hi . i'm in the process of making my first major, and have two issues with it:

- the smaller one: its description on mouse hover has no careers linked and the focused skills shown are for Art, which it's cloned from. the problem is, not a single major had the skill mix i wanted (creativity as main; cleaning, body and mechanical secondary), and while i could compromise and use logic or cooking here or there, i'd much rather not;

- and the larger: upon graduation (so yes, it works fine throughout), the diploma uses Unknown instead of the major name. i've downloaded another custom major just to see how that one works, and it says Undeclared there. apart from Tuning - General, which i gather relates to what you've cloned from, the only difference i've found is in Name Reference, mine says Major_customname, theirs is Major_originalname, but clearly neither displays the correct department on the diploma.

additionally, has the problem of overhead icon been solved? for all these issues i've only found open threads with no solution. i'm quite willing to start learning to create functions and make a custom diploma as well, if that's the only way, although numbers as descriptors for variables make it a very daunting prospect.

so if anyone could help, even to say that it can't be done without rewriting the whole university expansion, i'd much appreciate it.

Out if curiosity did you read this tutorial

yes. and the other two tutorials available. my custom major functions without crashes, unexpected academic probation or other issues. i'm just nitpicking about overhead icons and the diploma.

-------
wait, are you telling me you've made a major and its diploma says exactly what you want it to? that i might have skipped a step out of over-enthusiasm?

I once made one for personal use following the tutorial i pointed above, and it worked well in game.

did it work well in the sense that you didn't check what icon++ showed when they did they homework/it coincidentally matched your custom theme, but they graduated anyway, and you never read their diploma in detail? well i got a 7-day semester hack, which means 56 sim days that i have to look at the wrong icon, and THEN comes their practically immortal life (by vampirism or elixir) during which i'll keep seeing that diploma on the wall knowing it's wrong. i need more than to have them graduate functionally . so i'll try another one from scratch, but the other custom majors i've downloaded do the exact same thing: icon of whatever it was cloned from, and no department on the diploma.

---------------------------
eta: alright, i've solved half the problem (the diploma), and will be posting about it once i get my thoughts and screenies in order :D

I'd love to hear how you were able to fix the diploma problem! I've just started fiddling around with making my own custom majors and it's frustrating that they don't match up.

apologies for the lateness, i've been away and just returned. i'll post a quick hint now, in case you can't wait to get started, and instructions with pics when i'm better rested and coherent.

it's very simple really, if you look inside the diploma (Workshop - Unknown, and it's really high up the list because its name starts with "Save the Sheep...), you'll find that in the Read diploma function there's a list of GUID checks for each major in the game, pointing to a variable assignment that'll be used in the actual notification. so what i did was insert checks for my guids, and add their names to Text Lists - Dialog prim strings set. it's super important to know that you need to point not to the number in brackets, but to the rank, if i may call it so. if you want the umpteenth major as appears in brackets, then your number needs to say umpteen+1, in hex (because they start with 0, not 1).

hope this helps for now .
------------------
edit to add: going to make a separate post for the picture tutorial, so that it may be linked to individually without anyone having to read the preceding conversation. if that's really not ok, i'll merge them up, of course.

It's been bothering me since the first custom graduate, and it didn't stop bothering me until i figured it out. Luckily, the original code was set up such that it made things easy, in that the list of majors is right there inside the diploma, along with the checks for their GUIDs. let's start

I'll be hiding the different stages in spoilers, so that an overview is readily available and someone experienced might get the gist just from those buttons, or examine one in detail as needed.

step 0. What you need before starting: SimPe, but not expert knowledge. In fact, you could be an absolute beginner, but then please take a moment before each step to be sure of what i'm saying. We'll be working on a cloned object, so if any mistakes happen, we'll just remove the item from the downloads folder and no harm done until it's fixed. But just in case your mouse goes on a click rampage and starts eating up at everything it sees, backup your game.

step 1. It's useful to have your major's GUID handy. If you have that already, skip to step 5.
steps 2-4

step 5. Now we're going to clone the in-game diploma. If you already have one (for instance the one i provided with the jewellery major), skip ahead to step 12.

steps 6-11

step 12

step 13

steps 14-20

We assigned a custom value to the variable used for the notification, and the game can take it from here. Commit again, save, and that's it. Unless you have a lot of custom majors... but it gets easier with every time.

Testing: It helps if you have a test neighbourhood which won't make you cry if broken. Mine used to be called just Test, but now it's "Darkest corner of the world", because it really felt like i was doing shady things (i lost track of the number of times my tests failed. The most hilarious was when i accidentally pointed to line rank D in strings, the one saying "with all the rights, privileges, and honors thereto pertaining here and elsewhere". Imagine that repeated twice in your diploma :p. But it helped in that i realised i need to point straight to the strings, and not to BCONs). It also helps if someone's already graduated your custom major and there's a diploma on the wall. Read that. Does it say what it needs to? Yay! Does it point to the line above it? Then you need to add 1 to the string number in the Expression rectangle. Is there a sad jump bug? Check those links above, see if from line 0x8 the arrows flow as they should. Does the game crash entirely? Oh my. It might be easier to start over.

And that took about four hours to write. Still, less than the research. If there are mistakes or dodgy instructions, please let me know, i wouldn't want anyone's game to break because of this attempt.