Hidden Fatherhood

Ever wanted to keep a baby's real dad a secret? Made a little oopsie after a night out? Daddy went to buy milk and never returned? Hidden Fatherhood lets you choose who a Sim's official father is, while the real father stays hidden as their secret parent.

It uses the secret-child system from the Royalty & Legacy expansion pack, so everything works just like when the game makes a secret child on its own.

What it does

Shift-click any Sim to open the Hidden Fatherhood menu. It has two options.

Change Father (for pregnant Sims)

Choose who the baby's official father will be before it's born:

• Nobody (bottom of the list): only the mother is on paper.
• Another Sim: that Sim becomes the dad on paper.
• The real father: everything stays as normal.

When the baby arrives, the game makes it a secret child. The real dad is kept as the baby's secret parent, and only he and the mother know the truth.

Change Parenthood (for Sims who are already born)

Change the father of any Sim who has one: babies, kids, teens, adults, anyone.

• Pick Nobody (bottom of the list) or another Sim, and they become a secret child, exactly like one born that way. The real father's side of the family (his parents, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews…) is no longer family to them. If you pick another Sim, that Sim's family takes their place.
• Pick the real father again and everything goes back to normal with no secret reveal/scandal/whatever the hell the game does with it.
• If the Sim has kids of their own, their family tree updates too.

Choosing the father

The list shows the real father and the current official father at the top. Then it goes: Nobody, the real father, men, and then everyone else.

You can pick any human Sim who's a teen or older, ghosts included.

How it works

Hidden Fatherhood doesn't replace or change anything in the game. It uses the game's own secret-child system.

Staying up to date

This mod is very simple. It doesn't add its own systems; it just hooks into the game's own (vanilla) pregnancy, family tree and secrets mechanics. So as long as those don't change a lot in future patches, it should keep working.

If you find it out of date, feel free to fork it and update it yourself.

Requirements

• The Sims 4, up to date (made and tested on version 1.129.39)
• Royalty & Legacy expansion pack
• Script mods turned on: Game Options → Other → tick Enable Custom Content and Mods and Script Mods Allowed
• Cheats turned on: Hidden Fatherhood lives in the shift-click cheat menu. Press Ctrl + Shift + C, type testingcheats true and press Enter.

No other mods are needed.

Installation (if you REALLY need a tutorial for this)

1. Download and unzip the file.
2. Put Cartafilo_HiddenFatherhood.ts4script and Cartafilo_HiddenFatherhood.package in your Mods folder (Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Mods). The .ts4script file can be at most one folder deep inside Mods.
3. Start the game, turn on cheats and shift-click a Sim.

Good to know

• Change Father is greyed out if the pregnancy has no father.
• Family trees can get messy, so it's a good idea to back up your save before big changes.