Well so much for the elevators!

[witch]

I was really looking forward to the lifts - or elevators for Americans. I put one in my vampire castle tonight and what a pain. Straight away I knew the constant dinging of the bell would irritate me, then it took ages to go through the whole performance, not to mention the fact that the damn thing went wrong the first day!

There's no option to repair, it's probably a programming error as I have two sims on the verge of energy exhaustion pushing the button, getting in, getting out, pressing the button in an endless cycle.

When I got the vampire to fly up to the mezzanine, expecting him to go through the gaping hole on the floor, he went up in the lift!

I'm putting Shaklin's elevator back, in one floor, out the next, no mess, no noise, no breakages, no fuss.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, Maxis elevators have this mystical ability to always be on the wrong floor. Even if you just got off of it, when you try to turn around, it's on the wrong floor and you have to wait forever for it to show up. Go figure.

[cwykes]

They look horrid too.  It took my sims1 board friends more than a few days complaining before someone realised you can put walls all around them so you don't see the actual elevator at all.

[J. M. Pescado]

They look horrid too.  It took my sims1 board friends more than a few days complaining before someone realised you can put walls all around them so you don't see the actual elevator at all.

That's sort of what you're supposed to go. The guts of an elevator were never supposed to be pretty!

[cwykes]

Quite.  It's a "Duhhh" when you figure it out, but it took them nearly a week, so maybe someone reading hasn't worked it out yet.  Now we're waiting for our first elevator crash.

[DrBeast]

Oh they're THAT good eh? Well, no OFB yet, but when I get it I'll keep Targa's Ascension stairs. It's replaced each and every floor-to-floor staircase in my neighborhoods!

Edit: you'll find the Ascension stairs here . Save yourselves the hassle of the stairs and zoom between the floors at ease! Oh, Motoki, you haven't seen this post. It's all in your imagination! It does not exist! 

[witch]

Good I'll try those too, Shaklin does a great elevator but I like the spacey look of the ascension stairs.

[DrBeast]

I used Shaklin's elevator too at first, but placing it was a bitch! Targa's stairs are a breeze! Plus you can pile one on top of the other (don't remember if you could do that with Shaklin's). Trust me, once you've tried the Ascension stairs there's no going back!

(mumbles to self: "now, how much did he say he'd pay me for this...?")

[Renatus]

Nah, you can't place Shaklin's elevators on top of one another to make it like a real elevator shaft, or it won't work at all. I like the little panel thingy for it but I didn't like how fiddly it was. I'll have to try Targa's - I do really like the ladder he made.

Disappointing to hear that the OFB elevators are screwy. I'll make sure to only use them for appearance flavour and keep a set of fire-stairs in the back of any building that uses them for anyone who is in a hurry.

Hm, here's a thought - do sims who die of elevator-related deaths have a different colour of ghost?

[witch]

I make a 4 square elevator room and put shaklins stairs in on alternate sides on each floor, that works fine with doors in front, sims go in, up, down and out, no problems on all three floors. Yes, can be fiddly to place initially.

[J. M. Pescado]

Disappointing to hear that the OFB elevators are screwy. I'll make sure to only use them for appearance flavour and keep a set of fire-stairs in the back of any building that uses them for anyone who is in a hurry.

As a general rule, elevators are slower than stairs for anything less than a journey of 3-4 floors. I.E., most of them, since most of the traversal time appears to be tied up in the fact that the damn thing is always on the wrong floor, even if you try to get back on right after getting off.

Also, only one sim can board the elevator at a time per floor. Anyone else drops from queue. Meaning for optimal service, you need a minimum of a double-shaft, which begins to eat into the space savings an elevator has over stairs! A staircolumn tends to consume a minimum footprint of 2x6, a doublecolumn elevator is 2x4, and has less transmission bandwidth. Once you have to resort to triple-column, you've essentially erased the advantage.

Hm, here's a thought - do sims who die of elevator-related deaths have a different colour of ghost?

I dunno, I barely notice the elevator-related hit. Death is probably unlikely. They do fail constantly, though. I'm sure if a real elevator broke this often, the company that made it would be sued out of existence.

[Renatus]

Hm, here's a thought - do sims who die of elevator-related deaths have a different colour of ghost?

I dunno, I barely notice the elevator-related hit. Death is probably unlikely. They do fail constantly, though. I'm sure if a real elevator broke this often, the company that made it would be sued out of existence.

Oh, bugger that.  I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, it'd be something a little dangerous for once. Something worth putting in an abandoned factory or mad scientist's mansion. At this rate I am going to have to go against my playing style and start engineering accidents...

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, I'm sure somebody can get killed by it, it's just not something that will happen with sims that stay green as well as mine do.

[Ancient Sim]

I have the new lifts in just one house at the moment, they're in the business side of a double-fronted townhouse.  Took me quite a while to work out how to use them - I was putting one on top of the other, but they couldn't get to the top floor.  Turned out I had to put one on the ground floor with one above it on the first floor, then another at the opposite end of the first floor to go to the second floor - in other words, you can't have 3 on top of each other, so if there are more than 2 floors, you need to lots of lifts on the 2nd floor (I think that's right!).  Anyway, they're so big that using two like that takes up a lot of space.  I also didn't realise you could put walls round them, so I'll be doing that forthwith.  I use some sort of ladder in the private part of the house rather than stairs.  I had to do this because whoever built the house put a staircase on top of a staircase to go to the third floor, but the Sims refused to use it for some reason.

[J. M. Pescado]

You can stack elevator shafts on top of each other to form a giant column as long as you want, no funny monkey dance, but one thing you cannot do is stack a shaft portion on anything other than an elevator "door" section, so you have to build from the bottom up.

[radiophonic]

Sims will die in the elevator if it fails when their needs are low. It's quite comical to watch. I just had to try it out to see what it was like (using testing cheats and shift+clicking on the elevator shaft while a sim is in it).

JM: Two of them can use it at the same time, but it's a rare occurrence and usually ends up with one of them walking through the door when they get out. Also, I have no problems with them landing on the wrong floors.

One buggy issue: If you have a home with one of these, click on a bed located on another level and tell the sim to sleep or relax. They'll get upstairs, stand next to the bed and do nothing. It seems like their path gets jogged a little bit and they can't get in.

Witch: You don't think it's funny when the bat presses the button with its nose? 

[Ellatrue]

I don't care if they are broken- I just want the sims to have another place to woohoo!

As far as lot building goes, I will continue to use Targa's ladders.

[Klaatu]

There's no option to repair, it's probably a programming error as I have two sims on the verge of energy exhaustion pushing the button, getting in, getting out, pressing the button in an endless cycle.

I haven't seen a busted elevator yet, but as far as I know, the getting in, then out, then pressing the button again in an endless cycle problem is related to JMP's sleep clock, as mine have only ever done that when called to bed by the clock. Does it happen for others under different circumstances?

Because of all the problems with the Maxis elevators, I too use Targa's Ascension V2 elevators, which work great. A little too great, actually, as travel between floors is virtually instantaneous. But I'd prefer to use the Maxis ones if there weren't these problems with them. And yes, another place to woohoo is a bonus as well.

[idtaminger]

Good I'll try those too, Shaklin does a great elevator but I like the spacey look of the ascension stairs.

I use the invisible recolour. It's one of the recolours that's been packaged in. Put a wall around it and voila! Instant elevator w/out the hassle. Doesn't clash with any decor b/c it's invisible.

[JadeEliott]

Has anyone tried CycloneSue's elevators at TSR?

[thatstakn]

do you have to put a wall around the ascension stairs?

[simmiecal]

do you have to put a wall around the ascension stairs?

Nope

[Paperbladder]

It's a shame that these elevators don't work properly, a lot of people probably just bought the game to get these elevators.  I haven't even used an elevator yet because I find that ranch style homes are much more efficient and are cheaper since you don't have to pay an astronomical amount for an foundation as you would with a real ranch.

Those ascension stairs look like they might work better than an elevator, but I doubt I'll ever use something like that.  Essentially, unless you have a load of floors in your house you shouldn't use elevators.

[Jelenedra]

Only time my simmies have used an elevator was to whoohoo in it. I just bought one and placed it outside and then deleted as soon as they were done.

[Renatus]

Those ascension stairs look like they might work better than an elevator, but I doubt I'll ever use something like that.  Essentially, unless you have a load of floors in your house you shouldn't use elevators.

I'm now going to make a two-storey house with at least three elevators just to spite you.