How to edit a multi-PT mod so it will use the PTs of YOUR choice:
If you did all the steps right, then it should now be done. That wasn't so hard, was it? But it's now time to check if you did all the steps correctly. Read the lines of each group, and see if they show the correct GUIDs! If you see a mistake somewhere, correct it now!
When everything is done, click the SAVE button in the toolbar. This saves your work!
Exit, delete the groups.cache file from your "My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2" folder, and make sure you have the PTs installed anywhere in your Downloads folder.
You're ready to run... now go abduct some sims, and have new Alien offspring!
Requirements: - A Multi-PT mod, of course  - Either FOUR or EIGHT custom PTs, depending on the mod you're planning to use. One less custom PT is acceptable, if you're planning to use the Maxis Default PT or a Default Replacement as well. Preparations, part 1: Get the GUIDs (See picture ->) - Double-click the .package of a custom PT, or Right-click the package and select "Open with SimPE" - In the Resource List, find and click the OBJD resource - In the Plug-in View, find and copy (to a piece of paper) the GUID of this PT. - Repeat the above steps for each custom PT. NOTES: - You do NOT need to do this for the Maxis Default PT or any Default Replacement, because they always use the same number (0x2E17B9FC) - If you're planning to use the PTs with my own special Multi-PT mod and Alien Experiments v1.7 or better, you also need to be sure that you have equal numbers of male and female PTs, AND you must know which GUIDs are male, and which are female. |
So now you have 4 or 8 numbers, each one looking like 0x########. The number for the default PT (or any default replacer) is 0x2E17B9FC, for example. We need to convert them to something we can use... Preparations, part 2: Convert the GUIDs to Little-Endian - You need to break each GUID down into a Little-Endian sequence. Which means we divide the eight digits after the x into four groups of 2 digits, like 2E 17 B9 FC, and then we make the groups switch places so it looks like FC B9 17 2E. - Do the previous step for each of the custom PTs you have. Checking: So far, everything was rather simple, but it's very important that you now check if you have everything right. Depending on what Multi-PT mod you use, you need to have either 4 or 8 Little-Endian number sequences. And if it's for MY mod, you need to be sure that exactly half of them are male, and the others female, and also you need to KNOW which ones are which. Now comes the somewhat more risky part: editing a mod in SimPE. If you haven't done this before, you may want to make a backup of the original mod first, just in case you blow it and need to start over. I hope to make this manual clear enough that there's little risk of this happening, but still... Double-click the Multi-PT mod, or Right-click it and select "Open with SimPE". In the Resource List, you'll see a line "NPC - Get Alien Dad - NID". Click that line, and look at the Plug-in view (picture SimPE 001). Here's where modders do their scary work It's not a lot like making a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, is it?  Anyway, let's continue... |
Identifying the lines we need to change Looking at the next picture, you'll see that a number of lines have been marked with a color pen. Lines of the same color use the same GUID. Regardless what Multi-PT mod you're looking at, you'll always find four or eight of those groups, and THESE are the groups that we need to change, to make it use our PTs! |
The tricky part: actually editing the mod - Select the first line of one of the groups - Look over at the right... and you'll see the Little-Endian version of the GUID for that group in the first four fields (underlined). That's why we needed our preparations: so we could replace those numbers with our own! - Click the first of those fields (purple underlined) and enter the first part of one of your Little-Endian numbers. Hit the TAB key, and enter the next, until the whole number has been done. - Repeat the previous steps for the other two lines of the same group, using the SAME GUID. - Now do the same for ALL the groups in your mod. But remember: if you're using MY mod with Alien Experiments, you *must* enter the male GUIDs in the top half, and the female in the bottom half of the mod. |
If you did all the steps right, then it should now be done. That wasn't so hard, was it? But it's now time to check if you did all the steps correctly. Read the lines of each group, and see if they show the correct GUIDs! If you see a mistake somewhere, correct it now!
When everything is done, click the SAVE button in the toolbar. This saves your work!
Exit, delete the groups.cache file from your "My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2" folder, and make sure you have the PTs installed anywhere in your Downloads folder.
You're ready to run... now go abduct some sims, and have new Alien offspring!
Screenshots
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Comments
#3
24-09-2011
A PT is a Pollination Technician, an Alien, a person who abducts sims in their space ship and then puts probes in unspeakable places where the sun hardly ever shines.
That graphic enough, dear?
That graphic enough, dear?
![[Image: kiss2.gif]](http://i810.photobucket.com/albums/zz30/Michelle-111/kiss2.gif)
#6
24-04-2016
tl;dr style answer first: No. Yes. Who gives a <censored>.
And here comes the answer for people who do give a <censored>. I mean the S, the H, the I and the effing T (there, I've said it! 
To hell with censorship. )
I agree @ElfPuddle: this is the spot to ask such a great question. In fact, I cannot think of a better place to ask this question. I've thought about the issue for such a long time, that it surprised me that the question has never been asked before.
First question: No, it hasn't been done. I have thought about making a 16-PT set myself, both *while* and *after* making this set. In the end, I decided against it. And I've never seen mention of anyone else who had actually done it, either.
Second question: Yes, it could absolutely be done. It would not be much harder to do than an 8-PT set. Heck, even 32 or 64 PTs would be doable. Technically, at least. The problem is, that the routine for selecting one gets impractically large. And it's a lot easier to screw up, because every PT's GUID (16 or more of them, think about it...) must be introduced into the mod in at least threee places. That's a lot of opportunities for a tiny little mistake that ruins everything.
Third question: Yes, I have my thoughts about the issue...
In a regular, playable neighborhood, there are usually up to like 1200 sims max, and everyone is nowadays trying to get *rid* of unplayables such as townies, downtownies, and superfluous NPCs. So what would be the point in introducing even more PTs?
Eight is a reasonable number: it greatly reduces the chances of your sim meeting an alien that they're related to, so it improves the probability of alien pregnancies - which is the reason why multi-PT mods were considered worth the effort. But it's not yet like an army that's about to overrun your hood.
So thank you for asking.
And here comes the answer for people who do give a <censored>. I mean the S, the H, the I and the effing T
(there, I've said it! To hell with censorship. )I agree @ElfPuddle: this is the spot to ask such a great question. In fact, I cannot think of a better place to ask this question. I've thought about the issue for such a long time, that it surprised me that the question has never been asked before.
First question: No, it hasn't been done. I have thought about making a 16-PT set myself, both *while* and *after* making this set. In the end, I decided against it. And I've never seen mention of anyone else who had actually done it, either.
Second question: Yes, it could absolutely be done. It would not be much harder to do than an 8-PT set. Heck, even 32 or 64 PTs would be doable. Technically, at least. The problem is, that the routine for selecting one gets impractically large. And it's a lot easier to screw up, because every PT's GUID (16 or more of them, think about it...) must be introduced into the mod in at least threee places. That's a lot of opportunities for a tiny little mistake that ruins everything.
Third question: Yes, I have my thoughts about the issue...
In a regular, playable neighborhood, there are usually up to like 1200 sims max, and everyone is nowadays trying to get *rid* of unplayables such as townies, downtownies, and superfluous NPCs. So what would be the point in introducing even more PTs?
Eight is a reasonable number: it greatly reduces the chances of your sim meeting an alien that they're related to, so it improves the probability of alien pregnancies - which is the reason why multi-PT mods were considered worth the effort. But it's not yet like an army that's about to overrun your hood.
So thank you for asking.
#7
24-04-2016
Thanks for the thoughtful answer, BO. The extra ways/opportunities to screw up is the sole reason I haven't bothered trying yet. I'm comfy tweaking my own four or eight multi-pt, and pretty confident about tweaking a 16 that was made. But learning enough to add, correctly, eight more seems above my pay grade, so to speak.
TL;DR: Thanks!
TL;DR: Thanks!
#8
18-10-2016
Im sorry to ask but could you make a video on this? That is if you arnt busy, I don't really get how to edit this file and also I want to know how I can edit the chances of getting a supernatural sims or other events from your Alien mod, Ty for your time 
and sorry if I trouble you :/
and sorry if I trouble you :/
#9
18-10-2016
Hi Soundwave14,
Interesting question... And no, you're not troubling me at all. One should always be free to ask.
First, the top post describes the entire process in detail in a way that cannot be done in a video. A video always goes either too fast, or too slow, depending on whoever is watching it. The description above can be read and reread as often as you need, at your own speed. So just from THAT point of view, I don't see the need to make a video. An important thing to remember is, that you can click the pictures in the top post to see them in full size. That may help figure out what to do.
Second, I could probably use the Windows' own programs for making the video, but I have no way of editing it, and I wouldn't even know how. Just the process of learning that, just for one single video, will take a lot longer than making the video itself. I'm terribly sorry, but I can think of other things to do that I consider more fun.
Third, I don't have a microphone, and have never ever needed one. So just for this one video, I would have to BUY one. Again, I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen.
The best I can do is, point you to where you can download SimPE (if you do not have it installed yet), which you will need to use for editing the files. And if you need help learning to work with SimPE, there are plenty of resources on the subject all over the internet.
And as for how to edit the probabilities for the different outcomes of Alien Experiments... that's rather simple, too. Again, you'll need SimPE to open "BO - Alien-Experiments-PREFS.package", and then select the BCON resource named "Experiment Probability".
In the plugin view, each line clearly tells you what outcome it is used for. There's two lines for each option: the fist line for males, the second for females. When you select a line, the "Dec" field on the left side of the screen will contain the percentage chance that this specific experiment will happen. All you have to do is change that value. Remember, that the total percentages of all lines for a single gender can not exceed 100%. If it does, the last items on the list, after it went over 100%, will never be used. Once you're done editing everything, make sure to press the "Commit file" button at the top right of the plugin view, and then use the "Save file" option from the "File" menu.
I am still in the process of trying to make changing probabilities simpler, so it can be done with a control object inside the game. But it isn't easy to get right. So it may still take a while before that is ever released.
I'm sorry, Soundwave14, but this is the best I can do. I do hope, that I have helped you a little anyway, and that you'll have fun using my mods.
Interesting question... And no, you're not troubling me at all. One should always be free to ask.
First, the top post describes the entire process in detail in a way that cannot be done in a video. A video always goes either too fast, or too slow, depending on whoever is watching it. The description above can be read and reread as often as you need, at your own speed. So just from THAT point of view, I don't see the need to make a video. An important thing to remember is, that you can click the pictures in the top post to see them in full size. That may help figure out what to do.
Second, I could probably use the Windows' own programs for making the video, but I have no way of editing it, and I wouldn't even know how. Just the process of learning that, just for one single video, will take a lot longer than making the video itself. I'm terribly sorry, but I can think of other things to do that I consider more fun.
Third, I don't have a microphone, and have never ever needed one. So just for this one video, I would have to BUY one. Again, I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen.
The best I can do is, point you to where you can download SimPE (if you do not have it installed yet), which you will need to use for editing the files. And if you need help learning to work with SimPE, there are plenty of resources on the subject all over the internet.
And as for how to edit the probabilities for the different outcomes of Alien Experiments... that's rather simple, too. Again, you'll need SimPE to open "BO - Alien-Experiments-PREFS.package", and then select the BCON resource named "Experiment Probability".
In the plugin view, each line clearly tells you what outcome it is used for. There's two lines for each option: the fist line for males, the second for females. When you select a line, the "Dec" field on the left side of the screen will contain the percentage chance that this specific experiment will happen. All you have to do is change that value. Remember, that the total percentages of all lines for a single gender can not exceed 100%. If it does, the last items on the list, after it went over 100%, will never be used. Once you're done editing everything, make sure to press the "Commit file" button at the top right of the plugin view, and then use the "Save file" option from the "File" menu.
I am still in the process of trying to make changing probabilities simpler, so it can be done with a control object inside the game. But it isn't easy to get right. So it may still take a while before that is ever released.
I'm sorry, Soundwave14, but this is the best I can do. I do hope, that I have helped you a little anyway, and that you'll have fun using my mods.
#10
20-10-2016
Ty for the help, before this I was messing around with the specific experiment so I have a little bit of an idea of how it worked but wasn't 100% sure if I was doing it correctly or not thank you for the help though and have a nice day
#11
27-02-2018
This may be a silly question, and I'm sorry in advance if this isn't an appropriate place to ask, but apparently I can't just leave things well alone and have to mess around with them further.
Could you input the GUID for a single PT twice? That is, have 6 lines pointing to that PT instead of 3. Would this double the chances of abduction by that PT and reduce the total number of PTs, or just break things entirely?
Could you input the GUID for a single PT twice? That is, have 6 lines pointing to that PT instead of 3. Would this double the chances of abduction by that PT and reduce the total number of PTs, or just break things entirely?
#12
28-02-2018
@Lulu most people want INCREASE the number of PTs. And now you want to LOWER it? Interesting!
I cannot guarantee that it will work properly. But as far as I can see, it should be just fine to put the same PT in two slots. And it might indeed double the chances for that PT to be chosen.
Just one thing: if you do this and it blows up in your face, it's not my fault, right? Good luck, @Lulu.
I cannot guarantee that it will work properly. But as far as I can see, it should be just fine to put the same PT in two slots. And it might indeed double the chances for that PT to be chosen.
Just one thing: if you do this and it blows up in your face, it's not my fault, right? Good luck, @Lulu.
#14
20-04-2018
I'm sorry, but I don't see how one would make a normal sim and add that to the list of PTs. A PT carries different data than a normal sim. But I've seen people mention how to use normal sims as templates for PTs. I must've done something similar to make my own PTs, after all. But that's just so long ago, though, that I could not tell you where to look for the required information.
#15
23-08-2018
I apologize if this is old, and I might have gotten it by the time you answer this, but when you say the females in the bottom half and males in the top, do you mean bottom half of the operand, or bottom half of the mod after you finished adding in the male PTs? Thank you~
#16
23-08-2018
Hi @DumbQuestions,
The bottom half of the operand? Oh please, no... You're not going to tell me you are that silly, I hope? That would cause so much chaos!!
No, of course I mean that you put the males in the top four tests of the mod, and the females in the bottom four tests. Of course with each instructionset using the same PT three times...
The bottom half of the operand? Oh please, no... You're not going to tell me you are that silly, I hope? That would cause so much chaos!!
No, of course I mean that you put the males in the top four tests of the mod, and the females in the bottom four tests. Of course with each instructionset using the same PT three times...
