About assigning the role, how do you assign the bartender roles to existing premade sims? Normally, we can't just add a trait to make them being NPC Bartender for each lot (Unless you use mods such as Zero's one or NPCC, which I haven't tried yet). Having mods make the outcome different, so I want to know your game mechanics before going deeper.
Also, having or not having Get Famous EP will affect the rule of NPC generating, too. If you have Get Famous, the game will pick existing Sims for NPC jobs instead of creating new townies.
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Not only that, bartender outside "Bar, Nightclub, and Lounge" can't keep the role. Their role/job will be removed after you close the game and reload again.
For example, if you visited a Karaoke bar, exited the game to the main menu, and reloaded the game again, you will see that the existing bartender will lose the mixologist title (red font), and the new bartender will come to replace.
Most of the lots that need to have a bar but can't keep a permanent shift are in San Myshuno, or "City Living" lots. Ex, Karaoke bar, Art center. It's impossible to keep the same bartender working there. So, if you visit those lots a lot, you will have plenty of new bartenders who will lose the jobs after you close the game.
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About Living Statue, I haven't had the new one for a long time. In my main save, I have two of them. The first one is a teen guy, and the second one is a young adult girl. The second one appeared more often, but sometimes the first one still appears, too.
What I suspect is, the game will make new NPC when the first one isn't available. For example, if this red shirt guy visited the lot as a normal person, but then the game needs a Living Statue, it will make the 2nd one. But... the game will prefer to use "the recent one" instead of being completely random.
So, if you want the red shirt guy to appear as Living Statue again, you may remove Living Statue trait from two new ones (aka, remove the role), or delete them if you don't want to keep them in your game. Then wait to see if the red shirt guy can do a living statue job or if the game still makes the new one.
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I can't prove the result, because the game seems to change the mechanics of townies generating after Enchanted by Nature EP.
I used a lot of mods to stop townies from generating, so I can know when the new case happens without my consent.
I use a mod, but it does seem to stick after the mod is removed. Not Zero's, I use Gauntlet's mods, since i started with the bartender one just to fix Celene, and i've added a few others since then. With DJs I just used console cheats to assign both the trait and the job to Candy Behr and Joaquin LeChien and it's been working fine. So far Corey and Jesmender have been showing up to tend bar consistently, along with the others i assigned, they seem to rotate fairly evenly, and I have not seen any new ones made.
oh yeah, i forgot i assigned Zoe Patel.
this one is a rando that i gave a makeover to and intentionally assigned as a bartender, so she isn't random in this case.
And yeah I get you for trying to limit townie spawning. I give makeovers to townies and while i do allow them to die in Neighborhood Stories, it sucks to have them get culled or sidelined so some new fashion disaster can take their place.
I do not have Get Famous or Enchanted by Nature for reference. (the fame system just seemed annoying to me lol, so i skipped it, still deciding for Enchanted by Nature)
I haven’t known Gauntlet's mods before. So, I didn’t know that you can do this with the mod. I’ll go to check it out. What’s the name of mod you use?
(edit - I found it myself in Curseforge, I saw this before together with other npc mods, thanks!)
It would be useful if I can adapt to my game, because bartender is the role that can’t assign with console cheat.
I also gave makeover to all of townies I had. Or delete some townies who is too hard for edit or too many to keep. So, I don’t want to get new townies during gameplay. It’s annoying to have fashion disaster in the screenshot.
I do not have Get Famous or Enchanted by Nature for reference. (the fame system just seemed annoying to me lol, so i skipped it, still deciding for Enchanted by Nature)
I see, without Get Famous, game will create new townies for npc job. I also annoyed fame system a lot. I disable this EP in my main save file, and only use this EP with other save instead. I will play Enchanted by Nature soon, but I currently disable it to focus previous pack first. (I don’t want to spend time managing fairies townies for now)
Bartender seems to be a hidden job rather than a trait, same as with the Gym Trainer and, partially, DJ, so it's harder to assign just by editing their traits with MCCC or something. I am not sure what it is about assigning them it manually that makes them stick better, but so far it's working for vendors, Gym Trainers, and bartenders, haven't seen a new one spawn in quite a while.
I tried deleting the new Living Statues but the game just spawned a new guy.
I see, this modder made many NPC role mods and added the code to control this. The main goal of Gauntlet's mod is to make these roles "playable". I also want to try this mod someday to see how it will be after removing the mod later (You said they can keep the role, I hope it can work in my game too).
DJ can be assigned with using the console cheat. I assigned them to existing townies, and they can come to work in any lot, not like the bartender and gym trainer, who are locked with the lot and time shift.
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For Living Statues, did you check that this guy still has NPC hidden trait or not (if he's still Living Statue, he will be immortal too). He may have lost it in some case.
If he still has the trait but is never picked for the role, this is beyond my understanding, too.
