Can children play the sequence in Oasis Landing that determines whether the world is utopian or dystopian?

When I play ITF, I make an army of hard working plumbots to go into the catacombs and gather stuff like genie lamps.

I don't give them real names, I give them the names of colors; RED, GREEN, BLUE, etc. Then I color their heads to match their names, because I can't remember all those names.

I squish every dream they have, because I'm just using them. They're not real "family". I sell them when I'm ready to go into the past or I get Tiberium plus 5 genie lamps.

I just depressed myself. These nameless plumbots who don't really belong, and are disposed as soon as they're not useful is a metaphor for my entire career. I've provided my owners with a huge treasure, and then they sell me for 400 simolians.

I've resolved to play a new style: no longer will I sell my children at the plumbot store. When I "retire" them, I'll give them real names. I'll get them capacity to love, marry them off, and settle them in new homes.

This is why I can't play shoot 'em ups. I get too involved with these digital characters.

I don't have ITF, but I find it kind of odd that the "Old" Ambitions simbots can fall in love, the simbots from Sims 2 can fall in love, and the shiny, top-of-the-line bots in the future can't without a special chip.

Now I'm wondering how different one of my Sims 2 games would have been if my vampire's two simbots hadn't fallen in love with each other while their master wasn't looking and run away with each other. (And seriously amused me with the fact that two robots, who don't need a sink, toilet, or refrigerator, immediately rolled wants for all 3. )

But this is why my sims tend to stay so happy that they have earned a couple of big rewards like collection helpers or moodlet managers long before they fill their LTW.

I learned that, apparently, familial jealousy is a thing!
While testing out my graduation mod, I had a premade family by me spend a day post-teen-age-up with full autonomy. Dad pillow fights with his child-aged son, then stops cause mom comes over and kisses him. The couple get improved relationship, the son's just standing there and getting the red, negative relationship. Daddy was paying attention to him, mom!

Can I sell graves without repercussion if I never intend to rez the sim? I do want to maintain family trees. But, the graves in my town are growing in number and I'm fine with keeping a number of them, especially those from the active family, just not if they start bogging down the game. How do you guys handle your dead especially in longer or legacy saves?

Today I learned that you can't move sims out in the future.

Why EA?! WHY!!! My plumbots just wanted to live in the future as free plumbots!

Gotta take them in the "present" and make families for them. And you know what? They have to move into a house with a bed and a kitchen. What are they gonna do with a bed or a kitchen?


I feel so guilty playing the sims now, I'd play a shoot-em-up like Fallout but I was killed by radioactive misquotes right off the bat.

I usually use MasterController to TA (Totally Annihilate) the sim occupying the grave, this removes any traces of them from ever having existed, but honestly have never done this on any from my own families. It's always those of others in town (especially those I've never heard of) or the ancestors that came with the worlds that I tend to get rid of. Not sure what happens if you manage to delete the grave or urn without removing the sim from the game, but sounds like it could bring about the same sort of trouble and corruption that testingcheats shift-click deletes on sims or purging a previously animated Imaginary Friend doll might cause if the ghost's data is left stranded with no way to materialize.

Those would be for human guests and others who stop by and might need to do more mundane things like sleep and eat in order to stay comfortable.

So they are STILL wanting fridge, stove, and toilet, although now they are more insistent that you buy them....

If they are expecting to be in hiding, the bed and kitchen are so they can pretend to have a master who just isn't home now. And if the humans who have dropped by get too insistent, it might keep them off guard long enough to be eliminated before they report the existence of un-attended plumbots living in the community.

Thank you! So... I did test selling graves and while the portraits remained, Master Controller gave their status as out-of-town (and deceased) but yeah, if this causes problems down the road, I'm not doing that. EA made it possible (and without cheats) to just sell the graves through the inventory, so I thought it should be okay, but then again, I can see how 'stranded' sim data could lead to corruption. It's kind of a shame because after a few generations, family trees start looking very interesting. I also want to avoid relatives dating, which could happen if you take out common ancestors. I am guessing your way would indeed remove the sim from the family tree, so I'd have to pick which ones I'd absolutely need to stay put. Better safe than sorry... Oh well. Thanks again

Anyone know a tutorial on how to make self-employed careers? Does Nraas have a tutorial on it, considering he made some for Athletic and Chess?

If you happen to be playing a Traveler mod connected series of worlds, another idea might be to gather up the remains (headstones and urns) of the deceased that are cluttering up your homeworld, bring them to another world you don't play very often or at all, and deposit them in a cemetery or the equivalent there. Then travel your sim back home. Certainly not the easiest of solutions, but it sounds like the sim data would remain in your game without the spirits showing up or having to allot more burial lands where you are actually playing. Never actually tried this, just kind of thinking about it as I type here. My ongoing game is spread out among so many worlds already that the numbers of the deceased, not counting the expendable ones already buried who were never really live sims or related to anyone in-game, haven't reached such critical mass that I've felt the need to do this yet but it could just be a matter of time there.

That. Is. Awesome!! Could be great as a (headcanon) mythological underworld populated only by ghosts, maybe I'll modify an island world. Not much to say here, that should pretty much solve it. Once again, THANK YOU!!

It was just a random idea in passing, but you're welcome. Now see, the first thing I thought of that would be more interesting than using some never to be played world as a dumping ground for the long since departed would have been to add roller coasters, ferris wheels, amusement arcades, stuff like that, and market Spirit Falls as a great wholesome vacation spot to bring the kids so they can meet their great great etc. ancestors. But your way sounds a bit more grounded, so to speak.

I know the amount of mods/packages to load is what determines how long the game takes to load.
But is it just the amount of packages or the size of them? (Probably both?)

http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips+Fo...ame+Performance


Smarter people than I have looked at this.

Someone knows where to find all the original game patterns to extract?
Those DDS files(?) must be somewhere.

They're in [drive] \ Electronic Arts \ The Sims 3 \ GameData \ Shared \ Packages. Sort by _IMG in S3PE.
DeltaBuild2 has the images from speech bubbles and paintings and the patterns. Skimming through them, you won't find them in the form they are in-game, rather separate diffuse textures, speculars and maps.

Yes! I found them..I should have said so. I asked, then went fishing. thank you.

I know that you shouldn't merge packages that involve CC Counters and Mods.
Though given that the mods are for the latest patch and EA is likely not going to bring another one out, could I - for example - merge my Nraas mods into one giant one? I doubt that.
And what about packages that count as Overrides?
I have several hair packages for Kijiko hair that alters the texture and they are in Overrides.
Since they are typical hair packages, can I merge them into one and it would still work for the hairstyles, despite being in the Overrides folder?

Opinions are divided on the wisdom of merging Script Mods together. Many say that this will work fine, but we've seen enough players complain that some subtle things about the more complex ones like StoryProgression and its many add-on modules and the ones like Cupcake and PocketProtector that work with EA Store content just don't seem to work right that way but suddenly do when they are standalone packages again to advise against it. Also, if you have any intention of staying current with mods like ours that are still being developed and updated, working with them as merged will make that much more difficult.

ErrorTrap and UntranslatedKey are Core Mods. I wouldn't seriously consider merging those with anything either.

I have no idea why you have hair packages in Overrides. Am pretty sure that's not necessary unless the content developer says specifically to put them there. Regardless, I wouldn't merge them if they are some kind of default replacements, but probably would if they are just regular hair packages.

Good guess.
That awesome guy who posted above me advised me otherwise one day. Since that day, everything works like a charm...
My Nraas mods are all together in a folder, all loose..all comfy.

I once combined all NRAAS Mods into one package and had no problems game wise. The only problem came with NRAAS mod updater, which, of course, can't see the mods in the one package.

All my NRAAS mods are merged together. I haven't noticed any problems. Of course, I have them all unmerged in a separate space, so I know what's in there. Anyway, @igazor recommends not to merge but as I said, unless I'm missing something, no issues in the last 3 years for me. It's possible I just don't notice anything subtle, though. I don't play all that often.
The occasional updates are not a problem for me since I just check in with NRAAS once in a while, replace what's new and remerge.

Fortunately, I don't have Nraas SP or the ones you mentioned installed, so I'll see what'll happen if I merge them.

I use Chazybazzy retextures for some Kijiko stuff and it does say that the Kijiko ones themselves, which include the mesh, have to be put into the Packages folder, but the retextures into Override. I have merged those and checked if the retextures were the way they are with Chazy and not Kijiko and they seem fine.

PS: Wow, I just noticed that I don't have ErrorTrap installed... I thought I did.