Building Your Own Apartments: Late Night

[jezzer]

Jynx released the hidden 31 shell buildings and the hidden mailbox and trash chutes.

http://www.customsims3.com/smf/index.php?topic=3044.msg27730;boardseen#new

Ugh.  This quote from that site makes me cringe:

Just a suggestion: Maybe, in the first post, you could upload a new rar/zip minus those buildings that you find unsafe, because people don't always read. Sometimes they just download in a hurry.

Which is why you PUNISH THOSE PEOPLE.

[Rubyelf]

Hm still no luck for me, plopped down the apartment mailbox, of course the older one vanished, moved my sim into the apartment once I'd finished making it, however no new neighbours have spawned yet. I am trying to work out where I am going wrong. I have a public marker set for each closed off area (this apartment is 3 floors high, there is a public marker outside each main hallway). There is a hidden room marker in each of the places I don't want to be seen. I have a callbox, a chute and of course the specific mailbox, but I can't seem to get any neighbours!

[Claeric]

Noticed something fun about apartments built with Jynx's placeable shells.

The shells look completely fucking different in low detail mode. The aqua-ish one looks white, the fancy one with the deck and two stories on top goes almost COMPLETELY white, and the one with the plain black "windows" all over it looks like the aqua-ish one. It really looks terrible.

[immortelleMuse]

Hm still no luck for me, plopped down the apartment mailbox, of course the older one vanished, moved my sim into the apartment once I'd finished making it, however no new neighbours have spawned yet. I am trying to work out where I am going wrong. I have a public marker set for each closed off area (this apartment is 3 floors high, there is a public marker outside each main hallway). There is a hidden room marker in each of the places I don't want to be seen. I have a callbox, a chute and of course the specific mailbox, but I can't seem to get any neighbours!

Have you marked the doors going to the hidden rooms as "Usable by NPC"?

[Rubyelf]

Hm still no luck for me, plopped down the apartment mailbox, of course the older one vanished, moved my sim into the apartment once I'd finished making it, however no new neighbours have spawned yet. I am trying to work out where I am going wrong. I have a public marker set for each closed off area (this apartment is 3 floors high, there is a public marker outside each main hallway). There is a hidden room marker in each of the places I don't want to be seen. I have a callbox, a chute and of course the specific mailbox, but I can't seem to get any neighbours!

Have you marked the doors going to the hidden rooms as "Usable by NPC"?

Yes of course. I even tested by moving a sim into the apartment's made by EA (the one which does NOT use a shell, it's near the water). No sims moved in at all, however I did replace it down again after I deleted it to make my own. I am going to remake the neighbourhood and see if it works now.

[basbas]

Ugh.  This quote from that site makes me cringe:

Just a suggestion: Maybe, in the first post, you could upload a new rar/zip minus those buildings that you find unsafe, because people don't always read. Sometimes they just download in a hurry.

Which is why you PUNISH THOSE PEOPLE.

Heh. Guess who didn't read it.

[Claeric]

I read it. There was no "These look hideous in-game" warning when they were first posted. It also didn't mention (and still may not mention) that they apparently cause blue lots. Excuse me for not going back and regularly re-reading the download info for things I already downloaded.

Even with a warning, how hard is it to not include the broken ones in the damn package to begin with?

[uknortherner]

Just going back to the NPC neighbours - I noticed that when meeting these new neighbours in a freshly started game, and querying what they did they were all service NPCs. One was a butler, another was a mixologist and the third was a maid (the fourth door was empty). Could this be the reason why newly-placed apartment blocks fail to generate NPCs once a hood's been played? Perhaps the game is only using these empty "apartments" to house already generated service NPCs.

[Claeric]

Try hiring a maid until you get one you haven't met/that you know doesn't live in your apartment. If it is indeed simply housing service NPCs in the NPC apartments, shouldn't you be able to find their house and go visit them? Or try until you get the maid you already met, and see if she just wanders from her house to yours.

[MegAnne]

Is there any way to remove a Level Skip Marker from an existing building? I want to add a public area and hidden rooms to intermediate floors.

[Rubyelf]

Is there any way to remove a Level Skip Marker from an existing building? I want to add a public area and hidden rooms to intermediate floors.

Find it and use RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings False so you can pick it up and simply delete it, fixes the problem

Still having the problem with no neighbours moving into my Custom Apartments

[uknortherner]

Try hiring a maid until you get one you haven't met/that you know doesn't live in your apartment. If it is indeed simply housing service NPCs in the NPC apartments, shouldn't you be able to find their house and go visit them? Or try until you get the maid you already met, and see if she just wanders from her house to yours.

Tried it with the maid and butler. The game generated new ones every time and ignored the NPCs already resident in the building. When fired, I followed them to see where they go, and they simply did the usual vanishing act outside a residential lot.

[J. M. Pescado]

Service NPCs do not live in buildings, because they must be conjured forth from the ether to serve. If you ever see an NPC drive off, they basically just ride off into the sunset.

[Rubyelf]

Anyone yet to figure out why NPC's will not move into custom made apartment buildings?

[immortelleMuse]

NPC's have moved into my (completely) custom apartment no problem. Although, I have totally restricted/turned off story progression, made sure that every house that isn't occupied did NOT have a bed/refrigerator (which means NPC's cannot move into those homes) and so, most all NPC's have flooded the apartment complexes (Seriously, like 20 of them are jammed up in 2 technical rooms, the same thing with the other two pre-made apartments in my neighborhood.)

So, what you might want to do is check other houses in your neighborhood and make sure NPC's can't move in there. I had placed the apartments after playing the neighborhood, though I did do a "killallhumans" which probably caused the game to generate new NPC's who then decided to live there. There are other commands like that using Awesomemod like "Rapture" and whatnot, after setting your preferred families as sacred. That would force the game to generate new NPC's as well. Of course, do all these with caution, back up your save yadda yadda...

[freckles]

NPC's have moved into my (completely) custom apartment no problem. Although, I have totally restricted/turned off story progression, made sure that every house that isn't occupied did NOT have a bed/refrigerator (which means NPC's cannot move into those homes) and so, most all NPC's have flooded the apartment complexes (Seriously, like 20 of them are jammed up in 2 technical rooms, the same thing with the other two pre-made apartments in my neighborhood.)

So, what you might want to do is check other houses in your neighborhood and make sure NPC's can't move in there. I had placed the apartments after playing the neighborhood, though I did do a "killallhumans" which probably caused the game to generate new NPC's who then decided to live there. There are other commands like that using Awesomemod like "Rapture" and whatnot, after setting your preferred families as sacred. That would force the game to generate new NPC's as well. Of course, do all these with caution, back up your save yadda yadda...

I had the same problem with the butler. I had made my own apartments and called to get a butler and 20 of them showed up and stood in front of the elevators all day. 

[MegAnne]

Is there any way to remove a Level Skip Marker from an existing building? I want to add a public area and hidden rooms to intermediate floors.

Find it and use RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings False so you can pick it up and simply delete it, fixes the problem

The issue is that you can't see the Level Skip Marker in the intermediate floors, even with RestrictBuildBuyinBuildings disabled. I ended removing the floors of the stories above to find the silly thing.

[Rubyelf]

Is there any way to remove a Level Skip Marker from an existing building? I want to add a public area and hidden rooms to intermediate floors.

Find it and use RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings False so you can pick it up and simply delete it, fixes the problem

The issue is that you can't see the Level Skip Marker in the intermediate floors, even with RestrictBuildBuyinBuildings disabled. I ended removing the floors of the stories above to find the silly thing.

Yes in some apartments it is quite tricky to find. I had no problem finding mine in the Plaza apartment though.

[tizerist]

About homeowners association rules. Is there any way to bypass this? I've freshly plonked down the highest high rise, with the red top. It's got three puny floors. Under the middle one there is a dark floor, clearly not intended for use. Its even got some weird pillars down there which would restrict building.
So is this an invisible hidden floor marker job, or is it truly out of bounds? I don't really need the whole floor (although that would be nice) but seeing as its just sitting there in darkness I could at least put a hot tub on the liveable floor above. So is there no current way to disable the busybodies association. Not even with an AM code? :/

[tizerist]

Why would I want apartment markers when I clearly stated that it was a fresh shell, and I wanted to edit the darkened section, something which is clearly not public space?

[The_Goddess]

Why would I want apartment markers when I clearly stated that it was a fresh shell, and I wanted to edit the darkened section, something which is clearly not public space?

Because it is the markers that cause the space to be blackened in the first place.  You need to find them and move or remove them in order to use the space.  Going into BuyDeBug mode makes them visible. You might also need to turn off RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings if you are trying to alter an area that is not part of your apartment, such as adding a second floor to your penthouse.

[tizerist]

Okay, fine.
You have to enter the fucking code to edit anything outside of the sim's fucking apartment.

What apartment would that be fuckwit? Its a fresh shell. A fresh shell. What part of that flew over your neanderthal brain?

The_Goddess
I already have those cheats upon startup. Here is the section I mean. You can see a pillar type object under there.

[tizerist]

Like I just said, the cheats are on automatically. If you know how to do it, you know which building it is, post a picture of you modifying that area. Otherwise, shut up.

[The_Goddess]

The_Goddess
I already have those cheats upon startup. Here is the section I mean. You can see a pillar type object under there.

Yes I see it.  I'm not sure what you are having trouble with.  You could try moving it with ‘Moveobjects on', if it is yelling at you when you try to remove it.  You might try nuking it in game mode.  Using "RestructBuildBuyInBuildings false" should turn off the restrictions. Double check to make sure the cheat is actually turned off

[Rubyelf]

Tiz, as soon as I have completed my essay for University and finished studying for my exam, I will go and have a look into this for you and will get back to you.