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Original Poster
#1 Old 29th Apr 2011 at 8:02 PM
Default Overhauling and Replacing NPC's
Having played so many families and the only town I seem attracted to is Sunset Valley I have been overhauling the map and NPCs. (Got bored seeing the same ol' faces, besides Dori Hart was driving me NUTS!!)

So basically I'm adding new lots, replacing others and getting rid of all the residents, and replacing them with my own creations (making sure I don't add any Neat traits to any, those peeps always pissed me off by taking my food away in the park and folding up those picnic blankets)

I have Twallans Master Controller and Overwatch (Big thank you to Twallan for the time and effort in making extremely wonderful and can't do without mods)

My question is what is the best way about assigning jobs to the new townies. For example I specifically make someone I want to be Mayor of the town and him being the boss How do I get him in that position without some homeless townie being his boss.

Any other tricks or Ideas for Overhauling please comment as well.

Thanks in advance
Hooli
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#2 Old 29th Apr 2011 at 8:11 PM
Boss assignment is very tricky. Master Controller can do that but more often than not it won't stick. The same goes with co-workers.
But apart from that you can use MasterController to give every townie a job and a certain job level, too, and depending on what Story Progression you use it might also be a good idea to give them Lifetime Wishes that fit their jobs.
So your mayor should want to become Leader of the Free World, give him the Perfect Aquarium LTW instead and some StoryProgression mods might give him the Angler career soon after.
You can also turn a townie into a service NPC.
So, MasterController is probably the tool of your choice.

And I guess, tomomi will soon chime in and give further advice
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 29th Apr 2011 at 8:29 PM
I was wondering if I have everything prepared and do the overhaul in one full swoop before actually joining the live game that people will be handed jobs, I notice a bit of that in my first version and anything left over the game added some homeless peeps to fill the gaps. ( Stylists, mixologists, bouncer etc.)
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#4 Old 30th Apr 2011 at 12:14 AM
In case it helps this is what I wrote in a similar thread regarding role assignments
Quote:
In my experience so far, Sims with a role are not part of the NPC Service pool.
There seems to be a difference between Type and Role:
Types are: Maids, Butlers, Social Services (Adoption, Child protection), Firefighters, Policemen, Paper Delivery, Mail delivery, Mixologists for Hire, Repomen, Babysitters, Burglars, Pizza Delivery, Magicians, Science Geeks, Repairmen.
Roles are: Bouncers, Piano Players, Bartenders, Tattooists, Consignment Clerks, Stylists, and all the staff that are called by the several cash registers that came with World Adventures
Sims that are Types are part of the NPC Service pool and are all stuffed into one homeless household called NPC or something like that.
Sims that hold a Role can either be residents or homeless but belong to different households. So far on the load-up of every new game roles were distributed as such:

Consignment clerk: Unemployed local resident
Stylist: Unemployed local resident
Cash registers (Food, Nectar etc.): Unemployed local resident
Tattooist: Unemployed homeless Sim
Mixologists: Unemployed homeless Sim
Bouncers: Unemployed homeless Sim
Piano Players: Unemployed homeless Sim or local resident

If there are no locals or homeless available the game will create a new, random Sim. All of these will be one-person homeless households and remain homeless, except for the consignment clerks, they will be moved into your world immediately and sometimes placed into the most expensive house available. Maybe the same will happen with the stylist, but I haven't had this so far, because when there were no unemployeds the game always chose one of the retired elders for this role.
Role assignment without using a mod like twallan's Register is next to impossible if you want to have control over which Sim receives which role.
Top Secret Researcher
#5 Old 30th Apr 2011 at 12:17 AM
Mods wise, I think you have almost enough. I also recommend Error Trap and Register, and if you are going to play with Story Progression on, download Twallan's Story Progression mod as well. It works a lot better in your case since you want to do a major overhaul. StoryProgression by Twallan also gives you a neat option to adjust "Immigration" that lets you set what kind of NPC to be added to your town if there is ever a need. You can turn off Random Offspring and give 100% to Sim bin offspring so the random NPC added to your town is 100% taken from your sim bin, with slight randomness adjustments on sliders. This is to ensure you won't get any EA looking sims (although some of the LN sims don't look half bad).

Unlike RL, TS3 has different distinction when it comes to jobs. Correct me if I am wrong, but there are 3 ways a sim can be contributing to your town:

- Regular career & professions: Basically what you can get from rabbit holes (like Business, Science, Criminal) and active professions that you can play (like Invention, Fire Fighter, etc... that came with Ambition). Sims will be registered as "Employed" to the game.

- Roles: Sims will be registered as "Unemployed", but they will hold a role of Mixologist, Pianist, Bouncer, etc...

- Service: These sims are not necessary with the Service Household (TS3 hidden household that spawns Maids, Mailmen, Repair Technicians, Repomen, etc...). They are "unemployed", "unassigned", but under "Service" you can see: "Police", "Fireman", etc...

And there are 2 kinds of sims:

- Playable sims: The one that came along with EA town map, already situated in existing lots, or the pretty sims you created and moved in a lot.

- Non playable sims: aka NPC. These sims are at large homeless and not possible to Make Active
_________________________________________

I don't know how much of an overhaul you want, as in, complete purging all EA made households and replace with something strictly your own (like an alien town with Klingon like names). But the hardest part is to deal with NPC (mostly homeless) and assigning the non "career & profession" role.

- Most basic way: CAS Edit any sim you see that doesn't look right to you. First attempt to "Make Active" to see if they are in an active household so you can edit their whole family at once to ensure consistence of genetic (and not accidentally making one sim looks Asian, while the father looks black, and mother suddenly have sex change to a burly man). Do not force sex change if you can help it. Twallan's CAS Edit does not automatically replace all clothing and accessories so if you change a male to female sim, she will still end up wearing all male clothing, which require you to spend way more time fixing them up.

- Career assignment can be done via Master Controller's Intermediate menu, you can assign a career, and set level. You might also want to set skills as well, because if setting a level 10 Science Career for a new sim, his level will drop like rock as soon as Story Progression kicks in without the skills backing up (Science needs high Gardening, Handy, Logic, Fishing skills, like 8 or 9).

- Celebrity assignment and Vampire assignment can be done via Master Controller (Vampire under Occult option), you have to do this, or the game will do it for you (randomly pick a hated burly guy to be 4 star, so do it yourself if you want celebrity choice to make sense). TS3 require an X amount of Celeb and Vampire per town (I don't know the amount, but have at least 20 per would suffice.

- TS3 will randomly assign any NPC (the homeless ones) into any role. There is no way to stop that, but if you don't like the assignment, "The Register" also by Twallan will let you reassign to any sim you like. But try not to assign role to any playable sims, the moment you go to that household, the role will be unassigned. So best way to get a cute looking bartender is to assign a homeless female sim and CAS Edit her on the spot. Be careful that not all NPCs will take their jobs seriously. Whether being stuck somewhere, or whatever, they just never show up to work. Although Overwatch reset them nightly, it still doesn't help certain NPC sims, watch out for that.

- Service NPC: These sims are "born" into the family. You can forcibly add a sim into this Service household, but it is too much work. The only way to change them is to call them out and CAS Edit them. But once you remove them from the household, they will never go back (unless you forcibly add them with Master Controller).

- TS3 will assign "boss" and "mayor" for your town. They are those "homeless" sims that TS3 generate to fill in this role. Unless one of your sim is made to have high Political career that overtakes this role, I have never tried that so I do not know. Best way to change your mayor: make him come out and CAS edit him. Technically you can also "Add Sim" him into an existing household and you get yourself a playable mayor. Look into Master Controller, there should be enough options for you to adjust a sim (although can be confusing to find it).

P/S: I think "Total Annihilation" option via Townhall's Master Controller will purge all homeless sims regarding if they have any assigned roles of jobs. And with StoryProgression's "100% Sim bin Offspring Immigration" on, the new NPC will look like the saved preset on your sim bin. The catch is to create about 10-20 saved sims per gender/age (mainly YA and Adult) to have a good pool of resources for Story Progression to spawn new sim. Depending on your town's size, the act of spawning and assigning roles may very well crash your game.

I am going to try assigning Mayor myself. I am playing in Bridgeport and somehow I haven't even got to see the mayor nor even knew if Bridgeport would already have one.

I work for a living, but I don't necessarily live for a working.
Lab Assistant
#6 Old 30th Apr 2011 at 9:29 AM
Quote: Originally posted by tomomi1922
But try not to assign role to any playable sims, the moment you go to that household, the role will be unassigned.


That's not true (it was in very early versions of the register mod, but not anymore). In my town, every role (cashier/pianist/mixologist/etc) is assigned to a resident and I switch households all the time. I did notice though that with the last register version a few sims (a couple of pianists and a mixologist) aren't always at their station, even though they are still assigned.

The only register assigned roles that give me problems are the paparazzi. Either they lose the role or they keep it but another half a dozen homeless sims are also assigned as papparazzi.

To reach the unreachable star.

Wilde Legacy

Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#7 Old 30th Apr 2011 at 9:41 AM
Quote: Originally posted by ll
That's not true (it was in very early versions of the register mod, but not anymore). {...}
Yup, roled Sims will only lose their roles upon activation if the Register is NOT installed. And Register is the only mod I know of that will retain roles. AwesomeMod, for example, explicitly doesn't.
Top Secret Researcher
#8 Old 30th Apr 2011 at 10:28 AM
Quote: Originally posted by ll
That's not true (it was in very early versions of the register mod, but not anymore). In my town, every role (cashier/pianist/mixologist/etc) is assigned to a resident and I switch households all the time. I did notice though that with the last register version a few sims (a couple of pianists and a mixologist) aren't always at their station, even though they are still assigned.

The only register assigned roles that give me problems are the paparazzi. Either they lose the role or they keep it but another half a dozen homeless sims are also assigned as papparazzi.

Oh good to know! So if I assign my household sims to a role, how will they handle it? Will they stay at their stations and work normally (like a good NPC employee)? Will mix drinks, will stop people from entering clubs? Or they just stand there because now they are active?

I work for a living, but I don't necessarily live for a working.
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 30th Apr 2011 at 10:49 AM
They will do their assigned job normally. You can direct them to do other things, but as soon as you leave them alone, they will revert back to doing their assigned job.

To reach the unreachable star.

Wilde Legacy

Test Subject
Original Poster
#10 Old 30th Apr 2011 at 3:12 PM
I really have no problem with with the "Normal" story progression (EA) I have been reading Twallans however get to know before I jump in...LOL
With EA's story progression,it was doing ok during my test run, people were pairing up having kids and so on. I just wanted to assign specifc jobs without having to go live with every household. I suppose the easiest way is not to be too picky...LOL and just assign specific NPC's and make a lot more characters to cover the homeless issue.
Top Secret Researcher
#11 Old 2nd May 2011 at 8:03 PM
Quote: Originally posted by ll
In my town, every role (cashier/pianist/mixologist/etc) is assigned to a resident and I switch households all the time.


Role Retention is based on your *method* of switching households, not Register itself.

If you use the "Make Active" in MasterController or StoryProgression, the roles will be retained.

Any other known method (EA or Awesome for instance) will drop the roles automatically.


NRaas Industries: Sims 3 Mods for the Discerning Player, hosted by The Wikispaces.
Top Secret Researcher
#12 Old 2nd May 2011 at 10:34 PM
Quote: Originally posted by twallan
Role Retention is based on your *method* of switching households, not Register itself.

If you use the "Make Active" in MasterController or StoryProgression, the roles will be retained.

Any other known method (EA or Awesome for instance) will drop the roles automatically.


I think this is where I hear this from. Thanks for clarification again Twallan. From your forum, someone told me sims will drop the roles upon made active, and now it turns out the way around it is to make active via "Make Active" command, instead of Edit Town.

No wonder I experienced differently.

I work for a living, but I don't necessarily live for a working.
Test Subject
#13 Old 22nd Jan 2013 at 5:56 PM
Sorry for resurrecting this thread, but this is exactly my problem:

In my game (new sunset valley) there are lots of original EA sims which are "unemployed" and "homeless".
So they are assigned "roles" (like bouncer etc.)

Now I started to give them houses and proper "careers" via nraas master controller (register is also installed).
THE PROBLEM IS: they keep their "roles". But I want them to drop any roles, as they have good jobs now I don't want them to work as CEO and bouncer at the same time.
Can I remove/reassign roles with nraas-tools???

I found the option in master controller for changing "types" (like pizza-express etc.), but I cound't find a corresponding option for "roles".

Thanks for your attention!
Test Subject
#14 Old 23rd Jan 2013 at 3:36 PM
bump!

Anyone still here with some deep knowledge?
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#15 Old 24th Jan 2013 at 9:56 PM
Almost all of the roles are tied to some object. If you have Register installed you can click on those objects (professional bars for mixologists, ropes for bouncers, tattoo chair for the tattooist etc etc) and bring up the NRaas menu, which lets you remove Sims from roles and assign new ones. Paparazzi are done via the NRaas menu at computers and Town Hall, I think, as there is no paparazzo object per se.
I am not entirely sure but I think it is a side effect of Register anyway that you can now see Sims with jobs and roles at the same time because this shouldn't happen in an unmodded game.
Top Secret Researcher
#16 Old 24th Jan 2013 at 10:33 PM
babele44 is correct : The ability to have a role and career simultaneously is specifically encoded in my entire suite, it is not EA Standard.


NRaas Industries: Sims 3 Mods for the Discerning Player, hosted by The Wikispaces.
Test Subject
#17 Old 25th Jan 2013 at 12:37 AM
Big thanx, mates!!

I'll check out tinkering with "role-objects" next time I start up the game.
Actually I came up with the idea myself, but I wasn't 100% positive to pull this off as it is a very tedious procedure (track down each sim and the corresponding object, select an alternative sim, crossing fingers that the game doesn't screw up).
I wished there was a master-switch, like "turn off custom simultaneous role/career-feature". Or even better: "deactivate roles for sims with homes".
Meh...I'll do it manually then. It is possible with nraas-tools, and I'm very grateful for that!
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