Autonomous Stayovers - Waffle Explains It All (Patreon)

Stayovers are a feature from Growing Together. Sims can ask to stay over at your house for a while, or you can plan them yourself.

Stayovers are a type of event, but can also occur during other events. You can start a stayover, then throw a party, and continue the Stayover during and after the party. You can plan stayovers ahead of time with the calendar, down to the hour the sims will arrive, and how many nights they should stay. They need a bed of some kind to be comfortable in your home.

Stayover Guests can be directed to help out- which will make them autonomously do helpful things around the house- or they can be left to behave how they feel, which makes them basically behave like another Sim in the house, except you cannot control them. They have free reign of the house and can cook and such, which does mean they can also accidentally cause problems like fires. They'll do pretty much anything useful after being asked to help, but only for a short time, and while doing so, several of their motives are actually paused! When helping they may produce snacks, too.

However, Stayovers can also happen by request. You're allowed to say no. There are several types of unique, non-planned stayovers that can happen. Alphabetically, these are as follows:

Clone

Researching Geneaology on a computer can cause the Clone Stayover.

Hey! I just took a DNA test, turns out we're 100% long lost relatives. And would you look at that, I'm actually in town for the next couple days! Would you mind if I stayed at your place? I know this might be asking a lot, but I think we might actually have... a lot more in common than you'd think.

This stayover generates a clone of your Sim, but gives them random hair, clothes, etc. They arrive and stay for 3 days. They are tagged as Family and a Cousin by the game, effectively generating a new family member for you. If your Sim has a number of traits that would make this a concern for them, they'll get a Stressed moodlet about it all.

Otherwise, the Clone has no special behaviors. They will remain in your save file after this event. Where did they come from?

Couch Surf

Heyyy! Mind if I crash at your place for a few days?

Heya! Things have been sorta crazy lately and I need a place to stay for a while. Mind if I crash at your place for a little bit?

Completely random, this Stayover summons Kyle Kyleson (by default) IF your Sim lives in San Sequoia. You'll know it's him- he says it's your bro, Kyle, when he calls. I have a mod here to allow him to visit any world.

 If they do not, it summons a Bro of some sort to hang out at your house. He claims to know you, but he doesn't- he's just trying to find a place to stay. This guest summons snacks and power sip to much on, and will randomly be found doing a funny dance by himself.

His fun decays really fast, so he does a lot of fun activities. His energy decays really slow, so he's awake a lot. And he nearly refuses to be helpful- with 25% the helpfullness drive of other stayover guests.

Disaster

Hey, listen, we need a place to stay for a little while. You can accommodate us right? It’ll be like we’re not even here, I promise.

So listen, it's a looooong story, but my family is in a bit of a pickle right now and we need a place to stay for a bit. You have extra places to sleep, right? Thanks!

The Disaster stayover is a family member who INSISTS they'll be good, but actually will not. This stayover is broken. By default the game forbids most stayovers for Sim's with the Distant or Difficult family tropes. This one also forbids them, but it's supposed to be for them. I have a mod for this.

You'll only get a Disaster Stayover if you have family with those tropes, who you're only sort of friends with, and have 2 or more Sims in their household.

Disaster Guests can summon snacks and energy drinks, too, which make your house messy as they also have 25% the normal helpfulness, just like couch surfers. Meanwhile...your friendship with them will descrease twice as fast from negative interactions while they're around, because the situation is so stressful.

Friend

I’m in town for a while and I was wondering if I could stay at your place for a few days. It'll be fun!

Hey, friend! I was wondering if I could stay over at your place for a few days. Lets hang out and have some fun!

Nothing special about this one, it's just a friend asking to stay over. You'll get a nice buff if your Friendship is high during the visit.

Household Loss

Hey, we heard what happened. I'm so sorry you're going through such a tough time. If you'd like some company, we wouldn't mind staying over for a few days to keep you company.

Household Loss can happen after a Sim experiences the Death of any pets or family members, even down to Nieces and Nephews, or from merely witnessing a death.

These visits will consist of family members who you have a good relationship with. Unless your Sim is a Loner, they'll get a buff for having help with their grieving. These guests have no other particular behaviors.

Infant Intro

Infants can be a real handful, especially for new parents! I specialize in childcare, and I've helped young families in your neighborhood plenty of times. I'd be happy to help out for a few days if you're willing to accommodate me!

The first time a Household has an infant, you'll potentially get this call (in theory. I think Stayovers might be...broken). This Stayover is from a Sim named Eleanor Sullivan. She will come to the house, and act like a literal super nanny. She is driven to do all sorts of child care activities, and gets a relationship boost with kids and under while helping out.

Mopey

Hey, you! I'm in... a bit of a weird place right now. Do you mind if I come crash with you for a while? I promise I won't take up too much room, I just need to get away for a bit.

Hey, been going through some stuff lately. Do you mind if come over and stay for awhile at your place? I just wanna get away from things for a few days, give myself time to process everything.

Mopey visits follow the same rules as Friend visits. However, they also follow the same rules as Disasters- in that the visitor will have 2x worse friendship decay and will not be as driven to help out. That's...that's it.

Parental Help

Hey, sweetie! We're coming over to see the little one and help out however we can!

If you've recently had a baby, and have parents, they might offer to come help out. And by Offer, I mean they will come help out. You cannot say no to this one. It lasts 5 days, and has the same relationship benefit as the Infant Intro stayover, but without the automated drive to do all sorts of parenting interactions...your parents will just kind of vibe like any other Sim, really only there to hang out with the kids and/or new baby. They'll help if asked, though. But otherwise, they're just visiting and in the way!

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Stayovers are otherwise generated via a huge system the game uses to determine when certain events can happen. They can happen any day of the week, but only once a week, and if the game tries to make one happen and none are applicable or it picks one that doesn't work for your household, it simply does nothing. This can mean they seem very, very rare depending on sims your household knows and situations happening to their lives.