The Sims 4 - Weight Reactions mod

[Jentera23]

One of the (many) things that’s always bugged me about The Sims 4 is how Sims seem to be completely oblivious to their weight changing. I have a Sim in my current save that has put on nearly 80 points of weight due to the stresses of university - and yet they seem to have no opinion whatsoever on this, good or bad! Whether you’re coming at it from a realism perspective or a kink perspective, that’s pretty underwhelming.

And so, here’s my take on improving that

What does this mod do?

Weight Reactions adds features to try to increase the realism of weight gain/loss:

• Weight change reactions
  • Sims will get moodlets when they ‘notice’ their weight has changed^[1].
    • These change depending on context - e.g. a fresh gain is treated differently to backsliding on a diet.
  • When a Sim is above their baseline weight^[2]:
    • They will get fatigued more easily, and feel uncomfortable exercising.
    • They can complain about their weight to other Sims (not recommended if the listener is heavier!)
  • When a Sim is below their baseline weight:
    • They will get hungry quicker, and occasionally get irritable as a result.
    • They will gain weight more easily than normal.
    • They can brag about their weight loss to other Sims.
  • If a Sim stays at a certain size for 3 days, that will become their new baseline weight.
• Situational reactions
  • When a Sim is overweight or significantly above their baseline size:
    • They will occasionally get in a bad mood.
    • They will be embarrassed in certain outfits.
• Debug commands
  • weightreactions.show_stats <simID> - Shows the Sim’s weight stats.
  • weightreactions.set_current <amount> <simID> - Sets the Sim’s current weight.
  • weightreactions.set_baseline <amount> <simID> - Sets the Sim’s baseline weight.
  • weightreactions.set_remembered <amount> <simID> - Sets the Sim’s remembered weight.
  • A Sim’s ID can be fetched using sims.get_sim_id_by_name.
  • If you leave the Sim ID out, the command will affect the currently active Sim.

Currently all Sims react positively to weight loss and negatively to weight gain, but this is only intended as a starting point - in the future, I’d like to add traits/skills allowing Sims to become more body positive, or even feedists!

Any feedback on additional things that should be added would be appreciated too

Is this compatible with other mods?

Yes - this mod does not override anything from the base game, so there should be no conflicts.

Changelog

• 0.1
  • Initial release.
• 0.2
  • Fixed icons not working without Seasons installed.
• 0.3
  • Weight reactions now happen more reliably (within 10 Sim minutes of hitting a threshold).
  • Fitness/appetite effects are now tied to whether the Sim is above/below their baseline, rather than whether they recently gained/lost weight.
  • Being below baseline now makes it easier for a Sim to gain weight.
  • Debug menu replaced with cheat commands, to avoid clutter.
• 0.4
  • Brought back the debug menu as an optional package.

Dependencies

• XML Injector must be installed - this mod will have no effect without it.
• Roburky’s Fitness Controls mod is recommended, with the 1.75x body size limits.
• I would also recommend installing my Gradual Physique Changes mod, so that your Sims don’t start reacting to changes you can’t actually see yet!

Download

Unzip this file into your Mods folder:

https://mega.nz/file/Z7kCDBJK#dtZsr7GZlnR5B-UmwCbzTySH_2dEyuLAvkqTQXdG3tg

• WeightReactions.package is required for the mod to work.
• WeightReactions.ts4script is required for console commands to work.
• WeightReactions_DebugMenu.package is optional - it adds an extra pie menu to Sims with some debug commands.

---

1. Currently, a ‘noticable’ change is defined as ±10 points, with the checks being disabled if the Sim is below -20 weight (as you can’t really tell the difference past that point). ↩︎

2. Each Sim’s baseline defaults to their current weight when the mod is first activated, but this can be overridden via debug commands for storytelling purposes. ↩︎

[burntmagic]

Excellent idea! I haven’t done anything in the sims in a while but this may bring me back for a bit.

Other potential reactions sims could have off the top of my head:

• Embarrassed from being largest among the sims around them/larger than who they are talking to (difficult to implement, I imagine)
• Anger at being hungry because they are overweight
• uncomfortable when clothes are too small? could do the same weight-band tracking thing you did under the tech details, but have the uncomfortable mood only leave when new clothes are bought.
• If in a relationship, tense about partner’s thoughts about the SIM gaining weight
• Related, happy or maybe confidant if partner does not react negatively (maybe getting a little too big scope here with other sim reactions)
• Happy when eating and having recently gained weight and/or angry/embarrassed after eating and recently gained weight
• sad if not in a relationship and gained weight, body image issues

Not thinking about ease of implementation, just putting out ideas.

[Jentera23]

Ideas are welcome regardless of feasibility, it’s all good inspiration

[That_Randomguy]

This mod looks great, I think the feedist traits should be added asap though and I think many here would agree haha.

Easy ones such as getting horny by increased weight, or getting horny by seeing others gain weight could be faily straightworward to implement given how it works? Scaling effects based on the speed?

[CaptPaddington]

an alternative/addition for the embarrassed buff suggested by @burntmagic: when the Sim is dressed in more revealing clothes (such as sleepwear/swimwear/hot weather)

[Koloss]

I had a thought of buffs tailored to specific body parts that have grown from gaining weight, like how a pair of pants feels tighter around a sim’s butt, or this shirt doesn’t cover the sim’s belly very well type of buffs. Randomize them so different clothes/outfits or even the whole outfit pulls up several buffs. Idk if that’s doable or not haha.

[2-36]

I think (assume) it would be easy to make more neutral or positive reactions appear based on what traits the sims have, like if they were Self Assured, a Foodie, Glutton, Shameless, Carefree, &c.

[DoubleBubble]

I agree with others that you could link sentiments on weight gain to personality, whether or not the sim has the feedist trait, or you could create a separate system that implements this. IMO the last option provides the most room for creativity gameplay wise but is also the most difficult the implement.

Some ideas I had for buffs:
Happy/Flirty “My butt/boobs got bigger!” buff after gaining weight (could be tied to romantic)
Sad “This used to fit…” buff when putting on a different outfit after gaining weight
Tense/Embarrassed/Uncomfortable “They’re looking at me!” buff when in a highly-populated space and overweight (could be tied to Paranaoid and Socially Awkward trait)
Uncomfortable “*Huff*” buff when exercising while overweight
Angry “This used to be so easy!” buff when exercising after gaining weight (could be tied to Active, Hot-Headed, and Adventurous sims)
Happy “So soft…” moodlet when extremely overweight (could tie to Glutton, Lazy, Slob, and Foodie)
Sad “I’m such a pig” moodlet when extremely overweight (could tie to Gloomy, Active, Adventurous)
Ask for reassurance interaction after recently gaining weight

And I do think that other sims should have reactions to the weight gain of other sims based on their relationship with that sim (sims with higher relationships are more likely to be supportive/indifferent) and the sims’ traits. Mean, evil, and snob sims will make fun of the sim, whereas foodie, glutton, lazy, slob, and feedist will praise the sim. Good, cheerful, generous, loyal, outgoing, and bro sims won’t praise the sim but will respond positively to the ask for reassurance interaction, but ambitious, active, adventurous, neat, overachiever, non-committal, and proper sims will respond negatively.

[Jentera23]

Thanks everyone for the ideas!

I definitely agree with all of the suggestions to tie things to specific interactions/traits. My original plan was to just randomly pick from a list of reaction buffs every time the Sim’s weight changed, but this felt really unsatisfying in practice, as the flavour text didn’t really feel connected to what was going on in the game (e.g. I had an ‘angry at scale’ one, but that felt weird when it popped up while they were outside!)

It also occurred to me that there’s a lot of other fun ways the weight tracking buffs could be used, e.g:

• Making it easier to gain weight if a Sim has been fat before (or increasing their appetite)
• Reducing a Sim’s stamina based on their weight (maybe only if they’re below a certain fitness level?)

IDK - at this point I think I just need to make my mind up and start implementing something

[Borabora]

I think making the moods apply on a system level to all sims and then have them reversed if a sim has a “feedist” trait or cancel out completely with certain traits like self-assured would be the simplest.

A menu for toggling all the features you are brainstorming would also be cool for customization. You could probably toggle on a per-sim basis and enable different reactions that way too with some tinkering. I’ve seen several mods make use of menus when clicking on sims themselves, like MCC.

[gamingcat02261991]

I think that there should be different emotions depending on gaining and losing: For example, Sims who want to get fat become happy or aroused when gaining weight and they become sad or frustrated when losing weight (as if they’re begrudgingly dieting against their will). The opposite can be said for any Sim that refuses to get fat.

[nhersh]

You could even extend it to interactions as well - compliment weight gain/loss, “Tell them they’re too skinny” or “Make a fat joke” as a mischief interaction. Every time they make a fat joke, however, an RNG decides whether or not they get an “eat your words” buff which either makes them gain a certain amount of weight or maxes out their weight entirely, with an embarrassed buff to go along with it.

[Pootricia]

Definitely feel like “Move first” is the right move. Coming from someone who’s done loads of writing, getting started is half the battle. My thoughts on the matter are like you’ve said - focus on reactions the way the statistical average of people would react, and later on you can do the bodyposi stuff.

Some interactions that would fit this come to mind! For instance, after a sim changes a size band, another sim can “Mention Weight Changes.” At its simplest, have this be a semi-risky interaction that is likely to decrease friendship/relationship if the two aren’t friends or if the other one’s in a tense/angry/sad mood, which gives the one whose weight has been commented on an angry/tense/sad moodlet, and a sad moodlet to the one who mentioned it, and if it succeeds, it increases relationship but has a chance to give a sad moodlet to the sim whose weight has changed. If you wanna get really into it, maybe have it give a happy moodlet to someone who’s lost weight and is trying to do so.

Sims could also probably volunteer information about their weight to other sims - “worry about weight gain” if they moved up a band, “boast about weight loss” if they moved down a band. Also, I think a self-interaction would be right - “Plan to lose weight” or something along those lines, where your sim gets some kind of tracker noting that they’re trying to lose weight, which could interact with other weight-based interactions. This could allow for them to “Announce weight-loss journey” to other sims, and for those sims to “Check in on weight loss” or “Make diet suggestion.” These generally might be helpful interactions, but also give them the chance to give the sim in question a tense moodlet, or for this tense moodlet to just occur if their weight-loss plan isn’t making any progress. I also see the potential for a “Complain about diet” interaction to try to relieve stress for other people!

An interaction for if someone has the “health food nut” trait might be to give them the ability to “Worry About Gains” to someone who has gone up a weight band recently, with this being similar to Mention Weight Changes, but with the change that if successful, it has the chance to add an Energized buff to the person in question that increases their chance of autonomously working out, but the relationship decrease from being not close enough or not in the right mood being more severe.

And it goes without saying - mean and evil sims would RELISH the opportunity to fat shame people with this mod. A “Shame for weight” interaction would fit right in, with the moodlet changing slightly on if the sim is thin or not - basically with the flavor that thin sims are being ridiculed for being “too skinny/eat a sandwich/etc” and anyone over that is being called fat. You COULD open this interaction up for all sims, but I feel like it would be more flavorful for this to be a mean/evil sim thing, with most other “fat shaming” falling under unsuccessful Weight Mention/Worry About Weight interactions.

Sorry if this is so long. Can’t wait to see the progress on this mod!

[Condenser]

Still looking forward to this amazing mod! Eagerly awaiting…

[Will_Campbell]

found this mod on google by searching to see if anyone had made a sims 4 reactions to weight gain mod - please do publish this, even if it’s just the underlying engine!

the suggestion above for being embarrassed in swimwear seems good

[Condenser]

Still hoping for a good outcome! We NEED this mod!

[Pootricia]

Agreed! This mod idea seems too good to just drop. If OP is no longer working on it, I’d love to see someone else pick it up.

[Jentera23]

Extremely late reply, sorry about that!

I dropped working on this for a while, as Mod Constructor was getting increasingly buggy with every patch (and the dev recently stopped updating it beyond critical bug fixes, which is a shame).

However, the new expansion inspired me to start tinkering again, working directly with the XML this time. It’s a bit of a pain, but it does seem more flexible in the long run, and it actually led to me finding a much less clunky approach to tracking weight changes over time!

So I possibly might have some progress to report soon. If not, I’ll at least try to post a proof of concept so that someone else can pick up where I left off

[Pootricia]

No worries! Modmaking is a messy creature and no shame for dropping off for a while! Can’t wait to see what you put out, whatever it may be!

[Jentera23]

I’ve returned from the XML mines Here’s some more details - both so I can get people’s feedback, and so people can steal the idea if I’m not able to finish it…

The new weight system adds two extra stats behind the scenes:

• Baseline weight: What size does the Sim consider ‘normal’ for them?
  • This starts out as their current weight, but you can change it via a menu.
• Remembered weight: What size does the Sim currently think they are?
  • This updates after they gain/lose enough for it to be noticable (currently 10 points, may tweak this).

This doesn’t seem like much, but you can build a ton of fun stuff on top of it!

As a starting point, I’ve added:

• Moodlets that appear when a Sim ‘notices’ their weight has changed.
  • Thanks to the ‘baseline’ stat, this includes different variants for rebound gains/successful diets/etc!
• A few random chance moodlets, based on the Sim’s current situation.
  • e.g. embarrassment at size, getting ‘hangry’ after losing weight
• Some (fairly bare bones) interactions for complaining about weight gain and bragging about weight loss.
• For the first couple of days after gaining weight, the Sim will get fatigued more easily, and get an uncomfortable buff when exercising.
• For the first couple of days after losing weight, the Sim will get hungry faster.
• If the Sim’s weight stays in the same range for a few days, their baseline will reset (to simulate maintaining a loss/accepting a gain).

It needs some tweaking, but this already feels like it adds some nice realism to the game! The system feels like it could pretty easily be extended, too.