It's odd that the meals you add to the refrigerator disappear, I've not seen that happen. Unless the non-active visitors at base camps eat all the leftovers, they're usually available to eat or add to my Sim's inventory (if added to the refrigerator in one travel trip).

Do the meals have to be a certain quality? If not, leave them on the counters and deliver spoiled meals. Or try replacing the refrigerator if you haven't already.

Or how about one of Sandy's "chest-like" objects from Around the Sims? http://aroundthesims3.com/objects/f...e_misc_01.shtml
I'm not 100% sure they prevent spoilage but it looks like they do.

Yeah, they have to be of a certain quality, and I replaced the default fridges as soon as I got there (and the default beds because ow). They disappeared in Egypt and China too but in France I need them.

This is not normal. The fridges in base camps should behave like fridges at home - dishes, even the spoiled ones, stay in them forever, or rather, until the end of your stay.

That's really bizarre. Sometimes they show up again too!

It's sad. I load "Movie Stuff" just to get the epic music. I load "fast lane" stuff just to get a decent looking motorcycle. I'm not a high handlebar hog fan.

I had no idea where to post this, so just adding my request for help to this lively and popular topic. It doesn't fit into a serious Help section.

I'm bad at recreating famous characters in CAS. Tried twice, still not satisfied. But I found a sim who might be a good look-alike to the game character I'm trying to recreate:
http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail...assetId=7162703
A few other attempts exist online, but even mine look like a better resemblence. However, this one is really good!

But I can't install the sim3pack for the life of me. Maybe it's because I don't have Diesel SP that the creator used for clothes. But clothes don't matter, I already made clothes that resemble hers much better.

Could someone kind please unpack this sim for me and send me a package? (Yes, I could go into Help section to find out what's wrong, but this seems so much quicker! Besides, I've already tried all kinds of advice I found online for sim3packs that refuse to install with stupid excuses like "you need a software update" and nothing has worked yet).

@Babahara - Do you think maybe the trouble lies in the custom skin? Or would that default to EA skin on download?
I converted the Sims3pack to what I thought would be a SIM file, but it converted into 4 different package files. Sorry.

You may be having difficulty downloading it because of the custom content (nude outfit with detail), plus who knows what. I'm not sure.

@LeeAlee, if the sim installs for you, maybe you can share it with me by selecting it in CAS simbin? If you save a sim to simbin once more, it can be found as a .sim file in SavedSims. Sorry for all the trouble, it's just that this character is very important to me.

P.S. Custom skins don't create problems: I've downloaded sims without their custom skin a lot of times, they just show up black in simbin, but it's easily fixed by selecting a skin for them in CAS!

@Babahara - I haven't installed anything except worlds via the Launcher in years, I convert all Sims and Lots to package or SIM files if they are uploaded as Sims3Packs. I'm sorry, I just don't want to risk it.

I had to look up her name to see who she is *blush* There's a good Speed Editing YouTube video with her, but I checked the links and didn't see that the person uploaded her. It looks like they just do edits for screenshots from what I saw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53a-O4Mwks

This might be a good subject for the WCIF section if you don't get the Exchange version of her downloaded. Again, I'm sorry.

@LeeAlle, thanks for trying to help anyway! And it's ok that you don't know her, the franchise is not that famous, I guess. She's one of the prosecutors in Ace Attorney, a series of detective\courtroom games.

Btw, she doesn't look like herself in that youtube video, even my versions are better Although the TSR3 sim I'm trying to install is the best.

P.S. Would anyone else help please?

I could, if you can wait until tomorrow/later tonight (it's almost 5pm here right now).

Sure, I'll wait! Thanks

A new question: what did I do that wiped out all wishes from my sim and even changed her LTW?! The first is horrible, but the latter is a catastrophe: my sim had a LTW 'Pervuasive private eye' (solve 35 cases) and many cases solved, but now the count is back to zero! I feel so mad, so so mad!

Suspects:

1) I used Town Mode to evict my sim from her house and merge with another, to simulate her taking a vacation with her parents for a week. They live in the same town. Could that wipe out her wishes, even though I had 'retain dreams and opportunities' on in NRAAS SP (both in their and her household)? If so, how do I move her back to her house without all her wishes gone again?

2) I edited my sim in CAS (only appearance), but maybe that changed her LTW? I don't know what else could change it.

I'm running an asylum - if a patient becomes sane, and I want to move them out, what are my options? I can just hit evict, but that means (if I am remembering correctly) that they don't keep their inventory items, which is not how I'd prefer it.

If I go to manually move them out, what portion of the household funds do they receive?

I do have Master Controller. How would I use it to have them keep their inventory items?

I've been coming here way too often later.

Newbie stupid question here ... is there anything else I need to do or download before using custom foods? I know with Sims 2, there is a mod to use to call Sims to eat with many older custom foods. Is there anything I need to know before downloading these luscious goodies besides compatibility with my EPs?

I think what was meant was use MC to move the sim out instead of evicting them. On the lot you want them to move into (assuming you don't want them to be homeless), whether it's an empty one or occupied by a household you intend them to join, NRaas > MC > Add Sim > (filter to the sim in question or X to dismiss the filter and find them on the list).

It depends on the custom food or mod being used. Many of them require CC Loader now and would say so on the item's or food mod's description page.
http://modthesims.info/t/546986

I would go with (1) more than (2) as the likely cause. SP Retain Dreams and Opps only applies to switching actively being played households using an SP command. MasterController has a similar function, but it only applies to switching actively being played households performed using an MC command. The one that protects sims when using Edit Town to split and merge households is NRaas Mover, if you have the option set that way (and when it works right, which is not always). See the third entry on this page, although it's an FAQ for the Dreamer mod the concepts are all related.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Dreamer+FAQ

Personally, I would use MC's Add Sim to move sims back and forth between households like that, not Edit Town.

Okay, first of all: CUSTARD shows the Sim as corrupt because it has a broken piece of CC merged into the .sim file. That's why the Launcher refused to install her, is my guess.
Secondly, the three pieces of custom content that come as separate items are all broken. I couldn't open them with S3PE.
Thirdly, the sim file itself, in addition to the one corrupt item I already mentioned, comes with custom hair, a custom skin and a custom nude outfit for sleepwear that looks pretty broken, too. If you want to keep those I cannot guarantee that the corrupt item(s) are then fully removed from the Sim.
I can provide you with a completely clean version, though, dressed in base game clothing whenever the Sim didn't wear anything from another EP: Download

The hair was by Newsea YU004 Bob
The skin was non-default and labeled FFDW-Klavix
The nude bottom and top were probably from Sexysims judging from their 3D "enhancements"
All the cc clothing she wore in the exchange previews are missing. Maybe these were the broken files, so I cannot tell you where they were from.
I don't think that she had any custom sliders because she still looked pretty much like on the exchange when I opened her first.

In a family consisting of one human Sim and one dog, would sending the human Sim to University mess things up? Or would the dog just be in suspended animation along with the rest of the main world?

Is it possible to charge NPCs money for tasting nectar from the nectar rack? It's seems silly that people can just wander into a nectary and get free booze.

It's called (wine) tasting, and it's classy. Five bottles later and they're town lushes, peeing in the back alley.

I don't recall ever seeing NPCs actually pouring nectar from the tasting racks, but they do that browse/taste thing where they aren't really tasting. But when my Sims break open a bottle, the NPCs devour that stuff like it's water. And free.
Sims have too many freebies, and you just reminded me @Butterbot about another one. I would love to have them charged for tasting, including my Sims.

You could use Nraas Go Here Testing to charge them when they go through the front door (for wine testing you often pay once and then get to taste a lot of different stuff so it would be fitting). I think the barrier of entry thing from the store does the same thing..

The current version of Go Here leads to bugged skating and playing tag. I'm waiting patiently for this to be addressed.



The Barrier system is great and I use it in all kinds of places. However, the location this is planned for is an open space with staircases with no discrete entrances, so the Barrier system is not well suited.

Thanks for the suggestions anyway!

Strictly from a business perspective, this one's easy. Don't put the Barrier to Entry gates on the entrances to the lot or wherever the nectar is flowing. Put them on the entrances to the public bathrooms and charge them the highest amounts possible. It's where most of the "customers" are likely to end up staggering to eventually at some point anyway.

Now that you mention this I remember that this is something that happens vanilla, although I am fairly certain that initially inactives were supposed and able to pour nectar and that this was changed later with a patch.
I tend to believe that this is actually a bug because when you watch them closely you can observe that they go through the first half of the animation cycle (pull out a bottle from the rack and let the bottle disappear in their inventories) but fail to complete the second half (pull the bottle back out of their inventories, summon a tray with four glasses and then pour the nectar into those glasses before they place the tray on a surface). It is in any case listed among the unfixed bugs in one of crinrict's bug threads at the official forum.
Users of AwesomeMod will not notice this, because AM fixes the issue and makes nectary racks fully functional for inactives, too.

@Don Babilon - Thank you for explaining that weirdness when non-actives are 'tasting' at the nectar racks. It is an odd looking animation. I used to checked their inventories to see if they were really buying, they weren't. Thanks also for the info on a fix.

@Don Babilon, thank you thank you lots and lots! *hugs you tightly and kisses you on the cheek* I'm very happy!

If so much was corrupt, then it's good the game was smart enough to refuse to install the sim3pack! And I don't need clothes for her, so it's completely fine! Launching the game now, hopefully she really looks as close to Francizka as her pictures on the site!

@Igazor, thank you. I actually have Mover but was too stupid to use it. NRAAS has so many amazing options and additional mods that I don't know ALL available functions lol. So I will add sims to other households via Add Sim menu from now on, that looks like the easiest and the most fire-proof way!

Uhm, can I ask you specifically another question: is there a way via NRAAS mods to remove the limit of 8 per household? My problem is a bit specific: my sim can't make bots to sell because of household limit.
I read this:
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Which+Mod+FAQ#Overstuffed
It says I need to unlock the ability to construct bots via Mover, and bot-making isn't mentioned in any other category other than Mover. Does it mean that all other options won't unlock it and I need to use Mover?

NRaas Master Controller should allow more than 8 Sims per household by default.
But if selling a Bot would result in the game updating your family portrait and 'move out' a bot, you will require Portrait Panel and Mover, yes. Without Mover, the game will not allow you to keep a household of more than 8 Sims when moving something out.

It doesn't allow more sims by default. My issue with bots is that when my sim creates a new bot, the game automatically removes someone from household to put that bot in. After I sell it, I can add the removed sim back in, but I'd like to play normally...

It looks as though you probably need Master Controller, Integration, Mover and Portrait Panel. (Portrait Panel gives you better access to the portraits of the sims in the household.) And possibly woohooer, since that is the mod that allows harvesting of plant sims in an overstuffed lot.

Mover works with Simbots, not Plumbots. I believe there currently isn't any way to overstuff a household with Plumbots being purchased or created without taking the household apart one way or another and then using MC's Add Sim to put it back together again unless one of you has found an alternative that actually works. At least the MC way it doesn't seem like the household has to stay fragmented for more than a few minutes.

@igazor



I admire your ruthlessness. Remind me to stay on your good side.

@Don Babilon



That's curious, because I recall the nectary in France being full of NPCs drinking and the tables littered with trays. It's been a while so I don't remember if the taking bottle + pouring animation played.

To be fair, the idea of a tasting does makes sense, even if it's free, because the quantities sampled are small in real life. But in the game, presumably NPCs and actives can just keep on "tasting" for a long as they like, akin to eating all the promo food samples at the local market to avoid paying for lunch.

I feel like I remember the townies drinking and trays everywhere last time I was at the winery also.

Can confirm that they'll just hang around the winery 'tasting' all day if you let them. I had sent a couple sims to France and one of them had to stop at the winery for a delivery. I was surprised when she didn't come back to base camp as it started getting late- lo and behold she was still at the winery and judging by the moodlets had been for some time

Nah, I am the kindest, gentlest sims player you could ever imagine. Do not confuse ruthlessness with business savvy. Imagine also a restaurant marketing idea, all the soup and pasta with sauce you can eat for free. But when you get inside, you find out that the bowl and plate rental fee is $30/hr.

Ruthless would be not charging them to enter or use the public bathrooms, but charging a fortune to exit them.


Edit: I don't mind the random Disagree so much, but I can't figure out what someone is Disagreeing with exactly. I'm not a kind, gentle sim player? Or that's not a good definition of ruthless?

@igazor, I noticed that sims in Business career fight among each other to get to the top. But I'm simulating a few separate businessmen with their own businesses, so they shouldn't fight, is there a way to stop this behavior? I read the Careers pages but didn't find anything about it.

Does using moveobjects 'delete object' truly, permanently delete sims? And does it cause any issues?

No to the first question and yes to the second one.
You shouldn't try to permanently delete a Sim from within the game at all, unless you use a mod like MasterController.

Ahhh okay, so is using MC 'total annihilation' safe? Or does that cause issues too?

Total Annihilation is the safest way, perhaps even the only safe one.

ETA: And thanks for brightening my day with your Moomin avatar.

If I'm understanding the question correctly, it's an SP thing. NRaas > SP > General Options > Options:Careers > Restrict Some Levels to a Single Sim > (default is True).
(SP Career add-on module required)

When this is set to True, some higher levels of certain careers can only be taken by one sim in town at a time. False should remove that restriction. The Only One May Lead:Active setting on the same menu, if set to False, allows an Active sim to always win out when more than one is vying for the same restricted slot instead of engaging in a challenge for it (this setting is hidden and irrelevant if Restrict Some Levels is False).

If I wanted to open a roller skating rink, would zoning it as a hangout work? (I figured an indoor lot, with a bar and some seating up front, and the rink in back.)

Yes, this will work. A regular Hangout is on the upper middle ground when it comes to lot attractiveness. If you want to have the rink as the most popular place in town though, it'd be better to zone it as one of the University Life venue types (Arcade, Java Hut, Rebel Hangout).
The skating rink itself doesn't care on what kind of lot it is. Sims will use it anywhere.

Thanks! That's very helpful.

How come when I throw a pool party, hardly anyone swims? I even send all my sims into the pool as an inviting gesture but instead they swarm all over the house. I'll find them in bedrooms, in the basement, etc, basically everywhere BUT the pool.

Has anyone been able to punch holes through the ground the same way the gynmasium at Sims University has an opening down into its basement?

I want to try limiting the FPS to 60 by turning on VYSNC but I'm not sure of where to apply the program settings to ). When I went to the NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings , I have the option to apply the settings to the sims3launcher.exe file (Although the guide says to patch to TS3W.exe..) . Since I use the launcher to launch the game (I dont bypass it), will turning on VSYNC at the sims3launcher.exe instead of TS3W.exe work?
(http://forums.thesims.com/en_us/dis...-ts3s-fps-to-60) <----- I'm using this as a guide, as a sidenote, I'm also on 1.67

Alternatively, would capping to 30 FPS be better than capping to 60 fps? How can I cap my game to 30fps? (I dont know if NVIDIA has an option to cap framerates in games)

There should be a Browse... button in the lower right corner (I think?) of the Nvidia Control Panel somewhere. It's there, but they did put it in an odd place. The path to TS3w.exe should go something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin (with some variations). If the base game was Origin installed, it may be under Origin Games instead of EA. If you have extensions hidden in Windows, then the file will display as just TS3w, which is okay.

We usually recommend capping to the refresh rate of your monitor. I don't think the Control Panel gives you any options there, you would need to use a different tool to select a different cap but for most that's just not necessary. Note though that vsync through the Control Panel, if you can get this to work, only does so in full screen mode, not in windowed mode.

If it's on a lot, you put down an oversized basement. Above it drag out a row of foundation 1 tile wide. Put down staircases from the foundation all the way down into the basement. Then remove the bottom staircase first. When you then remove the above ground features, the hole should still be there.

Two NRaas Dresser questions:

1. If re-roll results in an outfit that we'd like to keep, how can it be saved? I thought it was "Add", but the documentation states that this adds an index, and when I try it in-game, it rolls an additional outfit instead in a second index, whereas I would like to just save the outfit in the first index without rolling another one. "Store" seems like another option, but its documentation seems to indicated that it's used to save outfits that exceed index positions allowed by the game, which is not what I'm trying to do.

2. In the option to exclude certain product version from being used in rerolls, can stuff packs be excluded as well?

Regarding resorts... I've had it happen that I got reviews of the place being dirty.
Shoot! Testingcheats, buydebug, lemme check to look for any potential spawners - found them! Deleted them. (The reviews were not talking about cockroaches, specifically, just general untidiness...)
Figured the issue was gone, but they still mentioned the staff not keeping things clean... I have 3 of the highest option of cleaning staff and double-checked, with no spawners hiding anywhere.
...why? Why call it dirty? ...if I have All In Ones standing outside, would upgrading them to self-cleaning avoid this problem? That's the only thing I can think of as being an issue...

Also, are there such things as 'populated' custom worlds? I've only found one up to now that has its share of families in it (Bridgewood), but are there others?

^ About the populated custom worlds, oh ya there are tons of them. I tend to do most of my playing in larger custom urban worlds and one of my favorites is this one by Coasterboi , reviewed here by MTS's own Kiwi tea. http://cawtool.wikia.com/wiki/User_...s_by_Coasterboi There are at least three versions, the LN one linked, a Showtime one and one for IP. There are many other populated worlds large and small, urban and rural. A downloadable shared save with a population in place is also an option for many worlds.

OK, what's a "missing object resource" (one of my sims received one for Snowflake Day), and what do I do about it?

Ooh, I've always wanted one of those.

I believe that means an item that exists in places like the Build/Buy catalog for which the underlying object, whether it be an EP/SP or store item, is no longer installed or loading properly in your game.

That's almost as much fun as getting a One More Slot Please (OMSP) for a wedding present. Usual catalog value = §1.

I still don't know what counts as a "bathroom fixture" but it still says I need them to upgrade my gym. Someone here must have a three star gym that can tell me what the haps is. I've tried toilets, sinks both freestanding and with counters, showers, decorations, mirrors, and everything else in the bathroom menu and none of it seems to count.

You could try putting in a diving board, if you haven't already. Sims seem to love that thing. You could also try locking them out of the house if you're able to, have a completely outside party (maybe put in an outhouse for the occasion) which will force them to find their fun outdoors.

I have a diving board, pool bar (that nobody sits at to drink for some reason. They sit at it or they get a drink and take it inside), and water slide, as well as a waterfall.

Another question, to toss on the pile. One of my CEO sims can't have meetings, so his performance is plummeting. The other one can! I just click on a business and there's "hold meeting", but it doesn't show up with the other one! Where is it and why can't he access it?

Please educate me on sim3packs. Once again the one I need is unpackable (= refuses to be installed with utterly fake messages about missing software updates)

When I was asking for help here before with an unpackable package, my helper managed not only to extract the main clean file from it, but to even recognize a lot of CC in that specific sim3pack as damaged. So there certainly exists an amazing program that allows to view all contents of a sim3pack, check it for 'health' and even unpack selectively!

So far I tried something called S3Viewer, but didn't manage to extract even a single package with it...

^ I use this http://modthesims.info/d/390235 and then this http://modthesims.info/d/364038 so I basically never have to deal with Sims3packs. There are probably other ways and tools as well, but those work great for me and they're easy to use.

^ Yes, CUSTARD (link 1) and MultiInstaller (link 2) are the main tools for dealing with third-party sims3packs. With regard to Custard, however, I do not use the "official" one but a revised version that is hidden in the comments: http://modthesims.info/download.php...=1&ht=0&page=10 (top post on that page), because it is more thorough in detecting corruption due to packages inside packages.
The third tool is S3PE.

So what I did in your case was:
(1) Look at the sims3pack with CUSTARD, the 1.1.41 version. It shows the main package (the Sim) as corrupt.
(2) Extract everything from the sims3pack with MultiInstaller. In your case it extracted 4 files, the actual Sim and three pieces of, possibly, custom content. Note that these three extra pieces weren't even listed in CUSTARD, so there's an indication that something is wrong.
(3) I then opened, or tried to open, each of these 4 package files in S3PE. Three refused to open, they are broken, the fourth was the Sim.
(4) I then looked at the contents of the sim file in S3PE. It contained resources that do not belong to a Sim but to custom content. A clean Sim from the SavedSims folder contains only three resource types: SNAP, SIME and SIMO. A clean Sim as sims3pack can also contain _KEY, _XML and TXTC (and possibly some others, I can't remember, because I don't install sims3pack Sims). Your Sim contained _IMG (textures for the custom skin), VPXY, MODL, BONE, GEOM, CASP and many other resources that belong to custom content and their meshes. Plus one UNKN resource which was the culprit for CUSTARD identifying it as corrupt (it was a broken piece of accessories, according to the Hex preview) and which caused the Launcher to refuse to install it.

In order to get the clean .sim file I then did the following:
(1) I renamed the extracted sim from 0x0fghjfghjfhgj.package to 0x0fghjfghjfhgj.sim and placed it into SavedSims in a clean and separate user folder. If you don't know what this means I recommend looking through the CC help pages on simswiki.info where the clean user folder approach is explained somewhere.
(2) I launched the game, loaded CAS and chose your Sim. You can see the custom hair and the custom skin immediately.
(3) I then went through all categories (clothing, hair, body hair, facial hair, make-up, skintone) and replaced everything custom with base game or EP content, i.e. removed the custom skin, removed the custom hair, removed every custom clothing, and saved the Sim into SavedSims (not as sims3pack via Share but the folder icon at the bottom of the pop up window in CAS).
(4) Quit the game and opened the new .sim file in S3PE to check whether there were still any other resources left but SIMO, SIME and SNAP. But the Sim was now clean and ready for upload.

TL;DR: There is no magic tool to solve the problem of dodgy sims3packs. You need three programs: CUSTARD, MultiInstaller and S3PE to detect a corrupt Sim and change it into a clean one. It takes approximately half an hour and is pretty straightforward once you've become familiar with the procedure. However my advice is: stop downloading Sims from the Exchange.

In Options, my aging checkbox is grayed out. What did I do now?
 

My aging check box is grayed out, both at the start of the game before a world is selected, and in game.

I'm doing something wrong. Anyone know how I messed it up? I'ld like to un-mess it.

Have you chosen an active household?

I tried with an active household, but was building a house on an empty lot. Grayed out.

Shut the game down and restarted, I tried it before choosing a world. Grayed out.

Just now, Shut the game down, chose game, but not an active household, not grayed out.

Is this how it is supposed to work? Am I going mad? Is this how it always worked?

Edit: this is why I posted in "stupid questions" instead of help. Most often, the problem is with me and not the game.

I have no idea if you're going mad or if you're game is trolling you, but I'm glad it works again

That's odd since in my game sims swarm over the pools during the pool parties, even during the inactives' ones. Out of several swim/ocean/sunbath mods I suspect this one: http://simsasylum.com/tfm/index.php...update-3-12-15/ to be responsible of that foolishly normal behavior of enjoying the pool water (registration required). I hope it works for you! Otherwise I also use Inge's sunbath fix, Icarus' fun in the ocean mod and the pool jobs for your lifeguards mod but my main suspect is the temperature mod. Otherwise, try Icarus' fun in the ocean mod and putting several pool floaters around your pool. That should push them to grab and use them - they seem to love them: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=530601

They sometimes swarm a bit too much. Here it's during an inactive pool party: since the pool was a bit small it was a bit crowdy

I'm sure you've probably already seen this page and this page , but just in case
(just ctrl F and search for 'gym' on both, there's a lot of info on each page), they give a monetary value baseline for the upgrade as well as an item list. Maybe this will help you.

A majority of my re-downloaded Sims faces don't look like their creators' preview photos. Had my Sims looking accurate before on my previous slate of the Sims 3- but I reset my game to factory settings without reinstalling and deleted Awesomemod -but backed up my sliders and safe CC from the previous slate, so I think it's an issue with the slide range multipliers for facial features. Whats the recommended range (that most Simmers use) for it on Awesomemod? Or are there other mods which can increase the range of the sliders?

@MOOKIEBLAYLOCK @Don Babilon
Thanks for your information!


Now that you mention it, it really is only the Exchange that I ever download uninstallable sim3packs from! I wonder why, do people actually upload corrupt content on the Exchange?!

That said, it's a bit hard for me to find what I need anywhere else. Currently I'm trying to install a house with sims from a famous Japanese visual novel Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) and it can't be found anywhere else. The novel isn't popular enough to find multiple recreated versions of the mansion online.

CUSTARD shows ALL packages inside as corrupt! I can see one of packages being a sim, others are unidentified. Is there any way to salvage the barebones of the mansion (CC can go to hell)? It looks like there might not be. There are 96 packages overall and I can't even tell which of them is the mansion itself.

@Babahara
What method do you use to download from the Exchange? If you use "Save As", there are more chances that your file will be corrupted.
Have you tried using "Add in Game" instead? It won't install anything without your say so, but try to check again with Custard if it does make a difference?

You can get more info here:
Corrupt Thumbnails
Corrupt (Not a DBPF) / Bad Download / Bad Index

Using Master Controller, I've found the most comfortable and realistic slider range is 2 for Body and 3 for Facial. One creator who shared a base Sim recently apparently has their Master Controller slider range settings at 7 for both. Of course, this doesn't mean that they actually go to the extremes, but if the Sim's proportions look fairly realistic it's safe to assume the slider range hasn't been extended by much.


I like to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they're not doing it intentionally.

Yes, I don't think either that they are doing it knowingly, at the worst they might not care.
I think a lot is due to how the export process works in the game. The sims3pack file format is problematic in itself and the third-party tools to create sims3packs don't help either. The export process is supposed to work such that any Sim, lot or household that contains third-party content that had been installed as a sims3pack would be packaged together with this content as separate files inside the exported sims3pack. But this is broken and more often than not this 3rd party content is rather merged into the main file instead of separating properly. And as far as I know nobody has so far figured out what causes this.
I believe that the initial intention by the developers was to make the download of user created Sims, lots and household more convenient and to spare a creator the effort of providing a list of the custom content used and hunt for the links to be offered together with the download. Remember that initially the Mods framework as an alternative method for installing custom content was not officially supported. The Launcher and sims3packs were the only officially sanctioned way to get custom content into your game.

In fact, I believe that the problem became actually worse after people began to install custom content as package files in a Mod framework in addition to the sims3packs installed with the Launcher. Most of the corrupted files I have seen so far contained pieces of custom content that must have been sims3packs initially but had been installed by the respective creator as a converted package file or were package files that were based on clones of sims3pack files.

Tl;dr: it's not the Exchange per se that is at fault but the sims3pack format. The Exchange is only worse in that respect because most people who upload to the Exchange don't know about these issues.

Double post in order to separate the argument.

I can give you an example for how tricky this issue is. I once contacted a creator here to warn them that one of the lots they had uploaded to MTS was corrupt because it contained a broken piece of custom content that had been merged into the lot file. It was a CAS item, an earring. It was strange that a lot would come with a piece of clothing in the first place but it also turned out that this creator had never seen or used that earring in their game. So that person must have unknowingly gotten it through a download themselves without noticing, because it was already invisible then and had begun to spread into all of their creations.
What made this even more puzzling is that after I knew what the piece of custom content was and where to get it, I tried to replicate the issue and failed. My exported sims3packs were always clean and so I still don't know how this earring managed to become a rogue item.

The only instance that I have come across and where the cause was fairly clear was with a different lot from a different creator. It refused to install via the Launcher because of a corrupt item merged into the lot. This item was used on the lot but had been installed as a package file, which means that it shouldn't actually export with the lot. In the end it turned out that the piece of cc was a clone of a Store object and when the creator of that piece of cc was made aware of that they remade it with an object from the base game as the cloning base and this new object did not merge into the lot file anymore.

Thank you for the explanation; I'd heard bits and pieces but never enough to actually understand why the Exchange is such a dangerous place. The fact that EA never provided good enough mod support for TS3 (I remember having to jump through a lot of hoops in the early days) is something not many people take into account when troubleshooting CC issues. I myself would be more inclined to believe that a corrupt lot was my fault (mod conflict, missing CC/EPs) rather than the creator's. I also don't fault people for not knowing better, since one would assume a huge game company has procedures in place to ensure things work properly, right? Especially since the Exchange is EA's official file sharing platform. Is it even supervised at all? I seem to remember people uploading to it with no restrictions at all.

Theoretically, you can also install a lot by converting it to .package and moving the lot file to the Library folder in My Documents. The conversion would also extract all the files in the .sims3pack "archive", including any custom content that was attached to the lot.

Wow that worked! I managed to extract the lot. Except that it turned out that the lot does not resemble the mansion I needed at all, it's just a remake of Goth Manor. *sigh* Oh well, at least now I know how to extract lots from corrupt sim3packs and manually install them. Knowledge is power and all that

I have another sim3pack that won't install. There are two packages inside, one is a piece of CC that is corrupt. I extracted everything, deleted that corrupt CC but still can't find new sims in CAS bin. Any idea what I did wrong? The other package is supposed to contain a few sims for CAS bin. I put it into Mods\Packages.
It's this one, although I only need Mary:
http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail...assetId=8490809

This is a household. The extracted package needs to go into Library.

This might be a problem quesiton... I went to the game launcher and told it to launch, but it acted like I had no EPs installed. Ok, it's done that before - close Sims 3, game launcher, check if the EPs are listed as checked (they are), un-and-recheck one of the EPs and try again. Same thing. Third attempt with the Game Launcher, it suddenly doesn't list any EPs.
I stopped playing for a few days and it fixed itself when I started the game this time (but acted like they were freshly installed EPs), but... I found it weird.

CatMuto: I think it seems like when Origin wants to force you to update it will be especially recalcitrant about recognizing your expansion packs.

But... it didn't ask for an update or anything.

Hi there. What version does your launcher say?

Because, I had issues before with 1.69 not launching game with the EPs. Back then I had to try a couple times by clicking the play through Origin on the EPs itself.

Anyhow, for whatever reason my launcher now says 1.67 and works fine for the most part.

It doesn't always ask out loud for an update it's trying to push. I don't know why. But then sometimes it's just dumb I think.

For those who are on Patch 1.69 and finding that not all (or no) EP/SPs are being listed to check off in the Launcher, it can help to uninstall and reinstall the Origin client program. Origin should find the installed games on its own after the reinstall.

I always suspected that this issue could have been caused because I think they were trying to discourage the use of third party CC from the start. I think someone decided that it might compete with their plans for an online Store so they choose not to put much effort into managing CC that wasn't from the company (and why they did not give us a framework for it until later). EA Store items installed through the Launcher were the only CC they planned on.

I'm not sure why they would have thought that they could actually keep people from making it or using it in a game like the Sims but I do wonder if that's indeed what they thought they could do, and why CC is so difficult to manage in TS3.

How do you cure a child who caught the pestilence curse? I just found out that fairies can't cure children. And I've got no sims who discovered a cure elixir, and I know of no cheat that would quickly make them discover all elixirs!

You could use a witch with witch level 8 and cast the sunlight charm on the sick Sims, but I don't think there's a cheat for witches to gain level,so you would have to do that manually. Another thought I had is that you could use "testingcheatsenabled true" and then use strg + left click to remove the moodlet. But that's just a spontaneous thought. I never tried it, so I don't know if it'll only remove the moodlet or the complete curse (but it does remove the mummy curse, so I guess it's worth a try).

Master Controller with the Cheats mod will allow you to add Spell Casting skill levels to a sim under "advanced" after you click the NRAAS option on the sim.

In theory. the option under "Books" to learn alchemy recipes is supposed to only apply to the ones that you need a book to learn, but I have used it to learn all the recipes that my sim was at the proper level to know.

DebugEnabler allows you to make any elixir (click on the alchemy station) without knowing the recipe, as far as I remember. You might need the ingredients, though.

I know you can change the duration of the seasons; can you change the one you begin with? (To start in, say, Spring?)

I don't believe so. But would it not suffice to do a testingcheatsenabled shift-click on the ground and change the current season for a starting out session from summer to spring, or does that not get you where you wanted to be?

From what I know how the game's seasons work, the only way to do that (without cheats) is to turn all the seasons - except the one you want to start in - off. Start your new save, which will begin in that one season now, then you can go into Options and turn the other seasons back on.

I was referred here, but I have not seen anything that directly helps. Can you extract a clothing item from a sim file? I don't want to keep the whole sim....

I had posted the following in the "i am looking for this..." section.

" http://lvlt.thesims3.com/sims3_asse...ar_original.jpg I had once downloaded that top with something else as a set. I cannot find the set or just the top. I thought in the past I had gotten it from TSR, but I have searched and searched and searched. If it is on TSR still then I just overlooked it a billion times.

that img is from the sims exchange. There are I don't know how many sims on the exchange with that top. However, when I came across it originally it was on TSR or a blog, not the exchange. I don't want a whole sim. I just want the top/set. (the set is the top and bottom piece.)

If there is a way to "extract" the top as a separate package file from a sim file, then I would do that, but i don't know how to if there is a way of doing so."

(I'd prefer to find where the set comes from so i can give creator credit if i ever need to. However, I'll settle for the frustration of getting it out of the sim file.)

Thanks everyone, I cured the child... in a simple way, actually, via Nraas. I just deleted the disease moodlet, and it worked!


I just wanted to register at nraas forums, but since you're writing here (AND I'm lazy ), I now have problems with assigning town roles to sims (magnate, kingpin, etc.)

1) When I assign sims I want to be leaders or members of groups, the game sometimes just randomly retires them. I've been trying to assign an elder don as Leader of Town Baron, and the game retired him twice. Then I assigned Town Nerd and the game retired him. Then it retired my child Leader of Brat and I had to reassign him again. Why? Is there a way to stop this? It's only interesting for me when my playables around the town are assigned these roles, not random default sims!

2) I can't understand why I cannot assign certain sims to certain groups. Like, I have a household with Leader of Town Kingpin, 3 of his goons became members, but there's no option for the other two to join. Any way to force them to join?

Are these sims part of the active household when these things happen or are you possibly rotating through them or switching into them as actives along the way? SP Personality clan leader and membership slots are not for active sims, they are for inactives. The positions should go into remission almost immediately when such a sim becomes (or already is) active and yes, often will get reassigned to others instead.

If the sims were inactive and remained inactive throughout but lost these assignments anyway, then I would have to say they didn't meet the requirements for whatever the positions were.

How can I learn about those requirements?

I don't think they are all listed out anywhere in one place, but they are coded into the modules. Each module has its own Interactions page though, that lists out the options associated with its Personalities and some of them are adjustable. You can also use the commands for each one to specify sims of your choosing to take these positions, but as you have seen there is no guarantee they will keep such user-directed assignments.
Examples: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryPr...rs+Interactions
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryPr...rs+Interactions

http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryPr...Q+Personalities

Some of them are trait related, some age and gender with allowable adjustments, I suppose the leader of an occult pack would actually have be that kind of occult sim themselves, but others are more circumstantial. I don't think that a Magnate (or Baron) who has no money is going to work out very well, for example. And again, these sims can never be part of the active household.

Hmm. Changing season sounds a great deal of work. Not sure I want to change it *that* much.

Is it possible for two non-supernatural parents to have a supernatural baby?

My sim's father just gave his daughter flowers... He's actually her father-in-law, but does the game really make a distinction? TS2 didn't, maybe TS3 does? Otherwise I don't know what to think.

That said, I noticed before that two sims in another household - a daughter and father, as well - have a moodlet with a magnet whenever they're around each other. They're related by blood. I'm so grossed out, even though I had an incestual relationship in the game once, but it was a big exception...

I suspect that maybe such things happen because I add relationships later than I create sims, i.e. with the NRAAS mods, rather than in CAS? Maybe TS3 already memorized that they're attracted or flirted, and so it ignores relationships by blood?!

Edit: I just checked the menus and yeah, the aforementioned sims are capable to perform directed romantic interactions with each other.

I don't think so. As far as I know at least one of the parents has to be a supernatural being.