Digsite Spawners
 

I tried to find some references to these items in a search and the only thing I was really coming up with was a hidden debug item that plops a spawnpoint where you use it I guess but it seems to be random and I don't know if it works in the vacation destinations.

I'm wondering if anyone can give me some details on how to get the digsite spawners to work after you have placed them somewhere, and/or any info from people who have done this as far as where they seem to work/not work as i've seen alot of posts on EA forums and places where people who I have no idea of their modding and/or inner game work background are makeing all kinds of claims, mostly conflicting about where they can and can't be placed and where they do/do not work.

So far I have tried placeing all 3 of the China digsite spawners (low, medium, and high) In China itself on an unpurchased house lot, an empty home lot, and two different community lots and I have yet to see one show up in the game. I tried exiting and reloading the game, clearing the famous cache files in the EA folder <although I dident thing this would make a difference, it dident > and leaveing China and comeing back with the same Sim a few days later and so far I can't get these to show up anywhere i've placed them. I know they are still there as the game still shows the spawners there if I look at them in Edit Town mode.

Is this simply part of the same symptom that is making the existing world digsites bugged and not able to be excavated at all or am I doing something wrong here? Anyone know?

This isn't an object creation question so moving. Moving to social WA Discussion.

Sorry. Wanted to put it somewhere it might get some notice. Not much going on in the WA play forum and to me this isn't really a play info request as it deals with troubleshooting how world collectible spawns behave and interact with the game. <shrug>

I've tested this.

It follows the same suit as treasure spawners for tombs on home lots. It takes time for the dig sites to show up. They're also set on their own respawn schedule. My guess is based on quality of digsite (higher respawn less frequently, lower spawn more frequently.)

One thing to note about digsite spawners.

For the higher end spawners that have a chance to spawn a tomb collection set, I am not 100% sure that you will actually receive this item. You will get a message saying you found it, but it won't show in the inventory. At least this happened to my sim. This occurred pre-ambitions and the sim in question hadn't left for any adventures. So I don't know if having her travel first would've produced a different result.

At any rate, to answer your question, yes they spawn. Just give it some time.

Ok I was just curious as to how MUCH time you've experienced. I tried waiting several game days in fast speed and still havent seen anything spawn at any of the spots I placed them. I may also try it in France and Egypt. I hadent tried finding out if existing digsites in France or Egypt were working or not as i'd seen alot of posts on the EA forums that they were broken everywhere. However I have seen ones saying that it seems to have to do with ones that were placed/spawned on any kind of slope at all, no matter how small the grade of slope. I personaly have gone to France now and found 2 spots currently where the digsites ARE working. I found one on top of the Forgoton Burial Mound where the default first adventure sends you in France. I'm going to try placeing digsites from all 3 countries on various lot types in France and see what happens.

Do you know if any discussion about this is going on anywhere else on MTS and i've just not seen it or missed it somehow? I can't belive people on this site havent started some kind of discussion about this and how to fix it without simply useing some base cheating? LOL All the discussion on the EA forums is pretty much "OMG WTF HAXORS?!?!?! EA FUCKED THE GAME!!! AUGH!!!! WHEN ARE THEY GONNA FIX IT!?!?! I'M SCREWED!?!?!?!" I was actualy just trying to find some intelligent conversation about how to fix EA's fubar untill they managed to release a new patch. LOL

There are two interpretations of the Ambitions digsite spawner bug: (a) the one you mention, that they only work where the ground is perfectly even (possibly: perfectly even across the spawner's whole radius, i.e. the circle you see when you place one), and (b) they only work when placed on a lot, not in the world. Should be easy enough to do a test to see which of these is true. I think it's (a) though.

As for digsites working in different worlds: I've heard that spawners in general won't spawn things you wouldn't find in the world they're in, so no Egyptian relics in France or French gems in China, let alone in Sunset Valley. This is certainly not true across the board: fish spawners in particular work the same everywhere. Digsite spawners will spawn some objects when placed in a base hood, but they may be limited to "common relics", gems and metals only. Not sure about this -- needs more testing, certainly

BTW, if you're looking to collect information about how to mod these items, you can certainly post about it in Create. Modding Discussion might be the best place though

Good luck with your research!

Actually... digsites placed in home worlds work, and spawn treasures from the worlds they're from, but in the adventure journal, they'll show up as, 'Sites Excavated in Egypt' or whichever one, even though they were excavated in the home world. There's also 'Generic Spawner' which does what you described. Spawns common, boring relics and gems that are not tied to anything.

In my experience, any spawner works with Ambitions if it's on an actual lot. Even a hilly actual lot. Have not managed to get any spawners off lots to work yet though.

Well I -think- the spawners run on the same time model treasure spawners do, which is 1 sim week.

Honestely when I threw in digsite spawners all over Sunset Valley, I didn't really pay attention to the time frame. I just periodically checked all the areas and eventually they started appearing.

This was before I installed Ambitions though. So it's possible Ambitions broke something (it broke a lot), but I figure if the digsites are appearing in vacation worlds, they should still appear in home worlds too.

Later that same day....week? errr...
 

Ok well here is an update to my first posting about placement. Apparently Beer you are correct about spawn time after first placement of a spawner. Of the ones I first placed in China some of them are starting to show some digsite spawns. And of the places I put them, the only one that isn't showing any kind of spawning is the Scholars Garden. However that location is also quite crowded with plants and other items and it's possible I can't see them. So SOME have produced a spawn but not all the spawners I placed which leads me to believe that there is a fairly large random time element introduced into when the spawner first spawns a digsite. For example, one of the first places I put some spawners was the large empty house with the ponds near the waterfall on the river. No digsites have spawned there yet. However the West Royal House in the main square where I placed a few has sprouted one already, and I placed those several sim days after the first ones.

As far as I can tell from the lot types i've placed them on the TYPE of lot dosent seem to have anything to do with weather they can spawn or not, again limiting this comment by how many I have tried it on. Non-player sim houseing plots seem to be able to spawn them, as well as residental ownable lots, as far as the ones I have tested that have no owners at all so far. #1 East Dragon Hills, which is down the hill from the Terracotta Army location, has spawned one or two so far that I placed there, I did set the lot to "Visitors allowed" though. Not sure if that makes a difference or not. Havent had time to do much more serious placement testing other than I placed spawners in several places in france, from all 3 countries, and I will check those next time I goto france.

I am wondering from another comment I saw if it's possible to change the white ring size when placing them to further control the area size where they will spawn?

SriKandi I already tried posting this in part of the modding area and it got shot down and moved here. I would love to ask in modding discussion for info but i'm a bit leery about pissing someone off and posting about this again anywhere in the modding discussion area.

The valid diameter for spawning the actual digsite is set to 6 tiles. This can be changed. What is the gist of this other comment you saw and your speculation? Should this diameter be smaller or larger?

Any spawner you place will produce something. It doesn't care what lot you put it on. Parks, no visitor allowed, hangouts, your mothers garage... it's gonna make something.

As for the diameter... I imagine modifying that is going to require you to snag s3pe, pull out the digsite information and modify the diameter or radius (whichever it uses) that way. Then you'll have to place that package file into your mod folder for it to take effect.