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Forum Resident
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Nov 2017 at 9:34 PM
Default Game Tips and Tricks
What is a trick or cheat that you do in your game that you've never seen discussed before, but think is useful or helpful? Like the painting goblin, but less sociopathic.

Mine is sharing vacation houses

Sim A owns a vacation house. His sister Sim B wants to go on vacation and stay in his house.

Sim B books a vacation and selects "Choose hotel upon arrival".

The morning Sim B leaves, before the taxi arrives, use the Teleporter to summon Sim A to the lot, then use the teleporter to move him in. When Sim B arrives at the vacation hood, she is able to select the vacation house Sim A owns because he's now a member of her household.

When Sim B's vacation is over and she's returned home, you can go back to Sim A's lot and move him back in using the teleporter. Obviously it only works if Sim A has other people in their home; don't move them in if they live on their own, or are a single parent because it screws up their home lot.

I use this all the time for families, since only one child can inherit the house, but the siblings can still use it. The sims don't even have to know each other, you could have one person own the house and have other families use it like time-share. I like sending my sims on vacation a lot more when I don't have to deal with the glitchy hotels.
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 22nd Nov 2017 at 9:48 PM Last edited by ihatemandatoryregister : 25th Nov 2017 at 7:27 AM. Reason: Making post look nicer
Keyboard Shortcuts
Most of the game can be played with keyboard shortcuts. This is a good place to start albeit being basegame-only. Alas, there's still a few things that require the use of a mouse.

45-Degree Rotations
If you add boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true to your userStartup.cheat, you can use the < and > keys to rotate your furniture at 45-degree angles. Whether it's actually functional tends to be hit-or-miss though.

Make Selectable
I regularly make other Sims temporarily selectable in order to enhance the story. For example, when one of my nice Sims broke the toilet in another playable's house, I had him fix it and clean up afterwards. So long as you're careful not to do it when they're about to go to work, there's little risk, and Dolphin's Control-This-Sim can actually return the flags to them so you don't lose any special menus (such as tipping maids, or raising the wages of OFB employees).

Family Flags
It's possible to flag two unrelated Sims as 'family' in SimPE without defining their actual relationship. It sticks, too. I sometimes use it for very platonic relationships where I don't even want the romantic interactions to appear.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Alchemist
#3 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 12:06 AM
I like teleporting Sims in and making them temporarily selectable too. For example, if a Sim is sick a relative might come over and make them comfort soup. Or, someone will make a bunch of food for a gathering and send the guests home with leftovers.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 6:55 AM
Want to build a houseboat with a house and yard in the center while it's surrounded with a moat of pool in the complete area of the lot? You can, and even a papergirl/boy, mailman and Mr. Humble knows how to swim across it to deliver their respective items/stuff. Haven't tested with all npcs (burglars, maids, gardener etc.).
Mad Poster
#5 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 12:20 PM
Aw, so you can't build a moat and keep the bills from ever getting across? XD
Mad Poster
#6 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 1:28 PM
Indeed. Though you can simply avoid bills by living through your whole live in a purchased community without worrying to pay them for the residential lot. The Problem you will need a mod to enable sleep interaction on beds and I presume you are immortal there, so will have to have a hack that forces sim to age or grow up at any time.
Mad Poster
#7 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 3:37 PM
Being immortal doesn't sound like a problem.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Mad Poster
#8 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 4:35 PM
If you want to avoid bills you could just ban the mailman with the visitor controller. No need to live on a community lot.

Creations can be found on my on tumblr.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 23rd Nov 2017 at 5:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by gummilutt
If you want to avoid bills you could just ban the mailman with the visitor controller. No need to live in a community lot.

Or you can just take an easy route, If you wanna avoid all those scumbags: mailman, paperboys, burglars, welcoming wagon, humble, etc. Less mods = a lot quicker to do.
Forum Resident
#10 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 5:47 AM
Other uses of Control This Sim that I've enjoyed (thanks to our bulbasaur for mentioning it, and funny how most of our tips are pretty much about creative ways to use it!):

I now consider it invaluable on community lots, because it can stop all sorts of unwanted behavior by the uncontrolled sims. Stalking my controlled sim while they're on a date? Coming to steal their restaurant meal plate? Likely to join them at the one chess table before the other sim actually Asked to Join (and whom I really prefer my sim to play the game with) will get there? Standing oddly in the way (like in the bathroom)? Dolphin's mod allows me to give those sims other "ideas" instead.

Usually I send them to Be Seated if there's a restaurant on the lot (especially my preference when they're food-stealing; I guess I hope they'll learn to get their own food when hungry), or if I have grills on the lot maybe I'll send them to (make themselves useful and) cook. Sometimes, when I just need them to be distracted and don't care how, all I suggest is that they walk to a corner of the lot. (I have Cyjon's Manual Navigation mod, which makes Go Here something that doesn't immediately cancel once the AI queues up a new command---important since I give the command and then stop controlling them so that I can get right back to my sims.)

Also, in a hood I set up and played for a brief while to explore a concept (settlers in a remote location, no other sims around, no Maxis jobs---it's probably already a challenge that someone's given a name to, I'll bet!), each night at the group leader's home after that household went to bed, I'd teleport in a different sim, always a member of one of the other households. They'd provide a couple hours of cleaning, cooking, or repair services, and then I'd teleport them out again. Since the sims in the hood didn't really have much money, this was how the other families demonstrated appreciation (or paid "taxes," depending on how you want to see it) to the head family.

Alert: Be careful to think before clicking to Control This Sim. The mod doesn't have any built-in safeguards to prevent you from using it on sims that you shouldn't be messing with, so it's the player who has to watch out for that.

*Ongoing TS2 informational projects (come on by to contribute, get info, or spectate!): (1) the SimPE Preservation Project and (2) Conflict Tracking for the 3t2 Traits Project Mods
*Need a Pescado mod? Use his hack directory: in the first post, find the link for your latest EP, then go in hacks/
Field Researcher
#11 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 9:20 AM
Not a trick or cheat, but something I've come to do with pretty much every house I play:

1) Put a coffee table or side table outside the house near the mailbox. (I tend to use the cable drum coffee table, since it looks appropriately outdoorsy). Then, when you send a sim to the mailbox to get the bills, they'll put the bills on this rather than go traipsing three floors up to put them on the one free surface in the house.

2) Put a bench outside the front of the house. It's somewhere to send a sim to sit when you hit that awkward little break before getting ready for work/school and the car pool/bus arriving. You know, when they decide to have a bubble bath at two minutes to eight. Chances are, by the time they've actually got to the bench the car pool will have turned up so they won't actually need to sit on it, but it Keeps Them Occupied whilst you're concentrating on other sims.
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#12 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 12:52 PM
Quote: Originally posted by saturnian
Not a trick or cheat, but something I've come to do with pretty much every house I play:

1) Put a coffee table or side table outside the house near the mailbox. (I tend to use the cable drum coffee table, since it looks appropriately outdoorsy). Then, when you send a sim to the mailbox to get the bills, they'll put the bills on this rather than go traipsing three floors up to put them on the one free surface in the house.

Oh I use that endtable cover for the mail box to do that. It has a little shelf.

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Forum Resident
#13 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 3:30 PM
I use Sim Wardrobes automatic bill payer. Bills are paid automatically; I have some of my bills IRL set up this way.
Mad Poster
#14 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 4:03 PM
My Sims puts the bills on the ground. And then pay them.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 5:23 PM
*Thinks of a silly idea* I should moveobject the mailbox to my sims living room so that it reduces the speed and distance having to put bills on the table and back to mailbox.
Lab Assistant
#16 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 5:35 PM
Quote: Originally posted by SneakyWingPhoenix
*Thinks of a silly idea* I should moveobject the mailbox to my sims living room so that it reduces the speed and distance having to put bills on the table and back to mailbox.

But then you'd constantly have the postman walk into your living room to bring/receive the mail.
And don't even get me started on taxis and cut scenes...
Field Researcher
#17 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 5:53 PM
Now I'm going to have to try Control This Sim in my game.

My tip is for getting wedding guests to sit down in their correct seats during the ceremony. All guests have to be made selectable and I usually use Inge's cat teleporter to do that. I always put one on wedding lots because I also use it to teleport in guests. Note that if you're making guests selectable for a wedding on a residential lot, also use Inge's institution sign to keep all their carpools from showing up.

Turn free will off, and direct all your guests to stand in front of the chair you'd like them to sit in. When you start the ceremony they should sit in the chairs they're standing in front of but you might still get one or two wandering off to find another place to sit. But it's the best I've been able to do so far to try to get parents sitting next to each other and in front like they're supposed to. Plus grouping families together and having bride and groom's sides.

I'm wondering now if it would work to move sims who sit in the wrong place with move objects or if that would screw up the wedding somehow. Going to have to test that now!

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Please visit hfme.org for more information.
Mad Poster
#18 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 6:10 PM
About bills-there is a mailbox from somewhere that gets put over the regular mailbox so that the bills get paid without putting them on the ground or on the nearest flat surface-ah, Windkeepers Mailbox cover: Mailbox Cover with mailshelf
But I prefer the 'autopay bills' from Simwardrobe-or else enable it with Inseminator.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Mad Poster
#19 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 7:56 PM
I wonder what would happen if you moved the mailbox to a locked room. Would the mailman be able to bypass the locked doors or just stomp around and then leave?

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Mad Poster
#20 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 8:06 PM
My guess is he would because the social worker and police can enter locked and rooms and rooms without doors. I once had a sim accidentally call to report a fire. When I realized it, I had him jump into the pool so the fire fighter couldn't get to him. The fire fighter climbed, without changing out of his uniform into the pool and lectured and fined the sim anyway.

"Fear not little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom". Luke 12:32 Chris Hatch's family friendly files archived on SFS: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=603534 . Bulbizarre's website: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C...CoveredPortals/
Mad Poster
#21 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 9:22 PM
He would just drop the bills on the ground. I assume you would still have to pay for them.
Inventor
#22 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 9:33 PM
Quote: Originally posted by ihatemandatoryregister
I wonder what would happen if you moved the mailbox to a locked room. Would the mailman be able to bypass the locked doors or just stomp around and then leave?


They'll complain about route-block a few times, then drop the bills on the nearest bit of free ground to the mailbox and leave. Yes, you still have to pay them. No, you won't be able to pay them until you move the mailbox someplace accessible or use a mod that allows you to bypass the mailbox to pay bills (such as the auto bill payer or Monique computer online banking).
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#23 Old 24th Nov 2017 at 10:13 PM
If you don't want bills simply ban the mail person. Locked away or no he or she would drop them someplace. Also mail box placement is shown on move in with the taxi going to it's destination, lol would make for amusing into a building.

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Mad Poster
#24 Old 25th Nov 2017 at 1:08 AM Last edited by RoxEllen1965 : 25th Nov 2017 at 4:39 AM. Reason: rephrase for clarity
Quote: Originally posted by FranH
About bills-there is a mailbox from somewhere that gets put over the regular mailbox so that the bills get paid without putting them on the ground or on the nearest flat surface-ah, Windkeepers Mailbox cover: Mailbox Cover with mailshelf
But I prefer the 'autopay bills' from Simwardrobe-or else enable it with Inseminator.


Use the version that Pescado hacked. Sims are only allowed to put mail on the shelf (no coffee cups, newspapers, etc.) It's in windkeeperian.zip

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/f...al%2Fobjects%2F

My sims who have one of Monique's computers pay their bills that way.
Mad Poster
#25 Old 25th Nov 2017 at 1:09 AM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
If you don't want bills simply ban the mail person. Locked away or no he or she would drop them someplace. Also mail box placement is shown on move in with the taxi going to it's destination, lol would make for amusing into a building.


It was more out of curiosity. I already ban the mail delivery when I don't want bills.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
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