Progress Update On Muscle Mod and Gay Archetypes

Just wanted to update y'all on what I'm working on, to try and be more transprent!

After releasing Muscle Mod 2.1C I had been planning on jumping into Gay Archetypes, but obviously household breaking bugs take priority, so I've gone back to more extensive play testing on muscle mod while also slowly integrating and testing my next ideas for GA so as not to completely slow down the development of new content,

For Muscle I finally found and squashed the social need vanishing bug. I've also cleared up a lot of the simulation lag that was coming from both mods. (protip for anybody thinking about making their own mods- steer clear of using autonomy modifiers for interaction scoring. Use affordance modifiers instead, it seems to cause significantly less simulation lag) I've also completely revamped how the mods detect interactions and assign buffs according (So the lifting and cardio buffs for muscle mod, and the mask or feminine activities buffs from gay archetypes) and this seems to have not only significantly lessened the impact on simulation lag, but also made the buffs appear more consistently and accurately. There's no longer a delay before the buffs get added and removed, and on the back end I no longer need to have to no longer have to specify each interaction that triggers the buffs and instead I can just use tags and/or EA interaction lists. I can also now add then to mixer interactions which without triggering LE's like the old system would. Finally I have sorted out a bug that came from a conflict between my mod, Let's Get Fit mod pack and Wickes whims. Basically one issue I had with LGF is that sims wouldn't change to athletic before working out, so I added an affordance modifier to that would do that. The proble that arose was that that little interaction between my mod and LGF did know what to do with sims who were in any state of undress for wicked whims, especially if you have the setting for sims to stay undressed when starting interactions turned on. Obviously muscle gainer  sims are taking their shirts off all the time to practice flexing so being in a hard core gym made this particular LE pop up fairly frequently. I've now set it to only cause the outfit change if the sim is fully dressed already.

I'm still testing an issue where body image i guess get's too full and or is trying to increase by too much? I'm still trying to parse put what exactly the LE is saying is happening, but basically its the cause of the household corruption issue. I seem to have gotten caused it to pop up significantly less, but just when I thought "alright  i think we're good to post the update" I got the LE last night (though luckily no households were corrupted) so I don't feel comfortable releasing the hotfix till I know its completely squashed. I can say I'm closer to parsing the issue- it has something to do with a sim eating to full while body image is full, as there's a hidden buff that's meant to cause body image to start decreasing (and other things such as increase fat and muscle gain and increased gym motivation when your sim has over 70 hunger motive.) it's the addition of this buff that seems to trigger the LE and traveling while the game is still trying to calculate where the body image commodity is supposed to be is what causes the household corruption, as the game has "saved" a value for body image that is bigger than the max value, and crashes when trying to apply that number upon loading on the destination lot. Or at least thats my best guess based on the LE's. Im not sure what it is about this particular commodity that cause this, I've dozens of other commodity between my various mod and this is the only one that causes this issue. I'm going to take a step back and retool how and when body image gets updated so that this stops happening.

As for Gay Archetypes, I've mostly been working on making the gameplay for the  Closeted trait more dynamic, and retooling the bromance set of interactions. I have tried and failed to create a custom relationship track, which is frustrating because it was a solid two days of trouble shooting before I decided to scrap it altogether. I didnt really want to focus this much time one trait, but I'm personally someone who appreciates deep gameplay over variety so I keep finding little things to add and test and play with, trying to really recreate the process of coming to terms with sexuality, and eventually coming out of the closet. 

I do have a bunch of ideas for other elements of gay archetypes. Yesterday is spent time going through my main test save world looking at various venue types as well as custom lots on LoversLab trying to think of what kind of gameplay I want to add with the next set of lot traits. I want to add a gay beach lot trait to complement the Muscle Beach, but I want to make sure there's more to it than just, well  "gay beach". Being an outdoor lot they're already eligible for cruising spot, and things like clothing optional and hypersexual already come with wicked whims, so I'm considering what aspects specific to gay culture I can capture with a beach specific lot trait. Bathhouses are already something I've wanted to add from the beginning, and again, just I'm thinking about ways to make the lot trait distinct from just a hypersexual, clothing optional spa, which again is something that can already be made with existing lot traits. I've also had some ideas for lot traits that may end up being their own mods. One thing I've always wanted is gameplay around grooming and hair growth, and have the blueprint in my brain for a barber shop lot trait (Hell maybe even a custom venue). There's elements of that that can be its own mod, since grooming gameplay doesn't really exist outside of the actor career, but hairstyling and grooming are also a big part of queer culture, with hair and haircuts having their own fetishistic connotations. I've read countless queer transformation erotica that take place in a barber shop. Another idea I that just recently popped up for me that is definitely going to be it's own mod (probably at the $5 tier) is a Brewery lot trait for retail shops. Nectar making is one of the biggest hits to come out of the Horse Ranch pack and I recently picked up Eco Lifestyle and have been having a lot of fun with beer brewing (shout out to basemental for the name change addon for juice fizzing). My muscle beach test sim has created his own little homestead at caldera camp in sulani and decided to put his earnings from bodybuilding competition into a shop to sell all the beer he's been brewing, and I had the idea to add a bar to simulate the idea of a breweries serve their own bear on tap. I hired a mixologist npc and everything but noticed that the sims didn't really interact with the bar, probably cuz the buffs for the Customer role doesn't even take it into consideration. It'd be super easy to create a lot trait that would barfly autonomy to retail customers that would encourage them to order from the bar while shopping or perhaps just causes barfly sims to spawn, separately from the customer sims. Just gotta figure out where the money from bar goes so that hiring an npc mixologist will still be profitable.

Anyway, this is where we are. I hope to do more these posts in the future a. To make sure $3 patrons are getting some sort of benefits since I'm not doing erotica anymore and b. Be more transparent with my process so you guys don't feel like I'm just locking broken mods behind a paywall. Also some folks have been asking about the discord. It's long over due for an update. It is something that is on my radar. Id love for it to be revamped to be more sims focused, although not completely. It's always been a sort of hangout for queer weirdos when it has been active and I def want to keep that vibe going while also adding channels for like posting LE's and sharing sims and more informal bug testing and brainstorming

Don't hesitate to reach out or comment with any questions suggestions or requests! I'm not super precious with my ideas and I love hearing feedback and want to make sure I'm working on things that people will enjoy playing or are wishing they had in the game. Thats honestly how I started making mods anyways- looking to add the kinda of things I wanted to see in the game that I knew EA would never add.

Happy Simming,

Chris