Give residence keys - why bother?

That is odd. My OG legacy couple gave resident keys to their younger son who moved out, and he comes over frequently and never knocks, just walks right in. Sometimes he startles me by just suddenly BEING THERE. Has this always been the case for you, or are you just now trying the give residence key for the first time? Cause it shouldn't be like that.

I don't think I've ever had a sim be able to walk into another (unplayed) sim's house without knocking. When my played sims give a key to a friend, that friend comes right in, but never while I was playing said friend.

"Oldeseadogge;c-17980377" wrote:
Maybe. Perhaps a monitored attempt in the vanilla version might give a clue. Do your sims that get keys have anything in their inventory or is it something the game is supposed to remember?

I honestly don't know. I never play rotationally, so I haven't played the son since he moved out. I have a feeling it isn't a physical object though, more like some code type thing the game applies to the sim given the key that allows them to bypass the door restrictions and be more like a household member without living there.

In my experience all friends (not acquaintances) will knock, then walk in, regardless of whether they had a key.
The keyholders do have special events that they can trigger. Sort of. They can come over asking to "play games" (there are no games), "get ready at your place" for a party or event (there is no party or event, nor any getting ready), etc. Idk. I haven't used it beyond getting past that level of the city native aspiration.

I'm playing a save where my sim has a lot of children, and she's close to them all. When they move out, she gives them a residence key, and they are able to enter the house without invitation, which is what I expect the intention was behind the action. In my save, I've moved houses, and sim children who had the key to the old house were able to enter the new one without getting a new key.
I doubt that the game designers ever expected you to be able to switch to the household of the key recipient and enter the house of the key giver.

- The "key" is not a physical object. It's a status given to bypass the filter that pertains to non-household members.
- In an apartment, key-holders will appear and hang out for a bit through flavour text events like "game night" and "needing to use the place to get ready".
- In a house, it just allows them to enter without needing to knock first (though they might still do so, then enter.)
- Keys also seem to allow sims to bypass "household-only" locks within the residence, and one "key" acts as a lifetime pass to any home the household may own over time.
- It likely is not coded in for the sim (once played actively) to be able to enter at-will. This is more likely something added to the autonomous actions they can perform as NPC's.

To note, I have a fair few mods and cc, myself, and it has functioned as stated above since day one. Try giving keys to multiple sims, as one isn't a worthwhile sample size.

Thank you for answering, and so quickly.

This is the first time done deliberately and monitored. There have been other times in other game saves the keys were given but never noticed any changes. It's rarely done as it always seemed like 'why bother ?'. Now I know, for me anyway, it's not functional.

You're welcome. I'm stumped, the only mod you mentioned is MCCC, and I also have that, plus tons of other mods and CC. Maybe you could make an AHQ report.

"FatTribble23;c-17980362" wrote:
You're welcome. I'm stumped, the only mod you mentioned is MCCC, and I also have that, plus tons of other mods and CC. Maybe you could make an AHQ report.

Maybe. Perhaps a monitored attempt in the vanilla version might give a clue. Do your sims that get keys have anything in their inventory or is it something the game is supposed to remember?

I'm pretty sure give residence key works the same as giving your apartment key in City Living, giving a key to someone makes them show up at your house to visit you like for game night or something else. That's about it.