Enabling Build/Buy In Apartments

[Lonesome Dove]

Wait, what?  How likely is it that someone might actually hit 32767?  I've never heard of "lot ID creep" before, and I'm always putting down empty temporary lots and then deleting them for one reason or another.

It is not regarded as a "serious" problem at this particular point in time, since it is unlikely that you will be able to blow up the game in the 6 or so months remaining, but if you get REALLY hogwild moving people in and out of apartments repeatedly, it's an issue which may occur. Also, doing it will bloat your neighborhood save files, even if you don't manage to reach 32767, as it will leave dangling textfiles for the lot.

What six months remaining? You mean until Sims 3 comes out? What's that got to do with it?

Is there any fix for this dangling textfiles problem? Not that I have a clue what that means.

[Zoltan]

Is there any fix for this dangling textfiles problem? Not that I have a clue what that means.

   At first, I thought you wrote dangling testicles     my bad   

[twink]

Snooty Sims has a buy, build cheat  http://www.snootysims.com/cheatsindex.php?id=cheats

under AL cheats that is

ApartmentBuildBuyRestrictions (on/off)
Definition: enables build/buy mode tools in apartment lots.

I am installing tonight and think I will give it a try.

Twink

[iHateyou]

Snooty Sims has a buy, build cheat  http://www.snootysims.com/cheatsindex.php?id=cheats

under AL cheats that is

ApartmentBuildBuyRestrictions (on/off)
Definition: enables build/buy mode tools in apartment lots.

I am installing tonight and think I will give it a try.

Twink

Read page 1 of this thread and don't bother.

[J. M. Pescado]

Do not change a lot's type to "sublot", or it will disappear. You can attempt to "loadlot" it by name and then changelotzoning it to apartmentbase, but NEVER, EVER, EVER change a lot's type to sub! Try doing:

Code:

loadlot "<NAMEOFLOT>"

Then changelotzoning it to base and NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.

[Crash]

Build mode structural modifications like floor retiling and possibly walls stick. Bought items, however, behave oddly: Any items you add outside your area (common or otherpeople) do not appear when those areas are loaded and played. Any acts of vandalism(add/move/remove) performed to a neighbor's apartment are undone when the lot is reloaded. Vandalism may also carry the risk of hanging your game, although the exact circumstances which prompted this are yet unclear.

I can confirm that bought items sometimes don't stick. I played the Cho family, and added windows to the windowless room. I also placed lotdebugger and macrostastics outside beside the playground. Next I loaded and player the Riley family (the one apartment above the Cho apartment - those apartments are also visible at all times), and the lotdebugger and macrostastics was gone aswell as the window I had added in the Cho family - it looked pretty silly with only a curtain on the wall.

[Lum]

Using the cheats, I managed to break down a wall inside the apartment and it worked ok.

However, I once tried to add a wedding arc and a telescope to the common ground. The arc married the sims ok, but the telescope (both cheap and expensive ones) caused a jump error. The sims never started the animation to stargaze, BUT a pop-up said I discovered a new planet and gave me 500 bucks. Happened every time, kinda amusing since I really needed the cash, but still.

Eventually, I chickened out and remove both things before saving and exiting. Married sims still married and deleted wall still deleted, so yeah.

I have all but Petz and FT. My stuff packs are Glamour Life, Celebration and K&B.

[Soggy Fox]

@%$^@^&%*^&$$%^$%^

Okay, now that's out of my system, it is very, very annoying that you can't have a yard for an apartment, especially when its a townhouse apartment.  Its....maddening in the least.

I guess I'll need to wait and see if someone with some skill can fix this glaring oversight on the part of EAxis, since there is no logical reason why you couldn't have a door leading out to a yard that is completely fenced in.  Anyone have any knowledge yet on whether this affects balconies?

[Zazazu]

I've posted methodology elsewhere. Currently about 60% done to see if my method will stick upon packaging the lot.

EDIT: No-go.

[Lonesome Dove]

Is there any fix for this dangling textfiles problem? Not that I have a clue what that means.

   At first, I thought you wrote dangling testicles     my bad   

Well, you say tomato, I say tomahto. Didn't mean to imply that El Presidente is well hung. 

[Hecubus]

I guess I'll need to wait and see if someone with some skill can fix this glaring oversight on the part of EAxis, since there is no logical reason why you couldn't have a door leading out to a yard that is completely fenced in.  Anyone have any knowledge yet on whether this affects balconies?

As far as I can tell, it doesn't, because balconies are on the same level.

[tabbs]

I have a question - I'm making an apartment and I want to have a little porch from each apartment that then leads down to each apartments basement... So my question is: If I surround the porches with half-walls will it still work as an apartment?

In the guide it says: "The apartment door must be the only way to enter the apartment. If you want to put in a back door, surround the are with a wall. Without the wall, this lot wont work."

Are half-walls considered walls is what I'm getting to.

[Alex]

Yes. If the edger fences can be considered "walls", then half-walls definitely can.

[Zazazu]

Tabbs, I've done balconies/porches surrounded with fencing or half walls. Both work.

[Soggy Fox]

On the other hand, I did back yards with no other entry into them, only way into the whole area was the apartment door.

And apparently, the same thing is happening with the more traditional apartment building I just finished - says one of my apartments isn't valid, but damned if i know why.

[[False edit]] Apparently the penthouse apartment is borked somehow....back to the drawing board.

[Goggalor]

I just posted a possible solution in the apartment borkiness thread.

Also found one custom door that made it impossible to turn a lot into apartment, so if you can't see anything wrong, try replacing cc with regular stuff.

[SJActress]

I used both boolprop cheats to get rid of spiral stairs and add an elevator (that apartment where the guy with the adopted teenager daughter).  I turned them off right after (and did not experience what the above poster is experiencing).

I've experienced a few weird things after, and I don't know if it's related to these cheats, so I'm asking:

The landlord won't garden, there's no option to make her, and there's no Gardener listed on the Service area of the phone.
Homework placed on a desk is inaccessible, so I have to go into Buy mode and move it to the floor.
I invited a Sim over.  She went up the elevator, looked at the snow outside the "window" (there was no window in that room), turned around and left.  I called her back when she left the lot and invited her back over and everything worked fine.

Are any of these things at all related to using the cheats?  I'm running AL;DC with a few hacks taken out.  I'm just at a loss about this stuff, especially the Gardener.  I would like at least THAT to work.

[Roxxy]

"Homework placed on a desk is inaccessible, so I have to go into Buy mode and move it to the floor."

I have had this issue with this since I first installed AL.  I place an object such as a lamp or plant on the table so they can not put the homework there. 

[SJActress]

I place an object such as a lamp or plant on the table so they can not put the homework there. 

Good idea.  I'll do that for now.

[Soggy Fox]

I rarely have the patience for sims children [ well, with my sims in general ] so I usually only play with one in my house at a time - unless I've gotten platinum mood, whereupon, I'll risk it.

[Blech]

To the person having the problem with yards: I found that the only way to have a real yard is to not have a foundation. If you have a foundation and then put stairs leading down to the yard, it won't work even if it is completely fenced in. That's how I just made a couple of townhomes with backyard gardens, they have to be ground level. I've never had a problem with balconies, though.

Now, my problem. I built 2 regular homes on one big lot, and made it into an apartment lot. I've been playing the first one for quite some time, but left the second one to be rented by an NPC. I made another family and moved them onto the lot, had them rent the second house, and then discovered that somehow, their kitchen is considered a community area. I'm pretty sure it's because I used the room separators. Upon discovering my error, I exited without saving, hoping to go back in and edit before moving them back in. However, they are still on the lot, they just haven't rented the house, and there is the other family on the lot, so I don't think I can just change the lot-zoning. So, my question is, can someone tell me which of these cheats to use, which family should I load up to use the cheat, and does it make a difference if I have the second family go ahead and rent or leave them in apartment limbo?

[floopyboo]

There's a tutorial on how to enable backyards with foundations in apartments right here at this site. Searching would be maaaaaaaaaaaaarvellous.

It's seriously not that hard. Even I could understand it.

Back to the topic at hand, the enabling of build/buy was the thing that finally made me take the plunge & hack my global startup cheats file.

[Blech]

If it was a problem for me, I would have searched for it. Since my solution of trial and error worked fine for me, I felt no need to go off searching for another one. But thanks for the tip, now that I know that there is a better way, maybe I'll look for it before my next project.

[Karen]

Back to the topic at hand, the enabling of build/buy was the thing that finally made me take the plunge & hack my global startup cheats file.

Does that actually work in AL?  I tried putting both "boolprop aptbaselotspecifictoolsdisabled false" and "boolprop aptsublotspecifictoolsdisabled false" in my userstartup.cheat and it doesn't seem to have any effect.  They reset every time you enter a new lot and you have to enter them all over again.  Or is putting them in the GLOBAL startup.cheat file rather than the USER one, what makes the difference?

If you know of a way to do this that actually works without having to retype the cheats on every lot you go to, I would really appreciate it.

Karen

EDIT to add:  I don't have any trouble enabling build mode in apts using the cheats, what I am looking for is a way to automate this in a startup file so I don't have to do it every single time I go into an apt lot.

[jsalemi]

I don't think you can permanently set them in userstartup.cheat; you can, however, alias them so it's easy to turn them on and off as needed.  Here's how I have it:

#------------------------------------------------------------------
# New Cheat Aliases - AL
#------------------------------------------------------------------

alias ab  "boolProp aptBaseLotSpecificToolsDisabled false" "apartment build on" "apartment build on"
alias ab- "boolProp aptBaseLotSpecificToolsDisabled true" "apartment build off" "apartment build off"

alias ax  "boolProp aptSubLotSpecificToolsDisabled false" "apt external build on" "apt external build on"
alias ax- "boolProp aptSubLotSpecificToolsDisabled true" "apt external build off" "apt external build off"
#------------------------------------------------------------------