I spent a whole night hunting the Tricou teens (I couldn't remember what they looked like) so I can send them to college to resurrect the deceased Tricous. I got them to Junior year and changed their Aspirations to fit their Zodiac Sign. They're somehow related to the deceased Tricous but if I recall from the Wikia, it isn't mutual. Is there a way to make the teens not related once I resurrect the Tricou family? Or should I keep them in the family tree and say they were adopted or something?

The Sim Manipulator can break family ties.

Does it actually remove them from the family tree, too?

It should.

insimenator is another in-game way to remove family ties; at least for family tree.
probably also Sim Blender.

Anybody here using a random generator to add recessive genes to Townies and University Premades?
I'm thinking about doing that because it's kinda boring when every Townie or Sim from the default universities lacks them, but at the same time I don't want every single Townie/University Sim to suddenly have random recessive genes for, for example, red hair.
So I'm think about doing like a 50/50 roll on whether they have recessive genes and then another random role for which kind.

How's anybody else handling this?

Not?

Their children will have recessive genes (unless you breed Sims with the same eye, hair and skin color). It's just like real life. Lots of people have recessive genes which are the same as the genes you see. All blond haired people have two genes for blond hair (or a rare gene for red hair), most people in eastern Asia and Africa have two genes for black hair, and so forth.

Eh, if I cared enough about it I would at least fix the premades so that their offspring made sense, like giving Mary-Sue Pleasant a recessive gene for red or blond hair.

Mary Sue already has a recessive gene for red hair, at least in meetme's hoods

Oh, that's good to know. I should really install those at some point.

This is a really random question. I'm playing a custom hood, a stranger than usual Strangetown. Creators have done some things I don't understand. It's winter, all the time, everywhere. First thought was the hood view of Weather; sure enough it was set for all winter. I changed it to all summer. Went back to an occupied lot where there was deep snow; there was a weather machine - I changed it to "clear skies". I checked each lot to see what the weather was set to. Also in hood view every lot show correct summer symbol, but if you enter it's either DEEP WINTER, or it STARTS snowing. What could they have done to keep it snowing?
Also, lots of the ancestors are now "alive" - sort of; they're zombies. I summoned the Grunt zombies, added them to family (blender), took away the zombiness (the picture thingy), AND KILLED THEM! BUT then in the lot loading screen they showed as alive humans. but IN the lot, they did not exist. I had the one remaining real person move all the graves (the 2 imposter graves were NOT there!) to a community lot, and then move out themselves. I then moved the dead/not dead human imposters to the bin, and put them on a empty lot. When I enter the lot nothing is playable, because NO SIM is there (even though from hood view they are there.
WHAT IS GOING ON!! I've already found all the funny stuff, so I won't continue to play this hood. But maybe I should tell the creators what is going on; on other hand they are experts, so I suspect I must have created the non-dead problem, even though to me it looks like those Sims must have missing, necessary data.

What hood is it?

Strangetown with a twist (and package is named "TWST") by Tarlia. I've left her a message too, as I now can't find the original and I want to re-download.

Whew! I'm glad it wasn't one of ours!
If you can't find it, maybe she took it down to fix it? It sounds like it probably needs fixing...
Good luck!

what does it mean if i click on a sim and it has an error box saying you sent me a crappy GUID please fix it?!

@grammapat
Strangetown with a twist should be downloadable from a tumblr named Strange Tomato (that's where I got it from too).
The other thing about dead sims being there on the neighbourhood screen but not on the lot happened to me too a few times. Maybe the game can't summon gravestones correctly if many sims die at once. I don't know if anything can fix it, but maybe the hoodchecker can do some things if a problem like that rises?

It means you sent them a crappy GUID and you should fix it. Do a 50/50.

whats a 50/50?

i'm dumb i know

It's not dumb to not know something. It's dumb to not ask when you need to know, and don't.

The 50/50 is the process of testing for bad custom content: Back up your game, take out your Downloads folder, divide it in two, put one half back in, load game, test. Does the problem recur? Congratulations, the the bad content is in that batch of CC and you don't have to test the other half. Does the problem vanish? Congratulations, the problem is not in that batch of CC and you only have to test the other half.

Continue dividing the bad half till you've narrowed it down to the single piece of CC that's causing the problem. Then you can decide whether to try to change the GUID (since you know it's the GUID causing your problem) or just delete it.

Ohhhh,thanks for the help Peni!

Is it possible to have a salon as an unowned community lot? Or do I have to set it up as an owned business and assign sims to work there? Just wondering if the salon chair could spawn workers, like say the massage table. It'd be nice if it could.

Anyway, about the lot loading screen, that sounds normal--the lot loading screen seems to lag behind household changes, imo. I've had it continue to show sims who've moved away, show babies when the sims have grown up, show sims in the wrong outfit, etc., etc. Give it time; it should fix itself.

=
In that hood there are many townie zombies that are ancestors of playables! You mentioned "...if many sims die at once", I don't know how the zombies were made, and when I made them mortal (so they would be properly DEAD!) and killed them it was two in quick succession - something I have done many times. Hoodchecker didn't fix. How did YOU deal with it?

Yes, salon chairs spawn NPCs on unowned lots. There's one in Bluewater Village.

In my experience, the loading screen shows you the sims as they were the last time you saved the lot.

Thanks, Peni! I've been looking for lot ideas to fill up my downtown/community lot areas and I can't believe I've never thought of a salon before.

Loading screens should show the sims as they were when the lot was last saved. Sometimes they seem to get stuck. I once had all the loading screens in an old Riverblossom Hills get stuck and refuse to update. None of them would show new babies, remove dead family members, etc. In my case it turned out that a file had somehow gotten write protected.

(Change G001 to whatever the number is for the neighborhood you're currently playing.)
The Sims 2 > Neighborhoods > G001 > Thumbnails > G001_FamilyThumbnails.package

I just right-clicked on the file, went into properties and unchecked the "read-only" box. This may or may not help with Grammapat's problem since her symptoms are a little different than mine were.