Forum Discussion

5 years ago

Solved

Townie Aliens Won’t Disguise Themselves

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:Sony Playstation 4
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.27
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? All EPs, all GPs, all SPs, and Free Stuff content (Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar and Holiday Celebration Packs
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Travel to any community lot or Community Space in a save containing game-generated Townie Sims who are full aliens (*not* player-created full alien Sims via CAS) and observe them appearing without their disguises.
What happens when the bug occurs? Full Alien game-generated Townie Sims walk around undisguised even though they have game-generated disguises assigned to them.
What do you expect to see? Full Alien game-generated Townie Sims walking around wearing their game-generated human disguises, making them undetectable as full aliens to players and played non-alien Sims.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? On console - never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. I first noticed this in a brand new save file I created after installing Eco Lifestyle and all available patch-updates.

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Since installing the Eco Lifestyle pack and latest patch updates, I have noticed (when playing a brand new household in a brand new save file I created after installing Eco Lifestyle) random townies who are full aliens walk around neighborhood lots in all worlds undisguised. I thought the whole point of alien Sims infiltrating Sim society was to remain undetected?

It seems counterproductive for them to wear their alien forms by default and interact with other non-occult townie Sims in this form as if nothing is amiss (at bars, gyms, spas, restaurants, etc.). It also takes some of the fun out of things for me as I immediately know which Sims in my game are aliens. They also appear in the Manage Household screens this way, dressed as their alien forms by default. If I peek at these alien Sims in CAS via Manage Households, I can see they have linked assigned disguises, so why aren’t they wearing them?

Again, these are not Sims I have created - they are game-generated townie Sims which the game has just decided will be full aliens. There are four different full aliens like this in my current save and each of them behave this way on any community lot. I can tell they are full aliens by peeking at them in the Manage Households area assigned to my save.

Is there something I’m missing? I’ve never played a Sim I’ve made as an alien before, so I admit I might not fully understand how this works, but this hasn’t happened in any of my other saves I played before installing this expansion pack and the latest two patches. I’m attaching a photo of my game when visiting The Blue Velvet (which is completely unmodified by me in this save) to demonstrate, but I have witnessed this occurrence in other lots also and when observing random Sims just out walking around my home lot / neighborhood.

Is there any way to make the townie alien Sims wear their disguises by default without playing their households?

I play on a console, a PS4 Pro, and have all the EPs, SPs, and GPs installed as well as the Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar and Free Holiday Items. I do not use any cheats aside from bb.moveobjects on/off, and have no CC installed.

gameplay issue

simvasion
5 years ago
@tekntonk depends how you play and what the game randomly decides what to do. If you live in a particular world where it generates disguised aliens for walking by on the street outside your house, then wouldn't notice those until you checked them in CAS or they did something alien in front of you.

If you visit a bar on alien night, if you have enough of those, it will just summon those disguised aliens to the bar and you'd never notice.

For alien night at the bar, if the game detects that it doesn't have enough aliens to populate the bar, it generates new sims - the template it uses for bar nights only generates undisguised aliens. So there's one explanation for you if you've never had a scientist or been to Sixam for a source of aliens appearing. Maybe in previous games you'd never visit bars on Tuesday nights or you had enough disguised aliens in the population to cover it all.

Myself, I never visit bars on Wednesdays because I don't want ghosts generating in my game (for Ghost Night). So I never see any.

For retail lots, customers can be anybody. Aliens included. I don't think the game will generate an alien just to be a customer - so you must have already had some generated, probably from an alien bar night.

10 Replies

crinrict
Hero+
5 years ago
@tekntonk There are alien bar nights where they walk around undisgised but from your description, I take that's not it ?
TheSteelRodent
5 years ago
Just from my experience: If you've ever had a sim in the science career contact aliens, aliens without disguise will occasionally appear around town. If you become friends with an alien sometimes they won't be disguised. And if you go to alien night at a bar, the aliens you meet there generally won't be disguised if you ever meet them again. I have no idea if any of that is intentional or bugs, because EA has never been clear on how aliens are supposed to work.
tekntonk
5 years ago
@TheSteelRodentThank you - this is helpful information for everyone to remember about Alien encounters in this game.

I’ve actually never played a Sim in the science career in any of my saves, and definitely not in this one, which was a fresh save I created just for the purpose of exploring the new EP gameplay.

My Sims in the save I’m referring to are in the Writer and Engineer careers, and are not friends with the Alien Sims in the photo nor any other Alien Sim in that save’s Household catalogue. Before taking that photo, I had previously observed one of these Aliens out of disguise at a Spa and another out of disguise just walking up the street in my Sims’ neighborhood from my Sim’s window in their home (Pinecrest Apartments), all on different days in my Sims’ lives.. It also was not Alien night at the Blue Velvet when I grabbed this image.

These are things I didn’t think of, though, and they’re worth remembering. It’s just odd because I’ve never had this occur in any of my other separate saves (I keep one separate save per Sim household I play with and only play one at a time) that I’ve had going for the last few years.

I often modify Townie Sims in CAS, and I have seen other Alien Sims in the catalogue in other saves before, but only after selecting them for makeovers and then realizing they were Alien Sims - they didn’t appear undisguised in my catalogue in those other saves the way they do (all four of them) in the current save I created fresh post-Eco Lifestyle install and used to capture this photo I’ve attached.

🤷🏻‍♂️ It’s definitely weird I would’ve never encountered this before as I’ve been playing The Sims 4 since it was released for consoles six years ago, and I’ve had Get To Work installed for quite some time (as well as all the other content as it has been released for console players).

No one else seems to be having this problem, though, so it must just be some weird quirk in my save. It makes me very hesitant to play any of the other saves I have from pre-Eco Lifestyle install, however, so I will probably just pause Simming for now and wait for more patches and see if that changes anything.

Good thing I have The Last Of Us Part II to keep me occupied in the mean time. 😊 Thanks for responding - it was just crickets for quite awhile there. 🙂 Cheers!
tekntonk
5 years ago
@crinrict Nope, not it, but thanks for pointing this out - sorry for the slow response. 😊
jeni2810
New Scout
5 years ago
In my first save game post Eco Lifestyle install, I had a couple of sims who lived in Port Promise but had a retail shop in Grim's Quarry - well you have got to have somewhere to sell all your dumpster finds!
Although I am a recent, lockdown, arrival to Sims 4, I have been playing since Sims 1, through the upgraded PCs for every new Sims 2 EP, and through 2 laptops for Sims 3!, eventually only loading the EPs I regularly played with! So with some experience, but not loads of Sims 4, when I saw undisguised aliens in the shop as customers, I wasn't sure if this should have been happening or not!
So now my conclusion is, you are not the only player this has happened to! So 'Me Too'
simvasion
Hero
5 years ago
@jeni2810 it's not a bug though, it's always been this way since I started playing Get to Work years ago. The game creates both disguised aliens for walkbys and undisguised aliens for situations like alien contact and visits to Sixam.

After a sim has been created, it's possible for that sim to get selected for walkbys, phone call events, being picked for jobs, etc. I don't think there's a situation where the game tells an undisguised alien to put on a disguise. You'd have to do it manually.

Even for alien night at the bar, that event just specifies "aliens" to come whether they are disguised or not.

I found that if I made all the aliens put on disguises, the next time I went to Sixam the game had to generate more undisguised aliens, because the disguised ones no longer matched the requirement (for alien walkbys on Sixam to be undisguised).
jeni2810
New Scout
5 years ago
That all makes perfect sense, though being a customer in my shop is neither alien contact nor on Sixam. I will say it hasn't happened in any other save.
tekntonk
5 years ago
@jeni2810 I see. Thank you for this detailed explanation of the game’s mechanics - it was insightful and helpful. 🙂
Perhaps you can explain to me, then, how the two Sims I’ve played in this fresh save I created after installing Eco Lifestyle, Sims who don’t work in the Science career and have never been to Sixam (not to mention none of the Sims in any of my other saves that are separate and never have been cross-played with the Sims I’ve created work in the Science career or have been to Sixam either) are encountering this behavior?
None of the Sims I’ve played in TS4 (I should also point out I’ve never played any pre-made Sims, only ones I have created myself) have been abducted by Aliens or had anything to do with them at all as far as I can tell. This isn’t an unwillingness for such things to occur in my game, I’ve simply not gotten around to playing out a storyline like that yet. I’m simply trying to understand why this is occurring now, post-Eco Lifestyle install, after so much gameplay for me over several years, when the only changes in the way I play are centered on that EP. The Sims I created for that fresh save exist for the soul purpose of exploring that EP and live in Evergreen Harbor.
So, the other saves I’ve played pre-Eco Lifestyle that I’ve never had this happen in, never seen undisguised Sim Aliens in the ways I’ve described above, neither in town or out of disguise in the Manage-households areas of the game, that’s all just pure coincidence? That’s what I’m trying to understand. 😀
simvasion
Hero
5 years ago
@tekntonk depends how you play and what the game randomly decides what to do. If you live in a particular world where it generates disguised aliens for walking by on the street outside your house, then wouldn't notice those until you checked them in CAS or they did something alien in front of you.

If you visit a bar on alien night, if you have enough of those, it will just summon those disguised aliens to the bar and you'd never notice.

For alien night at the bar, if the game detects that it doesn't have enough aliens to populate the bar, it generates new sims - the template it uses for bar nights only generates undisguised aliens. So there's one explanation for you if you've never had a scientist or been to Sixam for a source of aliens appearing. Maybe in previous games you'd never visit bars on Tuesday nights or you had enough disguised aliens in the population to cover it all.

Myself, I never visit bars on Wednesdays because I don't want ghosts generating in my game (for Ghost Night). So I never see any.

For retail lots, customers can be anybody. Aliens included. I don't think the game will generate an alien just to be a customer - so you must have already had some generated, probably from an alien bar night.
tekntonk
5 years ago
@simvasion I guess The Truth really IS out there. Wild. 🤭