I have never noticed this "pool panic" before...then again I've never actually sat down and played the game for more than 30 minutes. It's too slow and tedious for me

Anyways, I agree with the missing code theory. EA/Maxis/Whoever are notorious for that!

Try it, just put them in the pool for a couple of minutes, it happens all the time and almost right away

If I wasn't so lazy I'd go turn my laptop on right now...but my bed is too comfy right now, sooo...the next time I actually get a moment, I'll check out all these wacky sims behaviors.

fluttereyeys- I'm glad I found this post. I have been wondering about this "panic" since I started the game. Like I said, all my sims do this panic weather they are CAS made or pre-mades. I thought it was just me lol...ty. After checking the traits , I don't have any coward, neurotic, or anything like that. Mostly good, romantic, charisma, ambitious or along those lines...

I've never seen this behavior with any of my other created sims before either. I've made lots of sims and played them, but I rarely had them swim. Maybe just a few of the sims I made, actually have gone in a pool. This incident that happened to me was with the most recent sim I made and it just came out of the blue. As I posted before (probably in the other thread), my sim has the traits of genius, virtuoso, lucky, artistic and great kisser. None of those traits have anything to do with panicking about anything.

I think we've well established this is a glitch and not related to any specific trait. All sorts of sims do it. I always take them to the pool or have a pool in their gardn, let's face it, they have nothing much else to do. I thought at first it was just the public pool and I also thought they were reacting to cold water, but it's all the time. This is an error. The issue now is how to fix it and if we chat about it, we might spark ideas off in each other for places to check to find the answer. I've tried the files for the pool, tried the traits. I think it might be a bug on a highr level than I'm willing to attempt.

Well, I actually don't know what to use to open higher level code or I would poke around in my copy game

Ok I think I see what's happening... In the swim jazz script, the parameter for "Hydrophobic" defaults to yes. Normally trait parameters default to no and I think it only sets it when you have a trait and not when you don't.

If I get a chance maybe I'll see if I can make a package to fix it.

What do you read the jazz script with, I couldn't get in there?

You know I've searched the jazz package a few times and I can't find a swim one in there at all. I have two for pool, is that the ones you mean? I can't get them opened at all, I'm trying with notepad, lol. I've never came across a jazz file before this game and have no clue what to read it with

The jazz script in question is "poolgetinout", specifically the state "a2o_swim_idle_frantic_x".

I have that one but as you know I'm unable to open it yet to read it

Why would it say frantic? Does that basically mean that when they become idle in the pool they get frantic, or am I simplifying it too much? Do you think just changing those two words would do it and fix this issue? I suppose the bigger issue would be how to get it back into the game without exploding it. I have no clue how these files work but as they're encripted like that then I would think that's for good reason, lol, to stop nitwits like me from playing with them.

I'll be watching your posts

Well if you have a hex editor and want to see if changing it fixes things, you can change hydrophobic to default to no by changing the 32 bit value at 0x894 from 3a6189a6 (Yes) to 6377188c (No). If you're viewing it in 16 byte width, you'll see the value you want to change it to directly above and below the value you need to change. Those are the default values form Clumsy and Insane, respectively. Then just create a new package and import your modified jazz script with the same type, group and instance it originally was and plunk the package down in your mods directory.

Thanks for that, I'll look into it. To tell the truth, I don't really care to have hydrophopic as a trait in the game, I'd be happy to wipe it out. Some of the traits are just stupid

Yeah they're dumb but they're soooo funny to watch. Like Neurotic + absent minded is a riot!

i've never noticed this but maybe it exists. I'll have a look now. I'll edit back with my findings / confirmations / if it's true please DO explore that jazz


EDIT:
Ok just tested. Yes I get a scared sort of animation, with sounds, but no thought bubble.

But I only get it once, when they first get in the pool. after the second stop of movement they freak out then they dont again (as far as I tested)

We've already established that it happens.

no i know it happens It's just I've heard from some people they WEREN'T getting this, so I thought I'd see if I was getting it. I reckon that most people aren't noticing it. I only get it once per swim for each sim

I've modded my game on one issue concerning swimming, and have this fix in my game now permanently. It doesn't fix or address the problem really, but it may alleviate the problem a small tad while you're playing until a fix is found. I think you should mod your game as I will describe below just to see if it helps an itsy bit.

If you use Marcelo's generator and take the plugin: SwimAround, you get this parameter:

"The wander distance (in meters) for Sims swimming around in the pool autonomously. 2.0"

This is townie sims, how far they are willing to swim each time before they stop and do the pause/treading water bit. I have changed this value to 4, and the townies swim a bit further, so the pause bit happens a bit less often; they swim further every time before they stop and maybe get that panic trip like a little scared fuzzy weenie wabbit!

You can't push this number too high though, because then they will get that pathfinding problem thought bubble (black foosteps with red slash) and may even refuse to swim! because the distance is too far and they can't plan the route, or else another sim is blocking them so they can't swim. I tried 20 on the value, and they just floated, trying to figure out how to swim. The pool is too short for them to do it. What I was secretly hoping for is that with a sky-high value they would start swimming laps in the pool like a swimming competition, lol.

But I think you should try modding this in your own game, also just to see that modding actually works, if you haven't modded a lot with the generator.

Shrimrod, I never thought of that. I do mod already and have a good few I did myself in my own game and on my site, but I don't use the generator. I know the bit of text you're talking about so will look into it. I think the size of the pool and the amount of people in it would affect this, with the route fail/ path finder thing, but doubt there's anything we can do about that right now.

I'll try out a few variations and see where it goes, thanks
As it happens in my game about every thirty seconds while they are in the pool, or more sometimes, I need to do something.

Thanks for coming up with that

I can report some success fixing this! I exported the jazz script in question and edited it to default to no for hydrophobic, and added in neurotic as one of the three traits that causes a sim to freak out in the water (Along with insane and hydrophobic) and it seems to work. When I created a sim without any of those traits, they could swim around to their hearts content without a single panic attack!

I've still got a kink or two to work out before I am willing to distribute anything, but look for something some time tomorrow.

oh no, not my wee neurotic girl, lol. Can't you do it with just the hydrophopic trait? Or even do two versions, I know it's a lot to ask. You know I would have done the work myself if I could have.

It saying 1 sim in the pool for that trait is what makes me suspect that trait may occur even without you giving your sim that trait in CAS. Since the only time I have had a sim panic while swimming in the pool is when he was swimming all by himself in his own pool. He lives alone. The other sims that I've created that went swimming in a pool, whether their own or the community pool, never panicked and they weren't alone when they went swimming.

This would make sense. I had a hydrophobic sim and she was fine when she could see her friend in the room but the moment he left she began to panic.

Hi I read this over on the other thread. It doesn't seem to make a diference whether they are alone or not. I have the problem when one of them is swimming or when all six of them are swimming. Only one has the neurotic trait and none have hydrophobic, all are pretty athletic and two are top scored in athletic.

It's in the coding, not that lower level code I posted but higher up and deeper into the game files. Tiger thinks he may have come up with a solution, so we have to just wait and see. Everyone should get ready to bow down if he manages to fix this, it's not easy. He is actually having to write code and add it to the files.

It looks like EA didn't finish that part of the code off and all sims are displaying the animations of a hydrophobic Sim

How much work would it be to do this in more than one flavour. I personally would love the whole panic in the pool removed for all sims, but I'm sure others might want it left in for the three you suggest. Eve if I had to tak it just for hydrophobic that would be ok and I would just hope that none of my sims were hydrophobic at birth, lol

My son is 20 and he's afraid of swimming ya know.

Mod is uploaded and waiting approval now, so keep your eyes peeled. As requested there are two flavors, one which just fixes the bug, and one which removes the hydrophobic reaction while swimming completely - at least the animation part of it.

oh wow thanks. I'll look for it later tonight!