Maybe I misunderstood you, but aren't their needs and aspirations separate just as with other sims. Aspirations are filled by fulfilling wants, right?

I think she means needs not aspiration.

Thank you everyone!!

No, I meant aspiration, and even explained why. Maxing needs doesn't help a PlantSim in this situation because it doesn't affect the sunlight requirement (and might not have resolved the issue even if it did, since they shouldn't have been in a low mood anyway with two needs fully met and the third half full and going up); I have to set their aspiration to platinum, and this automatically sets mood to platinum and stops the rapid drop into the red that was the subject of my question.

Using platinum aspiration to achieve platinum mood wouldn't help a Sim in genuine need distress (if a Sim is starving, she'll still starve; she'll just be totally happy while doing so), but it worked in this situation. This suggests that either there is a glitch (mood shouldn't be dropping, since needs are reasonably well met), or that PlantSims cannot recover from low mood caused by needs being temporarily low, even if needs are restored, unless Platinum mood is reached or forced. I would like to know which, because if it's a glitch I'll continue to cheat my way around it (or download a fix, if there is one), but if it's supposed to be that way then I don't want to keep cheating it.

I know what you mean about this. If a Plantsim's needs get really low -- especially the sunlight need -- then their aspiration level tanks to all-red and stays there for a while. It DOES recover, but it's not an immediate thing like it is with other kinds of Sims. The aspiration level lags significantly behind the replenishment of the need. I'm not sure if this is a glitch or was intentional, but I "read" it as Plantsims just being slower to react to their environment than human Sims. I think of them like Ents in Lord of the Rings, where it takes them forever to greet each other and reach decisions. With Plantsims, it's more like it takes them longer to realize that their needs have been filled so they can be happy again.

I bet they did that intentionally, plants can take a while to recover if they haven't gotten enough water/lighting etc.

townie/stray/NPC naming; how exactly does the game decide the name of a particular one?
I know the names come from certain resources of the Live.package file.

I'm inclined to think that it was intentional, too. I also tend to think that it's a nice touch, if it was intentional, because it's true that plants generally DO take longer to recover from deprivation than animals do. They're more vulnerable to their environment that way. But it's also possible that it's just a glitch, knowing EAxis.

It's randomized, although the game's RNG is rather glitchy (see firstborn syndrome) so it sometimes gets stuck on the same few names.

We're looking at you, Marylena Hamiltons and Ivy Copurs.

The thing about plantsim needs that gets me is that they literally cannot get through the night without artificial light without tanking their need.

My tomatoes are fine. My potatoes are fine. My roses are fine. My grass is fine. Every single blasted noxious weed on the place is fine (unfortunately). My trees, wild and cultivated, are fine.

My simulated plants are fine over the game's night, too.

So why do plantsims, who are supposed to be all naturey and stuff, need so much technology?

Good point Sunbee. Plantsims are obviously special snowflakes.

Hmm, for some reason I thought it was Plantsims' hidden needs that cause their mood to lag behind. Like, in the situation above, I would imagine that after sitting at the piano, comfort is really low, and didn't get improved by showering, so Rose's mood was still low.

From my time playing my bacc hood, I noticed that this seems to be the case with the fun motive, though I could be entirely wrong and it could be aspiration related. Anyway, my plantsims were busy working, slaving away for Herbert Goodie and I noticed that while they lack a fun motive, they definitely need to have fun once in a while.

Pescado's word for that sort of thing was sadorandom. I always thought it was apt.

Any way to open multiple packages in SimPE at once without getting errors thrown?

Slowly. Count to at least 5 before opening the next one so the first one has time to load.

Already do that, but it's a royal PITA.

First:

Second: My little "headcanon" explanation is that they're only half-plant, a hybrid. So, their metabolism is confused by the magical merging of mammalian endothermy and the very different way that plants metabolize. So, they run faster than they ought to, thanks to being half-mammal. Thus, they require a lot more "input" than a "normal" plant does. And they also don't have the storage capacity that "real" mammals have, because, for one, it's impossible for them to get fat. Nor do they apparently store as well as plants do...however it is that plants store energy for future use; I ain't no botanist.

Third: Unrelated to what you said, but topically related...Why is the grow-light for Plantsims so damn expensive?? Seriously, 2000 simoleons? I'm tellin' ya, I grow marijuana indoors (It's legal here...but it wasn't always! ) during the time when it can't be grown outdoors, and one grow-light doesn't cost twice the amount of an economy car. I mean, I have the mod that turns the normal grow-light-looking ceiling lamp into a grow-light, and if that didn't exist I could easily change the price of the grow-light, so it's not a big deal or anything. I'd just like to know what the logic behind THAT decision was... Was it, "HAH! Sucks to be you! Pay through the nose for a stupid light OR SUFFER!!!!!" 'Cuz that's a sucky 'tude, man.

Actually plantsims have a pollution-based disorder. People who use too much insecticide turn into plantsims, which don't function well as plants or as humans (and suddenly don't need insecticide because they can spend all night talking the bug damage away if they have access to light). So of course rather than change insecticides, capitalist society seizes on the opportunity to make sufferers pay through the nose for the tech to make their lives bearable.

It's perfectly logical, from a corporate point of view.

Ugh! I don't even play with plantsims and now I'm gonna go in there and change the price on the grow light just to "stick it to the man."

HAH! Well, I suppose with normal game mechanics that's true. In my game, no one ever becomes a Plantsim the "normal" way because pesticide is not allowed. (It's a personal RL beef that carries over into my game.) So, Sims become Plantsims via alien genetic experimentation or because they are born of a parent who's been genetically altered by aliens because my imagination says that those changes are germline changes. I suppose that could still be a market for corporations to exploit, though. Especially since in my hoods where alien abduction is allowed, Plantsimism is the most common outcome of alien abduction, after pregnancy. So maybe that fits, too.

Do you mean open up multiple copies of SimPE at the same time? *is confused*

I don't know if anyone's had this problem, but here goes:
I was using the "Flamingo of Dance" and the pixel went to be taught, and her body disappeared! Just her head was visible. Another pixel also had this happen.
What would cause this to happen? Switching to clothes that aren't in the set?

As soon as she got home, her body returned. Tried it at home as well, and the same thing happened.
Very weird.

Odd, I have used it once on a new dance lot and that did not happen. I do have some invisible clothes in my catalogue though -probably a default using a game mesh. If a sim decided to wear one of those they could turn into a floating head.

They do recover? Phew! I agree it makes sense that plants would recover differently, which is why I wondered if maybe it wasn't a glitch when it kept happening. Next time, I think, I'll save as soon as the PlantSim is even slightly in the red, then see how it goes - I didn't do that before in case it was already too late and I needed to go back to the beginning of the rotation. I don't really want to cheat, but I do need to keep my PlantSim population going until I have enough of them to play the role I have mapped out for them in my 'hood.