So, I had this idea for an object, but part of its functionality (moving Sims between families but keeping them in a "holding" place in between when they leave family A and when family B moves them in) seems like it would be most easily achieved by storing them in another family dedicated to only holding the Sims this object is handling.

I know such a thing would be possible (its functionality in that area would not be terribly different from the move in/out plants from Simlogical for instance, except for there being a "middleman" family), but I'm wondering if it'd be possible to hide such a family from the CAS screen (i.e. like the Default, Townie, Vacation families, etc.). This is partially for clutter reasons but also because it's theoretically possible such a family could end up with more than 8 members and I don't wanna crash the CAS screen.

Are hidden/NPC families hidden by the engine? Or is it something that can somehow be dictated (i.e. via an object or editing something)?

I've seen some code in the game where it checks to see if the family number equals something or the other, so I think the Townie family has a specific number. I don't know what other family numbers the game might hide besides that one, but you could probably test it...

I've also seen some code where the NPC's have a person type equal to the constant in the BCon 8196.2.

Edited to add: Looking at Person Globals, the BHAV that gives jobs to the Townies has one line that checks to see if the family number is 2000 and another couple that check if the family numbers are between 3001 and 3009.

Yeah, if I crack open the neighborhood iff, it looks as if:

- Default is 0 (I already knew this)
- Townies are 2000
- Vacation families are in the 3000s (1-9)
- Strays are 4000
- Celebs are 5000/5500
- Strange is 6000

(IIRC all of these have a house number of 0 so if you managed to follow an NPC off-lot you'd end up at House00. Granted, from what I've seen playing around in Edith, any family not in a house is house 0.)

...Vacation in particular I'm really curious to know if only 3000-3009 are hidden or if the game hides, like, the entire 3000s. Or even if every number north of 2000 or something is hidden.

...Now I just need to figure out how to get a family to have a specific number. *starts playing around in a random UserData folder I don't actively use for other testing in case this blows up the whole neighborhood*

EDIT: Changing the Goth Sr. family in the Neighborhood iff changed their export file ID to 3010 properly but did not hide them in the neighborhood screen. Test 2 will be to make a random Vacation family ID 12 (the Goth Sr original ID, just to be nice and neat about this) and make the Goth Srs that ID to see what happens.

EDIT 2: The Goth Srs have been successfully isekai-ed sent to the Shadow Realm put on a permanent Vacation. The Turtledoves are now in town. This strict Vacation family range does not bode well for other large IDs being hidden, but... I'll still test them.

EDIT: 2001 does not hide. (I'm not willing to make the Townies a visible-in-CAS ID for testing purposes (so that I can make the Kats 2000) due to the family's size potentially crashing it. I'm just going to assume any family with 2000 as the ID will hide.) 4001 does not hide. 5001 does not hide. 6001 does not hide. I think it may be safe to assume it hides only the very specific family numbers it generates for townies/etc. (Which is great for if someone ever makes 3000 families in one game, I guess! But bad for finding a way to utilize a hidden family.)

I wonder if that means if I don't want to do something convoluted (i.e. hijacking a vacation family) then maybe I need to do this some other way, like setting up everyone that gets moved with some sort of specific aspect in their persondata or something...

Then again. Maybe I CAN utilize existing hidden families if I want. The idea I have is very specifically child-related: I have two ideas--the other one might need to be handled differently anyway, but the one I'm looking at right now is moving orphaned kids out of their newly parent-less households and into a pool where they can be adopted via a phone call/custom NPC. So maybe I can put all the children into an existing hidden family like the townies that only has adults under normal circumstances and then when I need to find them with the object, I just look in that family for kids. 🤔

So... I'm bumping this nearly-two-year-old post just to sort of add an info tidbit for anyone else/reminder to myself to double check this:

I'd been testing the adoption service object this goes with and had set it up to allow move-ins and visits for the orphaned kids who I had placed in the Default family. The move-ins work fine, but if you've got the kids on your lot too late as visitors, it's POSSIBLE the game will treat one or more NPCs like their parents and bring them on-lot to try to retrieve them. In this scenario if it's someone like the police or fireman, it might trigger a fine! More investigation needed! (I had them in the Default family for these tests because it's the only hidden family ID in base game and I was working on base game compatibility.)

I admire your persistence!