@charmful
That's happened to me a couple of times, and it was always a corrupted climate controller that was causing it. In addition to the "clockstopping" thing, it will sometimes also cause lag, because the game is generating errors that you can't see...unless you have debug mode on. So, if it should happen again, turn on debug mode and let the lot run. Eventually an error dialog will come up about the climate controller. You can choose to reset it or delete it. Sometimes resetting will work, but sometimes it will keep happening, so it has to be deleted. (It will eventually be regenerated.) Yes, moving the family out and back in again will fix it, as well, but IMO turning debug mode on and deleting the climate controller when the error dialog comes up is easier.

@HCAC
It sounds to me like you have something wrong with your game. I'd be willing to wager that it's a mod conflict. I don't often run home businesses, but when I have I haven't experienced that sort of thing, nor have I read about such a thing commonly happening to players. And yeah, like others have said, moving an occupied lot to the bin is one of those VBTs that you should never do. Your neighborhood is now corrupted. Hopefully, if it's a neighborhood you care about, you have a recent backup that you can reinstate. Then, I'd investigate your mods. (Run the HCDU, do a 50/50 of your mods, etc.)

Ok, wow, I never knew that. In fact, what is a 'climate controller'? Is that inherantly part of the game? Well now I know! And yes, that would be much easier than moving everyone out and back in again

I think it's a token that's automatically present on all lots if you have Seasons, and it does what it says on the tin: It controls the weather that happens on the lot. Apparently, it sometimes breaks and doesn't function properly and throws errors which, like I said, you don't see unless you're in debug mode, and you won't necessarily notice anything wrong with the lot...unless you get the "clockstopping" thing or lag that isn't like a reset "jump bug." For me, it seems to happen more often on apartment lots, but it's happened on regular residential lots, too. Also, if it's erroring, it will sometimes prevent the affected lot from loading: The loading screen will just hang forever. If you have debug mode on, the error dialog will come up, you can delete the controller, and then the lot will proceed to load. If you DON'T have debug mode on, the lot-loading will hang forever and the only thing you can do is end the program manually by, for instance, shutting it down in the Task Manager. This is one of the reasons why I always have debug mode on. I don't want to mess around with the cheats that become available that way at all; I just want to be aware of errors that are happening.

In your case...I've done the move out/move in thing, too...and sometimes I've found that it happens again, down the line. So, when you're playing that lot, you might want to turn debug mode on and if the error comes up, you can deal with it that way.

Is there a way to package an entire family together?

I previously cloned individual sims from a CAS family with SimPE and saved them with the body shop, but I was wondering if there was a way I could save them all together. Every time I start fresh I just remake the family in CAS, which is fine. Just wondering if I can skip a step and package them together for future uses.

Like I just remade them tonight, but I plan to adjust some skills/personality points in SimPE before placing them in a house in the neighborhood. Is there a way to save/package sims families with desired points/settings etc so I don't have to do it every time manually?

Hope this makes sense!

Question: I have default replacement skins. All my global NPCs look a bit odd though, with a ring around the neck. You can fix it on normal Sims with Change Appearance, but is there any way to fix it for the others? (e.g. Hot Dog Chef, Charlatan)

about packaging a whole family; the only way I can think of is if they live on a lot (packaging the lot). before packaging the lot, make sure they have no connections with other households; relationships, memories, memory markers, family tree. though if they are newly created, none of those connections would exist.

about Change Appearance; insimenator has something similar that would work on any on-lot character. I imagine insimenator's equivalents also have an equivalent option.

Pretty sure packaging a lot with sims is a VBT, so don't do that. Pretty sure the answer to your questions is no, but perhaps someone who has fiddled with it more than me can tell you.

Sim Blender might be able to help you change appearance, if you place it on the lot. Not sure of anything non-mod that can do that though.

If you build the family in a completely empty neighborhood (i.e. NOTHING BUT UNIVERSAL SIMS) and move it straight into a house with the cutscenes turned OFF (so that it doesn't generate a taxi driver) and IMMEDIATELY package it up - that may be all right. I know Tarlia is of the opinion that this is how the existing lot bin families were made. But if there are any sims at all in the hood apart from that family and the universals, nope, don't package that family to share it.

If you're doing it for yourself, and you understand the risks, that's another thing. You are allowed to risk your own game as you see fit. After all, corruption can hang around for quite awhile before it becomes noticeable; or it can blow up in half an hour.

Are tourists the townies of vacation hoods, so to speak? Just realised I have no other guests visiting my vacation lots.

I'd say yes but mine also show up on my community lots, especially my night club.
I guess it's because I don't have many townies.

So what's the difference between a tourist and a local? I can't seem to find any specific description of locals.

The locals are dressed in a distinctive style appropriate to the setting - kimono in Takemizu, plaid flannel in Three Lakes, and grass skirts and headdresses in Twikkii. Each vacation spot should have its own set of locals, who all know the local gesture and dance. I couldn't swear to this, but I think they're all adults - I don't remember ever seeing a child or teen local.

Tourists are dressed in the travelling clothes that come with BV - shorts, hiking boots, backpacks, fannypacks. They have to learn the local gestures and dances from the locals, just like the playable sims. They include children and teens, who can come home with your playables.

Not exactly. There are Exotic Destinations stealth neighborhood what comes with Bon Voyage and you will get all these tourists and Travellers family already with start of new neighborhood if you don't have Jawusa's empty stealth hood template. Tourists are these who clogg hotels in vacation destinations everywhere where your sims go and they can appear in every vacation destination. There are age groups from children to elder. Even if you didn't install any vacation destination yet, they are already part of your neighborhood and waiting for you to show up in any vacation. Locals are these sims who belong to vacation neighborhood. They appear only if you add that particular vacation hood to your game. They don't go anywhere else and stay at their home and ofcourse they know all their local skills. There are adults and teens in local hoods, usually 8+8. No elders except special sims in stealth lot.

The sims that wear the hiking outfits with backpacks are Three Lakes locals. Not all the folks from Three Lakes are dressed as lumberjacks. Here's a list of the default tourists (I use clean templates, so my tourists are all randomly spawned).

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Tourists

I seem to recall that some of the default Maxis tourists have jewelry that can't be bought from a display. For example, Willow Trimble has a long silvery necklace that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game (not to be confused with Lindsay Hamilton, who wears the same clothes and hairstyle but doesn't have the necklace). You can see this necklace in Willow's profile picture on her wikia page. I seem to recall that some of the male tourists had bracelets of some kind that were different from the buyable ones. I never made any of the default tourists playable to see if that made their jewelry accessible, but I would think that's the way it's supposed to work. I haven't seen any of this jewelry on my randomly spawned tourists.

@Bubblebeam - if you have notownieregen or some similar mod installed you won't see tourists. I forgot that when I sent Cher Moutardes on her vacation to Takemizu. I exited the game and removed that mod to get tourists to spawn. It worked, but some setting at her hotel was apparently "stuck" since none of the tourists ever checked in (this also allowed AL's Social Groups to spawn, so some people might not want to do it this way). I had to move Cher out to another hotel (which did get tourists checking in), bulldoze the one she had originally been staying at, replace it with a fresh copy from the bin, and move her back in to get tourists to check in there.

Alternatively, you could make your own custom tourists in CAS. I don't remember how to do that. I only remember that it's a bit more complicated than making ordinary townies. Somebody else here probably knows where there's a tutorial for doing that.

I see those hiking outfits in all three vacation destinations, though.

http://modthesims.info/t/529698

I believe this was the tutorial RoxEllen1965 was thinking about. It explains how to build hidden lots, tourists and locals.

That's very odd. I still have two old neighborhoods that were made from Maxis templates and I just confirmed with Paladin's Visual Teleporter in both of them - none of the default tourists are wearing backpacks. Several of the men do have the fanny pack things though. Some of the teen tourists are wearing outfits that local teens also wear, but none of those have backpacks either.

Have you made any of your tourists playable so that the game would generate replacements?

Is there a way to use SimPE to check what "family" those characters with backpacks are assigned to? It occurs to me to wonder if you have Three Lakes locals showing up where they shouldn't be.

Oh, so it's notownieregen that's preventing it. I thought that mod only applied to regular townies. That explains it then. So if I do the same thing with removing it temporarily, letting tourists be created, then adding the mod back in, will those tourists still visit? I'm guessing yes since the mod only prevents creation and doesn't act as a visitor controller, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Teens Joe Grundstrom and Gordon Nott, who I believe are both tourists rather than playables. You can check what household a sim is in with SimPE, simply by arranging the browser in order by the "Household" column; but I couldn't swear to you that all tourists are in the same household.
It's awhile since I played Drama Acres and I do make things up....but I distinctly remember thinking that the tourist outfits, specifically the ones with backpacks, looked too warm in Twikkii.

Your feeling was wrong. Joe is really from Twikkii : http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Joe_Grundstrom
Both are locals : http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Gordon_Nott


Now I understand why you thought you didn't seen any teen locals. You thought they were tourists.

Also teen locals can be brought from school with your teen. Good way to learn greetings and dance. And Pong Grundstrom will teach you tai-chi.

Should a campground lot be zoned as community or lodging?

Lodging, I believe.

I think any place you are intending sims to sleep overnight should be a lodging lot. Sims don't usually have the option to sleep on community lots.

can the terrain/water/roads/trees of a neighborhood be converted to a SC4 file? or must those things need to be manually created within Sim City 4?

Assuming that we're talking about a lot destined for a vacation subhood, then lodging. Otherwise, community. Although I've seen it said that hotels work in main neighborhoods and non-vacation subhoods; I've never tried it myself. So, I guess you can probably go either way in that case. My campground is a community lot. Since I have sleeping/skilling on community lots mods, it works the same way as the campground in the Maxis Three Lakes. No tour guide generates, but you'd only want those in vacation subhoods, anyway.

According to Mootilda you cannot convert existing neighborhood terrain into SC4 file

That's wrong though, since I've seen that being possible (who do you think people add roads to the Pleasantview or Strangetown hoods for example?).

Mootilda has even made a tutorial on how to do it...

@Prah
By the phrasing of the question, I think @mdsb759 was asking how to extract a terrain from a Sims 2 neighbourhood, rather than amend an existing SC4 terrain from which a neighbourhood is made.

It's true that the Hood Replacer allows the SC4 terrain from a neighbourhood to be replaced, but the Hood Replacer will not allow extraction of a terrain for use in SC4. If you read on down in the thread to which you linked:




And, more recently:

http://modthesims.info/download.php...235#post4288235


http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...470#post4334470

Is it true that if you have a business lot combining dining and regular item selling, the customers will only be attracted toward the dining? I've heard that before, but I have a lot with 2 shops side by side. A restaurant and a store selling beds. Could this work in any way if the above is true?

I've heard it's the other way around, actually, that the restaurant will be ignored in favor of the item-selling store. I seem to recall reading about people who had a restaurant with a gift shop who said that the gift shop did a fine, booming business but that no one ate in the restaurant. I could be remembering it backwards, but I DO know that some people have said there are issues. I've never done such a scenario, myself, so I couldn't tell you from experience.

Perhaps it's a case of one of the two having higher advertising, but being a business it might not be as simple as changing some numbers like it is for an object.

If anyone has happened to try this scenario please let me know what you found.

So I just started seeing these words tossed around, though I'm guessing the play style has been around awhile, what are these "integrated neighborhoods" People are talking about, and how would they differ from a Regular Sim Neighborhood?

It should work that way. I put notownieregen back in after letting my tourists spawn and they visit community lots and check into hotels just fine. Unfortunately AL's Social Groupies are apparently spawned at the same time as tourists, so Bayside Flats is now infested with Social Groupies. No big deal, just annoying.

There is a mod to stop social townies moving into apartments, two actually. One makes it so regular townies move in, the second makes it so no townies at all move in.

It's just a play-style. It seemed to be really popular for a short while circa 2008 and then seemed to kind of...die. It's rather labor-intensive, so if you go whole-hog into it, I imagine it'd be pretty easy to burn out on it. Many people who ran them blogged them in such a way as to try to make them seem like a real town, with a regularly-"published" newspaper and law charters and a tax system and "council meeting notes" and stuff like that. Some examples, via the Wayback Machine (so not everything works):

Isle of Thyme, which was apparently the original one. Its site apparently went up and down a few times because the creator seemed (IMO, at least) rather...hmmmm...touchy and kept having a hissy over "copying" and then taking her toys and stomping away from the sandbox.

Apple Valley

Windlebridge, which is medieval

By comparison, what I'm currently experimenting with is simply creating a neighborhood with actual, playable supply chains, in order to make the neighborhood increasingly self-sufficient as time passes, with progressively fewer things just magically appearing out of nowhere. For example, things like a bar would have to have a supplier of booze. That would be a playable household with custom winemaking crafting stations (and pretending that they make other kinds of booze). That household might, in turn, buy their grapes from another household whose "business" is just growing grapes. They would be the "anchor" of that supply chain and so would be the place to start, adding successive "higher" links in the chain once they can be supported by the "lower" links. So, it's "integrated" because the households are dependent upon each other to a greater-than-usual degree than they are in a "regular" neighborhood.

I put hotels in my main hood and it is still zoned as lodging - Sims can book in and sleep over there for the night. I'd guess a camping ground would work the same way.

Found this on the rtfm of apthack: "Cash exploit for fixtures removed: You can no longer receive free cash merely for moving into an apartment and then moving out because you are not charged for the value of fixtures, but are still credited for them on move out: Sims must pay an initial deposit equal to the sell value of fixtures in their apartment, which is returned via the normal move-out process."
What exactly does this mean?

In a vanilla game, a household moves into an apartment without paying for the fixtures/fittings/furniture. When the household moves out they receive the value of the fixtures, fittings and furnishings, even though they never paid for them. With the mod, when a household moves into an apartment they have to pay a "deposit" for all of the fixtures, fittings and furnishings that are in there - things like kitchens, toilets, baths, any furniture. The "deposit" is equal to how much the objects cost when purchased through Buy Mode. When the household moves out of the apartment they receive the "deposit" back.

For example:

Laura Sim moves into an apartment. The weekly rent is $1,000 and the furniture in the apartment is worth $5,000. Upon move in Laura Sim pays $6,000 - the weekly rent plus the "deposit". When Laura Sim moves out several weeks later she receives her $5,000 "deposit" back (as the game sells the furniture when she moves out and she gets the money for this).

Without the mod:

Laura Sim moves into an apartment. The weekly rent is $1,000 and the furniture in the apartment is worth $5,000. Upon move in Laura Sim pays $1,000 - the weekly rent. When Laura Sim moves out several weeks later she receives a "free" $5,000 (as the game sells the furniture when she moves out and she gets the money for this).

If I were to move a Sim to an apartment valued at, say, 200000 simoleons, they would have to pay 200000 simoleons first, and then the rent. So, basically the apartments are like regular houses, meaning you have to "buy" them. Did I understand right?

Sort of! They don't pay for the actual building - i.e. the walls, flooring, fences etc - and they don't pay for things located outside their unit. So, if a household moved into an apartment block that included three units and a communal area, they would only pay for the fixtures, fittings and furnishings inside their unit, not for anything else.

So, in the EA mobile home park, for example, the household would pay for the fixtures, fittings and furnishings (i.e. lights, kitchen counters, fridge, stove, bath, sink, toilet and any other furniture, like beds and sofas) that were located inside the unit that they were renting. They wouldn't pay for the actual buildings themselves, the things inside other units or the objects/trees/shrubs/flowers/etc in the communal area.

Apartment Unit A's furniture costs a total of 10000. The rent is 2300/week. At move in, the Sim would have to pay 10000+2300, correct?

Correct :-)

Yes I've seen those and I have Cyjon's mod that uses ordinary townies for apartment neighbors, but what I really need is a no regen mod that allows tourists to spawn but bans Social Groupies (I don't know whether selective bans like this are even possible). There are no apartments in Bayside Flats, but the game generated all the Social Groupies anyway when I allowed it to spawn the tourists.

Open For Business.
when running any business, would the business owner be counted as an employee?
and would the other household members also be counted as employees?
with or without mods on both questions.

No, and no. The business owner is the owner - he receives no salary. Owners and household members can be worked half to death in a business when the household is being played, but cannot be hired as employees, and the owner will be the only one who appears on the lot when visiting the business from other households. Employees may be hired from among townies or playables, teen and older, and all employees will be in the store when visited from other households.

There is a mod that allows household members to be hired as employees, but I couldn't tell you who it was by or how it works.

Okay...how do you resurrect a Sim if no one knew them? I just lost a pregnant Sim in my medieval hood and I am not happy...I tried moving in a guy into her house and...I cant get her back with the Resurrect-O-Nomitron or by making him an evil warlock and creating a zombie. WHAT DO I DO.

And yes, I'm an idiot that thought I could use the Resurrect-O-Nomitron so I exited and saved...

I really shouldn't have put in that realistic sickness lol

Perhaps using the Sim Blender or Manipulator, set the relationship between the living and dead sim? No idea if deceased sims even appear in the options, but worth a look.

I cheated like the master cheater I am. I made the new guy "know everyone" with boolprop testingcheatsenabled on shift-click on the mailbox, and clicked on the Sim that she was JUST talking to before she died. Then addneighborToFamily cheat and added the new girl, who then resurrected my girl.

Phew.

That might have been a bad idea. Pretty sure that makes it so that your Sim "knows" characters they shouldn't. Like the universals. I'd make sure your object files in your Program Files haven't been changed. If they have, you may have corrupted your install.

You may want to undo that 'knowing everyone' in simpe since it may be hood breaking. Go to the relationship panel and untick the known box.

SimPE doesn't work for me. It's just my test hood anyway...but I believe I shall kill him just to be safe.

But if the Universals have changed, killing him won't help. Check your objects packages.

Does anyone know what checking 'Versioned Backups' does when using the Hood Checker? It doesn't really explain in the window so I've always left it, but I'm always curious.

New question - is there anything that can be done within SimPE to keep Rebecah's farm animals on a community lot? As it stands they disappear and have to be re-bought with each visit.

I don't think so. I once thought the disappearing was because community lots don't save. I tried to get around this by making the lot residential first and then changing its zoning. Didn't work. Then I tried it as an owned lot. Still didn't work. I like to tinker with things, and it might be possible to alter them in SimPE, but since they're so complex, I think they might be easily broken, as well, and I haven't wanted to mess with it. I'm kind of thinking it'd be the NPC file that you'd need to mess with, but I can't make heads or tails of it, myself. Bit it might be the meshes you'd need to mesh with. Perhaps ask Rebecah herself? She's active on Affinity Sims and a really nice person.

My stupid question of the day is about inventory. Anyone know if there's a limit to the number of items a Sim can carry in their inventory? And if there is, is that a limit on the total of all the items or is it a limit on the number of types of objects that can be in inventory? For instance, say the limit is 200 and I have 200 tomatoes in a Sim's inventory. Is my inventory now full or does that batch of 200 tomatoes count as one "type" and I can still have 199 other types of objects, of which I might have 200 of each?

I saw your question on tumblr too but I'll answer here too : as far as I know, there isn't a limit. I've never reached it but I have a produce farm and they have had 200 + of different fruits and veggies (i.e 2010 lemons, 190 oranges, 230 Apples, etc) in their inventory without trouble.

According to Wikia, there is no inventory limit for Sims 2, or Life Stories if anyone plays it. (:

sim jobs (if Open For Business is installed).
can a sim open a business if they have a carpool job and/or are an employee of another sim-owned business?
can a sim become an employee if they have a carpool job and/or are a business owner?
can a sim get a carpool job if they are a business owner and/or are a business employee?

As far as I can recall:


Yes and yes.


No and yes.


Yes and no.

Carpool job and being an employee can't occur at the same time (because they both count as careers for a sim), but sims can own a business and have a carpool job, and I'm pretty sure they can own a business and work in another sim's business as well (because owning a business doesn't count as a career, unlike having a carpool job or being an employee).

Can someone give me the link to the simblr that has the story about several tribes of prehistoric Sims with supernatural elements? I think the person's username starts with an H.

http://heimlichbourger.tumblr.com/

If you only want to follow one simblr, this is the one!

I wanted to do an outing between a mother, her husband (step-father) and her teen children. The children are living with their father on another lot.
I create a group with the four of them. Once on the community lot, the teens left immediately.
Is this normal behaviour? Teens are 100/100 with their mother but don't know their step-father yet.

Thanks.

Essa, was it past curfew? ETA - although I thought younger sims would stay if they were in a group no matter how late it got. Maybe their needs were low?

Teens in a group or on a date will stay on a community lot if the curfew hour arrives while they're on it; but changing to another community lot at or after curfew will result in them leaving. Which is one reason I don't do teen jobs without a powerful incentive - by the time a teen comes home from a job, calls for a date or outing, the taxi arrives, and everybody gets out of the taxi, odds are good it's curfew time.

Ok, now I have to ask a really dense question-I've forgotten if there's a internal 'curfew' time for all pixels on un-owned community lots-because I seem to have them all leave after 11, and they are adults.

I don't think so - it seems that there is something in the programming that makes sure that your Sim sits around alone at a community lot at times - but the same Sims who have left may well come back a bit later too. My Sims really spend huge amounts of time on community lots - so patience often (though not always) seems to pay off.

Not exactly curfew but they leave in bunch if there arrive any NPC, a head witch or vampire. If you have these banned by Visitor Controller all visitors will stay until their needs will go really down.

I have never known sims to leave in a bunch if head witches or vampires arrived.

Count Ralph of Drama Acres would have an easier life if they did, since there wouldn't be anybody around for him to get into fights with.

I don't know. In vanilla game I remember there wasn't that kind of problem. Maybe Visitor Controller itself causes it.

There is a grill inside Han's Trap Door Corps (I think that's what the clothes store is called). Sims cook up hotdogs on that thing all the time.

Why doesn't the grill start fires? Is it because it's a community lot? I know there's an apartment building with a grill in the basement. A sim slipped past my attention, went down there - and started a fire. I'm assuming the fire was because it was inside, and not because of low cooking skill.

Thoughts?

Here we go I seem to use this topic a lot, Oof. Anyways I had a question, I see on the Essential Mod Lists that they have the AL fixes from MATY/Pescado (I think?) Do you still need the AL Fix mod, or did the issues possibly get patched with either a Compilation pack, or With Mansion and Garden Stuff?

No, you can get rid of that one.

@Kaelem Caen
Before getting rid off the mod you should search the related thread.
IIRC there are bugs fixed by other hacks that you may be interested in. I'm on my phone so I can't provide with a link.


I noticed the same behaviour. On a side note my game is so modded that I'm contemplating playing vanilla to see if the annoying things are that annoying.

About my outing with teens, it was daytime. They had no thought bubbles as they left.

The thread Essa mentions is by Charity, where she tests the things alfixes is supposed to fix. Read it here. If I recall correctly, only 4-ish things are unfixed by patches, and several of those can be fixed by other mods.

I had Tommy Ottomas visit the cemetery to go see his grandma since he had the want to see a ghost. I waited until around 8 and Dora finally appeared!! She floated around and stuff and eventually scared his grandson. She went around some more and then all of a sudden.. She disappeared and the ghost sound stopped, i looked around the lot and she was gone.. It wasnt even 6 AM yet.. Is this normal?

It could be caused by the ghost throwing an error and the game resetting it to try and fix it. Do you play with testingcheatsenabled on? If you do, you see error messages and you know if something throws an error. If you don't, all you'll see is stuff like that, things suddenly resetting with no explanation.

They'll pop in and out of their graves all night, and the ghost sound is only on the lot when they're manifesting, so yeah, that sounds normal to me.

Thanks @gummilutt for the link. I was thinking it was a thread by Charity but not absolutely sure.

Question: I have Tarlia's fixed hoods. The Insimenator, I believe, allows you to change the father of an unborn child before it's born. I've used it a few times successfully.
If I set Skip Broke as the father of Brandi Broke's unborn child (without resurrecting him), would it work to provide proper genetics, rather than have the child be an opposite-sex clone of Brandi?

in shipped version, Skip Broke is already the father and Brandi's unborn child. the child being an opposite-gender clone is due to Skip being "unlinked". SimPE seems to be the only way to change that. Open Pleasantview. find Skip's Character Description resource. click on the tab that says "Other". change the "unlinked" line to 0x0000. click "Commit". save.

Tarlia already linked the pregnancy to Skip, so there's no need to fix it if you have a fixed hood.

Didn't want to start a new thread in Sims 2 Help or Creations, but can someone send me a link or post that properly explains how to create a custom neighborhood for upload? I love creating neighborhoods and I would really love to build one to share with TS2 community.

I know I need empty templates and a variety of no townie mods, and I know how to create maps from SC4, but I'd really like some criteria or guidelines to making a neighborhood that can be shared.
I keep looking for tutorials and what not, but I can't seem to find any.

Mootilda did it. You will need the one on creating a custom subhood template - http://modthesims.info/t/420196 - as well as the one about the Safe Shareable Occupied Neighborhood - http://modthesims.info/t/455403.

You will also want to familiarize yourself with the Creator Guidelines, but if you follow these tutorials you'll mostly need the Guidelines for putting the upload thread together.
And please do, when you have something ready to playtest or need help figuring out why something's wonky, make a thread on Creator Feedback. MTS has a small but supportive hood building community.

I noticed when setting up a new game recently that, despite being on the same computer I play on already, the new game loads lots much faster and plays much more smoothly, even with graphics and audio and whatnot settings all set the same. Obviously the new one doesn't have family and lot bins filled, nor subhoods attached en masse, so it's not a huge surprise, but what is it that really slows down the game? If I thin out the lots or subhoods, will that help? If I kill off a lot of Sims and just dump their tombstones on a cemetery that I never bother visiting, will things go faster? Essentially, what can I pare down to get my game running more efficiently?

Bless your heart, @Peni Griffin , and bless Mootilda's as well. :lovestruc I very much appreciate this! I think I'll figure everything out This is just what I was looking for.

I would think that cleaning out lots and subhoods would help, because I would think that would make the size of the neighborhoods folder smaller. Less to load, less to read, less to dump into RAM. I also periodically go through my lot bin and package up and archive older lots that I probably won't be wanting to use. I don't know if this really helps, but it does mean less time spent scrolling through the lot bin, at least. I don't think killing off Sims will help, though. Dead Sims are still character files. They just have a different form. So, they still need to be dumped into the RAM when you've got the neighborhood they inhabit open.

When you have a brand-new game, it has no files to read from the start, which is why it's faster. As you play and develop it, the game will develop a 'memory' of cached files, and things like that-plus you put in CC that will slow it down by its' existence in the game. The Thumbnail files themselves can really get huge, and it's a good idea to either delete them from time to time or reduce their size by using the compressorizer..(which is my very favorite tool for the game.)

In short, less stuff to read leads to the game running faster. I recently dumped all of my object recolors from the game, and I swear it's made it a tiny bit faster in loading..of course the sheer size of it had to be a drag-5,000 files. I don't really miss it, either. That'll teach me for downloading huge amounts of CC!

Is there any setting that helps with sound while zooming in/out? I find that if a stereo or TV is on, the sound is muted far too soon when zooming out. I don't remember this always being the case either.

about making neighborhoods; the main site also had a tutorial in its help section. http://web.archive.org/web/20111218....php?help_id=91

about making this game faster; computer's disk defragmenter can be another help.
from the taskbar:: Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

about sound and zoom level; in my game, sound seems to be limited to the rooms that are visible. if any part of the room is visible, generally sounds could be heard from it. and closest sounds are generally the loudest; farthest sounds generally the quietest. though from a certain zoom level, all sounds would be considered "far".
game speed seems to also be a factor; no sounds are heard when the game is paused. and the faster the game speed, generally faster the sound.

What happens to owned cars when a sim dies? Does it just become unowned or does it keep the data regardless of the state of the sim?

It becomes unowned and a new owner can be chosen.

Apologies for hijacking Gremily's initial question, but this raised a question of my own. Considering the fact that players who use the UC can't use AGS, if someone were to create a 'hood following those steps but instead of utilizing AGS, they were to use clean/empty templates (whichever is the one that means no Sims/stealth hoods/etc whatsoever... it's escaping my mind right now, though), would this work?

Obviously only players with the UC could use said 'hoods, if it even worked, but it still could be an interesting idea to toy around with. Do you think it'd work, or is my brain just being silly?

About Brandi Broke: I actually never realized that Tarlia already fixed Skip Broke. Welp, good to know.



Quick note: Do not do this if you have a solid-state drive (SSD). It won't help and only wears out the drive faster.

I'd also recommend Defraggler. It lets you defragment specific folders rather than the whole drive at once. It's free, too.

Ather, no reason why it shouldn't work; I know of two people who are trying it. But the audience is necessarily limited, but not necessarily to people who use the UC, since as I understand it you can install the UC with or without the Store Edition. I don't think the UC has its own engine. If I understand correctly, it uses either the M&G or the Store Edition engine, as you choose. So anybody with the same engine could use the neighborhood.

People with the Mac Version of UC might be able to make neighborhoods usable by anybody with BV or higher. I haven't heard anything about which engine the Mac version runs on.

I just started playing Belladonna Cove and Gabe Green and Chastity Gere are driving me crazy with making drinks at the bar in the their kitchen. Bar obsession !!! Any opinion of how to deal with this ? Mod at djsims less bar attraction or make it non autonomous ?

Thank you for the reply, Peni!

I'm not very techy when it comes to these sorts of things (..considering I just nearly blew up my computer earlier, I may be understating myself a little bit), so I'm not certain on the engine that UC runs, but I do recall that when the UC first came out, I was one of many who had to place Store edition files in the Program Files part of the installation in order to make it work properly, I think it was something to do with the graphics. So with that being said I'd imagine that it doesn't run off the Store edition, but rather M&G.

I'm not a Mac user, so I'm completely in the dark on that aspect of it, but it's certainly an interesting thought.

Thanks for confirming my thoughts; I'll have to do some double-checking myself once my computer is maybe not on fire though.

Thanks for the answer Peni, I was hoping it was something like that.

My UC runs of M&G engine - no store edition in sight. My Fun With Pets collection didn't come with the Store edition either.

What are the requirements for having a pet successfully try for offspring? I've had my sim try on one cat for ages and he always refuses, even though they are now friends. Must the pets that breed be in a good relationship as well?

EDIT, nevermind. I used the sim manipulator to set the pets' relationship to 50 STR and LTR, and it worked.

The sim needs to be high enough relationship to the pet and the pet asked needs to have a high enough relationship to the other pet you want it to breed with.
Yes cheating it should yield the results.

*hits Store Edition with a brick* It is the most frustrating thing.