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Clean And Empty Stealth Hood Templates

by Jawusa Posted 22nd Feb 2014 at 7:25 PM - Updated 15th Jan 2019 at 1:32 PM by Jawusa
 
159 Comments / Replies (Who?) - 109 Feedback Posts, 49 Thanks Posts
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Top Secret Researcher
#101 Old 6th Oct 2017 at 8:52 PM
If you're using Windows 10, I'm afraid I can't help you. I have never tried Win10, not interested either. You'll probably find someone to help you in the help forum!
Inventor
#102 Old 28th Feb 2018 at 10:35 PM
I just came across this and I'm anxious to add this to my game when I get it reinstalled, no more Ottomans! Thank you for making this!

But I have a question, sorry if this is a little obvious (I'm still kind of new here): will this affect the University students in the family bin? I've grown attached to a few over the years and I just wanted to know is this will remove them too.
Test Subject
THANKS POST
#103 Old 4th Mar 2018 at 4:58 AM
Absolute lifesaver. Thank you. ♥
Lab Assistant
#104 Old 1st May 2018 at 9:03 PM
This has taken me a while but have had to remove my old neighbourhoods due to corruption - and having way too many sims in my legacy! Wanted to start from scratch so have removed all neighbourhoods. Did a re-install of your Pets template after removing neighbourhoods. Now to see if this has worked...
Lab Assistant
#105 Old 1st May 2018 at 9:39 PM Last edited by simguru1player : 1st May 2018 at 10:59 PM.
Have tried everything, including renaming my Documents EA Games folder to EA Games backup and regenerating a new EA Games folder. All the other main and stealth hood families are gone fine but the Pets ones persist, both the family bin ones and the occupied lots families... They are impossible to get rid of, seemingly.

I also checked the P001 folder in the C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate folder and it is empty. For some reason, my game is still pulling their data from somewhere... Wish I knew where.

If anyone has managed to fix this, could you please let me know? Many thanks.
Trainee Moderator
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Original Poster
#106 Old 5th May 2018 at 6:28 PM
@simguru1player

Place your backups outside the game folder... e.g. on desktop
Delete your P001 folder entirely and re-download it again.
Report me how it went.

By the way, this doesn't affect previously exisiting neighborhoods which had the Pets stealth hood already installed.

Catalogue of Custom Neighborhoods for TS2
All Hood Building Group neighborhoods are available here
Want to get rid of EA's sims in neighborhoods? Check out my Clean and Empty Steatlh Hoods and Clean and Empty Neighborhood Templates
My Simblr
Lab Assistant
#107 Old 4th Jul 2018 at 8:42 PM
Thanks for your reply and sorry I have taken so long to get back - things have been somewhat hectic in real life... I am trying your method tonight so will let you know.
Lab Assistant
#108 Old 4th Jul 2018 at 9:14 PM
Doh! They are still there. That is with the back-up folder being moved. I will just make them townies/adopties.
Trainee Moderator
staff: trainee moderator
Original Poster
#109 Old 5th Jul 2018 at 9:44 PM
@simguru1player

Again, are you trying to remove them from an already existing neighborhood? Then, this doesn't work. It only works for new neighborhoods, and with new, I mean the neighborhoods you've created after installing this mod. You can remove the Neighborhoods folder if you want to reset EA's neighborhoods.

Catalogue of Custom Neighborhoods for TS2
All Hood Building Group neighborhoods are available here
Want to get rid of EA's sims in neighborhoods? Check out my Clean and Empty Steatlh Hoods and Clean and Empty Neighborhood Templates
My Simblr
Test Subject
#110 Old 4th Aug 2018 at 5:06 PM
Hi Jawusa!
I have two questions, and I really hope you can answer them for me.

I just recently installed the Ultimate Collection after many years of not playing. I don't feel like playing the Maxis' neighborhoods, so I want to create my own. If I download these templates, and play my new 'hood, but then later decide to play, for instance, Riverblossom Hills, and I want the Maxis families and NPCs from Seasons back, can I then just add old stealth hood template from Seasons? Or will using your stealth hoods erease the Maxis families and NPCs for good? I don't mind the game autogenerating NPCs and townies, I just don't want the same NPCs and townies for every neighborhood, you know.

Also, I've read that adding -bak to the N001 file will prevent the Pleasantview NPCs and townies to be added to new custom 'hoods. So once I've created my new hood, and it has been loaded, can I remove the -bak part, or will they (the Pleasantview NPCs and townies) be generated once I open the 'hood again?

I'm really bad at words, so let me know, if I need to rephrase anything.
Thanks, and have a great day!
Trainee Moderator
staff: trainee moderator
Original Poster
#111 Old 9th Aug 2018 at 2:20 PM
@Lucas27

Yes, you can. There are no restrictions whatsoever when it comes to installing/uninstalling these neighborhood templates.
As for the -bak part, yes, that will disable the default townies and NPCs from being spawned. However, if you remove the -bak part, the townies/NPCs won't come back. The game will use the custom ones instead.

Catalogue of Custom Neighborhoods for TS2
All Hood Building Group neighborhoods are available here
Want to get rid of EA's sims in neighborhoods? Check out my Clean and Empty Steatlh Hoods and Clean and Empty Neighborhood Templates
My Simblr
Trainee Moderator
staff: trainee moderator
Original Poster
#112 Old 2nd Oct 2018 at 11:09 PM
@c0wp1ant

It's pretty much the same... just go into your install location and then, you go into \TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate
Not sure how "Program Files" is called on a Mac... maybe Applications? I think you should find it in the Finder.

Catalogue of Custom Neighborhoods for TS2
All Hood Building Group neighborhoods are available here
Want to get rid of EA's sims in neighborhoods? Check out my Clean and Empty Steatlh Hoods and Clean and Empty Neighborhood Templates
My Simblr
Instructor
THANKS POST
#113 Old 6th Oct 2018 at 8:12 PM
omg this is so handy, thank you for this ;-)
Test Subject
#114 Old 4th Jan 2019 at 4:47 PM Last edited by Llama_Face : 6th Jan 2019 at 12:44 AM.
So I installed the Apartment Life, Bon Voyage and the Free Time templates according to instructions and it worked like a charm in my fresh new neighborhood. However, as I opened one of my already made neighborhoods I was getting the "creating weather/magic/pets etc" loading screen (I wasn't entirely looking at the screen once they showed up so I'm not sure what exactly was being created.) But once the hood loaded up I noticed copies of the families in the family bin that I had already placed in the hood. (Ramaswami and Ottomas). Any idea what may have caused this and how to prevent it from happening with any other already started hoods?
Trainee Moderator
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Original Poster
#115 Old 4th Jan 2019 at 6:03 PM
@Llama_Face

This set is only applicable to new neighborhoods; meaning, neighborhoods that have never been played before.
If you want to erase the family bin families from the pre-made neigborhoods, too, then you have to reset your neighborhoods.

http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...t_Neighborhoods

Catalogue of Custom Neighborhoods for TS2
All Hood Building Group neighborhoods are available here
Want to get rid of EA's sims in neighborhoods? Check out my Clean and Empty Steatlh Hoods and Clean and Empty Neighborhood Templates
My Simblr
Test Subject
#116 Old 4th Jan 2019 at 6:53 PM
The thing is I had already played in that neighborhood before I installed the templates yet I was getting the same loading screens as you should get when creating a new hood. So there should be no reason for them to reappear?
Field Researcher
#117 Old 5th Jan 2019 at 9:16 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Llama_Face
The thing is I had already played in that neighborhood before I installed the templates yet I was getting the same loading screens as you should get when creating a new hood. So there should be no reason for them to reappear?


When you create a new neighborhood, the game is essentially just copying files from its Program Files directories to your new neighborhood folder (in Documents). These clean templates mean the game still copies those folders, but they are most or entirely blank, which prevents your clean, shiny new neighborhood from filling up with unnecessary characters and other crap.

Jawusa can correct me if I'm wrong, since he made the templates, of course.
Test Subject
#118 Old 6th Jan 2019 at 12:43 AM Last edited by Llama_Face : 8th Jan 2019 at 9:23 PM.
@Jawusa @::Giggles::
So are these templates incompatible with old neighborhoods? Because the way I understood it, they should not affect already played hoods only new ones that you start from scratch? So I don't understand where the extra copies of Ramaswami and Ottomas in the family bin came from. (Sorry if I sound repetitive)

I removed the clean templates from my files and replaced them back with the original templates but when I loaded another of my already played neighborhoods (Desiderata Valley) it too had Ramaswami and Ottomas copies in the family bin just like the first hood I mentioned in my first post.

Edit: I have now noticed that not only did I get duplicates of sims in the family bin but the hoods are also suffering from duplicates of the same townies. I may have messed up bad.

Update - I restored one of my hoods containing the duplicate families and townies with an old backup and downloaded and installed the Seasons/weather template. I loaded up two of my already played hoods and none of which showed any "creating" loading screens neither did they have any duplicates. Seems like the issue might have been resolved for now. Still gonna keep my eyes peeled for any "doppelganger" sims.
Field Researcher
#119 Old 13th Jan 2019 at 4:39 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Llama_Face
@Jawusa @::Giggles::
So are these templates incompatible with old neighborhoods? Because the way I understood it, they should not affect already played hoods only new ones that you start from scratch? So I don't understand where the extra copies of Ramaswami and Ottomas in the family bin came from. (Sorry if I sound repetitive)

I removed the clean templates from my files and replaced them back with the original templates but when I loaded another of my already played neighborhoods (Desiderata Valley) it too had Ramaswami and Ottomas copies in the family bin just like the first hood I mentioned in my first post.

Edit: I have now noticed that not only did I get duplicates of sims in the family bin but the hoods are also suffering from duplicates of the same townies. I may have messed up bad.

Update - I restored one of my hoods containing the duplicate families and townies with an old backup and downloaded and installed the Seasons/weather template. I loaded up two of my already played hoods and none of which showed any "creating" loading screens neither did they have any duplicates. Seems like the issue might have been resolved for now. Still gonna keep my eyes peeled for any "doppelganger" sims.


No, these templates do not affect previously created games. Again, the way the game works, templates are only ever used once by the game when you first create a new hood. It does not reference the files again.

I googled your problem and came up with this:

Quote: Originally posted by Mootilda
This will happen if the game believes that it has not yet added one or more of the subhoods, especially the stealth subhoods. It will just keep adding the stealth subhoods until the flags are correctly set and the correct packages are in place.

I've seen this before in downloaded neighborhoods and, as far as I can tell, it's an indication that something is wrong with your save game. You probably have a lot more duplicate sims; they're just not as obvious as the family bin sims.

If you have a backup of your save game which does not have these duplicate families, I would strongly recommend that you restore from that backup.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have some theories about how this could happen. They would require research to determine which ones actually cause this symptom:


The duplicates may have been caused if you somehow tried to modify the stealth hoods in a main neighborhood after the game had already created them for that neighborhood.
Trainee Moderator
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Original Poster
#120 Old 15th Jan 2019 at 1:35 PM
@Llama_Face
Do you use Windows 10? If yes, this issue might explain your problem.

Try re-installing the neighborhood templates.
Also, have a look into your C:\Users\Your Username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES

Apparently, Windows 10 creates a secret copy of your files, which have to be replaced as well in order for this to work.

Catalogue of Custom Neighborhoods for TS2
All Hood Building Group neighborhoods are available here
Want to get rid of EA's sims in neighborhoods? Check out my Clean and Empty Steatlh Hoods and Clean and Empty Neighborhood Templates
My Simblr
Test Subject
#121 Old 17th Jan 2019 at 1:56 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Jawusa
@Llama_Face
Do you use Windows 10? If yes, this issue might explain your problem.

Try re-installing the neighborhood templates.
Also, have a look into your C:\Users\Your Username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES

Apparently, Windows 10 creates a secret copy of your files, which have to be replaced as well in order for this to work.


Nope I use Windows 8.1. But I'll probably take a deeper look into this over the weekend.

@::Giggles:: Thank you for your help! From what I know, I did not modify the hoods at all other than installing the stealth hoods but my game's symptoms does sound similar to Mootilda's theories.
Trainee Moderator
staff: trainee moderator
Original Poster
#122 Old 18th Jan 2019 at 12:52 PM
@Llama_Face

I think the technique is also true for Windows 8.1
It's the newer versions which create this extra folder.

Catalogue of Custom Neighborhoods for TS2
All Hood Building Group neighborhoods are available here
Want to get rid of EA's sims in neighborhoods? Check out my Clean and Empty Steatlh Hoods and Clean and Empty Neighborhood Templates
My Simblr
Test Subject
#123 Old 20th Jan 2019 at 7:27 PM
I did a thorough search in my appdata for any extra files but I found none. However I reinstalled the hood templates and finally for the first time, no copies or duplicate sims!! I'm not sure what I did different from the last time but now all my wanted sims are where they're supposed to be and my unwanted sims are gone. Thank you so much for the help!
Test Subject
THANKS POST
#124 Old 30th Mar 2019 at 3:58 PM
Thank you for this, so glad I can easily avoid all the extras I don't want!
Test Subject
THANKS POST
#125 Old 4th Apr 2019 at 5:52 PM
Thank you very very much!!!
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