the birds and the bees

The Rules of Attraction, and How Babies are Made

I've been meaning to post this discussion of the ACR mod (Autonomous Casual Romance) for a little while now. It's a very large mod, and able to be personalized to suit individual tastes, and here is how I play it in my game. The numbers given are the ones I've modified from the default settings for my own game, and unless specified, you can assume I've left them at default. Check the ACR BCON Docs for more info.

ACR and the In-Game Bolt System:

I sometimes throw around attraction numbers, for example saying Summer Phoenix and Tyler Jackson have 122 ACR together - here is how that relates to your in-game bolt system.

A three-bolt attraction is anything higher than about 90, in terms of attraction numbers. In your game, you will only see the bolts, but ACR gives a numerical read-out, because some three-bolt attractions are higher than others. You might notice that your Sim's hotties are listed in a kind of order, ranging from highest to lowest.

Using some Lakeside Heights examples: Matthew and Leila Watts have 191 ACR (very high three-bolts, with one romance bonus), Bella Bradshaw and Cameron Gibson have 171 ACR (high three bolts, and they both have the romance bonus), Summer Phoenix and Tyler Jackson have 122 ACR (mid-range three-bolts, with one romance bonus), and Jason Larson and Amelia Bradshaw have 112 ACR (solid three-bolts with no romance bonus).

For most normal couples (non-romance Sims), a 140-150 is about as high as they can get, a perfect match - however, the Freetime "massive attraction" bonus adds 40 points for each Sim who has it. Which would conclude that two massive attraction Sims could make upwards of 220 together, perfect match with all turn-ons, though the highest I've ever seen in my game was in the 190s.

A two-bolt attraction ranges from about 90 to 40. Stephanie Nova had 86 ACR (a high two-bolts) with her high school boyfriend. Chad and Riley Hathe had a 58 ACR (a mid-range two-bolts) before her aspiration change.

A one-bolt attraction ranges from about 40 to 0. And negative attractions, X marks in-game, are negative, obviously.

Here is how unrequited love works - using an example from Lakeside Heights. Charlotte Centowski and Adam Thompson were high school sweethearts and had 112 ACR together. At the time, they both had the highest attraction to each other of anyone they'd met. Then Adam went off to college and met Heather, whom he would later marry. Adam and Heather have 135 ACR together. So Adam is very happy with Heather, and Heather is very happy with Adam, and they are both more attracted to each other than any other Sims they have met. Charlotte, however, had not met any other Sims she was more attracted to than Adam, and therefore, had to settle for Sims she was less attracted to for a very long time.

Of course, just because someone's hot, doesn't mean you jump straight into bed with them... though, sometimes you do ;) Attraction isn't always everything. Otherwise, every Sim in Lakeside Heights would be leaving their spouses for Bella Bradshaw. Obviously, there are some faithful Sims in Lakeside Heights who are off-limits even the hottest of hotties. Yay for true love! There is no in-game or modded method of choosing who these faithful Sims are - it just boils down to personality, aspiration, the wants they roll, and the story they're living. Basically, it's up to me ;)

For these faithful Sims I set their autonomy to "spouse only" and they will only ACR with their spouse. I use this setting also for single Sims who I feel might be a little more prudish. They will only ACR with their one chosen favorite hottie, and not the whole neighborhood and anything that moves.

Raging hormones:

(BCONs found in "ACR - Controller - Main" > "Tuning - Casual Romance")

These are the thresholds used to determine whether your Sim will accept or reject a romantic proposal, based on the relationship level. Making out is divisible by 2, flirting is divisible by 3. I have modified these numbers slightly conservative from the ACR defaults, because man, ACR default makes for some pretty promiscuous Sims!

STR - Rom = 20
LTR - Rom = 0
STR - Pop = 35
LTR - Pop = 20
STR - Fam = 80
LTR - Fam = 50
STR - Kno = 50
LTR - Kno = 30
STR - For = 40
LTR - For = 25

Promises, promises:

(BCONs found in "ACR - Controller - Main" > "Tuning - Casual Romance - Accept")

These numbers represent the penalty added for Sims already in a relationship. I believe these numbers are subtracted from the relationship level - I believe it's the LTR, so that for example, a family Sim in a relationship to cheat on their partner would have the normal 50 LTR minus -40 = 90 LTR. Basically I wanted to make it so that for a Family or Knowledge Sim to cheat on their partner, it would have to be someone they know very well. And even Romance Sims I gave a little penalty, because I figure, for a Romance Sim to enter into a steady relationship at all, they must have some tiny bit of conscience about it...

Rel Pen Rom = -5
Rel Pen Pop = -25
Rel Pen Fam = -40
Rel Pen Kno = -35
Rel Pen For = -25
Rel Pen Ple = -20

The Birds and the Bees:

ACR takes care of my Sims' family planning, with a carefully balanced formula that promises I won't have too much population growth in my already bursting at the seams neighborhood.

This gets a little complicated, and you might want to check out ACR's documentation if you want more info, but I'll try to give you a quick idea, in case you're curious.

Here is how it works. Each time ACR directs a married couple to get busy, it will also calculate their chances of wanting to try for a baby. This is determined by each of their aspirations, as well as how many children they already have. There are two rolls - first, do they want to try for a baby or just get busy? Second, if they do want to try for a baby, their fertility is taken into account to decide whether they'll actually get one or not.

I have modified these numbers from the ACR defaults, because I want LESS baby making in my very full neighborhood. Based on these numbers, most couples will end up wanting one child, some will want two, and very few families will want more than that. Some romance/pleasure combinations will never choose to try for children.

Baby making, intentional:

(BCONs found in "ACR - Controller - Bed Socials" > "Tuning - Try for Baby") Based on 100% chance of trying for a baby each time they Woohoo, then we subtract from those chances based on the following:

Family asp -15%
Fortune asp -25%
Knowledge asp -30%
Popularity asp -35%
Romance asp -40%
Pleasure asp -40%
have a baby in the house -60%
have a toddler -10%
have a child -30%
have a teen -40%
have an adult child -70%
age 35+ bonus +5%

Examples:

- a Family/Fortune couple, newlyweds with no children would try to have a baby 60% of the time (100-15-25=60). Then because they are young, their fertility is probably high, and they would probably get a baby when they try.

- a Romance/Popularity couple, newlyweds with no children would try to have a baby 25% of the time (100-35-40=25). And because romance Sims tend to marry later in life, if at all, their fertility would be lower, and they would have less chance of succeeding. If they were over 35 with no children, they would add 5% for each Sim over 35.

- a Family/Family couple, married for a while, with a child and toddler in the house would try to have another child 30% of the time (100-15-15-30-10=30). Because they would be older at this point, they would have less chance of succeeding.

See how much fun this is! It's almost like they're deciding for themselves! Love ACR! :)

Fertility:

(BCONs found in "ACR - Controller - Casual Romance" > "Tuning - Casual Romance - Pregnancy") Again, these numbers are lowered from the ACR defaults, because I want LESS baby-making in my neighborhood. There are too many numbers to list all of them, but you can fill in the gaps. Based on a fertility peak at around age 25 (70%), dropping gradually until age 35 (70-40%), and then more sharply from ages 35-50 (dropping from 40% sharply towards 0%).

Actual realistic human odds are even lower than that (50% at age 27, 40% from ages 27-34, and less than 30% age 35 and after), but since Sims only live about an 80 day lifespan, we'll cut them a little slack ;)

Baby-making, unintentional:

And then we have the "surprises"... I set risky Woohoo anywhere from 0-10%, based on the neatness/sloppiness of the active Sims on the lot. I figure a couple who are both very neat would be very good at taking their birth control, so I set their risky Woohoo to 0 or 2%. A bunch of sloppy frat boys, probably not so much - I'll set their risky Woohoo to 8 or 10%. Risky Woohoo has to be set for the whole lot. If there is a difference between neat and sloppy Sims on the lot, I'll set the number somewhere in between.

Keep in mind that this percentage is multiplied by the percentage of their fertility rate. Therefore, my risky woohoo rates are pretty low. Again, I want less baby-making in my neighborhood. You might want to set yours higher than these.

And risky Woohoo doesn't work for teens or YAs unless you have another mod that enables teen/YA pregnancy (I don't know what, now that inteen is defunct), and I don't. So, using the same odds as above, I just roll them a number in my Random Stuff program, or use my cards of fate, and enforce the pregnancy using the SimBlender.

So that concludes our discussion of sex-ed in Lakeside Heights, lol! :)