DeleteAllCharacters?? Need it step by step

[lindaetterlee]

Ok its been like 100 years since i've played, Ok so not that long but boy i sure got stupid fast. Anyway have org,uni,nl,ofb and doing the delete all characters command. Well already did it actually. Now i need to repopulate. I spawned the NPC maker tree thing. But in what order should i spawn townies npcs etc? Anyone got a guide or mind writing a short one. Sorry to bother with such a noob question.

Linda

[Ness]

you are at least on the right track there...  after extensive testing nec and I have determined that with OFB the only way to generate townies after a DAC (or otherwise removing all characters) is to go one by one with the tree object.

I generally just go with townies, the specifics of what you want them to look like are up to you - and the ages...  as for NPCs, I find it easier to let the game generate them as required.  I don't think the order will matter too much, but I suspect you may need to create them one by one, also.

[lindaetterlee]

Ahh I was wondering why the damn thing would keep giving me a error. I thought i was being a dumbass lol. Thanks to know it is the game that is the dumb ass.

[laylei]

I've been having this problem, using boolprop/shiftclicking on mailbox (I think) to recreate all npcs and townies. Using Create All Npcs works fine, but create all townies is wonky. It made about 5 regular townies, then about 4 bald toddler boys, then alternated between making the Psychiatrist and Grim (at least, those are the pictures that showed up in the upper right corner) until it said "made 14 townies" before I got an error and had to delete the action. Upon opening SimEnhancer, the only people in the new neighborhood were the original sim I made to make the new townies, the NPCs, and the 5 regular townies it spawned. None of the toddlers, Grims or Psychiatrists were there. It did this repeatedly.

Are you saying I have to HANDMAKE my townies now, one by one? Does this apply to DownTownies, business area townies, YA dormies, etc? That'll take forever! 

[Ness]

I don't know about dormies, or downtownies...  all I can say so far is that it appears that the easier option if you don't want to play an pre-made maxis playables is to start a custom hood and go from there... 

Something in OFB is seriously stuffed up!  You can make townies in CAS and use the teleporter shrub to make them townies, or you can use the tree and go one by one...  it's a nasty situation, but after two days of testing, we can't find a way around it!

[laylei]

I don't know about dormies, or downtownies...  all I can say so far is that it appears that the easier option if you don't want to play an pre-made maxis playables is to start a custom hood and go from there... 

Something in OFB is seriously stuffed up!  You can make townies in CAS and use the teleporter shrub to make them townies, or you can use the tree and go one by one...  it's a nasty situation, but after two days of testing, we can't find a way around it!

Bah. Good going, Maxis!

Thanks for looking into it.

[MissDoh]

I had problem with the delete all characters, it would create 4 townies and then an error would pop-up, here is the report on how I got around that problem and that neighborhood is working fine since then:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.net/smf/index.php?topic=3352.msg105597#msg105597


You can read the complete post of course if you wish.

EDIT:  For some unknown reason this link does not bring you to where I wish, look for reply #27 in that thread for the report I did.

[Nec]

I have tested this over the last few days with a number of confugurations. The first thing I noticed was that since OFB, whenever you delete all character files (however you do it), a townie will generate the very first sim you move into a house, on load. Another one will generate a couple of sim hours later. So far it hasn't gone beyond 2 and the basic NPCs. I made my custom neighborhoods before OFB and counted files as I was creating my own townies and downtownies. The only sims were the ones I made and the NPCs.

Pre-made Maxis neighborhoods seem to get an error when you try to create townies. I went digging through the Pleasantview files and saw that the text list files had a huge amount of other data associated with them that were not text lists like in all my custom neighborhoods. Relationship values - all unknown towards unknown, as well as lot descriptions, wants and fears. For some reason, DAC soesn't delete all the character information and sticks what is left in the Text List section in SimPE, and when you try to create townies and get an error, it will create the same sim multiple times, yet they only have partial data, have the unknown  "Mr. Potatohead" Icon, and have relationship points with each other - weird. Manually deleting the characters doesn't help. Instead of all these things showing up in the Text List they show up in the proper section. Maxis hoods have all character info in every file it seems, and a lot of the lots have special information attached to them. Deleting them doesn't help either.

Any time you delete all characters and then try to create townies with a subhood already attached, it will generate an error.  New and empty base neighborhoods have no problems. If you create your own townies and downtownies in CAS and export them it works fine with a subhood attached.

Edit:

I tried something else that works. I made a base hood, used deleteallcharacters, and then generated townies. I made a note of the highest character file number (while I was still in game), which should be user00032 if you only made one playable sim. Then I made a downtown. I exited the game, and deleted all new files, 00033 - 00110. Went back into the game and generated downtownies successfully, only ended up with 54 fewer files - which is good in my book.


For the record, I do not use DAC for my neighborhoods. I used it for testing this problem only. For my neighborhoods I always make the neighborhoods and then delete all files in the character folder. I also have never used "spawn townies" or "spawn downtownies" until this. I make my own and export them. I just wanted to test for those who like to use DAC.

[Stitches]

A good step by step is impossible until this feature of OFB is fixed.

If you really want to have it done by the game generator, uninstall OFB*. Create a neighborhood. Add the UNI + NL hoods. Delete All Characters. Create a sim and put them on the lot. Use the testing cheat to spawn NPCs, Townies, and Downtownies. Go into Uni and let it spawn the Uni characters. Exit. Install OFB. At this point, decide whether you really want the OFB subhood or not. I didn't bother adding it because I didn't want the ugly OFB characters.

Of course, this doesn't work if you like your current neighborhood and would like to keep it as OFB uninstall will make your current neighborhood incompatible or some such nonesense.

[Nec]

A good step by step is impossible until this feature of OFB is fixed.

If you really want to have it done by the game generator, uninstall OFB*. Create a neighborhood. Add the UNI + NL hoods. Delete All Characters. Create a sim and put them on the lot. Use the testing cheat to spawn NPCs, Townies, and Downtownies. Go into Uni and let it spawn the Uni characters. Exit. Install OFB. At this point, decide whether you really want the OFB subhood or not. I didn't bother adding it because I didn't want the ugly OFB characters.

Of course, this doesn't work if you like your current neighborhood and would like to keep it as OFB uninstall will make your current neighborhood incompatible or some such nonesense.

Just make SURE if you uninstall OFB to make a backup in a safe place(like on disk) of all custom SC4 terrains that still have "city" in the beginning of the name. I uninstalled OFB yesterday and it deleted all of them.

[Ellie]

how do you create university townies after deleting all characters? on the townie maker tree there are no options to make young adults.

[Stitches]

They automatically create themselves when you play Uni.

[Ellie]

even with the norespawn hacks? i have visited uni community lots and the NPCs are generated, but I haven't seen any townie sims there.

[Ness]

Previously, when you are in a uni hood, the letterbox option changes to dormies - and you could not generate dormies elsewhere.

I'm suspecting that this process is also fubared with OFB now, but our tests didn't get beyond the base hood.
I'm also pretty sure that with the norespawn hacks, you would have no dormies at all - they wouldn't be automatically created if you DACed.

[Stitches]

even with the norespawn hacks? i have visited uni community lots and the NPCs are generated, but I haven't seen any townie sims there.

You would have to get rid of the norespawn hack temporarily.