Skyscrapers shells, objects, trees and routing questions

[archwyvern]

Just wondering
I am building my world with many fake buildings in order to avoid lags and maintain the city's beauty
but when it came to routing session, should I mark those decoy building as well as trees and doodads it with blue mark (so sims can't enter), I assume that they will just walk through them...

Another question
While in game, will those decoy buildings fade away when the camera goes near, or just behave like in lot building shells??

Last question
How many lots should I placed in order to maintain a healthy world??

[rian90]

You will need to paint the areas where the decorative buildings are with non-routable paint.

[simsample]

Question 1- yes, as rian90 said. But you don't need to mark the trees as non-routable, the footprint they have is adequate to stop sims running through them.

Question 2- That depends upon how they are made. It's possible to change the way in which an object behaves, so you would have to ask the creator.

Question 3- The EA worlds have around 80-ish each, but I have a custom world with 162 lots which works just fine for most players. Some people have reported problems with worlds of above 150 lots, but this may be just due to the limits of the computer specifications. If you have a really good computer and plan to make a world for yourself, you could place as many lots as your PC can handle, but if you plan to share and want all simmers to be able to play it, you should keep the number as low as feasible.

[High Plains Gamer]

You will need to paint the areas where the decorative buildings are with non-routable paint.

Why?

I understand the aesthetic concerns about sims running through buildings, but is it really a big problem?

Consider that when most sims go someplace, they tend to take a car there, which means they follow roads. Also when sims jog or run somewhere, they tend to follow the roads, provided that the road network is efficient.

Also, buildings, and particularly large buildings tend to have multiple entrances and exits. So a sim entering through a building or running through a building is fairly plausible. Just assume they are going through one of those many entrances or exits.

The reason this is a concern is that routing paint causes as many problems as it solves. For example, when someone slops non-routable paint in an area, other users cannot pull up the deco building and replace it with a lot of their own choosing. Every square of non-routable terrain is a square where a gamer cannot build or modify a world to suit his own ends. Perhaps this is attractive to those world builders who like to micro-manage how other gamers play their game. But many worlds are ruined by the promiscuous use of non-routable paint.

Also, the use of non-routable paint just seems to be asking for routing problems, especially if one is not careful about its application. Deco buildings which sims run through really cannot be a source of routing problems.

in terms of the number of lots, you really have to ask what you are doing. The optimum number of residential lots is dictated by the number of sims. A good sized world will have 150 sims. As you approach and go over 200, you will start experiencing more and more problems. After all, the more sims you have, the more likely one of them is going to get stuck somewhere. Most sim households are going to have in the neighborhood of 50 friends or acquaintances, unless, perhaps they are doing one of those charisma opportunities. Sims in excess of this amount really don't add much to the game, except for some local color.

Now consider, that on the average, you may have 3 sims per household. I never have done a detailed statistical study on this, but three seems about right. So, if your world has, on average three sems per household, and 150 sims, you really only need 50 houses. Add another ten to 20 to give your families some options as to where they live, and you really only need 50 to 70 residential lots. There are 20 some odd community type lots. So, when you look at a functional and healthy sim neighborhood, you only really need 100 or so lots. Everything else is eye candy and serves only to help bork your game.

The fake buildings serve the same purpose as the eye candy lots. They create the illusion of a much larger community without the problems one encounters when one starts putting hundreds and hundreds of lots in their world. If done right, it can be quite impressive. Just look at Manustyle/Daniel's New York.

[simsample]

Why?

I understand the aesthetic concerns about sims running through buildings, but is it really a big problem?

If the deco building is made as an object with no footprint then it's not really an issue. But if the building has a large footprint then it is an issue. This is because NPCs can spawn in the centre of object footprints and get stuck; I've seen it happen with some of the EA objects. Painting with non-routing paint sets it so that the game will not attempt to spawn there.

It really is a question of how the item is made. For the EA building shells it's not necessary as they have the exits, but the OP was not asking about the EA buildings.

[High Plains Gamer]

I can see where a building with a large footprint could cause a problem, particularly where sims cannot pass through it. A lot will depend on the creator of the item. However, there really are not a lot of people making these fake buildings. Carlos has made a few; I really don't recall how "solid" there are. Manustyle/Daniel have a fairly large collection of fake buildings in their New York world, and most, if not all, really have no substance at all. There are a few others making these buildings, but the fake buildings are few and far between when compared to in game buildings (i.e. built on lots using in game tools).

I think it really comes down to a design philosophy. Does one build something with a solid footprint which has the potential to cause routing problems? Creating routing problems seems to defeat the purpose of these buildings. Or one can make the buildings in such a way they are largely invisible to the sims -- they are pure eye candy. Personally, I am inclined towards the latter combined with a sparing use of non-routable paint.

It largely does strike me as a case of six one way and half a dozen the other. But I am interested in others' thoughts on this.

[Inge Jones]

I would guess that whether npcs spawn and get stuck might depend on the shape of the footprint. I would be surprised if the game did not avoid spawing sims where there is an actual non-intersectable footprint. I can imagine it being a problem if the footprint is only around the base of the shell building, leaving the middle unoccupied.

[simsample]

It could be that, Inge- although, I remember this thread:
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=435167

I've always had problems with sims spawning beneath bridges (but of course they have a route spline through them) and under a water tower I placed on the x,y 0,0 co-ordinate (the game seems to favour that location for spawning sims). Of course, both of those instances could be due to an imperfect footprint.

However, for the average CC user, how would they know whether the footprint was solid or imperfect? So in most cases I would think it would be better to have route paint underneath, or at least to check the route path (which is easy if you know how to hide objects in CAW).

I would personally prefer my sims NOT to run through buildings!

[Daniel]

The reason I put non-routing paint under the buildings is because, in many places, I've made the illusion of alleyways and such, complete with junk/metal/bug spawners. And it ruins the illusion if, like Simsample said, sims just run through the buildings.

I have considered however, the fact that this gives the user very little freedom to add their own touch via Edit Town. The best solution I can come up with is to release the CAW files along with the final version (whenever that is)

[archwyvern]

Okay, so problem 1 and 3 solved
Thanks for the help 4 the answers and participation


Question 2- That depends upon how they are made. It's possible to change the way in which an object behaves, so you would have to ask the creator.


I mostly used the late night skyscraper building shells, I didn't use any custom shells...

[simsample]

That's a good idea though, Daniel- to channel the sims to use an alley. :)

archwyvern, for the EA shells they have a hollow footprint, so the sims should be able to escape just fine through the doors if they spawn inside, and no routing paint would likely be necessary. Of course, as with any world you would need to test it to make sure it works as desired! :)