Life of The Sims. I don't know what to do.
I'm starting to get very discouraged with The Sims. I don't know what to do any more. There are just far too many bugs in the game now. I literally can't play any more without getting massively frus...
Forum Discussion
As I said, I don't know what the circumstances are. But they're there. I built a house specifically to test it. No Geo Thermal or Well lot traits, No "green" or "industrial" walls, roofs, or floors, No bill surcharge items, no water generation walls or roofs, made sure there were no powered devices at all. All candles, no fridge, stove, radio, computer, etc. I waited a week before placing any power generation devices and kept checking and saw the "Rate of change" on the bills remained at a flat 0.0 the entire time.
After placing a ground turbine, I still watched the power go from +5 to -14, which should not be possible.
I know about the eco footprint modifiers. I found those too. If your lot is "green", there is a small bonus to power generation, conversely, if your lot is "industrial", there is a small reduction in your power generation on all power generation devices. But this is on the order of like 10-15% bonus or reduction. There are other modifiers, like if it's a windy day, turbines generate 20% more power. For solar panels, cloudy days are 20% lower, snow covered solar panels also have reduced power generation... etc.
This "special" 490% power drain has something to do with ECO, but I don't know what. I just know it would randomly kick in on my lots. Heck, I can even show it to you in the code. The basic power generation on a normal (non-windy) day is +0.00357 per unit. Windy days are +0.00417 per unit, which is 14.4% higher. When commodity 233233 takes effect, the power generation is -0.0175 per unit, which is 490.2% and it's negative so it drains power.
Whatever it is, it's commodity #233233. If that occurs, you get a random 490% power drain with wind turbines. I originally thought it might be when they're broken, but it occurred when they weren't broken, and didn't when they were. The commodity isn't there for solar panels so I assume it's something specific to wind turbines? Either that or its some bug.
The numbers are calculated like this. What is currently produced versus what was produced earlier. Say windy gives plus 20 then if it becomes wind still (0) then the rate of change becomes -20. This will of course fluctuate over time so you will see both positive and negative numbers. If you have no power generators the rate will of course always be 0 as you discovered.
@jpkarlsenThat's interesting. It's the rate of "Change". So then, what's the cooldown time? Per minute? Per hour? Per day? That seems like an unnecessarily added component of complexity. Why not just show current values?
There's still a 490% power drain configured in the code. It's there. Wind turbines on a non-windy day generate +0.00357 per unit, and randomly "generate" -0.0175, or a 490.2% drain. Well, it's more like instead of +0.00357, -0.175 is like just under 600% lower "generation".
Plus, I've seen the negative "rate of change" number stay there for more than a day, with NO powered objects.Edit: Pondering...
Yeah, I don't think it's that simple. If it were a "rate of CHANGE", then shouldn't it always reset to 0.0 after the cooldown time expires and conditions haven't changed? I can't remember it EVER resetting to 0.0 unless I had no power generators at all.
As you can see on the bill it is rate of change and it is listed as being per day so if two days had the exact same power production it should say 0 but I think you need to wait a long time for that to happen.
@Psychotps All of the modifiers you mention are what I would expect to see in the game so I am glad you have verified those. Solar panels function better on sunny days and wind turbines better on windy days. I'd be more disappointed if all of these things acted otherwise. Even the Green Eco footprint bonus makes sense to me as a reward for players who invest resources and effort in green upgrades-- just as people can see an energy bill reduction for doing these things in real life.
The 490% power drain has not yet popped up during regular game-play in my several weeks of testing so whatever it is it must be rare and perhaps intentionally catastrophic. I think it would be cool to see what could actually do this (I like a little random destruction in my game-- there's not enough of that in Sims 4). The wind turbines have an upgrade option to act as a lightning rod while the solar panels do not so that is why I brought up lightning in my previous post. The coding might even be an artifact from the pack development for testing something that never made it into the game. Maybe just lazy programming? I mean kudos to you for testing it but I'm not sure it's something regular Sims players should be overly concerned with.
@jpkarlsen Thanks for that explanation on the Rate of Change. That makes a lot of sense! In my testing I see a slightly positive change during daylight hours and slightly negative change at night (from the solar panels) but the actual energy bill stays right around zero (which is where I want it for my testing). In my other Brindleton Bay test house I've added more wind turbines, solar panels, and dew collectors (without going too crazy) just to see how much power and water my Sim can generate with a modest increase in renewable resources. It typically looks like this:
I've never seen a large enough rebate to make all of this worthwhile from a strictly financial point of view. I think it's more about a way of life for some Sims who want to improve the environment in their area-- which is exactly what happened in my game when my neighborhood Eco footprint improved to Green. There are many in-game benefits to a Green Eco footprint beyond earning a few Simoleons.
- @RandomBuzziness I was actually wondering if it was related to the lightning strikes. I can't find anything in the turbine files related to lightning. I was wondering if they got it backwards? When a lightning strike occurs it's supposed to give a large boost of energy. Maybe they coded it as negative by mistake?
I've never seen one happen either, I don't think there's a way I can trigger it to happen so waiting for a random strike could take a long while. If it ever happens to me, I'll watch the numbers and see if I get a large boost or drain.
