Probably my favorite thing to do in Sims 2 is set up situations on community lots and then adjust the camera "just so", hit TAB to disappear the UI and just sit back and watch what happens.

I've been working on a coffee shop... and I'd love the sims to just help themselves to coffee and sit around drinking it and talking. I've got a great mod that gets them to sit and talk and drink, but not one that makes coffee machines autonomous or attractive to visitors on community lots. Anyone seen something along those lines anywhere? Because the pay-coffee bar just doesn't seem to be that attractive to most on the lot. Oh I also have that mod to get a certain number of people to show up and do stuff too... now I just need them to want coffee I suppose. I tried draining their hunger and maxing everything else, but they were so hungry they all went home. Oopsie.

I have a coffee shop my Sims can't wait to stand in line to get coffee, they are very addicted. It's seem maybe you don't like how the game is already setup for coffee.
I use the counter that come already with a espresso Machine on it ( I have two side by side ) on my community lot, I also added a cash register, and I added eatable sweets

The game automatic give you the waiters to serve the Sims,with your playable Sims you can see they are paying for coffee, the townies you just pretend they are.
I hope your mod work out for you it sound good and I would try it.

NOTE: Here is a Mod by Simslice It's called "Super Coffee" the Sims will get it on there own, the coffee is Warning "Extremely" addicted, go here scroll down >> http://svs.paysites.mustbedestroyed...d_drink_stands/
there a picture file you want the zip file.

Oooooo, a player after my own heart. This is one of my favorite things, too. I have a couple of things I do that might help. First, it's mostly easy to change the autonomy on something if it's not autonomous (not always, but mostly, I've been fighting with the slide for my public pool for a while), so you could try that if it's not. [Edit: I checked it below.]

Also, have you tried BOs Need Freak? I love that for just this purpose. You can save several settings to control needs, so if you made them all stay at 0 hunger [Edit: it would need to be energy or fun, see below], not drained, and kept others high, they would drink coffee or whatever indefinitely while you enjoy the show. I use these a lot and I changed the models they use to make them fit into a lot nicely. My current favorite is to make the Need Freak look like a street light so it's right there up front but fits right in.

I'd love to hear about your other lots. I'm very happy with the public pool, library, roller rink, and bowling alley, a bar... I have. Maybe I need a coffee shop now. What's the sit and drink and talk mod?

EDIT: I checked the ciao time espresso maker. It is autonomous for visitors. It advertises for energy and fun, not hunger. You could try that, but it would also be easy to change. I extracted the menus. It should be easy to make it advertise whatever you want.

Have you tried BoilingOil's "Espresso for Visitors"?

http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=2781

Wow - great responses and help, thanks so much! I will try these suggestions and see what suits. Many xoxo's

Mod for sitting down to drink coffee:
http://modthesims.info/d/379432

Of course draining HUNGER was the wrong choice (lol) this is what happens when I stay away for so long! And my sims were not drinking coffee because I used a mod that filled their needs so they wouldn't go home. *sigh*

Here I am waiting for them to use the coffee machine or order coffee... this is with energy half. I got impatient and tried draining energy... guess what, everybody went home - except the two on the left who stayed and took turns making themselves coffee, so they never sat down at the same time and chatted, LOL! *sims* I need to make drinking it take longer and put in a couple machines I guess.

OMG I did it!

It only took:

a mod to stop all the kickybag and hangouts, etc.
a mod to stop the coffee cup juggling
a mod to enable visitor coffee machines (the simslice one is too powerful, one cup and they're 100%)
a mod to get 15 sims on the lot
newspapers (they sit to read them so it's nice too)
a sani-bot 5000 to clean up all the cups
Getting rid of other things they could be doing like eating, although I might try putting that back in now

Incidentals: a mod to stop the witches coming as their bad weather always crashes my game for some reason.

Off the top of my head, that is "all" it took to get the look I wanted for my coffee shop. The sims buy coffee at the kiosk and also help themselves, there's enough scattered around for everybody. I also max everyone and then put energy and fun at half and just wait a bit.

Ahh - it's good. Sit back, put my feet up, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy... that'll be me - tomorrow cuz it's 2:30 am when I finally got the result I wanted and now I have to go to bed, LOL!

Don't they look so cute all sitting and chatting? SO NICE

If the lot is a restaurant, it will take precedence over everything else. Only I see a chef stove. Perhaps it's just for looks?

The Visitor Controller can stop the witches.

They are adorable! Yay! I know that feeling! I do the same, spend hours coming up with an elaborate "cocktail of mods" so I can sit and watch.
Are there buyable newspapers? That's a great idea.

I *really* love this style of play, so here's a few things given what you've said that I thought you might like for future lots:



I have quite a few things that don't work yet, but it's fun figuring it out. Kind of a puzzle that comes alive when you find the solution.

I did have a restaurant at first because otherwise only 2 visitors showed up but more did if it was an eatery, but the max sims on lot startup cheat only ever increased my party invites but never did me a bit of good on community lots, which is exactly why comm visitors hack was created. Glad I could ditch the restaurant part anyway as I really love to have a single main focus for each community lot. I think the chef looks nice back there tho... maybe chef is making pastries to go with? How can I put buyable pastries in the display without owning the lot, is that a thing? :lovestruc

Sunrader and I play the EXACT same game, OMG it's uncanny, LOL! I LOVE LOVE LOVE your suggestions. I will be getting Need Freak TODAY! Never heard of it before - excited to use it (everywhere!) Can't wait to think of more and more ways to get the results I've always craved using mod "cocktails" (lol love your expression for this) so I can enjoy watching the results. Just hope I don't have to mod myself as I'm quite burnt out on it many years ago. There's MUCH more available these days, so I'm hopeful!

My sims played kicky bag and hang out even with their social maxed (probably super playful or something) and everyone else stopped to watch their game, so that had to go completely as I didn't enjoy waiting for that to end to see what they would do next. I actually hate using sani-bot 5000 as it doesn't fit in my themes (ever) so your suggested NPC sounds PERFECT thanks so much for the link - can't wait to see it in action

Yes ok, I will pay more attention to my music choices too. Good reminder - had completely forgotten that was even a thing.
Please explain the music settings you eluded to regarding only off in build/buy as that doesn't ring a bell for me and I'm interested to hear more!
OH! I never saw a need for no-cutaway-walls but you have made a perfect argument for why they are missing from my game. I can't stand seeing into the bathrooms - OMG we are TWINS.

Don't worry about repeating good information, there's always someone who hasn't heard it before or heard it so long ago, they forgot it, LOL! You are a PEACH and have I mentioned I love your play style?

Buyable newspapers are here.

For food in my cafe, I use Exnem desert trolly or one of his trays of foods. Another option is simwardrobe pay buffet. I also use a ticket machine and have been known to use a pay door. Resturant coding basically pushes sims to look at menu, order, eat and leave. Other items you might want to put with it will be 90% ignored.

OMG! First of all, I had no idea I was talking to royalty! Wow! Thank you so much for your contributions. I've gotten sooooooooo much enjoyment from all the hard work that went into making this community. I think I discovered this site around December 2008 and these days I rarely stray from it, so I don't think I've seen your site before. You've got some awesome deco, downloading....

I like the chef for show, too. Did you see a thread where I made an NPC host play manager in an inaccessible upper floor of my bowling alley? I was really pleased with that one. Pic of Manager http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...873#post5411873

As for the buyable pastries, not sure, but I suspect they might need to access inventory at some point. Personally, I could no longer play without this enabler of buy/build/inventory on community lots. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=204467

Speaking of cocktails, did you see my Better Babies one? Also really happy with that. If you do anything with infants...http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...ies#post5358587




For the music, I was really disliking the buy/build music, but if I wanted music, it seemed I also was stuck with that and, since I'm usually designing as I go (as you can imagine), it was annoying, but I finally figured out that I could uncheck all the stations in the tabs below the global music toggle in setting. Yay, me.

The nocut-away wall is just dreamy. My poor sims were stuck with the all-in-one bathroom at home, and I was beginning to put community lots outside the backdoor because I was sick of looking at them. I mean, if I were in the bar with my sims, I wouldn't see into the bathroom, right?

Thanks for the newspapers. Would love to hear more about your lots and ideas! My whole thing is designing for autonomy and I don't see much of that.

Yes I totally agree with Jo's If you have a restaurant in the mix with your coffee shop the restaurant will take priority over the coffee best to just have a coffee shop on it's own.
@joandsarah77 it was you who first introduce me to Exnem "desert tray cart" it was in your post with a picture, the post about Sims businesses we can create ( thanks again )

OK out of those, the one that excited me is the desert tray! *squeeee* so it's self-serve real food the visitors on comm lots help themselves? So excited to try it, thank you! (I thought that was just deco)

And you are SO RIGHT about restaurants, the behavior really isn't satisfying is it... good point!



I will look for this post, it sounds very interesting! Thanks for mentioning it

@Deedee Here the link for Exnem Desert tray Cart scroll down until you see it I have this in my Coffee shop only. http://svs.paysites.mustbedestroyed...buy_mode/foods/

There lots of eatable food there check it out when you have time, items are so fun.

'

Thank you so much! I got that off like TSR or something? - no liquidsims - anyways I really thought it was deco only, LOL!

I am just returning and I'm worse than a newbie, I swear, thank you for bearing with me!

ETA: OK I had the sushi and the chicken... but didn't have someone to clean up after it, now I do so grabbed a few more pretty yummies.

Oh please... maybe in Sims 1 but anything past that, I'm just someone who used to be someone. You are sweet.



Very interesting, I commented over there, thanks for the link.



This is an oldie but a goodie technique. Very cleaver.



OK I never heard of this enabler, but I will go get it! Thanks **edit** ok I'm a dork of course I had this! **



I don't do a lot with babies, but I'll keep this in mind, thank you



OK this I forgot was not Sims 1. All the sims games are like mush in my head, I swear.



I will develop some ideas eventually... right now I'm still putting together a non-borking game management plan... then I get to wipe it all clean because just deleting the stuff that didn't work will bork things too. I had forgotten deleting NPCs was bad, and I stupidly got a ton of NPC animals last month and who knows what all else went down but one day a few houses and sims just disappeared... yikes. So I've already borked and wiped during just SETTING UP to play the game, LOL! I prefer less demanding livestock either way and now have some I much prefer that stand still and look pretty

I love to have different shops and community lots where sims do stuff but I also always have to have a hospital, school and farm too. I just have a lot of things I always have to do. Don always gets a red sports car, Strange always gets his own place, gets rich and finds true love, don breaks up with everybody but Dina, The Pleasants stay together, Brandi's kid is always named Paul, Pascal's kid is always named Pluto, LOL! I could go on but there's general sims canon and then there's every player's personal canon that they like to stick to. This is a good idea for a thread... tell us your personal play canon rules...

Not only self-serve, I am sure a little money goes up when they grab a piece and it lasts for ages. I can also tell you all the cakes look beautiful as well. It looks like 2018 food not 2007 or whenever that was made, exnem was a master at food, it's worth grabbing all of them. He also has trays of muffins, tacos, hamburgers, pies and other things.

I have a picture on my business and career thread for sims-in my siggy. I think you would like the thread and feel free to bump it if you have more ideas.

With a buy&Build enabler (recommend it highly) do not grab the pets version in the file area, but the later BV one in the comment section. http://modthesims.info/download.php...25#startcomment page 2

There are play rule type threads down in chat.

I agree, that food is so pretty.

I have all normal build/buy enablers, have no idea where they came from. I even have a package that does nothing but give 250,000 to sims when they are property shopping... that was never online anywhere, just a friend (Pinhead) made it way back in 2004 and I've always had it.

On my farm lot, I have Sun&Moon's chickens, they move about (jump here and there), but no NPCs. http://www.medievalsims.com/forums/...hp?f=240&t=7215

Oh, yes, joandsarah is right, newer version of buy/build enabler. Here's the right one, post #48. http://www.modthesims.info/download...600#post1867600

I use SimPE to back up hoods especially if I'm messing around, which is... yeah, always. But, sometimes I'm just setting up to play for weeks. I like your canon idea.

That is the build buy enabler I had... never thought to use it for inventory... so thought you meant it was something new including inventory.

I never have done backups. In my life. On anything. Apparently I like it on the edge or something along those far stupider than I should be lines. No I just don't mind starting over - probably because I never really get that far to begin with. But I can see more is known now, and I have studied what NOT to do, so hopefully I'll surprise myself and my hoods won't self-destruct anymore, but I have to stop deleting NPCs first... I know I know.

I will take a look at those chickens

The only problem with Exnem's dessert cart is that pixels will abandon their plates on the table, or else put them on the floor. To that end I've put in a NPC - controlled dishwasher that will generate a NPC dishwasher/waiter who will pick up the plates and put them in the dishwasher.

It's by Sophie David, and I think it's indispensable for any community lot that serves food:
Maintenance Free Dishwasher with NPC Worker

That was my main problem with the chicken and sushi when I tried it last week too... well that and I was wanting sims to buy stuff out of the display, not just take it. So if I put it on the counter, they just take it, so if I put it in the display case, do they buy it or ignore it? I can test this instead of asking of course... ok I'll go do that lol

First I really need to go get that NPC dishwasher even tho I'm loath to add NPC anything, this one I will never want to delete so it's safe!

They'll buy stuff out of the display, but not eat it on site.

Well it's a cafe, they should leave their plates on the table, that's what cafe workers are for. I would not want paying customers coming into the kitchen to wash up their plates!

NPC's are fine-so long as you don't delete them. Place them in a "Don't remove Folder"

100% agree on backups! Also run Hood Checker from time to time-unless you are one of those players that likes starting new hoods and don't care if the current one blows up.

It sound good, but I try to stay away from NPC that comes with a mod. What I do with the desert tray cart is I have a mod Merola Control Mirror, so if my Sims leave a plate on the floor I make them clean it up.
Also it is always good to have a trash can near by, I think my Sims are neat Sims they always clean up and use the trash can. I place a trash can near the door, so they won't walk all the way outside to use the trash can.

And to be honest I don't worry about the plates on the floor much, because when you leave a community lot and then come back they are not there. I am not sure if it work the same with an own business.