Language Barriers v2.0 alpha 2

Alphas are incomplete snapshots of my mods while they're in development, and are only available to Goth and Landgraab patrons. The 2.0 update will be released to Pancake patrons when it's feature-complete, and to the public 2-3 weeks afterwards. I do not have an estimated date at this time, but it should not take longer than a month.

About this alpha

This is the second alpha of Language Barriers v2.0 (you can read about the first alpha here if you have not done so already). It primarily focuses on revamping the default L2 (second language) assignment process, more technical changes, and some other small changes.

Default second language assignment

Guaranteed second languages

• Children should share at least one language fluently with each of their parents. If they don’t, one of their parent’s fluent languages will be set to at least level 8 on the child.
• Children should have some knowledge of each of their parent’s L1s. If they don’t, each L1 will be set to at least level 4 on the child.
• A sim should speak at least one official language of their home region fluently. If they don’t, it will be set to at least level 8.
• A sim should share at least one language fluently with their partner. If they don’t, one of their partner’s fluent languages will be set to at least level 8 on them.
• Guaranteed second languages are enabled by default for everyone, including played sims and the active household. You can disable this for played sims if you want, just ask me how.

Random second languages

• If a sim has had less than 3 language skills automatically set from the previous process, they may speak additional languages.
• The languages they may speak are determined by the official and minority languages of their home region. If they don’t have a home region, their choices come from their L1(s).
• The number of languages they may speak is random, but is heavily influenced by their traits, home region, and age.
• How well they speak another language depends on their traits and age, but also on the language’s genetic relationship to their L1s and a bit of randomness.
• Random second languages are only enabled by default for non-played sims. You can enabled them for played sims, if you want -- ask me how.

Other small changes

Special sims

• Sims that are considered "special" for gameplay will be ignored by Language Barriers. Previously, this included Father Winter, Grim, and the Flower Bunny. This update adds Bonehilda, Guidry, Patchy, and the skeletons from Jungle Adventure to this list.
• Instead of giving special sims all of the languages as L1s, they will just have Language Barriers disabled. This won't make any difference for you gameplay-wise.

Add culture traits to sim templates

• Previously, Language Barriers relied only a sim's traits, occult type, and home region to figure out which language they should speak. The problem is that Maxis does not add their hidden traits to all sims that should have them, which is why you may see some islanders speaking simlish every now and then. This update fixes this by adding my own traits to the templates used to generate sims from these regions, so you should hopefully see less sims speaking Simlish when they shouldn't be.

"Ask for Help" interaction

• Previously, any sim that was not level 10 in a language could ask native speakers of that language for help with it. Now, sims will be able ask anyone with a higher level than them, as long as the other sim is at or above level 5. This means a sim who speaks a language at level 7, for example, can teach you the language up to level 7.
• The "Ask for Help" interactions should no longer clutter your pie menus, and will appear under an expandable "Ask for Language Help..." category when there is more than one. 

L1 assignment

• Tweaked L1 assignment from parents -- if two parents do not share an L1, but do share a fluent L2 with the home region, it will be given to their child as their L1.

Language Savant CAS trait

• Changed the Language Savant trait to be a hobby trait instead of a lifestyle one.

Cheats

• Added "fklb.total_reset" cheat, which allows you to completely reset the mod as if you uninstalled it and reinstalled it. This will reset all special sims, all native languages, all default second languages, and all of the behind-the-scenes traits as well. If you save the game after running this cheat, it cannot be undone.
• Added "fklb.swap <language>" cheat, which will remove all of a sim's native languages and replace it with the one specified, rather than having to manually remove all of the other ones. Valid values for <language> are any of the 6 languages, lowercase, with no spaces.

Bug fixes

• When using the fklb.set_skill cheat with level 0, or when resetting sims' languages, you should now see that skills are actually removed from the sim rather than just being reset to level 1.
• Sims will no longer increase their skill in all of the languages another sim is fluent in when miscommunicating with them. They will now learn their native languages only, but this is a temporary fix -- when language contexts are added (coming in alpha 3), sims will only gain one language skill at a time.
• Special sims will now be recognized as special sims -- there was an error in the previous alpha that caused the check to fail, and special sims were being assigned L1s like normal.

Conclusion

The biggest visible change in this version is the introduction of the L2 assignment system, but it also involves a lot more technical changes you won't see. So, again, keep in mind that this is a development version of Language Barriers, and it is possible that there are some bugs. If you notice any, or have any feedback on the changes I'm making, please bring them to my attention immediately.

Thanks, and have fun!

Goth and Landgraab patrons can download the alpha here.