WIP Updates

Hey all! I know it's been a minute since I posted anything but I wanted to make sure everything was working properly before I posted any WIP updates.

I have a lot to say lol, if you want the deets you can read more about my process at the end of this post. For now I want to bullet point some of the additions and changes to current and upcoming content. As a quick note - if this turns out to be a very large series of updates I'm going to provide a zip of all updated files/folders to everyone here on Patreon. I don't usually do that but I want to make sure it's easy for you all to get caught up with any new stuff. I will also put together detailed instructions, and likely a video, of how everything goes together and how things have changed.

New Stuff:

• There's a new script mod that will be required for all my mods. It adds a bunch of new tags to the game. These tags will allow new item categories (like 'Any...Ingredient' for my recipes that should not interfere with SCCO and will only work with my recipes. This script also lays the foundation for other mods and mod updates so that you don't have to update the mod itself for new cc to work with it. More on  that soon.
• I know it was hard getting hold of my ingredients for recipes so I created a whole new delivery system for groceries, ingredients, and supplies. It allows you to shop from several different stores from your sim's phone. Each store has it's own specialty and hours. All stores will close after dark except the Grocer, but know that prices are generally more expensive at the Grocer, especially at night! A uniformed Courier will deliver your items directly to your door in a bag/box that matches the store it came from. Both bulk and single items will be available for sale and I have plans to add a Specialty and Occult shop in the near future. This service will be included with the Core Crafting file and be base game compatible.
• I've added a stack of cookbooks object for crafting items. This will include menus for crafting recipes like food ingredients, preserved ingredients, canning items, etc. I made this so people who don't have the cookbook installed have a way to craft ingredients.
• The expeller is finished and will be coming with it's first ingredient, olive oil, once I've finished this update
• I'm almost done with an add-on that lets you search for mollusks, more on that soon!
• It's not live yet, but I've updated the download pages on my site so it will show more information about the download. I understand that some items didn't have enough info about them but I needed to re-design the pages before I was able to add that

Updated Stuff:

• I'm consolidating required files into several core files, one for each group of mods (Cooking, Garden, & Crafting). This means that once everything is done, more often than not, you'll only need to update the Core file instead of each individual file.
• Milled items are having their icons updated so you can actually see what the item is lol
• To make it more clear I updated the text for 'Measure all Servings' with a number so you know exactly how many servings you'll pull
• And many more small updates I'll detail in a future post. 

I still have a bit to do before I can release these, unfortunately because I've consolidated tunings it also means that everything else has to be released at the same time. This also means I'm unable to add any new mods or recipes so for right now I'm going to be focusing on objects and builds.

Content Coming in the Next Few Days:

I've got some separated plants, new planters, and a 'Barless' bus for you all from the new Werewolves pack. I added an extra slot in the bucket of the half barrel planter for plant or rock deco, and I learned how to modify the footprint of the bus so you can actually use the entire interior of it! I'm probably going to add a few more items and post those separated beds I forgot I made a few months back. If you all have any suggestions for any other items you want to see separated let me know in the comments below. 

I also have a small lot coming as well for Moonwood Mills. Nothing major, but I wanted a little shack ready for when my foraging mod is finished. I'm gonna have a small forager sim that lives there and spends their time foraging in the woods, maybe hanging out with Greg. 😉

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The Process:

As I said in a previous post, while adding new content I came across some issues with overlapping required files. My hours at work were short this month so I decided to take advantage of the extra time to backtrack and plan out all my major projects and avoid having this issue again. 

After using up lots of scratch paper and post it notes I chose to consolidate all my important tunings into several required core files. These will be required for their respective category mods to work but you'll only need one for each main category. I'm also moving a lot of smaller tuning files over to the core files so that most of the time you will not need to update each piece of content, and instead would only update the core file. If any important tuning gets added from her on out it will be added to one of these files. 

I've always tried to make my mods and recipes as modular as possible so they work with other creators' cc. At this point the amount of required and connected files has become impossible to keep up (and frustrating for you all, I'm sure) and I just need to build my mods the way I want them instead of trying to accommodate everyone else's. I will do my best to not interfere with others mods, but I'll be focusing on what's good for my content moving forward.

I started by creating a script, mainly to make it easier to build/re-build my other mods. Then while I was creating it I just decided based off the last few polls I've put up regarding ingredients that I'd go ahead and add some more options for 'Any...' ingredients. They'll mainly be used for Simple Living ingredients per one of our last polls. I originally made the cost to craft = 0 when you had all ingredients so that people could live off what they eat. Since we have the Simple Living lot trait now and since the majority of you voted on it, I'm going to impose a small fee to create all recipes. 

Anyway, from there I had to find a way for sims to get the ingredients. I know there have been a lot of questions about where to find stuff, and feedback about making it easier to buy/find stuff. My 'Shop BrazenLotus Farms' mod just wasn't enough and updating it would be daunting so I chose to use a script to help me build some stores using the 'Delivery' option on your Sims phones. I was inspired by the game 'Story of Seasons' and decided to make several different types of stores, like a Garden store and a Supply store, and I made them all have their own schedules. I made it so they close at night, but I left the Grocer open 24 hours so you can always get ingredients. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to organize everything but I ended up making the Grocer only sell individual ingredients since you would actually use those in recipes. The other stores will have a small selection of individual ingredients, but most of their stock will be bulk items (sack of herbs, can of coffee). 

All of that was a lot of work so I settled on using a single delivery service, Brazen Delivery, to handle it all. Originally I used the same grocery bag but realized it was kinda difficult to figure out what came from where so I took some extra time to make each delivery bag/box unique. It actually turned out way better than I thought it would. Seeing your delivery person walk up with a fresh crate of veggies from the farm was so satisfying!

Well this has turned into a novel so I'll wrap up here. I'll post another update as soon as I get through the next chunk of this project and once this is complete I'll get back to what I was working on previously. 

Thank you all for your support! 💖