Wow, what have you done to Chester? Every time I played him, no woman with brown hair was safe - and that was before I learned about ACR! Sounds intriguing, though!

SimPE question - is there a way to disable the program from showing that warning when booting up every time?

I don't know specifically, Snufflepaws, but I don't get any warning when I boot simPE on Windows 8.1. Can't recall whether I did on Windows XP. Now I'm curious about said warning!



I have had it work, Sunbee, but indeed it seems up to chance whether they manage to find a sofa or bed they can use. There is no bed-ownership system used on a hotel lot, which is why TwoJeff's Smart Beds will not help that problem either.

(I personally have liked that their lack of routing limits, at least until they actually try and go there, means that some sims who become pregnant on vacation don't manage to throw up, since they keep picking toilets they can't access, which just cancels their attempt. Though also...that's rather funny, isn't it? You need to throw up, but the toilet you want isn't available...so suddenly you just no longer need to.)

My Simpe is in French and I'm not great at explaining technical stuff in English but I do in French. :-)
You have to go to the menu Extra < Preferences then "Simpe Parameters" and untick "Show the loading screen" (loose translation from my online dictionary so I hope I made myself clear).

Can't seem to find that option in preferences Essa.

I'm talking of the warning that says about detecting a new expansion pack and SimPE only working up to M&G.

It looks like @marka had this problem and got it solved here.

And someone else had the issue here but the help given didn't work; I mention it in case it helps you, Snufflepaws.

ETA: Possibly not very helpful, but to just throw at it everything else I know (not much, lol), I run SimPE v. 0.72.1.33855 (whew!), and I have never had that message. My SimPE is a fresh install to this machine, never upgraded from another version. The only thing I did to it was install Aaroneous' fix to SimPE's data files , to get it to recognize my UC game correctly.

Awesome, getting the patch worked. Thank you Natboopsie.

No kidding! I'm amazed; thought that'd be the least helpful thing I said.

By the way, credit to marka, because he was the one who often posted about that patch back when it first came out. I just linked to Aaroneous' site directly because I saw he had made his own thread about his patch.

Happy to have helped.

Is red hair dominant over brown? Especially second generation brown? I have a red head married to a man with brown hair and both of his parents have brown hair (CAS sim and Amin Sims). Out of their ten children, nine have red hair while only one (the very last one born) has brown hair. Does Amin actually have red hair or something that allows so many red haired babies to be born to his son or is there something I a missing here?

brown and black are dominant over red and blonde. You can check in simpe what your sims dna is and if one of them has a recessive red hair gene.

Roseblossom90, did you maybe download one of the genetic equality mods here? Because what you describe: red/red and brown/brown, should give all children brown/red, with the brown as dominant.

You should look at the recessive hair color in SimPE to be sure. I have done a lot of studying of genetics, so I would guess that the brown hair man has a recessive for red. You said that his parents both have brown hair -- a CAS sim and Amin Sims. CAS sims always have the same dominant/recessive genetics (so probably brown/brown). However according to the Sims Wiki, Amin Sims actually have genetics for red hair instead of brown, which would explain how their child would get a recessive for red hair. So that would mean that this man having children with a redhead would have a good chance for redheaded children. There is also a good chance for children with brown hair, but chances can be one sided for a while with a small sample set of 10. (It is also possible that you have a "first born syndrome" issue going on to produce several redheads, so you might want to check out their personalities to see if they are the same.)

^ agreeing with the above. Pre-made sims in at least the base game hoods can have different genetics to what they show. Kaylynn Langerak (the maid who's entwined with Don Lothario and Daniel Pleasant) is actually blond despite showing as having black hair. She'll always have black-haired babies with Don, but with Daniel she'll have only blond or red-haired babies with Daniel despite supposedly having black hair.

Besides that, one sim with red hair and one with brown hair (and red recessive) would have 50-50 odds of having a kid with either brown or red hair. I wouldn't say it's one-sided to have 9 redheads and 1 brunette though -- statistics and samples are usually based on much much larger sample sets, and a run of one particular result aren't uncommon.

It seems I misunderstood your issue, sorry.

Phil Jitsemakol also have brown hair, even though he is blond.

There is a patch for M&G however I installed simpe at least 3 times with that patch and that message never went away until I got a new computer and reinstalled sims 2 and simpe, the exact same simpe and patch. Never had that pop up again. it worked fine with the pop up, it was just annoying.

Mostly true! Occasionally, as by a freak accident, one of the children *may* turn out red-haired in such a combo. But indeed not often. It is possible that Amin sims has a recessive red gene that got used often, but even that is NOT very likely.

It *does*, however, happen that premades have a hair color that does not match their genes. As if they were dyed. I've encountered a few in the past. For example, AL's social group townie La Shawn Cameron appears to be black-haired, until you examine her genes, which show that she could ONLY have brown hair. Kaylynn Langerak, if I remember correctly, does originally have one of the recessive colors.
So though I cannot say for certain without looking at Amin Sims' file, it *is* possible that genetically he should have red hair, but was dyed brown.

Can I delete neighbourhoods with sims inside in game without killing my game?

The entire neighborhood? Sure, that is no issue whatsoever. Deleting entire neighborhoods will not affect other neighborhoods you continue to play, whether or not they have NPCs and whether or not those neighborhoods being deleted are corrupt. And you can also use SimPE's Backup Manager (accessible from its Neighborhood Browser) or just manually back up that neighborhood yourself before deleting---that way you can both free up the space and also have the "deleted" hood around to put back in again if you want it once more in the future.

^^ So I could delete all my main 'hoods (except for Belladonna Cove and it's subhoods) and no VBTs would happen, right?

Right, if I understand you both correctly. So just to be sure we're all communicating clearly...

Your game loads, and after it finishes the movie and the loading screen where it talks about reticulating splines and other stuff, it finally shows you all your neighborhoods. The ones with thumbnails on THAT screen are the ones that I am thinking of. You can delete any of those, from that area of the game, without deleting any of the other ones, and the hoods that are left will not be affected. Heck, you can even delete all of them, leaving yourself with only the tutorial hood and a big plus-sign button. No problem.

Exactly what I needed to know. Thanks!

@Gremily_ @selfmadequeen
Bear in mind that this is not reversible though- the neighbourhoods do not go into your recycle bin, they are gone forever! So backup first in case you decide you want that old hood back.

packs
does any pack add new tutorials and/or change previous tutorials?
are there any pre-programed events on their occupied lots besides pregnancies?

Yes, but that's base game. In the expansion pack neighborhoods and subhoods - universities, Bluewater, Desiderata Valley, Riverblossom Hills, and Belladonna Cove - I'm not aware of any preprogrammed story events.

Yeah, I thought those were two separate questions.

Pleasantview had the most with 1 on ever lot with Veronaville having 1 or 2 but I can't remember but I think at least 2.
The Broke household has 2 if you do it right.

Strangetown only had 2 that I can remember.

The others did not have any.

There is a hood made by a group of players over at N99 called Larksville that has a player made controller that works great for that story but the link is not working the last time I checked so I have uploaded it to my Sim File Share account and here is the link http://simfil.es/58955/
If you need any help with this hood please send me a PM on it for now.

How many points can a child earn/lose with Encourage interaction? I know it depends on the age and points of the parent, but I have never tried that interaction.

Depends how much time you devote to it. As many as the parent can give. I've never done any more than 1 or 2 points as each point can take numerous goes at it, it isn't a one time encourage and gain a point, it might take five attempts before a point is gained. .

I agree with @joandsarah77 with the following addition: Four or five attempts is only at the lowest levels, *if* you are lucky... At higher levels, it may take a bit more than that!

Also, there is a bit more to it. If a Kid has two Neat points, and you want them to be neater, you *must* use a parent with 5 or more Neat points. A parent with 3 or 4 will not have the option!

I believe that the age difference and number of points of the parent only affects how quickly the Encouragement changes the younger sim's points, not the number of points possible to gain. A grandparent encouraging a child-age sim can get it done much quicker than a parent encouraging a teen, for example, and an older sim with exceptionally high or low levels in a trait (9, 10, 0, 1) also encourages in that same direction much more quickly than an Encourager with only moderate levels.

My experience has also been that it takes something like 7 attempts or more to change by a single point. Only if you're doing one of the faster combos (grandparent with child, for example) might it go any faster. Encouragement takes quite a lot of patience! (Edit to add: what BO, the ninja above me, said makes sense in combination with my "7" perception---apparently number of Encourage attempts required is on a curve!)

One thing I've not seen often mentioned is that the relationship level between the two sims also matters. Any older relative can encourage a child or teen (or adult, for that matter), but if the relationship is not high enough, the Encouragee will outright refuse to be Encouraged (making a "nuh-uh!" sound in the case of a teen, I recall). Don't know whether high relationship actually makes it go faster, but that would make sense.

If there is a limit to the number of points possible to gain, I would think that an older sim couldn't Encourage a younger one beyond the number of points that they have in a trait. But I also don't know whether that's true---would love to know whether they can just keep going, once they start, at least in the same session, even if they have managed to get the younger sim past their own level of Grouchiness or Neatness or whatever.

And I'm pretty sure if the practice fails no progress is made on the point! Ezekial Gavigan's mother used to try to encourage niceness in him, and he would foil her by going to hug the one person on the lot guaranteed to reject him. (Since the want isn't rolled very often, I use the Encourage interaction in response to particular situations - if Ezekial was being rude, teasing, or picking fights in his mother's line of sight, she'd speak to him about it. Because she would.) He would then come back and shrug at his mom, obviously saying: "See? They don't like me to be nice to them!" When he married 3-nice points Pigeon Hawkins, and they had a one-nice-point daughter, she would do the same thing when her granny or her Uncle Harris tried to encourage Niceness in her. Neither of them's budged on personality, but it makes good storytelling pictures.

I did once get a point change with only 3 attempts but I figured the child must have been somewhat halfway to another point naturally. Another time I had an older sister encourage a younger teen one and although I did not see a point change since I stopped after 3, from then on she could run places when told to go here.

Yes, they don't have to get all the way to 6 Active to be able to run, just a bit above 5, apparently. I noticed that too; I had a grandpa encourage his lazy granddaughter, and only a couple Encourages after she got the fifth point in Active she could run too.

And I admit that one of my favorite things about sims becoming werewolves is that they become more Active (and have other personality changes too, although I use Cyjon's Werewolf Personality so that not all werewolves will end up having the same personality; warning about that mod---though I love it and plan to keep it, as Cyjon says, it creates tokens that must be destroyed in game by one of his other hacks before you can take it out of your Downloads folder, otherwise it will corrupt your game). So Romeo Monty, a premade, starts with 5 points Active, and only a couple of werewolf transformations later (the personality changes a little with each transformation), he could run. He still wasn't (and isn't) at 6 Active either.

...which is not very pleasant to have, if you also have autosoc and want your sims to run a business. The Macrotastics/autosoc combo makes them almost impossible to control in their business. They continuously run outside to try and sell stuff to people who aren't interested, and only use HARD SELL to pendle their wares. And hard sell fails most of the time, but three seconds later, they will simply go back to the same customer and try again, all the while worsening their relationship with said customer.
For that reason, I've removed Macrotastics. Now I don't have that problem anymore.

Good for you! Yes, I have never seen a reason to put it in my game. It does automate lotsa stuff (like it also does College Rampage, which pushes the sim---or is it all YA playables on the lot?---to completely open and fill their Uni grade bar, with caffeinating and bathrooming all handled), but I don't play the game in order to just sit back and watch, so I'm still not seeing why I'd want any of that done for me.

Intrigued that it handles sales so badly. Then again, I was very surprised to see that Pescado himself admitted he had trouble getting Bluewater's Electronics Superstore to profitable levels, so maybe those two things are related!

One more reason not to have Macrotastics: it conflicts with the harvestable herbs set over at Plumbbob Keep. If you have both Macrotastics and the original versions of the herbs, some sims will drop dead with no warning. One of the worst (for sims) hack conflicts I've ever heard of.

Sun and Moon do have nontoxic versions of the herbs (they added them to the same upload page once they heard about the conflict, even though it's a conflict with someone else's hack!), but their original versions of the herbs still will be required as ingredients for some crafting stations they are planning for release down the road. And I'd rather have their stuff over Pescado's any day.

Ooh, while there to get that link, I noticed that Sun and Moon just released a major improvement to their basketweaving crafting station and the reeds you use with it. For example, now you can make 50 functional and decorative items with that crafting station, which includes the original functional woven-basket refrigerators, beds, baskets with slots and chairs/sofas plus now adds a cabinet, toy chest, and many other fabulous things. Those folks are just amazing.

So true!!!

That's how I've felt for a long time now. If there is an issue that only one of Pescado's mods can solve, then I will happily try it out. And I have a folder with about 50 of his mods to prove it. But if any of the issues can be solved in ANY other way than with a Pescado mod, then I'm sorry, but the mod goes out!

A love his Phone hack, and I love autosoc and autoyak, and there are a few others that I appreciate. But there is something about most of his automation that rubs me the wrong way. If I wanted all my sims to follow the same strict regime, I could just as well turn free will off. And if I wanted them all to do everything automatically without any input from me, then I could just as well go watch some reality show on TV. That requires no input at all. Fully automated!

Yes, for as long as I had Macrotastics, I got used to some of the automation, such as macro.../clean, macro.../repair and procrastinate! These commands made a few things much easier, and I miss them now. But at least my businesses are playable again.

.

I actually love macrotastic. Skilling is superboring and macrotastic gets it done in the most efficient manner so I can focus on other things.

Macrotastics makes the game playable for me with my bad wrist. If you've got carpel tunnel in your mouse hand, macrotastics will be your best friend. Much easier than clicking on each individual counter, tub, sink, trash can, whatever that needs to be cleaned.

It's also really good for locating the hidden stash of homework hiders.

about Encourage; the base game Prima Guide tells that the older sim needs 7 or more points to Encourage a positive trait, 3 or less points to Encourage a negative trait.
it also tells that there are 3 factors that determine how strong the Encourage is:
-age difference; an Elder would be more effective than an Adult Encouraging the same sim.
-older sim's Daily with the younger; higher the Daily, the more effective the Encourage.
-older sim's personality level; further away from neutral, the more effective the Encourage. 10 more effective than 7 in Encouraging a positive trait; and I take 0 more effective than 3 in Encouraging a negative trait.
also tells that strongest situation could Encourage 1 skill point in about 2 interactions; average situation, 3 or 4 interactions; weak, 5 interactions.


unrelated to that::
when cloning an object, would it be safe or unsafe for the new object to be in 2 or more function categories (if in Buy Mode)?
would it be safe or unsafe for a Build Mode object to be in 2 or more Build Mode categories?
would it be safe or unsafe for any object to be part of 2 or more sub-categories (if that could be set up)?

No that's not what I meant. This was before I used a no slouch mod and I wnated the teen not to slouch, meaning she needs to get to 4 activity. Well she never did get to 4 because it was a challenge house with far more important things they had to get done so the older sister only encouraged her a few times and the younger sister never gained that 4th activity point, but she could still run. I have a picture of it in a bachelor story I did since she was kind of like the host for it. I had told her (now an adult) to go here and she ran, so I paused and got a picture of it since I was so surprised that a 3 active point sim would run. All I can think is it due to the encouraging to be active she got as a teen.

SciBirg, I agree that book skilling is dull to watch, and I am heavily invested in providing alternatives for my sims. Will edit this post when I have a link to another I'm writing that is relevant to the issue!



OK, now the wrist thing, I can see. Definitely. And when you put it that way...I do use Christianlov's Sim Control Tool II. Chore>Clean gets them to clean everything, and oh yes, my favorite is Chore>Repair, because the sim in question will not only start to repair all broken objects but is guaranteed (whoopee!) to stick with the repairing until done. That may not be desirable if there are broken electrics, but for things like plumbing especially, where low-Mechanical sims will often give up before finishing the fix but can certainly get the job done at no risk to themselves, it's perfect.

And yes, it even has a "Do Homework" option, so the SCTII results in the kid or teen showing you where their homework is as well. I agree, a function like that is handy!

I still see a difference between the Sim Control Tool II and Macrotastics that I find off-putting for the latter, though. It's that Macrotastics is just....too much. I want to decide whether the sim needs to eat or pee or have fun during the process I've asked them to do. I dislike how Macrotastics is meant to do that thinking for me. And of course, there's the not-small consideration that Macrotastics is an invasive mod even by the standard of Pescado's mods, whereas SCTII has never conflicted with a darned thing that I can tell, even sends sims to bed in their Smart Beds --assigned beds if you use Need>Sleep.

One more wrist-saving note: I use and adore this USB vertical mouse . My wrist swears by it...or rather, no longer swears at all now that I have it. Perhaps not for everyone, but just in case anyone else is looking.



That's always neat, to get surprises like that! I'm thinking, though, that it was only that her energy bar was full. Any sim, whether Lazy or Active, will run if their energy bar is full, or nearly so, if you tell them to Go Here *and* the location is at least a certain number of tiles away. (Can't remember whether it's 12 or 15 tiles, but right in that range.)



Similar can be seen with Dig for Treasure (BV, I guess?) and possibly Birdwatching and/or Bug Hunting too. If the sim is well rested, any command that looks to them like "Go Here" (as Dig for Treasure definitely does and the other two also may...not sure), they will run.

What @natboopsie says is true: Under the right circumstances, most sims will run. (nearly) full energy and a long enough distance to cross is enough to get them to do it, even if they have only 1 or 2 points in Lazy/Active.

However, I've noticed that some sims with exactly 5 points can't be arsed to run at all, no matter the conditions.

And I agree with the suggestion to get the manual navigation mod. That one has saved my sanity on many occasions!

I like it that they decide if they want to run or walk slowly - no problem there. I don't always run somewhere myself (oh, actually, I never run anywhere )

Thank you all for informations about Encouraging. I will give it a try, but I would like to incerease Neat points of some children who have just one. Maybe I will just go with SIMPE this time.

I've found the default database, fell in love and started downloading. 828 MB later I realised I need the files to be properly named, otherwise I can't find anything in my folders. But I'm confused by the names of the Maxis clothes. If it starts with am the clothing is for adult males, tf is clothing for teen female, but what about ym and um? Are these clothes for young adult males?

I always drag both a picture of the default and a picture of the clothing it replaces into the folder. a U stands for unisex-or that's the way I have always taken it. Not sure on the ym.

@TychoH, yes, that site is awesome. I really like how it makes it so much easier (because of the way it indexes your defaulting possibilities) to try and get a range of styles that works together. And then if you realize back in game that whoops, you have maybe a few too many of similar styles now, it's easy to pick a few of the replaced outfits and go and get different ones for those instead.

For completeness, here's the list as I understand it:



General tip for organizing Downloads: I use and love LivLukas' method (post 5 in this thread) because as later posters in her thread say (including you, TychoH, and thank you for that information!), it really speeds up loading times. In brief, she does only a single layer of folders within Downloads, no subfolder nesting. You make long folder names instead.

LivLukas gives screenshots so you can see her organization. Mine is very similar, so for example, I might use this...




Smart idea, Jo, dragging the picture! That's a great idea for getting yourself a pic easily for future reference, and I am going to start using it.

I haven't wanted to put photos actually in my Downloads folder because of comments in that same thread I linked above; LivLukas said she shaved 8 minutes off her load times by deleting pics from her Downloads folder itself. My alternative may not be for most people, though I started doing it because I know how late I came to the game, and I know sites are closing and I may in some cases never be able to find cc I use again if I don't just keep a copy for myself.

So, I have a folder somewhere else on my system entirely (in my Dropbox, actually) where I store all cc that I am using in its original ZIP/RAR files that I got from the creator. I delete the stuff out of there that I don't want if I see that it doesn't work for me in game, so it's not as massive as it could get. So I'm thinking that I can put the pics, as Jo suggests, in that archive folder, inside the ZIP or RAR that held the original. (I do not bother to give that set of personal archives the same extensive folder structure as above, just put them in big categories like Clothing-DefRepls and such; but I have an odd quirk of being able to remember and recognize filenames later when needing to check my own records.)

One sad thing I see, is that everyone nowadays calls it "default" while it actually *is* "default REPLACEMENT". Because the "default" is what Maxis themselves made it!
Sometimes it's hard to help people, if they can't use the correct terms. We shouldn't scold them for that, I know. But we shouldn't encourage the use of inaccurate terms by giving the wrong example, either! We should educate them by using the *correct* and *complete* terms.

The Maxis item that is going to be replaced is the "default".
The downloaded item that is meant to replace it, is the "default replacement"!

Yes, BO, sir.
(Hey, I was raised to respect my elders. And you have a point.)

Thank you, @natboopsie

@BoilingOil
Were you using Business runs you at the time because I have to disagree with you?
I ran businesses with it for years. My business owners also do basic sales and dazzle when they got a gold sales badge.

Jo
Pictures is an idea, but I don't do that because of the loading times. My game boots even faster than Natboopsie's and I want to keep it that way, although then I shouldn't download so much...

Natboopsie
Thanks for the list, that makes it clear I've also found a default replacement which started with uu, so that would be more than one age group and unisex... lol.
You're welcome with the organizing thing nice to be able to help someone.

BoilingOil
English is not my first language, so if most people talk about defaults instead of default replacements, I assume it is calle defaults thanks for the correct expression.

@TychoH: my rant was not directed at you specifically, friend. If you don't know, you don't know. I understand that. But there are others here who have been playing a long time, and they know English almost as well as I do (it's not my first language either, by the way), yet they give a bad example.

@Essa

Sorry dear, but you have just triggered the Rant alert!!!



If anyone else is happy to let their game be run or ruined (take your pick) by J.M.Pescado's ego, let them please go ahead. It's their own choice, after all. I have nothing to say about that.
But not me, please.

No offense taken, @BoilingOil and for your information I'm not the disagreer otherwise I would disagree your previous post. I wanted to but decide against it.
I'm not a modder so I can't look through hacks packages and find out their little secrets. Only things I can do is reading descriptions and related threads when they exist. Depending on what people say, the hack makes it or not in my game. I sometimes alter hacks like I did yesterday to allow children to get bottles since I only use Targa's superfridge. Your explanation was crystal clear.
I roughly have 560 hack files in my game. 94 of them are by Pescado so I like to believe my game is not only run by JMP's hacks.
While I see your point, I also have the feeling that there's a huge dislike of Pescado's mods.
I love BRY while I just like Macrostatics (macro/skill for knowledge sims, macro/clean and macro/garden for my farmers). I dislike Bathroom uses you so I don't use it. I barely use autosoc as I'd rather let my sims interact with each other on their own unless I decide otherwise.

Question: can one assume that a 1 kb hack file only does what it's supposed to do?

I wasn't trying to offend anyone, dear. And I don't worry about whoever disagreed with my post. It does not upset me in the slightest. They must not have understood what I was saying

Yeah, with the experience I've built up over the years, it's fairly reasonable to assume that I'm not overly fond of most of JMP's hacks. I've I said something like that a few times already. I use some of them for the lack of better alternatives. But if and when I'm made aware of a way to get the same fix from another mod, then it's bye-bye, Pescado-mod. Actually, if there is a conflict between one of his mods and something else, the "something else" mod is ALWAYS made to load last in my game, so it overrides what JMP has done. That's the only way I can justify towards myself that I have as many as 50 of his mods in my game.

But this dislike of his mods is mainly *because* of his way of doing things. If this interaction between Autosoc and Macrotastics had not existed, - OR if he had properly documented it and offered a way to circumvent it - I might have kept macrotastics, because it was quite useful. Now I will just have to do without. So be it. Poo occurs!

In a 1kB hack file it is still possible to hide something undocumented, but it would not be easy. In most cases, I think the smaller the file, the better the chance that it ONLY does what it is supposed to do. But no guarantees, because on occasion I too have managed to screw such a small hack up.

Looking into my Downloads folder trying to see if I have anything from J.M.Pescado in my game...I have no clue to be honnest. I was just curious, but then I do not know how he name his files..etc.
I just know I HATE MATY site.
Then I got curious again and wondered..what would be BO's first language then?

BoilingOil
Your rant was triggered by my question, I think, but no offence taken

Rosebine
Pescado gives his mods names in lowercases and without spaces, like no20khandouts and abortbedmaking, so not really specifically. But if you've got mods like notownieregen, nostrayrespawn, woohooltwfix and cruplefix, you have his mods.
BO's first language is the same as mine, but that doesn't help you I guess :P

@TychoH: no, it was in fact triggered by someone's response to your question Ah, Dutch too, huh?


@Rosebine: BO's first language is Dutch, the speech impediment that the citizens of Holland - or the Netherlands - suffer from.

As for mods, it's usually advised that people keep their mods separated by where they get them from. So you would put your mods gotten from MATY in a folder MATY or Pescado, so it's easy to figure out what's made by whom.

I hate the MATY site as well, by the way. It's hard to find what you need, sometimes. And most of the regular visitors there are not the kind of people most of us would want to ask for help. Because many of them will just rip your lips off your face for asking what they consider n00b questions. It's not a newbie-friendly environment there. I only go there if I have a direct link to whatever I need. And once I've got what I came for, I'm immediately off to something more pleasant.

Thanks. I have my mods by their name, in a folder. many are loose too. It is rare now that I will get new stuff, since this is an old game, so I leave it this way. Nothing really conflicts or give troubles, all that was sorted years ago. But! there is always a chance, like for that mod I discovered in My Documents a few days ago.
This is just my HACKS folder that is a bit messy though. Everything else is impecable.

unanswered::

about something else::
shipped version of base game penalizes sims for calling late at night (midnight through 6am).
does that change in the shipped version of any pack?
if so, which pack/packs? and is it a setting that gets carried over to the packs after it or is it something that is pack-specific?

I do not think it changes with a pack, I think it may change with a phone hack - made by one and improved by another (who speaks Dutch, I think... "wat ek nogal kan verstaan" - and you may find the mod on the Leefish site )

Ja , baie Nederlandse invloede in Afrikaans, hè?
The phone hack is one of the best things that Pescado ever did, but he *did* make one or two tiny mistakes in it. And you must be very careful which version you install in your game. Have the wrong version, and you get strange problems. Adding my mod to it (let my mod load last!) fixes the little mistakes and makes it all a lot better.

I know Having said this before, Bo, your instructions are crystal clear, and I think all of us appreciate that.

You're most welcome, @TychoH. Yes, I believe you are correct about the meaning of UU.

Mm-hmm, your report about your load-time improvements definitely has helped me with my own Downloads folder organization. Even better, I learned about it before I got the UC and my new, much faster gaming computer, so all my current Downloads could be organized that same way right from the start. Your sharing has played a lasting part in helping my game load quickly!

Quite agree that BO gives very clear instructions. Also agree that his Phone Make-over (hey, if you won't directly plug it, BO, I will!) is a very nice add-on to the game, whether or not one has Pescado's phonehack.

Speaking of phonehack, there's a really great example right on its page of Pescado failing to document but clearly doing something beyond what he does document. See how he subtitles it "phone and taxi hack"? Yet what does he say he changes about the taxi? Nope, I don't see any description either.

By the way, our own @Charity made a list of Pescado hacks that they believed to be fully documented (no functions not listed on the tin), and it's here. In fact..@BoilingOil, if you ever have time, it would be great to have you take a look at that list and see whether you agree. But I do mean if you ever have time. Anytime you have shared your expertise and under-the-hood knowledge, I have appreciated it.

Much appreciated. I sometimes feel a bit uneasy promoting my mods too much. I have my own space on two other forums which should suffice.



Oh, my goodness, ALL of those?? That's not just a few, either, is it? I'll see what I can do, eventually.

In the meantime, there is one that I directly see, for which I would suggest an alternative made by some odd Dutchman who sometimes roams these halls...

In stead of antibabylecture, consider using BO - No Lecture Baby, because it is more effective.

I understand being uneasy about promoting your own stuff. I rarely ever mention my own stuff. To me if I promote it, people would think "well of course she likes her own stuff but that doesn't mean it's any good and I haven't seen any one else mention her stuff, so it must not really be any good." Besides, I don't think my stuff is all that great (I don't do fancy) compared to others and since I have rarely ever seen anyone promote my stuff, it just confirms it in my head. *shrugs*

my last question; I figured out a way sometime before asking the question.
did a few changes to a base game BHAV; I think the one that asks "Is Awake".

@SleepycatDSL, I actually don't know of your mods at all, but I would like to learn more. There's a link in your profile that goes to a site where I am not registered (and I don't generally prefer to register for sites). Is it the case that your mods are only available to see and download by registering on that site?



Er, yes. I am quite aware it was a bit cheeky of me to mention it and ask. But I figure nothing ventured, nothing gained, and if you have time to even just look at a couple, we will already have sounder information than we did before. So thank you for any help you do give...in fact, thank you even for considering it.

You can call up to 2 am with later expansions installed. I do not remember which one. I want to say Nightlife. I don't know if it carries forward or not. I have up to Bon Voyage, but still have Nightlife installed. Maybe there's a wiki entry that says something more definitive.

I've been on a crusade to decipher Pescado's hacks. XD

https://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=551002
https://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=551004
https://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=551005

https://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=533369
https://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=536549

Not that I expect you to go through all these, but if you notice anything I've missed then that would be helpful.

I don't know why they introduced the baby lecturing, seriously.

"How dare you soil your diaper. Use the toilet like a normal person!"
"But I can't walk."
"That's no excuse! You will be hung above the toilet with a rope and hook. Until you learn!"

A lot of my stuff is technically on mediafire but it's the asylums account and I've never gotten around to asking TFM if she'd mind me sharing the links in my sig. I often think that it is too bad I don't have access to that account so I could delete all the old stuff I did that I consider crap.
I'm not sure what your interested in but these would be most of my lots (I think some got missed when they were zipped and uploaded there).

Edited to remove links

I keep telling myself that I should do something about uploading it all somewhere (better organized) but I'm just too tired (health issues) and so years go by and I still haven't done it. My newest terrains aren't in there since they are posted directly on the forum, ditto for some more lots.

Hello again it's been too long for one of my favorite threads lmao.
Long time ago I remember seeing a tutorial on how to change residential lots into apartment lots. Is there one on how to do the reverse?
I've tried to have a look thru the help section & randomly thru the discussion forum but my glasses recently broke (& that's the story I'm sticking to) so having an hard time finding what I'm looking for.

All you need to do is change the lot zoning. When you're on the lot you want to change, simply open the cheat box and type in changelotzoning [type of lot you want]. Then save and exit to the neighborhood. When you re-enter the lot, it should be the type you want it to be. (If it doesn't work, re-enter the lot, make any small change, then change the zoning and save/exit to the neighborhood. Sometimes the change doesn't work if the only change to the lot was to change the zoning.) If you want to change an apartment lot to residential, you'd type "changelotzoning residential" (Without the quotes.) You may need to change out the mailbox, however. I've found that sometimes they change, sometimes they don't. If you end up with the wrong type, there are buyable versions out there.

You can't, however, change zoning if any Sims are living on the lot. You'll need to move everyone out before you change. Otherwise, you'll totally screw up the lot.

I have to use caps - changeLotZoning residential - or it does not work on my pc, so that is something to keep in mind.

Indeed. I can type everything in upper- or lower-case as the mood strikes me, and the game simply accepts it. But on some systems that is not good enough. Nobody knows if it's the installation language, the processor type or the game version that causes this. We only know that it happens.

So usually, the best advise is to follow exact capitalization of the cheats as provided.

Thank you, SleepycatDSL! Oh, you have beach lots...I often like to look at those. Mostly I'm curious about what hacks are out there, but new neighborhoods are interesting to me too. Much appreciated, and I shall download yours and have a look.


Has anyone figured out why that changes from game to game? I mean...that's rather an odd thing to have vary.
Edit: Thanks to BO for answering the question before I'd asked it, lol.

My UC game accepts all lowercase for all stuff you put in the box that pops up when Ctrl-C is used (except household names, I suppose...well, actually, I don't know, because I've never not capitalized those properly), and when I first understood that not everyone's does, I appreciated it for that. As I recall, my up-through-OFB game did the same.

ETA:

Though if there's a mod to simulate that, I don't care to know about it. (Thanks for the laugh, Charity!)

My game has always accepted a properly-spelled command no matter how I typed it in terms of upper-case and lower-case letters (including household names, since I use "familyfunds" often), no matter the EP/SP configuration I run or the machine I've had it installed on. (Which is...um...6 machines to date, I think? All with different hardware/processors, some laptops, some desktops, and one very underpowered netbook. ) So, if I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with the game itself, possibly your base game version? In my case, except for the first install, which was Double Deluxe that I downloaded from EA back before Origin was a thing, I've always used my daughter's Deluxe disc as my "base." Aside from Nightlife, all the EPs/SPs over the years have been installed from various stand-alone games as well as collection packs. (I had several SPs -- and M&G -- via the Fun with Pets and...um, Best of Business, I think it was, collection packs for a while.) So, the only (more or less) constant for me has been that Deluxe disc. (And the Apartment Life disc I bought, but I didn't buy that until...2011? I'd been playing for a few years before that, and I could type cheats however I wanted before I got that.)

Perhaps it has something to do with the language the game runs in? That Deluxe disc of my daughter's is a UK one that she bought on eBay back in the Dark Ages. So, my game is in UK English.

Interesting, thank you, iCad! (And now I will try lowercasing household names as well when using FamilyFunds.)

Well, if we're trying to establish a pattern, my original game, before I had the UC, was on a US basegame-only disc, no pack. The three expansions I got were also US versions (heh, and I remember that I installed them while painstakingly following the order in which I had found they were released, because I'd just come to understand that might help. I remember thinking then that this game seemed very high maintenance. I didn't know the half of it!)

If you are lazy, like me, and you don't want to type it out yourself, there is this wiki article on lot zoning to everything except apartments, which can instead be found in this article.
EDIT: I guess hotels is not in the first article either. Never tried building one so no idea how that works.

As for the caps or not - I believe it is something in the individual configuration of a pc, rather than the game version or just the system. I have UC, I have Windows 10, UK English and I have a quite good pc - but it wants upper case for some (not all) cheats. Some of them will not work without caps, it is not about the spelling. So I just go along and do it that way. The main thing, imo, is that some players need to use caps and others do not, and if cheats do not work without caps, then they may work with them.

They're pretty easy, work much like building apartments. Except that with hotels, you build them as a community lot first (as opposed to building them as residential first, as you do with apartments), making sure you use the hotel room doors for each hotel room and that you have a check-in desk somewhere. When you have everything the way you want it, you change the zoning to "hotel."

ETA, to add to the capital letters discussion: Although once in-game, I can type cheat/commands with or without capital letters with impunity, in my userstartup thing, I have to use the caps in the right places or it doesn't work. So...I dunno. You'd think this would be something that would "improve" with time in that the game would get "smarter" as time goes on, but since Justpetro has the UC (and I don't), that's apparently not the case. Is a puzzlement, as the King of Siam says. It'd be nice to be able to figure it out, but we probably never will.

You're welcome. The beach lots are flat. While I have shared a few mods, they were just edited versions of other peoples.

Thank you so much iCad & JustPetro! I'll give that a try

How do I make townies playable? I have two townies who are really into each other and I'd like to get them a house and start a family. How does that work?

within game Adults & older can be made playable through non-cheat/non-hack ways. Move-In and/or Marry/Join.
Teens & younger; the testingcheatsenabled cheat or either insimenator or its equivalents.
do not know yet about Young Adults.


a question of my own::
how likely would it be for a service NPC to die from any base game death (while on duty)? just wondering.
flies I would guess would be the easiest; fire I would guess would come second.

The teleporter is probably the easiest - teleport them over, move them in, tell them to Find Own Place.

Mootilda walked me through a method that allowed me to put Crystal Vu directly into the Family Bin to move into her own house; but it was a little complicated and I screwed it up once. It involves SimPE. If you really want me to I can probably dig up the notes or find the place (in this very thread?) where she told me how to do it. But the teleporter is simpler.

I'll try the teleporter. Seems least likely to cause issues. So I just need a 3rd party Sim to move one of them in and then they can propose to the other townie?

Cat statue does all that, and is safe (and verry pretty) to use.
http://www.simlogical.com/sl/Sims2P...Teleporters.htm

I would have 2 ways of doing this..
1- One of my own sims could try befriending one of the townie. Once done, my sim could ask to move in. Townie would accept, become playable, and could find own place.
Once in the bin, i would play ex-townie, and wait for that other one to pass by..or else, and then..BOOM...just with normal gameplay.

2- I would use the cat statue to teleport 1 or both. I would then move them in, using cat statue again. Once moved in...send them to the bin with find own place.

That looks useful! If I have UC, do I download the Apartments version or Free time?
Sorry, I am full of random dumb questions today!

I only have ALL the individual packs..and Store Edition. What's in UC exactly?...I will let someone else answer you.
And i see nothing dumb in all your wonderings.

Apartment Life - it came after Freetime, and with the UC you should always download the most recently updated option.

How much does standing someone up for a date effect the relationship?

My sim 'stood his date up' even though he was just about to get into the taxi when I got the pop up message.....so I invited her again once he got to the community lot. I had him propose twice and she denied both times!

By the way, has anyone ever had a "jilted at the altar" situation? I haven't, but I'd like to know if it can be triggered, and how...

Long term needs to be 70 or below and he/she will leave just like Don does to Cassy.




Its a big hit and you need to repair the relationship before you try to propose.

@FranH: Yeah, start a new game in Pleasantview, go into the Goth household, select Cassandra, click the Wedding arch, and choose to get married. In the last possible moment Don will back out, causing the "Left at the alter" memory for Cassie. It will take a while for her to forgive him, if ever!

Oh, that one I know of, and it's the only instance where it occurs in the game in a scenario..I was wondering if anyone has had it besides the 'canon' one.
Although it is a singularly depressing one-Cassie will go into spectacular aspiration failure, and she doesn't forgive him at all for years and years.

It's not an actual scenario, they are simply set up for him to leave due to the relationship points, but he doesn't have to. If the relationship goes up perhaps because they chatted on a community lot while you played another family or they made out before the wedding arch is clicked he may not.

When I recently had started playing Sims 2 my sim left Komei Tellerman at the altar because she needed to go the bathroom.

In the Dutch Pleasantview (at least in Tarlia's cleaned Pleasantview), the notice you get when you first time open the Goth house, it says something about a romantic interaction between Cassandra and Don Lothario to get them married. That made them marry in the Pleasantview where I first let her get pregnant by Don, and the Pleasantview were they first had some romantic interaction at Don's house.