The Sims 4 Mod Constructor: Tutorial

1. Creating a Mod
2. Creating a new Tait
3. Setting up your new Trait
4. Core Buffs
4.1. Continuous Loots (example: Sim becomes Happy while playing video game)
4.2. Other Buff Features (Occasional Buffs and Broadcasters)
4.3. Modifiers
4.4. Autonomy
4.5 Advanced: Additional Needs
5. Whims
6. Proximity Buffs
7. Advanced: Increasing Buffs

1. Creating a Mod

When you first launch Mod Constructor, you’ll be greeted with a form asking for a Creator Name and Mod
Name. These are combined to generate unique IDs and prevent your mod from conflicting with others. Enter
this information, then click “Create Mod”.
2. Creating a New Trait
Navigate to “Select Element” at the top right corner of the page, then click “Create Element”
Enter a name that will be used to identify the Element. The simplest way is to simply enter the name of your
trait, in this case “Gamer”. Select “Trait” as the Element type then click “Create Element”.
3. Setting up your new Trait
Note: You may notice the “SimData” option. Changing this allows you to alter how many different age
groups can have the trait. In this example, we’ll stick with the default – 5 Ages – Child, Teen, Young Adult,
Adult and Elder. If you want, however, you could set this to 4 Ages and allow only Teen Sims or older to
have the trait. You can even customize which ages can have the trait from the “Availability” section in the
side bar and use a non-standard combination – for example, a trait that only Child and Teen Sims can have
that is lost when becoming a Young Adult. First thing’s first, though, let’s learn the basics of creating a trait.

Enter the name and description of your trait, then click “Select Icon” to choose your trait’s icon.
Select an icon from the icon selector. You can search file names to help find what you’re looking for.

Finally, select the category, in this case “Hobby”.

You can now export your trait and try it out in CAS, although right now it it’s just a useless collection of text
and an icon that has no effect in game. To export a mod, click “Mod” at the top right, then click “Export”.
4. Core Buffs
It’s time to start adding features to your trait! The first step is to add a Core Buff. The vast majority of trait
features – from modifiers to emotion-changing interests – are added via a buff. Core Buffs are buffs that are
always active while the Sim has the trait, regardless of any condition. The Core Buff is also responsible for
adding most other buffs, which can have their own functionality based on a condition.
The list box now contains a random string of letters and numbers. This is just a randomly generated ID to
identify the buff by the program. You can optionally assign your own label with the “Set Label” button,
though that isn’t important in this case because there’s only one core buff ,so it should be easy to find.
Now, the fun begins! Navigate to the “Element Tree” link at the top right of the page, then click “Build Tree”.
You’ll notice a new option has appeared. Mod Constructor has just generated a child Element from the core
buff. Click on it for a large variety of options.

You’ll be taken to what appears to be options for a Moodlet. That is because a “buff” is more or less a
technical name for a Moodlet – though a buff doesn’t need to have an emotion attached and can be hidden.

From this page, you can assign an emotion the Sim will always have at all times, though this could get
annoying. What we want is for Sims to get into an emotion from performing an interaction – in this case,
playing video games.
4.1. Continuous Loots
Continuous Loots are actions that run every 10 Sim-minutes. A common usage is to have the game check if
the Sim is meeting a certain condition, and if so, apply a buff (Moodlet) to them. In this example, we’ll set
up a continuous loot that assigns a +1 Happy Buff to Sims that are playing video games.

First, navigate to Features > Continuous Loots in the side bar.

When adding a continuous loot from from this section, there are two options to choose from:

• Active Buff: The buff appears when the Sim is in a condition, then disappears when the Sim is no
longer in it.

• Timed Buff: The buff appears when the Sim is in a condition, then stays for a certain amount of time
afterwards.
For this example, we’ll go with a Timed Buff and have Sims gain a 4-hour Happy buff from playing video
games.
The next step is to define test conditions.

Click “Add” on the “Test Condition Sets” list. Click on the newly generated set and click “Add” again to add a
test condition.

If you add multiple test condition sets, the test will pass if the Sim meets ANY of the sets pass. If you add
multiple test conditions to one set, the Sim will need to meet ALL of those conditions for the set to pass.

Select the type of test condition. In this example, we’ll be using “Running Interactions” which will test for
interactions (for example, playing video games) currently being performed by the Sim.
Some condition types involve selecting items from a list. If this is the case, click the down arrow next to the
list box and select “Set Presets”. In this example, the test should check for Sims performing interactions in
the “Play Video Games” category (interaction categories are based on the options available for Get Together
clubs).
You’ll notice the list has been automatically populated with your choices. If you need to remove them at a
later time, hold down SHIFT to select a range of items.
Finally, fill in information about your buff, such as the name, description, icon, emotion, reason it appears,
etc. When selecting an icon, it is recommended you choose one from one of the “Buffs” categories, unless
you want it to look out of place.

For Timed Buffs, you’ll be asked to set a duration and cooldown. The default is a duration of 240 Sim-
minutes (4 hours) and a cooldown of 230 Sim-minutes (that 10 minute tolerence is to prevent rapid
emotion-switching if the Sim is still in the condition when the buff is about to expire).

Since enjoying video games is the primary feature of the trait, we’ll lower the cooldown to 120 to allow the
buff to be refreshed earlier.

Now we have a +1 Happy buff that:

• Appears when the Sim is playing video games.

• Lasts for 4 Sim hours.

• Can be refreshed 2 Sim hours after it’s added if the Sim is still playing video games or starts playing
them again.

You can now export your trait and try it out in game!
4.2. Other Buff Features (Occasional Events and Broadcasters)
Once you understand continuous loots, other features should become easy to grasp. Currently, the two
other options are occasional events and broadcasters.

• Occasional events run at random intervals and are how buffs like “Feeling Sad” (for the Gloomy
trait) are added. You can optionally add test conditions to occasional events. For the Gamer trait,
I’ve added an occasional event that adds a “Game Face On” +1 Focused Moodlet.

• Broadcasters allow your Sim to broadcast buffs and loots to other Sims. For example, you could
have a Scary Sim who makes nearby Sims Tense. You can optionally add test conditions to either
the broadcasting Sim or the receiver.

◦ For the Gamer trait, I’ve added a broadcaster which, when the broadcasting Sim has 9+ Video
Gaming skill and is currently playing video games, will broadcast a +1 Energized “Exhilarating
Gamer” buff to nearby Sims with 2+ Video Gaming skill.
4.3. Modifiers
Adding modifiers to a buff alters the speed at which statistics will change. There are 8 types of modifiers:

• Skill and Statistic Multipliers: Effects how quickly the Sim will gain a skill, or how quickly a statistic
(for example a need, career performance, etc.) will increase or decrease.

• Skill Tag Multipliers: Effects how quickly the Sim will gain a skill based on a tag, for example Mental
or Physical.

• Need Decay Multipliers: Effects how quickly a Need will naturally decay.

• Relationship Change Multipliers: Effects how quickly a Sim will build relationships in a specific track
(Friendship or Romance).

• Effective Skill Tag Modifiers and Effective Skill Modifiers: Effects how a Sim’s skill is treated in game,
for example, a Sim with an effective skill modifier of 4 in Cooking will cook food at a quality as if
they were 4 levels higher than they were. As mentioned in a notice in the program itself, this doesn’t
work for all game features.

• Autonomy Score Multipliers: Effects how likely a Sim is to follow a certain autonomy setting, for
example, make a Sim autonomously fulfil their Hunger more often. This is under “Commodities” in
the “Autonomy and Commodities” category.

• Continuous Statistic Modifiers: Causes a statistic to continuously increase or decrease, for example,
a Sim’s Fun need will keep increasing while a Sim has a buff.
Adding a modifier typically involves adding an item to a list, clicking the down arrow next to a textbox,
clicking “Select Game Resource” and then selecting a resource from the game. However, some modifiers
only require selecting a tag.

Modifiers can be added to Core Buffs or any other buff generated by the program. In case of the Gamer
trait, I added a skill modifier to the “Game Face On!” occasional loot that causes Sims to build the Video
Gaming skill 1.25x faster.
4.4. Autonomy
Most of the EA personality traits have their own autonomy settings. While it’s not possible to create a
custom autonomy setting without overriding existing resources, you can copy the settings from another trait.
5. Whims
Most of the EA traits come with whims, and so can custom traits. Whims are defined on the trait level, not
the buff level. Select “Element Tree” from the top right and navigate back to the original trait resource, then
select “Whims” from the side bar.

Click the down arrow and select “Add Presets”, then select the whims you want to add.

If the trait has at least one whim, it will generate a new child Element called “Whim Set” in the Element
Tree. If you don’t like the whim reason being “(From [trait name] Trait)” and want it to be something else,
you can change it from there.
6. Proximity Buffs
Proximity buffs cause Sims with the trait to gain buffs based on the conditions of others around them. For
the Gamer trait, Sims will get a +1 Confident Moodlet from being around other Sims with the Gamer trait.

Proximity buffs are defined in the same way as continuous loots, occasional events and broadcasters, except
they’re defined on the trait level instead of the buff level. That is because it’s just the way they’re defined in
the game resources.
7. Advanced: Increasing Buffs
To finish off this tutorial, you’ll learn something a bit more tricky: Increasing Buffs. These are buffs that
attach themselves to another buff, where the timeout will continuously increase, then start when the
controlling buff disappears. Increasing buffs can even have stages – for example, if a Sim is in a condition
for more than 4 hours, the +1 Moodlet will turn into a +2 one (and fade back into a +1 when the timeout
expires).

First, you’ll need a buff to be the controller buff. This should usually have an emotion weight of 0. For the
Gamer trait, the “Gamers Together” proximity buff is the controller buff.

Navigate to “Continuous Statistic Modifiers” (under “General Modifiers”) of the controller buff. Add a new
modifier, then set the Statistic function to “Create a new Element”.
Choose how quickly the buff will increase. A value of 1 means the timeout will increase by 1 Sim-minute for
every Sim minute the Sim has the controller buff. A value of 2 is double that. Next, enter details about your
increasing buff such as the number of stages, duration of each stage, etc.

You can now try it out in game. Once your Sim gets into the condition for the controller buff to appear
(remember – the emotion weight should be 0, so it will be hidden in game), they’ll receive another buff, with
the same name, description and icon as the controller buff (unless you changed those manually using the
Element Tree). You’ll notice arrows appearing over the buff, indicating that the timeout is increasing.

Now, once the controller buff is removed, the timeout should start taking effect as normal, and the
increasing buff will start to fade.

But wait…

That’s NOT what happens! If you try it out at this stage, the increasing buff will just be removed along with
the controller buff, rendering it useless.

In order for this not to happen, the commodity (statistic) created by the controller buff needs to be attached
to another buff in order to be retained when the controller buff disappears. 99% of the time, it will be the
trait’s core buff you want to attach it to.
Open up the Element Tree and click the generated commodity, which should be labelled “Increasing
Commodity: [list item key or label]”. Click “Set Element Label” and enter a custom label you’ll remember.
Next, navigate to the trait’s core buff – or whatever buff you’re attaching it to – then go to “Commodities”,
under “Autonomy and Commodities”.

Click “Add”, followed by the down arrow, followed by “Select Element”.

You can now export your trait and try it in game again. If you followed the steps right, the increasing buff
should no longer disappear once the controller buff does, and should instead start fading like a normal buff.