[IV|REL|WIP] Big City Life - a basic needs mod

[DonSalami]

*Updated: version 0.3 available for download *

Please note: As many problems have proven, version 0.3 doesn't work on GTA IV 1.0.7.0.

*ONLY WORKS ON 1.0.0.4*

 

This post will be updated frequently to give you an impression what I am currently working on. See "content of next release" for further information.

 

Hi community,

 

After spending many hours searching the net for a simple hunger mod for GTA IV and finding none that worked for me, I finally decided to write my own script mod. As I had no experience in scripting, it was a long way to go, therefore I am proud to present you:

 

 

 

Alpa-release 0.3

 

Download

 

 

What started as a small hunger modification now turns out to be something much greater.

This script modification brings new functions to the game, which I missed from the very beginning: It adds a need system consisting of four different needs: hunger, sleep, fun and social activity. Each need offers special advantages and disadvantages, according to it’s current value and was designed to fit into the game as smooth as possible. If you are very hungry for example, your health level will decrease, thus you won’t be able to take too much damage. If you are well stuffed, you will get a small health bonus. So better don’t go outside to play with the bad boys if you are hungry!

 

All needs together contribute to another value: the player’s mood. Being pissed like hell will influence your character as well as being happy. Niko will insult people and complain about his lousy if he is in a bad mood or being grateful and full of joy if he’s having a good day. It’s all up to you!

 

There are lots of possibilities to fulfill your needs throughout the city:

Having dinner in a restaurant, buying and reading a newspaper in the streets or playing bowling are only a few things to do in Liberty City.

Nico is a tough guy and likes it the hard way. Speeding on the highway or riding a bike will be great fun for him, as well as flying above the city in a helicopter. None the less, he will also enjoy visiting the Empire State Building and watching the city skyline using binoculars.

 

Your homes become more important as they are places to rest, chill out and get something to eat from the kitchen. The better your apartment is, the more activities you can do there. Whereas the Bronx just serves as a hideout, your penthouse in Algonquin/Manhattan will hold books to read, a whirlpool to enjoy and a nice flat screen, too. But don’t forget to go to the grocery store and buy some food to refill the fridge!

 

On your way to the grocery store, get a delicious candy bar at Hershey’s or buy a coffee to go.

If you don’t want to consume it immediately, store it in your 20 slot inventory and take it where ever you go.

 

To my mind, this adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game. Life pulsates in Liberty City, so why shouldn’t you take part of it? Why are only pedestrians aloud to have a coffee to go or read the paper?

 

 

Enough words for now, here’s a small summary of all features currently implemented:

 

. *NEW in 0.3* Added the missing carrybag if you carry several items

. *NEW in 0.3* Intelligent inventory system. Allowing to buy more than one item of a kind and having more items ingame than inventory slots available

. *NEW in 0.3* Added custom model for sandwich replacing the burger model

. *NEW in 0.3* Added custom food such as bagels(finally) and icecream

. *NEW in 0.3* No more buying items when inventory is already full or player hasn't got enough money

. *NEW in 0.3* Added possibility to remove items and weapons from the inventory

. *NEW in 0.3* Added possibility to switch between a vanilla GTAIV shop version and a non-vanilla version with real shops

. *NEW in 0.3* Added carry weight system: carrying to much stuff will slow you down

. *NEW in 0.3* Further customization options: altering Keys, enable/disable Vanilla/Reallife-Version, enable/disable Carryweight systems

. *NEW in 0.3* Added more theaters, restaurants and shops all over the city

 

. *NEW in 0.2* Many Customization options: Switching on/off needs & mood, edit changing need-rates, disable/enable the ability to visit shops, restaurants, theaters & editing prizes

. *NEW in 0.2* Inventory is now saved when saving the game

. *NEW in 0.2* Added Broadway theaters to visit, which will greatly fulfill your need for fun

. *NEW in 0.2* Added grocery stores and restaurants in Brooker and Alderney

. *NEW in 0.2* Added more beanmachine, Fanny Crab's, Squid Row and other restaurants all over Liberty City

. *NEW in 0.2* Added location blips so you can find all interesting new places on the map -->removed in version 0.3

 

· Need system with four different needs and a special mood-value

· Needs are saved when you sleep in a bed and save your game so they don’t start at zero every time you play the game

· Needs influence important values such as health and accuracy

· Many different ways to fulfill your needs:

· Fun: Speeding, riding a bike, flying a helicopter, watching TV, playing a video game, reading a newspaper or reading a book, playing pool or bowling or simply watching the city through a binocular

· Hunger: eating food from the fridge, buying food from street vendors, buying food in fast-food restaurants, take a donut to go at Hershey’s or visiting fine restaurants all over Liberty City

· Sleep: Get a fresh coffee at BeanMachine/Starbucks or rest in your apartment-bed

· Social: phone a friend (not very elaborated yet)

· Inventory with 20 slots, taking into account your weapons and everything you buy on your way trough the city

· Shopping food at the grocery and take your purchases home to refill you fridge

 

 

Bugs fixed in version 0.3

· Fixed bug which caused health bar to act weird in some cases

· Fixed bug which caused need changing rates to go back to default after a short while of playing

· Removed blips to temporally fix the bowling and pool minigame as well as the taximeter bug

. Many other small bugs

 

 

Bugs fixed in version 0.2

· Fixed bug which caused game time to freeze after visiting restaurant or grocery

· Fixed bug which prevented sleep value from being reduced correctly after saving in bed and loading the game later on

· Fixed bug which caused inventory to vanish after restarting the game

. Many other small bugs

 

Known bugs to be fixed in next version/ Content of further releases:

. map blips seem to bug the ability to go bowling --> finally completly fixed

 

 

Further plans:

. Alcoholic beverages with several effects.

. pharmacy stuff: pills, etc.

. adding stress/adrenaline bar, which fills if you are in a melee or gun fight, speed with a vehicle or if you are chased by the police

 

All in all, there are a lot of new things for you to discover. Please note that this modification is still in an early stage and needs further improvement. I have spent many weeks working on this for now, but there may still be some bugs and things to improve or implement. That’s where you come in: I would be really happy, if you could test it and give me some hints on what to do next. What do you wish to be added? Which restaurant is missing? Which bug is getting on your nerves? I would really appreciate any kind of feedback.

 

At this point, I want to say thank you for all the comments, which have already contributed to the improvment of the mod. It is really great to recieve feedback and I believe this can only help to make this project better. Hopefully, most of your ideas have been implemented to your liking.

 

I want to especially thank Jannekarj for his enormous help finding new coordinates and bug testing the new version. Thanks a lot man!

 

One last thing: Please don’t be scared of the file size, the script comes along with a lot of custom graphics and is therefore comparatively big.

Read the manual for further information.

 

Now that everything is said, I wish you a lot of fun testing and discovering the new stuff. I am looking forward to read further comments.

 

Best Regards

 

DonSalami

Edited April 19, 2013 by DonSalami

[ch3y3zze]

this looks awesome, nice idea with the bag

[Pyrrhic]

No, what you've down it made a GTA and MMO love child.

 

Looks great mate, hope all goes well with more of it.

[Sleepy93HUN]

lol

 

looks very good

 

 

[CalderThePirate]

I was wondering if at all possible you would make the mod modular? There are aspects of the mod which would be great for my play style, and some that would not be. For instance, I love the idea of the need for sleep, food, and drink, but I use Left 4 Liberty, so I want to be able to use that with this together. I've been trying to find the right mods to turn the game into a realistic zombie simulator. If at all possible, let me know!

[manu90mala]

been waiting for a mod like this for years! going to finally reinstall gta

 

edit: after testing a bit, i highly recommend to add some customization options in a ini file. the ability to customize rates and toggling of needs is fundamental!

Edited September 16, 2012 by manu90mala

[CalderThePirate]

been waiting for a mod like this for years! going to finally reinstall gta

 

edit: after testing a bit, i highly recommend to add some customization options in a ini file. the ability to customize rates and toggling of needs is fundamental!

It would also be nice to see controllable prices for food, and such. Keep up the good work!

[DonSalami]

Hi there,

 

thanks for the comments. I am glad you like the mod.

 

@CalderThePirate: You are right, having a modular system would be much smarter. I will try to make the need system modular and prizes changeable.

 

@manu90mala: Of course I can also make the rates customisable, will see what I can do about that.

 

Thanks again for the feedback!

 

[manu90mala]

i would also suggest to add a sort of "locations map" to see where we can buy stuff and such. i went to a 7 grocery close to hove beach and no options popped up. overall, the mod is pretty much amazing already!

[DonSalami]

You're right, I will take the "location maps" into account. At the moment, there are only grocery stores in Algonquin and one in Bohan, so you won't find any in Broker. Im sorry for that, guess it's hard to play without knowledge of where to find the shops. I promiss to fix that soon.

By the way, I made good progress in customization. Needs, changing rates and prizes will be customizable. Stay tuned

[Death2Drugs]

Wow. I never thought someone would actually do something like this. A mod that makes GTA as close to real-life and survival as possible. Bravo, man. I wish the best of luck in developing this mod further.

[Gramps]

Very, very interesting and unique mod to the GTA franchise. Congrats !

 

I see this mod having a huge following; and many additions to come. I hope you stick at it.

 

I do have one suggestion .. i couldn't see this listed in the features at all.

 

+ The more items you carry in your inventory (your bag) the slower you become because of the weight.

[Silent]

That is awesome, but we need a map indeed

 

Edit:

For some unknown reasons, time is frozen after I buy food in groceries?

Edited September 23, 2012 by SilentPL

[MissPinkcat]

Hello,

 

I really love this but there are a few bugs that make it awkward to use sometimes. I don't know if anyone else has experienced these but maybe you can investigate:

 

* A random error appears when eating or drinking almost 50% of the time and the whole mod closes itself. It seems to happen more when you eat in a car or if you're sitting in front of the TV.

 

* Food is invisible when you eat in the car and Niko looks like he's eating or drinking his gun instead.

 

* When you sleep to save the game, your energy doesn't get replenished until after it saves, so when you load your game later, you'll still be tired even though you've slept. This is really annoying!!!

 

I hope there's something you can do to fix those things and I'm sorry if I sound demanding or critical...

 

Another thing that I think would be nice is if you could buy coffee and maybe doughnuts from the internet café, because there's a cafeteria there and also vending machines. It's difficult to find coffee and it's my favourite part of this mod

 

Sorry if it sounds like I'm complaining. I really love this mod and thank you for making it!

[DonSalami]

Hi all,

 

first, I have to apologize for all the bugs, this is a very early release.

 

Second, I want to say thanks for all your comments, the bugs you found and all your positive feedback.

 

--> Version 0.2 released, see updated first post. Please download and overwrite previous version.

Attention: If you have already downloaded earlier this day (24.09.), please redownload. Fixed a major bug which caused the fridge in romans house (first safehouse) to work incorrect.

Edited September 24, 2012 by DonSalami

[MissPinkcat]

When I eat or drink, I still get this error sometimes:

 

Error in script 'hunger_healthCS.hunger_health'!

 

... And then everything breaks =/

 

Is there any way to fix that?

[DonSalami]

@MissPinkcat: Could you please post your scripthook.log in here so I can try to find out what causes that bug? You could as well open the console (^ by default) and see what's written there after the bug occurs.

 

I have never experienced that bug, is there anybody else who has similar problems?

[Flagrant]

Nice mod, thank you. Works pretty good so far. But, as was previously asked, can you please introduce more settings to the INI? Particularly, I am interested in changing keys (because, for instance, I'm using a mod that utilizes the TAB key, and I cannot change it).

[Silent]

I have never experienced that bug, is there anybody else who has similar problems?

Me.

[MissPinkcat]

 

@MissPinkcat: Could you please post your scripthook.log in here so I can try to find out what causes that bug? You could as well open the console (^ by default) and see what's written there after the bug occurs.

This is what shows after the bug occurs:

 

 

Error during Tick in script 'hunger_healthCS.hunger_health':                     System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.                        at hunger_healthCS.hunger_health.burger_icon_MouseDown(Object sender, MouseEventArgs e)                        at GTA.MouseEventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, MouseEventArgs e)                        at GTA.Script.ProcessEvents()                        at GTA.Script.DoTick()                        at GTA.ScriptThread.OnTick()

 

[DonSalami]

Thanks for posting these details, I guess that I should be able to fix it. Will work into it this evening.

 

@Falgrant: I will consider making keys changeable. Shouldn't be a problem. (Please note that there will be no ini, all settings are made in the dat.file)

[Silent]

Icons are really good idea (some have real names and some have IV names + isn't "7-Elven" a typo?), but I still can't find out where to buy newspapers nor cigarettes.

 

Also, is low Sleep value doing anything at all when playing with mouse? I can't feel the worse accuracy at all.

[DonSalami]

You are right, 7-Elven is a typo, I will correct it, thanks. Should be 7-Eleven instead.

My game version is highly modified and I am kind of a realism addict, so I tried to make this as realistic as possible when starting the project. Therefore I put lots of "real" shops into it.

I am planning to do two versions of the mod, one for people who like realism and want to have real shops and one for people using vanilla GTAIV. Until then, we will have to live with a mixture of both.

 

Cigarettes and newspaper can only be bought at a kiosk. Until now, I haven't added all, as there are plenty of them all over the city and I have to find each one ingame, record the x,y,z coordinates and put them into the script in order to get them working. The next update will contain more, I promise!

 

It seems that the accuracy is somehow buggy. Unfortunately, it seems as I can't do anything about it as it is a game or scripthook problem.

As I previously said, the mod is still in an early stage. Effects need some serious rework. Only hunger does really effect your gameplay, as it decreases your maximum health to a minimum amount of 50% before starving. I will spent some time on the effects once I am done with my current work. Please be patient

[Silent]

That's fine, I still like the mod.

 

But, about the hunger - I don't seem to get these effects (or perhaps it just limits the health which is get from the health pickups?). There's only a healthbar acting in a weird way when Niko's belly is full, and I get no lower health when he's really hungry.

 

Edit, the realism thing:

I meant that some of the shops are named after their real-life counterparts, but the other still have the GTA name (like home cafes are Starbucks and some are still The Bean Machine.

Edited September 29, 2012 by SilentPL

[DonSalami]

The weird acting health bar is a bug, I am working on it.

You won't recognize if your max health is lowered, the bar will still be full. It just means that, if your health level was 100 before being hungry, it will be only 90% when you are slightly hungry, but that 90% will be the new absolut value, thus the bar will still be full. You just can't take as many hits as before.

 

You are right, at the moment the shops are mixed up, I will change this in a future release.

[Silent]

Hm, looks like a bug?

 

 

I could buy food the first time I've played, but now I can't, at least here (Hard Rock Cafe/Superstar Cafe next to the Algonquin safehouse). .dat values are zeroed, so I'm most likely not carrying anything 'invisible'.

[DonSalami]

Hmm, that's strange. Does it only happen at the Superstar-/Hard Rock Cafe? Maybe it will be gone with the next release, I have done big changes on the inventory system. I will keep an eye on it, thanks for reporting!

[Silent]

Hmm, that's strange. Does it only happen at the Superstar-/Hard Rock Cafe? Maybe it will be gone with the next release, I have done big changes on the inventory system. I will keep an eye on it, thanks for reporting!

Strange, it started to work later (after I bought a sandwich in Subway & tried a Hard Rock Cafe at Times Square)..

 

Ideas for 0.3?

- sitting on a Faggio scooter isn't really fun. Perhaps have a minimal speed for fun even when riding a motorbike?

- inventory entry could be selected by using Left & Right arrrow, but I guess you might have done it already

[Flagrant]

DonSalami, how about adding alcohol in future releases? E.g. beer or something stronger with respective effects

[DonSalami]

Those are good ideas, I will consider them! The new inventory will just fit this fine, as we can now have more buyable items ingame than inventory slots. There could be an infinite number of items to buy, theoretically. And of course many different drinks

I have yet added two custom objects, a bagel and a little softice like the one you can get at McDonalds. I have also done a custom model for the sandwich, which has currently the same model as the burger and will be replaced by a "real" sandwich.