Hi Lamare!
I have been watching this thread for ages, but have not had the space to try these mods. However, I have just downloaded the latest set and will install them now. My current hood has only just got electricity, so it will probably be dodgy for a while. Perfect for trying out this system.

EDIT: all good so far! My sims are in a rural hood which just got electricity, so I have most of them set to 'Terrible' for area and 'Normal' for the building. Plenty of blackouts etc. I love the popups telling you when the phone goes out. Someone had to fix melted fuses.

Doubleposting with a new thing...the functional microscopes (by XPTL and Nanashi, both updating a model by Katy76) don't work without electricity, although I think they ought to. The original is old CC, made in about 2006. I suspect it may have been cloned from a computer; hence the electricity..

Can I follow the steps you gave for exempting non-electric lamps? Or will it be different for a microscope/possible computer?

Recently, I was inspired to play the Sims 2 again. Playing with the electric box, I noticed two problems: 1) the events are too often even on normal settings; 2) the bug with computer's interactions being disabled even when the power is on.
The first issue is fixable. The bug, I haven't been able to figure out, yet. If you get it or similar bug with another type of object, use the debug interaction by shift-clicking on electric box to force the "power on" procedure on all objects once more. I that doesn't work, buy a new object.

I don't know if I'll publish this project in the end, even though it's my favorite. But it seems pretty stable so far, and the bugs are not terrible.

This thread has gotten messy, and thought I'd share this links list with whoever tries to find anything in here.

Most up to date files and descriptions for the electric system
Files:
- post #40 - bill penalties and solar/wind rebate
- post #93 - power generators (gas & bike), fuel can, candle, collection file
- post #145 - electric box, digging accident
Descriptions:
- post #39 - digging accident
- post #40 - bill penalties, solar/wind rebate
- post #43 - electric box, gas power generator and fuel can
- post #93 - bike power generator + updates on other mods
- candle's description is all over the place

(I'm not ignoring new posts, I'm just taking it slow, because the complexity of this project overwhelms me after all this time. Thank you everyone who helped me in this thread and beyond, you've been great!)

_____
Edit:
As soon as I whined about not being able to fix the bug, welp... I went ahead and fixed it! It only took tree years and the magic of whining!
I also made power and phone outages a little less often. It's a 1 out 1000 chance already.

Been doing a little testing with this in anticipation of using it during my apocalypse challenge and it seems to work as intended so far! Set to all terrible conditions with no upgrades, I get power outages or flickers about every other Sim day, which seems about right. I haven't played much more than a Sim week, though. During the flickering, my sim was cooking and she would stop whenever the power went out and laugh lol! I had to tell her to keep going whenever she did, but she managed to finish cooking it in the moments the power was on.

Anyway, I'll probably use this mostly to turn off the power entirely in my challenge, but I wanted to at least post a little feedback and a thank you for making this!

Thank you, annachibi, I'm glad you're enjoying the mod!

I guess, she's one of those people who doesn't take her misfortunes too seriously

Hey Lamare, I'm still using your electric box, and I have added a whole lot of CC lights to it. Now you have a (very welcome) update, but I don't really want to do the whole list again.
Can I do the fixes so mine matches your update? Or send you my file? I was considering publishing my version for anyone who might want the extended non-electric lights list, but it would be sensible to have the most current base object.

Hey, aelflaed. I would really prefer if the object stays in this thread and doesn't start a life of its own some place else. This is to avoid confusion between different versions down the line. You could either attach the file to your post here, or send me the file and I'll add it. That is if you've done it already. If not, I can show you how to update it quicker or update it for you. You don't have to do the whole list from scratch - just extract the BCON from the old file and import it into the new one. I haven't changed anything in that area, and the old BCON will be still good.

Okay, won't share my file then.

If I can just extract the BCON and add it into your updated object, I should be able to handle that. I'll have a go.

Love this mod. It worked pretty much perfectly when I used it. Just want to report conflicts with the Digging Accident and Cyjon's No Visitor Chores and Cyjon's Digging is Gardening

Has this testing mod been scrapped Lamare?

@Lamare
I'd also like to know. I would love to use this mod if the testing is pretty much sorted out. It doesn't have to be ready for publishing for me to download and use it.
Just an update of how far it stands.

Hi @Hitchsim @lientebollemeis

The mod is fine, I've been using it for years, as well as other people. I just haven't gotten around to organizing my notes and publishing it. Also, I've been meaning to lower random event's frequency, rename some interactions, add translations, etc.

I look forward to it being published because this will be a game changer mod for sure

quick question. so for the preview, is it ok to use multiple electric boxes at once?

It should be ok. Bear in mind, having multiple boxes will multiply the chances of events.

I look forward to the published version! And thank you -- I've been looking everywhere for something like this!

I've been playing with this mod for a while with no problems.
One thing I would suggest is to stop the sims from deleting their queue when something happens with the lights, it's so annoying to have a sim stop what they are doing to react to the lights.
I don't mind them reacting, I wish it wouldn't delete the queue.

I've got this installed in my game though the boxes aren't installed into any lots in Pleasantview because they are living in the 17th century and don't have electric power or running water yet.

Hey-hey
I thought it's fair, so here's a quick update.

Sims don't drop actions to react to turned off lights or broken lamps.
If sims are busy they get a thinking bubble.
If sims are not doing anything, they may do more reactions: be annoyed, whine, shrug, sigh, laugh, blame electrical box, or look around cluelessly.
Kids in bad mood may run to an adult and whine or cry and be calmed.

Sadly, this update means that you'll see boring thinking bubbles most of the time, sometimes not even that if sim's current action disallows look-ats, but at least it won't be annoying, especially if power related events happen often in your game.

If you liked the way it was, keep the old file. I'll keep it up in the old post #93 just in case.

One of these days I'll finally upload these mods, but today I'm sharing an update here

Digging Accident
- Fixed a error occurring when no electrical box was present on the lot

Electrical Box
- Disabled short non-meaningful outages (were possible during busy hours) except for those caused by storm or blizzard
- To do a sloppy job that leads to hidden fault sims have to fail 3 tests: neatness, mechanical skill, random luck (should narrow down its occurrence to unhandy slobs)
- Reactions to turned off lights are back, they don’t cancel queue and only go if it’s dark in the room
- BCON setting to allow to break objects in dorms (set it to 1 if you use a repair fix for dorms)
- BCON setting for % chance to break the box during tinkering (should reduce the occurrence)
- Lower chance of events, yet again
- BCON tuning and cooldown to space out random “fake” events not caused by weather or other “real” triggering factors
- Prices for upgrades are more affordable
- Electrical box comes with preinstalled circuit breaker (it’s possible for it to become destroyed)
- Possible to make exceptions for non-electric/special computers, stereos and lamps, in 2 ways: a) either by adding a “CT - I am non-electric” BHAV to the object’s file, or b) by including object’s GUID into box’s BCON 107A/107B/107C (no need to do same object in both ways!)
- Broken objects fear satisfy and awareness
- Added notifications for when the power or phone line are turned on, for short circuit, voltage spike, lightning, fire, short weather related outage, ghost pranks, and one funny notification
- Maintenance level updates once per day instead of once per who knows how many minutes
- Slightly increased max hours for power and phone outages
- Sims are better at finding the actual culprit of a short circuit (broken electrical object)
- New event/feature: with a bad building condition, bad wiring puts a strain on electronics and appliances and they may break from use more often. - With normal building condition, it’s less likely to happen and only one random object is affected
- Fixed an error occurred when Sim Manipulator mod was on lot (it's categorized as a ceiling fan for some reason)

The list of links to other files and descriptions is here: post #128

I've been following this mod years ago and I finally revisited since the new version of TS2 came out. It's such a pleasant suprise that you been continuing this mod. I'm looking foward for the official mod post. Thank you very much for your works! I really love your mods that help the gameplay fresh and harder like laundry and suppies mods

I have a question. How does solar panel or wind turbine effect the power outage? I placed some outside but the electricity still off during outage unlike the generator and bicycle.

I have suggestion to add different reactions during outage. For example some sims have rage reaction when the tv suddenly off while they are watching and some have suprised reaction.