PERSONALITY TRAITS - Options.
So, here we get into some actual modding. And, we'll not start in the Constructor, we'll start from a Maxis Xmls. Traits have a lot of options, they can do a lot of things, and when we get into the Constructor, we want AT LEAST have an idea of what we're working on. So here is the XML for a Maxis Personality trait, and I'll break it down for you. It's actually not so hard at all.
This is the Trait_Romantic:
c="Trait", i="trait" and m="traits.traits" are things that the game uses to identify and load the xml, they're the same for all the traits (and for all the xmls of a given class and loaded by a given module) and nothing you should concern yourself about. The n="Trait_Romantic" is the actual name of the trait, and what also give the instance for it, and this changes (you change it manually when you do things manually, the Constructor will work it out for us) and the s="27454" is the identificative number of this specific trait. This is used in a bunch of ways, the Constructor will work this out for us too, and it's the correspondent of the alphanumeric number which identifies the trait here:
Under Instance. I only want you to know what this stuff is, though. As I said, the Constructor will do this job for us.
Let's get into the options enabled for this trait, Ages:
This is a List of ages that can have this trait, this trait is not available to children, toddlers and babies, for example.
Next, in this specific trait we have a List of Buff Replacements:
There are a bunch, but they all do the same thing. In the key there is the ID of a buff, after that there is a buff_reason and a buff_type tuning. So, the key is a buff a Sim should get, like for example the buff they get when getting engaged, this tuning in this buffs says that when a sim having the romantic trait should get the GotEngaged buff, the buff should be replaced with the one in the buff_type instead. The reason is the text that appears on the buff in the UI.
List Buffs:
This is different from buff replacements. The buffs on this list are associated with this trait and they're always on when a sim has this buff. They can impact the behaviour of the sim having this trait in many ways, and are actually the ones that work in the background for the autonomy.
Tuning Cas Trait Asm Param:
Is the animation that plays in CAS when the buff is selected
List of Conflicting traits:
Simply means, a romantic sim can't also be unflirty.
Display name, display name gender neutral and the icon need no introduction:
Min Lod Value is a parameter used by the SimInfo to know if the Info should persist or not, nothing too much important to us, the Mod Constructor knows better:
Species and tags:
The species allowed to have this trait, when it's written like this it's at default (humans) and the category this trait falls into (it's a personality trait, and it's an emotional one) tags are also used in a number of way, you only really need to know what they are.
Once again, the description needs no introductions, the trait type does. There are various types of traits, like hidden, gameplay, personality etc... the Constructor will ask us what kind of trait we'll be doing.
Ui trait category tag is used to categorize the trait in the Ui, here is left at default (PERSONALITY)
Lastly the whimset:
A series of whims associated with this trait, if you want a custom one, you'll need to make a whimset in the Constructor.
Now that we made a tour of how the options look like in a Maxis trait, let's see how they look like in the Constructor:
So... trait name, icon and description:
Trait type (personality) and category:
Core buffs:
I used the reference from the game, but we can, and will, make our own core buff, we can make more than one.
Ages:
Now, this is all the Constructor gives us as a base... we need more. We need, for example, buff replacements. So to add more options to our buff, we go up above:
Add Component:
Select Buff Replacements, give it a label, and click Create Component:
The new component will be added at the bottom, and we can add stuff by clicking on the + icon:
Quick note, you do this by clicking on it:
Select from the drop down menu one option (New Element will ask you to create one, Existing Element will ask you to associate one you already have created, Game Reference will allow you to select an element from the game)
We can also add the Whimset:
And add the various Whims:
And we can add the species restriction:
So, basically, what I did is remake the Romantic Trait in the Constructor, so you can see how the same trait looks like in the Constructor UI:
Now we can export the trait, and look at it in S4S. We'll get into making our own traits pretty soon.
Here we have the SimData file, the XML for the trait tuning, and an aspiration tuning (this is the whimset we made), let's look at the tuning of the trait and see if we can track down the same options we saw in Maxis tuning:
As you can notice, they're not exactly the same, but close enough... and you can understand what does what. This is important to know what we're doing, and also in case we'll need to manually fix something.
