Utilidorm for University

[witch]

I got bored with the dark and dingy student accommodations in University so I built a futuristic dorm using items from Into the Future. The first time I played it the townie students completely refused to use the lift capsules, in fact I recall Millie Grubb wandering around the building all night wailing that she couldn't find any stairs and she was so, so tired. (I'd claimed the downstairs rooms for my sims.) I put the dorm aside for some months. I decided to try it again last night and for some reason the townies now use the capsules, although reluctantly. Perhaps the last 1.67 patch fixed it? Who knows.

So this is my futuristic dorm.







Upstairs


Downstairs






Playing with lights again? Tick!




Workroom on top


To replace a dorm in Uni.
Edit uni world
Bulldoze current dorm - sometimes the game recognises that there are sims on the lot, sometimes it doesn't. You may have to use evict manually.
Change lot type to community, no visitors allowed.
Place dorm. The game will place the Uni job board and the rubbish bin on the lot when you take your sims to uni.

Download sims3.pack

Mega may ask for a Firefox addon, this is fine. Otherwise you might like to use Chrome or something to download the file.

Edited to add: Lotsize = 40 x 40, §127K approx

[J. M. Pescado]

These items from the future are non-Kewian-based, I hope. ACCEPT NO KEWIAN-BASED SUBSTITUTES.

[witch]

The objects do not carry the Kewian warning.

[wizard_merlin]

Is there a way to make a new lot behave like a dorm lot, rather than demolishing an existing dorm?

[tryclyn]

 You should be able to choose Dormitory when you change lot type.

[witch]

Yeah, you can create new lots, of course, but I find I cannot place dorms on dorm lots, they have to be Community lots with no visitors allowed before I can place the dorm. I don't know if that's natural game behaviour or if it's to do with Nrass Travellers' mod, which is what I use to allow me to change the lot type to Dormitory. The native game will not allow selection of Dormitory as a lot type.

TL:DR If you make a new 40 x 40 lot and set it as Community with no visitors allowed, you should be able to place the dorm.

ETA: There are no guest toilets There is, however, a tunnel under the dorm connecting the two sets of lift capsules. (From when I was still trying to get the townie dormies to use the lifts.) You could extend and make guest toilets, or just sling a couple of those all-in-one toilet/showers in the tunnel.

[wizard_merlin]

I'll have to experiment and see what I come up with as I like the futuristic dorm and want to use it for my sims,  I have recently started using the Nrass Traveler to make Isla Paradisio a vacation world so my sims can do the scuba diving stuff, so next time I am playing I'll have to mess with Uni and try and see what I can make work before I send my sim there.  At least I know the worst case scenario is removing one of the existing dorms and replacing it with this will make it work as a dorm.

[witch]

The lot will retain its dormitory status, even in the home neighbourhood, but you can set it to residential if you want to use it there. It will be fine on a comm lot in Uni, promise.

[wizard_merlin]

I got the dorm placed nicely, but had a couple of problems after moving my sims in.  First was they wouldn't use the tubes unless I directly clicked on the and selected which floor to send them too, a minor issue which has occurred in my sims house, and easily fixed by replacing them.  The second and biggest issue was when the game created the extra roomies to fill the dorm, they were actually added to my household as controllable, last thing I need/want is a household of 8+ sims (unless they are all mine sent to Uni). 

Have you had issue with the extra sims being added to your active household?

[witch]

No, not at all. :/

[wizard_merlin]

I'll have to experiment and see if I can work out what happened.  I did place it on a different lot, I wonder if that caused the problem?

Update: Just tried placing this on an existing dorm lot to see what would happen, same thing, when the game moved in the extra sims, they became added to my active household and controllable.  Really bizarre, the lot is listed and shows in game as a dorm, like it should.

[witch]

Did you go and edit Uni, place the lot and return to main game and save? That is the process I followed when I placed the lot this time.

Before, when I couldn't get the students to use the lift capsules, I did the editing while my sims were waiting on the clipboard. That time the sims wouldn't use the capsules.

That's all I can figure with the difference. I never had sims added to the household though, that's weird.

[wizard_merlin]

Did you go and edit Uni, place the lot and return to main game and save? That is the process I followed when I placed the lot this time.

That's what I did both times I tried it.  Into edit town from my home world, into edit uni world then returned and saved (using "save as" so I had a fall back save to return to if things messed up badly).

That's all I can figure with the difference. I never had sims added to the household though, that's weird.

I have one thing left that I can think of to try, and that is move my sims into a regular dorm and see what happens. Maybe the traveler mod, or something else, has completely screwed the game and uni world.

Update:  Finally solved the problem, the stupid Nrass portrait Panel was causing the problems.  I added that some time back when both MC and AM failed to disallow overstuffed houses when set to do so.  Also modified the elevator tubes slightly and they work perfectly for everyone.

[witch]

How did you modify the elevator tubes?

[wizard_merlin]

I removed the tubes closest to the front door, leaving the ones in the corner, then moved the mirrors and doors for the dorm rooms next to the tubes, so the door was as far away from the tubes as possible.  I then replaced the tubes half a tile width away from the other set, they went in without having to use the move objects cheat.  If I remember, I could have gone a full tile width apart without any problems.  The other set, I just picked up and moved, then hit the esc key so they would snap back into position.

[witch]

Cool. They are very fiddly to place, I find I have to click/drag repeatedly when placing them to get the outline to turn green and for them to connect properly to the floor below. You can see visually if they're right if you can see the tubes going to the floor above, and if the centre of the tube looks empty instead of floored.

[wizard_merlin]

The dorm worked nicely for my sims time at Uni, but now the game won't reload the home world to send them home.  The loading bar goes almost all the way then hangs, it has happened before, but I can't remember how I resolved it before, because I stopped using the Uni world and would cheat to give them degrees instead, to save the headaches when things like this happen.  Time for more trouble shooting, which seems weird because it is just the Uni world that this happens with.

[witch]

I think that's a game thing, that's why the game prompts for a save now before trying to send them to uni or back.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've found that it does eventually load that last part...it just TAKES FOREVER.

[Sita]

Mega links don't work. If possible could this be reuploaded please?