First of all, I've already read these a number of times:

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=575826
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=550362

Just thought I'd get that out before someone suggests I read them.

I'm trying to clean and prep some lots to move from one game to the other. I'm about 99.9% sure these were uninhabited lots in the first place. This is just a final clean-up just in case.

What I need, please, is a sim reference cleaning tutorial for dummies. I'm being told that my lot value should be at zero before I make the structural change, and no matter how much or what I try, I don't get that. I get the land value only ... the value of the blank lot. The STRUCTURAL value is zero, though. I've even tried this on a lot with only a single diagonal wall panel and a chair, and I can assure you that no Sims have lived on this lot before!

This is what I am doing:

1. Make a fresh new hood. I should note that I like Maxis townies, and have no desire to get rid of them, so I do not have a townie-less hood. I use a custom hood.
2. Put lots on hood. GIve each house a quick check for anything showing a previous occupant ... graves (I hate killing Sims, though), garbage, artwork, plaques, homework, etc.
3. Run Hoodchecker on it and fix what it comes up with.
4. Delete and replace beds. Delete computers (I don't have to, but the glow annoys me), as well as NPC-producing items on community lots.
5. Open one lot from the hood itself in Sim PE. Make sure I have the right lot!
6. Look for and delete the following references; Sim Information, Sim Relations, Sim DNA, Sim Wants and Fears, Sim Scores, Family Tree. So far, I've only come across. Sim Information, Sim Relations and Sim Scores, since my lots were not inhabited.
7. Save and make sure I don't see the files. They should disappear.
8. Run the game.
9. Take a look at the lot. Make sure the price isn't the same.
10. Go into the lot. Move a tree or replace some flowers. Save.
11. Check price of lot again.

I then use the Cyjon ball and Chris Hatch's orb. I won't go into details here, since they're pretty darn easy to use. Save. Go back into lot, per Chris' instructions. Save. Exit the game. I also like to turn testingcheats on and check the OETreeDelete file, then delete it. I do turn testingcheats off before exiting.

Am I doing anything wrong here? Thank you!

gazania, your post in the other thread and here made me realize I wasn't particularly clear on a certain point. When I cleaned my lots via SimPE, I was cleaning the lots in the catalogue not ones that were already placed in the hood.

My own routine was:

1. Install lot into catalogue with Clean Installer.
2. Clean lot with SimPE.
3. Place copy of lot in hood.
4. Enter, save, and exit to reset the price.
5. Delete original lot from catalogue and move copy back into lot catalogue.

I wasn't sure if that was absolute correct way of doing it, it was just what I came up with based on what I read at the time. The steps of resetting the price and moving the copy back could probably be skipped, if one didn't care about knowing the price before-hand. Since I use the no20khandout mod, however, I need the prices so I can make sure to have a range of homes available. I haven't tried the method you used with the Cyjon ball and Chris Hatch's orb, so I don't know if I would get a different result (land value versus $0).

Oh. I wondered if you folks were doing that. But in one of the posts in those threads I cited, someone placed the lots in a hood and did it that way. At least, that's what I thought the person did. It is certainly far easier for me, at least IMO. No one corrected the person, so I figured that was OK.

Although ... it does make me wonder why my obviously incorrect way is bad. It would still involve deleting the old lot from the lot bin in the end. And it cancels out the value of the building, which I thought was the point. But obviously, I'm a newbie at this, and I would guess there is an important reason that I'm overlooking. If I knew so much about this, I would be one of the esteemed instructors here!

The good news is that this is a throwaway game for a contest ... not my good game .... so if I mess up, it won't be so bad. And of course, backing up is key! Thank you, Devon Aster, for clearing that up.

It's been long enough since I did the cleaning I don't remember what threads I read at the time. Since I wanted to avoid going in and out of lots as much as I could, it was just easier and faster to clean them while they were in the catalogue. But I've read of other people using Cyjon's ball, which means they would have needed to place the lot in a hood first. I'm not sure your way is incorrect, but that's better confirmed by someone more knowledgeable than myself.

I had an experience with adding a bare walls and roof only download house that was made for me, nothing there could cause a problem. I placed the house in an empty hood, added windows, door, floors and walls, put the house back in the bin. Then I used that house and placed about 8 copies of the same house. Entered it to change the wall coverings. Somewhere along the line at a few random houses was a gypsy, no one had ever been in the house and still, another empty lot. Once in awhile it was the skunk. I could exit without save, go back and nothing there. What I think is, these are the sims off lot that will enter after a family moves in, somehow they ended up just at the edge of the sidewalk in random new houses. Wouldn't it be possible the reference are off world and waiting to enter the lot once it's owned? The houses never glitched and no problems seemed to arise from this. The thing about the gypsy may have been from a mod where she showed up and left a lamp at every house, often I could hear her voice before the taxi was even showing at the lot. Rarely did the skunk be the first to show up, but it was either the gypsy or skunk that made the first appearance. Maybe the first off world visitors account for the sim references in a new house prior to a family moving in.

I hope this makes sense to someone, I'm in awe of all those who have figured out and fixed a lot of the game as well as expanding it in many ways, no way I could do it. (: Oh, and I also used Clean Installer to add it to the game.

I open SimPE and do it directly from there now.

I think, if you are doing all of that, gazania, you have done all you can

Community lots that have never been owned should not be a problem, I believe.

I have downloaded a lot a while ago that was full of nonsense (it was fun too, though) - the fire brigade came by at least four times a day, even after I have removed the fire alarm. All the nannies hired died on the lot. The motives of the Sims living there (my own Sims) dropped very slowly and the toddler learned all his toddler skills in a day's time. In the end, I got tired of it and sent the graves to the graveyard, then moved out the family and trusted the ball to delete the lot. The hood does not seem to be affected at all, I have played it yesterday. Running the hoodchecker fixed a couple of relationships, but it wasn't much. Since then, I have decided to simply use the Lot Cleaner by Chris Hatch on new downloaded lots before moving any family in.

And I have wondered, Jo, if there could be some tips for downloaders in a sticky thread: have NSL in place, the Lot Cleaner and how to use it, etc. It can't do any harm and may help a lot of players in the long run. Players do download lots from other sites, after all, which may not be as safe; and the uploader here can also only do her/his best.

Community lots that have never been owned can spawn NPC's, my Carnival lot spawned a hair dresser so I cleaned that and my hotel fountain ran and froze so I cleaned that one as well. I just think it's safest if your lot went live while saving to clean it.

I'm still not sure exactly what CH's cleaner does and I won't assume that cleaning in SimPE is now null and void because of it. I really wish Mootilda was here. My plan now is to use the ball on lots before uploading but if my lot went live during saving I wills till clean it with SimPE as well. Cover all bases.

I have been planing on doing up a tutorial and I did write a quick one up for someone on Creators Issues. I was trying to find where I had stashed it yesterday. Anyway I found it today, so here it is.

What I do is open the lot in simpe. So open SimPE and go up to Tools >package Tools> Open sims2 pack. Having the pack on the desktop makes it easy. That will open a window, just click open.

Look to the list on the left and scroll it down. You will see things such as sims scores, sim relations etc. Click on each one in turn and highlight all of them over in the right column. I click in the blank space and do CTL A to highlight them all. Then I right click the highlighted part and select delete. You will see all those files now have a line through them like this Once they are all done go up to save, you will only have Save As, as an option.

Go to your desktop and you will find that SimPE file that you just saved with whatever name you saved it as. That is your new clean lot.

What I do next is go to documents, the sims 2. In there you will find the Lot catalog. Now there is probably more than one way to do this. I simply make a new folder and put all those lot files into it. Then I grab that cleaned lot file, paste it in the lot catalog folder so its the only one and rename it Cx_00000001.package
Run your game and go to the new test hood. If you have lots of cc, it's best to not only have a test hood but also a test game. It's very easy to rename your sims 2 folder and force the game to make you another. Because there is no cc in the new one it will load super fast. So in your test game open that test hood and you should find its the only lot in the lot bin. When you grab it you will see it has some ridiculous low price tag, that is your nod that the lot is now cleaned. Now don't worry everything is still there and once you place the lot its price will show up like it should.

Now that you have your cleaned lot placed down, load it up and move one thing. Could be a chair, then place it back. Now save and go to hood view. Your lot is now cleaned and ready to be packaged.

I hope that helps and everything is clear.

I don't understand. If I clean the lot when it's in place, installed right there on a street in a neighborhood, it seems to work the same way as going through the catalog and changing the catalog name. I open the lot file in SimPE, delete all the sims relations, scores, etc., save it and exit. When I go back into the game the lot price has dropped as it should. I go into the lot, buy a tree, save the lot, and that's it. It's a clean lot. Isn't it? What's the difference?

I dunno, but doing it from the catalog isn't that awful.

In a duh moment, I forgot that you can look at the picture of the lot you're about to clean. And if you clean the wrong lot? You'll have TWO clean lots.

My final lot-cleaning/prepping routine under the SPOILER tag. And it's pretty lengthy. If there is anything I missed, please let me know. Unfortunately, I did this BEFORE joandsarah77 posted, and right now, I've done this so many times that I think you can eat off the floors in my lots! My routine is a little different from hers, but I think we hit the same major points. I did back up my good hood (it was due for a backup anyway), just in case. If I missed something vitally important, I can go to my backup.



*I had a much higher number here originally, but first of all miscounted and secondly, forgot I've been purging lots.

You can identify the lot filename from the neighborhood view using the command boolprop ShowLotPackageFilename [true/false]. Open the lot package by the file name and clean it. So far I haven't cleaned the wrong lot because I'm using the file name. I build my own lots and I'm not clearing them to upload, just for my own use, so achieving the same degree of cleanliness isn't as critical for me. I delete the same data though. I regularly reuse previously occupied lots after cleaning them, for example and haven't had any problems. Once I downloaded a community lot that had Sim DNA which was interesting. I cleaned it and I've been using it. But the lots and the game are just for me so it's worth it to me to do it the easier way. After reading what you go through, I don't think I'd ever consider uploading a lot! I am truly impressed, and intimidated.

In my case, I am attempting to clean and preserve a lot in a Hug-Bugged hood for a future game, and seeing if I can get it as scoured as possible if someone else wants it now. The Orb may be pretty good with that. But that's why there are extra steps.

However, even if you never download a lot, you can still Hug-Bug your game. Most instances of Hug-Bugging come from faulty social hacks. Lots are second to that.

All I can do if I ever upload on my future games or anywhere is to scrub my lots as clean as I can on my end and purge any Hug Bug traces from the lots. But the rest is up to the downloader ... Including me. No Sim Loaded should be part of a group of essential mods that you put into your game before you put anything else in there. I found that out the hard way. I believe Chris Hatch has an equivalent mod. Pick one. But put it in your game first before you put in your custom lots! My lots may be perfectly fine, but others may not be.

One more big thing .... Super Duper Hug Bug will not kill your hood or your game. It's just annoying and hard to get rid of. Even if you do get it, NSL will keep you from dealing with it, though it's still in your game. It's not fatal to your hoods at all. But I wouldn't want to be the one to give it to someone else.

Probably none. I never said that there wasn't more than one way of doing it, that is my way since I find that is the best way to keep track of which lot I am cleaning. Justpetro asked for tips and I provided them. That is simply what I wrote up in Creator Issues sometime ago to help someone who didn't know how to go about cleaning a lot.

OK ... SO FAR, the prepped house that had the Hug Bug that I fixed, packaged and plopped in a known hug-bugged game does not have the SDHB once I cleaned it with the Orb before packaging by putting the Orb directly on the lot, then quickly deleting it. This is my second test, and the results seem promising. This may seem promising to others who have been Hug-Bugged as well and wish to upload. We (not just I) would have to test it a whole lot more before we could say this for sure, however.

HOWEVER, the advice still stands ... ALL downloaders should presume that all social hacks (including hacked objects) and every last lot are Hug-Bugged, and put that NSL or the Chris Hatch equivalent in there before the downloader gets the Bug. No exceptions. That is something they need to do on their own.

Before I upload here or anywhere though, I would want to test in a few more hoods ... already-Hug-Bugged hoods are probably a good thing here.

The process is so complicated that I could definitely have gotten something wrong. Thank you for the reassurance!

It's not as complicated as it looks. The main things is to clean Sim references, and if your lot was never visited or inhabited, you don't really need to do that. I'm just being super-careful, focusing mainly on the question of Hug-Bugging. Plus, I was concerned that I might have accidentally packaged two formerly-inhabited lots. (I did not ... they were uninhabited all along. My doing this was a very, very slim chance, by the way. But looking through and fixing the Sim references reassured me that the lots were fine.) Most people who make uninhabited/unvisited lots make the things, package them, and that's all. folks.