cognitohazard-sims

[cognitohazard-sims]

Dill ran his fingers over his scalp, enjoying the new sensation of having hair. It’d been a week since he’d left home, and whatever they put in the food there to avoid hair growth was gone from his body. His hair had taken the initiative and sprouted up like a weed.

True, it wasn’t the most attractive head of hair – but it was his hair nonetheless.

After about 15 minutes of doing this, the voices in his head piped up, suggesting things for him to do. Perhaps he could walk in the park, or maybe give someone a hug, or –

“Binge watch that cooking competition show! That’s genius!” He headed to what Luna called the “den,” but in his opinion, the entire house was a den. It was underground, after all.

As the giant screen flickered to life, he cheered.

“Um, Dill… you know they can’t hear you right?” Luna asked, glancing up from the art gallery ads she was reading. Dill had learned that Luna painted for a living and had been in awe. Imagine that – being creative for money! That had never been an option back in his home colony.

“Really? That’s weird. Back home, they recorded what everyone shouted at competitors on screen when you’d watch sports and stuff. Then the athletes or whatever could listen to what the general populace thought of their performance.” He turned to look at Luna, his eyes wide.

“I mean, we kind of have that here too. Only, it’s kind of a voluntary service.”

“Really? Where can I tell them what I think?”

“It’s called the internet, Dill. You can go online and write paragraphs about whatever you want.”

“That… makes sense.” He turned back to the tv, quieter this time.

There was nothing but the sound of Luna typing and Dill’s tv show for a good ten minutes. Eventually, Luna cleared her throat. “Hey Dill, they’re gonna shut down an old nightclub, but they’re gonna throw a party to kinda send it off. Do you want to go with me?”

“Um, okay?” He wasn’t sure what humans did at parties, but was willing to find out!

“Cool, it’s going on at 9.”

“Alright.” Dill got up and went to get ready.

“This is a human party?”

Dill hadn’t been sure what to expect from an earth party, but it certainly wasn’t some dingy basement that smelled… off somehow, and a mediocre DJ. Even the human partygoers seemed disappointed…

… Even if some seemed to be trying to make the best of the night.

Still, optimistic, he decided to try heading upstairs. Perhaps he’d find more fun up there.

“Ow! Hey, watch it!”

“Oh, shit, are you alright? Sorry, I-I’ve had a few plasma janes…”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Dill looked up at the person who was now helping him up, and froze.

“… Is there something on my face?”

“What? No. I’m. Um. Just a bit shaken, that’s all.” It was a bit true, but if Dill said this person didn’t have the most interesting face on a human he’d seen, he’d be lying. “My name’s Dill. Dill, uh….” Crap. He hadn’t thought of a last name. “S…starkey?”

“You… don’t sound so sure about that.” His helper raised one interesting eyebrow.

“Well, uh… human words, you know? They feel weird on the tongue!”

His helper laughed. “Yeah, I bet. My name’s Caleb. Caleb Vatore. Do you wanna grab a drink?”

“I mean, I’m not going to say no… the party downstairs is kind of boring, so I could stand to get a little drunk.”

“Cool.” Caleb led Dill to the bar, where he ordered “The usual, one last time,” while Dill just ordered “whatever.”

As they waited for their drinks, Caleb decided to strike up some conversation. “So, uh… how do you like Earth?”

“Oh, I feel as if I’m in a much better place now!”

“Is Sixam really that horrible? I’ve heard it’s quite beautiful, but if it’s a shitty place to go…”

“Oh, no, it’s just… I was in a bad spot… um. Between a rock and a hard place, you know?” The bartender plunked down two full glasses in front of them, and Dill quickly grabbed his and took a sip to keep from revealing too much, too fast.

Out of the corner of his eye, though, he noticed that Caleb’s drink was glowing faintly. “Uhhh, what’s going on there?”

“It’s, uh… the plasma fruit… You know I’m a vampire right?”

“… No.”

“Oh.” Caleb seemed a bit embarrassed. “I thought you guys could read minds…”

“Eh, it’s more of a… emotion sharing thing. I can show you if you want.”

“Go for it.”

Dill took note of how brightly he was glowing, and the giddy mood flowing through him. “As you can see, we’re also bioluminescent!”

“Whoa, cool…”

The two chatted about various things for a while, before Dill got up to leave, feeling great that he had met a new friend.

[cognitohazard-sims]

Straud Manor

Bonus:

[cognitohazard-sims]

Paid a visit to Sixam.

[cognitohazard-sims]

It was a quiet day in a Birth Queen’s chamber. It had been quiet for many days. As much as she hated to admit it, she was growing older, and soon she wouldn’t be able to carry out her duty to the colony any longer.

Her colony was one of the last few that still used Birth Queens, and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. Over the years she’d bore many a Colony Drone a child, children who would grow up to be more drones and Pollination Technicians.

Truthfully, she found it boring and repetitive, but before she could dwell on it further, there was a quiet beep from the door. She stood, a bit surprised – she hadn’t expected a visitor – and cleared her throat.

“Come in.”

Her expression slowly melted into a soft smile. “My child!” This was her firstborn, her beautiful son named –

Colony Drone 4933. Right.

“Mother!” He smiled back and approached for a hug. She noticed the new flatness of his chest – so his surgery had been successful! Her heart swelled with pride – perhaps he wouldn’t be forced into the Birth Queen role after all.

However, a different topic was on his mind. “Mother, I learned that on Earth they have whole festivals devoted to kinds of food! A-and…” He continued to ramble on, seemingly forgetting that he could just tell her everything with a simple thought.

“My child, why don’t you just show me?”

“Oh, well… I… um…” His smile soon fell, and he pursed his lips as he thought for a moment. “I… suppose it wouldn’t hurt to show you…”

The Birth Queen took her child in her arms and kissed him on the forehead, empathizing with him.

Within his mind, more voices than his were swirling. They’d always been there, since the day he’d left childhood, but there was something new too.

A deep profound sadness.

“… They’re making you be a Birth Queen after all.”

A tear rolled down her son’s cheek. “Mother, I… I’m scared. I don’t want this. I don’t want different men to visit me and –“ His thoughts turned sour at the very idea of spreading his legs for strangers. “I… I want to visit places outside the colony, I want to be my own person, not just – not just another Birth Queen or Drone…. I want…” He sank to the floor, his words caught in his throat.

“Sssh. Mother is here.”

She cradled her dear son close, as if he were an infant. She, like any good mother, cared for her children and wanted to see them happy, and to see her child so distraught….

Maybe it was time for a change.

“My child,” she whispered. “There is…. A teleporter, hidden beneath my bed. It’s supposed to be there just in case of emergency, but as far as I’m concerned, this is an emergency.”

He looked up at his mother. “But… where will I go?”

“Earth, my child. But it is a one way trip. If you choose to use it… this may be the last time we see each other.”

He thought about this, and she empathized again. The voices in his head were chattering with excitement, telling him to go, go, go! Slowly, he rose to his feet, approaching the bed. “I… goodbye, mother.”

She stood and hugged her child one last time. “Goodbye, my dear son. May you bring joy to those you meet.”

And just like that, her son was gone.

So, um, this is my first sims story. I already have screenshots ready for the next few chapters, i’ve just gotta piece them together.

I’m a bit nervous, but I’m also excited! Feel free to ask questions, and as long as they don’t give too much away, I’m happy to answer them.

[cognitohazard-sims]

How to easily reduce TS4 loading times - an overview

The scientist that I am loves to optimize stuff and why not reduce TS4 loading times, especially when there is lots of CC? (of course there is)

By following the steps below I could reduce loading times of my game with 31 GB CC to 4 minutes.

1 Delete broken CC, TS2/TS3 files, duplicates

Download the Mod Conflict Detector from MTS and run it every time you get new CC.

2 Batch rename your packages in order to remove special characters

Do this only with files that remain in your mods folder. You don’t have to do it with files that you are going to merge.

Download the bulk rename utility 

Remove clamps, spaces and other special characters (# ; , @ & ?) from your package names. 

Type in any special character in the replace field and leave the other one empty. Mark the packages you want to rename and click “rename”. Done! 

3 Merge packages 

Download Sims4studio (you have to register first, but you should consider getting Sims4Studio anyway!). Select Tools -> Merge Packages and just drag and drop the packages you want to merge into one single file. Backup your individual packages. 

You should ALWAYS backup your individual files before merging. I put CC files of max. 400 mb (max. 200 files) in one folder and place it on my external harddrive and then merge what is in it. By doing so I keep track of which files are merged together. What is merged can’t be unmerged again. Don’t merge too many files/too large files together or the chance of losing files will increase. Sims4Studio will tell you when it’s finished and whether it failed to merge some of the packages. You have to place these in your game individually then.  

If one CC is incompatible after a game update, you can delete it from the individual files and merge again :)

Don’t fear merging! It is fast and easy and it’s impact on loading times is HUGE!

4 Enjoy your game

If you know additional methods to reduce loading times (others than just stop downloading cc, that won’t happen), I’d be happy to receive a message from you in order to complete this post :)

[cognitohazard-sims]

How to advance time in The Sims 4 without any mods

First of all, all credits to this Hadron1776 on the forum for sharing this, can’t believe I didn’t see this sooner. If someone else made a post about this, let me know I’ll link them too but as far as I know I haven’t seen any.

Don’t know how many people are aware of this cheat, I’ve been doing it the hard way all these years, but if you don’t know, here’s how.

This cheat is extremely useful for me and other storytellers who need that perfect dance in the sunset or watching the sunrise scenes. Instead of waiting that pesky few minutes for it turn turn a certain time of day, you can do it instant now!

Here’s how it works:

Use this cheat: clock.advance_game_time <hours> <minutes> <seconds>

For example let’s say it’s 8:10 AM in my game, an I want it to be 9:00 PM, here’s what I’d do:

Ctrl + Shift + C

Type in “Testingcheats on” then Enter

Ctrl + Shift + C again

Type in “clock.advance_game_time 12 50 0″ then Enter

The 12, 50, and 0, indicate “12 hours, 50 minutes, 0 seconds”. The time will advance by that much.

*However the person who wrote in the forum explained that advancing by 24 hours could cause issues, I usually don’t ever do more than 12 hours at a time*