trait chip priorities?

[igor140]

does anyone else have a problem with the chips not prioritizing things properly? I had three bots: two office drones and a maid/ nanny. at first, all had the friendly functions trait. they became friends, which was nice, but they would pillow fight instead of doing their jobs. the maid would leave dirty dishes out for HOURS at a time. the infant almost starved to death. the bed wasn't made for two days. finally, i removed all of the friendly functions chips, and it got better: the office drones no longer distract the maid, but she would still make beds instead of attend the starving, shrieking baby covered in its own filth.

so eventually i had to create a fourth bot whose sole trait chip and function in life is to be the nanny. she is locked in the room with the baby, and cannot open the door. even so, she is still EXTREMELY slow to respond to needs. the baby will cry for a full hour while the bot stares out the window.

so it seems like EA rolled out another untested pile of bugs. any ideas? or do we wait for twallan to make this mod playable as well?

my original maidbot also aged up. she turned invisible. i had to "customize" her in order to even have a physical form. even so, she still does weird things. she was the original nanny, and rather than change the screaming baby's diaper, she covered her ears, and left the room to pillow fight (and yes, she had the nanny trait at that time).  as punishment, i've locked her in the basement to see how long it takes until she "dies".  so far it's been a day and a half. 

[igor140]

this is ridiculous.  i have a bot locked in the room with the infant.  her ONLY trait chip is nanny.  it is literally just the two of them and some toys in this room.  the baby got within 4 hours of starving, within 7 hours of dying (?) from loneliness, and sat with an unchanged diaper in its own filth for over two hours.  this means that the nannybot went literally OVER SIX HOURS without doing the ONLY thing she knows how to do.

i was really hoping to have a small army of helper type bots to run the day-to-day household for me.  all of the reviews, walkthrough, interviews, and websites said that was EXACTLY what the plumbots were supposed to be.  but they lied.  it does not work.  at all.  this is not viable.  this is not the expansion i was promised when i paid for it.

then for over 12 hours my human was not able to tune them up.  at all.  there was no option for it.  it wasn't even grayed out, it simply did not exist. 

the bot in the dungeon is still alive after five days with no maintenance and no electricity.  they don't die.  yet another lie from EA. 

so far the only plumbot-related functions of this expansion that work with any reliability are the creation and the plumbot having a job... which would have required a dedicated effort to screw up.  the only part of this expansion that has NOT been a disappointment has been the jetpack and hoverboard transportation thingies.  and you can't even have them both active at the same time.

please tell me that SOME ONE out there is having better luck with their plumbots.

[Perturbee]

(...)
then for over 12 hours my human was not able to tune them up.  at all.  there was no option for it.  it wasn't even grayed out, it simply did not exist.

That is weird and likely a glitch. My bots have never had a greyed-out tune-up.

the bot in the dungeon is still alive after five days with no maintenance and no electricity.  they don't die.  yet another lie from EA.

As far as I know, they are NOT supposed to DIE at all! When a bot runs out of power, they shut down and don't turn back on until their power motive is filled. As for the maintenance motive, when that one is empty the bot should malfunction (with some external electricity sparks or smoke visible), but still won't die. They usually self-tuneup before it happens.

so far the only plumbot-related functions of this expansion that work with any reliability are the creation and the plumbot having a job... which would have required a dedicated effort to screw up.  the only part of this expansion that has NOT been a disappointment has been the jetpack and hoverboard transportation thingies.  and you can't even have them both active at the same time.

please tell me that SOME ONE out there is having better luck with their plumbots.

My household bot (RoBotany Gardener, HandiBot, Competent Cleaner, Efficient, Solar Powered) does her tasks well. Occasionally she needs to be "reminded" to tend the garden, but that's as bad as it gets. When she had the Musical Machine installed along with the rest she'd end up playing music and forgetting other tasks. Now she often stands simply waiting for some task to appear (aka dirty dishes, plants needing tending and such). Occasionally she decided it's needed to scan my Sim, especially when my Sim was asleep. So I locked the bedroom door.

My other home-bot (Efficient, Limitless Learning, Holo Projector, Friendly Functions, Sentience, Solar Powered, Office Drone) needs more "guidance", which is what I expect with a combination of trait chips.

So far it seems that a balance of certain trait chips does work with the desired effects, at least for me. I haven't tried the RoboNanny yet, so maybe that's where a lot of problems you're having stem from.

Good luck and happy Simming!

[butterfly]

I had a bot with nanny, maid and handy trait chips and I had to kick her out because she was too anoying, she'd wake up a toddler just to play with her and almost never did any celaning. She would also always put a baby on the floor when she had to feed him and go do something completely random. I'm hoping  this is a glitch and that they'll sort it out soon.

[igor140]

thank you for your responses!  it seems that your experiences are in line with my own.

perturbee:
you may find this little mod useful:
http://mysims3blog.blogspot.com/2013/10/no-autonomous-plumbot-scan-by-scarlet.html

i had to install that within 5 minutes of building my first bot because she would wake my sim up five times a night to scan her.  so MAYBE that is causing some of these issues, but based upon your reports, that's not the case.

now that my MaidBot only has cleaning and repair (and NO ONE in the house has friendly functions), she will eventually clean... but it will sometimes be half a day before she does it.  i don't LIKE that with dirty dishes or a broken toilet... but that is simply not acceptable when it comes to an infant.  when the baby is crying, i expect EVERYTHING ELSE to stop and have that need tended IMMEDIATELY.  more than once, when the baby starts crying, the mother will begin heading there from across the house (it's a big house), while NannyBot just sits there covering her ears.  that shouldn't happen.  ever.

i have never used a butler to help raise a child, but my handful of experiences with babysitters is that they do this appropriately. 

@butterfly:
i'm finding similar things, but waking up the baby doesn't bother me as much as letting it starve. 

so yeah... i'm simply amazed that EA let this one roll out as is.  most of the bot functions seem to work... kind of... but this nanny-ness is simply broken and unplayable.  i am rather upset about this.

[Mordhain]

I haven't done a lot with the bots yet, but it sounds like one of two things is likely causing the issue. The first is that there might be a mod causing the issue. I've noticed similar things with the NPC roommates at University since I installed Into the Future. I have yet to figure that one out. The other possible cause is your autonomy settings. I don't play with high autonomy and never had issues at University before with it set to mid-range. It's possible that with the bots, you need it set on high autonomy for them to automatically do their jobs since bots are controllable. I would try changing your settings for autonomy to max and then load your game and see what happens.

[Veldmuisie]

I also had trouble with the Robonanny bot picking up the toddler for no reason, so you really have to micromanage him.  The auto scanning is ridiculous when you do not have a pool (they will swim instead).  My favorite bot has limitless learning, solar powered, efficient, simulated emotions (for happy mood and life time points), office drone, and cleaner.  I gave him a holodisk to talk to when he's lonely and he will do that autonomously when he is out of tasks.  I used to power him down when there is nothing to do, but having a chess board outside is a great way to keep him busy and  soak up the sun.  He learned gardening and handiness, and he's doing great without me.   

I'm not fond of the other social chips, the bots are unpredictable and bothering my sims too much.  When it comes to creative chips, I prefer my sims to do those.