Really glad to see this thread. I logged on this morning to see if any information was about!
I am really ambivalent about my Simbots. My first one is actually "My Best Friend". He arrived rather tattered and grungy. A trip to the stylist did not fix it. He is not the "son" of the Sims who got him as a reward, and, contrary to the Reward's name, did not arrive with status greater than "Friend". He quickly became a very proficient Inventor and got the Opportunity to make another. Done.
My second Simbot is the first's "Son", arriving from the completion of the Opportunity chain. He's shiny. Just like an adoption, the relationships are minimal between the Simbot and the household.
The second Simbot quickly hit on a townie who was a Pop Icon at the time. After a few "A Simbot!" interrupti, they hit it off and married. That got me thinking. I am wondering if the Simbots can have children. So... One of my other "slacker" Sims (LTW fulfilled, no real career... his whole day is gathering, breaking Space Rock Boards and gardening...) registered with the city as an Inventor. He finally fulfilled the chain of Opportunities and made a Simbot, who is his daughter. Now the "daughter" and the "My Best Friend" Simbots are "Fiancé"s.
So my Sims's household has three Simbots, with varying and very different relationships. All three started out with "Brave" and "Hydrophobic" Traits and high "Handiness" and "Inventing" Skills.
So my generally "good" feelings about the Simbots are not many. I really like them, in concept. I like that they can be "tailored" to a skill set almost immediately after "conception". My first had a skill set almost ideally tailored to Gardening. My second had a skill set almost perfectly tailored to any artistic career path but his LTW was to master painting and writing so I ran with it. My third, though, had a really strange mix. Three of the five Traits would have made her LTW to rescue 30 Sims challenging, to say the least. "Evil" was one of them. The good news is that any Trait incompatibility can be "fixed" with ease, and if done early, without any real extra work. The very best thing I can say about Simbots is that the lack of hygiene repair is a mixed blessing. Activities that necessitate bathing are a perfect fit for Simbots. I can gladly live with the loss of positive moodlets for the time gained from not bathing. Match this with the appropriate Rewards and you can have a "maintenance-free" Simbot. (I may have to try one with a skill set for a Nanny/Maid in a busy household with too many kids...)
Oddly, the Simbots don't "Short Out" from working in the garden when the sprinklers are running. I avoided that for a while but then noticed my first Simbot walking through them en route to a task and gave it a shot, thinking that a four hour "Short Out", followed by the necessary "Sleep" would sync him up again with the household. Alas, working in the sprinklers, as opposed to "Playing" in them, did not help me.
My frustrations are many.
The "A Simbot!" reaction can happen any time, even during sleep with a Simbot spouse. Bleh. The only thing that seems to have stopped that particular interaction is the relationship status of "Old Friend". This status happened after the MBF Simbot decided to "Play with Sprinkler" and "Short Out" occurred. I chose the "Repair" option and on we went. The MBF seems to want to "Play with Sprinkler" any time he has nothing in his action queue. Any time. Particularly dangerous since he's a Gardener by trade. (I am now in the habit of queueing either "Eat" or "Use" after "Tend Garden".) After the second "Short Out", I decided to see what "Reprogram" was, and was pleasantly surprised that I could pick new Traits as a result. The unpleasant surprises were that he still had to be repaired, and all of his relations were reset to minimal levels. The only exception was that the repairing Sims became an "Old Friend" immediately after choosing "Thank for Repairing" from the "Friendly" menu. The relationship bar was not full, but they don't have "A Simbot!" reactions when they pass. "A Simbot!" reaction even occurs between Simbots reacting to another Simbot. Only -really- good relationships with full green bars seems to alleviate this.
Frankly, the more I see the "A Simbot!" reaction, the more it smacks of pure prejudice to me. I get that it ties in to some of the Opportunities that pop up for Simbots, but to my mind, it's not nice. It's also very frustrating from a playing perspective. I am diligently working to boost my various household's relationships to see if that mitigates the chaos that "A Simbot!" produces.
(One note I might make about that is that my household has a Sims who joined the household from Shang Simla. He seems completely unaffected by Simbots. He has yet to have "A Simbot!" reaction to any of the three. The other NPC added to the household and married to one still wakes up at least once a Sims week with the reaction.)
Simbots are slow to get from place to place. They don't seem to want to use those nifty "rocket boots" all that often.
Simbots have no new animations. They "Dance" the same. They "Sleep" the same. They even "Woohoo" the same. (Yes, a Simbot can and will "Woohoo" with a Sims.) Their "Art" looks identical to what a normal Sims creates. They don't even get to wear any of the Martial Arts belts they earn.
I anticipate others' reactions to these guys and gals. Lots of potential but the implementation seems a bit off, to me.
