Hello everyone!

First of all, sorry I know this has been asked before as I remember someone asking recently, but I have done a few keyword searches and cannot find it!

In my 'Hacks' folder in my downloads folder I have:

antiredundancy
nostrayrespawn
notownieregen
ffsdebugger
creaturefixes-to stop vampires biting Mrs C

Are there any more mods/hacks that you experts consider essential to run your game safely? I'm not bothered about making it more fun/less annoying, I just don't want corruption to happen by accident.

I forgot to get 'creaturefixes' until I re-read about it today hopefully it's not too late as I saw Mrs C the other day and she looked fine.

Thanks everyone :D

I hope someone would move this thread to the Popular threads section, or make it sticky, its crucial to have threads like these.

Those are all good, and there are more I'd recommend, personally, but understand that aside from creaturefixes, these aren't really designed to prevent corruption as we generally mean when we use that term here, as in character file corruption. Corruption will always be best avoided by refraining from doing the things known to cause it, and by using cleaned and fixed templates like Tarlia's/meetme2theriver's to bypass the corruption the default 'hoods ship with.

The main mods/hacks that come to mind that you'll want to consider are everything of Pescado's that has the word "fix" or "fixes" in it. There are a couple for EPs, such as ofbfixes, ftminifixes, and alfixes, the latter of which includes a couple fixes for M&G. These are all rather like unofficial "patches" for these EPs, but they can and should be used in conjunction with the official patches.

Scroll through the list of Pescado's hacks to see what else may have "fix" in the name, because I just looked for the ones I know are there. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/al/hacks/
That's the list you'll want to download from if you have AL installed.

Read the RTFMs that come with the downloads, and be aware that Pescado doesn't always list everything his hacks do. I can tell you that alfixes in particular often shows up in HCDU scans as potentially conflicting with lots of other hacks, but sometimes it's just a load order issue.

Good luck!

nounlinkondelete

I'd suggest having a look here - this page has a list of Pescado's hacks and shows which ones he considers critical.

That is a helpful link, but I also would suggest to check his "Director Cut" out first because you want "To Be Sure" the Mod / Hack will work with your Ep or last installed Ep. Pescado have certain Mods for certain Ep like Seasons, Bon Voyage etc.

Best to be sure you have Pescado right Mods for your particular Eps.

Wow, glad I came across this thread. This should be in popular threads like M.M.A.A so now I have safe to use mods in my game :D

If you have University, you might want nodormieregen and nossrespawn (though that one might be redundant).

I think nocorruptdeaths is another pretty important one too.

Blank replacements for default neighborhoods are a must to me. There are too many sims, townies, and even some bugs in the EA created defaults.
BoilingOil talks about the debate of its necessity, but I favor NoSimLoaded to keep your game safe,.
CJ is next on my list after Pescado's hacks. CJ's SmarterEPCheck may be helpful based on your setup.

also PROGRAMS can help you prevent corruption. Mootilda's Hoodchecker is very good. I use it frequently. The Sim HCDU conflict detector is old, but useful. Understand nothing can prevent 100% of bugs and 100% of corruptions.. and once in a while you need to copy and archive your neighborhoods. Backups are always a good idea.

I second replacing the maxis neighborhoods with fixed versions. My favorite cleaned and fixed versions can be downloaded here:
http://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/63030.html

These templates are also excellent for creating your own custom megahood, since Tarlia has converted all of the hoods to OFB subhoods.

If you prefer to create your own custom neighborhoods, empty templates are the way to go. Here's the download link:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,13382.0.html

Here's a list of Boiling Oil's mods:
http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=7875.0

Cyjon's mods are available here:
http://drupal.cyjon.net/node/42

SmarterEPCheck will do absolutely nothing on its own; it's just a subroutine that can be called by other mods. However, it is required by some of Cyjon's mods.

Hack conflict detection utility is at www.simwardrobe.com it's SW program.

Mootilda thanks for the help. You fixed the gaps in my words very well. i gotta agree with all that.

Thanks everyone.

I have got Tarlia's templates and Mootilda's Hood Checker aswell, I just forgot to mention them, sorry!

I only have Nightlife and Pets and don't want any more EP's.

I can't get MATY to load for some reason, even using the links you provided (maybe it's busy?) but I will try again tomorrow. Boiling Oil's and Cyjon's mods look interesting.

Thanks!

EDIT=Got Maty to work. I was looking at Lauratje86's link and downloaded all the orange hacks. Do I need alfixes if I haven't got Apartment Life?

Also, do I need ffslotdebugger and NoSimLoaded? Or are they both the same?

That is a good utility to use, but you have to remember the Hack Conflict Detection have not been updated since 2006, I do not think the creator of it is still in the Sims community. Since that time there have been many new mods, but I still use it at times.

Download all the red hacks, too. ffslotdebugger (also known as "the Batbox ") is not the same as NoSimLoaded. You probably want the Batbox, and a lot of really smart people are recommending NoSimLoaded, so you might want that too. (I don't have it, but apparently I should get it... )

If you don't have AL, you probably don't need the fixes, because your game won't be broken in the way that they are trying to fix. (If that makes sense outside my head... it's late. )

Thanks for answering. The AL fix was the only red one on the list.

I'll get the NoSimLoaded aswell then

EDIT=Another question, sorry if this sounds stupid, but what am I supposed to do with the ffslotdebugger? Peni Griffin said I can clear gossip and trash memories with it. Do I need to do this on every lot, or does just one do the neighbourhood? Are there any other functions (of the batbox) I should use regularly?

Thanks in advance!

The batbox clears trash from the active sim same with gossip and whatnot. There is also a way to fix the invisible sims. Sometimes, especially in Uni dormies will go invisible. You use that and it fixes them. Also flashing blue items can also be fixed as well as the randomizer which prevents the first born syndrome for born in game sims. Also sometimes stray pets or stray townies will error, and you can use the batbox to fix them. The Batbox really is a great tool, especially for the randomizing as you don't have to go into CAS and spin the pacifer so much.

My routine with the batbox is to do the following, right before leaving one lot to play another, or to close the game:
1. Click Memory/Clear Trash and/or Wipe Corrupt for each individual sim
2. Click Memory/Clear Gossip/From All (That takes care of gossip files for the entire neighborhood. I do this less than I used to because I want sims to have things to gossip about, but it's good to do it at least occasionally.)
3. Check the Nuke and Fix tabs to see if anything stands out as perhaps needing to be nuked or fixed, respectively.
4. SAVE the lot
5. And finally, click Fix again, then Re-randomize the Sim Generator. You want to save before doing this, because it'll boot you to the neighborhood screen without saving once it's done its CAS die rolling behind the scenes. A warning and confirmation screen will come up to remind you of this.

ETA: The batbox is something I put on every lot, residential and commercial. There are other options on it aside from what I use in my routine outlined above that can come in handy at odd times, so I like to have it available always.

Someone might need to make a separate site to download the awesome mods - MATY isn't loading on my computer on any of my browsers, and I've been doing all sorts of things to try and fix the problem.

Edit: So I'm not the only one having these problems? I even tried checking that site on one of those 'is this site down' websites, and it says that MATY is up. I wonder if there's some problem that's somehow hiding from those sites.

Thankyou everyone.

Rowena Lupin-Thanks, I don't have University but the randomizer sounds useful.

Darby-This is really helpful, thankyou. Are there any functions on the ffsdebugger that you shouldn't use?

JDacapo-I had trouble with MATY for a couple of days. I did manage to get on there and download stuff eventually, but I had to keep trying at different times of day, and open it in a second window, so I could leave it to load. It was quite slow, so I did other internet stuff with the first window while I was waiting.

I'm pretty sure all the options are safe to use, unless you'll be using an older version where he put an option to Decimate Neighborhood, which would kill off 10% of the neighborhood. He was still testing whether or not it was safe to do that. I hope he removed that option in ALL versions, but I don't know that he did.

Just be sure to read the RTFM.

Decimate Neighbourhood is still present in my version of the Batbox (2012-04-10 going Y-M-D); however it does require you to be in debug mode and to shift-click the box to get the option, so it's not something the average person will be clicking around on it. There is an option using debug+shift click to rename sims, but I find the Sim Blender (by TwoJeffs) a lot easier to use -- other than that option, unless you're planning on using the Deleted 2 method to delete sims I can't see anything the average player will need.

Oh jeez... My game is in debug mode at all times, but I totally forgot that the batbox has shift/click options. Explains the vaguely puzzled feeling I've had for ages that the batbox "used to have more options", I thought.

Based on that new (forgotten) info, I confirm that mine still has Decimate Neighborhood too.

Aah thankyou for answering! I did read the RTFM but all it does is tells you what it fixes, like a sort of list. It doesn't go into what you should use when, or much detail at all. I suppose to Pescado it's obvious, but I'm a noob! lol!

I haven't tried shift clicking in debug mode, so I don't know if it has decimate neighbourhood or not. It's the latest one though, I only got it the other day.

I googled it and found a bit more info, and the page on MATY is quite long aswell so I've bookmarked everything on the computer and am going to finish reading it all tomorrow.

Do you have to fix everything on the fix menu, and nuke everything on the nuke menu?

No, just things that relate to issues you actually have going on with the lot. There are some options you may only see if there's a problem; others are there all the time, regardless.

Same with the Nuke options. I used to always nuke stuck bills, but then realized that option seems to always be there whenever there are paid bills in the mailbox awaiting pickup, even though they do get picked up the next day perfectly normally. You notice things like this over time and gradually learn what's important, and what's not such a big deal.

The shift/click options are probably best avoided unless/until you know for sure what they do and why. That info is probably deep in the bowels of the MATY forums, if anywhere.