How do I make a new hood with custom townines?

[Gastfyr]

I've seen several posts here talking about how many of you like to make hoods with custom townies that you get to pick exactly how they all look.  I understand some sort of teleporter cat is needed for this?  What other hacks/cheats are nessacary?

I am starting a new custom themed hood and it is important to me that all townies dress and look appropriate to the theme.  I'm planning on doing "deleteallcharacters" to get rid of the boring Pleasantview croud (all subhoods are allready attached).  I have notownieregen installed btw.

Is there a way to make custom social group townies?  Is there a way (short of all-in-one npcs) to make custom npcs?  I would also like to have the police and other npcs look and dress a certain way.  But it is very important that maids don't wear that skanky little outfit in the neighbourhood as it is based on medevial times.   

I understand there are ways to change how townies and npcs look once they are randomly generated by the game, one being SimPE?

Sorry if I seem to know so little and that I ask so many questions.  I will try to find the teleporter cat everyone has been talking about.

[Tsarina]

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT "deleteallcharacters"! It will leave an awful lot of mess behind. Use an empty template instead.
I'm not so sure about the townie thing, though. When I made townies for my neighbourhood, I used the NPC and Townie Gun. It can be spawned by clicking on a sim when in debug mode. But I am sure that you'll be able to find instructions on how to do it y searching Google or this board.

Edited to clarify: I post before I think.

[Gastfyr]

Okay then.  Not sure what's so bad about deleteallcharacters (other than the fact that it takes about 3 hours do actually do it and then it freezes the whole game and stuff...at least that's what it did the last time I did it on a new hood).     I suppose empty templates can be found at someplace like MTS2?

By the way, thanks so much for your advice; it is really helpful.  See, I don't even know what an empty template is.  lol

[JennyJenny]

Sara MK's empty templates can be found here (search is your friend) http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.0.html

[Gastfyr]

Sara MK's empty templates can be found here (search is your friend) http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.0.html

Thanks!  I hadn't even gotten around to finding the teleporter cat yet.  I have about 5 windows open and I'm constantly getting distracted. lol

[keirra]

The teleporter cat is by Inge, you can find it at Simlogical.

[talysman]

Sara MK's empty templates can be found here (search is your friend) http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.0.html

Thanks!  I hadn't even gotten around to finding the teleporter cat yet.  I have about 5 widows open and I'm constantly getting distracted. lol

What about orphans? Do you have any openings for orphans?

[Gastfyr]

Sara MK's empty templates can be found here (search is your friend) http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.0.html

Thanks!  I hadn't even gotten around to finding the teleporter cat yet.  I have about 5 widows open and I'm constantly getting distracted. lol

What about orphans? Do you have any openings for orphans?

Anyway, since it looks like I can only use empty templates on hoods that aren't created yet (and since every one of my custom hoods is apparently corrupted since I used delete all characters), I'll come back to this later.  Right now I need to do something fun to get my mind off these newly discovered depressing facts. 

[talysman]

You can probably package any unoccupied homes you've built, install the clean templates, create a new neighborhood, and place the packaged homes where you originally wanted them. However, if you also have families, you will need to export them to get them in the new neighborhood, which means at lesat some loss. Relationships, at the very least.

[Gastfyr]

I had only build one lot in the new hood and was playtesting it (with one of the annoying sim familes that Maxis has been throwing in the sim bin in every nhood since pets).  It's an apt lot, so it's important to me to make sure it's working before moving any "real" families in.  Anyway, I can easily package it and put it in a new hood.  So it's not really that big a deal except that making a new hood takes forever on my comp (and longer with each EP!).  I had done a bit of nhood decorating that I'll also have to do over.

I guess it's my other custom hoods I'm more concered about.  The ones I'd used deleteallcharacters on.  Really, did Maxis think players would like to see the same freaking boring Pleasantview set of twnies/npcs in every single custom hood?  And then they put in the option to deleteallcharacters, but don't warn us that it will corrupt the hood.  Not sure what I'm supposed to do with all my other custom hoods...I can delete the ones I don't really care about, but one or two are pretty important to me (and my brother who also plays in one of the custom hoods).

I think I'm gonna force my husband to figure out all this empty template stuff since he's much more tech savy than me.  I look at the text in the posts and my eyes glaze over.  My husband wants to play in this new hood (we're going to do this "two royal kingdoms" thing where he and I each conrol one kingdom using the lot snyc timer to make sure it's all advancing at the same time), but he seems perfectly happy to sit back and make me do all the set up and planning work.   

[kutto]

HOW ARE TOWNINE FORMED

HOW GAME GET PRAGNENT

[Gastfyr]

Ok, so I got a bunch of empty templates.  Thing is, I have "N001_Neighbourhood" and "Argon-EmptyN001".  Clearly, I only need one of these.     Which one do I use?  Are they the same?  Is one better in some way?

My husband has been helping me figure this all out, and I'm really excited to make my own truly custom (and uncorrupted!) nhood, but I want to make sure I do it all right.  ^_^

Eta: I should also add that I have installed all the hacks recomened in this thread: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,10798.0.html

@kutto: Townie are formed in the bottom of ponds by the chemical reactions triggered by many old boots decomposing.  Game doesn't get pragnent; I don't know who told you that, but baby games grow under eggplant leaves.

[Emma]

Gastfyr...funny!

Personally I use the N001_Neighbourhood one. I think the Argon one is for an Empty Pleasantview.

[ingeli]

@kutto: Townie are formed in the bottom of ponds by the chemical reactions triggered by many old boots decomposing.  Game doesn't get pragnent; I don't know who told you that, but baby games grow under eggplant leaves.

NOO the cute baby games.. I think they grow in different areas of MATY board, like that Spore game, now growing in "Splotch" area, taking away all the modder love from older game siblings like Sims2 who DESPERATELY needs them Unfair!

[Zazazu]

Baby games are grown on the Internets, silly. Everytime a BBSer says "Bella" a baby game is born. Townies are pulled fully-formed out of the Oversoul's ass.

[shadow]

There is an NPC replacer here: Paladin's Place  It allows you to choose the outfits your NPC's wear.  Here's a good place to get period clothing: All About Style

[Gastfyr]

There is an NPC replacer here: Paladin's Place  It allows you to choose the outfits your NPC's wear.  Here's a good place to get period clothing: All About Style

Wow, thanks!  Both of those links are going to be very useful.   

[LauraW]

I have a neighborhood started years ago that is still doing well and I used deleteallcharacters. I have never had any serious problems with the neighborhood. However, I have limited the growth of the neighborhood and keep townie numbers down.

That said, I now use the empty templates because I imagine that just because I have been lucky with this one neighborhood that does not mean my luck will hold out. But don't panic with your old neighborhoods unless you see problems.

[jsalemi]

I have a neighborhood started years ago that is still doing well and I used deleteallcharacters. I have never had any serious problems with the neighborhood.

Probably because you did it 'years ago', and 1) there were many fewer sims in the game, and 2) maybe whatever borkedness you introduced into the hood has been bypassed because of all the new characters added by EPs and BIG since then.

[LauraW]

Could be. Its nice to have mods to keep certain characters from spawning. I am pretty careful about not playing that neighborhood until all the new mods are out too. I suppose I have an odd playing style..it takes me forever to get through each generation.

[MaximilianPS]

i've removed the folder characters from C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods\N001
and so on with all expansions...
then i've made a new hood, starting from scratch with simcity 4 (that's for terrains, sc4 file)

with pescado's hack in download folders, the game will not create new character unless they are needed... (like postaman, of newspaper guy)

for the npc customization i use ts2enh, i've a nice archivie of clones ready to use

[Gastfyr]

for the npc customization i use ts2enh, i've a nice archivie of clones ready to use

what is ts2enh?  I guess "ts2" means "The Sims 2," but what does "enh" stand for?

[Zazazu]

TS2 Enhancer. It's a pay program which is, largely, a dummied-down version of SimPE. It is a rip-off. See the EULA.