[RL] All babies are being born 'secret'

There's 'Adopt as Care Dependent' pie menu, under 'Baby Care' pie menu, in father's, but not in mother's pie menu.

I was curious, so I checked the family tree. The father and the newborn babies were a secret connection and step relatives.

I think this matches the contents of this report.

This happened when I loaded and started data saved in 2023 using 'As save as'. When I started the data, the mother was already in the third trimester of pregnancy and then had given birth.

However, I had never experienced this symptom before receiving the R&L update using the same procedure.

Play on PC via EA app, no MOD/CC, version 1.121.372

If you have MCCC this was a problem with the mod, he posted about it on the discord and should be fixed with the next mod update

The bag author mentioned that the first time they had mods when the bug occurred, then they removed them.I ran some tests in my game (really took time, can post here all details and full report summary. Please tag me if someone needs it). Did all of these tests because I also have an exception in addition to random legitimate/secret babies happening and random availability to make a secret lover:

AttributeError: 'object_Baby' object has no attribute 'is_being_destroyed'

After this one, it triggers a bunch of other exceptions. Like a domino effect, it slowly corrupts game files and saves within the one game session. So I decided to test.

Long story short, in all cases, bugs and exceptions continue occur if babies were already born in the save with MCCC even after mod removal. Exceptions do not trigger in the short perspective if script mods are removed before the fact of birth.

In all cases, if pregnancy is initiated through the MCCC (version 2026.1.1), babies are born secret (even if mods are deleted and a couple is married at the moment of birth). MCCC announced an update, maybe it will be fixed.
Looks like stories can do that too. My suggestion, it is better to remove MCCC for now or turn off all functions related to pregnancy/adoption initiation, also to turn off child birth/adoptions stories. Or regularly reload game, clear cash and repair files if the session goes wrong. It has to prevent save corruption as temporary solution till fixes occur.

If pregnancy is initiated through the WooHoo, babies are legitimate in any case.

For a moment, I think I have to run more tests for unmarried couples to confirm whether the baby's legitimacy is random or has some clear sequence to occur. For now, it looks random.

None of the babies joined any dynasty automatically in any case, unless they were added by hand.

But, in my situation, it looks like mods are not the main reason; they only trigger a vanilla bug to occur immediately. I saw many more bug reports about the "exception: object_Baby has no attribute is_being_destroyed during zone spin-up while auto-starting caregiver situation" that happened in a bunch of previous updates.

Feels like Royalty & legacy just add more checks associated with this attribute. Method call is wrong or something like this.

It is not specifically a legitimacy bug at first look, but it feels related to all of the baby bugs and may trigger others. New laundry list says it is planned to be fixed this spring/summer, so I`ll be waiting then.

I am having the same issue. All of them are previous saves before the expansion. Current sim was pregnant before pack, says the bio dad is the step father. I use mods. Removed all of them, cleaned the folders, still happens. These saves are like three years old. Kind of annoying cause the dad won’t do anything and won’t even claim the kid.