I'm moving this here as we really started to take over the simple questions thread
Quote: Originally posted by simsample
Okay so I need help!!!!!!!
In all these years, I've never played with Twojeff's ACR. I remember playing with their casual romance mod many, many years ago (the precursor to ACR) but not since it became ACR.
I'd like to try it in my new hood- possibly- so I'm testing it out in a throwaway hood for now to see if I like it. I downloaded version 2.0 from the Sibology SFS folder but there doesn't seem to be a manual. Version 1.1 has documentation, but it seems to bear no relation to version 2.0. For example, I installed the files, loaded the game, went into a lot and spawned the adjuster. How do I set up the hood? Do I need to set up the hood?
Also, how do I ununstall it? Do I have to put an adjuster on each lot? On community lots? Is there an up-to-date manual? So many questions!
I think maybe the version 1.1 documentation is so out of date that I shouldn't have bothered to read it!
Can anyone who uses this mod please shed some light for me?
Quote: Originally posted by CatMuto
You do need an adjuster on each lot for it to work, I believe. I'm not 100% sure if you need it on Community Lots because no community lot I had with the mod installed (but no adjuster set) had a place where Sims could woohoo.
Quote: Originally posted by Devon Aster
There is no 2.0 manual as far as I've found, and what information there was is lost since it was in posts on the Simbology site . From what I remember, uninstalling is pretty simple. You just remove the mod from your folder and the tokens will delete themselves (or become inactive and won't cause any issues).
You could just run the mod as-is, if you want. It works out of the box, but most people tweak the settings to their liking. I found that sims tend to go a bit wild if you don't
Global Switches affect everyone, and under that menu you will find allow/disallow settings for things like cheating, teen woohoo, booty calls (sim invites their favorite romantic partner over for woohoo), auto-gender preference (sims will be assigned a random preference if they don't have one), etc. The auto-engagement and auto-breakup don't actually work so best to leave those disabled.
Hood-wide Settings I believe are where you can set relationship requirements for certain levels of romantic interaction per Aspiration. For example, you could make Romance sims ready to woohoo with someone they barely know, while Family sims require a higher Daily/Lifetime relationship score before they'll do it. You can also set Jealousy level per Aspiration, at crush/love/engagement/marriage/never. I forget off the top of my head what else is under there.
Global Overrides are similar to Hood-wide Settings, except it applies the same rules to everyone, rather than per Aspiration.
Gender Preference is where you can run the randomizer to give a preference to Everyone/NPCs/Sims with no preference in one fell swoop. I think this is also where you can choose what percentage of straight/gay/bi sims you want in your hood.
This is by no means all of the options available, but they are the ones I tend to use the most.
You don't have to have an adjuster on each lot, though it's useful to have an hand and I believe elders won't do casual romance without one present.
Edit: I forgot to mention, if you use a mod that extends the life of your sims that can cause fertility issues. If you use BoilingOil's Slow Aging mod or simply have aging turned off, you don't have to do anything. But if you have something else, like Hat's Proportional Aging, then you'll need to adjust the fertility part of the mod.
Quote: Originally posted by simsfreq
You need the manual for V1. It is 100% worth reading because there is much that is the same. Go download V1.1 and just grab the manual out of the RAR and delete the rest. Read this. Then read the ACR 2.0 quick notes, which explains all the changes.
You don't need to do anything to set it up; sims of teen age and above will be automatically given tokens and start to perform ACR interactions on their own. Teens only perform ACR interactions if there is an adjuster on the present lot; YAs and above will do them whether there is an adjuster or not. I *believe* that teens will only woohoo if you have a teen woohoo mod installed. I've always played with inteen, so honestly I don't know.
Be aware that it has autonomous try for baby for married sims. And it's very eager, because the default settings seem to assume that you'll want tons of babies. I calculated it and on standard settings, most sim couples will have at least three children before they stop trying on purpose for more babies. (I have a bunch of data on this, if you want more information) You may wish to get your sims on birth control. Risky woohoo seems a reasonable (small) chance. There is a morning after pill option on the controller in case of any accidents. If you like, you might wish to play with dialogs on initially, as it helps explain how some of the odds work. In my games, I prefer dialogs off But it's great to have on for learning purposes.
I agree that you probably want Hat's tutorial if your sims have a different age span to Maxis, because the default set up has a "fertility curve" and if you have a non-default age span, your sims will become infertile too early or stay fertile too long. I never had issues with this when I had a double age span for toddlers/kids but normal for teens and adults. Now that I have one which is roughly 2 in-game days per 1 RL year I adjusted it. I can share my file if anyone wants it. Alternatively, you can simply set the "fertility" to a static level and then override it all over the hood.
You only need to uninstall if you want to remove the mod; uninstalling removes all the tokens from sims so they aren't left with junk data.
Read both manuals, and come back if you have more questions
Quote: Originally posted by LauraPamplonaS
Yes! However, I do like that they become infertile early. I keep all my life stages the same maxis length, but I changed it for my adults to 45 days because that's when I enjoy playing the most. They do seem to become infertile by the half of this life span but I quite like it. My initial concern with extending this life stage too much was that I was giving my adults more time to have babies, which would result in my neighborhood populating way too quickly, but when I realized that ACR doesn't care about how many days your adult lives, it was alright. I guess it depends how you see it. (Regardless of ACR, you can still use the in-game "Try For Baby" and it still keeps the same maxis odds. I do this if my sims WANT to have a baby and they're already older.)
Additionally, I always wondered if ACR's birth control ever failed. I think there is a 1% failure rate, but I never encountered it. Nonetheless, when my town started getting bigger and I had way more sims (more opportunities to fall into small percentages), I've had 3 of my sims getting pregnant under birth control. Although I put my sims in birth control when I don't want them reproducing any longer, I always keep birth control failure babies because they're like miracle babies from where I see it
Thanks @simsfreq , I did read all of the documentation (that came with V1.1 and v2.0) but it's not clear. For example, V1.1 readme says: "You can also manually configure the mod by spawning an adjuster (click on the active sim and select adjust...casual romance…spawn adjuster) and run setup neighborhood from the tokens...hood menu. The mod will not completely work as designed until this setup occurs." But this option doesn't exist on the adjuster any more, and there's nothing in the V2.0 documentation that explains how to manually configure. Also: "When you run setup neighborhood, all eligible sims will receive a token...Twice daily, at 8:30am and 8:30pm, a check is made for any new sims who haven’t received tokens, and tokens will be automatically added to them." I don't want to wait unti 8.30, but there doesn't now seem to be a way to manually setup the whole neighbourhood.
The v1.1 readme says "If you are installing for the first time, the mod will automatically configure itself after you load a lot.". However the v1.1 FAQ says: "To have Casual Romance interactions running, you need to set up the Neighbourhood. This means you need to spawn the adjuster. To do this, select and click on any sim. From the menu, select “adjust” and then “spawn adjuster,” The adjuster will appear next to the sim. Click on it, select “tokens” then “setup hood.”" v2.0 quick notes mentions nothing about setting up. Hence my confusion!
The v2.0 quick notes doesn't explain all the changes- it says, "The adjuster options have been completely redone." I think Twojeffs was really done with this game when he wrote that!
(quote by simsfreq about uninstalling)
Oh, this is different from what Devon Aster said! The v1.1 documentation states: "Token> Hood…Uninstall From Neighborhood-Removes ACR tokens from all sims in the neighborhood. This should be used before removing the mod files from your downloads folder if you decide you no longer want the mod installed." But that option isn't there on v2.0 (it's apparently in the same place as the missing setup option). v2.0 notes say nothing about this, either. I'm beginning to wish I'd tried it way back when Twojeffs were still active!
Thank you all for your help on this, much appreciated! [/QUOTE]
Quote: Originally posted by simsfreq
Maybe we should make a new ACR discussion thread and keep all discussion there so that we can go in depth and not derail this one?
I do think that some of the ACR 2 documentation is unfinished. It never got out of beta, and so he never bothered to write new documentation. It sounds like version 2.0 is safe to yank out - I never have done and I cannot see myself EVER taking this mod out, because I love everything it does, so I am probably out of date or just remembering from 1.1.
In my experience, most sims receive a token basically immediately. It sometimes happens that sims don't get tokens straight away, but you can click on the adjuster and there is an option somewhere to give them one. Or you can just wait, and it will happen automatically. You will know when somebody gets a token, because you'll get a pop up showing the sim's gender preference. It happens to me sometimes when a new NPC is generated. If you click on a sim and there is a Casual... menu, then they have a token. You can tell if they don't have a token, because the Casual... options won't appear. If nobody has a Casual... menu, your current sim probably doesn't have a token. In any case, I've never set it up, and I've run it in lots of hoods. You can definitely just run with it right out of the box. It will take a while for the first autonomous actions to appear because it works on the basis of a timer, and only triggers ACR interactions when the timer has run down.
Birth control is...odd - it only works for the sim who has it selected. I tested this recently. There doesn't seem to be any failure possibility with it at all, but for example, if you have a couple, John and Jenny and you put John on birth control, if John initiates woohoo towards Jenny she won't get pregnant, because of his birth control. But if Jenny initiates woohoo towards John, it ignores his birth control and goes by her choice of whether she decides to TFB and/or her chance of risky pregnancy. And the same vice versa. If you put Jenny on birth control and she initiates woohoo, no pregnancy. If John initiates, it is as though the birth control doesn't exist. At least, it seemed that way in my testing. And there is no option to prevent a sim from choosing TFB, just about whether or not it's allowed for unmarried sims. Though maybe you are right and birth control simply has a separate risky chance. I don't know enough about coding to be able to read the mod and find out. I would like to know, actually.
A lot of the wording for pregnancy chances is confusing, and it tripped me up for a while. This is why I recommend having the dialogs on, at least while you're learning the mod, just so you can understand how it is making calculations and how they work out.
There was one specific really long thread on ACR on simbology which is probably where most of the discussion about it was.
Quote: Originally posted by Devon Aster
Set up does, indeed, happen automatically once you have the files in Downloads and you load your first lot. There should be a pop-up that says ACR 2.0 is installed and ready. All playables and townies will get a token. Certain NPCs will not get one automatically but I don't remember exactly which ones. I think Garden Club members, Hobby mavens, and... maybe Professors? As simsfreq mentioned, it's not really a big deal, as you can give any sim a token at any time (click on the adjuster, Sim Settings, Give Token To...).
I do believe there is a chance for birth control to fail, though it's pretty small. If you absolutely do not want a sim to get pregnant, then go to Sim Settings, Pregnancy, and change "Sim can get pregnant" to "Sim cannot get pregnant". You can turn off autonomous Try For Baby overall. It's under Hood-wide Settings, Global Switches, and change Autonomous TFB to disabled (I believe it's set to enabled by default).
Also, yes, the mod is absolutely weighted to give babies early and often. There is tuning in the mod that gives penalties/bonuses to the TFB calculation. The fewer, younger children your sim has, the more likely they are to try again. The more, older kids they have, the less likely. Since I use Hat's aging mod, I actually had to go in and basically redo the tuning because I was drowning in babies
Quote: Originally posted by simsfreq
Wait there is tuning for that??? Where?? I am desperate to adjust this and have my own ideas all planned out. I can do tuning, I just can't code. Pleeeeeeease point me in the right direction, especially if there is a tutorial. (Edit: I found it in the bed socials. Excite!!! Would still love a tutorial if any exist)
I don't want to turn off autonomous TFB for everyone. I just want to massively reduce the chance for sims I see as not wanting to have children, while still leaving them a chance of a risky slip up. Also, reducing chance for most sims of wanting more than 2-3 kids max. I also like tuning the risky chance per sim as well, so an overall risky chance for birth control is unsatisfying :P
Glad you found it! I did this years ago and I think I got the original info off a post by TwoJeffs on Simbology. I remember him noting that it was weighted by age/number of kids but also aspiration. I basically reversed the tuning, so that sims were less likely to try for baby when they had younger kids around and more when they had older. I don't think I touched the per aspiration tuning. It should all be labeled so you'll know which thing does what. Sorry, I don't know of any tutorials and I'm not super knowledgeable about how to best edit files.
While I think you would have to edit the want trees to keep them rolling such wants, you can certainly discourage them from trying! Along with the tuning, don't forget the option under Pregnancy for Ideal Family Size. This will also weight for or against overall TFB for a sim. Always set for one lower than you want your sims to have (i.e. if you want them to try for 2 kids, set it to 1, and in the case of 0 leave the option untouched as this sets it to -1).
Now I will reply to this
This is not quite how ideal family size works. The -1 setting disables the penalties and bonuses for how close the sim is to their "ideal" number of children entirely and simply calculates chance of choosing TFB based on aspiration and existing children, as you say. This works out at between 1-6 kids each with the majority of combinations having 3-4 children, which is too many IMO.
Then when you use the ideal family size, they will typically have at least 1-2 kids more than the number is set to, so you do need to set it to one less than you would like them to have, and that doesn't work if you want them to have 0! For example, when it's set to 0, even on standard settings, most families will have 1-2 kids with the minimum still always being 1 and the max being about 3. 3 is VERY different to 0! This pattern continues up to about ideal family size 4, where it stalls, because the bonus for when they don't yet have their ideal family size is cancelled out by the penalties for existing children, especially once those children grow up, which they do quite quickly! This is so much the case that even if you set them to ideal family size 12, the highest it can go, which is adding a whopping 120 point bonus when they have 6 children, they stop at 6 anyway because the penalties for existing children outweigh it so much.
I do not want to change wants; I only want to change the chances ACR pushes TFB on married sims. Anyway, I think what I'm going to do is reduce some of the penalties relating to existing children, and actually, I'm now experimenting with having all aspirations have a negative value, even Family sims, in order that everyone doesn't start at 80-100% - I think this (for me) is where the problem lies, and the secret of how to get that ideal family size of 0 setting to work properly.
If I get it working, I'll of course put a mini-tutorial up here.
Check out my thoughts on Psymchology (Sim Psychology) - latest post is on the main six aspirations.
I may well be wrong about the -1 thing, as it was something I read ages ago in a discussion, and I don't remember who said it or where the post was. Also, I have TFB dialogs disabled, so I haven't spent too much time observing the calculations. All I remember is that had something to do with how the Sims program uses numbers in certain situations. I remember coming up against the same thing when modifying Hat's aging mod. If you figure it out, I'd be interested to hear!
It's straight from the documentation, so if it's coded differently in practice, then I don't know about that. But TwoJeffs intended -1 to be a setting indicating that the ideal family size is not set/should not be used. I assume to differentiate from 0 as a value.
I only have babies for 2 days, but toddlers for 8, and I would quite like to encourage close-in-age siblings so I am thinking of adding a bonus for already having a baby, neutral or minor penalty for toddler, medium penalty for child, and large penalty for teen - but in general, I think I want IFS to be more useful for me in determining how many children they are likely to have, so I'm trying to get that to be roughly accurate (with some variation for aspiration). The challenge seems to be getting the 0 family size to work as I want it to, without making it really incredibly unlikely for anybody to ever spontaneously try for baby!
Now I've noticed in the game files, male and female can have different settings as well, and since I have female-only pregnancy in my game, I'm curious how I might set those up - a male Fortune sim might seek an heir, whereas a female Fortune sim might fear the effect of maternity leave on her career (though, actually, sims have pretty excellent rights here, so maybe she wouldn't). A female knowledge sim might want to experience every possibility with her body whereas a male Knowledge sim might see children as just getting in the way.
I can also change Pleasure from being set as the least likely to TFB! I've always disliked this set up as to me Romance sims are the commitment-phobes whereas Pleasure sims are just more spontaneous - and many pregnancies IRL are spontaneous decisions (for right or wrong!)
Since it's just the bed socials part of the file, I'll probably just release my edit on MTS when it's done.
Check out my thoughts on Psymchology (Sim Psychology) - latest post is on the main six aspirations.
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26th Dec 2022 at 4:10 PM
ACR tuning and settings discussion 2022/2023
. From what I remember, uninstalling is pretty simple. You just remove the mod from your folder and the tokens will delete themselves (or become inactive and won't cause any issues).
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