got everything looking passably cool, so now it's time to serve dinner... Dad has defended the village from marauding predators, so there's plenty of dead bears. Unfortunately, I'm missing some vital step in the Sun & Moon Hunting mod from Plumbob, and my Sims just shrug when I point them at the skinning rack, but never mind - I can always use the meat as food stocks, right? And, cramming the giant, hairy beasts into the (carefully hidden) Shiny Time fridge gives the youngsters something to do in the evenings. Below: Nowatuwa casts a spear at a bear outside the stockade.

But what can I make out of all this delicious bear meat, not to mention all the harvested corn, pumpkin, peppers, chestnuts -- oh yeah, I've even got a persimmon tree that drops fruit periodically. My Sims are ROLLING in foodstocks. But sadly, as it turns out, absolutely zilch to be done with them. When I click the fridge, the only option for dinner is the [expletive] motherbleeping Instant Meal. Sorry kids, the fridge is full of food, but looks like it's... RAMEN again tonight. (Collective groan.)
So what gives? After trying every outdoor, primitive-looking cooking device that's been created, I gave up on that plan of action, and settled on just using a regular stove, and keeping it out of sight so as not to offend my living-history sensibilities. But still, all I can cook is the instant meal. I have a real, full-sized fridge. I've artificially jacked up everyone's cooking skills, so it's not that. I moved my stove into a lodge... is it because my houses have no doors, and the game thinks everything is outside? Would that even make a difference? I swear that I had a sim make some blackened catfish a while back, and then I did a big cleanup and trashed a bunch of giant downloads (possibly including the cooker used to fry the fish). But still, I have all the usual Maxis-made stoves to choose from. Mostly, what my Sims do when they're hungry is let the Medieval Food-Spawning Platter (which I installed, in desperation, rather than let them starve) generate a random shepherd's pie or gooseberry tart. But I'd rather have them cook their own meals - I spent enough time acquiring all the above-mentioned goodies for them. The platter is visible atop the barrel outside the lodge.


SO... I'm going to try buying ALL the cooktops in my catalog, and ALL the fridges, and see if any of them work better than others (I feel like I'm on America's Test Kitchen) but what I'm asking is: what's the logic here? Do some stoves work differently than others, given that their "hunger stats" are the same? Is it an indoor/outdoor thing? Should I put invisible doors on the lodges? Does that even make sense? I mean, if nothing else works, I can always go back and re-install the Russian Stove, or whatever one I had before, but I like to understand what's going on. I know, I know... could be I have some other funky CC installed, like a post office mod that somehow is affecting things totally unrelated to it, right? But before I go sifting through everything AGAIN, I thought I'd see if there's a more obvious issue at play here that someone could clue me into.
Below: The nicely deco, but otherwise totally useless kettle, bubbling on the fire; while inside the big lodge, we see the Highland Hearth stove, taking up lots of living space while looking cute, but performing no other useful function.

Thanks for letting me rant.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#3 Old 6th Jan 2022 at 10:19 PM
It sounds like you need to go read over the S&M requirements and double-check you have everything required. I would also download the readme and read them over twice. S&M sets are huge like an EP, they are a learning curve to get them all set up and working. https://sunmoon-starfactory.tumblr.com/linkarchive

If you want to post a story there are areas for that, but this is help.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Instructor
Original Poster
#4 Old 7th Jan 2022 at 7:09 PM
Yes, I wasn't looking for the Stories section (my stories never seem to get posted anyway), and I wasn't asking for help with the Sun & Moon thing; I realize it's extremely involved with a lot of moving parts, and while I'm sure I'm fairly close to getting it to work, I'm not really worried about it. I really just couldn't figure out why my food prep options were so messed up - when it turned out to be something so simple as having deleted the one thing that was letting my Sims cook things that they really shouldn't have been able to... well, I just posted this last entry as a cautionary tale to others, to take stock of their custom content before asking for help, advice which I obviously failed to heed myself. If I shouldn't clog up the help section with such potentially confusing entries, then I won't, in future.

Thanks for the S&M link, by the by. I'll check it out.
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