UPDATE 3 Feb: People using non-US English versions of the game may have noticed that the pie menu options do not show up in game. This should now be fixed, and I apologise for the inconvenience. The plants, basket, fence and scarecrow files have been affected. The wheelbarrow and sign recolour have not. (There's one of the reasons this is in the "in testing" section of the downloads )

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UPDATE 30 Jan: Guess who forgot to change the GUID in the wheelbarrow sculpture? I am officially very, very embarrased. And shame on the 3,800+ of you who didn't even notice! So if you're missing your apple-on-a-podium statue, you had better redownload it now.

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This is a set that I have been working on, on and off (more off than on I'm afraid) for the past couple of months. It does contain hacked code. In some objects the modifications are minor. In other objects the changes are quite extensive.

Warning: Some of these objects can still be considered in beta. They have all gone through closed beta tests, but there may yet be undiscovered bugs. If you should find something you consider to be a bug, please let me know asap so that I can fix it.

The Farmers' Set

Objects:
Harvestable Crops
These plants periodically grow fruits which can be harvested by a sim. The sim may choose to harvest just one plant, or to harvest all of a particular type of plant in sequence. For example, by selecting "Harvest All" on an apple tree, all apple trees will be harvested. When a sim begins to harvest fruit from the plant, a harvest basket is created which keeps track of how much fruit has been picked. Once harvesting has been completed, the fruit in the basket may either be sold for simoleans, or used to restock the sim's fridge. The crops require periodic watering. If they are not kept watered they will lose their fruit and their leaves will turn brown. Eventually the leaves will fall off, and some time after this the plant will die completely. This behaviour is common to all of the crops, however they each have different regrowth times, different food values, and different fruit sale values.

The harvest basket object is required for the crops to function correctly. In order to use any of these crops, you must first download the harvest basket.




Harvestable Apple Tree
Poly count: 1604
Location: Decorative > Plants
Filename: echo-harvestapple.package

Harvestable Grape Vine
Poly count: 160
Location: Decorative > Plants
Filename: echo-harvestgrape.package




Harvestable Lettuce
Poly count: 336
Location: Decorative > Plants
Filename: echo-harvestlettuce.package




Harvestable Red Cabbage
Poly count: 336
Location: Decorative > Plants
Filename: echo-harvestcabbage.package




Harvest Basket
Poly count: 150
Location: Created when harvesting crops (non-buyable)
Filename: echo-harvestbasket.package
This file is needed for the rest of the harvestable crops to work




Sociable Scarecrow
As well as being good to kick for stress relief, this scarecrow is also able to boost a sim's social points. The "Tell a Secret" option and the "Flirt" option both increase social. Flirt increases it more dramatically, but it is only available when the social motive drops below the half way mark.

Poly Count: 1381
Location: Decorative > Statues
Filename: echo-scarecrow-adultm.package




Electric Fence
In order to easily add pie menu controls, these fence pieces are buy mode objects, not proper fence pieces. It will, however, completely block a sim from passing through it. The electric fence comes across three files, which are described below. When touched by a sim, said sim will experience a (not so) mild electric shock. One of the more swift ways of removing an unwanted sim.




Straight fence mesh
Poly Count: 112
Location: Decorative > Statues
Filename: echo-zapperfence.package
Required for a straight section of fencing.

Corner fence mesh
Poly Count: 170
Location: Decorative > Statues
Filename: echo-zapperfence-corner.package
Required to turn a corner in the fence.

Fence Sign recolour
Filename: echo-zapperfence-nosigncolour.package
This recolours the sign on the straight fence to be transparent, so that the warning notice does not need to appear on every fence segment

Wheelbarrow
Poly Count: 1404
Location: Decorative > Statues
Filename: echo-wheelbarrow-0712.package
This one's purely decorative, but it fits with the theme so I'm including it.

More crops
If you're looking for more harvest-compatible crops, a few very talented meshers have already obliged:
SimAddict99's Crops on MTS2
Teresa's Crops on InSim

Use and reuse
For the first two weeks after release, I ask that this object not be cloned or redistributed, so that any possible bugs can be identified and fixed before the files spread. After that time, the following guidelines apply. (Recolours need not wait two weeks, as bug fixes should not cause recolours to change.)

Recolouring
The scarecrow, wheelbarrow and electric fence warning sign are all recolourable. You are welcome to recolour these and distribute your recolours in any way that you wish. Unfortunately, due to the way that the textures are switched around in the crops, they are not currently recolourable. The harvest basket cannot be selected in buy mode, so recolouring it would be pointless.

Cloning and derivative objects
As with all my objects, I'm very liberal in letting people remesh these objects, or borrow my code for their own derivative objects. In the case of the harvestable crops, remeshing according to most tutorials will not work completely. If you wish to create more harvestable crops (please do, my farmer sims would love you), then PM me or post here and I will gladly step you through the process of creating new crops. (It's not much harder than normal remeshing, just a couple of extra steps).

Using in lots
If it makes sense to use these objects in a lot (ie - you're sharing a farm or a house with developed garden,) then you may include these objects in a distributed lot with credit. However, I would prefer that lots created with the express purpose of mass distributing downloaded objects not include these. The former celebrates a creator's work, while the latter celebrates the redistributor. If you're not sure which category your lot falls into, then ask me directly - I'll most likely give permission .

In General
You can recolour and share to your heart's desire. That includes pay sites if you so choose (but I'm a strong supporter of free sites). Credit is appreciated, and links to my site make me happy. I also love to see what people make, so feel free to message me if you create something.

Credits and thank yous:
- Quaxi, for the SimPE software. Without that, I'd be staring bemused at byte code.
- Numenor, RGiles and Quaxi, for the CEP. Objects that are recolourable owe this ability to the CEP.
- Peter Jones for the Simantics plugin. The ability to get immediate feedback on the changes being made to the BHAV code made this project practicable.
- Sherri, Natasha, Andrea, Anthony, and Jerri, the wonderful players who volunteered to beta test these objects in their games and provided valuable bug reports and suggestions.
- LyricLee, who explained this newfangled way of uploading objects to me

Other notes: The scarecrow body mesh is heavily based on an in-game body mesh made by Maxis. The trunk of the apple tree is based on the trunk of the money tree. The grape vine leaves was based on two images copied from a Google Images search. The rest of the meshes and textures are (unfortunately) entirely my own work .

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5087 people have said thanks to Echo for this download.

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For more information about this creator and their policies or details, click here.

Basic Download and Install Instructions:

1. Download: Click the download link to save the .rar or .zip file(s) to your computer.

2. Extract: Use WinRAR (Windows) or Stuffit (Mac) to extract the .package file(s) from the .rar or .zip file(s).

3. Place in Downloads Folder: Cut and paste the .package file(s) into your Downloads folder:

• Windows XP: Documents and Settings\(Current User Account)\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads\
  
• Windows Vista: Users\(Current User Account)\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads\
  
• Mac: Users\(Current User Account)\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads\

Need more information?

• For a full, complete guide to downloading complete with pictures and more information, see: Game Help: Downloading for Fracking Idiots.
  
  
• Custom content not showing up in the game? See: Game Help: Getting Custom Content to Show Up.
  
• Anyone can use both .rar and .zip files easily! On Windows, use WinRAR. On Mac, use Stuffit.
  
• If you don't have a Downloads folder, just make one. See instructions at: Game Help: No Downloads Folder.