SimPE, cloning dead sims. Halp.

[ShadySentinel]

The short story is that my favorite legacy family/game is borked so I'm starting the neighborhood fresh but I'm going to attempt to preserve the aforementioned family.
I suck with technology unless I have directions so I'm asking for help or at least a link to a tutorial.
This is what I'm hoping to accomplish:
I'd like to restart my neighborhood (Pleasantview) with my legacy family as least mostly intact.
Question one: If I were to package their lot and then install to the new 'hood, would it still be corrupt? IamMamainred says yes, and she knows more than I do but I'd just like to be sure as my other option is rather tedious.
Question two, three, and four: How do I clone dead sims? I want to keep the ancestors there with their tombstones and all that; is this possible with SimPE? How do I make them ghosts?
Thanks for any and all help. I'm hoping to have this done with by the end of the weekend.
And I know I'm really doing it the hard way but I'm being stubborn and want to keep my family.

[J. M. Pescado]

Question one: If I were to package their lot and then install to the new 'hood, would it still be corrupt? IamMamainred says yes, and she knows more than I do but I'd just like to be sure as my other option is rather tedious.

Yes, only more so.

Question two, three, and four: How do I clone dead sims? I want to keep the ancestors there with their tombstones and all that; is this possible with SimPE? How do I make them ghosts?

Cloning dead sims is the same as cloning live sims, if you want to simsurgery. Packaging dead sims, doesn't work too well.

Basically, you're SOL. You should address the corruption at its source instead.

[ShadySentinel]

Packaging dead sims, doesn't work too well.

Basically, you're SOL. You should address the corruption at its source instead.

Can I clone dead sims and give them a death token or something?
How do I find the source?
Again, I'm not awesome.

[seelindarun]

He means you won't be able to clone the ghosts and package them.  Instead, you should try to save your original, corrupted neighbourhood, by fixing whatever was trashed.

Basically in order to accomplish what you've proposed, you'll need to extract each sim with no memories, history or relationships -- just personality and genetics.  Then you want to put them in a new 'hood and use SimPE to re-build the family tree, and re-create every memory, and relationship they had with one another.  This isn't only time-consuming, it's quite likely that you'll make a mistake along the way, because it will be your first time doing it. Then your new 'hood will be corrupt before you've even started to play it again.
Either give up on your family or follow the FOJ's advice instead.

[jolrei]

Yes, I usually just clone/recreate the sim as a 12 or an adult, give them their personality points back, and they start a whole new life.  All that rebuilding relationships and memories rubbish is just too much work.  As for cloning dead sims, if you want ghosts, clone the live sim, put him/her in the game, and kill it.

[DrNerd]

Rebuilding is tedious but not impossible.  I did it myself two generations ago.

You'll basically have to recreate everyone from scratch.  Extract the dead Sims, and then make them live Sims in CAS, and re-kill them however they died in the first place, once you've repaired the family trees.  I used InSim to repair the family trees, because it seems to snap the subordinate relationships (ie, make Sim B Sim A's son, and Sim B's kids will snap to being Sim A's grandkids) in a way that SimPE doesn't.  I didn't get too unglued about everyone having the proper memories, all I was really concerned about was personalities, relationships, and family ties.

If you want to keep your lots, turf out the Sims living in them and bin them unoccupied.  As long as the lots aren't glitchy, that won't cause corruption in your rebuilt 'hood--that's what I did with my lots, and things have been moving smoothly for the last couple of generations.

[ShadySentinel]

 I didn't get too unglued about everyone having the proper memories, all I was really concerned about was personalities, relationships, and family ties.

I'm not too concerned about the memories, it just seems as though people think they're necessary? I'm not sure.
I think I won't worry too much about rebuilding the entire family (dead sims and all) but just the living ones and just bid my dead sims adieu. SimSurgery isn't too bad and linking them isn't too hard either. Perhaps I'll attempt the dead sims in a different Neighborhood folder and see how it turns out.
Thanks for the help.

[DrNerd]

It didn't take much to recreate the 2 dead generations and re-kill them.  I wanted the graves, and the ghosts, and the complete family tree.

The only thing to watch out for is, if you're using InSim to rebuild relationships, DON'T use the Mutual Relations... Everyone Here option on the Quick Relations Sectional.  Your Sims will end up with Made Best Friends With Self memories.  I was reassured on the InSim board that that wouldn't kill my neighborhood, but I have about 4 Sims who pretty consistently roll Wants to Play With or Talk To themselves, and Fear their own deaths (not unreasonable, but still), and that's AFTER nuking every memory I could find related to them befriending themselves with SimPE.