Where are all the townies?

[eevilcat]

I thought I'd give the legacy challenge a spin to get a better feel for the game but seem to be lacking in townies to act as potential mates for the heir. The legacy is running in Riverview so I don't know whether it's a problem with that particular 'hood as there were plenty townies in the other 'hood. Most community lots seem to be deserted when I send my sims into town or there might only be one or rarely two other sims at most. I'm wondering if this is related to running Awesomemod with the no parthenogenesis option enabled as it might just be the game isn't producing new sims as the old ones die off and that this is becoming apparent now that I'm well into the second generation. It looks like the only new sims are colleagues in the career paths of legacy household sims so I've been picking off the single ones for my sims but there are not many to choose from. Any ideas or suggestions?

[Zucabr]

It's been noted that Riverview is much less outgoing than Suncrap Thingie. The preferred method of socialization there is house calls, so you might consider doing the same. My suggestion is to do it in Suncrap Thingie.

[Zazazu]

In my Riverview, the library is always pretty full. That tiny park in the middle of the island can be fairly busy on the weekend. Any of the other community lots, though, are mostly deserted.

I'm thinking of doing a second attempt at legacy...don't like my beginning strategy, plus it's time to create my traditional Sims1/Sims2 family. Will try there.

[phyllis_p]

Riverview seems to have a lot of homeless families who are hard to get in touch with.  I don't know why.  What I've taken to doing is when my kid Sims meet a member of the opposite sex in school, I immediately tag them as "sacred" to make sure they don't age up too fast or have some other funkiness happen to them.  In order to actually get them around to meet, I throw a party at the juice bar and invite all the kids and teens that my kids and teens know.  Sometimes they'll bring a friend. 

[Silverdrake]

I'm having trouble even finding time to make friends with townies, what with all the gardening, cooking, and writing novels my sim has to do, plus trying to hold down a job. She doesn't even have kids yet! (who has time for woohoo and all that damn foreplay?) Good thing she's an introvert.

[J. M. Pescado]

In my Riverview, the library is always pretty full. That tiny park in the middle of the island can be fairly busy on the weekend. Any of the other community lots, though, are mostly deserted.

My library is bustling also, but this is a direct influence of Supreme Commander, because of the massive buffs the library provides to multiple skills. The original Suncrap Thingy was almost obnoxiously crowded. I would leave lots just to get AWAY from all those people, and head for the nearby empty place, and like deranged stalkers, they would follow me there. It was maddening! At least they didn't usually try to TALK to me, but still, it was creepy, in a manner akin to being stalked by a troupe of mimes.

[jolrei]

I have moved MATY puddings into all the houses formerly occupied by Suncrap townies, and then evicted and destroyed the townies.  There are very few left now.  Only those I created (Jesus (living with Emma), Terence Hill (living with Marhis)) and a couple of the better looking male townies who can be "available" to other MATY female sims.

If I tag MATY sims as sacred, will they spawn or not spawn, or doesn't it matter?

So far, in Suncrap Thingy, I can find non-playables around any comm lot, usually at least 3 per lot, and then some walk-bys.  I should try playing Riverview.

[Emma]

Oh, kewl. I live with Jesus.

[Regina]

In Riverview, the pool over by the science building is always a hot spot and the gym seems pretty popular too.  Even with a full Riverview town, I have rarely seen Sims at places like the juice bar and gazebo. Once in a while someone will go to the museum late at night.

I also find it difficult in TS3 to find time to socialize.  There are so many way more interesting things to do! LOL

[eevilcat]

It appears that the lack of townies problem is escalating. I went the edit neighbourhood just to see who exactly is there and it looks like only about 4 households have any occupants, all of which are elders. One of them does have 3 kids but that is only because they were fathered by a spare resident  in the legacy family. There also doesn't seem to be any sign of the other four generation 2 spares that I kicked out of the legacy household, one of which also has a baby. The generation 2 sims I kicked out are still on the family tree but don't appear to be getting any older whereas the generation 1 spares aged up and died at a rate consistent with the legacy household. So how do I locate the spares that were kicked out and get them to age? I sort of assumed that kicked out sims would automatically move in somewhere but am wondering if lack of funds due to awesomemod is preventing this.

EDIT: I've found that if I invite round the generation 2 spares they appear to be the correct elder age and that the grim reaper turns up that evening to claim them. I'm guessing that there is a problem with them being updated while in 'kicked out limbo'. I'm not sure what is going to happen to the now motherless baby who I assume is now actually a teen, YA or adult.

[crunk]

Eevilcat, try adding more starter-type homes to the neighborhood. I'm having a problem with my hood with homeless sim and adding starter homes seems to be resolving the issue.

[Zazazu]

Using Awesomemod? Pes is trying to make it more intelligent in placing families, but that is resulting in it just failing to do so because all the families generate with $20k and they almost never get jobs, so they won't earn enough to afford appropriate housing.

1. Cheat console, type "listhomeless"
2. Write down the last names you see.
3. Family fund them some money. I start with $40k for everyone.
4. Cheat console, type "runstoryaction Move In Household"
5. Repeat until you get a message that it failed.
6. Family fund remainders higher amounts of money.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until all are moved in.

If you have families with around 6-8 members, you may find that they simply can't be placed because none of the lots have enough beds. That can be fixed by shoving beds on lots.

[Lorelei]

In RV, I find that empty commlots fill up with townies after my controlled Sims arrive and start doing something. Occasioanlly I'll see them out gardening or commuting to and from work, but usually they don't show up until I've lurked in one spot long enough for the game to generate them there.

[Doc Doofus]

This is different, but may be related.  I have had sims vanish from townie-occupied lots, but in EditTown, they are still listed as living on the lot.  I had this happen with two sims, so far, one of them a newborn larva.  When the family was selected, there was no baby anywhere, no icon on the left for the missing larva, but the parents had the newborn baby moodlet and the baby showed up in their relationship panel.

I fixed it by going back to Edittown, SPLITTING the household to move the infant and one parent out, then moving them back into the same household.

A similar thing happened with the Goth family.  Mortimer's wife disappared from the family, while I wasn't looking.  When I went back, she was still in the relationship panel but she had no icon on the left.  Nobody could call or invite her.  EditTown still showed her living there.  The fix:  I split her out of the family in EditTown then placed her back in the family.  All fixed.

[Regina]

Using Awesomemod? Pes is trying to make it more intelligent in placing families, but that is resulting in it just failing to do so because all the families generate with $20k and they almost never get jobs, so they won't earn enough to afford appropriate housing.

1. Cheat console, type "listhomeless"
2. Write down the last names you see.
3. Family fund them some money. I start with $40k for everyone.
4. Cheat console, type "runstoryaction Move In Household"
5. Repeat until you get a message that it failed.
6. Family fund remainders higher amounts of money.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until all are moved in.

If you have families with around 6-8 members, you may find that they simply can't be placed because none of the lots have enough beds. That can be fixed by shoving beds on lots.

For some odd reason my familyfunds cheat is non-existent. I ran the "help" console after attempting it several times.  Listhomeless works like a dream, though.

Also, is "runstoryaction Move In Household" only a feature of Supreme Commander?  I prefer to play with that part of the awesomemod disabled.

[Syera]

Is it possible you have a mod conflict?  I've encountered at least one mod that conflicted with only part of AwesomeMod.  o_0

[chaos]

When you type in "runstoryaction Move In Household" do you also have to type the household name?

[Regina]

The familyfunds cheat is working now but I'm still clueless on the runstoryaction.  When I try to run it I get an unknown command type message.   Perhaps now that they have some money some of them will go ahead and find homes.  Goodness knows, there are plenty available but definitely nothing under 20,000 that five Sims can live in.

[Aaroc]

Using Awesomemod? Pes is trying to make it more intelligent in placing families, but that is resulting in it just failing to do so because all the families generate with $20k and they almost never get jobs, so they won't earn enough to afford appropriate housing.

1. Cheat console, type "listhomeless"
2. Write down the last names you see.
3. Family fund them some money. I start with $40k for everyone.
4. Cheat console, type "runstoryaction Move In Household"
5. Repeat until you get a message that it failed.
6. Family fund remainders higher amounts of money.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until all are moved in.

If you have families with around 6-8 members, you may find that they simply can't be placed because none of the lots have enough beds. That can be fixed by shoving beds on lots.

Thank you so much for that minitutaorial. I now only have 37 homeless bums in my town, but they are all in one Household listed as NPC. Hopefully this should mostly do away with my 1am laginess as well. Of course, I had built some houses specifically to house some new families, but even they were more than $20k and of course none of these homeless bums get jobs. Plus it turned out that a lot of these families had 5 or 6 members in them, which isn't exactly conducive to moving in to any house with only $20k available. I think I might end up making a Homeless bum alley, where the houses are just big shacks with 8 beds and a fridge in them so at least the families can move in, and then I can grant them a proper house afterwards.

[chaos]

The familyfunds cheat is working now but I'm still clueless on the runstoryaction.  When I try to run it I get an unknown command type message.   Perhaps now that they have some money some of them will go ahead and find homes.  Goodness knows, there are plenty available but definitely nothing under 20,000 that five Sims can live in.

I think familyFunds only works if the household is already on a lot, which sort of defeats the purpose of using it, in the first place. Can anyone confirm if this is still true, or not?

[Zazazu]

When you type in "runstoryaction Move In Household" do you also have to type the household name?

No. Just type the cheat as I wrote it in quotes.

I think familyFunds only works if the household is already on a lot, which sort of defeats the purpose of using it, in the first place. Can anyone confirm if this is still true, or not?

No, it hasn't a thing to do with where the family you are funding is. Trust the Zaza. I have done this oodles of times.

As for familyfunding and such and relation to Supreme Commander, it has none. I'm not using Supreme Commander. I'm sure it's great, but I'm a little wary of it still. Now, I do have debug commands activated (all of the debug options, in fact).

[Heinel]

Now if only there is a macro to get them all jobs as well...

[witch]

I followed Zazazu's instructions, worked like a charm. Five more families live in actual houses now.

I run with awesomemod, so I went round a few empty houses putting two cribs in each. I didn't know if awesomemod would prevent a family moving in from the 'runstoryaction Move In Household' if there weren't enough beds, so I made sure there were enough. Awesomemod also likes two cribs, just in case of twins.

[Aaroc]

Cribs are not necessary. I used Zaza's method of family funding a bunch of my homeless sims and they moved into houses that had enough beds to fit them all, that they could afford, and had no cribs, even though several families had toddlers.

I also went ahead and took that empty alley up by the military base and made some homeless shelters; Basic houses that had a room with 8 beds, a kitchen, and a dining room, all for about $11k on the smallest lot.. maybe 14k for the biggest lot. I haven't had a chance to test this yet and see if a family will actually move in, but it's only been one sim night since I made them and one family has spawned, but not moved in yet. I'll give them a few sim nights to see how things go. In any event, moving in those families completely got rid of my 1am lag. There was a split-second hiccup and I otherwise wouldn't have even noticed its passing.

[eevilcat]

Cheers Zazazu, it was a bit of a marathon but now all the homeless are homed. For some reason the debug console now only remembers the previous command so there was a lot of typing to do.

You need to have 'EnableDebugCommands' enabled in the awesomemod configuration to be able to access runstoryaction. Without that all you can do is listhomeless and familyFunds.