Yup. That's all you do
...Easy-peasy Mac 'n Cheesey

I'm tryin to decide if I want to have Crystal Vu in my ancestor beginnin hood (that hopefully I'll start soon :P). Crystal is a townie who's supposed to be the girlfriend of Lazlo Curious. As a townie she wasn't given any relatives or ancestors. I've not played Strangetown much so I'm not as familiar with it as I am with PV so I'm not sure how well the chemistry is between Crystal and Lazlo. What I seem to recall, hazy though it is, is that Crystal wasn't that into Lazlo. The pairing was more of just EAxis' messy doin's.

So I"m askin those who have played Strangetown did you keep the pairing of Lazlo and Crystal? Did you give Lazlo another girlfriend that had better chemistry?

I've done both. Their chemistry is not great, but Lazlo does have a crush or love with her, so if he wants a girlfriend, she is an obvious choice. When they were married, she gave him two gorgeous daughters and then died after the second one because she wouldn't eat. This time, I paired Lazlo with Erin Beaker, and they were awesome together. Constantly all over each other like teenagers. Crystal is fun to have around, though, because she does get around. In my current game, as a townie, she had brief affairs with both Vidcund and Tank, and she is now married to William Williamson. Also, if you move her in, she will be at the top of her career and bring a lot of expensive stuff with her.

I will not be playin Strangehood as EAxis shipped. I'm setting up the beginning Pleasantview, Bluewater, Strangetown, Bin households, and SSU households together. It won't have any premade townies that are not part of the premade storyline, such as I will have Kaylynn Langerak and her extended family. I was curious if I should include Crystal Vu as she is sorta part of the Lazlo's story. I'm on the fence 'bout addin her and a family to the rest as my hazy memory when I played they didn't seem to have that hot of a romance for it to be somethin that should be included. That's why I was askin those who have played ST if they felt the two had a good chemistry. I know every game/ play is different.. just lookin for opinions

Thanks for yours though btw

Crystal was not at the top of her career and did not have a lot of expensive stuff when she married Lazlo in my broken Strangetown. She and Lazlo are struggling the hardest of the three Curious brother households, even though they only have one child.

However, I adore her. She is low on nice points and uses this grouchiness to confront anybody who disrespects her family. She was the first outsider to tackle the role of Woman in Charge of the Curiousi and she tackled it to the ground. The first time she came over she latched onto Pascal's daughter Mitchella and wouldn't let go, and Mitchie has grown up viewing Crystal as her mother figure over and above Jenny, Pascal's wife Christy, and Vidcund's wife Monica all put together. Like most of my Fortune sims she rolls only reasonable and moderate wants to buy things, regular systematic wants for the skill points that will earn her promotions, personal wants for those she loves, and one hobby want per day - she has taken up sewing and will get curtains in all the rooms eventually, though she also made teddy bears for her niblings and son, and had to stop and make winter clothes at one point. (Pay the exorbitant rates for shoddy off-the-rack stuff at 88? She doesn't think so!) She is best friends with Mary Gavigan, and is the only one in town in on the secret of the identity of her second child's father, though now that little Eve is out and about in town I don't think it'll remain a secret long. Crystal gossips autonomously very little, even compared to shy sims like Pascal and Nervous. If you want a steadying influence for Lazlo, as opposed to a burning grand passion or someone to encourage his childlike nature into elderhood, I can't recommend Crystal too highly.

In short - as with all townies, a lot depends on how you play and how they play for you.

The first time I played Strangetown, Crystal married Ajay Loner's son, Cameron. At the time, I was only playing the one household and didn't realize Crystal was supposed to be involved with Lazlo. However, she had no problems accepting Cameron's advances - unlike Johnny Smith, who was attached enough to Ophelia to resist the advances of Cameron and Crystal's daughter Elizabeth - so I would say she's not really that into Lazlo.

Lazlo never married in that iteration. His only close relationship was with Buck Grunt, and I'd already set things up for Buck to marry Jill Smith.

Gotcha. I would add her, even if you don't put her with Lazlo. She's a unique townie, and more interesting than a lot of them. There are a lot of possibilities for her beyond just being matched up with Lazlo.

I've moved her in twice--both times she was at the top of her career, but I guess that could be randomized and I just got lucky.

Agree with sturlington on moving Crystal in--my general rule of thumb for situations like that is to include all townies and npcs that have a relationship with a playable, and she fits this. You can always add backstory and ancestors for her. I know some simmers make townies with the same last name related. If it were me, I'd probably start a new dummy version of Strangetown, or open up an old save, and see if any other townies shared her last name. Then I'd look at which other townies she had relationships with. If she's friends with any elders, that could mean they're a parent or mentor--perhaps she was adopted and that's why she doesn't share a last name. I'd also look at relationships with those younger than her--those could be siblings or distant relatives. I'd write all those things down and then recreate them in the beginnings hood.

@HobbesED, idk. I think it depends on the story and the writer. While it's certainly easier to use premades, you can write about custom hoods. After all, that's kinda what legacies are, usually. Except for the occasional familiar townie and npc faces, or simselves, everyone would be unique. And if you weren't playing using a particular ruleset, just a regular legacy, then yeah, all unique sims to get to know, a new town to learn about. It'd be like following someone who's doing a BACC. But I can understand why some might not want to go to the trouble. That's what I miss about the old TS2 site and the exchange. It was much easier to find a community of writers and to follow along with certain simmers. I know there are communities all over the place and even some simmers continuing to document their hoods on tumblr, but it just feels very disjointed and harder to find. And if a simmer doesn't use tags and/or set up page links, it's hard to get into. Anyway, my point is I think people would be interested in reading about your hood. I found that little bit you shared fascinating, anyway.

My question: I'm trying to get Consort to invite all his grandchildren on vacation but not all of them show up in the dialog box. He definitely knows everyone and they're all kids or up now, too. Desdemona shows up but not Ariel, even though they're both kids and Hal shows up but not Miranda, even though they're both teens. Does he need to be friends with them or something? I was hoping to work on that during the trip.

I suggest asking on the story Delima thread. https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=583357

Phantomknight, I move the kids in by teleporter cat for him to take on vacation, then move them back to their parents' home the same way. I'd rather have them properly playable. That might or might not help you out, though.

CaliBrat, if you ever played SimCity, Dr. Vu was referenced as a villain. https://simcity.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Vu So Crystal Vu is a bit of an in-series reference for fans. Also Dr. Vu's carpet. I'd keep her, but she doesn't have good chemistry with Lazlo. She could be the notorious Dr. Vu's daughter, sister, ex . . . whatever would work for your story.

Sunbee, that's a perfect work around, thank you! I have the pets cheats on, so I wasn't worried about them being controllable, but yeah that'll work well. And then I also don't have to worry about funds if I want them to buy some vacation clothes or mementos, as they can just use their grandfather's money. Hal could even get that new cellphone he's been wanting.

I wanna thank those who gave me their opnion 'bout Crystal Vu. I've made a decision in that I'm gonna add her, as well as give her parents and a brother. I"m just curious if when the time comes if they'll even end up knowin one another bein that they'll both be 3rd gens.. Since I'm also puttin BW into the mix I felt with puttin Crystal in then I had to also put in Gilbert Jacquet's love interest, Breanna Custer and give her family.

I've read this somewhere before, most likely here on MTS but I can't remember for sure. It was something about the game crashing during saving. Apparently it corrupts the neighborhood. Is this true? I'm asking because it happened to me last night. I saw pink flashing on the hula zombies so I tried to speed them along and move the graves to the cemetery ASAP so I could save. It started to save and then it crashed.

^ This is purely from a storytelling perspective (because I tend to do all saveable changes at the beginning and then "wreck" the lots, not saving after anyway), but I don't save if I see any pink, because I know that means the game could be headed for a crash if I put too much stress on it, and I'm a tiny bit afraid saving with the pink-flashing going on could cause problems in the background.

I had one instance of a possible corruption or some such happening alongside pink-flashing, I don't know - it's a few years back. My old game usually didn't do any pick-flashing unless I used snow or played heavy lots for a while, so most times I could get through a 2-3 day photoshoot no problem without shutting the game down (I had a few "calming" tricks for the nights). I'd done a few changes to the story hood, saved as usual, wrecked the lot as usual, possibly seen the first hints of pink, and shut it down. Next time I opened the hood, everything flashed pink. The hood, the lots, all of it. Closed it down, opened it back up, still flashed pink. Panicked, didn't know what to do. Ended up going back to a slightly older backup of the hood, and everything was back to normal, no pink-flashing or other problems. I still don't know what happened.

I'm afraid a crash while saving is very likely to cause 'hood corruption, because such a save is by definition incomplete. Because the save hasn't completed properly, it is probably (I want to say almost certainly) inconsistent. The safest thing would be to restore from a recent backup. If that would mean losing a lot of gameplay, then fix the 'hood with Hoodchecker and then open and look for obvious signs of corruption, like missing Sims and lots. If you don't find any, then you may be able to continue playing, but you must be prepared for the it going belly-up with little warning. I'm afraid as always the safest strategy is to make and keep frequent backups.

I'm a bit diffident about my own question, but I think the only people who will be able to answer it for me are more experienced TS2ers. I have a birthday in a few days' time, and my mother is offering to buy me a new computer. After a bit of looking I've come across one that I think might do. It's a Dell G3 15 3500 15.6" Gaming Laptop costing £799 from Currys PC World. It has NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti 4 GB graphics. I don't know if that's onboard, or some sort of laptop-compatible card. (I used to be used to fitting the big PCI and older cards on desktops.) It has 8GB RAM and a 512Gb SSD. Its CPU is an Intel® Core™ i5-10300H Processor. Of course it's running Windows 10. It certainly seems a much higher spec than my existing 2011 Packard Bell netbook (Intel Atom N450 processor, 2GB RAM, ca. 315 GB hard disk, and onboard Intel Graphics Accelerator 3150, running on Windows 7 Starter.) While I may have to mess about with graphics rules, 4GB patches and similar things that haven't bothered me before, it should, with a bit of persuasion, be able to run The Sims 2 a little be better than my existing computer, shouldn't it? It would be nice to actually be able to see my Sims in higher definition! I might even be able to add the Pets EP without burning out the motherboard!

I saw a Huawei computer with a similar spec, at a similar price, but there must be some doubt if Huawei parts will be available here in a year or two's time. Dell is by any standards a reputable manufacturer.

For her part my mother would like to be able to use the new computer to watch TV. It could save us buying a second TV set. Now, when I was buying the last computer some 9 years ago, I recall some computers had "TV cards". I think I was offered one with mine for an extra £20-£25 or so. But I don't see any mention of such cards now. And I can't just go to the shop and ask, because of Covid: I'm still shielding to protect my 91-tear old mother. Maybe such cards are fitted as standard now, or more likely people watch TV over the internet using things like the BBC iPlayer. (I think that's what they call "streaming services".) I tried watching live (or nearly live) TV on the BBC iPlayer on my existing PC, and it was [almost] acceptable. Presumably it would be better on a newer and more powerful computer. (I know this bit is way off-topic, and there are loads of other places on the internet where I could ask, but I don't know which ones I can trust. The people on the Internet I feel I can trust the most are you, my TS2 playing friends on MTS.

So in short, do you think this computer would be a good buy for me?

I can go a couple of hours playing and have no pink flashing. In this scenario I was playing for 2-3 hours, sometimes leaving the PC in-between to get a drink or whatever. Do you ever get those instincts to backup sometimes but you don't because you think "I'll just play a little more, it will be fine" ? That was me the day before yesterday. And ta-da. Crashed last night. Typical. My last backup was on the 16th of this month...

The hood was a total mess, the only thing I will miss are the Sims. I mean, I can try to extract them all and try to remember every detail about them but it won't be the same. Plus, the hood takes forever to load in simPE. Just changing household names takes almost 15-20 minutes now. Thanks both for your replies. If anyone else has had the experience or something, please share.

@AndrewGloria I know nothing about PC's but on the watching TV on a computer portion of your question, all you need is to pay for a streaming service assuming the computer is connected to the internet. There are numerous streaming services nowadays to pick and choose from Hulu is probably the most popular.

Does anyone use this mod for quiet pregnancy with all EPs? I'm trying to make my game more challenging and want to get rid of the chimes sound in my game. I know there's a mod here on MTS where it gets rid of chimes, but it also stops the Sim from having her normal "pop" too when their belly gets bigger and I don't want that feature as well.

@AndrewGloria I am so excited for you to see your sims in high quality! You will be blown away, I remember I was when I got a new graphics card. That laptop sounds great- I don't know about sims with that specific card, but I'm pretty sure it would be possible to get it working and looking good somehow, even if you have to tweak things a bit. Maybe someone who has used that hardware will be able to give some pointers? You'd definitely need Grumpy loader and a no-CD; Win 10 doesn't like SecuROM at all. For watching TV, which channels specifically does your mum watch? If she just likes the 'main 5' then she can watch through 4 player, iPlayer, 5 player etc. And if you get Amazon Prime or Netflix or Hulu or something like that, she can watch series and movies when she wants to. I think that computer would be great for you, Dell always used to have good warranties and support when I used to use them years ago (I worked in hardware and software support in local schools, and we always advised them to buy Dell hardware). Very exciting!

That laptop is strong enough for the game and all EPs on high graphics (GeForce GTX 1650 is a dedicated card, not a laptop chip), and there are people on this forum successfully using a GTX 1650 with TS2 (after a bit of fiddling with it). If you run into issues, it'll be because the hardware/windows 10 combination is a bit too new and strong and doesn't want to recognize the game, not because it's too weak.

@BeckyBoo8
I use the Syberspunk's one for the longest time and I have all EPS.
I also tried to use the quietpregnancybumps mod by Nopke with no success. I haven't done extensive testing though.

Question : IIRC sims get a memory each time they sell a masterpiece. In my game, they only get said memory once. I don't why they don't get more.
I have no trash memories in my game but this mod doesn't deal with those memories.
Any ideas?

I also use only the quiet pregnancy part of this mod. It doesn't do anything else. I like to be surprised. https://modthesims.info/d/108011/te...-9-24-2008.html

Depends where during the saving the crash occurred. I had an issue in my genderswapped uberhood where the Sims of two subhoods had their memories, relationships and personalities wiped, which I suspect was because of a crash during saving, but I can't be sure because I played households randomly so it took me a while to realise there was an actual pattern to the affected Sims. But it was all stuff that could be fixed. You probably do have some corruption, but that doesn't necessarily mean your game is doomed. You could restore from a recent backup, or you could run Hoodchecker and have a poke around to see if anything looks out of place. Maybe you just have some Sims who've forgotten they're married, or maybe you have a toddler with a job and three children or a lot that flatly refuses to load because an adult there is completely scrambled.

Dell is a reputable brand, but, as my cousin reminded me the other day, you'll probably have to call customer service, at least once. Idk if you can say that about other brands. With some brands, it always works and you never need assistance. Idk what those brands are for PCs, but apparently they exist. I hear good things about Lenovo. Anywho, as someone who has owned several Dells over the years and almost exclusively buys Dell, I can say that an extended warranty is probably a good idea and definitely do your research as they can be overpriced for the specs.

For that specific pick, it seems okay. I'm concerned about the 512 GB SSD, especially since I know you backup frequently. But if you have an external hard drive, that should be okay. Ideally, though, I'd get a TB. Especially if you're going to install other games and/or music--500 GB goes really fast. I'm also a little wary of the 8 GB Ram, but that may be because we're two different kinds of TS2 players. I've got a 22 GB download folder that's steadily growing larger and larger... Last time I checked you had a Download folder less than 2 GB, right? So yeah, definitely 8 GB of Ram should be fine for you, but if you are thinking about changing your habits, possibly adding some EPs (go for FT!) or more cc, I'd see what upgrading to 16 GB would cost you. I know what it feels like to spend hundreds of dollars on a brand new rig only to be filled with regret. *Looks darkly at her slim tower Alienware.* So, just remember to plan for the future, too, and think about what type of computing needs you may have down the line.

As for streaming, Clashfan is right, you can do it through a bunch of services, even YouTube. Also, something to consider is a Roku or Amazon Fire Stick. Idk if tvs are as pervasive where you are (Scotland?) as they are in the US, but if you've already got an old one lying around, or if you can find a good used one, you can get a Roku/Fire Stick for about 25-50 usd and then bam--now your tv can stream. Your tv just needs to have hdmi slots. It's one of the best investments I've made over the years as it's way cheaper than buying a smart tv. And it let me get some more use out of my perfect good, but older, non-smart tvs. It's also something you can get and set up quickly if you want to take more time to research computers. Alternately, you can keep your old laptop and stream on that--I think streaming is more about your processor and internet speed. You may want to try streaming again from your computer and see what it's like. Idk your financial set up, or if you have access to high speed internet, but those are some options to consider. Oh, and remember it's October now--Prime Day is in about 2 weeks, so expect sales for Amazon products then, and for other tech. With computers, brands like Dell usually run promotions for the holidays. You might want to wait a bit and see what coupons you can get and research online to see what are actual good prices for the tech you want. Apps that let you know what the price of items have been in the past are especially helpful because sometimes the best sales are right before the Christmas sales, and the black Friday/holiday sales are actually a bit more expensive. (I'll never forgot working at the GAP. One November we had mark ups right before the black friday sale. All the most expensive items got marked up about 50-100 dollars, so that when the deep discounts on black friday came around, the sale price was basically a regular sale. So yeah, it helps if you've done your research and know what the regular retail price of an item is, so you don't get suckered.)

Oh, and one last tip! If you saved your old computer install discs, you might not need Windows 10. It'll come preinstalled, of course, but if your computer is just going to be a gaming rig, you can roll back your Windows installation with your old install disc. I don't know if people know that, but it's one reason why I saved my old install discs over the years. Especially when you buy through Dell, when you add on Windows 10 or whatever, you're buying a license to Windows. Same with Microsoft Office--don't be fooled into a yearly subscription. Spend the little extra to buy the license and keep your product key handy. Then you own those things and you can put on whatever machine you want. I was able to do this various times over the years and it can save you money--especially with Microsoft Office.

@Fyren5, test it. Open up your hood and see, maybe check SimPE and the Hoodchecker. I've had that happen a couple of times and I can't say there were lots of negative effects, beyond losing that session's play time. I don't play my hoods for long periods of time, but in my experience, the save doesn't go through and you just have your last complete save. But ymmv and the risk is there. No harm in checking though.

BTW, pink flashing is usually a sign of a texture memory problem. You usually need more ram and/or less cc, but a quick fix is often to close the game and restart. The longer the game is on, the more memory the game needs and stuff it has to remember, so turning off your game every couple of hours is a good idea and should prevent, or at least cut down, on the pink flashing.

@Essa, most likely the memory is not repeatable, but it's a very simple fix. You find the memory in the objects.package, clone it, then set the flag to be repeatable. If you've ever added a custom memory to DiLight's Tattered Diary, it's very similar, and you can use that tutorial once you've cloned the memory.

The hack compatibility tool shows that BO's no trash memories and simler90's the Memory Mod conflict. The memory mod's comments have people asking about this but no clear answer has been given. Are both of these mods ok to have? Which one should load last?