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Telescope Mod - Random Neighbours

SCREENSHOTS
13,728 Downloads 346 Thanks  Thanks 69 Favourited 29,579 Views
Uploaded: 9th Nov 2017 at 3:22 AM
Updated: 18th Sep 2022 at 5:56 PM - UPDATE 2
UPDATE 2:
- I added a few more checks to the chance that the peeked-at sim has to appear on your lot : -10% if the peeked-at sim has a crush on your sim, -10% if the peeked-at sim is in love with your sim.

UPDATE 1:
- Sims are a lot more likely to peek at those sims that they find attractive now.
- When the game determines whether the peeked-at sim should appear on your lot to scold the peeker, it now uses a different formula:
100 - (Neighbour'sNice - 500)/10 - Neighbour'sAttractedSTR/2. This is a percentage chance. If this check is not passed, the sim won't appear. If it is passed, THEN the sim has a 15% chance of appearing and 85% chance of not appearing anyway. So, if your sim is peeking at a sim who has 300 Nice and an attracted STR of 60 towards your sim, then there is a 90% chance that the sim will pass the first check. If the sim does pass this check, then they have a 15% chance of appearing on your lot.
- This update adds more complicated code, so it is not as easy to tune the mod for those of you who don't know how to use the editor. But, this update does not modify the "Valid Neighbor?" BHAV, so you can still easily tune the range of the telescope, just follow the instructions in the original description.

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION

This mod modifies the "Look Through" interaction on all telescopes. Other telescope interactions such as "Stargaze" or "Search for Planets" and so on are unaffected.

This is how "Look Through" works in an unmodded game:
- The sim starts the interaction and starts gaining Logic skill and Science enthusiasm. Another sim with high Science enthusiasm can also "Share Hobby Tips" with the sim who is looking through the telescope.
- The sim has a 30% base chance to peek at a sim. The chance is increased by 15% if the peeking sim is a teen or by 5% if an adult. The chance is further increased by 15% if the peeking sim has Nice 2 or 3, by 25% if Nice 0 or 1. The chance is decreased by 15% if the peeking sim has Nice 7 or 8, by 25% if Nice 9 or 10. The chance is also increased by 15% if the peeking sim's social motive is -30 or less.
- If the final chance succeeds, your sim peeks at a sim. If it fails, your sim looks at trees, flowers etc.
- If the sim decides to peek at a sim, the game selects the lowest-numbered sim in the entire save game (in other words, it scans all connected neighbourhoods, and picks the lowest-numbered one). If the sim is an adult or elder and currently not in the Family Bin, then your sim peeks at that neighbour.
- After the "Look Through" interaction ends, the game directly sends the peeked-at sim to the peeking sim's lot to be angry at them. The chance to send the sim is 100%.

Problems with this design:
- Sims build Logic skill and Science enthusiasm. "Look Through" doesn't have anything to do with that.
- Sims will always look at the same sim. It doesn't matter which neighbourhood you are in: you may be in Downtown, but your sim will still peek at whoever is the lowest-numbered sim in the entire game, even if they live in a different neighbourhood. This is ridiculous.
- The peeked-at sim will somehow always know that you are peeking at them, and appear in your lot to scold you.

This mod fixes all of that non-sense:
- "Look Through" does not build Logic skill or Science enthusiasm any more. Other sims cannot "Share Hobby Tips" with a sim who is performing the "Look Through" interaction.
- Sims will be randomly picked from playable, housed sims who live within the neighbourhood where the telescope is. Teens can now be peeked at, too.
- When the "Look Through" interaction ends, there is a 1% chance that the peeked-at sim will appear on your lot to be angry at your sim.

I put an actual range on the telescope. This is the only way you can lock the telescope's range to the current neighbourhood. I set the range to 200 neighbourhood-view tiles (2000 lot-view tiles) which covers an entire Sims 2 neighbourhood. From what I know, each Sims 2 neighbourhood is a 129x129 square (neighbourhood-view tiles). The diagonal is something like 182 neighbourhood-view tiles. In other words, if you set the range to 182, it should cover the entire neighbourhood. I set it at 200 just to round up the number. There is no functional difference between 182 and 200. However, if you decrease the range to a number lower than 182, you will be effectively decreasing the range of the telescope: if you set it to 50, for example, you can only peek at playable, housed neighbours who live within 50 neighbourhood-view tiles of your current lot. I was going to release this mod with the range set at 70, but then I decided to keep the range neighbourhood-wide.

You can easily modify the values, though. Here is how you tune this mod:

To change the range on the telescope:
- Open this package file in Sim Package Editor.
- Click on "Look Through - Valid Neighbor?".
- Click on the line that says "Temp 0x0002 > Literal 0x00C8".
- Click on the Pop-up Wizard on the right-hand side.
- The bottom number (set to 200 by me) is the range of the telescope in neighbourhood-view tiles. Change this to a number below 182 to decrease the range.

To change the chance of the peeked-at sim appearing:
- Click on "Look Through - Summon Visitor?"
- Click on the line that says "Temp 0x0000 < Literal 0x0001".
- Click on the Pop-up Wizard on the right-hand side.
- The bottom number (set to 1 by me) is the percentage chance the peeked-at sim has to appear on your lot to be angry at your sim.

Important Note: This mod is global, that is, it affects all telescopes Maxis or custom. But, there is one part of this mod that is not global, and that is the part that gets rid of the "Share Hobby Tips" interaction. With Freetime, Maxis went ahead and modified most objects individually to add the "Share Hobby Tips" interaction to only certain interactions. This means that in order to make it so that sims cannot "Share Hobby Tips" any more, one needs to edit the actual telescope object itself, because there is no global file for that. This mod already gets rid of the "Share Hobby Tips" interaction on the "Look Through" interaction on the two Maxis telescopes, but if you have custom telescopes, you need to fix them yourself. Here is how you do it:
- Open the custom telescope package file in Sim Package Editor.
- Click on "CT - Active Hobby Interaction". If there is no such entry, then your custom telescope is probably not updated for Freetime.
- Click on the line that says "Interaction - Currently Performing (Param 0x0000, Stack Object ID, Literal 0x0001)".
- To the right-hand side, there is "True Target" with a number next to it, and there is also "False Target" with a number.
- What you need to do is set the "True Target" number to what the "False Target" number is. For example, if "True Target" is 0x0002, and "False Target" is 0x0004, then all you need to do is set "True Target" to 0x0004. (I actually just unlinked the "Interaction - Currently Performing (Param 0x0000, Stack Object ID, Literal 0x0001)" line, but that is a bit too advanced for those players who don't know how to use the editor.)
- Now, on the top bar, click File and Save. Click "Yes" if necessary. That's it.

I am not sure if this mod will work if you do not have Freetime or Apartment Life. If you don't have Freetime or Apartment Life, I recommend you test this mod in a test neighbourhood.

In order to unrar this mod, you need the latest version of 7zip or WinRar.

This global mod modifies the following resources in the objects.package file. Any other mod that modifies these will conflict with this mod:
Look Through - Find Look Subject/Group:0x7FFEA664/Instance:0x0000201B
Look Through - Valid Neighbor?/Group:0x7FFEA664/Instance:0x0000201E
Look Through - Summon Visitor?/Group:0x7FFEA664/Instance:0x0000200E
Look Through - Start/Group:0x7FFEA664/Instance:0x00002004
Look Through - Stop/Group:0x7FFEA664/Instance:0x00002008
CT - Active Hobby Interaction/Group:0x7F5CBE11/Instance:0x00001001 (non-global, object-based)
CT - Active Hobby Interaction/Group:0x7FA46DBF/Instance:0x00001001 (non-global, object-based)