Which is the safest way to package this occupied lot?

[cwykes]

I've made a family I want to offer for download as an occupied lot.  That's a VBT if badly done, so I'd like a bit of advice please.  This is a base-game-only lot if that makes any technical difference.

I started with a CAS made family: mum, dad and 6 offspring.  I moved the family onto a lot and immediately moved mum and dad out leaving 2 teens and the 4 younger siblings alone.  I've packaged the lot as it is now, but I'm having second thoughts about whether that's the right way to handle the missing parents.  I know some data about mum and dad goes into the packaged lot file, but I can't remember how much.  I'd like enough for the kids to remember them, but I seem to remember that there's enough for the parents to turn up as walkbys on community lots.  That would be a problem, especially if there's not enough data for them to become complete sims again.  Please refresh my memory...

Is it safer if I kill off mum and dad so they are in the packaged lot as dead sims?  I really don't want the kids to be crying their eyes out for days at the start of the challenge.  If I kill them, should the graves be on the lot with the kids?  I didn't plan on adding unhappy ghosts to the challenge. 

Option 3 is to expurgate mum and dad from memories, family tree etc with electric boogaloo.  I'd just rather not - it spoils the story.

Any suggestions very welcome

[SJActress]

Well, I'd go for electric boogaloo as the safest way.

However, if you want the kids to keep the memories, make them ghosts.  I'm not sure if the tombstones have to remain or not...I assume they would.  You could always tell people that upload the lot that you'd prefer they delete the tombstones after they install.

Also, quadruple check that none of the sims in the occupied lot knows ANYONE besides the other sims living there.

It's true, you can't just move the parents out and let the others keep memories, because the parents wouldn't exist in everyone else's game, causing corrupt memories.

I've never heard of having a walk-by the way you're describing.  It doesn't sound possible. 

The last thing I'd recommend is to package the entire family, including the living parents, and tell people to move them out after installing.

[cwykes]

I've just cycled the package into another empty hood and gone over it in SimPE.  The family tree is fine. The parents pics are in blue and they are in the default family.  They have sim description files that look normal to me plus DNA files, but no SWAF files, no relationships and no memories.   The kids have no direct memories of their parents, but they do have gossip memories of things their parents did.  As the parents have no memories, these are not corrupt and I've deleted them.  I now have a cleaner package than before, but I'm still wondering if dead sims on the lot are safer.

I think Pescado said walkbys were possible as the selector for walkbys just sees that sims exist and doesn't notice they aren't complete.

[talysman]

The safest would have been to not create the parents in the first place. If what you want is a family of teens and children, all siblings, you can make them as adult siblings in CAS, de-age them, and package them that way. No fake or dead sims, no corrupt memories.

[cwykes]

I guess, but I don't like messing with the ages in game.  That seems just as dangerous to me as packaging lots. 

I wanted the parents to be real and the kids to have memories of them - uncorrupt ones!  As that seems to be impossible, I'm wondering if I should embrace the concept of dead parents and have a target of resurrecting one.  DK if that's possible from what's left of them if they are packaged as dead.

Why oh why couldn't maxis write a lotpackager that works cleanly!  I'm still hoping somebody awesome will write a nifty utility to clean up sims2packfiles.  Cleaninstaller only deals with the CC part of it.

[J. M. Pescado]

Do not attempt to package sims that have acquired any gossip memories of anyone. Do not attempt to package sims that know anyone not present in the same family. Use the Lot Debugger to purge all gossips prior to attempting to package. You will have to either include the parents in the family, kill them first, or not have them at all, as copying them would leave these mangled stubs of sims that are "undead" and yet not sims.

[lechapeau]

You say you've made the lot with the basegame only, if the people playing the challenge have NL (or maybe just an EP from NL onwards) then they should be okay, but otherwise I'm not sure the tombstones will actually travel with pre NL packaged lots. You'd have to test to see or it may be pointless including them if you should choose to.
If you already have the storyline in your head I can see why you don't want to change it, but I suppose it's out of the question just to say "such and such happened, this is their story", have that in their description and leave it at that to avoid any problems?

I'm not sure now, but didn't the option to adjust the ages come with a later EP, so it may not even be available in your basegame set up. If it is then in my experience changed sims age accordingly but the age display looks a bit odd in-game, that might confuse people who weren't aware of what you'd done. You could explain that in your description as well, the teens I've aged down from adults have played out okay, but that isn't to say there aren't other hidden problems I'm unaware of! 

[cwykes]

Do not attempt to package sims that have acquired any gossip memories of anyone. Do not attempt to package sims that know anyone not present in the same family. Use the Lot Debugger to purge all gossips prior to attempting to package. You will have to either include the parents in the family, kill them first, or not have them at all, as copying them would leave these mangled stubs of sims that are "undead" and yet not sims.

So I need to kill the parents and not leave them "undead".  OK will do.  thanks.
Is killing them on that lot better than killing them on another lot, or does it make no difference?  Guess I'll do it on the lot to be sure.

Not sure what "copying" means...??  I've made the family as clean as I know how.  They haven't met anyone.  They didn't even interract with each other for long before I packaged.  The kids had gossip memories of the parents from that interraction "mummy moved in".  I deleted those in simPE as I found them after I'd quit the lot.

..... I'm not sure the tombstones will actually travel with pre NL packaged lots. You'd have to test to see or it may be pointless including them if you should choose to. ..........

I'm pretty sure the tombstones will be on the lot because I've done that before.  I just don't know if the data is complete enough for resurrection.  Once you have a tombstone on a lot, someone with higher EPS is going to do it, so I need to know if that's OK.  If it's not, the tombstones shouldn't be on the lot.  Once I've got a clean package from base game, I'll bring it into my all EP set up and test. 

btw - Nice to hear from you Lechapeau!  I can mail you the lot if you want to play with it...   I had in mind a base game "save them from the social worker" kind of challenge, with a second part involving home-making targets from other EPs like - send siblings to uni, train a pet & get badges for sewing, fishing, gardening, hobbies etc.  Resurrect mum and dad would be good if it's possible and safe.

[lechapeau]

You can send it to me if you like. 
It should be okay in a game from NL onwards though, as in the tombstones should be included there. If your previous testing was in this kind of game set up then you wouldn't have seen any differences anyway. But for those with just base and/or Uni they might not see any stones and that may or may not be a problem.
If you've cleaned it all up, it should be purely visual and they'd expect a tombstone if you're telling them it'll be there, but then when they open the lot it would be gone, they'd have nothing to even try to resurrect and you'll have people wondering why and asking questions!
Testing it with both before and after NL game set ups lets you know what to expect, then you can say "it does this and that" for the relevant EP's as you submit it or in its description somewhere, however it works for these challenges!
 

[cwykes]

good advice there - thanks.    I've packed a lot with a tombstone in base game days and I remember it appearing OK in another hood.  But it was a long time ago and I could be mistaken.  I'm planning on running the finished challenge in base game and my full game to check it all out properly.  But it's tedious doing the same challenge 3-4 times!   I'll do a bit more work on it and send it on over.  I'd love a second opinion on it!