View Single Post in: Tutorial: How to Remove Stealth Hoods (Secret Subhoods) from a Neighborhood
#8
20th Jul 2021 at 12:44 AM
20th Jul 2021 at 12:44 AM
Posts: 2,651
Thanks: 3 in 1 Posts
Quote: Originally posted by Jawusa
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Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible? But I'll do some experiments... I've noticed that the games saves the Hobby lot on each visit... meaning, it's not like a community lot that remains unchanged if visited. So, I suspect that the game runs special controllers, etc. when visited as a secret hobby lot and they seem to get corrupted if the lot has been saved as a community lot. This is bad... especially if you intend to upload a made-over Hobbies subhood (or a set of renovated Hobby lots). |
Quote: Originally posted by simsample
| Yes in theory you could make a completely custom world, but I'm not sure how to tell the game the lot has been visited- do you have any ideas at that? I've not tried changing the lot names either, although this tutorial indicates it might be possible. |
I know this method has been used for editing the hobby lots for a long time, first described by Maty and then by Eulalia, but I think it can be done without all the pre-visiting steps, because LotCleaner can reset those controllers.
I tested my idea in a completely empty game environment and it worked fine. Test details under the spoiler.
1) I copied Jawusa's empty F002 template from my install folders to my Neighborhoods folder. (I found some leftovers from the original hobby hood in it, so I cleaned it again before continuing.)
2) In SimPE, I opened the F002_Neighborhood.package, changed that hood into a Downtown and unhid the lots, making them community lots and changing the U0 as described. [EDIT: It wasn't clear to me from above, so stating it here: When you change the lots back before using them, the drop down menu changing the type is necessary for them to function correctly so that only sims who are members have the option on the Go To Community Lot menu. The U0 is optional and only hides the lot or reveals it in hood view as Jawusa alluded to above. I left my U0 as 23 in my complete reno.] After unhiding, I saved and loaded the game.
3) In game, I opened the empty, visible F002 hood, changed the neighborhoodtype to subhood (because I see no reason not to - EDIT: I found a reason not to. Just leave it as downtown.) and then edited the music and dance lot.
4) When done, in build mode, I selected and deleted the LotCleaner globe, saved, and exited the game.
5) In SimPE, I changed the edited lot back to hiddenhobby type with the drop down menu and the U0 as stated above by simsample. Saved and exited.
6) I put the edited F002 template back into the install files, so it could generate normally in a newly created hood.
I loaded the game, created a new empty hood, letting the hobby stealth hood generate (all my others are disabled). I cheated a sim up to a high music level. The maven came and invited him to the secret lot. He walked to the lot and she appeared there as expected.
There was, apparently, no need to have a sim visit before editing. If done this way, starting with an empty F002, moving the LotDescriptions and text strings as Jawusa mentioned above can also be skipped. I don't see any reason this wouldn't work to renovate the whole hood, but please let me know if I'm missing something.
One question - I don't understand why the F002 subhood needs to be turned into a Downtown to be visible, but it does seem to. Other subhoods, if they are dropped in Neighborhoods will load. This one did not. Once I changed it to Downtown, it was visible in the main hood menu, though, which is fine, but why is that?
Followup Testing - Once the hobby hood is attached to a hood, I can still go back and edit it some more by just turning it back into a Downtown again. I tested whether I could still "fix" a lot maven even after visiting without the maven appearing. I edited a lot without using LotCleaner afterwards and, sure enough, when visited, the hobby maven did not appear, but when I went back into the hobby hood and used LotCleaner on the visited lot, it was fixed, and the maven appeared on the next visit. So it is no problem to use this technique in a hobby hood that is already attached to a main hood.
EDIT: I found that it is necessary to disable the F002 stealth hood in the install folders in order to edit the hobby files. If you don't, the lots in that folder override yours and your temporary Downtown version in the Neighborhoods folder will disappear from the Neighborhoods menu. This took a while to figure out because my stealth hoods were already disabled, but since it is actually necessary, I'm adding it to the instructions for people who might need it.
ADDENDUM After Renovating Entire Hobbies Hood: A tip to make this easier is to make a "template" version of F002, one that already has the lots hidden and is already back to being a subhood, etc. Keep that version separate from the one you are editing in Neighborhoods. I kept mine in the install location but zipped up so it would not interfere with the one I was working in.
When you need to test the hood, simply copy the Lots files, eg F002_Lot7.package from the working copy into the Lots folder of the template copy, overwriting the lots there. This way you don't have to keep hiding and unhiding the hood/lots. I found that the only time I needed to replace the LTXT was after using LotAdjuster. Apparently that information is stored there. So, I could set up this template early in the process and just move the Lots files to try them out.