I did this awhile ago, when you shift-click on a Sim and select Spawn, there is a remote NPC control car, IIRC. What does it do? Is it safe?

I would also like to know this and if there is a guide for tce that briefly describes what each of the menu options do.

It's the buyable remote-controlled car. They did something weird when they coded it, presumably to make the animation easier, and this is why closing the lot when the remote-controlled car is moving can mess up your objects package. The defense against this is to set your objects package to "read only" after you patch the game.

And where is this objects package located?

Each expansion has it in the Objects folder in the TSData folder. So instead of going to "My Documents" go to where ever you installed the game and work your way down through the layers. In my machine the full path is D:\Program Files\EAGames\Deluxe\Base\TSData\Res\Objects\objects.package.

Although the mechanical car is the only item I personally know about that has this problem, it doesn't hurt anything to set all your objects packages to read only. In the thread where I learned this, a number of people were finding they had objects packages that had different "last modified" dates than the other universal files, which at worst means corruption and at best is very nervous-making. It's changes to the objects.package that make doing weird stuff to Mrs. Crumplebottom or Grim so devastating.

Custom items cloned from the mechanical car don't have this problem, because the clone can't reach into your system and do anything to the original objects package.

This is why I never buy that car in the first place. I find it terribly annoying AND it gives me invisible NPC. What the hell?

It made me really nervous, because my frat brothers kept bringing it home from campus; but now I've locked the object package I should be safe. Theoretically, from the threat of Mrs. Crumplebottom, too; but I'm not going to experiment to find out!

Did you mean you spawned Tombstone of Life and Death and then you spawned the NPC control car?

In my theory, it's just an invisible, duplicatable NPC that is spawned to make the RC cars & copters move. IMO, the RC cars only have the "moving" animations, but don't really move. This NPC makes it move. Also, there are NPCs with similar names, such as NPC Bird, NPC Robot, and NPC Penguin. The objects (bird from bird cage, hover & rover bots, and penguin) are just "objects", and these invisible NPCs make them move. Although I'm not really sure about NPCSkunkSkin.

Well, that's just theory... not very technical imo.


I have never had any problems with RC cars. :/ And neither had with bird, robots, and penguin.

The NPC Skunk Skin is probably the name given to the skunk that walks around your lot and sprays your Sims if your Sim attempts to pet the skunk. I think the skunk was listed as a dog pet in SimPE. So maybe the skin is just the skin with data on the behaviour of that dog/skunk. There was also this thread (starting on page 2) that touched upon some other NPC objects. On page 3, I took a screen shot of what's in the base game objects.package file. There's different NPCs, more with templates that seem safe to interact with. And those with Unique or no "template" name may be unsafe to modify. Other expansion packs have their own NPCs added, with the original ones copied into the new objects.package file. During that thread I linked, I made myself a raw list of what I found for NPCs in those objects files. Here it is. Basically one entry is "NPC - Template - Barista" or "NPC - Bird", for example. Here's the other ones. They're all consolidated without regard to where each NPC is listed in the objects packages:
=============================================
NPC - Templates -

Animal Control Officer*
Barista*
Bartender
Bellhop*
Boss
Bunny - Social Failure
Burglar
Cheerleader*
Chinese Deliverator*
Coach*
Delivery Person
Demo Dummy
EP1 - Barista
EP1 - Bartender
EP1 - Cheerleader
EP1 - Chinese Deliverator
EP1 - Coach
EP1 - Evil Mascot
EP1 - Lunch Lady
EP1 - Mascot
EP1 - Professor
EP1 - Streaker
EP2 - Chef
EP2 - DJ
EP2 - Grand Vampire
EP2 - Podium Guy
EP2 - Server
EP3 - Reporter
EP3 - Salon Stylist
EP3 - Servo
EP4 - Animal Control Officer
EP4 - Obedience Trainer
EP6 - Bellhop
EP6 - Bigfoot
EP6 - Fire Dancer
EP6 - Food Stand Chef
EP6 - Ghost captain
EP6 - Hermit
EP6 - Housekeepr
EP6 - Hula Dancer
EP6 - Masseuse
EP6 - Ninja
EP6 - Tour Guide
EP6 - Villain
EP6 - WitchDoctor
EP7 - Food Judge
EP8 - Human Statue
EP8 - Landlord
EP8 - Food Stand Chef
EP8 - Break Dancer
EP8 - Butler
EP8 - Spectral Cat Evil
EP8 - Witch
Evil Mascot *
Exterminator
Firefighter
Food Stand Chef*
Gardener
Gypsy Matchmaker
Handyman
Headmaster
Hermit*
Lunch Lady*
Maid
Mail Carrier
Mascot*
Masseuse*
Nanny
Ninja*
Obedience Trainer*
Paper Person
Pizza Dude
Police Officer
Professor*
Register Clerk
RepoMan
Reporter*
School Bus Driver
Servo*
Social Worker
Streaker*
Tour Guide*
Villain*
Wolf
Wolf - LOTP
=============================================
NPC - Uniques -

Genie
Grim Reaper
Magical Assistant
Ron Humble 2
Skunk
Therapist - AspirationFailure
(Just DNA) - Polination technician
MissesCrumpleBottom - Mrs. Crumplbottom
=============================================
NPC -

Bird
Hula Dancer*
Penguin
Remote Control Car
Robot
WitchDoctor*
=============================================
N001_User00172 - Big
N001_User00406 - ideal
E001_User00359 - Good Wtich

*FreeTime renamed old entries of NPC these files with EP numbers.

There's also an entry on this website somewhere with such a list of NPCs, but I can't find it. It listed its instance values, and some other information. Also, there's Toddler New Year, Father Time, & Santa Klaus, but I don't have the holiday expansion packs.

Yay!

Peni, thank you so much for that suggestion to lock the objects.package file. I can't believe that didn't occur me before, even though I know that A LOT of easily corruptable NPCs are actually objects.

Also, I did this when I had unpatched base game only - when you wanted to call someone (I believe from another lot - where you didn't spawn the car); you'd get a blank thumbnail saying "*NPC - Remote Control Car".

Someone very skilled, like Pescado for example, should re-write the entire game code so we could finally play in peace. Oh what did I write!? "Very Skilled"? *skips further argument because could possibly get banned for not skipping the argument*

Does locking the object files completely prevent NPCs like Mrs. Crumplebottom from going bananas in your game or this just a safety measure and you still have to pray not to have her get bitten by vampires?

As previously mentioned, such NPCs are used for movement. They are usually deleted when no longer in use, such as when your Sim stops playing with the RC car.

Generally speaking, the process is this. Your Sims starts an interaction with an object, such as the RC car. The game spawns an instance of the NPC. The object is temporary snapped into a slot on the NPC, who is then instructed to run around the lot. Since the NPC is invisible, it creates the illusion that the object is moving on its own. When the interaction is done, the object is snapped out of the slot, returning to the ground/floor, and the instance of the NPC is then deleted from the lot.

A problem, though, is that the existence of the NPC is not maintained well when a lot is saved. If you were reload the lot, especially having exited the game, the NPC is not likely to be on the lot. That particular instance of the NPC was in effect deleted, since the game doesn't seem to be able to retrieve it from the saved state of the lot. So any object that is snapped onto the NPC was also deleted. If it was something like the RC car, you can simply buy another one in Buy Mode. If it was a Sim (in the case of such mods as rideable animals or custom non-car vehicles), the Sim is probably not entirely lost. I believe they are only deleted in the sense as if you had turned on "moveobjects on", deleted the Sim, and saved. They should probably be reset near the mailbox. If not, you might have to use some other means to restore the Sim. (I think InSim had a "Restore Family" option, and I'm sure there are other mods with a similar function.)

DJ. , to be able to rewrite the entire game code, we would need the source code. EA is not likely to ever give us that. Someone writing a new "Sims-style" game from scratch is probably more likely to happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that either.

julmoo, have you patched your game? I thought the Crumplebottom-vampire issue was resolved with a patch....

Uh yes my game is patched.
I think.

I have never had to deal with this issue. I just heard of it and don't want it to happen to myself. ^^

You must not realize that a game like this takes over 100 person-years of work, just for the base game. Each additional EP is another 100+ person-years. Pescado is old and wouldn't live long enough to write this game.

If any game files were modified could you install the sims on another computer and copy the files?

IIRC it's not safe to use the boolprop cheat to add the remote control car to the household.

I stopped getting the remote controlled toys and robots, because during the spring the invisible NPCs kept sneezing. It was so annoying.

There is a fix for that- Creature Fixes http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...hp?topic=1482.0