lumpinou

[Misc.] Mod Updates, + 2025 Retrospective, + 'Reach of Support' Summary

Added 2025-12-18 22:53:14 +0000 UTC

---- 1. TINY MOD UPDATES ----

RPO M10 & (M0 for the M10 update): fixed Sims older than Teen being dragged into custody visits sometimes
RPO M14: Update for improved compatibility with recent new feature of PandaSama's Childbirth mod
Independent Mobile Phone mod: fixed the interactions to remove parental controls not fully removing them
Law & Disorder: Two sims can now agree to never automatically report each other (if you're using manual + auto mode), under "Change Relationship" (EA menu)

---- 2. GENERAL INFO ----

I’ve been sick and struggling to shake it off, in addition to trying to emerge from a burnout break that was in the end probably too short to fix me up. Trying to manage this body and mind to come back strong as soon as I can.

I say this every year I'm sure, but next year I'd like to try and learn to not do this in one form or another 7 days a week so I don't end up crashing so hard 😂

I know you're patiently waiting for CPS Overhaul and I thank you for that.

---- 3. YEAR 2025 RETROSPECTIVE ----

Since the year is close to it end, let's do a little “look back” / retrospective like last year!

This year’s biggest new mods & mod features:

To make Sim families easier to manage, this year brought “Auto Bio family labeling / tracking mod (RPO m20)” and “Auto in-laws and step-family labeling / tracking mod (RPO m21)”.
- These labels can be used by myself and other modders to create gameplay linked to relationships the game itself doesn’t track, be it grand-aunts or mothers in law :)
With “Pie Menu Load & Lag Diagnosis Tool”, I tried to bring you the player more clarity over your pie menu lag and the load that each of your packs and mods might add to your pie menu in game. “Pie Menu Lag Helpers” were small mods accompanying the former to try to help the problem of lag.
With “Do Something (Command Non-Active Sims)”, I tried to bring you a lightweight mod to help orient the in-game chaos when needed.
“Law & Disorder” finally got acquainted with your games this year!
- Back when it was announced years ago, it was a much simpler concept. The drag of having announced it so early and only finishing eight years later is not an experience I want to reproduce for either of us 😂 but in the end, the delay made it possible for the mod to be what it is today: my skills grew with every year of practice and Law & Disorder used every bit of skill I’ve gathered in modding. Your long-term support and patience has made this mod possible and I hope it didn’t disappoint too much. It might be the most difficult TS4 mod I've made yet.
“Sim Info Manager” saw a lot of additions and improvements this year, from off-lot sims functionalities to skill and death cheats, a filtered sim search function and more. It also received many additions for modders. I love this little multi-tool / swiss-army knife mod and will continue developing it to make it always more useful to both mod users and modders.
I don’t usually work closely with objects, but the hybrid mod “Functional Mobile: Cell Phone As An Independent Object” lead me through interesting paths in that direction. A “small” looking mod with complex elements behind the curtain, this was a fun concept to explore and bring to your game
I experimented with new modding directions this year again, be it with screenshot concepts like “Immortalize Moments” or UI modding with “Sim Profile Info Re Ordering”. Always good to gather more possibilities!
And, as every year, I've learned a lot more and gotten better at this modding thing, which is always exciting to me!

Hopefully some of the year's new mod features filled a niche that worked for you!

---- 4. WHAT YOUR SUPPORT HERE SUPPORTS ----

I'm not always very good at communicating what I do, so while we're here summarizing things, I thought I could get into that a little (at the risk of sounding like a self ad 😂 but I'll bear the cringe)

obviously, first of all, your support supports MOD DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE.
- I won't delve much deeper into that because that's what I usually talk about. I have many mods and many plans to expand them and make new ones. This is the core of my TS4 activity, and though it is ever slow and tedious, each year brings so much more to the table of things made and released. I am glad and thankful to have modded through 2025 with you 😊

But beyond mods, I thought to also have a look back at what other Sims 4 developments I am part of, since your support also empowers the rest of my creator model 😊:

Mod Hound platform: this dog is still new to many of you, but it is a work I consider game changing in terms of helping users of my mod keep their files up to date.
- How it works? You click ‘check my mods’, point to your mods folder, and read the result! It’s not a program you download, just a website, for maximum convenience.
- Your support makes it possible for me to withstand not only the development of the platform but also its very real hosting costs.
  - P.S.: In addition, this year, the Plumbbuddy team integrated Mod Hound into their program, for even more convenience for you!
Modder Tools: of course I am no Andrew (creator of S4S) or Frankk or Lot51 (pillars of the modding community who with their tools ushered a new TS4 modding era) and never will be. Yet I believe in the concept of “doing what one can” and so I have made some tools for modders myself, which I host on my Mod Hound platform (mod-wise, I also have the ‘modder side’ of Sim Info Manager for this purpose). I hope to keep exploring in that direction and take more requests from other modders to create little utilities that can help us all in our creation process.
Mod Support & Reach-ability:
- before talking about my own participation there, I must talk about others. Of course at this point (and for a long time now), I can’t do all mod support alone. I would have no time whatsoever to create and maintain mods if I did. I am very thankful for helpers on Discord, on my server particularly (Cidira is a life saver, and other members like BlackCherry and casual helpers make a world of difference).
- On my part, I effort to read back every single post made in the support channels, and I answer there when I can. Beyond support, I also try to keep as reachable as possible, so that anybody can get to me if they need to - whether they're a patron or not (though patrons do get Patreon comment and message perk which is what I see first in notifications). All this is a time / energy commitment, and one I could not make if I was not modding full time thanks to you.
Modder community presence: I have never mentioned that before on here because it feels weird to, but it IS part of the reach of your support. I am very active on the modder’s forums and try to help out regularly – once in a while I even manage to be useful 😂. We have a great modder community, we share with each other in our joint goal to make the game more fun for YOU, and that’s why making this time commitment to participate insight and whatnot to the modder’s forum almost daily is important to me. Thanks to your support I mod enough that I can actually have insight to participate 😂 I hope to keep learning and keep growing as a creator
Further Mod User Tutorials / 'education': I have started some further posts to inform mod users on certain aspects of modding and mod managing to better empower them. I would like to keep working on that and publish it next year. As many others, I want to help reinforce the bridge between what modders and support members instruct and the mod user's experience, to create better understanding of instructions and meaning of reports such as last exception reports etc.
Pricing models: This is another thing I've never talked about in those terms, but it matters to me and I bet it matters to you. By keeping me going, you also incidentally prove that one doesn't need to be a perma-paywaller or charge indecent monthly prices for full early access to survive in the creator's world. I thank you for sending out this message to the TS4 world with me.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

And we are done with this unusually long post! Thanks for bearing with me, today as ever 😂

TS4 is still valuable to me and I'm sure to many of you, as a place to create - not only mods, but stories, little pieces of soul!
I am glad for the journey so far and hope to continue journeying. Against hate in the world, I believe stories practice empathy, spreading love and compassion 💕

Bringing more possibilities to your stories, if only a little, is my honor and joy, beyond the less fun aspects of the 'job'. At the end of the day, I still believe our sandbox is and shall remain OURS if we are there to make it so.

(I am also keeping an eye out on the development of other such games, we'll have a lot to look at next year on that it sees!)