Anyone else have a problem with 'Sims 3 launcher is running in the tray' recently? (It happened to me just now for the first time in months; I wondered if EAxis had changed anything recently.)

Check the tray. Probably just minimized the launcher and forgot about it. Happened to me a lot early on.

I did download and install MasterController. I think I got it set up to keep the "dreams" of the sims but I have not tried to jump between familys yet.

How does one make those sparkles appear that lead to the triggered event in tomb making? For example, in EA tombs, a switch causes gold sparkles that lead to the door it unlocked, but it's not doing the same in the tomb I'm making.

EDIT: Please, anyone! I have an obscene amount of links rn..

Omg there are so much useful answers)

If you turn off story progression, will there be immigration?

Not sure what you mean exactly by immigration but NPCs and tourists will be generated as usual, and Sims will still be assigned NPC roles.

I want an empty town except for the people I choose to move into it. Not sure what I'm going to need to make that possible, or if it is possible.

Yeah, same. That kind of has me stumped as well.

You can empty a town using NRAAS MC+cheats by clicking on city hall, Nraas->MC->Sim->advanced and then either total destroy or make ghosts out of all of them by kill all.
I use a special "jig" world of nothing but lots with a bare wall to make my town populations in edit world. That way I can alter sims without having to deal with the sims that hide inside the house. I craft them, make relationships, assign jobs ect. Then you can save the lot of them with NRAAS porter and pack 'em all up. I have witch, vampire, alien/science populations and all that. These can be unpacked into other towns. Please note that last time I tried, NRAAS Porter cannot pack plumbots!
To get rid of homeless sims, I use NRAAS Story Progression to stop immigration and get rid of homeless and require my townies to take the jobs. You also need NRAAS register to prevent other sims from being immigrated for things like register positions and to shut off tourists. The way NRAAS SP works tho is not the default EA settings. If you don't like all the hyphenated names like Smith-Jones and Jones-Smith, you have to change the default settings. And it floods you with "stories" to make it seem "real", which as an engineer I find makes the message info worthless. I shut the stories off for all but blood related sims.

Can you disable all SP functionality of NRaas SP? I specifically run my current world so that I have TOTAL (emphasis: TOTAL) control over everyone and everything. The less autonomy, the better.

I know this sub-discussion didn't really start out to be about NRaas in particular. But it's a shame there isn't a site available somewhere for folks to discuss their experiences with the various NRaas mods, meet the developer, get tips and tricks from the management team and other very experienced players. Oh well, maybe one will just kind of materialize some day.
https://www.nraas.net

Is there an Nrass mod other than those already mentioned that sounds necessary? (I have all of the ones mentioned.)

And make a new account for a site I'll never use again when I'll get the answers here anyway? No thanks.

You can't disable all NRAAS SP (hereafter called SP) functionality. Some of it will change the game even if you decline SP when it asks the first time you start a game. SP is a commitment, you have to learn how to use it and it can be quite complex: like you might go directly to "immigration" from the main SP menu thinking you're going to enable /disable immigration. Nope! You go General->Lots->Immigration (iirc). Little bit of detective work. There is a lot you can do with SP tho, and with the many add ons. The NRAAS Website has a FAQ; I started playing with Sims 3 in windowed mode so I could quickly switch from the SP faq to the game and adjust settings.
Not sure what you mean by control over everyone; I had no idea there was a North Korea world.
You can skip NRAAS Porter, but porter makes it so easy to fill a whole town at once. You need NRAAS MC+Cheats to remove the existing population. Register and SP are needed to keep the EA engine from filling up your town with the necessary service sims. If you want to assign jobs to your population, I think You need NRAAS MC+cheats again, tho' I've not done that in while. and there may be something else to it. I always try to make sure that Lawrence Fletcher works the consignment store register, for example. That I can do with NRAAS register...

Eh, I'm a control freak. It's one reason I still play Sims 2.

You want them to post in chatter box and not under the appropriate mod right?
"You posted this in Site Help and Feedback. That is the board meant for issues and questions about this website, not about the mods or the game."
Nope, that's not right. Seems you get chewed out if you post there. It's just not worth the beating to ask questions there. I can't keep up with your rules, I posted under the mods and told I shouldn't and should post in chatter box, Now I see that's changed too...

Yep, you're right. We are mean spirited, evil, bad tempered, grumpy, we keep changing the rules and the forum structure (guidelines, actually not rules) around every couple of decades, and we like to annoy people. Such has always been our reputation. I mean Twallan himself used to stay up all night trying to find ways to be annoying to players, as you can still see from his work product, and we've done everything we can to uphold that tradition since his retirement.

I don't know to what extent the moderators here will tolerate this little outburst of mine, but let's find out. You have been posting this nonsense about our site and our efforts to be helpful over there, twisting my own words around on me, and quoting both me and the site itself out of context ever since I can remember. Not sure why I am being so sensitive to it today and all of a sudden, but could you possibly do us the favor of just knocking it off, already?


Now for the real response...
(sighs) Anyone who would care for a more informed and friendly discussion on NRaas mod-related questions that do have complex answers may still feel free to join us at NRaas. And if you post on the "wrong" forum board, the post will be moved for you just the same as for everyone else, now that we can actually do that as we couldn't on the old site.

So you're saying I need a mod that I don't like or want to be able to disable game functionality that I also don't like or want? All I'm looking for is a way to stop the game from spawning NPCs.

@AGuyCalledPi Just go and download one of the other mods that does that if you don't like NRaas mods.

@Emmett Brown I've not actually used the new Nraas site on account of not having Sims 3 installed currently. However, it looks like there's a discussion section for each mod, so you'd want to post there.
https://www.nraas.net/community/nraas-mods

Yeah. Bottom line. It can be done. Is it worth it? If I had known what was involved, I wouldn't have bothered but YMMV.

NRAAS is far more hospitable than that Awesome mod, and not every NRAAS person is touchy. Chain_Reaction is a great guy, and he puts up with excess abuse, imho. He's always been helpful me when I had questions.
But the rules do change about where to post. I got blasted for using the SP thread and told to use Chatterbox. I even quoted chapter and verse saying to post in SP. Okay, rules changed. Now I see people getting chided in chatterbox, go to the mod thread.
IMHO, Mod The Sims is a very nice place to ask questions, you hardly ever get called out for asking a question here and the various groups have a sticky saying what the board is for and what kind of post is wanted. A bit cheeky to slam people on MTS for not posting on NRAAS. It's just a question, after all.

You'd think right? But at one time, folks were told to post questions about the mod to chatterbox because that's where the traffic was. The mod threads were, it was said, for reporting debugging problems with the mod. I used to do that with new versions of various mods.
It just isn't a warm fuzzy feeling when you go there and ask a legit question and the first thing you get is blasted for not posting in the right area. I see now that chatter box isn't the right area anymore. Just saying, nothing to get mad about, but I can see why people post questions at MTS and not NRAAS.

Well, there's also the tiny detail that MTS has been here at the same website for a lot longer than NRAAS has been able to manage... MTS had one address change, when Sims 3 came out and it was decided that both Sims 2 and Sims 3 would be supported. I lost count of how many times NRAAS had to move. It's a lot harder to post at a website when you can't find it anymore. And they always ended up with rule changes when they changed sites, although I will grant that most of the changes were due to the nature of the site they had moved to. I suspect that the new ease of keeping track of new posts in each individual mod forum without having them buried under new threads in the Chatterbox is responsible for the new rule change about posting in the mod threads. It would help keep the site organized, and thus easier to use in the long run. (And easier to move again if/when they have to. After all, moving has almost become a traditional feature of the site, and who wants to mess with tradition? )

(And there was a time when MTS was just as bad at blasting you for posting in the wrong spot before moving your thread as your experience with NRAAS apparently has been. I used to avoid MTS like the plague, because I got hopelessly lost every time I came here. As you can see, I finally got better. )

But I do agree that NRAAS does often feel less welcoming. They aren't. They are actually just as polite and friendly as the folks you find at MTS. That's also a wonderful place to browse for answers to NRAAS questions, because you occasionally discover you're not the first one to have wondered about something.

That's not setting the bar very high, I hope no one minds me pointing out.



This.

The thing is, I can't figure out our friend Emmet's motivation here. He's been baiting me (and barbarat before she retired from NRaas) with this stuff for years, he got a somewhat emotional reaction from me today, that should make him happy now, right? It's not like he's done a thing to make NRaas a better place as a community minded individual might. It is a wiki after all, a community effort, and we're certainly open to constructive and sensible criticism over the way we treat members or the way in which the forums are organized now that we actually have some control over these things.

Yet we know Emmet is a nice fellow. Ever hear him talk about his dog whom he loves and cares for so well? He is very kind and helpful to his fellow players when he wants to be and very clever, creative, and amusing also when he wants to be. But this stuff about beatings, chidings, being blasted, slamming, chewing heads off is all so far over the top that it's downright lying. Or defamation of character, anyway. Maybe we should consider legal action, though that won't actually help anyone so it wouldn't be worth it. (Edit: Now of course I wasn't being serious when I said this, sheesh)

For now I think I'll go back to NRaas and beat up...I mean help some players who need it.

I was thinking about this, and the question was "how do I control my town's population". I pointed out that you can do it with NRAAS mods. I don't think folks are going to know to go to NRAAS and ask that question if they don't know this is something that you can do with NRAAS mods! I'm sorry some NRAAS people got offended but I don't think that was unreasonable.
It also looks to me that the chatter box traffic there is very slow, where here, I think you're more likely to get a quick answer.
I love NRAAS mods. I wish their "contribute" webpage worked.

I've never baited you. I've whined about Story Progression being difficult to figure out and having non-default settings. It took me a long time to figure it out because it is a powerful, option heavy mod with documentation that is a bit jargon heavy and sparse. I finally got it to do what I wanted it to do and now I'm happy.
I'm not sure why you took offense at that or regarded it as a personal attack.
As I said, the question was "how do I control my sim's world population" and I don't see why you expected that to be asked at the wonderful NRAAS.net website. How would they even know that they can do that with NRAAS mods? MTS is a great forum for such questions. I pointed out how I do it, with NRAAS MC+cheats, SP, register and porter. If they had known more about the mods, they could have asked in the appropriate NRAAS forums. First they needed to know the mods exist and what they were, tho.
If you know a better way, please help! I would like to know a better way too!
And yeah, I do think you're way oversensitive to these things. Just chill please. Simmers just want to have fun.

Fuck it. I'm done with you. That's just nuts.

I really don't care either way, I just hope everyone can understand that I'm fundamentally against signing up for websites that I'm only going to ever use once. It takes all sorts of extra time and effort and frankly, it's just redundant. There's a pretty good website for everything related to modding The Sims, and I don't see why I'd need to go anywhere else if there's plenty of people perfectly qualified and willing to help each other out. You guys sometimes make this stuff sound like a chore when it's really just a hobby.

Gotta agree with this. Before Nraas had to move, I still never was signed up there because I saw no point to doing so. I could get the mods just fine, and the page had free info on what does what thing. And if I didn't know, I could easily ask here on MTS because Nraas is rather known here, and questions I had could be answered.

Where to find terra cotta army that my sim wishes to see?

ETA: nvm, found it.

Is there a way to stop the weatherstone from spawning? I made a world in CAW, and placed a weatherstone directly in CAW, hoping it would prevent it popping up in a random place. But when I loaded up the world the first time, a weatherstone spawned, so now there's two. I tried deleting the new one, but another simply spawns shortly after.

There is an option in the NRaas Traveller mod that will do it.

From the City Hall or computer menu: NRaas > Traveler >
Allow Spawn Weather Stone
Whether to allow the game to respawn the weather stone after you delete it.
Default: True

Just change it to False.

I'm playing a game for the first time in Sunset Valley for awhile, and the weather stone spawned at the school playground. It's buried up to the neck. I'm amused by it so haven't deleted it yet.

Oh, wonderful, thank you so much!

How, or where do you collect 2 uncommon relics from for the adventure in shang simla?

I go to the relics store and buy them.
IF they don't have them, buy all the cheap stuff (or everything, if you have tiberium) and see what's next for sale at the store.

Are they listed/titled "uncommon [something]" to distinguish them?

ETA: whoops, nevermind. Appearantly I needed to get common ones. Would buying them really count

Can you convert a lot into a package file using Delphy's Extractor? And if so, if CC is attached to the lot, how do I get rid of the CC, so I can change the CC into package files as well? Or will the CC attached to the lot automatically disappear once it's been converted?

Yes, and everyone should convert lot sims3packs to package files. Down with hitchhiking cc!

If you use Custard: http://www.modthesims.info/d/390235...ck-cleaner.html you can make a mostly clean, Sims3pack of the lot, and also save a copy of some, most, all (depending on how it is installed and if any cc has hitchhiked with the file) of the lot's cc. You can use Delphy's Sims 3 Pack Multi-Extracter to get the .package file for the lot, and place it in your library folder (not mods folder). Then you can use the Multi-Extracter on the cc. If you use the Multi-Extracter on the original lot's Sims3pack, you should get a file for the lot (package file for library folder) and any cc sims3pack files, converted into package files (for mods folder).

I would recommend using Custard first, because though not strictly required, it helps sort the cc better, and tells you what's in the sims3pack. Converting the lot into a package file *should* get rid of any cc that doesn't belong.

How does time work when Sims are in sub-worlds?

Worlds that are not being actively simulated are frozen in time. It is possible, for example and if you arrange things just right, to return from Uni just in time to see your parents and siblings still waving goodbye to you as you were leaving. Is this what was meant?

@igazor How? :o

If it is Friday at 8:00 pm when your travel party leaves their homeworld for Uni or a vacation destination, then it will be Friday at 8:00 (or 8:01) pm when they return. Nothing will have moved or changed in their absence. If they happen to instantiate close to where they live upon return, or if the player can move the game camera back to their house or point of departure quickly enough, they might see the sims left behind doing exactly what they were doing when they left. It's kind of funny if two sims are flirting or woohooing, because it might seem like they have been doing that for two sim weeks without needing to come up for air, but again the homeworld would really have been in suspended animation all that time.

I've not played with a butler in a long time. I know they need their own room. I don't think they're very skilled. I had a time machine (always!) and it broke. For some reason there was a puddle in front of it, and the butler tried to repair it. Yep... Died. Next butler died the same way.

Last time any of my sims had a live in butler he just wouldn't stop preparing meals. If my sims weren't hungry I had to keep moving meals into the fridge before they went off. And so that they wouldn't have to be continually clearing out decomposing carbonara or rotting ratatouille, I had to buy one of the really expensive fridges. These days I usually have a sim as part of the family - one who's a good cook, has the Handy skill, and the Neat trait, and just call him a butler.

My game was horribly slow, even in CAS, despite using NRaas to hide the multiple choices... so, I'm starting a new folder for Sims 3, see if that fixes the problem. (I'll also comb through my CC, though most of that is stuff I've used before...) Though I recall I had multiple NRaas mods merged, and I think I accidentally had ErrorTrap merged in that, too? I fixed that, but the slowness was still there...

My question is, what is better: less CC packages, but merged into a big one? Or more CC packages, but smaller sizes?
The answer is probably less, but also smaller size...
If so, what would be a 'good' size for (merged) CC packages?

I know that IP and Pets (and Seasons?) are the heaviest EPs on the PC. I wanted to ask, what are some of the more... 'lenient' ones? Generations?

Pets is the heaviest, Seasons is close behind. IP (using a fixed up version of Isla Paradiso or just not playing that world) and ITF I would say would be tied for third. Behind that, Late Night, Uni, Supernatural, and Showtime not in any particular order but these don't typically stress a system out unless the player's processor is too weak to keep up and can't even launch or keep the game running -- that would tend to be the older less than 2.2 GHz models that aren't meant to be carrying such a game or be running in turbo mode consistently.

Generations is not really stressful on a system, but it is actually one poorly programmed scenario after another. Gen, Ambitions, and WA would then be the least stressful. Note that travel transitions, especially if considering running them without NRaas Traveler, ErrorTrap, and Overwatch, are going to be jarring on the game so I'm not really taking those into account but thinking more of "ordinary" homeworld play.

Any combination of these EPs could be too much for a system that lacks sufficient RAM which these days would tend to mean less than 6 GB total.

Didn't know ITF did much to slow the game down. I imagine the descendant system updates a lot though.

Yes, without getting into transitioning to the future world repeatedly that is exactly the component that puts the stress on the game. Likely players on strong enough processors won't really feel the effects much, though.

When is a Sim is classified as rich (might have asked this here a long time, but either I forget or never seen the answer). Tried googling, didn't get an accurate answer. :/

A very stupid question: Is there a list of animals that sims can interact whit? I did try to make my sim inteact whit a racoon but she could just take a look at it, not pet it. Non in the family can interact whit the deer (not even look) and I have seen sims standing around a bird just to take a look. There seems to be no interactions what so ever. The family cat is a good hunter (mostly) and can catch ladybugs, snakes and such but that not so interesting.

As I did mention briefly in a picture thread I have seen a review of TS3 on Youtube and there seems to be a lot of animals in the hood after installing pets but where can they be found? The sims in the family I play have jobs so the can not run around the hod 24-7 and serch for animals (and I have not find out how to use the MasterController mod yet so I'm afraid to jump over to an other family. And even if I would it could take many (real time) days to find anything.

I believe there are signs that you can place on your lot to summon strays that come with pets. They are in the miscellaneous section of pet essentials in buy mode.

I think I've noticed a Sim classified as 'rich' ([Your Sim] has found out that [Other Sim] is rich!) when they have about 20,000§ as a household fund? Not worth of the house, but as the spending money.

Today, after a break from TS3, I started thinking of a few stupid questions that I would appreciate if someone answered:

1.What mods/CC do you usually play with if you play with any?

2.What mods/CC do you occasionally play with if you play with any?

3.If you don't currently play with mods/CC, have you ever played with them? How does the transition from mod-powered to modfree feel?

4.Have you ever disabled an expansion with Sim Game Selector? How does it feel like?

5.Have you ever ecountered a bug which forced you to play another save? Have you encountered it again in other saves?

6.Has your will for creating the perfect game ever stopped you from enjoying TS3 or any other game?

If any of you have seen my thread in the Help section about my issues with UL and the time alteration bug, this is what caused me to take a break from the game and to ask those questions today. After playing any game but TS3 for two months and encountering another game-breaking, probably unfixable bug in another game, I decided that I want to return to TS3. I really miss enjoying a free playstyle in a game where I can do almost everything. But I really need to get rid of that bug if I really want to do it. As for now, I see my only options being starting a new save, playing modfree, or disabling UL altogether and forgetting about any plans I had with it.

I'm probably not your intended audience, but here are my responses anyway.

1 & 2: This is MTS. I think most of us participating will say that we play with far too many mods and CC to even try listing them out or, if newer at it than some, we intend to shortly. It would, of course, also go without saying that I play with most NRaas mods in place (among many other mods).

3: Only when testing things out to establish a baseline where a new test world works as expected first. Usually even that would include a minimal set of NRaas mods to enable troubleshooting to go properly (Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Selector, MasterController). It does not feel good or bad, just different and of course new games with no or very few mods load up and save faster than with a full set. These would be for my own purposes but also testing grounds for new NRaas beta versions and releases being worked on.

4: Not on purpose. When I played the Origin/Patch 1.69 version of the game, that function periodically hid a couple of my EPs on me causing wastes of time on startup until I could get them recognized and loading again. Am on Steam/1.67 now, there is no way to utilize EPs selectively on that platform (the mod that does so doesn't work on Steam installs). I don't feel that I am missing anything, I paid for all 11 EPs (or 20 EP/SPs if we include those, the only one I don't have is Katy Perry) and want all of them loading on every game session.

5: No. I started playing my first ongoing save in late 2011. No one ever told me that we were supposed to start over occasionally, so that is still the ongoing save I am playing today. With Rotational Play (NRaas StoryProgression) and 16 Traveler mod connected worlds within it, I have no need to start a new ongoing game again except for testing purposes although I will add a new world occasionally and retire an old one when I become bored with it or find that everyone my sims knew or could have been related to back there has long since died of old age and I am not interested in reviving what's left of the world for whatever reason. Some of these are custom vacation destinations for my sims though, so they have never really been played as progressing homeworlds.

Of course I have encountered bugs and glitches along the way and have had to replay portions of this game at times, but starting over is not a reasonable option for me at this point. And with 200 or so backups from different points in time of this monster of an ongoing game of mine stored in various places, it shouldn't be necessary. Of course none of this would ever have been possible without NRaas mods and other techniques that keep the ongoing saves clean(er) and prevent them from falling apart through the generations.

6: No. I don't necessarily want a perfect game or even perfectly orchestrated game sessions. I want one that keeps me engaged, amuses, and entertains me, allows me to be creative, and progress through it as I wish. TS3 meets those requirements just fine. It could be better, it certainly could perform better and not be in need of so much "help" to keep things going, and yes it can be frustrating short-term when things don't work as they should, but for me long-term it is not in need of replacing. Some day I expect to be fascinated by other kinds of games, such as city simulations and civilizations types of platforms as I have been in the past and will likely wander away from TS3 for a bit here and there, but I can't really see another life simulation game seriously being able to replace it. I would have given the exact same answer to this question early in 2014 and the release of TS3's successor in the series has done absolutely nothing to change that. Will watch and wait on the next iteration if there is to be one, but with markedly less optimism than prior.

If the player finds the game's shortcomings, limitations, and programmatic flaws and their solutions more distracting and frustrating overall than they find the game enjoyable, then even I would have to say that for sanity's sake, this is perhaps not the best game to be playing and devoting large amounts of time to. That, of course, is up to the individual player.

Yes, I have done this. I had Seasons, WA, and Showtime installed. But I wanted to focus on just the WA stuff and, since I noticed that WA worlds don't have seasons or weather in them, anyway, I just deselected the other two and played with just WA selected. But since I did this for a new save, I can't say I noticed any 'problems' occuring.

@SneakyWingPhoenix

I looked into tuning and I found that if the overall property value is more than $100 000, then the sim is classified as rich. In the future worlds, the amount must be over $500 000.
I actually meant to look into this as I wanted to make the threshold larger otherwise, most sims in my game are considered rich which is boring. Let me know if you want the mod.

@TheThirdWizard Lately (for last couple years really) I have had my game in "creating mode" which means I only have the essentials to make it easier to test whatever I am currently working on. The essentials are Overwatch, Errortrap, MasterController, NoCD, a couple of my own mods. When I actually want to play, I have a plethora of my own mods, mostly tuning and default replacements, only a few pieces of furniture and a few other people's stuff. I have gotten really picky about CC e.g. I only have 8 or so hairstyles.

As for the other questions, the answer is no. Or maybe bugs that forced me to play another save when new expansions were still coming out but now that there are no more patches and the main mods are stable, I have not have to do that even once. I'd say that my desire to create the perfect game is the main force that keeps me interested in TS3. Sometimes I do get overwhelmed and I have to take breaks. Sometimes I lose my interest in games entirely but that usually doesn't last longer than a year. Sometimes I can't play even if I wanted because work etc. is keeping me too busy.

I use the game selector all the time, but I also start a new folder quite often too. I have a testing game into which I put new custom content or new mods to see if they work. Inevitably I like my test sim and get interested in her story so put in another expansion pack....and another and suddenly the test folder is the real folder. So a new test folder happens!
I am trying to treat my 7 year old computer gently so if I want to play a resource heavy pack such as Island Paradise I do it in a folder without Pets or Seasons. Apparently they also make heavy demands on the system and I don't need them in Paradise, though the birds would be nice.

I have had game breaking bugs in WA. Sometimes an adventure chain can't be completed because of a random bug: such as the sim who gives you the quest disappearing and I just have to start a new game if finishing the quest is important. I had a case recently where my sim met a child in China who turned out to be her daughter. That was weird and off putting. My sims may not be the brightest but I think they would notice being pregnant. So I left that game and started another. Same thing happened to the new sim.......so a new folder was started. I haven't seen that bug since but what was a game breaker for me might be a charming happenstance for someone else.

This is important .........Remember to write down which packs are used in which save because it does effect game play. I spent a lot of time recently trying to find out what had happened to Gnubb , my must have game in any park, only to realize it comes with Ambitions which wasn't installed. Always check the packs you want installed are installed if you allow Origin to update or download from the exchange/ the store as these things will reset your choices to the base game only.
Enjoy

Thank you for all your answers!



Doesn't it work on Steam installs? I didn't know... But perhaps when I would have downloaded the Sim Game Selector, I would have read its description. I have a Steam install, but I see your point in not disabling anything. You actually just convinced me to not give up in fixing the issue. How strange it is that someone not from my intended audience just did that! LOL, just kidding! Being a well-known modder doesn't make you different in my eyes. Well, at least not signifficantly different.



Sixteen?!
As I too like to always play the complete TS3 experience, and as a user of the all-in-one world New Sunset Valley 2013, may I ask you what your loading time is? (Asking questions is the whole point of this thread anyway.)

I have considered connecting worlds with Traveler for a long time. One world can't always do it all, especially when I'd like to play store worlds more often, and I can just hardly stand that they are so Base Game sometimes... And most of the time I'm not patient enough to place lots from other EPs, especially when I have limited room for them. Unfortunately, my play time is limited and scattered across multiple days of the week, and that's why I'm asking: if it loads slowly, then I'd better stay away from it. Though doesn't the game load only one world at once? How much would loading the list of worlds take? Also, what about the hard drive space that it eats up? Either way, I'd better let the specialist answer.



That's exactly what I feel for TS4, what I felt for just a few weeks with TS3 UL's recent issues. But compared to my years, few yet still years, of TS3 enjoyment, it's nothing. I came here from TS4 after all, a game which I remember and still try out illegally for an hour or two from time to time to see if things have changed, and which I immediately uninstall and forget about afterwards. And that's what I also felt for other games, until 'fixing' mods came in to fix my gameplay while screwing up major DLC features I paid for. Anyway, I won't detail the topic here since this is not the place to talk about games outside The Sims series and the life simulator genre, after all.



Important point taken. I'll try to not forget it, in case I'll ever touch an Origin install.

@Giga I didn't feel like further discussing your opinions, but thank you for your input though!

Slight correction, if I may. I am on the management team at NRaas, but am not a mod developer.



Loading times average around three weeks, why do you ask?

Just kidding. Only the actively being played in world loads into RAM, the rest of the save comes along for the ride and for file reference with each loadup and save (as). My load times vary from 4-5 minutes to my personal threshold of around 18-20, depending on the world that is active at the time. I've let a few of the more progressed ones become overpopulated. My current system is aging and getting cranky on me mechanically, its replacement will have an SSD and that will reduce the loading and save times dramatically. But in the meantime, I tend to do things like surf the web, answer player questions, or wash dishes while the game is loading. It's pretty rare that I would sit still for that long just to watch a startup/loading screen, they aren't really all that interesting after a while.

Each of my individual saves is about 2.3 GB currently, and that's with all of the worlds' nhd files within it save cleaned periodically. My TravelDB file is too large and accounts for around 900 MB of this, that one I have to tend to again pretty soon but that's another component of the game that does not load into RAM on startup as it just gets copied back and forth. Whether having ten or fifty such saves is taxing on drive space of course depends on how much space one has to work with in the first place and how much of it can be devoted to the game. I tend to move excess saves to external storage and only pull them back when I need to load a very old game save to look something up from the past.

I didn't sit down one day and organize this collection of connected worlds, it all just kind of sprawled outwards once I started moving siblings and their resulting families to other worlds within the same game a few generations ago. In addition to being more fun for me to play this way, if I had kept them all within a single world everyone there would probably have been related to each other by now.

Does uploading pics on the loader actually do anything? If it does, where do the pics go?

What CC should not be merged?
* Counters
* NRaas ErrorTrap should be kept separate, I think? (And Story Progression, too?)

Ok. Perhaps next time I should ask before making any assumptions. I am new to being involved in the game community too rather than being involved only in the game itself.



That's great to hear! So my save, usually loading in 30 minutes, could at worst reach around 35 I'd say for my machine and huge mod and store items collection. That's still acceptable for TS3 and my playtimes.



I don't mind sizes lower than 2 GB. Anyway I'm sure I won't connect too many, or at least less than 10, so perhaps I could try connecting a few worlds around... One more question though. I have read a few tutorials on how to connect multiple worlds together, but is there also a way to delete some of them? Anyway, thank you for lending me your data!

You would just delete the nhd file of the foreign world from the save folder of the save in question. Note though that any sims who lived there would also be out of your game, which might matter if your sims knew or were related to any of them. Once you have done so, a new instance of that world will spawn should your sims ever attempt travel to it again.

Thank you very much @igazor! I find it great that the sims living within the deleted world are deleted too, so they don't take up useless space in my save, but thank you for your needed warnings anyway.

One of my sims just finished her first term at university and went back to her home world. Everything seemed normal until I noticed that one of her housemates had tagged along for the ride. She is now ensconced in my sim's house, just wandering around doing as she pleases. As in the the dorm, she can be interacted with, but not selected or directed to do anything. I'd thought of going into edit town mode and evicting her, but wouldn't that be consigning her to oblivion? Ideally I'd like her to be back in the university town when my sim returns. What is the best way of getting rid of her without removing her from the game altogether?

Move her to another household no? Wouldn't she be culled in the bin during only in live mode ?

I've saved a backup copy of the game at the point where my sim got back to her home world, so that I can try various options.

I'd assumed that if I evicted her in the way I'd suggested she would just cease to exist when I re-entered live mode. I had thought of moving her to another household, but then she would become a permanent resident of the home world. And then I remembered that if you use the computer or phone to move house, you can just remove one sim by selecting 'kick out'. So that's what I've done. Now she's gone from the household, but still shows on the relationships panel. So she still exists, somewhere. But whether she will show up again at the university, or remain part of the homeworld's homeless population I'm not sure.

One of my Sims had the option "Convince to.." for a Sim. What does it do and why/how it comes up?

I can't tell you exactly how it turns up, although it seems to be sparked by parties (including the imaginary parties where your sim gets an invitation to come to an empty house) or by group outings.

What it does: you can get an otherwise uncontrollable sim to flirt, dance, talk, or otherwise interact with another sim. This counts as their own idea. A good-natured sim should be a bit careful about convincing other sims to have a public display of affection for other sims unless you know that they are not going to end up "cheating" by it, although a nastier sim would be very happy to cause trouble like that. And if you go with something higher in the relationship requirement than flirting, your target can still be shot down unless the other sim would have been willing to accept. You can also sometimes get someone to do chores around the house.

Convince To should show up at parties, when a party has been scheduled by the active sims but it hasn't started yet (I think), at certain LN venues like dance clubs, and all of the time if the sim is a vampire.

Been away for a bit, searched as best as I could. Is there still no way to install the free Town Life giveaway from Origin with complete Steam install ? I had it on Origin, but uninstalled because of launcher problems. Also, is Steam patched to date ? Thank you.

Weird, I don't recall it being throw. I do, however, had testing cheats enable, If that has anything to do with it. The Sim in question isn't a vampire.

@Ghost sdoj oh yeah, they might have received an invitation. So sort of like influence back from TS2 Uni?

Steam patches the game to 1.67 quietly and with no choices being given in the matter. That's as far as it needs to be patched as 1.69 was entirely done to provide the Origin/Launcher tie-in and the Packs and Stuff Chooser tab on the 1.69 Launcher, thus there is no 1.69 for Steam installs. The game files, except for their internal build numbers that matter only to Core Mods, are exactly the same between them.

Origin (and disc) provided packs cannot be added to a Steam installation.

Is there a discord or a place where TS3 players get together and chat/discuss, aside here?

Hello, stupid question: I am using the decrapify program to decrap my EA store stuff... i had some other cc in that folder i forgot about, and accidently decrapped it too xD is it bad, doctor? ^^

Is it possible to make a custom world that is designated as a city (like Bridgeport) instead of a suburban area?

@CatMuto
Do you mean while you are working in CAW or do you want to edit a finished world (pack/package)?

If you use Super CAW you can choose what kind of world it should be, but not in the regular CAW. If you want to change an existing world, it is possible if I remember correctly, but more complicated or it didn't work for me...

http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...Types_(Updated)

Is there an issue concerning SuperCAW that applies to the Create Pond tool that does work poorly and that's why EA tells everybody to avoid it as they do thrmselves. My tip: Drop it. Ponds are not importmant unless for bad fishing purposes but yes for good decoration.

@Fluse Super CAW? I only know of the regular CAW, and I haven't touched that in years... I just saw someone made a 'My Bridgeport' custom world and it was listed as a city. I got curious if it was possible to do something in CAW to make it a city or if it was perhaps them having edited Bridgeport itself. Either would be cool. I probably should try to get acquainted with CAW again/more. Would ease my search for 'fitting' worlds for me.

@CatMuto
Super CAW offers some more options than the regular one. You have access to all spawners, more objects and other "hidden" stuff. Also there are some more tools. Some people do not recommend super CAW, it takes for some people longer to load etc. Normally i work with the regular caw because I got used to it^^ otherwise I can't see a problem why someone shouldn't use super CAW. But maybe there are other issues with it, that I am not aware of. I don't know if this is, what you are looking for:
http://modthesims.info/t/561387

Another thread I found:
http://modthesims.info/t/595251

If you have hardly used the CAW those tutorials are perhaps a bit too advanced... the caw isn't an easy tool... well, that's my experience and opion, obviously ^^ I can say, that it takes me quite some time to understand those kind of things. But maybe you are smart and learn it very fast (: good luck <3

I found a more recent link from simsample 2017.

http://modthesims.info/t/599982

I have a stupid question. I downloaded the custom world Robin Hills and according to this image the beach at the bottom (it extends further down as seen here) is decently deep for water. But in my game, the water seems to be not so deep - I can see the sand, and where the map edge is...

...wait, could it be because of my custom lighting mod? Maybe that's why I can see deeper because the light is at the angle for it.

I added an example picture of what it looks like in my game. This is without the lighting mod.

CatMuto, your pic looks the same as this one: https://66.media.tumblr.com/2f85d12...esjamo1_540.png you just havent photoshopped yours.

Oh, okay. Guess I'll just live with this cosmetic flaw? Because when I look at the preview image for the beach lot, it does show the water well.

How many exactly (like, precise numbers If it doesn't vary in systems) do each lot assignment attracts Sims? Oh and on I side note (or not), how do I have Sims use STORE bistro lot and the cinema? Would incorperating specific lot assignment help, or is it because nobody arrives as there no residents with lots aside from the active household?

How long it takes for (npc) Sims to move in other residential lots w/o rapid immigration?

Is it possible to have a household with children/teens unrelated to the adults?

I can't remember if I've ever tried that without the NRAAS mods, but it appears that they are only needed if you are trying to have a household with no adults and a teen. in my experience, though, the game just wants an adult in the house.

#1 Does anyone feel satanic?
#2 Are penthouses suppose to load ages after modifying or did I do something wrong?

From another thread:


Do non-player-controlled sims use horses autonomously?

I wonder if there's anything in the GameplayData package that might shed light on this.

Am I being stupid about using Nraas? I have Story Progression, Story Progression Relationship, and Story Progression Extra. I can't find the option for genetic blending of babies... I looked under Pregnancy, Flirts, Romance...
And what does it mean if the Nraas Errortrap says "Sim Description Removed: [Sim Last Name]"?

The advanced genetics options on City Hall/Computers under SP > General Options > Options: Pregnancy require the SP Population module.

Sim Description Removed much like Found (fill in the blank) Deleted is a routine correction. It's generally nothing to worry about. Part of what ErrorTrap does is to flush out "orphaned" data that is not associated with real sims, objects, and the current homeworld. Even if you really have a sim in your world with that name, there may have been duplicate sets of data associated with them. It's a form of data trash collection that helps decrease the bloat in ongoing game saves.

Nraas has those extra profession-like careers (Electrician, Chess Player, etc) and I wanted to ask how those were made. I'd like to try and make some myself for personal use.

There used to be a tutorial on making careers, but the link goes to the old wikispaces site and I haven't been able to find it at the new NRAAS site. I did find this thread where Missy Hissy posted links to tutorials which might help: https://www.nraas.net/community/car...ssion/topic7119

Unfortunately, that tutorial is for creating rabbithole careers, which isn't what I am looking for. I'm looking for what lets me create something like a profession; think writer or painter profession from Ambitions: no hours, no needing to go to a place.

The professions are XML tuning scripts linked to the Careers mod, so to make a new one would seem to be a matter of planning and writing a new XML tuning mod. Or you could use one of the current ones as a template to make your own. (As long as you remember to change the GUID so that you don't overwrite the one you borrowed.)

Do lots with food registers need to be set as Markets in order to function properly (have clerk staff it, etc.) ? Oh, how to flag a city back to town type?

For which EP is the 'markets'? I've placed food stalls in Small/Big Park lots, and I've placed the UL register into a library. Didn't automatically add a sim to it (I think), but I just used NRaas Register on it and picked a homeless sim to do it. Worked just fine.

Are there any mods for Ambitions that are of the 'need them' type?

World Adventures.

I've never really considered this, but do the markets from WA go together well with any other EP? Can you use them as general stores?

I haven't had an issue with them, but then again, I play weird, so.... When I boot up Twinbrook, I'll see if I remembered to put WA markets in there and take some pics.

Hey, if I wanna build a car dealership for my world, that has to be residential, right? Otherwise the cars disappear, correct? (I was just constructing for 3 hours, so giving the computer a break).