Essential mods, cheats, tips & tricks for The Sims Castaway Stories
 

Contents:

• Game hints
• Cheats
• The MoveObjects Workaround
• Uninvited visitors
• Known bugs?
• Custom Content
• Hidden items (waterfall, Spauldig, the chalice shrine etc.) buyable
• Additional residential lots
• Pets and other wildlife
• Snow
• Harvestables

Game hints

This paragraph contains spoilers if you haven't completed the story mode yet!




Cheats
Note: The Sims Castaway Stories, per user manual, "is designed for the casual and new player," and one is advised to "try the game without cheats." This probably means that Aspyr purposefully cut out some of the known cheat codes from TS2. This is a list of cheats that work, along with cheats that have been disabled, but where a workaround is possible to achieve a similar effect.

The cheat engine is disabled during story mode. You can only enter cheats in Shipwrecked and Single once you've completed the 24 chapters, or you can enter cheats at any time in Wanmami Island.


Cheat objects:

• Sim Manipulator (Barter mode > Storage)
• Sim Blender (Barter mode > Nature, 10 resource points)

These objects provide alternatives for certain cheats that have been removed from the cheat system.

Money:

• motherlode - adds 50,000 resource points to the active household
• kaching - adds 1,000 resource points to the active household
  
• familyFunds "Last Name" [optional:+/-][0 - 9999999] - not tested. The original cheat sets the given family's funds to the specified amount if there's no optional argument, or it increases (+) or decreases (-) the family's funds by the specified amount. Only the most recently founded family with the last name Last Name will be affected, in case there is more than one
• money [optional: +/-][0 - 9999999] - not tested. Requires the allmenus cheat to be set up, but the cheat itself doesn't have to be set to on to use the money cheat. Must enter on a lot while playing a household. Works the same way as the familyFunds cheat, but only for the currently played household

Cheat console:

• exit or <esc> - closes the cheat window
• expand or x - expands or collapses the cheat window
• clear - clears the cheat log from the expanded cheat window. Any cheats entered will still be in effect

Simulation:

• aging [on/off] - toggles aging of Sims and hyenas. Orangutans never age
• bugJarTimeDecay [on/off] - set to off to make fireflies and butterflies captured in jars live forever
• boolProp controlPets [true/false] - toggle control of hyenas (orangutans not affected)
• boolProp petActionCancel [true/false] - toggle ability to cancel hyenas' actions (orangutans not affected)
• boolProp petsFreeWill [true/false] - toggle hyenas' free will (orangutans not affected)
• setHour [0 - 23] - doesn't work. The original cheat would set time of the day to the specified hour value. Use Sim Manipulator to alter time
• ageSimsCheat [on/off] - doesn't work. The original cheat would add an option to the pie menu to choose age for active Sim to grow up to. To age Sims up or down, use either Sim Manipulator or Sim Blender
• addNeighborToFamilyCheat [on/off] - doesn't work. The original cheat would add an option to pie menu when clicking on Sims from a non-active household to add them to the active household. Use Sim Manipulator or Sim Blender to add or remove Sims from households
• maxMotives, motiveDecay [on/off] - don't work. To alter Sims' motives, use Sim Manipulator or Sim Blender
• aspirationPoints [amount], aspirationLevel [0 - 5], lockAspiration [on/off] - don't work. Use Sim Manipulator or Sim Blender
• unlockCareerRewards - doesn't work. I'm not sure about the workaround. The potion station is already available at the Creepy Hollow, though
• boolProp testingCheatsEnabled [true/false] - doesn't work. Since the original cheat has many uses, there are many workarounds to many of its functions

Build and Barter mode:

• boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation [true/false] - allows objects to be rotated in 45 degree increments. Use the < and > (, and .) keys to rotate the objects; clicking and dragging to rotate will only rotate in 90 degree increments. Sims may have problems using some objects placed at a 45 degree angle, for example appliances. Plan for objects placed at an angle to be purely decorative
• boolProp snapObjectsToGrid [true/false] - toggles the ability to fine-tune the placement of items, instead of being limited to just placing them at certain spots on the grid. If you find you can't place windows and doors because they won't snap properly onto walls, disable this cheat (by typing true)
• boolProp constrainFloorElevation [true/false] - toggles the ability to change the elevation of floor tiles in areas that already have walls, floors, and foundations on them
• boolProp dormSpecificToolsDisabled [true/false] - when set to false, enables barter mode when it's disabled. If you modify community lots this way when Sims visit them, changes won't get saved when you leave the lot
• moveObjects [on/off] - doesn't work. The original cheat would allow you to pick up and delete locked objects ("can't pick up") or place objects where they usually couldn't be placed. While there isn't a known way to place objects without placement restrictions, there is a way to delete locked objects
• changeLotZoning [residential/community] - doesn't work. You will have to manually change lot zoning in SimPE. Follow this tutorial, steps 1 - 4. On step 5, don't right click, but instead left click on the desired lot. In plugin view, under Lot Type, select either residential or community. Commit changes, and save the neighborhood file and close SimPE. Note: make sure no Sims are living on the lot at the time you're modifying it

Graphics:

• vsync [on/off] - draws display frames vertically instead of horizontally. Set to off to slightly improve graphics performance, but you may experience graphics glitches, depending on your graphics card
• boolProp enablePostProcessing [true/false] - while the cheat itself works and post processing is turned on if entered true, the actual post processing cheats (bloom, vignette, filmGrain, letterBox) have been removed from the cheat system, so it is redundant to have PP on
• boolProp useShaders [true/false] - toggles the use of graphics shaders. This is required to view bump mapping, and also controls other graphical options in the game including visible fish in the ocean and clearer/prettier water effects. Some graphics cards cannot handle this option - turn it back off if you have problems
• boolProp bumpMapping [true/false] - toggles the use of bump maps, a graphics effect that can add details to many items in the game, including walls, floors, clothing, and more. Some graphics cards cannot handle this option - turn it back off if you have problems. For more information, see: Game_Help:Bump_Maps_and_Shaders^wiki
• floatProp particleDensity [0.0 - 10.0] - sets different particle density (special effects, such as green stink clouds over dirty plates and others). 1.0 is default, 0.0 is no visible particles. The maximum value entered isn't actually limited to 10.0, but there isn't really a visible difference past 10.0, and the frame rate might drop depending on your system
• plumbbobtoggle - doesn't work. The original cheat would toggle display of plumbbobs. Try downloading plumbbob hiders CC

Other:

• loadLot [lot name] - doesn't work. The only (limited) alternative is to type in stringProp lastLoadedLot *x where x represents lot number, and then press F2 (or Return to Sim button) in neighborhood view. The limitation in this approach is having to know the lot number (for example, to load Village Residence, type stringProp lastLoadedLot *102 because the lot file of Village Residence is N001_Lot102.package). Also, F2 will only load occupied residential lots. It will grey out the button and do nothing if x entered is of an unoccupied or community lot
• stretchSkeleton [0.0 - 2.0] - doesn't work. To modify Sims' height, you'll need to permanently set a different value in SimPE by following this tutorial

The MoveObjects Workaround

A very useful CC that will help you remove locked objects ("can't pick up") is Stuck Object Remover stuckobjremover_PlaceEverywhere (Barter mode > Nature). During the story, many objects are marked as locked to prevent the castaway from "selling" them or rearranging them; this includes for example flora of the castaway's base camps (Shady Lagoon and Castaway Beach). Certain lots also have some locked objects, such as the waterfall, or the Spawn Markers (small black rocks the size of an end table found on many lots). There could be other, invisible miscellaneous markers placed on the lot, preventing the user from building over that area.

1. If your lot is a residential lot, skip to step 2.
   
   To get rid of the objects on a community lot, you'll need to convert the lot to a residential lot first using SimPE. Follow this tutorial, steps 1 - 4. In step 5, left click on your lot, and in plugin view, under Lot Type, select Residential. Commit changes and save the package.
   
   
2. Move a household on the lot if the lot's unoccupied.
   
   
3. Get the Stuck Object Remover from the barter mode, and place the yellow box on the same tile as the object you're trying to remove. If the offending object is more than one tile big, it is sufficient to place one Stuck Object Remover per locked object.
   Note: if you plan to play this lot as a residential lot, make sure to still have at least one Spawn Marker (Spawn Point) (small black rocks the size of an end table). If you have accidentally deleted it, you can unlock it in the catalog by using this mod.
   
   Quote: Originally posted by Borja20
   

   Have you ever wondered what's that rock you can't move in your Village Residence? It's like 10 tiles away in front of the portal. Well, it's the spawn point. It's the place where your Sims appear when you move them to the lot. I found out what it does thanks to a bug I had when I made Shady Lagoon a residential lot. I tried to move a family there but it never finished loading, apparently it was because of the spawn point. There is one already, but it wasn't working properly, so I placed another one and it worked.

   
   
   
   
4. Go to live mode and wait for a notification that will confirm that the objects have been deleted. Save the lot.
   
   
5. Optionally, move a household out of the lot. You may want to use the Stay Things Shrub (Moveout Object Stayer, Build mode > Garden Center > Shrubs, 1 resource point) in order for the game not to sell other objects when it moves Sims out.
   
   
6. To switch back to a community lot, follow step 1, just pick Community from the dropdown list. Make sure no Sims are living on the lot during editing!

Note: some tiles will appear as locked (for example, you won't be able to build a foundation over them), but you'll find that you can't place the SOR on that tile. In that case, try leveling the terrain, and then build again. Chances are, the stuck object got removed during terrain leveling.


Uninvited visitors

No need for CC for this one! If you have problems with random villagers barging into your huts uninvited, purchase The Terrifying Totem (Barter mode > Lighting, 50 resource points) and place it near lot portals. The visitors will be frightened by the totem and will soon leave the lot.


Known bugs?

The platinum aspiration tombstone object
In The Sims 2, when an elder dies of old age, instead of the regular grey tombstone, they get a white tombstone with golden edges and a golden embossment of their aspiration symbol. In Castaway Stories, the tombstone object is instead invisible. The platinum aspiration urns, on the other hand, are functioning properly. Luckily there's a fix!src

The rest of this paragraph contains spoilers if you haven't completed the story mode yet!




Custom Content

Hair, clothes, face paint and makeup that require expansion packs up to Seasons will work. Skintones and eyes will also work. Be careful of mods and objects, and don't get a CC that requires anything higher than Seasons. (Also, don't go around and install crap that isn't applicable here, such as no Crumplebottom bite etc.)

Try not to add any custom content before or during the story -- and especially don't add mods. I had Create a Sim crash a lot just by having custom skintones and scars and cuts makeup when trying to create my custom castaway.



My personal must-haves:

• FFS Lot Debugger (aka batbox) - a go-to tool for debugging common lot-related problems. Here is a link to a wiki article covering its options. Found under Barter mode > Nature
• No Corrupted Death Memory - suppresses the formation of the corrupted death memory
• No Unlinkage On Urnstone Delete (aka nounlinkondelete) - stops irreversible character-file shredding when tombstones are deleted, so that you can always resurrect Sims, using for example Sim Manipulator (even after you get rid of their graves)
• Cyjon's Ghost Hack - Bug Fixes Module - contains a critical fix that prevents ghosts from haunting tombstones, potentially destroying them
• Stuck Object Remover (placeable anywhere version) - as mentioned under MoveObjects workaround. Found under Barter mode > Nature

Hidden items (waterfall, Spauldig, the chalice shrine etc.) buyable

Borja20 made the hidden objects buyable via the barter mode. Some of them may not be useful, but they'll sure contribute to the overall architecture of the island.
Note: placing down the hidden objects will often result in you not being able to pick them up again. If you haven't, make sure you get the stuck object remover from the same thread as well.


Additional residential lots

There are two ways to add more residential lots to your neighborhood. A fairly simple way is to convert an existing community lot in your neighborhood to a residential lot. (Pros: new residential lot, easy; cons: you lose a community lot.) An advanced method involves cloning an existing lot and manually inputting its XYZ coordinates in SimPE. (Pros: a new lot, you don't lose any other lots; cons: it's a tedious process.)

Note: there's no known way to add a new community lot to the game that the Sims would be able to visit, because there is no known way to alter the map, which is the only way to travel.





Pets and other wildlife

ORANGUTANS
A move-out mod for orangutans!
Getting rid of them in an unmodded game: move someone else in with the family, and have the newcomer immediately move out with the orangutan to the household bin or elsewhere on the island. (Move Out is an interaction available when clicking on the active Sim.) Orangutans do not die of hunger, old age, or anything, and they can't breed.

JAGUARS
src

HYENAS
In short, they appear on community lots late at night. Make friends and move them in. They can also breed! Yay, functioning biology in a life-simulator game.
Pros: cute. Cons: can't get a pet job, unlike dogs in The Sims 2 Pets.

WOLVES
If you're tired of just having hyenas as pets, you can try adding a wolf to your household. Wolves act nearly the same way as hyenas (which act the same way as dogs in The Sims 2 Pets). Wolves, as hyenas, cannot get a job, but they'll age and they can breed (though their offspring will require some SimPE magic to appear properly, see post 8).

To be able to have a wolf appear on your lot, you need to be able to have a Sim perform the hidden Summon Wolves interaction. This is best achieved by unlocking the AllMenus cheat. Note: while this cheat unlocks every non-debug interaction available, it is not advised to recklessly click every interaction there is. Just like the Testing Cheats Enabled, only click on interactions that you know the functions of, and be aware that there are certain interactions that may corrupt your game if used out of appropriate context or at all.

Once you've followed the link above (your globalProps.xml file is located in C:\Program Files\The Sims Castaway Stories\TSData\Res\Config), load the household you'd like to add a wolf to. Bring up the cheat console and type: allmenus on

Have an adult Sim click on the ground outside. Alongside Go Here and other options, keep clicking on More until you find the Summon Wolves interaction. Your Sim will route to the location, howl, and within a few moments, a black or a white wolf (or several wolves) will appear at the lot portal.

If you'd like, you can create a pack by performing the Summon interaction several times. Once you've finished creating the preferred number of wolves, bring up the cheat console and type: allmenus off

You can proceed to build relationship with the wolf (be aware that once they go off the lot, they'll only appear on community lots when other hyenas would appear). You can also set their relationship using Sim Manipulator. Using that same tool, you can immediately have the wolf join the household by clicking on Sim Manipulator:
Family... > Add Sim to Family... > (wolf's name)


Snow

See this post.


Harvestables

See this post.

Yes the "Golden Spider" hack is not very good to have in game for it will spawn 100's of spiders and other items and keeps adding to the Sims credit or food I don't remember which one.

A better mod is the Sim Blender http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=20.0 just remember don't use it for any thing other than motives until the story is done. (And this mod can be added for help with motives before the story is done.)

PS. How do you make the name of the item the link to it.

It would be nice if a mod could pin this useful topic, it's currently hidden on page 2.

I was about to open a new one called "What did you discover today playing the Castaway Stories?", like the one we have for TS2, but I guess our little discoveries count as tricks and therefore belong here, if you don't object, topp ?
That would also help keeping the thread on top.

So, I found out that sending sim children on a walk with the house hyena will quickly lower the child's temperature. I had never noticed that. Since the Social Worker is a pretty serious threat in this game, with children overheating just by not being in a closed room and being unable to swim in ponds/lakes, it can be good to know.

My sim child had an orange temperature bar, in the middle of the afternoon. She took the hyena for a walk, and while she was away from the lot, her bar dropped to light green, that's below the average green default temperature and just above the blue shades that indicate that the sim is cold.

Thanks - sure! The more replies, the merrier. I'm still coming up with a good enough title for this thread though, should I change this one?

@Lyralei @heaven @Karen Lorraine do you think this thread is appropriate to be stickied on this forum?

I do agree that it's worth being sticky. This is pretty much a must read if you want to continue playing this game after story mode!
Also, thanks for mentioning my mod, I feel honoured.
I'm wondering, why didn't you link here your clean templates of the 2 hoods? I think they are worth being in the Neighborhood corruption section. I'll leave them here...
- Clean Felicity Island (story mode)
- Clean Wanmami Island

I did link to those, the links however are actually buried deep under some spoiler tags. A while back I think I came to a realization that there's something I could do better about those, so I was thinking of redoing them all, which is why I didn't put any extra emphasis for readers to get those. It's not that they're not clean (as clean as CS can get), it's that they're not as perfect as they should be. Ideally, for example, it would be the best if I could clean Felicity Island where no story took place (with either keeping the story engine or removing it). Then, no one's want trees would be messed up.

Also - holy shit, I made those when I was 15! Why was I so much into fixing corruption and not into just playing Sims stranded on a tropical island I'd sometimes wish to just go back and scold myself for not being laid-back more!

For future readers: this thread really also made me think whether deleting Sims necessarily equals corruption (which is the majority of work I did for the clean templates). Maybe all of those hidden Sims are, in fact, properly deleted & made hidden (having character file truncated and made unlinked) instead of their slots being made vacant for new Sims (having character file truncated and deleted, enabling for write-over - aka Pescado's Deleted 2). The thread imposes a valid question: is Deleted 2 simply an overkill (no pun intended) method to delete Sims, and was the in-game family delete button/grave selling a sufficient method after all?

This is perhaps new information: the NeighborhoodManager.package file apparently stores data about which story rewards objects you have unlocked per profile. (Edit: it also stores information on whether to begin story mode per this post.)

This person followed my advice from a Tumblr post about my fixed Wanmami Island neighborhood - one of the steps had said to remove the file. They seemed to have lost access to unlocked story rewards objects up until they restored the file:

Actually the cause of the ill-looking wolf was a faulty mod. Everything works fine. I even breeded a wolf and a hyena (female black wolf and a male hyena1) without any complications. And grown up offspring look like this:

https://ibb.co/HCYCYZB

Did you found out the platinum aspiration tombstones fix by any chance? I tried to use default tombstone converted from TS3, but it doesn't work. It's like - there is absolutely no tombstone anyway, so you can't change it by default. Because you can't change what doesn't exist. But maybe there is a modder who can just add platinum aspiration tombstone to the game?

None of the mods using the TestingCheats functions (InSim, SimBlender, SimManipulator) seem to work for me. Does it have to be a particular version? Do I have to do anything special besides putting them into the Downloads folder? The objects don't show up anywhere in barter mode and DEST/SIM versions of the mods don;t work at all. Did anyone have a similar problem and has a fix for that?

The only thing that comes to mind is that you should get the Seasons versions of those mods, if available. I don't currently have the game installed so I'm not sure if there's a special menu in the game settings that toggles custom content...

Hey, does anybody know what startup cheats work and which don't? Also, would alias work?

Does anyone have a working sim blender/sim manipulator in the Castaway Stories? I'm trying to set it up and it doesn't show up for me. I installed the pets or later version of sim blender, so it should work with this game, since it's based on seasons. Anyone has a working mod in this game that wants to share their wisdom?

I have the SimBlender and it shows up just fine in the Nature section of buy mode. I got it from here.

It works
 

I got the Sim Manipulator in CS working just fine, but I only put the main package in the downloads folder, without the DestinationMenu AddOn and the SimMenu AddOn packages.
Here's the link:
https://simmanipulator.forumotion.c...sim-manipulator

SNOW IN CASTAWAY STORIES:

Better than Batbox is Time & Weather Manager: https://modthesims.info/d/670001/ti...er-manager.html
The mod works, but the temperature setting is not, so the weather is purely decorative.

HARVESTABLES:

Plumb Bob Keep To Boldly Grow - Garden Crop Collection
https://www.medievalsims.com/forums...86&f=240&t=7786


EDIT: The solution to graphic problems (Sims are blurred) is very simple. It requires the Graphic Rules Maker. I have the "Force texture memory" set to 4095 Mb, but it may be very taxing on your PC, so you don't need it that high. It depends on your PC - graphic card and CPU.

I wonder if there is a possibility to use separates in CAS or in the game after buying clothes from clothes rack. I tried everything, but there is only full outfit option enabled.

Hello, I wanted to let you know that I've made these mods for Castaway Stories:

• Modified Want Trees for Castaway Stories
  sim will not roll wants to buy: petrified log, fire pit, lean to, monkey tree, airplane parts, skeleton, and ruins.
  
• No Hide Diary CS
  Sims will not hide diary nearby another sim in Castaway Stories.
  
• Job Level Labels CS
  Adds level labels to job title and description for Castaway Stories.
  The files can be found here:
  https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=5979337
  
  
• No Crappy Trash Pit and Outdoor Bamboo Toilet Mod
  Fix the crappiness (low room / environment motive) of both trash pit (The Ash Grabber 5000) and outdoor bamboo toilet (Nature's Commode).
  https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=688315

Hopefully these mods can help others with their gameplay
Cheers

You can have cats in TS:CS too! I've just converted both cat's and dog's displays from TS2 (and downloaded some recolors from Cree), made it base game object and it works!!!
Here is the link to see the screenshot: https://ibb.co/ZXFZsL8 and https://ibb.co/RTssB4S

If you want to know how to get them, write a DM