I've been working on setting up a custom neighborhood, creating residents and townies and whatnot. For special NPCs like the grand vampire and head witches, I generated them with the Townie Gun and overwrote their appearances with Sim Surgery (using the addon that allows you to select an archetype directly from a saved sim file instead of having to create the archetype in-game).

So all that has been alright, I think, but when checking on the character files in SimPE, I've noticed a couple concerning things.

First: the grand vampire has a red background on her portrait and is marked in the Sim Browser as having no character file; however, she does in fact have not one but two character files—one ending in User00020 and the other in User00020.1. Could that be what's causing SimPE to mark her as having no character file? Is there something wrong with her file/data that I should be concerned about?

I did do one thing with her that may have been bad, but I'm not sure: I have a default replacement vampire overlay, and when I performed the Sim Surgery, her overlay was removed. I wanted her to keep it, so I cured her vampirism and immediately made her a vampire again so she would regain the overlay.

Second: There are 9 Unknown sims with no character files or data listed in SimPE. I'm pretty sure 4 of them are my PT replacements, but I don't know about the other 5; they don't show up in Hood Checker, while the PTs do. I am not 100% sure, but I think I may have been messing around with the Townie Gun, trying to generate NPCs and using the "kill" option until I got a decent spawn. If I saved after doing this, those "killed" sims may have ended up as these Unknowns. Again, not 100% sure, as I can't seem to find clear and consistent information on how the Townie Gun actually works with regard to creating (or not creating) character files. I don't believe I have any mods that would be generating NPCs, but I guess I'd have to do a deep dive to be sure.

So basically, is there any way to figure out what the deal is with these Unknown sims? Is there anything I can/should do about them? Is the Townie Gun safe to use or does it generate junk character files? From now on I think I'll be using the cat statue instead (can't remember what the mod is called off the top of my head); the only reason I didn't use it this time is because I forgot it existed, as it's located in the decor section and not misc/misc with all the other mod objects I use for setting up neighborhoods, and I haven't done this in a while.

Oh! One last question: Is it safe to change a Sim's name in SimPE? I feel like I remember reading somewhere that you shouldn't do this as it doesn't properly update all references to their name, and that you should use a mod instead. I do have the Last Name Copier, but the reason I haven't used it in this case is because I want to change the grand vampire's name but I was worried it won't let me keep the Contessa prefix as I believe there is a character limit when setting names in-game. Again, could be wrong about that or misrembering.

SimPE has a bug where it can't properly read sims with split character files, yes. Split character files don't cause problems and are read properly by the game, and they often show up with NPCs.

Killing sims does not delete their character files or cause them to be Unknown in SimPE. If HoodChecker is not showing unexpected missing character files, I wouldn't worry about it.

Yes, you can change sims' names in SimPE. The only thing that doesn't always get changed is that if you change the first name it might not display the right name on error logs that happen with that sim, but you can fix that by just editing the name of the OBJD in the character file.

The only problem I've had with split character files is with another mod. For example, I have mods that allow generated townies and NPCs to have the fat state, or facial hair. I noticed that this causes certain NPCs (for example, the butler or Nanny) to generate with split character files. Sometimes, that split character isn't readable by the AltSimSurgery plugin in SimPE (the sim doesn't show up as an option to do surgery on). So, I try to edit the sim's appearance in-game with an updated version of closetgussyup. But using that will break the sim so that the game crashes when the sim appears on a lot.
So, I would recommend to make sure to backup before changing things in a split character file sim in-game, just in case!
The example above doesn't per se show a problem with the mods I use, nor the split character file- just a side effect of trying to mod under unusual circumstances.

To be clear, I don't mean actually killing sims by making living sims dead; I mean using the "keep" or "kill" options when generating a sim with the Townie Gun. Basically the gun generates a sim and then you can choose whether to "make them real" (keep) or get rid of them and try again (kill). I don't see any extra character files in SimPE indicating that any of the "kill" sims actually exist, but it's also possible I quit without saving after doing that out of concern that it was in fact creating data for the generated-but-not-kept sims. I'm just frustrated I can't find any proper explanation of how this works online—one person on Reddit claims the Townie Gun does indeed generate (and then destroy) character data for these sims, but guides and wikis make no mention of this, though they don't explicitly say anything to the contrary either.

Either way, thanks. I'll keep an eye out but try not to worry about it. It's possible these Unknown sims are regular object NPCs that aren't listed by name; I didn't cross-reference with other neighborhoods to check, anyway.

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And thanks simsample; I knew about split character files but I wasn't sure whether it was related to anything I did or may cause issues further down the line. I can't remember if I still have that townie/NPC diversity mod, but I was able to successfully perform Sim Surgery on the sim in question, so if I do I guess it's not affecting that.