Minor quirks, and a maintenance question.

[Jackathyn]

I've restarted my TS2 gaming and I've painstakingly customised a large degree of the neighbourhood- I want to do my best to keep this one for the long haul. What practices of maintenance are suggested to prevent BFBVFS? I don't care how long I need to spend doing it or how thorough I need to be, I'll do it, but I don't want to have to redo this yet again. I have the batbox and I periodically clean the junk memories and gossip, but beyond those I'm not quite sure what to do aside from not do stupid shit like delete from the bin or vampire-bite Crumplebottom.

I've had the occassional quirk so far- I doubt they're anything major but I want to be sure. I back up every single time I play, regardless- just OCD like that.

1. I had a pair of elder couples age up and both throw golden anniversairy parties, but the memory images are blank- I know how to fix it, but does it mean anything?
2. I got a girl to get a job, and she zipped around the house in the sitting pose like the Exorcist or something before walking to work at ordered- whiskey tango foxtrot?
EDIT: 3. Do we have any safe ways to edit Magic lots or Hobby lots yet? They're the only things I haven't custom-built and I hate that.

As an aside, does anyone know of any good hacks to pare down the beastly amount of money they're making? Even with empty lots to start life on they're ending up around at the 130k-mark come the children reaching adult age. Especially scholarships. Those goddamn college bums. I make every dollar they make go back into the community (ie. make community lots) but the figures are STILL silly.

[rufio]

What practices of maintenance are suggested to prevent BFBVFS?

Nothing, really - just don't do dumb things like deleting sims or moving them into the lot bin, and know how to fix things with the debugger if they go wrong.

1. I had a pair of elder couples age up and both throw golden anniversairy parties, but the memory images are blank- I know how to fix it, but does it mean anything?

I don't know what the memories are supposed to look like.  I've gotten some odd memories referencing the wrong sim from time to time, but I don't think it means the neighborhood is blowing up.  They don't say "$Subject" or "$Neighbor" on them, do they?

2. I got a girl to get a job, and she zipped around the house in the sitting pose like the Exorcist or something before walking to work at ordered- whiskey tango foxtrot?

Doesn't sound major.

As an aside, does anyone know of any good hacks to pare down the beastly amount of money they're making?

no20khandout, found in the Armory.  Also, there's a hack on MTS that halves all salaries.

[J. M. Pescado]

Actually, one of the leading causes of mass money accumulation is playing from zero funds. If you intentionally create a situation where your sims start in total poverty, you end up cultivating extremely frugal play habits, which then results in mass fund accumulation as you start to succeed because you have established a pattern of extreme frugality.

Interestingly, this same thing happens in real life. If you start with nothing and become rich later, you'll end up being a miserly cheapskate like me. When you have become attached to the Spartan aesthetic and no longer care for frills and frippery, you suddenly find very little on which you want to actually spend your money on. And no, buying a mountain of gold and rolling in it is not really spending.

[Jackathyn]

I've got no20khandout, which is a godsend, and I'll definitely look into that salary-halving one.

Pes, you might be right about that habit, now that I think on it. Though I make them upgrade all their appliances, decorating and such once they can afford it, it still doesn't seem like it does enough, and they could do a money-pile-roll themselves. I'm a bit similar in real life- no expensive pointless shiny objects, same furniture until it falls apart, yada yada. Old shit has more personality anyway.

@ Rufio: no, the panel is blank for three of them, and one of them has a picture of a slice of the red jelly. His wife is fat, but she is not a jelly. All the other memories in the game so far seem to be alright, so I kind of wonder if it has something to specifically do with the golden anniversary, and having two elder couples throw one on the same lot? Could just be a coincidence that the memories borked though.

[rufio]

About the money-accumulating thing, I make my sims pay for university, and that actually seems to help quite a bit - 40K, 20K, or 10K for the whole four years, depending on perceived social class and what the YA is going to want to major in.  Most of the families can afford the 20K uni for at least most of their kids, but it takes a sizable chunk out of their disposable income, and families with many children and only one working adult are struggling to do the 10K one.  If a household starts accumulating more than about 100-200K, I make them send their kids to the expensive uni to burn some of that off.  I've also gotten rid of quite a bit of cash simply by having sims move out and take some of the funds with them, and then spend it on a new house and furniture.

[Jackathyn]

That's an excellent idea, actually. I'd been forcing the uni students to move into empty lots and build the entire dormitory themselves out of scholarship money, but making tuition fees could kill two birds with one stone. Thanks for that!