Someone did make a power plant and a solar plant that was once featured here, I do believe. I have it ingame-the Simyuan Solar Power plant and the adjacent solar panel array. Too bad it got taken down, but it's the closest to a 'green power' plant ever made here.

I hate the new layout for downloads, and that they removed a whole lot of stuff we used to have here.

Sometimes change is not good.

Since I had a long hiatus, I've missed a few things. Obviously I noticed the downloads page had changed. Were several things taken down? And for what reason?

I have no idea, but I think they must have removed some things. I don't like the layout anymore, and the search function is not as good as it was. I don't know why they changed it but there's an old, old saying: "Don't fix what ain't broke".

They should have heeded that advice.

Nothing has been removed- unless the creators have removed it. A lot of downloads I use in-game are no longer on this site because the creators have deleted it.
https://modthesims.info/m/showthread.php?p=5736506

On the topic of downloads... I mean this in the most positive way possible, but as someone who doesn't play Sims totally regularly, I get so overwhelmed sometimes by how many things I want in the game that have come out in the past like 7 years that I just can't. I have literally spent 3 or so hours this evening just downloading stuff and throwing it in my game and I can't. find. a. stopping. point. @Michelle is a godsend but there's so much furniture I want in all the wood colors!!!!!!

I talk about this to my friends who don't play and they just don't understand. It makes my heart happy while also giving me a lot of anxiety.

You don't need those things to play. Add in a handful of them, open the game, and play. Build, make a family, play a premade, whatever. It'll take forever to integrate all that new stuff into your game. Once you've internalized the fact that you can play and have fun before everything you want is added in, you'll be able to add stuff a little at a time and get some play in.

You shouldn't have to pay for a happy heart with anxiety.

How do i disable the build buy mode songs? I want to hear the in game radio but am so sick of the build/buy music, disabling all the songs individually didn't work. UC is so annoying sometimes.

I don't like having 100s of recolours - I just find it takes too long to choose. A few is plenty.

But it's true there's never a stopping point for downloading! Twas ever thus Sometimes I go on a downloading spree, other times I just play.

I wish there was a way to sort the recolours of an outfit like they are in Sims 3/4, where you click on an outfit and a pop-up window with the available colours shows up. It would keep the CAS screen a lot tidier.

I've been playing around with ACR recently, in the past I always used jealousy over-rides but this time I decided to try to let each sim have their own individual jealousy settings, as is the way the mod originally comes. I thought it'd add more personality to my sims, and I've been trying soo hard to keep playing like this, but I just can't anymore. I moved Sam Thomas and Ty Bubbler, who had graduated/got expelled from college not too long ago, together into an apartment because they had been dating back in college. They were completely faithful to each other in college, but after moving them in, and while playing a different apartment resident, I catch Ty woohooing in the hot tub with some random townie apartment neighbor, while Sam just watches and doesn't care one bit!! I know that relationships like this exist in the world, but it's definitely not to my own personal preferences and, it is making nearly all of my sims behave this way too. It's not even a rare occurrence. I can't lie, I really hate it. I think I'm going to try going back to setting the jealousy over-ride to In Love at least..

Anyway, sorry, this is sort of disjointed from what everyone else is talking about here, but I thought since it's a "random thoughts" thread it'd be a good place to vent this.

At this point, I think the sims 2 toddlers' screaming to get out of bed triggers a response in me similar to my phone's alarm music. I just heard it in a youtube video and got shivers sent down my spine. I think I might have a problem.

Sounds like you need toddler beds.

Y'all know how there are teen voice files for woohoo? I think if the game came out today someone on twitter would definitely try to cancel it because of this, overlooking the fact that it's because young adults have teen voices

Toddler beds are absolutely essential in any home where there are toddlers equal to or more than the number of adults!

Ginger and Gavin Newson say that teens are just as capable of looking after toddlers as any adults.

Just gonna leave this here and pretend I don't feel super attacked right now...

Thought on the subject of motherhood, by Gloria Jones, superstar player for Veronaville All-Stars, and mother of Veronaville teenager Andrew Jones:

'Sometimes, when I look at my son Andrew, I think, "I must have done something right!"'

Or any toddler.

Maybe, but Sims 4 essentially has teen woohoo built into the game, and it seems to be doing okay.

Hmm, yes, I agree! But in this case it's not about capability of looking after them. It's just that toddlers not being able to get out of bed on their own makes it very difficult to care for multiples, even if you have plenty of adults/teens who could theoretically do so, because there is a lot of back and forth and because if the toddler is sharing a room with anyone they will wake them up by crying as soon as they wake up. I was more thinking along the lines of a single parent / two parents with twins or more.

I don't have the mod to allow toddlers to climb out of the crib since I like the fact in vanilla they will only do this if they have learned to walk and been left in the cot for too long. It's a nice detail IMO! I also don't use the magical soundproofing floor dividers because... I like my game to make sense And what's the point of making them poor in a teeny tiny house if there is no downside to that teeny tiny house?

Nah man that's totally me with BaST. Great idea, great concept, but when I tried implementing it things turn into a shitshow and I had to cancel it.

Btw, haven't been active in Sims 2 community lately due to covid related incidences..... so how's everyone?

Hanging in there, and playing. Been dealing with Covid-19 for over a year now and it's still a dumpster fire.

Otherwise than that, fine.

I don't know if I'd have been able to survive the pandemic and lockdown if I hadn't been able to escape regularly to a place where nobody was wearing masks or getting vaccinated, or observing social distancing. Where all the shops and the restaurants and the nightclubs were open. Where the nightclubs stayed open all day in fact. Where nobody was talking about Covid-19, and where attractive and interesting people were freely hanging out together, and hugging and kissing each other . . .

. . . Oh! I do love Veronaville! :lovestruc

It occurs to me that I made a backup of my Strangetown not very long ago, so I theoretically could restore that and see how much longer it would last. But there's no point in doing so if it's just going to corrupt to unloadability again.

In the end, Peni, only you can decide whether it's worth reverting to backup. I suppose it depends upon how much of yourself you've invested in it, which in turn is probably related to how long you've been playing it. I know if it was Veronaville, I'd want to try restoring from backup a few times, before I gave up on it. But I've been playing Veronaville for eight and a half years now, and I've invested an awful lot of myself in the neighbourhood and its characters. Like your Strangetown, it's the original Maxis-shipped version (I've been playing it from the day I first started up the game). So hearing of your problems worries me more than a little.

Maybe it's easier to give up on a repeat play-through of a Maxis 'hood than on a long-running custom 'hood. It must have been a terrible wrench to stop playing Drama Acres. It seemed full of fascinating complex characters that I really feel would have been worth getting to know. (Pigeon Hawkins and Sage Ann Onions come to mind.) With so many custom characters, our Veronaville feels more like a custom 'hood. (I say "our" Veronaville rather than "my" Veronaville, because I feel that so much of the credit for what we have achieved belongs to my Sims.)

I think in your position, I'd try restoring from backup at least once. Otherwise you'll always wonder what might have happened.