What did you discover today while playing the sims? v2
 

Since the first version got really large, I'm restarting this here.

Today I discovered that custom hair on infants can make the icon look like Cousin It. It's kind of creepy.

I discovered that pool reflections are kind of programmed in a weird way. It's not reflected in the water, but on the side of the pool, which would make sense if it weren't for the fact that it's reflecting things that are above and behind the edge, which can't possibly be reflected by the area that's reflecting it. Like the pool slide in this photo.


Even more strange is that the pool floor and walls will display shadows of objects around it, even though shadows are turned off. So I have shadows that abruptly end at the edge of the pool.

Making beach lots that work in more than one or two hoods can indeed be a stressful experience. No wonder why there aren't a larger number of beach lot downloads. I did read they were difficult, but "difficult" can be an understatement when it comes to these things.

how so?

You have to pay a lot more attention to the slope of the lot. Don't do that, and you'll wind up with lots you can't place, plug-ugly lots with weird slopes that I can't even fix with any cheat (which I got on my first attempt), or even crashing lots. And no lot ... whether it's from here, whether I make it, etc ... will fit in every beach lot area, even if you are able to place a blank lot. There are tricks to better the slope angle, but I'm still new at those. I also read that Lot Adjuster might work, but haven't tried that yet.

Here's an overview of the fun with beach lots:

http://www.thesimsresource.com/cont...%20Beach%20Lots

Flat beaches & flat beach lots work best, IMO.

I find at the very, very least, a minimal slope works OK. I made a beach lot in a hood area with a very subtle slope, and so far, it plays OK in at least some of the lots in the hoods I've tried. (To say I'm ecstatic is an understatement.) My Sims moved in without any problem. But there is no guarantee these lots will work in everyone's hood.

Learning to flatten beach lots properly will probably be next on my to-do list. Right now, I'm finishing up another personal Sims 2 project.

I flatten the beach area(s) of my hoods using the modify terrain cheat. You simply place a empty beach lot and that will flatten the land close to the water. You then bulldoze the beach lot and modify the terrain by starting at the edge of the water where the beach lot flattened it. Once I figured out that trick, I have been able to re-use my flat beach lots in any hood I make.

Well ... that's what test neighborhoods are for! I'll give it a shot. Thanks!

The fire dancer is not going to let a small thing like hail stop his performance, but he is going to up his game and protect his head while performing his routine.

This firedancer - priceless.

More things about vacation lots in residential hoods ... or vacation lots in general.

1. Do NOT use Echo's vegetables if you want to have a working farm/B&B. The housekeeper keeps picking the produce. I could try locking the gate, but it seemed that every tourist wanted to go into the garden to socialize as well, and they and the housekeeper do the Stompy Sim bit. I might try a couple of veggies from Plummbob Keep. They look fine to me, but the Sims don't seem to be as autonomously interested in them.

2. One of my lodging lots got so messed up that I had to delete it. I got tons of error messages in the cheat box. Through trial-and-error, I narrowed it down to two reasons:
a. I accidentally put a revised lot in the bin with the same name, or
b. I had the Sim walk to the lodging lot from a community lot.
Either way, things went crazy fast. The shuttle kept coming over and over until my Sim finally got on it ... holding a suitcase! (That does not normally happen with a hotel in a normal hood.) I'm leaning more toward A, but wouldn't do either again! Luckily, I packaged the lot, and have a good prototype.

3. Unfortunately, Plumbbob Keep's chickens, ducks and geese don't seem to work on a lodging lot. There seems to be no way to get the birds on there. My farm is going to be pretty bare! (And yes, I know about Rebekah's animals, but the last time I used the chickens, something bizarre happened, and I'd like to cut down on using NPCs.)

4. HOWEVER, the berry bushes and grapes work fine, and while the housekeeper keeps watering the grapes, at least she doesn't steal 'em. Looks like this B&B is going to be a berry farm (I already have a vineyard B&B.), perhaps with a few PBK veggies.

I tried the beach lot, by the way. Didn't work too well for me. Maybe I'm too clumsy with the terrain tool, but that land refused to flatten correctly. Good thing it's another test hood! But I'll keep trying. I found the tutorial with pictures and everything. I see one thing I did wrong already.

http://vimpse.tumblr.com/flatbeachlot

EDITED because I was half-asleep and made less sense than usual in one sentence!

Change zoning, place your chickens and change zoning again.

EDITED because I misread the PBK description. Again. And I can't blame lack of sleep this time.

I should have had the option on the nesting box to purchase the hen if I could use it on a lodging lot. No such option for purchase came up, so I might be out of luck. I'll try the full coop and see what happens.

I did read, though, that the chickens will die if not fed. This still might not be a good idea for the farm, since my Sims won't be constantly-vacationing, and I don't know how aging progresses. Will they do what the Echo crops do and continue to age/grow when no Sims are around? But again, that's what the test hood is for!

There will be the berries for my Sims to pick on the lot. And the fruit trees work just fine. I can have just a fruit farm.

My guess is the time will freeze if no one is on the lot. That's the way most lots work, right?

Wasn't sure where to post this as it's about the game but not actually in it. When sims do the smustle, there's this part where they say something like 'dooby-dooby-doo' several times. Now the funny part is, there's a bird that's outside the window beside my pc quite a bit and repeats sounds it hears. This morning I heard the bird singing and it's doing the 'dooby-dooby-doo' part. My sims had been doing the smustle just yesterday. (:

I learned that crib beds are not needed at all.
In an extreme poverty setup the Ottomas just couldn't afford more than two pieces of carpety-looking floor paint for their new babies, but they turned out just fine despite lying in the floor all the time. Now the twins take turns with Tommy using the only kiddie bed on the lot (one that allows toddlers and kids).

Some actions do in fact adjust to height differences, or at least they seem too. I have one sim, height of 1.02~ and another at .86~ and while most couple actions don't work well, backrub actually looks amazing.

I learned today that if you have two brothers and one has a live-in girlfriend and she cheats on him with the other brother and the parents of the brothers live in the same house, the girlfriend can apologize to the parents. As well she should.

What I discover playing the Sims today and other days as well as in the past follow:

1. Sims seem to be much smarter than us human, they know how to "not" pay their bills, and still keep a roof over their head.
2. How to spin around in a quick second to take a bath and change clothes.
3. How smart the Sims are to cook a great meal without using pots and pans, and how fast it take for their oven to cook food. I time it once it like a quick one second.
4.How to workout and gain muscle and still look like a skinny pole.
5. How to go to work and get promoted without during nothing.

6. How a Sims female get pregnant and have a baby less than 9 month, and no doctor is needed the baby just fall out of the sky.
7. I am still trying to figure out and discover why a Sims can drive a car day and night 24/ 7 and "never" need gas.
8. Still trying to discover what really going on under the sheet when the Sims woohoo that make the bed jump sky high.
9 If a Sims is married and is cheating on his Sims mate, and they find out, don't try to get back in the same bed because one side of the bed left or right is locked.

The game will not let the Sims sleep together until their relationship get better, if they decided to still stay together, I have had this happen in my game more than once,
I call it the "lock down bed" no you can't sleep with me anymore. Really these things are not much of a discover, the mods also I find have added on to new interactions.

They're rummaging through their firework box, surely?

I once used moveobjects on and pulled the sims out of the bed mid-woohoo. What I saw could best be described as a contortionist act. I've got screenshots, if you're that curious.

Anyways, today I learned that children (at least siblings) can share a double bed!

That it's possible for a playable sim to glitch into a neighboring apartment and get stuck there. I didn't see what happened exactly, but I'm guessing it was due to a traffic jam at the top of the stairs. She probably phased through the wall as the game was trying to sort it out. Once she was in the blacked out apartment, she couldn't access the stairs or door to leave. Fortunately, move objects came to the rescue. I was able to grab her and plop her back home.

This reminds of the time, back when I first started playing, when an apartment neighbor somehow got stuck in their own apartment. I'm still not certain what happen. Whatever the issue was, she ended up dying and her tombstone ended up by the mailbox. A sad state of affairs, especially since my sim had been in the middle of romancing her! Once she was dead, the game blithely went on to generate a new sim to move in.

It is also possible for an apartment occupied by a non-playable Sim to get infested with roaches. Somehow the place was full of trash, and the Sim household I was playing had to constantly call the landlord to go up and spray the roaches. I finally moved some playable Sims into that apartment to get rid of the roach problem.

I discovered how to make a swimmable lake:



Sims now swim in the lake over at Riverblossom Hills Community Center, instead of only fishing, fishing and more fishing. When it's not frozen in winter, that is. The stairs could use more work, but I kinda like how makeshift it all looks, it fits Riverblossom Hills.

That's one of the best swimmable lakes I've seen! Great job! I've downloaded lots with swimmable lakes (and the CC associated with it, such as invisible tiles), and the effect looks ... odd ... in my game. I don't even see the tiles in yours, and your picture does not look like you super-Photoshopped it or otherwise altered it.

About those PBK chickens, geese and ducks. Good news is that you can get them on a hotel lot IF you use the coop. You do not get the hens with the nesting box.

Bad news is that if your hotel has a housekeeper, he or she keeps feeding the chickens, and I suspect the little clean fanatic/thief is pocketing the eggs. I have no proof of the latter, though. DEFINITELY the food, however ... I caught mine doing it.

Is it safe to select the housekeeper to get rid of the eggs? Though I would guess if the inventory is full of eggs, the housekeeper won't be taking any more, I hope. I might just continue to make the place a berry farm and forget about the poultry altogether.

This B&B I'm working on is STILL giving me housekeeper routing issues. I learned a couple of other things about that NPC. Almost everyone else probably knows these already, but here goes:

1. No matter what I try, the housekeeper does NOT like main buildings (not hotel rooms, bathrooms and rooms where she doesn't clean) with single doors. This is the second lot where I've seen this. Possibly, you might be able to cheat and put two single doors together, or even leave just one tile between them. But leave room for a double-door, just in case.

2. The housekeeper likes Echo's fruit trees as much as the ground crops, and won't stop picking them. They can even make her freeze. However, she won't touch the PBK berries, nor the Maxis trees (so far ... does anyone notice her spraying them? I have not so far, and I have a few on the grounds).

I'm still having a routing issue with the !@#$ housekeeper, though she is taking longer and longer before she freezes. I'm suspecting something (I made a one-tile dividing wall for a toilet, and I don't know if she likes that), but need to test it out. Now I remember why I saved that hotel that finally worked after days of trying (the Yurt Hotel, not the infamous "Box Inn", which was five boxes with roofs and took me ten minutest to make!), and I reuse it again and again. Hotels aren't as much fun as beach lots, but they aren't a picnic to make.

That housekeeper is truly a bunch of trouble!

Thanks, gazania! It's funny, I tried the tutorial the first time around on an empty lot, and when I made the tiles invisible, the edges would show. When I made the lake over at the Community Center they just disappeared. Maybe it's random in my game? Odd. And yeah, I took the screencap right out of my TS2 folder, too lazy to photoshop or use a screencap program :D

PBK chicken and farming things are seriously tempting me now that I'm playing a farmer hood *shifty eyes*

That looks amazing. How are you hiding the edges of the tiles?

Edit: Never mind, I see your answer above - I need to stop leaving threads open for ages before posting in them, or at least refresh them to see if there have been updates before I do.

A farming hood is great. But I would NOT use the PBK chickens, ducks and geese on a lodging lot. A vacation hood community lot ... perhaps. (I haven't tested it yet. Too busy with the vacation lodging lot.) But NOT a vacation lodging.

In addition to the housekeeper feeding the fowl and possibly pocketing the eggs (ewww), she can freeze if you decide your Sim is going to feed the birds or check for the eggs at the exact same time she's about to go to the coop. Great. I give up.

My B&B farm is now a fruit farm. Take that, you trouble-making housekeeper! (I suppose there isn't a mod to torment her, is there?)

Two more tips to keep this pest from freezing:

1. Be careful about any deco around where a housekeeper cleans (such as some curtains), and try not to put the Soilidity door right near an adjoining wall. He or she will freeze pretty easily if denied very easy access. Leave plenty of room anywhere you think the housekeeper will go. The one in my vacation hood didn't seem to like the bathroom door near an adjoining wall, either.

2. I'd avoid putting a range hood or cupboards over a stove. My housekeeper didn't seem to like it when she cleaned, and again, she ... yup ... froze. YMMV.

On a good note, once I removed the coops, a lot of decor (so much for toilet paper holders), cabinets and range hood, and re-arranged the room doors, I didn't see her freeze once in the two days my Sims stayed at the B&B. I packaged THAT baby in a hurry! I could also put something IN the former coop, too. Rebekah's working butter churn may be interesting, and it doesn't APPEAR to be a custom NPC from the look of it. I could be wrong. Or I could put a candy-making machine that I already have there for my Sims to try (maybe ... providing the housekeeper doesn't touch it!). Or I can use the Maxis toy bench or flower station. Or that beer keg in case the housekeeper continues to drive my Sim (and me) mad.

But no chickens or Echo crops. And I might want to stay away from anything autonomous that could attract that housekeeper.

I FINALLY figured out how to flatten the beach lots and make them smaller! Much thanks to Vimpse for the tutorial. The houses will make fine vacation houses for my Sims on the bay (read: not as rich) side of the hood. (Which is STILL a test hood for the real thing! What a learning experience this has been over the last few weeks!) I'm about 3/4 of the way done. I do plan to save the hood before attempting to put the Bigfoot lot in, just in case I really mess up, and have already lot-tested all of the lots I've built so far (at least fourteen new builds as of this moment within the last four weeks ... whew) in a main hood.

Oh, and thanks to the tip on this site, I figured out how to do a two-step foundation. I probably should have done this for some of my Colonial houses, but I am NOT re-doing them! At least my warlock's house has it, though.

@ saturnian and @ ihatemandatoryregister Whatever the Sims are doing under the sheet while during woohoo that make the bed jump sky high.
I will only ask those Sims pixel to "please share" so I can have a new discovery.

A sim sold a painting and and said 'whoppa!'. A couple of guys were eating grilled hot dogs on a community lot, while chatting about who-knows-what and one said 'bendy, bendy, bendy'. I love listening to their reactions, but would also love to know what the heck they're talking about. (:

I discovered that if a pixel owns a community lot, and puts in the dessert cart by Exnem, it charges all the visitors for their pigging out! $15 for a eclair! Wow..that's some expensive pastry!

@RedSimmies
That swimmable lake looks great! I've never had the patience to make one of those, although I've wanted to for a campground sort of situation. So...One day.

I just wanted to say that if you DO decide to do something with the stairs, a very easy solution would be to install and use the "open-underneath" version of those stairs. That way, you don't have all those bits stretching down into the water. They're here, if you're interested: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=221958

@Duine
My favorite is something that toddlers say, when playing with toys. It sounds suspiciously like "f#@& it." Like, maybe they're getting frustrated with that toy if the pegs won't fit in the holes or something.

https://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=508536

Yeah, I know, but I wanna make my own, so I can learn and experiment with it. Just...haven't gotten around to it yet.

That there is something about the Sims 2 pets that must be somehwat realistic. Every time I play a household with a pet my real life cat will literally sit and stare at the screen.

I think she wants a spin off of just pets to play on her own.

My cat used to watch NCI when it was on, he would come running through the house meowing, jump on the arm of my chair and sit through the whole thing. Sometimes I play youtube videos for cats, he's an adopted feral, now an indoor cat and terrified of the outside if a door opens, but does like seeing birds and squirrels in the videos.

@Icad Either the teen or adult female, when using the military career reward thingy, will say screw this at about skill level 4, not sure of exact # but it's early on in the skills.

Oh, yes, lol. Why didn't I think of the open underneath stairs? I even have them installed in my game, yet. Must have just grabbed the first stairs in the catalog in my excitement to finish!

I felt like a champ when it was done, though.

If you think life is boring, and want a source of frustration, try a non-basic hotel with the housekeeper. The housekeeper is the bane of my existence. To whomever I offended at Maxis that caused me to be afflicted with this scourge ... I am so, so sorry. Just tell me what I did wrong, and I'll try not to do it again. (It's what I wrote about Sims 4 ... isn't it?)

If you want to be hitting your head against a wall, try a beach hotel. Extra things to be aware of.

If you want to go totally out of your mind, try a beach hotel on a flat lot.

I thought I had a pretty collection of bungalows. I spent a couple of days on this lot, staying up way too late to work on them. I managed to get them looking similar to the house plans, much to my delight. The bungalows met the typical hotel requirements ... or so I thought.

First, they were too close to the water. Fine. That was my fault. Flat beach lots can lull you into a false sense of security. Fixed 'em.

Then I kept getting the shuttle dispatched, whether I wanted it dispatched or not. Exceedingly confusing and annoying (far worse than even the frozen housekeeper), but I've seen this before. It's the game's way of telling you there is something very wrong with your layout. I fixed it ... again, so I thought. I added a boardwalk and made sure that any Sims could drive a truck on it. I figured that flat lot or no, the game is still thinking , "Beach Lot!". This doesn't seem to be an issue with houses, though. Strange.

That almost worked. Now my Sims had one day to stay there, and I noticed that the notices were tied in with the .... (dramatic music) ... arrival of the housekeeper. I'm guessing that if the housekeeper or concierge experiences any trouble in your layout, any at all ... even a misplaced fence, as I saw in one try ... the game decides to call it quits. I noticed that no Sims visited the lot until well into the visit, even with enticements. This is not good. The Sims usually flock right away to the hot tub or the other usual diversions. They may not check in right away, but they DO swarm on the lot.

So I figured I'd remove what I saw as other possible routing impediments. The Sim checked into two rooms at two different times. I got the "one day" notice, but no shuttle. Progress! So far, so good. My spirits lifted.

Then I checked the Sim into a third room. I went over every detail, making sure I did absolutely nothing that we know as wrong with a hotel room. I checked a few times, just in case I missed something. Got the shuttle again. I have utterly, positively no idea what is wrong with this room. I'm stumped. If it were any more open, my Sim would be showering in a bathroom with no walls. Never mind that. The Sim would be showering outside.

I forgot to add a main point. This is a vacation hotel in a MAIN hood. Not on a vacation lot. There should be no shuttle. I knew I forgot something important to add.

Anyone here who has done a bungalow hotel on a beach lot and got it to work deserves my utter admiration. I see very few here, don't see a whole lot on TSR (MAYBE a little more than a half-dozen obvious bungalows, if that), and BV came out several years ago. So I suppose I should take some comfort in that.

Anyone who has done bungalows on a flat beach lot and succeeded... I'm not worthy! (Gets on knees and pays homage.)

Oh, and I have come to the conclusion that the housekeeper hates me. After several 100% successful visits in my B&B, she froze again on a current visit. That's it. He or she is staying there until my Sim feels like leaving. I give up on that, too. Congrats, you wretched thing. With the help of move_objects to get you out of the path of any Sims, you are now decor. I might pay a little more attention to the Batbox, though. Maybe I missed something.

But no more flat beach lot bungalows. Ever. Not even on a bet.

EDIT ... I love punishment. So I'm trying my bungalows on a regular beach lot. I'm leaving lots of room on the sides. One problem might have been that I built the bungalows as far as I could put the walls, and if the accursed housekeeper, a Sim, and/or the concierge got blocked, there was nowhere they could divert their path. Well, there was, and a truck could fit on it, but we all know that Sims aren't the brightest bulbs when it comes to routing.

Problem is, my bungalows were boxy "tiny houses" to begin with, and it looks like I'm making the Bungalow Beach Box Hotel, the child of my infamous Box Hotel. (If I need to take comfort in something again, though, of the paltry dozen or so beach bungalow lots I've seen, about a third to a half would be considered boxy by many here. I guess I can join the ranks!) I will not be deterred yet, though. I will make these boxy wonders, see if they work, save the prototype and THEN add stairs and decks if the mood overtakes me. And these bungalows will be on the ground. One thing I found out is that my hotel staff hates bungalows on foundations with little porches. Looks cute in the house plans, but they're wretched in-game. Just my experience.

I just discovered that you can change the lure your sim uses without stopping their fishing.

Some Sims will get up and put their book back on the bookshelf before doing the oh crap there's a fire dance.

@ FranH I have that cart on a community lot but not own, I guess the Sims don't get charge on a non own lot, well I have never notice if they do or.
Next time I go into my game I will take notice. Thanks for sharing now I know from what you have said that on an own lot they are charge.

I put Exnem's dessert cart in the dining room for one of my rich sims. But everyone seemed obsessed with stuffing themselves to fatness (guess the advertising was too high) so I eventually stuck it in someone's inventory and only pulled it out when there were guests over. But I didn't know about the charging part. Didn't notice anything, but maybe it only works for community lots. I know one of his other things (the bread basket?) can be set to charge or not.

I'm lazy. XD I only make my own when there isn't already one.



Do you have the Housekeeper/Bellhop fixes from Sim Wardrobe? The Housekeeper will freeze regularly otherwise.

Yes. I do have the fix.

I believe, though am not sure, that in my case, I'm trying hotels that don't quite fit into Maxis' idea of a hotel. The B&B is in a place that could actually be a house. A large house, but still a house. For the most part, she does her thing just fine, but every once in a while (a long while now, thanks to hours of trial and error), she gets stuck.

It doesn't help that I put things in there that Maxis hotels don't have, such as the Uni NPC cook. He's in a converted barn, but she still wants to clean there. I'm learning to be very careful where I place the stove. She seems happier if there is absolutely nothing around the stove except for the adjoining counters, so I shortened the island counter where the NPC puts the plates. That seems to help at least a little.

The bungalows were on a beach lot and had individual foundations and stairs. I see so very few examples Googling (there are examples, but they're rare) or anywhere else. Most people either make ground-level bungalows or use boardwalks/decks to keep things flat and/or on one level. I can see why there aren't many of them! I could probably use bungalows with foundations and stairs on a normal lot, but the game just didn't seem to like them on a beach lot. It looks like you also have to be ultra-careful with the slope and the edges of the lot, and you don't get much wiggle room on a beach lot. I know more-experienced builders have already written that. I guess I needed to learn the hard way.

Strangely, the cheap motel I devised in two hours works great, even with the Uni cook. But I'm suspecting that's because the room is a huge box, there are three double doors and a whole lot of room around the stove. Plenty of space for the housekeeper to maneuver. It may not be the prettiest dining room, but it works. So I'm learning from that as well.

Sorry to hear you are having troubles with your B&B, gazania. I downloaded a lodge from this site and converted it to a B&B and have been able to play it with no trouble with the house keeper with fix from simwardrobe. The B&B allows the sims to cook themselves or their partner's meals in a communal kitchen on top of optional room service. Is it just routing problems and frozen-ness your housekeep is having? What do you mean when you say 'bungalows'? How are they different from a standard hotel lot that comes with the game?

@FranH

Is it that card https://tehsims.com/sims-2-download...-cart-by-exnem/?
I have it on a owned bar and I don't recall my sim getting money from it.

I think the main problem is routing. The housekeeper has a certain routine that if you disturb it, one of three things happen:

1. The housekeeper will wait for the obstacle to pass. To give credit to Maxis, this happens at least half of the time. I'd place it higher than that. (Fancy that. I actually wrote something good about Maxis and the housekeeper!)
2. The housekeeper will freeze, and nothing will get him or her going again. Move_objects does not work. The best way to fix this is to see just where the housekeeper freezes. Most of the time, that's where the obstacle is, and most of the time, it's because there is not enough room for the housekeeper to carry on.
3. You'll get the stupid "shuttle" notice (the shuttle comes to pick your Sim up right away) if you REALLY messed up the layout. This is, by far, the worst of the options, and it takes far longer to figure out. Definitely a "do not want".

It sounds pretty simple, but a smaller B&B-like dwelling with Sims milling around can lead to routing issues I couldn't imagine when I first started, such as how my housekeeper froze if I put the Solidity door or a bathroom door too close to an adjoining room wall. I finally found a place in the B&B where I can put an extra double door without it looking really awkward. It won't make my saltbox very historically accurate at all, but I've been revising so much lately I think that might be a moot point! I'll see if she likes that door.

And I meant beach bungalows. They are separate buildings apart from the main lobby. I believe Twiikii island has one, but it's much larger. Right now, I'm finishing up on my bungalows v, 2. This time, I've simplified even further. These really are more Son of the Box Inn-type places and less "Oh, let's see what I've learned" stuff. I was very careful near the sand, left at least two tiles of room between every building, everywhere that the housekeeper SHOULD be going is flat, flat, flat. I tried to leave even more space near the Solidity doors, etc. And no NPC cook. Not this time. I do have the diner food stand, and as far as I know, the housekeeper stays away from that. (Glowers at the housekeeper.) Quite a far cry from my original version with the cozy dwellings on their own foundations, each with a small porch and a couple of plants, but them's the breaks. I want to get the basics in, then test this lot. Wish me luck!

ihatemandatoryregister what is this bread basket you mentioned, and where can it be found? I've got several of his objects, but never heard of that one. (:

I noticed several things recently. The apartment trash chute works on residential lots, I used it as a deco part for sci-fi theme. On a 1x1 lot, all one open room, a sim relaxing on the bed got an added icon for 'listen to music', similar to 'read in bed', they also bounce their head around to the rhythm. A sim, who's only community lot visit at the time was the cemetery, got a free dinner coupon in the mail next day. There's no food there at all, now i'm confused on what activates these coupons. There is no eating establishment or snack machines on any lot so far. I was also watching Julien Cooke eating fish in his house, he was eating so fast and I thought something was wrong. Then realized he lives alone and there's no chatting going on to make a meal last for hours.

I can't understand why a cemetery can draw more sims in that any other lot, other than Moo's Mews tiny nightclub. This particular cemetery has 4 ghosts, 2 dartboards, small stereo, two benches and 2 outhouses. The ghosts are very polite, only spawning in pairs and fulfilling many ghosts wants and even fears. Everyone needs cooperative ghosts like these. (:

It's on the Booty with his other foods.

Yup. Check the Booty.
(....Maybe I'm just filthy-minded, but that sounded terribly wrong.)

Hello everyone ! Well just now while i took my married sims and their son to dinner in a restaurant in town (i used dickhurt's mod that can be found here to allow the toddler to come along) when they reached there i directed her to take the toddler and put him inside and after taking up her son instead of putting him in the high chair she sat with him .. i went ????? see for yourselves ! The way she is sitting isn't straight yet she isn't laying either, she is sitting in a way to hold her son... never thought that was possible !

He just glitched to her that's all. Where is the highchair? If it's cc that could be why it glitched.

Even if it is a glitch it's really cute.

Actually it's a maxi highchair. She even held the menu while holding her son but she could not eat though lol after a while she got up with him and put him on the floor. The chair was behind the server actually. After tonight i want to believe maxi intended to make it possible to sit with a baby/Toddler. It could be a glitch but she was holding him, he wasn't just attached to her or something. But anyways i'm not good at coding so maybe i'll never know if it was somewhere in the plan when maxi created the sims 2



I find it cute too :lovestruc i wish it could happen all the time

ETA : He was talking while he was on her too ! And she was responding

On to my beach bungalow adventure.

Here is my test subject lot. When I remembered how the original looked ... sigh. Prepare to NOT be amazed. This is, by no means, my best lot. I was striving for "So simple, an ancient cave dweller could do it". Or a housekeeper could maneuver though it. I do not wish to insult ancient cave dwellers. I apologize.



There is a roof over that diner ... really.

And the interior of this paradise on the sea.



Honestly, I can't see how much more simpler this can be! Time to experiment.

I put in a hot tub and a couple of autonomous games, and as my ace card, two vending machines. If there are no Sims around those, I will have failed. Sims usually cannot stay away from vending machines.

So far, with the first try, Goopy came right over to the machine and stuffed his face with chips. And my housekeeper cleaned the room. I had to quit out quickly, though, because I reversed a Solidity door. Oops. Time for more visits.

I returned to the B&B. I'm convinced the freezing in this particular case has to do with the NPC Uni cook. That seems to be where the housekeeper freezes the most often. I know a couple of hotel lots here have the NPC Uni cook. Either there is some mod they have or don't have that I do, or the lots DO have the potential to freeze the housekeeper at some random point, and I got it sooner rather than later. And it IS random. I guess I need to choose whether I want the Uni cook or use the housekeeper as a statue for the rest of the visit when she freezes. In the grand scheme of life, it isn't a huge deal. I did forget the Batbox on the lot again, so I'll try to put it in there next time. Maybe I can unfreeze her that way.

EDIT ... I remembered the Batbox this time. When she froze, there was an extra item in the "Fix" section of the box ... "Fix disabled autonomy". So it indeed looks like the NPC Uni Cook can cancel the housekeeper out. I suspect that when the cook goes to clear up a table at the same time as the housekeeper, the game is unhappy. Fixing that, by the way, allows her to move her head, but NOT her feet. Odd.

HUGE DISCOVERY (for me at least) - thanks to this simblr, I now know right clicking on the face templates in CAS blends your current sim with that template!

I thought that feature was limited to BodyShop, I'm so stoked to know it's not!

Woahwoahwoah what?! That's awesome! I had no idea that was a thing. I've been blending my sims faces in body shop and then opening up my game and making them in CAS. This will save me so much time if it's true.

It's true!! I've been doing the same thing in BodyShop too, and the moment I read that post I had to try it... and then come here to post about it!!

Only thing that kills me is that I just finished filling up a new neighborhood a few days ago, if only I had known sooner!!!

Watches people run to CAS to see if that's true.

Joins them.

Can you believe there's STILL things to learn about this game 10 years on?! The fact this came out of one the Prima guides makes me regret not buying the full set I saw at a used bookstore a few years back.

The blending works with every feature, too - combined with the Bodyshop Sliders in CAS mod, who needs Bodyshop anymore (unless you're creating content lol)?!

I discovered NOT to accept more than one outing at a time - accidental button clicking FTW!

When a sim receives a love letter after a great date, if you place the note on a surface it'll stand up as a card with the sim's face on the front. :lovestruc

Better still, it retains the face of the sim as they were at the time of the date, and doesn't age up like the full-face thumbnails in the Relationships/Memories tabs.

I played my bar yesterday and pay attention to sims using the dessert cart. FranH is right. Even if pastries are expensive, my owner can make a little more money. :-)

awhile ago discovered that the Grunt's house (51 Road to Nowhere) and the unoccupied lot that starts as its neighbor (57 Road to Nowhere) nearly mirror each other.
just these things::
-walls/fence
-floor
-windows
-doors; except 1 (downstairs bathroom)
-counters
-appliances
-plumbing objects
might post pictures later on if anyone wants to see.

and I recall other pre-made lots that resemble each other, but I do not remember their names; was very long ago.

If you use move objects to put a baby sat in one of the baby toys, into a highchair (I was using the pram TheRaven recently uploaded to her site) you can serve them food. I'm not sure if they can eat it though - they continued doing the baby toy animations so probably not. Just thought that might be interesting for storymakers/photos.

One of my sims took his twin toddlers to the Fitness hobby lot. I saved just before leaving, not knowing what to expect, but everything went fine. They had a few toys to play with while dad practiced Yoga. When he was finished, they all headed back home, safe and tired after their first trip out. Dad finished his hobby, but the toddlers didn't get anything. (:
I also noticed while sims are on the second floor and a sim below does a high dive into the pool, they come right up through the floor before performing there splash into the pool.

Haha yes, our sims can stay and move through walls and floors but cannot pass stinking baby bottle on floor.

Even if we know it , it is still creepy to see walkby passing and you see him through and he is empty inside.

I discovered while playing a "vagrant's lot" that lightning can strike an occupied tent and the occupant comes running out rather burned.

MOAR lightning and lightning shots if anyone is interested: http://www.cyjon.net/node/428

Well, it makes sometimes funny moments. My sim got hit by lightning at the moment when he banned evil witch on community lot (by VC)

The evil witch was so annoying on the nature hobby lot, fighting with the leader, the good witch and others. They were banned on all community lots but you can't ban anyone on hobby lots, or just be able to ban the annoying one. One time I was there it just got so annoying to me and I continually sent my male sim to ask her to leave. She would be gone awhile and he would go over each time she came back, before she could start anything. He went home and a few hours later the witch flew in! I wasn't sure what she would do so I used the Simanipulator Remover and sent her off to who knows where. I'm finally playing a hood where they don't show up. The only places I did see them were Nature and Arts, neither of which they were members. Also no Ivy Cupor and her band of enemies always pushing, shoving, pranking and fighting each other. I miss George McCarthy though, he would bury holes when my sims would dig for treasure. (:

BY GEORGE! I THINK I'VE GOT IT!

I think I'm getting the basics of hotel design. The older B&B ... well, it's a nice house. The design is just not suited for a hotel, and nothing I did could fix it.

Here is a newbie's guide to hotel design, from what I'm gathering.




My new saltbox looks about as authentic as a cheap souvenir, but it DOES work. More testing will be needed, though.

A little celebration music, and how I felt after dozens of hotel attempts. (Right now, I'm at five working hotels and one ... well ... not. I suppose I should try for a half-dozen.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVmU3iANbgk

sims get angry when you sell their furniture

Purchases cannot be made over the counter if there is a half wall on the other side. I had one of the cheap counters with the cash register on it and thought that it would look better to place a half wall to cover the back of the counter. Sims were walking all over the place to get to the register without any success until I removed the half wall. I guess I'll have to deal with the cheap counter's ugly back until I have more money to buy a better one.

(Not sure if Bodyshop discoveries go here, but here goes)

The skirt on the hula outfit for the elder female group is alpha, but the coconut bra isn't

For once I wanted to use the CS leafs bed. I found out that it conflicts with TJ smarter beds.

Fun fact when your Sim toddlers are playing with the dollhouse. If the toddler is chewing on the doll while you click on a person or object, the toddler's face will show the doll in his mouth!

Sims' roommates in apartments seem to be stuck in red aspiration. I used the Sim Blender to max it out because she was acting all worried, but a few minutes later it dropped back down to red.

That's not vanilla behavior. I'd troubleshoot that.

My sim hum's whilst gardening and make's cooing sounds to her plants. I had no idea that I had set my volume too low to hear this before.

Not really angry, usually, but they will wonder where their stuff went... You can avoid them making a fuss about it, though. Simply put the item your want to sell in their inventory, close the inventory, open it, and sell the object. Your sim will be none the wiser.



And if she ever turns into a Plantsim, she'll gain lots of Social/Love from tending her crops and trees. She'll be able to talk her fruit trees to health. I love that about my plantsim females.

In fact, sims may hum, sing or mumble stuff while using crafting stations, too.

I like the gardenin aspect of it, but don't like them turnin into plants themselves. I'm glad jfade made a fix for this so I can have my cake and eat it too ... err maybe in this case it would be I can have my awesome fruits and veggies and eat them too ... lol

You don't need a fix to prevent plantsims; you just need ladybug houses instead of pesticide. I've never had a plantsim.

Do you still get the talk to plants/ trees and such as the plantsims do?

Talking to plants is not a plant sim ability, it comes from having a gold badge in gardening. Plant Sims automatically get a gold badge when becoming plant sims, which is why they always have it.

Hi, Cali, no, all the plantsim specific behavior is just that, specific to plantsims. Sorry

That family apparently doesn't count towards the influence meter number of friends, even family in different households.

We're gonna confuse Calibrat here.

Gummilutt is right that plant sims get gold gardening badges and that is what enables talking to plants. Non-plantsims who do enough gardening to get gold badges will be able to talk to plants and grow all varieties of mouthwatering produce; it just takes them longer to get to that point, because they have to do all the work of gardening.

Smorbie is right that non-badge related plantsim things - releasing spores and pollen, parthenogenesis, living on sunlight, love, and water - are unique to them, and that they are the only ones who get gold badges for existing rather than working for them.

a sort of re-discovery::
toddlers and younger have no immediate reaction when their parent has an affair. but all offspring get memory markers of at least kissing and making out.

I was browsing the memories of a sim and discovered a new memory to me " superstar of the campus"
dont know how it comes, cause he was in an ordinary dorm, no secret society or fraternity member, anyway if he feels he was the superstar why not :P

The term in English is "Big Man on Campus." It's a measure of popularity and is based on some combination of number of friends made and amount of influence earned on campus.

Big Sim on Campus is from maxing out the friend/influence meter.

The "Bust a Move" interaction.
I wish I had moves like that...

I recently started a new Widespot and added Land Grant University to it. I was exploring the campus adding batboxes etc. to the households when I stopped by the Printer Sisters' place. Daisy Wheels had a fear of registering for the Biology major. I don't think I've ever seen wants or fears related to the Uni majors before. Maybe she's squeamish and worries about having to dissect a frog.

In one of my earlier versions of Bluewater Village, I decided to respawn all the graves in the hood. Several characters had no memory of these relatives dying and respawning the graves gave them these memories, which in turn triggered related wants and fears. For most of the playables, these were the usual wants/fears to see ghosts of loved ones, etc. Melody Tinker had to be different - she promptly spun up wants to make all four of her grandparents into zombies. It's a good thing she's not interested in the family toy business. Heaven only knows what she might make on that workbench! That's the only time I've ever seen that want in my game.

I discovered that a Sim in low Motives/a bad mood can have a bad dream. A jagged thought bubble pops up of a certain Sim (in this case, it was her young cousin, whom she doesn't actually know, but I'm assuming has seen at some point) and they start whimpering and tossing around.

I'm not entirely sure if that is vanilla though lol. My game has so many mods in it that I can't keep track of what's normal and what's not.

yeah, totally vanilla. The very first family I made, so long ago, I can't remember them, was a divorced man and his two teen daughters. One was a family teen, and because I was just getting used to the game, I never got around to letting her get married and have kids. They also slept on the cheapest lounge chairs that came with the base game, so they got no comfort points from sleeping. Anyway, as her life ticked away without realizing her wants, she began having worse and worse dreams, all night long. Poor thing. Good times.

I just had a pregnant sim cookin some hamburgers. When her cookin ignited a fire instead of doin the fire dance she ran out of her apartment to the mailboxes .. then proceeded to do the fire dance. There were two non-playables in the 'clubhouse' (the common area) and they too left what they were doin to come to the mailbox then do the fire dance.

I don't play apartments often so this was a new aspect for me.