Stupid/random questions... (v3)

[lazzybum]

The circle of the terrain tool disappears when cap lock is on. I've mistakenly pressed cap locks many times for no reason whenever I play sims... *scratches head*

[DrowningFishy]

@Bellasaurus 2 of those four cheats mentioned I use snapobjects rarely though. Allow45 usually makes something unusabel so I neve r use it, and I never herd of the quartertile.

@lazzybum you know I never thought to check the caps lock. 0_o won't I be stupid if that's it. sadly I won't be on that laptop again till Wednesday.

[Alijah]

@lazzybum you know I never thought to check the caps lock. 0_o won't I be stupid if that's it. sadly I won't be on that laptop again till Wednesday.

Out of curiosity, I gave this a try in build mode. Caps lock did nothing for me :( This may sound like a stupid question (and forgive me if it sounds like Im questioning your intelligence) but is the little circle gone all over the lot, or is this under the foundation? Cause I know the circle disappears while under a houses foundation.

[DrowningFishy]

Out of curiosity, I gave this a try in build mode. Caps lock did nothing for me :( This may sound like a stupid question (and forgive me if it sounds like Im questioning your intelligence) but is the little circle gone all over the lot, or is this under the foundation? Cause I know the circle disappears while under a houses foundation.

All over the lot, it has vanished, poof-gone-bye bye

[Alijah]

All over the lot, it has vanished, poof-gone-bye bye

That's really curious. I've tried experimenting in my own game but can't seem to recreate it. How weird!

Edit to add: Maybe this will work for you?

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=430915

[lazzybum]

I decided to try it out just now too. I can't seem to recreate it, but I've had it completely disappear numerous times to know that I was able to fix it instantly when I pressed caplocks (which happens to be on). So maybe there's more into what factors into creating the glitch in the first place than just having caps lock on. Maybe you have to swap between build and buy mode enough times or who know. If it happens again, give pressing capslock a try. I dont usually answer question unless i've experienced with it enough, but If I'm wrong, then sorry :(

[DrowningFishy]

I decided to try it out just now too. I can't seem to recreate it, but I've had it completely disappear numerous times to know that I was able to fix it instantly when I pressed caplocks (which happens to be on). So maybe there's more into what factors into creating the glitch in the first place than just having caps lock on. Maybe you have to swap between build and buy mode enough times or who know. If it happens again, give pressing capslock a try. I dont usually answer question unless i've experienced with it enough, but If I'm wrong, then sorry :(

It is how it is with computers, you press something you don't know what, changees something and it remains a mystory. Though I did manage to find a quit short cut trying to recreate it with this laptop. XD Not so much as want help fixing it, as to really curious what I pressed that's why I didn't go to the help section.

I think I am going to keep keybashing for a bit more, cause I am still curious. I'll try not to create anymore what did I press questions.

[Babahara]

Stupid question: what does finishing the physiology book do? I still can't figure out its effects.

Are protein shakes useful?

[Darby]

Stupid question: what does finishing the physiology book do? I still can't figure out its effects.

Are protein shakes useful?

I just answered your first question in another thread, not knowing you'd posted it here. Copy/pasta'd with two minor edits: Studying Physiology helps sims gain body skill faster, but there's a glitch associated with studying physiology whereby sims gain ALL skills insanely fast, instead of just getting a modest gain on body skill alone. Pescado has a fix (alfixes) for this, though, for those who prefer not to exploit that glitch.

As far as I know, protein shakes aren't special beyond being quick and fairly filling.

[Alijah]

As far as I know, protein shakes aren't special beyond being quick and fairly filling.

I believe protein shakes give a temporary boost to how fast your sim can increase fitness and to body, as well as increasing fitness enthusiasm.

[EmeraldFalcon]

Studying Physiology helps sims gain body skill faster

Wasn't it also supposed to make the sim less likely to get sick in the future? I believe that's what the ingame text says.

[Darby]

Wasn't it also supposed to make the sim less likely to get sick in the future? I believe that's what the ingame text says.

Never heard that, but it makes sense, considering what the sim says about having skills to be "a healthier sim" once the study is complete.

@Alijah
Hadn't ever heard that either. Thanks for the info. :)

[Babahara]

I think I had the glitch of physiology all-skill-boost without knowing it... This is strange, because AL was patched, and I'm pretty sure I saw that bug mentioned in the list of fixes. This is why I never installed alfixes, as all bugs Perscado fixed seemed to be mentioned over in the description of the EA patch. But I do remember seeing how unnaturally fast some sims learn all skills. Testing their IQ with the batbox showed 100, which is normal. But I guess it was that glitch, after all. Hm, some of my sims had it so unfairly easy compared to others!

Next time, if I get my game working properly again, I'll play with alfixes, no matter what the patch info says.

That said, any suggestions on how to make sims who already read physiology unlearn their permanent all-skills-boost?

[Darby]

I'm pretty sure the Physiology glitch never was fixed in the official patch(es).

As for Pescado's fixes, I use them all, even if there's some overlap between his and the official patches. Doesn't seem to hurt anything to use both, and his fixes include a number of things the official patches don't/never did. However, there's a downside to Pescado's fixes in that he doesn't list ALL the features/fixes in his rtfms. He's really bad about that. For me, that's not a deterrent, but for others, it can be.

For sims who've "benefited" from too-easy skills, boolprop/dragging them down is an easy solution. I don't know if the increased skilling speed will be resolved in existing sims once alfixes in installed.

[Alijah]

That said, any suggestions on how to make sims who already read physiology unlearn their permanent all-skills-boost?

If you use Pescado's batbox, there is a feature where you can test their IQ; 100 is normal and anything higher is glitched from the physiology study or from a smartmilk that stuck from toddler-aged.

If your sims IQ is higher than 100, then go "Make Me..." and select dumb, it will decrease your sims IQ back to the normal 100. There's also the "Make me smart" which will give normal sims the skillbuilding boost, but I stay away from that one; it gets so boring having a bunch of braniacs walking around.

[Babahara]

Their IQ is 100, though. I'll check once again, maybe I have a wrong sim in mind. I just remember that a Beaker sim had very easy time fulfulling her skill bar, no matter what skill it was, and when I tested her IQ (thinking that it's a smark milk effect stuck or something), it was 100.

Lol, I wonder what happens if a sim has this bugged physiology glitch, eurika perk reward, and wears a thinking cap :)

[katya_stevens]

The only thing I can think of to limit skills is if you have AL or M&G and the Sim Blender -- TwoJeffs at Simbology made a Skill Limiter (http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=7186.msg142732#msg142732) where you can set a limit on the skill level a sim can get. However, you will need to stop and restart skilling if a sim reaches their maximum allowed level to avoid them inadvertanly getting extra skill points.

[DrowningFishy]

Why is it that my high resultion game is giving out crappy screen shots while my low res. game is giving out better screen shots? Shouldn't it, by logic, be the other way around?

Laptop 1 (low res.)
http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h462/DrowningDaFishy/?action=view&current=snapshot_5b7ec8f3_fb7fda4c.jpg
Laptop 2 (high res.)
http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h462/DrowningDaFishy/?action=view&current=snapshot_5b98825c_9b98825f.jpg

[frankokomando]

Which expansion pack does the exercise bike come with? =/

[lazzybum]

Why is it that my high resultion game is giving out crappy screen shots while my low res. game is giving out better screen shots? Shouldn't it, by logic, be the other way around?

Laptop 1 (low res.)
http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h462/DrowningDaFishy/?action=view&current=snapshot_5b7ec8f3_fb7fda4c.jpg
Laptop 2 (high res.)
http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h462/DrowningDaFishy/?action=view&current=snapshot_5b98825c_9b98825f.jpg

Did you make sure both had the same quality in the camera options?

[Bwinney43]

Why is it that my high resultion game is giving out crappy screen shots while my low res. game is giving out better screen shots? Shouldn't it, by logic, be the other way around?

Laptop 1 (low res.)
http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h462/DrowningDaFishy/?action=view&current=snapshot_5b7ec8f3_fb7fda4c.jpg
Laptop 2 (high res.)
http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h462/DrowningDaFishy/?action=view&current=snapshot_5b98825c_9b98825f.jpg

Why don't you try downloading Fraps? It's an awesome program for taking screen shots(among other things) I've been using it recently and I love it for taking pictures.

[DrowningFishy]

Did you make sure both had the same quality in the camera options?

This laptop is actually set to higher then the other one. Guess I can drag it down see what happens.

[Lemon67]

Why don't you try downloading Fraps? It's an awesome program for taking screen shots(among other things) I've been using it recently and I love it for taking pictures.

Your right, i am a Fraps user and it is the best for screenshots ! :) Trust me ^^ I write Sims stories and i needed a screenshots-programs. I found Fraps and it makes my life ! :beer:

Fraps site ! (http://www.fraps.com/download.php)

[lazzybum]

This laptop is actually set to higher then the other one. Guess I can drag it down see what happens.

Well, I dont think you should worry about it being the resolution. The difference between the images is one is a way more compressed jpeg, which looks like the low quality camera setting. Camera setting is different than graphic settings & smooth edges, etc.

I like to use Fraps too, but wish theres an adjustable screen setting rather than getting the whole game (I have high resolution so that means bigger sized files :/)

Now I have a question!
When I delete houses/lots, is it safe/completely gone if I just delete it from the lot bin? Or is there a secret file I have to dig for too?

[DrowningFishy]

@lazzybum Yeah it's safe, you'll just get a warning that says something along the lines are you sure once it's deleted it's gone from the game for good.

Hey if a Cowplant eats a cow mascot is that canabalism?

[omglo]

This is a weird request, but could someone point me toward a picture of the original Dreamer house? I forgot to move Darleen's grave when the rest of her family left and that was so long ago that I don't remember where they lived. It even appears that the whole lot might have disappeared, since I couldn't find it just now.

[AlexandraSpears]

[QUOTE=DrowningFishy
Hey if a Cowplant eats a cow mascot is that canabalism?[/QUOTE]

Nope, just one less cow mascot trashing your Sims' relationships and pulling pranks. (Unless they regenerate.)

[Bwinney43]

How long do the results of the Genie wishes last? Are they permanent? I was playing the Aspirs and had Luis wish for beauty or whatever. I guess the wish failed because now people are ringing the doorbell constantly. I had to go to MATY and get the hack that stops the doorbell from waking sims up. Freaking annoying. Will the wish eventually wear off? I tried searching Google but couldn't pull up any results so I'm thinking they last forever?

[Mootilda]

This is a weird request, but could someone point me toward a picture of the original Dreamer house? I forgot to move Darleen's grave when the rest of her family left and that was so long ago that I don't remember where they lived. It even appears that the whole lot might have disappeared, since I couldn't find it just now.Here it is:
http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/195_Main_Street#195_Main_Street

I was playing the Aspirs and had Luis wish for beauty or whatever. I guess the wish failed because now people are ringing the doorbell constantly.Sounds like the wish succeeded. People find her / him irresistible.

[omglo]

Thanks. Oops, I don't think that house is in my neighborhood anymore.

[Cyjon]

The beauty wish lasts for 4 days, and every 4 hours someone will come by and ring the doorbell. During this time the beautiful sim will have 3 bolts of chemistry with everyone of appropriate gender preference. Be careful not to move the sim out of the house during this time because then the wish becomes stuck and the chemistry aspect of the wish becomes permanent. Of course some people might consider this a good thing.

[Peni Griffin]

The next household in my rotation is the Phoenix family, consisting of three Tricou descendants, the husband of one, a fetal bastard, and a former roommate (confusingly named Phoenix) who was made playable shortly before the marriage because he had a high relationship with the bride, Lora. Seeing as how he's a Romance sim and he'd been living with her for some time, but had only recently received his first flirt and at that point turned out to have two bolts with her, I gave Phoenix a nonreciprocal crush on Lora by checking the box in SimPE; it seemed called for given the high Daytrime Drama quotient of the household.

When I wound up the last household before this one, it was too late to start a new play session, but I opened the household up to take a look anyway. Poking in memory to see what had happened to them on community lots since I last left their story, I found that Phoenix and Lora both had a memory of sharing a first kiss. By the context of surrounding "met so-and-so" memories, I figured out when this must have happened, but I didn't see it; I only knew of one of them being at the lot at the time; and most importantly, newlywed Lora doesn't have a "fall in love" or "had an affair" memory, though both should have been triggered by an autonomous kiss.

Moreover, paging back through the (very short) entirety of Phoenix's memories, he's missing a few! While he was still an unplayable roommate, Mary Munny added him to her woohoo tally four rotations ago. I double-checked this by getting into her memories - "did woohoo with Phoenix" is right where I expected it to be, along with the kiss/fall in love/make-out memories leading up to it. He only remembers kissing her; as far as you can tell from his memories, he's still a virgin, and his first kiss with Mary happened between last rotation and this one, not way back when.

So my question is twofold: Are there any hidden problems involved in deleting that anomalous kiss with Lora from both their memories if it did, in fact happen, and something about the circumstances prevented the other relevant memories (not to mention the love/affair) from generating?
And having discovered that Phoenix's memories are borked, is there anything else I should be looking for? Is it common for roommates-turned-playable to have patchy memories of things that happened while they were running around as roommates?

[Simsica]

Peni, I believe that your Sim's memory issues are due to NPC/townie memory loss "feature". A roommate - I suppose it's an AL roommate, right? - is a townie, and ergo he didn't memorize anything before the move in.

Check out this hack (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=245542) for more info, and a possible solution, so that this doesn't happen anymore. I haven't used it, since I avoid any townie play in my game, but it sounds useful for your gameplay style. I used to have Squinge's "townienomemoryloss" though, before I decided empty templates are the way to go for me, so I'm aware of the issue.

Edit (to add a question I originally came here to make, but got sidetracked...) I'm having issues when I use the extracted "Semester Tester" (as a hacked object) in my game. The game crashes whenever I try to use it for setting the major for my YAs living in the main hood. The question - not hack related! - is: is this because I still haven't created a UNI subhood in this hood? I also noticed that I can't spawn it as a cheat object using testingcheatsenabled true. The same reason?

[omglo]

I have a couple Bon Voyage questions. Is it okay to summon toddlers so they can go on vacation? I'm concerned they might get stuck there or taken by the social worker. Is there a way to set up a vacation home so the owners relatives who live different households can go there without the owner being there?

[MsScribble]

What makes a pet run away? My sims dog has just run away for the second time. He has a reasonable relationship score with his sim owners but a very low one (in the negatives) with the other dog - could this be the problem?

The first time he ran away Meadow Thayer bought him back a few days later. She hung around the house all day playing with the dogs and joining my sims at meal time - it was so cute I almost had my sims adopt her!

[shoo_flee]

Yes, i think if they have a bad relasionship for long enough with another pet they run away. That was the case with one of my cats anyway she HATED the other cat and ended up running away for ages!

Best way to stop it is to teach them to be playful then they are more likely to have a good relasionship with everyone :)

[DrowningFishy]

Ok, okay, I am going to top the stupid question list. Say you want to exit from the game and it asks you a question on whether or not to save the game. If you want to abort without saving what is the correct answer to save?

[Peni Griffin]

Yes.

I'm wondering if I misunderstood how job aspiration rewards and promotions work, or if I've got another big nasty aspiration glitch in the offing.

During the last two days I've played two of my three Fortune sims with the LTW of Being Business Tycoon. All have been sitting at CEO for a few rotations in need of some points for promotion. While doing my pre-play review (when I leave the game paused while I check everybody's status on all levels of the head's up display and read the story album to refresh myself on last session) I accidentally went into Ernest's Career Rewards instead of his inventory, and saw that he already had access to the mini-golf game. This surprised me, as I had thought you didn't get access to those rewards till you reached the top of the profession. I went ahead and pulled it out anyway - he hates practicing speeches and still needs two charisma points for that last promotion.

On to Harris. Curiosity aroused by Ernest's situation, I looked in his Career Rewards and saw that he had access, not only to the golf game, but to the surgical station! He took a temporary medical job right out of college in order to make ends meet, switching to business at his first opportunity, but he never rose very high. I don't think he was in it for as much as three days. So that was weird. I didn't take either of them, because the house didn't have room and there's no story reason for them to have the surgical station.

Harris, glowing platinum from two nights of dream dates in a row (he's really trying to sell Gabriella on having another kid!), went to work, and returned, singing and bearing flowers, as a Business Tycoon! He was short of qualifying by one each points in logic, charisma, and creativity, and the only chance card he got was one of those hobby-related ones. So I'm weirded out...

Oh, and I looked to see what his next LTW was - it's "Marry Off Six Children!" Family is his secondary and of course it doesn't matter since you can't permaplat twice, but...should I be concerned?

Edit to add: Oh, yes, and Gabriella (who was platinum most of the day, working on, finishing, and accepting delivery of her first novel) seemed to have steam coming out of her head most of that time. I've never seen anybody get like that before. Animation glitch? I tried to get a picture, but it was to subtle an effect for my limited simcamera skills.

[Sunbee]

Different career rewards are available at different levels. There are at least a couple hobby reward cards that potentially offer a promotion. I know one is a games hobby card. Sims do get LTW from their secondary aspiration--I have it happen all the time because I award teens a secondary on age-up, in fact, it seems almost guaranteed if the secondary is cheese!
Perhaps your Gabriella has maxed her hobby and was in the zone?

[katya_stevens]

This surprised me, as I had thought you didn't get access to those rewards till you reached the top of the profession.

As Sunbee said, various careers have the rewards given at various levels -- some allocated it at level 4 of the career track, some allocate it at level 5, and some allocate it at level 6. It certainly helps in some professions (like Businesses/Charisma) to get it when you do.

Oh, and I looked to see what his next LTW was - it's "Marry Off Six Children!" Family is his secondary and of course it doesn't matter since you can't permaplat twice, but...should I be concerned?

So long as the LTW relates to their primary or secondary aspiration, you shouldn't be concerned -- marrying off 6 kids is perfectly fine for a part-Family aspiration sim. While you're right in that sims can't be perma-plat twice (although with a mod you could break perma-plat (http://drupal.cyjon.net/node/345) and re-give it), you still get the aspiration and influence points from fulfilling a second, third, or more LTW.

Chance cards, again as Sunbee said, those are normal -- some give or take away hobby interest, some can give or take away a small money amount, and some can even get you demoted (like the games one where you're asked to play a game of thumb wars and either option can get you demoted :faceslap: ). You get them at school, as well as at work (although the school ones will affect a child/teen's grade instead of demoting them, obviously).

[Peni Griffin]

All right, I'll relax. The hobby card was a games one, but not the thumb-wrestling; just a choice between lying to the boss about your game, or telling him about it. Which makes no sense! Last night I had a doctor demoted because lying about what music she listened to created tensions at work; that struck me as not too unrealistic, given the way office politics works. As far as the story is concerned, she wasn't demoted, just got stuck with night shift in a scheduling reshuffle.

Gabriella hasn't maxed her literature enthusiasm, though she has maxed her creativity. I haven't had anybody "in the zone" yet, but I've seen pictures. Doesn't it make you glow all over? This was just out of the top of her head, and looked exactly like the steam coming off a plate of food or a coffee cup.

[Orilon]

Gabriella hasn't maxed her literature enthusiasm, though she has maxed her creativity. I haven't had anybody "in the zone" yet, but I've seen pictures. Doesn't it make you glow all over? This was just out of the top of her head, and looked exactly like the steam coming off a plate of food or a coffee cup.

Sims "In the Zone" glow all over their body. If they maxed Music and Dance they will change into formal wear if they play violin or piano, and you will hear special music and cheering like an audience if they are using the dance bar.

[Bellasaurus]

Gabriella hasn't maxed her literature enthusiasm, though she has maxed her creativity. I haven't had anybody "in the zone" yet, but I've seen pictures. Doesn't it make you glow all over? This was just out of the top of her head, and looked exactly like the steam coming off a plate of food or a coffee cup.

Was her temperature bar in the red? When sims get overheated they can sometimes 'steam' and/or sweat & wipe their brows and go "Phew"

[Peni Griffin]

I thought of that, but she was inside, in winter, writing her book or cleaning the whole time, with a temperature bar comfortably green.

Edit: Rats; told the Fish wrong. The wording is "Do you wish to save?" not "Do you wish to close without saving?" So the proper answer is "No."

[AmandaEscoto25]

Hi Everyone, I haven't played sims 3 in awhile but recently bought a bunch of expansions including pets and ran into a problem. Everytime I play a new household the first night my house gets hit by a meteorite, destryoing more stuff than I care to fix and the whole fiasco takes so long to be over that my pets needs keep getting red and the next thing I know the social worker comes and takes them away so I have dead sim and no pets.. How can I stop the meteorite from coming and keep the social worker away?

[Darby]

I believe you want this section (http://www.modthesims.info/forumdisplay.php?f=646) of the forums. This is the Sims 2 section.

[Peni Griffin]

I don't know. Perhaps you should ask on the Sims3 board instead of the Sims2 one?

Yeah, the forum's confusing till you get used to it. I hope someone can help you, as that sounds really annoying. It's bad enough when a falling satellite takes out a single member of the household.

[Liv Lukas]

Can you play an apartment lot, from move in onwards, WITHOUT the landlord showing up? I mean, if I block him/her with the visitor controller beforehand? I do not want a landlord NPC in my hood.

[katya_stevens]

Liv, I don't think you can -- your sims need to 'sign' the contract to be able to rent an apartment if you use the AL method. One alternative might be to use an alternate apartment-giving mod (sorry, don't know where to find them) to avoid the landlord spawning.

[Liv Lukas]

Phooey. Thanks, Katya.

[Peni Griffin]

So, say I wanted to clone a bunch of Strangetowners "the easy way" and put them into the Sim Bin. Does Pascal Curious's pregnancy cause any difficulties with this project? Will he look pregnant and I'd have to give him a pregnancy token in SimPE? Will the Sim Bin just leave him as a blank rectangle as if he were a set of clothes with no mesh? Will it freak the whole game out, necessitating that I clone him "the hard way?"

Supposing I then took those cloned Strangetowners and aged them down to teen. If I had a pregnant Pascal straight out of the Sim Bin, what would happen?

These questions of course apply also to Brandi Broke and anybody else neighborhood-specific who's pregnant; but now that I've learned to extract sims with SimPE (the tutorial omits the step "make a SavedSim folder to put them in") I was thinking that the next time I need some fresh teens, which will almost certainly be a need mostly for boys, Strangetown has some of the less boring-looking guys among the pre-mades.

[ginrouken]

I've never cloned pregnant sims (don't think it's actually possible? you can't make a sim pregnant in CAS when you're rebuilding your clones) so I can't help with that, but -

Supposing I then took those cloned Strangetowners and aged them down to teen. If I had a pregnant Pascal straight out of the Sim Bin, what would happen?
If you age up or down a pregnant adult, the pregnancy is terminated. If you age Pascal down, you'll need inteen to make him preggo again.

[lazzybum]

So I had a dog who ran away. Few days later, he was found, and the guy comes to return him. Well... he forgot to bring the dog, but the guy seemed very comfortable in my home.

Anyways, since it probably glitched somehow and the dog's panel shows his needs completely red, is there way to debug lost pets/bring them back with cheats? I'll try moving the household to another house if there's no other options.

ETA: I also can't report him missing again.

[katya_stevens]

So, say I wanted to clone a bunch of Strangetowners "the easy way" and put them into the Sim Bin. Does Pascal Curious's pregnancy cause any difficulties with this project? Will he look pregnant and I'd have to give him a pregnancy token in SimPE? Will the Sim Bin just leave him as a blank rectangle as if he were a set of clothes with no mesh? Will it freak the whole game out, necessitating that I clone him "the hard way?"

So long as you clone him correctly, I don't think you should have any problems with him looking pregnancy -- if you want him to remain pregnant you will need to fiddle around with that outside of BodyShop/CAS (but from the sounds of it, you just want his appearance, correct?).

I've tried this for myself quickly -- pulled a random pregnant (male) sim out of one of my 'hoods, cloned him in BodyShop, and put him in to a new neighbourhood. In BodyShop he did not look pregnant, and in-world ACR's adjuster didn't register him as pregnant. Corruption check with Mootilda's HoodChecker didn't seem to show any corruption or damage concerns.

[Peni Griffin]

Yes, excellent! Thank you. I cloned a bunch of the Strangetown guys last night, just Extract in Sim Surgery and save to a SavedSims file, and since I don't expect to need them in-game for a dozen rotations I have plenty of time to test them in an unused hood. It's reassuring to know that you've already done this with Pascal once, so as long as I didn't make an I.D. 10 T error I should get the same results; but best to be sure. Those I.D. 10 T errors will kill you faster than bad code. I haven't decided whether to keep their names and relationships, or tweak their looks a little in CAS and use them as the bases of whole new sims - both courses of action have their appeal - but I have plenty of time to figure it out.

Oh, dear, lazzybum, your poor pet! I've never had a pet run away, so all I can think of is the standard "Punch relevant-looking buttons on the batbox" advice. Maybe Nuke Invisible Sims?

[cheshirekat]

Sim Manipulator has an option to restore families. I have no knowledge what pet options it has because I do not have that pets expansion. Search with Google for "The Sims 2 sim manipulator"

[esmesqualor]

If a parent has been sim surgered (with SimPE), does the child get the original face files?

[Julie-Kaye]

Is it possible to get great grandparents in game without cheating (including any cheaty type aging hacks/mods) although thinking about it now, continued use of the elixir of life could do it, so I think I've answered my own question. Secondly if it is possible to get great grandparents legitimatley, why are they not recognized as relatives in the game? I was playing last night and my sim had a baby meaning a great grandparent was created (by cheating I am afraid as it is endemic in my game) and it annoys me no end that great granny apparently is not related to her great grandson. I also assume there is nothing that can be done about this as talented modders would already have created something. (I know nothing about modding so don't really understand which things are potentially possible/impossible.)

[katya_stevens]

If a parent has been sim surgered (with SimPE), does the child get the original face files?

I'm assuming that the face has been changed genetically (which I think is what you mean by 'with SimPE') -- if a child is born after the parent's facial structure has been genetically changed, the child will inherit from the new facial structure. Children born before will inherit the original facial structure.

if it is possible to get great grandparents legitimatley, why are they not recognized as relatives in the game?...I also assume there is nothing that can be done about this as talented modders would already have created something. (I know nothing about modding so don't really understand which things are potentially possible/impossible.)

The Sims 2 only recognizes first-degree relations (parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, aunt/uncle/niece/nephew, first cousins) -- why, I don't know, but I suspect it may have been ease of use: at maximum you only need to check two relations to see if someone's related to you (Are they my mother's nephew? Are they my brother's daughter?); however, rufio made an extended family (http://faiuwle.wikidot.com/sims2hacks) mod which expands this to allow first cousins once removed, second cousins, great-grandparents, great-grandchildren, great-uncles/aunts, and grand-nieces/nephews as related (and a partial one allowing great-grandparents, great-grandchildren, grand-nieces/nephews and great-aunts/uncles to be recognized as family) -- they won't show up as related in the family panel (and will still show chemistry), and wants to talk/play with relative won't be fulfilled, but otherwise they will think of each other as family and have the appropriate interactions. It is not compatible with InTeen, though.

[Peni Griffin]

If you have an administrative tool like SimPE you can edit the characters' relationships so that they get family tags; however, unless your particular tool has a "great-grandparent" category (SimPE does not), you'll have to be satisfied with them being related as grandparent/grandchild. I presume it never occurred to the designers to add the relationship since in the normal run of play great-grandchildren would be very rare. You can read on the boards here, though, problems that players who don't like the elder stage and keep their sims functionally immortal with elixir, or don't play all their families, with great-grandparents and great-aunts/uncles getting into romantic entanglements with much-younger relatives.

I came within one or two sim days of having a great-grandchild. I had an elder-adult-teen CAS family, and the granddaughter was pregnant when the elder died; if I had done better at keeping her mood up, Nannie would have lived to see her great-grandchild. But wouldn't have gotten any aspiration points.

[Orilon]

I presume it never occurred to the designers to add the relationship since in the normal run of play great-grandchildren would be very rare. You can read on the boards here, though, problems that players who don't like the elder stage and keep their sims functionally immortal with elixir, or don't play all their families, with great-grandparents and great-aunts/uncles getting into romantic entanglements with much-younger relatives.


Because of the way Maxis created Veronaville, there are a few Great Grandparents (Consort Capp will be Great Grandparent to any children Tybalt, Juliette or Hermia have, and Isabella and Patrizio will be Great Grandparents to any children Romeo and Mercutio have, but they don't live long if you play them so it will only be for a short period of time.) One time I moved Hermia out of the Capp Manor and had her marry Puck Summerdream but left the rest of the Capps in the house and never played that lot again.

Puck and Hermia's daughter became an adult, and when I sent her downtown she ran into Consort (who I hadn't played) and had two bolts for him. It creeped me out that she had two bolts for her great-grandfather so I now play the lot so he dies of old age before the great grandchildren become adults.

[esmesqualor]

I'm assuming that the face has been changed genetically (which I think is what you mean by 'with SimPE') --

Sorry for the poorly worded question. I read somewhere that in-game plastic surgery doesn't change the genetics of the Sim and that their kids will inherit from the original character files. I'm wondering if Sim surgery with SimPE actually changes the character's genetics. So, this is a 'yes, it does'?

[Mootilda]

No, that's not part of the standard sim surgery. You have to do an additional step to make the changes genetic. Sorry, I don't have a link.

[katya_stevens]

If you follow instructions carefully, editing a sim's facial structure in SimPE will make the changes genetic. This thread doesn't have the images any more (unfortunately), but it still goes through the stages step by step on how to make in-game sim surgery genetic:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=56241

(And sorry for the confusion as well, that'll teach me to assume.)

[MsScribble]

heyas - is there anyway i can keep fish in my community lot fishtanks other than having visiting sims restock them?

[Julie-Kaye]

Thank you for the replies (re: great grandparents). I'll check out the mod by rufio.

[Darby]

heyas - is there anyway i can keep fish in my community lot fishtanks other than having visiting sims restock them?

My Google-fu is failing me, but I'm sure I saw a mod/fix for this issue just recently. Can't help more than to tell you it's out there somewhere.

[Orilon]

If Vidcund Curious doesn't get abducted the first night you play the lot, will he get abducted the next night?

I tore down the Curious brother's house and sold the two telescopes so I could make the lot flat and re build the house bigger and make it weather proof. I bought the exact same telescope that they had, but when Vidcund stargazed nothing happened. (He usually gets abducted right way.)

Is it him that's pre-programmed or was it the telescope I sold?

[Darby]

I can't say for sure, but I think those scripted scenarios for the base game premades pretty much need to be run right away in order to work.

[Mootilda]

heyas - is there anyway i can keep fish in my community lot fishtanks other than having visiting sims restock them?http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=314002

[Orilon]

I'm curious, what about a Sims' personality makes them whine when you tell them to play with another Sim, or like it when you tell them to play chess? Is it the same personality trait?

This is the first time I've play the Grunt Lot for any amount of time, and even though General Buzz had the want to play with Buck he whined when I told him to play Rock Paper Scissors with Buck. On the other hand, he acted happy when I told him to go play chess (with Ripp, General Buzz had the want to play with Ripp and I knew that the only way to fill the want was to have them play chess)

[Darby]

I'm curious, what about a Sims' personality makes them whine when you tell them to play with another Sim, or like it when you tell them to play chess? Is it the same personality trait?

I think so. Serious sims don't like "playing" very much. Chess is different, because while it raises fun, it's also skilling, and serious sims like to skill.

Might be interesting to see how a serious and active sim responds to Chess, though. Active sims aren't so happy about passive activities.

[Peni Griffin]

Sometimes they'll also whine if you've been telling them to do things they normally like too often and the relevant bar is full. I know it's time to wrap a date up when an outgoing Romance sim starts complaining about being asked to flirt even when it's in the wants panel!

[Orilon]

I think so. Serious sims don't like "playing" very much. Chess is different, because while it raises fun, it's also skilling, and serious sims like to skill.

Might be interesting to see how a serious and active sim responds to Chess, though. Active sims aren't so happy about passive activities.

I don't have the game going right now, but I checked General Buzz's personality in Sim PE. He has 0 playful points and 10 active points. As I said, he whined when I told him to play with Buck but liked it when I told him to play chess. I guess in that case the "serious" trait trumped the "active".

Playing with Buck was the first thing I told him to do when I loaded the lot for the first time.

[Aegagropilon]

One of my uni students has fallen madly in love with a dormie and, when she asked him to move in to a campus house, I noticed that his grade remained capped in the red despite him having enough skill points to have a full grade bar. Is there any way to correct this glitch?

[katya_stevens]

One of my uni students has fallen madly in love with a dormie and, when she asked him to move in to a campus house, I noticed that his grade remained capped in the red despite him having enough skill points to have a full grade bar. Is there any way to correct this glitch?

Are you using a pre-made university? I know some campus houses in the pre-mades give some sims the skillbar glitch -- it's a UI glitch rather than a programming glitch, and so long as your sim has all the skills, goes to class etc. it shouldn't impact their grades. I've heard that solutions are to a) move the sim out and back in again or b) move everyone out and dismantle the old house/move them in to a new house, but if you're okay with the visual glitch you can just leave them there.

[dieKristina]

One of my uni students has fallen madly in love with a dormie and, when she asked him to move in to a campus house, I noticed that his grade remained capped in the red despite him having enough skill points to have a full grade bar. Is there any way to correct this glitch?

One solution that use to work for me: Save the game, delete the sim with moveobjects on, save again, exit to neighborhood view and finally reload the lot. The sim with the glitched grade bar should now appear next to the mailbox with a normal grade bar :).

[Orilon]

How do sagging floors get created, and how do I fix it?

As I've mentioned earlier, I tore down and rebuilt the Curious Brother's house. A part of the second floor is sagging and I want to find out how to fix it.

Edit to add a picture to show what I'm talking about

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/Orilon/SaggingFloor.jpg

[Mootilda]

That picture is so dark that it doesn't really illustrate your point.

However, you should be able to level tiles by removing the floor tiles, using the level terrain tool, and then adding the floor tiles back.

[fruitsymphony]

My sim stopped ageing, can anything be done?

[Orilon]

That picture is so dark that it doesn't really illustrate your point.

However, you should be able to level tiles by removing the floor tiles, using the level terrain tool, and then adding the floor tiles back.

I tried to remove them but they're "stuck": I can't remove them. Is there some way to forcefully remove them and forcefully flatten the lot?

[Darby]

My sim stopped ageing, can anything be done?

Depends on why the sim stopped aging. If you used aging off, turn aging back on. If it's a glitch, there are many potential causes. If you haven't cleared your cache files and/or (preferably AND) tested the game without CC, those would be the first two things to do. If neither fixes the issue, it'll be time to go through the Game Problem (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Game_Problem) troubleshooter.

[Mootilda]

I tried to remove them but they're "stuck": I can't remove them. Is there some way to forcefully remove them and forcefully flatten the lot?Try removing the tiles from the entire room by selecting any floor covering, holding down the <ctrl> and <shift> keys and then placing the floor covering.

[omglo]

My Sim went on her honeymoon, leaving her teenager behind. I want to play the household now that the teen is alone, but the game says the family is on vacation and asks if I'd like to play that lot instead. Is there a way to get around that?

[lg135]

^Unfortunately no. Not unless you move out the parents and then send them off on vacation. I've done that before, with the moving out being "going to the airport" :P

I was thinking about this from my last post in the Sims discovery thread. Malcolm Landgraab's getting pretty old and has a teen daughter and an estranged son who's about to age up to Adult. If he were to die tomorrow, who would inherit all of his businesses and vacation lots? An adult son he hardly knows or a teen daughter he's very close to?

[Peni Griffin]

I was under the impression that if a sim dies with real estate in his inventory, his estate is sold and whoever's living with him gets the money.

The safest thing would be to give the deeds to the person he wanted to inherit while he still had several days left on his lifetimer. People often do this IRL, to avoid estate taxes.

[Orilon]

I was under the impression that if a sim dies with real estate in his inventory, his estate is sold and whoever's living with him gets the money.

The safest thing would be to give the deeds to the person he wanted to inherit while he still had several days left on his lifetimer. People often do this IRL, to avoid estate taxes.

I never had Consort Capp buy any business lots, but when I did have Bon Voyage he always wanted to buy a vacation home. I always forgot about the deed until he died and I would get a pop up along with the insurance pop up that the deed to the vacation home he bought was transferred to Tybalt Capp, and then Tybalt was considered to be the owner and was able to use it to go on vacations.

I don't know if it was transferred to Tybalt because he was living with Consort at the time of death, or if it was because Consort didn't have that great of a relationship with Juliette and Hermia. (I usually would send Tybalt, Juliette and Hermia to college, and have Tybalt move back in with Consort when he graduated.)

[katya_stevens]

I was under the impression that if a sim dies with real estate in his inventory, his estate is sold and whoever's living with him gets the money.

Businesses and vacation homes are transferred to a family member upon death -- priority goes to someone living in the same household first, then branches out to family members in other households. I don't know quite who is given priority within a house (I had a sim inherit stuff from her mother-in-law while the mother's son was still alive and also in the same house) so if you want to determine who gets what items, it's best to transfer ownership before death -- you should be able to do this via the "Propose..." option when clicking on the sim.

[Orilon]

Is there a way to get rid of a Knowledge Sim's fear of being uneducated?

I changed Tank Grunt's aspiration from Popularity to Knowledge because Popularity Sims are a pain in the butt to put through college. He's pretty close to adult the first time you play the Grunt lot, so of course he had the fear of being uneducated.

It's kind of annoying me now because he graduated Summa Cum Laude and still has that fear after he graduated.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/Orilon/TankFear.jpg

He's a married adult now and it will not get out of his fear panel. I tried rerolling his wants on the batbox but it didn't do anything.

[sushigal007]

I tried to remove them but they're "stuck": I can't remove them. Is there some way to forcefully remove them and forcefully flatten the lot?

If you still haven't fixed this, try downloading the Stuck Object Remover from MATY. I'm not sure if it will destroy the floor tile, but it could be that you can't remove them because there's an invisible stuck thing on them.

[smorbie1]

Okay, I looked for the answer to this on Wiki but couldn't find it. When you have a property in your inventory and you want to sell it, how do you do that?

Also, could someone please explain, very s l ow ly and in non-computery terms how to make doors and curtains and furniture for that matter, go diagonal? Thanks in advance for not swearing at me when you do, cause I know this has been asked and answered somewhere before.

[Orilon]

If you still haven't fixed this, try downloading the Stuck Object Remover from MATY. I'm not sure if it will destroy the floor tile, but it could be that you can't remove them because there's an invisible stuck thing on them.

I forgot to mention it, but I did try to use the Stuck Object Remover before I posted about the stuck tiles. It kept saying "0 Objects Burninated" and the tiles were still stuck. I used Moodtila's advice about Ctrl Shift Click and it removed the whole floor and I was able to put down floor again that wasn't sagging.

[omglo]

The doors, curtains and windows should automatically snap to diagonal, without you doing anything special, when you put them near a diagonal wall.

AFAIK, you need to use a boolprop cheat to place furniture diagonally - boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true. Then use the < and > keys to rotate the object.

[katya_stevens]

Okay, I looked for the answer to this on Wiki but couldn't find it. When you have a property in your inventory and you want to sell it, how do you do that?

For a business or an owned vacation lot, you use the same process (although it is highly recommended that if you're selling a business you lay off all your staff first to avoid them being stuck in a non-existant job). Go to the phone, click "Real Estate", and there should be options to sell owned community lot/vacation home -- there are likely similar options on a computer (but in my game someone is almost always on the computer, so I find it easiest to just use the phone).

Once clicked, you should get a pop-up asking if you're sure -- once confirmed, the property will be sold and your sim will get money back equivelant to the cost of the items on the lot (and for a business lot, maybe additional money depending on the level of the business; I can't confirm as I very rarely sell businesses).

[fruitsymphony]

Depends on why the sim stopped aging. If you used aging off, turn aging back on. If it's a glitch, there are many potential causes. If you haven't cleared your cache files and/or (preferably AND) tested the game without CC, those would be the first two things to do. If neither fixes the issue, it'll be time to go through the Game Problem (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Game_Problem) troubleshooter.

Thank you, after checking out the wiki I made backup of my neighbourhood file, I got the SimPE downloaded and looked at my sims. The sims who had stopped aging all had a very large number of remaining days, between 82 and 95, but I changed them to 26 and similar so now, they are back to normal lifetime/aging process. :)

[fruitsymphony]

I would like to make a community lot with a library and art museum. Only I can not find any bookshelves for community lots!! :(

Also, no coffee machine for the museum cafeteria/shop! :cry:

[smorbie1]

Thank you for the kind answers.

[Orilon]

What causes another Nanny to show up when there already is a Nanny on the lot?

I have the Nanny tracking Pascal's schedule, and his work schedule changed to 3 to 9pm. The nanny came back and kept trying to annoy Pascal's son (Pascal's son was using the Synth and the nanny's face and "Annoy" kept popping up in his queue. I kept canceling it because I didn't want her to annoy him (I hate that about nannies).

I don't know if it was related to her standing in the same spot for at least an hour, but another Nanny came on the lot but the first hadn't left yet.

Why did the second show up?

[Babahara]

Orilon, it sounds like a glitch. If your nanny was standing in the same spot for an hour, there was some error that caused her to do that. So the game "thought" that the nanny was gone and had to summon a new one.

[Orilon]

Orilon, it sounds like a glitch. If your nanny was standing in the same spot for an hour, there was some error that caused her to do that. So the game "thought" that the nanny was gone and had to summon a new one.

Thank you for the info. I was wondering why she kept standing in the same spot wanting to "Annoy" Pascal's son instead of going to find something else to do after I canceled the "Annoy" action a bunch of times.

[sushigal007]

I would like to make a community lot with a library and art museum. Only I can not find any bookshelves for community lots!! :(

Also, no coffee machine for the museum cafeteria/shop! :cry:

If you have Uni, you should have a coffee machine in among the kitchen appliances. As for a library, any bookcase should work on a community lot.

[iCad]

Also, could someone please explain, very s l ow ly and in non-computery terms how to make doors and curtains and furniture for that matter, go diagonal? Thanks in advance for not swearing at me when you do, cause I know this has been asked and answered somewhere before.

For windows and doors and curtains and such that have a diagonal mesh (not all do), they should "snap" diagonally all by themselves when you move them against a diagonal wall/window. However, if you have move_objects turned on, they won't do this. You have to turn off that cheat first.

For furniture and such, you need a cheat to place stuff at a 45 degree angle. Open up the cheat window and type the following: boolprop allow45degreeangleofrotation true

Once the cheat is active, you should be able to place objects diagonally by using the < and > key to turn them in 45-degree increments instead of 90-degree increments. This will work for curtains that don't have diagonal meshes (although you'll probably have to turn off grid snapping to get them to sit right. In the cheat window, type: boolprop snapobjectstogrid false ) Note that this WON'T work for doors and windows, though. Doors and windows have to have a diagonal mesh in order to be placed diagonally.

Hope that helps! :)

EDIT: Whoops. Didn't notice that omglo already answered this. But mine has a bit more detail, so I'll leave it up in case you're having problems. :)

[Bwinney43]

Okay so I was playing the Jacquet family and I had Denise start dating. She went out with this nice older townie named Mathew and they hit it off immediately. He has since moved in(bringing $1 to the funds whoopee!) and I wanted to get them engaged. Only problem is she's apparently a widow but still wears her wedding ring. This is preventing me from getting them engaged and then married. How exactly do I fix this? I have SimPE but would not no where to start..

[fruitsymphony]

I would like to ask please, how it can be that teh shower breaks down *every time* the sim is taking a shower. Has it something to do with her personality, the sim is Genesis Lam despite being a former maid she is really sloppy and perhaps also careless.

[lazzybum]

Bwinney: Theres a marriage postmortem hack that will allow widows to remarry, but im not exactly sure if it will affect current widows. Hopefully it would so try it out:
its called marriage-postmortem
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=a7eee1f91bc738e27cf3085f650113b5&topic=7.0

fruitsymphony: Did someone recently try to fix the shower with low mechanical points? Sometimes it appears to be fixed, but it breaks again right after. If it seems like a bug, maybe try buying a new shower.

[Orilon]

Okay so I was playing the Jacquet family and I had Denise start dating. She went out with this nice older townie named Mathew and they hit it off immediately. He has since moved in(bringing $1 to the funds whoopee!) and I wanted to get them engaged. Only problem is she's apparently a widow but still wears her wedding ring. This is preventing me from getting them engaged and then married. How exactly do I fix this? I have SimPE but would not no where to start..

As someone else mentioned, the marriage postmortem hack allows a surviving spouse to remarry (and it works with Antonio Monty, who's wife died before the game started)

I looked at the Jacquet house out of curiosity, and was surprised to see that Denise had a fear of Yves Cheating (uh, how can he cheat if he's dead?)

When I looked in Sim PE She is still considered married to him (the crush/love and marriage tags are still checked) to change that you need to go to relationships, go to "Denise Jacquet towards Yves Jacquet" and click to clear the crush, love, and marriage tags, and I think you need to change the Relation type to Not Defined or Unknown, and then go to "Yves Jacquet towards Denise Jacquet" and click to clear the crush, love and marriage tag and set the Relations type to Not Defined or Unknown.

[Bellasaurus]

Okay so I was playing the Jacquet family and I had Denise start dating. She went out with this nice older townie named Mathew and they hit it off immediately. He has since moved in(bringing $1 to the funds whoopee!) and I wanted to get them engaged. Only problem is she's apparently a widow but still wears her wedding ring. This is preventing me from getting them engaged and then married. How exactly do I fix this? I have SimPE but would not no where to start..

I had this years ago when I killed off PollTech Smith & wanted Jenny to remarry - I solved it by deleting Poll Tech's gravestone (it was in the back garden of the lot). OBVIOUSLY DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES! IT CAN MESS UP YOUR GAME I had no idea of the danger of this at the time, but in knowing that this works, I am guessing the game sees the dead spouse as still 'alive' because of the presence of the gravestone; therefore they were still technically married.

I've never played the Jaquets, but is Yves urn/gravestone still on the lot? If it is you could probably solve this by moving or deleting using nounlinkondelete (from MATY).

[Orilon]

I've never played the Jaquets, but is Yves urn/gravestone still on the lot? If it is you could probably solve this by moving or deleting using nounlinkondelete (from MATY).

I looked on the Jacquet's lot but did not see a urn or gravestone. I did what I said earlier about removing the crush/love and marriage tags in Sim PE and Denise no longer had the fear of Yves cheating so I think that is a "safer" way to remove her marriage to her dead husband.

(I was under the impression that even with nounlinkondelete that deleting urn/gravestones is a good way to corrupt your game.)

[Bellasaurus]

You could well be right. I do have nounlinkondelete but still get paranoid every time I need to move a grave. And I won't delete any even though I do have it, as I'm not totally confident that on it's own it's safe. I have vague memories of reading that if you combine it with the batbox you can safely delete sims and graves, but I don't have the batbox so am not 100% on this.

[Vladora]

Okay, so... I made a really big, nice house and moved a family into it. Sadly, it turned out to just not be practical. I think it would make a really great community lot, though, so I'd like to convert it into one. The problem is, once I move the family out of the lot, the house will lose all its furnishings. It took a long time to decorate and I'd rather not do it over again. Is there anyway to keep the furnishings while moving the family out?

[Darby]

Inge's Stay-Things Shrub (http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_MiscHacks.htm).

[Vladora]

: O Thank you so much! <3

[iCad]

I would like to ask please, how it can be that teh shower breaks down *every time* the sim is taking a shower. Has it something to do with her personality, the sim is Genesis Lam despite being a former maid she is really sloppy and perhaps also careless.

In addition to what lazzybum said, did you happen to be messing around in the things you can do when you have the testing cheats enabled and you shift-click on a Sim? There's something in there called a "Break Inducer." I clicked it by accident once when I meant to click on something else, and the same thing happened to me. Every time that Sim used anything, it broke, which I guess is exactly what the Break Inducer is supposed to do, for testing purposes.

To be honest I don't remember how I fixed it because it was a long time ago. I THINK I moved the family out of and then back into the house and then things were fine...but don't quote me on that. :)

[fruitsymphony]

@iCad, yes you are probably right, I do not remember click the Break Inducer option but I might have done so.

Everything in their house was broken constantly, like they were having a poltergeist! Or the house was cursed or something. The maid was spending 7 sim hours every day mopping and mopping the bathroom floor.

Anyways, I moved Genesis into another house, which solved the problem.

[vhanster]

I want to ask. I had just placed several lots in my new neighborhood, I tried to change the lot file's name in the Neighborhoods\Nxxx\Lots folder so that I can manage it more easily. Problem is, every time I do that, the lot disappear from the game. Can anyone help? thanks

[Mootilda]

I want to ask. I had just placed several lots in my new neighborhood, I tried to change the lot file's name in the Neighborhoods\Nxxx\Lots folder so that I can manage it more easily. Problem is, every time I do that, the lot disappear from the game. Can anyone help? thanksYes, I can help you with that. Don't rename the lot files. The game will not be able to find them.

If renaming them back to the correct name doesn't put them back into your game, then you'll have to reinstall the lots into your neighborhood. Move the improperly-named lot files to the LotCatalog subfolder and rename them to match the naming conventions in that folder. Then, run your game and the lots should appear in your Lot Bin. Then, you can place them back in their original locations.

I believe that the game will destroy the references to missing lots in the neighborhood package, so you shouldn't need to use SimPE to fix the problems caused by renaming the files.

[Bwinney43]

As someone else mentioned, the marriage postmortem hack allows a surviving spouse to remarry (and it works with Antonio Monty, who's wife died before the game started)

I looked at the Jacquet house out of curiosity, and was surprised to see that Denise had a fear of Yves Cheating (uh, how can he cheat if he's dead?)

When I looked in Sim PE She is still considered married to him (the crush/love and marriage tags are still checked) to change that you need to go to relationships, go to "Denise Jacquet towards Yves Jacquet" and click to clear the crush, love, and marriage tags, and I think you need to change the Relation type to Not Defined or Unknown, and then go to "Yves Jacquet towards Denise Jacquet" and click to clear the crush, love and marriage tag and set the Relations type to Not Defined or Unknown.

I was hoping I could edit it with SimPE I just feel safer using that. I was going to get the hack from MATY but couldn't find it..so I'm going to look for that first and see if it works.. Then I'll go the SimPE route. Thanks :D

[Orilon]

I was hoping I could edit it with SimPE I just feel safer using that. I was going to get the hack from MATY but couldn't find it..so I'm going to look for that first and see if it works.. Then I'll go the SimPE route. Thanks :D


All of the Sims 2 mods at MATY are here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/samples/ts2/

Click on the link for your latest EP, Click Hacks and then look for marriage-postmortum.zip


Edit to add a question:

I was playing around in Create a Sim tonight, and found out how to put earrings and body jewelry on a Sim. The question is, is there a way to put jewelry on a sim already in the game? I tried to put jewelry on a pre-made college student, but the jewelry category wasn't available.

[M.M.A.A.]

Edit to add a question:

I was playing around in Create a Sim tonight, and found out how to put earrings and body jewelry on a Sim. The question is, is there a way to put jewelry on a sim already in the game? I tried to put jewelry on a pre-made college student, but the jewelry category wasn't available.

you need to buy jewelry first from a shop that has the jewelry stand that came with BV, then go to a mirror and try it on. if you dont have a shop with a jewelry stand ten you need to make one that has or just add the stand to a shop.

[Orilon]

you need to buy jewelry first from a shop that has the jewelry stand that came with BV, then go to a mirror and try it on. if you dont have a shop with a jewelry stand ten you need to make one that has or just add the stand to a shop.

Ah. I took Bon Voyage out because I was tried of Sims getting stuck in cars at their Vacation Homes when they were returning from Vacation community lots in a car. The Bon Voyage patch said it fixed it, but I still had the problem.

[Peni Griffin]

Jewelry works just like clothes - once any sim in the house buys it, it's available to all the sims in the house. If you have a man buy female jewelry or vice versa, however, some of us have a problem with that jewelry randomly appearing and disappearing on the man, without his ever putting it on.

Earrings, rings, and bracelets are bought separately for left and right sides, so make sure you always buy earrings in pairs - even if the sim you're buying for wants an asymmetrical look, her daughter may not.

[xmirellax]

oooh oooh I love this thread! I was going to post another random question that I knew might annoy people. I've been playing for awhile too and should probably already know this, and might have already even been told lol

What the heck are all the random files that appear in the downloads folder after you play? always numbers and letters ... like this : 1ae9338dec7c17791c54fe1a37522455

[katya_stevens]

oooh oooh I love this thread! I was going to post another random question that I knew might annoy people. I've been playing for awhile too and should probably already know this, and might have already even been told lol

What the heck are all the random files that appear in the downloads folder after you play? always numbers and letters ... like this : 1ae9338dec7c17791c54fe1a37522455

Those files are generated when you install sims and lots without using the Clean Installer (http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com/index.php?page=3). Most often they are custom clothes/hair/skin/eyes or random object recolours, but there are some mods which can piggyback on uploaded lots (which can have unprecidented consequences, especially if the person you downloaded them from has a different game configuration to you). If you can, it is always recommended to use the Clean Installer.

[grammapat]

I HAVE Clean Installer and I still get all that stuff. I never get lots or sims. I never just save-to the download folder (everything goes into a sub-folder), so I'm surprised that these files (plus some others with actual NAMES) show up loose in the Downloads folder. I believe they have been generated from both recolors AND new meshes (hair, clothes, objects). I have tried putting them all in their own folder and removing, but can't tell if that effected anything, or if they are actually NEEDED. So any ideas/more details about what they are & what they're DOING?

[Mootilda]

If you are getting files named 1ae9338dec7c17791c54fe1a37522455.package, then the person who shared the file shared it with that name. Likely, this is because the person who shared the download didn't use the Clean Installer, so all of their files have stupid names.

Unfortunately, the Clean Installer can't figure out what the file name should be. If you want the files to have reasonable names, then you'll have to figure out what they are and rename them.

Two tools that might help you are the Clean Installer and SimPE. You'll have to look at the text and images inside of each package to try to determine what they are.

[iCad]

I HAVE Clean Installer and I still get all that stuff. I never get lots or sims. I never just save-to the download folder (everything goes into a sub-folder), so I'm surprised that these files (plus some others with actual NAMES) show up loose in the Downloads folder. I believe they have been generated from both recolors AND new meshes (hair, clothes, objects). I have tried putting them all in their own folder and removing, but can't tell if that effected anything, or if they are actually NEEDED. So any ideas/more details about what they are & what they're DOING?

What Mootilda said. :)

I just wanted to add that the thing that helped me most in identifying what those things were was definitely SimPE. Generally, if I opened up the package and then looked at its associated text files, if there were any, I could usually find the item's description (Unless whoever created it didn't give the thing any description or at least not anything helpful) and then I knew what it was and, sometimes, who made it. Then I could rename it properly. It didn't always work, but it worked most of the time. Sometimes looking at the texture image worked, too...but then, when I was a n00b, looking at those usually just made me go, "Whut?" Hell, sometimes, they still do that! :lol:

[Babahara]

Unfortunately, the Clean Installer can't figure out what the file name should be. If you want the files to have reasonable names, then you'll have to figure out what they are and rename them.
If you know what the file is, can you rename it? I mean will the game still see it if it's renamed? I always held off from renaming, thinking that the person who created, say, a sim, has somehow attached a hair or a dress to it with that name. And so it won't be recognized upon renaming. I.e. that object will still be in the game, but won't show up where it was designed to show up, like on a sim. Stupid idea?

[mangaroo]

@Babahara: The game uses an internal identifier in the file to track cc, so you can rename those files anything you like.

[Mootilda]

@Babahara: The game uses an internal identifier in the file to track cc, so you can rename those files anything you like.Which is why it's especially annoying if people are sharing files with useless names. It's not that hard to fix up the names before sharing them.

[grammapat]

AHAW! I didn't realize Clean Installer would let me see the "real" name; and it's all from SimSlice. This aggrivating site had lots of interesting mods, most of which don't work as advertised (glad I tried them in a new hood, since they cause crashing!). They looked so good, I actually paid $14 dollars for a month's use. BIG mistake; the site "forums" are all empty, and you cannot post. And there is NO WAY to contact anyone there, you either get nothing or "mail box not set up". Since I paid via PayPal, I got what SHOULD have been a good Email for them, and I asked questions. Not surprisingly, they did not respond

Wish I knew somewhere where Sites like this could be "exposed". I know, I know, pay sites bad. Anyway, thanks.

[lazzybum]

Anyone know the chances of saving a sim's death from pleading?

[Orilon]

Anyone know the chances of saving a sim's death from pleading?

It depends on the relationship that the Sim doing the pleading has with the dead/possibly revived Sim. If I remember right, if they have a good relationship there is a 90% chance that the Sim will be saved from death. (The relationship score has to be higher than what ever arbitrary number Grim picks.)

[lazzybum]

yikes! no wonder why they keep getting saved by their spouses. Thank you for the info :)!

[gummilutt]

I randomly decided to read this thread, and about 10 pages back there was talk of a lot debugger and clearing out caches/trash memories/gossip. I've often been annoyed at all the random memories sims have that are of no use, anyone who could tell me more about how this works?

Also, not sure if this is the place, but, I'm considering to get open for business expansion but I'm not sure if I want to or not. I've never actually tried it, and I was wondering, how does it impact working? Can you still do the regular work of having a job and the sim disappears to work when working and you not having to think about it other than upping skills and that stuff? If you open a business, do you still have work hours that you go to and have to play the sim through? Probably really dumb questions, but oh well =P

I'm also considering to get Free time. It sounds fun to have things they can get good at, like dancing or whatnot, but I also don't want to feel forced to have to do that. Does sims insist on having hobbies or is it more of a "do it if you want to"?

[omglo]

Owning a business isn't considered a job, so it doesn't impact working at all. Your Sim can hold down a job and have a business, or quit their job and just run the business, but the game will consider them unemployed. You also don't have set business hours. If your Sim owns a community lot, running the business works similarly to visiting other lots - you can leave the house at 10 AM, work at your business until 10 PM, then return home and it will still be 10 AM.

For Free Time, Sims will roll wants to do things associated with the hobby, for example, someone who likes cuisine might want to enter a cooking contest, but there's nothing forcing you to keep their hobby enthusiasm up. Sims do gain abilities as they become more enthusiastic about their hobby that disappear if they lose the enthusiasm (for example sims who love exercise can be fitness instructors) so there is an incentive to keep the enthusiasm up. The game will spam you with pop ups telling you that your Sim is losing enthusiasm for their hobby though, and NPCs will sometimes barge into your home out of the blue to give your sim a membership card to a private hobby lot.

[Darby]

I randomly decided to read this thread, and about 10 pages back there was talk of a lot debugger and clearing out caches/trash memories/gossip. I've often been annoyed at all the random memories sims have that are of no use, anyone who could tell me more about how this works?

Cache files and memories are two separate issues.

Directions for deleting cache files. (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Delete_Cache_Files) It's not a bad idea to get into the habit of deleting these files before loading the game each time you play.
Also, there's another file not mentioned in that article that sometimes needs deleting. It's in the Neighborhoods folder and is called neighborhoodmanager.package. I delete it any time I change my neighborhood configuration by adding or deleting a main neighborhood system so that the new one the game generates will accurately reflect the new configuration. I don't know for certain this is necessary, but it doesn't hurt anything to do it, and might help.

Okay, on to the Lot Debugger, memories, and gossip files... The Lot Debugger is here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,72.0.html), but I don't know which EP that version is for. So go here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7.0.html) instead, click the link for your latest EP, then hacks and find ffslotdebugger.zip. Download, extract, and install. In-game, you'll find the Lot Debugger (aka, the "batbox", because it's a black box with the black and yellow Batman logo on it) in Buy Mode under Misc./Misc.. Place somewhere out of the way on whatever lot you want to use it on, and click the box itself to use the various features/functions.

My personal routine for using the batbox to keep the game running smoothly is to do the following before leaving one lot to play another:
1. With the game paused, I click on each individual sim on the lot, including pets, one at a time, and select Memory/Clear Trash on the batbox. When you do this regularly, you'll find that sometimes sims haven't collected any new trash memories since the last time you cleared them.

2. Next, click on one sim (any sim - doesn't matter), and select Memory/Clear Gossip/From All. You'll need to then go into Live Mode at least briefly to complete the action. This clears gossip files from the entire neighborhood, and you'll be amazed how many there are the first time you do it!

3. At this point, I SAVE THE LOT, because...

4. The last thing I do is click the batbox one more time and select Rerandomize Sim Generator. This is a handy feature that prevents First Born Syndrome (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Pregnancy#Rolling_the_Pacifier_and_Firstborn_Syndrome) by "rolling the pacifier" for you, so you don't have to go into CAS and do it yourself. Save first, because the batbox will boot you back into the neighborhood view as it goes through the rerandomization routine, and that's why you choose that option last.

There you have it. I consider all this to be good basic game maintenance, and recommend all players engage in this, or a similar routine to prevent many of the most common game problems that can occur. :)

[gummilutt]

@Omeglo: Oh! Thanks a lot for clearing that up about OBF, that makes the whole expansion sound a lot more fun. Do you pick the hobbies for your sims in Free time or do they randomly give you one? I would imagine it's up to you to pick.

@Darby: Oh okay, well, thanks a lot @ both things =) One question about the debugger thing, can you select yourself what classifies as trash memories or is it always the same? I like the ones about moving in, it's mostly the "Met... "-ones that bug me. Also, the thing you call "gossip", what is that? xD

[Orilon]

@Omeglo: Oh! Thanks a lot for clearing that up about OBF, that makes the whole expansion sound a lot more fun. Do you pick the hobbies for your sims in Free time or do they randomly give you one? I would imagine it's up to you to pick.

@Darby: Oh okay, well, thanks a lot @ both things =) One question about the debugger thing, can you select yourself what classifies as trash memories or is it always the same? I like the ones about moving in, it's mostly the "Met... "-ones that bug me. Also, the thing you call "gossip", what is that? xD

The hobbies are assigned to the Sim, you can't pick them. For example, Puck Summerdream automatically has the tinkering hobby, a player can't chose one for him.

You can't choose what is classified as Trash. Pescado programmed it to remove move in/move out memories, met [Sim Name] memories and one other kind I can't remember right now when you use the clear trash option.

Gossip is what comes up when you choose Talk-Gossip. Even if you don't direct the Sim to gossip, townies gossip anyway.

[Darby]

No, you cannot specify which "trash" memories are deleted, and move-in memories are considered to be "trash" by Pescado, who created this mod. The only thing I could suggest as an alternative would be to manually delete memories in SimPE, but that's an awfully cumbersome solution. Personally, I'd live without "moved in". Getting rid of a gazillion "met..." so-and-so memories is worth it!

Gossip files are just that: gossip files. Gossip about what sims do is spread throughout the neighborhood, mostly via carpool drivers, from what I understand. (eta: Oh yeah - and by Talk/Gossip, as Orilon pointed out. Duh me. :faceslap: :lol: ) Over time, they can really clog up a 'hood, and eventually make it downright glitchy.

As to your FreeTime hobby question, any sim can get into any hobby, but each sim is born with a "pre-destined" hobby that suits his/her personality. It doesn't prevent them from focusing on whatever hobby they want, but the gain hobby enthusiasm faster for the pre-destined hobby. Pre-destined hobby's can be changed with hacks like the Sim Blender, the batbox we're already talking about, and others.

[Peni Griffin]

Also, sims created before FreeTime is installed may or may not have One True Hobby - the hobby that gains them the most aspiration points per use; and you decide whether or not to have that sim pursue that or any other hobby. None of my original core sims or my earliest downloaded premades have OTHs; all of the ones created/born since then do; and there's a generation of sims born or created within a matter of months before installing that may or may not have them. This seems to have something to do with whether or not they were born or created. Sparrow Hawkins, born in-game, is older than her boyfriend Gerry Mander, who was built in CAS as a child; she has an OTH and he doesn't. All three of my first born in-game sims have OTHs, but sims created as college students about the same time, and pre-mades existing in the family bin or as townies since the start, but brought into the game since installing FreeTime, don't.

I was apprehensive about installing FreeTime because of the way people went on about the hobby wants taking over and hobby people being so annoying; but I like the EP a lot. I love having some sims who want to go hiking and other sims who want to jog and others who like to read. It keeps me from spending all their downtime with the skilling objects. You will find that almost everybody develops a lot of cuisine enthusiasm, though, because eating increases it and everybody eats!

Also - and this is the reason I bought FreeTime - if your playstyle makes the flu hard to get rid of like mine does, Grandma's Comfort Soup is a lifesaver! I had a flu epidemic I couldn't get rid of till I bought FreeTime and started pushing that soup. The flu really crippled me, because I like large families and large gatherings and spending time at community lots; but I haven't had a problem with it since.

The batbox is a massively useful tool for many things, from forcing errors to clear a small but debilitating glitch to smiting the cow mascot; and, of course, rerandomizing the generator. You can also fix some nasty glitches (like the one that stole want slots and locks from some of my college grads) with the batbox that would otherwise be technical nightmares for us non-programmers. If I had to lose all my cc except one item, that's what I'd keep.

I clear gossip about once per rotation because of Maxon's evangelical discourses on the subject; I seldom clear trash memories because I don't want important first meetings forgotten. I clear caches after every single game because the wants glitch stopped happening after I started doing that and I never, ever want to see that glitch again.

[gummilutt]

@Orlion: Thanks for all the info, I appreciate it =)

@Darbi: Thanks you too. I suppose you are right that it's worth it to get rid of those, but nontheless, shame xD I tend to only move very little and when I do it's story specific, but well, small price to pay to clear out the rest =P And good to know about the box fixing hobbies, will be useful if I do get it.

Interesting thing that the gossip clogs up a hood, you'd think EA would be smarter about it =O I have never actually used that interaction, because every time I tried in the beginning whomever just got mad =P Will clear out asap =)

[Orilon]

@Orlion: Thanks for all the info, I appreciate it =)

@Darbi: Thanks you too. I suppose you are right that it's worth it to get rid of those, but nontheless, shame xD I tend to only move very little and when I do it's story specific, but well, small price to pay to clear out the rest =P And good to know about the box fixing hobbies, will be useful if I do get it.

Interesting thing that the gossip clogs up a hood, you'd think EA would be smarter about it =O I have never actually used that interaction, because every time I tried in the beginning whomever just got mad =P Will clear out asap =)

You're welcome.

How a Sim reacts to gossip depends on the relationship with the Sim doing the gossiping. I usually tend to avoid the interaction, but I have noticed when I hit it by accident that if the Sim doing the gossiping has a low relationship with the other Sim, the other Sim will get mad. If they have a high relationship then it increases the relationship.

EA seems to not realized the things that they put into the game that will corrupt it. For example gossip, the ability to delete tombstones, the ability to delete families from the Sim Bin etc. Those are common ways people corrupt their game, but EA made it possible.

[fruitsymphony]

Hello I looked at this item on ebay. why are there 4 discs? I only have 1 disc and I can play the sims 2. May I ask, does anybody know what's on the extra discs?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=180693803556

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SIMS-2-II-PC-XP-COMPUTER-GAME-NEAR-MINT-/180693803556?_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D2%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4501057899703082672

[Darby]

The base game (and all EPs until AL) was released on CD and DVD. DVD version is only one disk; CD version takes four.

[fruitsymphony]

thank you @Darby

[Bwinney43]

How come some of my sims can "Scope room" while others can't? Is this option based on something specific?

[Mootilda]

How come some of my sims can "Scope room" while others can't? Is this option based on something specific?Your sim will not be able to scope room until their gender preference is set. Decide whether you want them to like men or women and have them flirt with someone of the appropriate sex. Then, scope room should be available.

[Bwinney43]

Your sim will not be able to scope room until their gender preference is set. Decide whether you want them to like men or women and have them flirt with someone of the appropriate sex. Then, scope room should be available.

Aahh okay. Tried it out and it worked :D Thank you!

[Dreamstar]

Thanks! I was stuck on that :D

[roxmaniac]

I have not seen Mrs Crumblebottom since I installed Empty and Cleaned-up Templates..... Will it kill my hood.

I dont really miss her but does anyone know how I get her back if I want to?

[smorbie1]

Aah, sometimes she's just not around. I once went like 8 months without seeing Goopy. I actually missed the loser.

[Mootilda]

Empty and cleaned-up templates cannot remove Mrs Crumblebottom from your game. She's actually a part of the installation files, rather than your save game.

There are mods to make sure that Mrs. C. never appears. Perhaps you should check out your Downloads folder and see whether you have accidentally installed such a mod?

[roxmaniac]

Empty and cleaned-up templates cannot remove Mrs Crumblebottom from your game. She's actually a part of the installation files, rather than your save game.

There are mods to make sure that Mrs. C. never appears. Perhaps you should check out your Downloads folder and see whether you have accidentally installed such a mod?

Thanx I will do some checking. But if its not harming my game I dont think I will work to hard on it. I dont miss her that much :lol:

Any suggestions on mods that could do it?

edit to ad: I have all the mods that prevent ugly townie sims from spawning....that should not make a difference right?


Here's one:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=278816

Nope dont have that one....
Going through my dl folder with Sims2Pack Clean Installer. Have not found anything yet but did some cleanup so something good came out of it :)

[Mootilda]

Here's one:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=278816

[revit]

1. Does burglar appear on apartments? since it considered as residental lot. how about dorms?

2. Do you guys attach any sub hood to the main hood? I just realize that attaching subhood make loading time is slower than before

3. Can we make ms.crumplebottom, grand vampire, or any other specific NPC to appear in main hood? so we shouldn't attach downtown/subhood.

[Orilon]

1. Does burglar appear on apartments? since it considered as residental lot. how about dorms?

I didn't play apartments so I don't know, but I never saw burglars at the dorms. The only time I saw the burglar when a Sim was in college was when they were renting a house on campus.

[lg135]

1. Does burglar appear on apartments? since it considered as residental lot. how about dorms?

2. Do you guys attach any sub hood to the main hood? I just realize that attaching subhood make loading time is slower than before

3. Can we make ms.crumplebottom, grand vampire, or any other specific NPC to appear in main hood? so we shouldn't attach downtown/subhood.

1. Burglars do appear on apartment lots. Not sure about dormitories though.

2. I have. The only time I hadn't had subhoods was back when I had a nearly vanilla game so I really don't remember if it added any strain to the load.

3. No, Ms. Crumplebottom isn't a regular NPC so she shouldn't be a vampire or any other NPCs. She can (but isn't suppose to) get bitten sometimes and from what I've read that isn't good.

[esmesqualor]

1. Same answer as above.

2. I add a Downtown because I really like the Downtownies. The neighborhood load time is a little longer, but (for me) only about 10 seconds. I usually only add one downtown and one university. Business districts are only added if I want to play Bluewater Village.

3. I had thought there was a mod that allows Downtownies to walk by and visit community lots in the main hood, but I've been looking and haven't found it. But even that (if it does exist) would require you to create a downtown sub-hood in order to create the downtownies.

eta: I have heard of some simmers creating a downtown and then changing all their downtownies to regular townies, but I don't know if that would work for Ms. C since she isn't a regular sim.

[maybesomethingdunno]

1. Does burglar appear on apartments? since it considered as residental lot. how about dorms?

I believe EA once said that burglars do not visit the Uni campus....something about "campus security" being that good. I know I haven't ever seen a thief on any of my Uni campuses.

[Orilon]

I believe EA once said that burglars do not visit the Uni campus....something about "campus security" being that good. I know I haven't ever seen a thief on any of my Uni campuses.

What about the houses that the Sims can rent on campus? I've had two burglars show up at different times when a Sim was renting a house on campus. Never had one show up at the dorm, so I guess the "campus security" was more concerned with dorms than the houses on campus.

[Peni Griffin]

My frats and residences get burgled fairly often. I think the residences are technically "off-campus," at least at Sim State - if you look at the map, there's a central area of community lots in a consistent style, and a fringe of residential area immediately adjacent. And the Greeks are constantly wandering off to "Visit Campus" and bring back random items like pizzas and electronics (for which there is no obvious on-campus source...they really should've put a pizzaria in University).

[Darby]

3. I had thought there was a mod that allows Downtownies to walk by and visit community lots in the main hood, but I've been looking and haven't found it.

Cyjon's Downtownie Walkbys (http://drupal.cyjon.net/node/98)
I have this mod, but it's not installed (conflicts with another one I want to keep in for now), so I can't tell you if grands vamps or Mrs. C will appear. But there it is.

[M.M.A.A.]

i have a question involving NPCs: if a carpool driver is made playable, will the game generate another one after the previous driver is made playable and moved in?

[Amairani]

i have a question involving NPCs: if a carpool driver is made playable, will the game generate another one after the previous driver is made playable and moved in?

If I'm not mistaken, a carpool driver is a part of a car, and considered to be an object, not a Sim. There's something stored at the back of my mind never to mess with a carpool, don't know where I read/heard it.

[katya_stevens]

i have a question involving NPCs: if a carpool driver is made playable, will the game generate another one after the previous driver is made playable and moved in?

Technically, yes, if you made a carpool driver playable, another one would generate. However, unless you want your 'hood to become corrupted, you should never do so -- they are coded to be 'untouchable' and along the same lines as other service NPCs sims with incomplete character data (repo men, possibly the hotel and restaurant podium people) to do their job, and that's it.

[Mootilda]

a carpool driver is a part of a car, and considered to be an object, not a Sim.However, unless you want your 'hood to become corrupted, you should never do so -- they are coded to be 'untouchable' and along the same lines as other service NPCs to do their job, and that's it.I'd love to see any references on this topic.

Some threads that I found:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=2642625
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=8575.0

[Amairani]

I might be wrong about a driver being an object, but I definitely read before he/she better not to mess with. Like even if drivers have names, they are still not meant to be playable.

[Mootilda]

Not safe because these are not real Sims, but are pulled from objects.package:
Shrink, Grim Reaper, Hula Zombie, Pollination Technician, Remote Control Car, Mrs. Crumplebottom, OFB driving robots, OFB flying robots, Birds, Perfect Plant Sim, Santa Claus, Father Time, Toddler New Year

Definitely not safe because of incomplete Sim files:
Drivers, repomen, social workers, social bunnies, call-in-sick-guys (but get the phonehack to prevent these from ever being made)

Irritating hardcoded behaviour, but otherwise probably safe:
Drama profs (flirt), nannies (insane), gypsies (spit-polish), diva/mr.big (primp), slob (belch/fart)
Irritating hardcoded outfits, but otherwise probably safe:
cheerleaders, llamas, cows, streakers

Think that's them.
If you don't mind the behaviour or outfits, marry the latter groups if you must.If the second link is correct (quoted above), then the carpool driver is a sim with incomplete user data, which makes it a bad idea to move them in. However, they are not objects and it is usually safe to move service sims into your family. Sims with incomplete user data are always unsafe, as are sims who are objects.

[katya_stevens]

I'd love to see any references on this topic.

Bad phrasing on my end, now that I read it back. By "service sims" I meant sims akin to the ones with incomplete character data (drivers, repo men, hotel/resaurant podium people possibly) instead of nannies, maids etc. as I couldn't (still can't) think of a good term to refer to them. I've gone back to change the phrasing now.

[M.M.A.A.]

If the second link is correct (quoted above), then the carpool driver is a sim with incomplete user data, which makes it a bad idea to move them in. However, they are not objects and it is usually safe to move service sims into your family. Sims with incomplete user data are always unsafe, as are sims who are objects.

oh oh well then, too bad, my bartender wont have the driver as his wife then. too bad because they both share the same last name (Hiatt):

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Gary_Hiatt

and

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Amber_Hiatt

:cry: :(

and by the, i just summoned Amber and i couldnt click on her to interact with her.

are (uni) coaches safe to use?

[Peni Griffin]

So I opened a family today and got a notice that one of my family members had bought a pet and did I want to welcome it to the family? I didn't remember anybody in this family buying a pet, but I figured what the hey and clicked "yes." So now there's an elderly poodle named Booty living with the Pitts-Upsnotts (and may I just say how glad I am that this family, where father and daughter are both Romance, got such an appropriately-named dog). But I had to delay paying the bills that day until the person who didn't have the day off got home, because it pretty much emptied the family budget.

I"d read about playables blowing money on things in OFB shops while uncontrolled, but I don't have any OFB shops. I did send one person to a regular pet store to buy a collar, and I know Ashley Upsnott was there because the person buying the collar is one of his flings and they reconnected. I didn't notice him buying a dog, but hey, canoodling him wasn't the only thing the active sim was doing, so I wouldn't have noticed necessarily.

So is this a glitch, or is there a risk of this happening any time a playable goes to a pet store in the future? And will people start buying random things in unowned community lots?

[lazzybum]

I only have one pet store in my hood on an un-owned community lot, where I also had a playable buy a cat on their own. I guess it happens randomly, since they do buy coffee, clothes, etc on their own anyways.

[MsScribble]

Is there any particular thing I can do to get the wishing well from the Garden Club? My Ross family has quite a small but nice garden with trees, flowers, a fruit tree, a water feature, a statue and a garden chair but the snobby garden club claim its not quite good enough. I can't fit anything else in!

[DM was on fire!]

Not entirely sure if this is the place I should ask this, but I'm going to ask anyway. ^^'

After some use and abuse of my TS2 Best of Business disc, I think it's gotten to the point it wont run anymore. The game won't play, and it won't autorun. I've already confirmed that the issue is with the disc, not my game, custom content, or et cetera.
So; how much will a replacement cost me, or will they not even replace it since it's for TS2 and not 3?

[lg135]

Have your sim perform the fire dance out in the yard while they're judging it. It will raise your score significantly.









No, I'm just messin' with ya :) The garden people can be a real pain. Try adding a nice (healthy) vegetable garden, vines that go against the house and/or a nice pond with pond-y features. I believe I saw a comment about some hanging in-door plants that I had hanging out on the porch, but don't quote me on that.

[DM was on fire!]

On the well question, which I forgot to answer; I got mine solely with flowers, a vegetable garden and front yard shrubs. :)

[Darby]

Is there any particular thing I can do to get the wishing well from the Garden Club? My Ross family has quite a small but nice garden with trees, flowers, a fruit tree, a water feature, a statue and a garden chair but the snobby garden club claim its not quite good enough. I can't fit anything else in!

No food crops growing? I think that's what's missing. For best score, make sure all plots are fertilized with compost and that the plants are "thriving". Also, no flamingos or gnomes. Those will reduce the score.

[grammapat]

Yes, they dislike flamingos, but like the wall-hanging rose pot.

A univ question: the houses there all say "rental", but they don't have apartment doors. In a regular hood I've put an apartment door on a house, and changed it to an apartment; it works fine. So I tried building an apartment building (4 apartments) in univ, but while the mail box changed, and it SAYS it's a rental, when you try to move a person in they can't rent ONE apartment; it looks like they would be renting the whole building!

So you can't build/use apartment BUILDINGS in a uni hood?

[Darby]

So you can't build/use apartment BUILDINGS in a uni hood?

I think there are mods that make it possible, but no, not normally. Uni, of course, predates AL by a very long time, and the "rental" units in Uni are nothing like the apartments in AL. They're simply temporary private housing for students who want to get out of their dorms.

[Mootilda]

Also, if you install a lot, which was not created in a University subhood, into a University subhood, then the lot may muck up your sim's aging. The aging controllers in University are special.

[mangaroo]

Mootilda, I defer to you in all things technical, but is it possible you have that backwards? As I learned when I installed Parsimonious's University of Arcane Thought in my elf subhood, installing a uni-built lot in a normal neighborhood messes with aging controllers. Installing a lot built in a normal neighborhood into a Uni hood messes with Uni's "push" function to send students to class and exams.

@grammapat - Pescado at MATY (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,13471.0.html) created a mod enabling AL apartments in University neighborhoods. My experience with it was unfortunate: the neighbors it generated were clique-based like the socialites, bohemians, jocks, etc. back in the main hood, and while their age was Young Adult, they didn't seem to behave like the dormies the game would normally spawn.

[Mootilda]

I'm not infallible; there's no reason to defer to me.

However, I believe that it's also a problem to install a lot, which was created in a University subhood, into a non-University subhood. Same problem: the lot will contain the wrong type of aging controllers. What I said seemed more relevant to taking an apartment and installing it into a University. It makes sense that other controllers on the lot would also be incorrect, such as the ones which send students to classes and exams.

[gulhare]

After some use and abuse of my TS2 Best of Business disc, I think it's gotten to the point it wont run anymore. The game won't play, and it won't autorun. I've already confirmed that the issue is with the disc, not my game, custom content, or et cetera.
So; how much will a replacement cost me, or will they not even replace it since it's for TS2 and not 3?

A. Have you deleted the cashes? That is a good way to get the game up and running sometimes.

B. You are sure its the disc and not the drive? From my own experience, bought a new mansions and garden because the game wouldnt run at all....and it turned out the DVD-drive was at fault. It was weird because every other game I had would run just fine (except sims 3 wich needed prodding and kicking to get going...eventually).

C. Doesnt it say on the cover what it would cost with a replacement? It does on mine (100 SEK). But it still depends on them having any left to replace yours with :(


Peni Griffin
Every time you send a playable to a shop you risk uncontrollable playables shopping away on pets (and other stuff), but as you can refuse the pets I dont think its that much of a problem is it?
And if you were swedish you would also have a fit at the romance sims named Pitt :giggler:

[grammapat]

RE: uni apts, thanks Mootilda & Mangaroo (what? cows and man-kangaroos?), I think I'll just avoid any problems by not trying to do that.

[DM was on fire!]

A. Have you deleted the cashes? That is a good way to get the game up and running sometimes.
Yes.

B. You are sure its the disc and not the drive? From my own experience, bought a new mansions and garden because the game wouldnt run at all....and it turned out the DVD-drive was at fault. It was weird because every other game I had would run just fine (except sims 3 wich needed prodding and kicking to get going...eventually).
Every other CD I would put in worked flawlessly; no issue at all. What also pointed out to me the CD was an issue was it would freeze installing at 41% with an error at /ui/ui.package.

C. Doesnt it say on the cover what it would cost with a replacement? It does on mine (100 SEK). But it still depends on them having any left to replace yours with :(
:( Nope. I looked everywhere in my booklet and it didn't say, nor did it say on the case or any of my other cases. Damn American versions.

I googled it and I pulled up a $15 price, but I don't know if it will differ because that post was from a couple years ago when it was quoted; and because it's TS2 and not TS3. D:
Thank you for your help though. c:

[LilSister]

So is this a glitch, or is there a risk of this happening any time a playable goes to a pet store in the future? And will people start buying random things in unowned community lots?

Not a glitch some Sims playable and townies will autonomously purchase pets at the pet store. I had several pet loving sims that I had to keep an eye on whenever I sent another playable sim to the pet store because without fail they would purchase a pet. There is one townie that I've seen purchase 3 dogs autonomously. Although you don't have to accept the pet, I finally put a mod in that stops autonomous pet purchases.

[LilSister]

Is there any particular thing I can do to get the wishing well from the Garden Club? My Ross family has quite a small but nice garden with trees, flowers, a fruit tree, a water feature, a statue and a garden chair but the snobby garden club claim its not quite good enough. I can't fit anything else in!

It seems that the Garden Club folks are snobs, they only give out the wishing well to gardens that include a variety of flowers (including custom-for some reason they like these), plants, fruits trees and a vegetable garden and landscaping in the front of the house. I also include lights, statues,the bug thingy and fertilize the ground with compost.

Once I forgot that the door leading to the backyard of one sims home was locked so they could only inspect the front yard. The sims received about $3,000 but no wishing well. They were complimented on the landscaping (shrubs and rose bushes and a there was small garden with a fountain that had a variety of flowers) and I can't remember the exact words but basically the sims were told there garden wasn't large enough.


My sims who have received the wishing well have flowers, plants, trees and shrubs both in the front of the house and the back. I hope this helps.

[Peni Griffin]

It worked well in this case, as the daughter's pet bird had recently died and being in the pet store looking for a new pet to cheer her up is a reasonable excuse for the father to be there when the active sim visited and they made up their fight. As long as choosing"no" on opening means they don't actually buy the pet and the money's still in their pocket, it's fine. I'm a little concerned about some of my more marginal sims going broke by filling up their inventories with useless crap; but I can always sell the useless crap and there's some sims I can see becoming shopaholics.

I recently got a pop-up at one of the parties, in which one of the guests (who has never been on vacation) advised the hosts to buy a vacation home rather than staying at a hotel; are there likely to be repercussions from that, or is it just a silly bit of random spam?

Apparently OFB and BV are going to continue to throw out little surprises for awhile.

[smorbie1]

Can you actually buy a bird at the pet shops? I've never been able to. I've always had to "special order" mine by buying the cage from buy/build and then choosing the bird, or wormrat thing.

[Peni Griffin]

I haven't tried, but the premade ones have birds on the lot, so you might be able to. He came home with a dog, anyway.

[LilSister]

Can you actually buy a bird at the pet shops? I've never been able to. I've always had to "special order" mine by buying the cage from buy/build and then choosing the bird, or wormrat thing.


You can't buy birds from pet store only cat's and dogs. Birds can only be purchased in buy mode for sims.

[omglo]

There was a baby born yesterday and for some reason the game pulled information from his brother's girlfriend when it created his icon (she was on the lot during the birth). The baby has skin tone 2 like his parents, but while his icon is a picture of a baby, it's a baby with skin tone 4 and lipstick. Is this a sign that the neighborhood is getting too glitchy or is it just one of those things?

[LilSister]

I recently got a pop-up at one of the parties, in which one of the guests (who has never been on vacation) advised the hosts to buy a vacation home rather than staying at a hotel; are there likely to be repercussions from that, or is it just a silly bit of random spam?

Perhaps this was a "netwoking" opportunity (I'm assuming you have Apartment Life). The wording can be a little strange when some opportunities are offered. Last night I played the Johnson holdhousehold. Edward had the day off so he went to Orchid Beach to surf. While there he ran into Marylena Hamilton and after a brief chat she "networked" with him. The wording was so strange, "Edward wants to bring so and so (can't remember sim name) home from work, Is it O.K.? Now I'm thinking what the mess? He's at the beach not returning home from work. Out of curiosity I clicked yes. The dialog then came up I already have a job should I take this one. Still curious I clicked yes. Edward was given a job as a City Council member in Politics career track. Well, of course when he returned home I used the simblender to change him back to crimminal career path he was just promoted to Cat Burgular via a chance card. Well he received a boost here too, he is now a Level 8 Countefieter. So far through "networking" Edward has received the giant Apartment Life $10,000 TV and a furniture discount. Another sim Natasha has recieved the $8,000 flat screen, the expensive computer and the furniture discount.


(Psst...the Powers That Be here prefer long posts and edited posts to double posts even when you change topics...just a head's up.)

Thanks...don't want to upset the Powers :blink:

[LilSister]

I'm not infallible; there's no reason to defer to me.

However, I believe that it's also a problem to install a lot, which was created in a University subhood, into a non-University subhood. Same problem: the lot will contain the wrong type of aging controllers. What I said seemed more relevant to taking an apartment and installing it into a University. It makes sense that other controllers on the lot would also be incorrect, such as the ones which send students to classes and exams.

Could you elaborate on this a little bit more as I never knew this could be a problem. I mainly build my lots in the neighborhood where they are to be located. Like right now I have a "University" in my mainhood and the lots used to create the school buildings were built in the mainhood as I don't have a university in this neighborhood. However I have in the past used lots (homes and community lots) that I built in my mainhood in University and vice versa. I have also download lots that were for Uni, but used them in my mainhood, but I don't know where the creator of these lots built them. To my knowledge I have not had any problems Spring Valley and Shiloh are my Legacy hoods (that I now can't play since I installed apartment life-different issue-didn't properly save saved games-but they are preserved in a zip file.) What sort of problems can result from this? Now that I know this is not a good thing to do I won't do it again but I am curious about the ramifications.

[Peni Griffin]

Can't be networking - networkers are all townies, and there were none at the party. Nor was there any clickable option - Sharla had not mysteriously acquired vacation lots to sell. She appeared to be randomly giving advice to people who had no prospect of using it.

(Psst...the Powers That Be here prefer long posts and edited posts to double posts even when you change topics...just a head's up.)

[katya_stevens]

Peni --networkers don't need to be the AL social townies; they rarely exist in my game, yet I've gotten networking perks from random sims. It seems to be something that was added in to all townies regardless of their social 'status' (but even then, I've never seen a pop-up about a vacation home).

[Mootilda]

Could you elaborate on this a little bit more as I never knew this could be a problem. [...] What sort of problems can result from this? Now that I know this is not a good thing to do I won't do it again but I am curious about the ramifications.I'm afraid not... I'm not that familiar with the problem. I've basically said everything that I know: University lots have special controllers and moving lots between a University and a normal neighborhood or subhood can cause problems with aging and other things. I'm sure that there are threads which contain more detailed explanations, possibly at MATY?

[Peni Griffin]

Well, but it wasn't a townie at all, and never had been - it was Sharla Ottomas. If nobody else ever got such a pop-up, I suppose it was the computer fairies jacking with me more elaborately than they usually do. It weirds me out that computer fairies can write scripts for pop-ups, though!

[lazzybum]

What makes stray pets spawn? I see these 2 adorable spotted stray cats I've never seen before but I've never adopted stray pets or seen any die.

This also leads to... how do I adopt strays or register them as part of the household?

[LilSister]

What makes stray pets spawn? I see these 2 adorable spotted stray cats I've never seen before but I've never adopted stray pets or seen any die.

This also leads to... how do I adopt strays or register them as part of the household?


Strays spawn like townies if you don't have a mod to prevent it. If you want to adopt the stray the sim must become friends with the pet and when the relationship score is high enough there will be a pop-p asking if the sim want to adopt the pet.

[Bwinney43]

Is this (http://compsimgames.about.com/od/nightlifestrategytips/qt/cemeteries.htm) tutorial explaining the correct/safe way to create a cemetery and transport the tombstones? I know the Move Tombstone option came with Nightlife but that doesn't necessarily mean it's safe to use. Seeing as how EA also gave us options to delete sims from the bin or move around occupied lots. Both of which can cause corruption. I want to make sure I move the tombstones around safely or if it's too risky I wont do it at all. I tried Googling but I got a few different tutorials and answers but I don't know which is true and which is inaccurate.

[LilSister]

Is this (http://compsimgames.about.com/od/nightlifestrategytips/qt/cemeteries.htm) tutorial explaining the correct/safe way to create a cemetery and transport the tombstones? I know the Move Tombstone option came with Nightlife but that doesn't necessarily mean it's safe to use. Seeing as how EA also gave us options to delete sims from the bin or move around occupied lots. Both of which can cause corruption. I want to make sure I move the tombstones around safely or if it's too risky I wont do it at all. I tried Googling but I got a few different tutorials and answers but I don't know which is true and which is inaccurate.


I've created 3 cemetaries-2 family churches w/cemetaries and a potters field for townies. I have use the move graves feature and transported tombstones to cemetaries multiple times and I have never had an issue in 2 years related to doing so. When using the move feature the tombstnes arrived at the designated cemetary near the phone. I actually preferred this way than transporting the gravestone in the sims inventory. Now whether or not it's correct/safe I can only say that I've never had a problems or issues in my game. I'm not into haunted house so I like the option to move the grave off of the home lot. I know it's not a good idea to delete tombstones.

[grammapat]

Yes, you CAN adopt strays; if you build up a high enough friendship, sometime when it's on the lot you'll get a pop-up "do you want to adopt.". That said, I've only had it work when the Sim used to OWN the pet, cause other strays just don't show up enough. When you have a pet you can make them a stray by giving them to a townie; when the townie is on the lot, click on them & choose "give pet to" or "sell to {a good way for your sims to hustle a townie}. After that, the pet does NOT just show up with that townie, but is like any other "stray"... and they usually show back up at their old home a lot.

[Peni Griffin]

Well, shoot, now I'm all disappointed. Sue Casa - who is less than a week from turning elder - started rolling lots of "have baby" wants during her vacation, so I had her try for one, and I could swear I heard baby chimes. But by the end of the second day home, she hadn't popped. So I looked at her in SimPE, and she's not pregnant.

I could, I suppose, have made up the baby chimes...I do make things up. But I was so sure. Could the game have gotten her home, decided she was too close to elder, and essentially made her miscarry?

[omglo]

I just got the Pets expansion and one of my Sims adopted a puppy. Will he be able to walk through the door on his own to relieve himself once he's house trained, or does his family have to keep taking him out? Will he stay on the lot in an unfenced yard or can pet Sims run away?

[lazzybum]

Thanks for the answers regarding stray adoptions.

omglo:
puppies/kittens can walk through any doors, unless you set the door to 'disallow pets.' Only thing is if there are stairs, even for foundation, then the puppies/kittens cannot use it (same like toddlers). So if your house isn't on a foundation, then you don't have to take him out.

Pets run away if there's a reason. Scared of fire, neglect, Im not sure what else. I don't know if puppies/kittens can run away though. You can report lost pet with a phone and they'll eventually find them in a few days.

[omglo]

Thanks.

[AlexandraSpears]

Well, shoot, now I'm all disappointed. Sue Casa - who is less than a week from turning elder - started rolling lots of "have baby" wants during her vacation, so I had her try for one, and I could swear I heard baby chimes. But by the end of the second day home, she hadn't popped. So I looked at her in SimPE, and she's not pregnant.

I could, I suppose, have made up the baby chimes...I do make things up. But I was so sure. Could the game have gotten her home, decided she was too close to elder, and essentially made her miscarry?

Sounds like a glitch.

I've actually had elderly Family Sims roll wants for Have a Baby. :faceslap: And roll fears for it, too....

[Peni Griffin]

Word of advice on the dog - if you don't fence them into the backyard and house, with front door and gate locked to disallow pets, they'll pee at the mailbox. Even the females.

Edit to Ask:
If I made Sue pregnant in her second trimester in SimPE (which should give time for her to have the baby before she ages), would that work, or just make her look pregnant? And if it did work, would that be parthenogenesis, so that her only option was an opposite-sex clone?

[grammapat]

Re dog pee: sometimes dogs (either sex) pee around a shrub or flower, but I haven't seen that planting a particular one makes them pee on THAT; I don't know why some do this. And, some dogs have command available "go pee", or if you click on a plant "pee on" (this of course if you've taken control of them). Anyone know why the bush-pee or the option to tell them to pee, only happens with SOME dogs?

And I didn't think about fencing off the front area, although that doesn't eliminate the work for a sim; if they pee on the lawn (even desert!) it will cause weeds.

[VerDeTerre]

Yeah, it's too bad that the pee can't be used to water the plants. The dogs used to be able to help with the gardening in Sims 1!

[lazzybum]

Ok, this is really a stupid question, but I downloaded the Stay Things Shrub by Simlogical. I can't for the life of me find it anywhere. Which category is it in? I've been searching for 15 minutes (hoarded with CC)

[mangaroo]

Build Mode > Garden Center > Shrubs. In my game, it's labeled ""Moveout Object Stayer" in the catalog. Also, I've heard it does funky things to the value of the home, but that may be irrelevant if your main interest is in preserving decor.

[lazzybum]

Ah thanks mangaroo. I realized I got the wrong file, got the global fix rather than the object itself; but at least now I know where it is lol.

[LilSister]

I'm wondering why sim Natasha Anderson (or any sim) can no longer make money as a DJ in my game. Natasha supplements her income working as a bartender at the jazz club The Blue Note, working at Starbuck and as a DJ on the weekends. Now when she tries to be a DJ every DJ in the game will show up and stop her. She has creativity skills and I have not installed any new mods/hacks. I'm confused because this has never happened before I installed Apartment Life. Anyone have any idea?


Thank you Peni, dumping cache files. I usually do so after each game play, I didn't think it was a problem since file wasn't that large. Hopefully that's problem because dorm cook stopped showing up also I will also change DJ Booth. I guess any changes will affect how the game responds. The only thing I did different was make Randy London playable and move him into neighborhood dorm as test subject. Another question, sims have desire to jump rope when I click on them option not available..do they have to be outside or have certain body skills? or do they do need a jump rope(I know really silly..checking just in case..lol)?

[Peni Griffin]

It's not AL - I've had that installed from the beginning and never had a problem being the DJ. It doesn't have to be a mod or hack to screw up random things, though. Dumped your cache files lately? Tried it with the different DJ booths? I'd backup my game and start experimenting.

[Darby]

Re dog pee: sometimes dogs (either sex) pee around a shrub or flower, but I haven't seen that planting a particular one makes them pee on THAT; I don't know why some do this. And, some dogs have command available "go pee", or if you click on a plant "pee on" (this of course if you've taken control of them). Anyone know why the bush-pee or the option to tell them to pee, only happens with SOME dogs?

I've noticed the lack of the "pee on" option too, lately, and it has been bugging me! I didn't consider that it's only available on certain shrubs or trees. When I get a chance, I'll do some experimenting...

[fruitsymphony]

Hello, sorry for bothering!
I am having horrible problems with my neighbourhood now, any advice would be very much appreciated, how to deal with this?? I bought something called Double Deluxe on ebay. Because it included Nightlife.
Then I uninstalled my Sims 2 game and installed Double Deluxe. Nightlife could not be installed separately from the Double deluxe.
Then copied my neighbourhood folder from the Sims 2 directory, and dropped in the new neighbourhood directory!
Now some sim families live in 2 places simultaneously, in Strangetown and Downtown, so their new address is f ex Lucky Shack Cards and Drinking, and some sims do not have any character data, and one sim does not have a face :(
Can I do something to preserve my neighbourhood and transfer it to the new installation of Double deluxe??

[Orilon]

Hello, sorry for bothering!
I am having horrible problems with my neighbourhood now, any advice would be very much appreciated, how to deal with this?? I bought something called Double Deluxe on ebay. Because it included Nightlife.
Then I uninstalled my Sims 2 game and installed Double Deluxe. Nightlife could not be installed separately from the Double deluxe.
Then copied my neighbourhood folder from the Sims 2 directory, and dropped in the new neighbourhood directory!
Now some sim families live in 2 places simultaneously, in Strangetown and Downtown, so their new address is f ex Lucky Shack Cards and Drinking, and some sims do not have any character data, and one sim does not have a face :(
Can I do something to preserve my neighbourhood and transfer it to the new installation of Double deluxe??

Double Deluxe is what is considered a "combo pack" that includes the Sims 2 base game, the Nightlife Expansion Pack and the Celebration Stuff Pack. Since all 3 are combined, you can't pick and choose which one you want to install, and from what you describe it sounds like the information in your neighborhood is conflicting with the information in Double Deluxe and you may not be able to save it.

[Mootilda]

Did you backup your neighborhood before you uninstalled your original game? If not, then EA probably deleted your save game during the uninstall. If that happened, then there's no way to save your neighborhood; it's gone.

If you did backup, then you should be able to use your old neighborhood with the new installation, as long as you have (at least) the same EPs installed.

Which Neighborhoods folder did you copy? The one in Program Files, or the one in Documents? Did you completely replace the Neighborhoods folder with a different Neighborhoods folder, or did you merge the two? Merging two neighborhoods is a sure way to corrupt the result.

[DigitalSympathies]

I had a game crash halfway through updating Pleasantview (Creating Exotic Destinations) and next time I booted up it had "Exotic Destinations" and a green wobbly picture as one of the neighbourhoods. What would happen if I clicked it?

[Mootilda]

Likely you would get a basically empty uninteresting neighborhood. I think that Exotic Destinations has all of the tourists in it and the sim bin families that came with BV, but no lots.

[fruitsymphony]

If you did backup, then you should be able to use your old neighborhood with the new installation, as long as you have (at least) the same EPs installed.

Which Neighborhoods folder did you copy? The one in Program Files, or the one in Documents? Did you completely replace the Neighborhoods folder with a different Neighborhoods folder, or did you merge the two? Merging two neighborhoods is a sure way to corrupt the result.
Thank you :), yes I did back up, with SimPE back up function, somehow I could not restore it however. Not sure why, perhaps I should try once more.

Anyways, I will try to play once *without* the Downtown sub neighbourhood and see what happens then. :) Perhaps I should also try to copy the whole "Neighbourhoods" folder, because I only coppied the Strangetown n002 before. :|

**update**
Thank you for posting those helpful links, I think perhaps id id not erase the default neighbourhoods folder before copying the old. The neighbourhood works better now, I think, at least the school bus arrives and many sims are ok.
Some lots disappeared but those sims seem to have become townies. Will play for a while and see what happens.

[Mootilda]

The SimPE back up function does not back up your save game. It only backs up one file. Please read this:
http://simpeforum.ambertation.de/sims2/Warning-for-people-who-edit-sims-and-hoods-in-SimPE

If that's your only backup, then you've lost your neighborhood and there's no way to get it back.

Here's the correct way to backup a neighborhood:
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Back_Ups

[SusannaG]

Anyone have any idea which version of Body Shop is the right one to try to get to work in my case? I have both Apartment Life, and Fun with Pets. Have tried both with no luck. (Have all EPs except Bon Voyage.)

[lazzybum]

SusannaG: Apartment Life, unless you have Mansion & Garden, then it would be that.

Is there a quick way, with cheats or hacks, to enable buy mode or the restricted features on apartment lots? The stupid mailbox is right in front of the door of the school bus, and It would be so much easier just to move it one square, instead of moving them out, rezoning it back and forth, and moving them back in :/

[SusannaG]

Mansions and Gardens is included in Fun with Pets. So is it AL or that one?

[mangaroo]

lazzybum, the cheat code is either

boolProp aptBaseSpecificToolsDisabled false
or
boolProp aptSublotSpecificToolsDisabled false

If you use aptSublot, any changes you make only affect the family you were playing at the time you entered the cheat, but I'm not entirely certain the "aptBase" code will work from an occupied apartment at all. My recommendation would be to try aptBase first and if you can't move the mailbox, use aptSublot. Then, of course, report back so I can give better advice next time. :P

[Peni Griffin]

I know ghosts get upset if their widow/er dates, the tombstone is disturbed, or their bed gets moved or sold; but what upsets ghost pets? I've had a couple of pet ghosts hanging around not bothering anybody for awhile; and then suddenly the ghost of Lady Hawkins growls at the youngest Hawkins teen - whom she knew as a toddler - and Spice Hawkins, on her first appearance since dying in the kitchen, arches her back and hisses at a teen innocently clearing away dinner. She later ran out to see him leave for college, though, which was kind of cute. The weather was fair in both instances.

[grammapat]

I never even noticed that! And while we wait for someone with an answer; is there a way to have ghosts active on a community lot? And is there a way to make them stop wakeing people up?

[Peni Griffin]

I believe the way to have ghosts active on a community lot is a) to wait till the ghost spawns before transferring the tombstone/urn to the community lot via your preferred method and then b) to arrive at the community lot with the tombstones on it shortly before dark. If you wait till after dark, according to somebody somewhere on here (I'm great at retaining what I read; awful at remembering where it came from and keeping it from getting all tangled up in everything else I read - my head's like a jungle), the ghosts don't spawn, but if the sim is there at the transition from daylight to dark they may.

A second question while my ghost one and the one about making a pregnancy in SimPE hang fire - awhile ago I extracted a bunch of sims to prove to myself that I knew how to do it. Then I had a glitch and the "delete SavedSims file" step fixed it, so since I hadn't downloaded anybody, I just left it deleted and extracted them, and a bunch more, again.

Now when I go into CAS and look in the SimBin, the thumbnails are weird. For instance, Vidcund will appear in the female bin, and when I click on him, he appears as one of my sims for whom there is no thumbnail. Buck Grunt appears in the adult bin as well as the child bin; the child version is Buck and the adult version is somebody else. The thumbnail of Lazlo Curious covers the form of Harris Hawkins, who has two thumbnails, one for him and one for Ernest Munny, and Ernest's thumbnail covers Dom Moiselle. And so on. Is this something I need to worry about, or can I just get rid of the thumbnail file and make it all regenerate? (Hmmm...there's something about borked thumbnails in the Help FAQ. I should go look there.)

BTW, just for giggles and to roll the pacifier I turned Nervous female and crossed him with Harris. Nervous makes a fetching young lady, and he and Harris between them produced some of the most adorable little homely children I've seen in this game. I'm tempted to upload Harris just so people can see this phenomenon for themselves. Harris is hands-down my ugliest sim - the first time I saw his face up close in CAS I jumped, and I had to put glasses on his Freakishly Huge Eyes for my own peace of mind. He's also sweet as pie and one of my favorites these days, so perhaps it's the eye of favoritism that makes his and Nervous's kids so appealing to me.

[AlexandraSpears]

For a while I didn't have ghosts active on community lots (I don't like ghosts, which is a MAJOR reason I don't keep them on the home lots), but one time after a few days, I sent a Sim to a cemetery at night...even the townies were getting scared! Typically I just plop down an empty community lot and ship them off there and forget about them.

[lazzybum]

lazzybum, the cheat code is either

boolProp aptBaseSpecificToolsDisabled false
or
boolProp aptSublotSpecificToolsDisabled false

If you use aptSublot, any changes you make only affect the family you were playing at the time you entered the cheat, but I'm not entirely certain the "aptBase" code will work from an occupied apartment at all. My recommendation would be to try aptBase first and if you can't move the mailbox, use aptSublot. Then, of course, report back so I can give better advice next time. :P

aptBase didn't seem to work, but aptSublot did. Thanks you!

[gummilutt]

I recently got this expansion, and haven't tried out everything yet, but one thing I got really excited when I read about was robots, and so far it hasn't nearly lived up to my expectations. My main question atm is... are cleaning bots and hydrobots even worth it? I think they seem pretty decent in theory, specially hydrobots. If you have a lot of plants it tends to get tiresome to water them, and the gardener comes way too rarely, so when I saw that I thought "yay, no more plants dying all the time". Problem is the bot breaks basically instantly. It waters maybe 3-4 plants before it sprays itself and breaks. So my question is, are they in fact that fail or am I doing something wrong? Is there anything I can do about it?

[Darby]

I've hardly used them at all myself, mainly because of exactly what you're describing - that they break down so easily.

Paladin, at simwardrobe, has better versions that break down far less, so you might give those a shot.

[gummilutt]

Thank you Darby, helpful as always =) I can't seem to find a hydrobot upgrade, but the servo tools will come in handy. I don't understand the point of Servo either. I read somewhere that it's supposed to do housechores with free will off, but can't say mine does. And when I tried turning it on, all he did was serve food all the time. Very annoying xD

[Darby]

Yes, servos need hacks to keep them from being reeeeeally annoying. I'd point you to some if I could remember where I've seen them, but I can't recall at the moment.

[LilSister]

I need to further purge my DL folder and I don't know what some of the items are because I don't have pictures, and I can't find other items by name in my DL folder. What I like to know is it safe/o.k. to delete items from your catalog in-game?

I do it all the time, mostly with stuff that I get from downloaded lots (mostly walls/floors) that I don't want to keep.

However, doing so can leave orphaned meshes behind, depending on what you're deleting. For instance, relatively recently I did a massive hair purge from in-game, so I ended up with orphaned meshes, meshes that had no textures. I used...something to find the orphans. I don't remember what, honestly. Damned senility. Maybe the Clean Installer?

ETA: No, wait! I think it was the Download Organizer...Yeah...


I don't use the DDO because it deleted objects that were in use in my sims homes and on community lots. Thank goodness I keep a backup of my DL folder. I nearly had a fit. Also, I would never delete hair or clothes in game/or from bodyshop, not only would you leave behind meshes you could also seriously damage your game. Infact, as I'm typing this I have deceided to continue purging the correct way (although tedious) that won't cause any problems by completely removing the items from the folder manually. It took me days to organize everything so most items are a separate folder. So I will have to take my time view the items in the catalog in-game that I want to remove, make a list and remove them directly from the DL folder. Thanks anyhow, for the feedback it was appreciated.

[iCad]

I need to further purge my DL folder and I don't know what some of the items are because I don't have pictures, and I can't find other items by name in my DL folder. What I like to know is it safe/o.k. to delete items from your catalog in-game?

I do it all the time, mostly with stuff that I get from downloaded lots (mostly walls/floors) that I don't want to keep.

However, doing so can leave orphaned meshes behind, depending on what you're deleting. For instance, relatively recently I did a massive hair purge from in-game, so I ended up with orphaned meshes, meshes that had no textures. I used...something to find the orphans. I don't remember what, honestly. Damned senility. Maybe the Clean Installer?

ETA: No, wait! I think it was the Download Organizer...Yeah...

[lazzybum]

LilSister, if you are looking for object/buy mode meshes, I love using simwardrobe's Sims 2 Categorizer. (http://simwardrobe.com, under programs). It shows all of the buy mode, gives a picture, and it can track the recolors of the mesh and delete them together. I use Sims2Pack Clean Installer to check pictures, mainly for walls/floors, makeup, etc. The only thing I ever delete in game is walls, floors, and *sometimes* hair recolors (although that's quicker in bodyshop)

[gummilutt]

Yes, servos need hacks to keep them from being reeeeeally annoying. I'd point you to some if I could remember where I've seen them, but I can't recall at the moment.

If you do remember, and feel particularily nice, feel free to pm me =P The paladino controller is ok, but doesn't seem to deal with the cooking issues. Also doesn't seem to work with free will off. I have a makro by J.M. Pescado, that is somewhat decent, but the words are broken up for some reason. It's in Swedish and all our costum letters are missing, which tends to make words hard to read xD

What I like to know is it safe/o.k. to delete items from your catalog in-game?

I wish deleting clothes in CAS would work like deleting things in buy mode. Staying where you were makes it A LOT less annoying. (I know it's not exactly helpful, but I was writing this post anyway so I figured it was allowed =P)

Also I wondered, is it allowed to post a topic about an error with a specific item? I know I should do the whole procedure of removing things, but since it's just that one item I'm not sure how it would help.

[Peni Griffin]

I had an error with just the photobooth, where using it for its intended purpose (as opposed to romantic purposes) crashed the game. I had another error, where going into buy mode for clothes crashed the game.

The culprit in the first case turned out to be a CC blouse; in the second, something in my Saved Sims folder (and I only had sims extracted from other neighborhoods in my own installation of the game!). So I'm afraid the removing-things procedure is appropriate even when it makes no sense whatever.

Post the question if you want to, though.

[mangaroo]

gummilutt, this thread is for random questions about gameplay. If you are experiencing a problem with your game, please see the FAQs in the Help section. If the specific problem item is an EAxis item, definitely work through the Game Problem FAQ (though I would not go so far as to reinstall the game just yet!). If the pre-reinstall portions of the FAQ don't resolve the issue, you can post to the Game Help forum.

However, if this specific item is cc to begin with, you need to go back to the creator for help.

[gummilutt]

I know this one is about gameplay, I meant more as a would it be ok if I posted in the game help section right away (since I was posting here anyway about game play related things, I figured I'd toss in that question). And the reason I don't want to do the remove-things-procedure is because I already know it's another CC causing this one not to work, and with the amount of downloads I have it will be virtually impossible to figure out exactly what without some more direction. I was hoping someone would recognize something in the error log so that I can focus attention more. But anyway, I will take it in the right forum section. Sorry about the offtopic.

[Mootilda]

No, it's not OK to post in the game help section without doing the Game Problem FAQ, since the Game Problem FAQ will solve your problem. You'd just be wasting everyone's time.

Just do the FAQ and find your problem CC. It isn't as hard as you believe it is.

[Peni Griffin]

It is not "virtually impossible" to narrow it down, no matter how big your number of downloads is. It's just incredibly tedious. Put on some music, get a book, make some popcorn, and prepare to be patient and systematic. Don't do it unless you have a big chunk of free time and nobody else needs the machine.

If you dance around a problem looking for shortcuts, it takes forever to solve and often proves insoluble. If you put your head down and charge right at it, most often it clears itself up in a quarter of the time you expected it to take and proves to be much simpler than you thought.

There's no substitute for doing the work.

[Darby]

A question for modders:
Considering the known fact that "messing with" (i.e., adding to a family via cheats) the radio-controlled car is a bad idea, are hacked objects that are based on these toys safe to use, if the character data is altered in order to create the object?

[maybesomethingdunno]

What do you mean "if the character data is altered in order to create the object"?

My understanding:
The way things based on the RC model typically work is that the game spawns the NPC and snaps an object (e.g. the toy car) into a slot on the NPC which runs around giving the illusion that the toy car is moving on its own. My understanding is that the game treats the NPC as just another object; it is not a full "Sim" object. If it even has motives, they are typically turned off when it is spawned so it won't "die" or complain about need to pee. The instance of the NPC is deleted when no longer needed and anything in their slots are deleted too. They are like the Social Bunny or the therapist, intended to be spawned and then destroyed. The game spawns and destroys stuff all the time. So, in theory, they should be "safe" to use. Of course that depends upon what you mean by "safe" too. ;)

IIRC, the NPC for the RC car (and any based upon it) are automatically deleted when the lot reloads. (This is why you see a warning about leaving the lot and/or saving while a Sim is riding a "rideable" object.) Any Sim snapped into a slot on the NPC will also be deleted. In which case, it's like using "movobjects" to delete the Sim. In my experience they are reset by the mailbox.

But, yeah, you probably shouldn't add the NPC to the family since it's designed to be spawned/destroyed/respawned as needed.

Hopefully someone else will chime in, if I'm forgetting anything or if I've gotten something wrong.

[LilSister]

I'm afraid not... I'm not that familiar with the problem. I've basically said everything that I know: University lots have special controllers and moving lots between a University and a normal neighborhood or subhood can cause problems with aging and other things. I'm sure that there are threads which contain more detailed explanations, possibly at MATY?


I finally found some information on a thread at MATY (see post by Lord Darcy) that eased my mind and I thought it would be a good idea to share. I guess I've never had a problem becasue without knowing that I was doing it I was resetting the lot timers on lots moved to University.

www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,12165.0.html

I would have a designated sim that I would move in and out of a home to lower the cost of the home before changing it to a dorm or using as Greek House (I'd use the stay shrub) and by doing this I was resetting the lot timer.

[Darby]

What do you mean "if the character data is altered in order to create the object"?

The question was partly inspired by what Mootilda said in another thread about character data in the object.package, and what happens when the game tries to change (alter) the user data.

Yes, there's a major problem with trying to play sims who are really objects. Their character data is in the objects.package in the installation folder (Program Files). When the game tries to change their user data (which it will try to do when you make them playable), it destroys your installation files.

I'm a bit gun-shy about what's safe these days and am wondering all sorts of things it has never occurred to me to wonder about before. And in this case, "safe" means "won't screw up my installation files"! ;) Based on what you're saying, it doesn't sound like there aren't any major worries here. Thanks for the input! :)