Doors won't close

[RainbowTigress]

Can you control ghosts with Merola's mirror?

No, if you take control of them, they have a urn icon in their queue that you can't cancel that says Death by/flies, no matter how they died.  After a few minutes, an Age transition icon comes up at the end of their queue, but it never does anything.  So you can't direct them because they never drop their current action.  You can however spend their aspiration awards while you have them selected.  I haven't figured out anything else useful to do with this other than finding where the ghost is so I can send my knowledge sims there, hehe.  I have twojeffs' and Carrigon's ghost mods, and the other night, Mortimer's youngest grandson was practicing at the piano late at night.  He got scared three times in a row by Mortimer because he went into the piano and jumped out at him.  Every time I put him back to playing and he got scared, and I think the reason it wasn't more was because it turned daylight.  Luckily he had a want to see a ghost and rerolled the same want each time, so he racked up some points!

[ZephyrZodiac]

You can move ghosts with Move_objects on, so perhaps if you moved the ghost into the room with the problem door, the ghost would use it.  Might have to try a few times, though.  Personally, I can't understand why ghosts use doors at all!  Normal tales of ghosts have them simply passing through walls!

[C.S.]

I once picked up a ghost with moveObjects on, the ghost became opaque and wouldn't go back to see-through, got frightened and never tried it again. Plus, it was disconcerting to see a now normal-looking sim floating around the lot  .

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, you could always delete them then next time you load the game, they'd just be normal ghosts again.

[C.S.]

Good to know! 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Mind you, they may turn up at the mailbox!

[RainbowTigress]

If you use boolprop testing cheats, there is an option to make your sim walk like a ghost.  I tried it once for fun and couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so I exited without saving.  And I don't know why ghosts would use doors either, because I have seen them float through walls many times.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think they use them just so they can bang them shut and wake everyone up!  Like they turn on tvs and stereos just for the fun of it!  Never have one in a bedroom if you have a ghost on a lot!!!!!

[RainbowTigress]

I don't put them in bedrooms anyway because the sims are always trying to go to bed leaving them on, then they can't sleep.  When they get up, instead of turning off the TV/radio, they look for someone else's bed to sleep in or go play on the computer.

Now we have JM's ghost buster sign, so maybe that will help.  He suggests putting them in the bedrooms.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, the only ghosts in my game now are Michael Bachelor and the Goth Ghosts, and presumably Skip Broke, but I've never seen him.  In one of my custom neighbourhoods, though, Melissa Fancy died on a lot and she was a truly evil ghost!  She broke the stereo and tv almost every night!

[RainbowTigress]

Skip Broke doesn't have a tombstone, in spite of his having all his data intact.  I resurrected him, deleted his duplicate, and redirected all of Brandi and Dustin's memories to the "correct" Skip Broke.  And I changed his aspiration from Romance to Family!

[ZephyrZodiac]

What is strange is that Keanu, who was little more than the twinkle in Skip's eye at the time he presumable drowned, has quite a high relationship with him in my game!  Presumably brandi was so broke whe couldn't afford even the cheapest urn!

[RainbowTigress]

She could have if she sold that expensive pinball machine.  I always sell it first because it costs like $1700.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Oh, I get rid of that too.  This time, though, I played it differently - I simply Motherloded and moved the whole family to a new house.  Dustin's went up into platinum by the time I'd got all the basics that I waited for him to ask for, and the same for Brandi!  I never even bothered to use SimPE to make Angela unknown to him, somehow moving to a new house got the little wretch fooled and she didn't come home with him after school, and he was always too busy to  talk to her on the phone, looking after Beau and Keanu and learning to cook and clean and paint.  And since they had some cash left over, he was able to give up that awful job and concentrate on getting good grades so he could win loads of scholarships - only got the basic two plus creativity, but he was able to afford to go to college and move in together with his new girlfriend who is now his wife and the mother of this son.

Other times when I've played, I've either moved Brandi out with Beau and her belly, or after she's dropped the sprog and is so miserable she just runs away and leaves Dustin to pick up the pieces - Neither of his brothers were ever in any danger of being taken by the social worker!  (John Burb lost Lucy once (twice actually, as I didn't save and tried again, but the same thing happened) after Jennifer moved out and went back to the Pleasant house!)

[RainbowTigress]

I never lost any kids to the social worker.  It's pretty hard in the Sims 2 to lose a child that way, unlike in Sims 1.  I mean, you get about 50 warnings to feed the poor kid before they actually come.  I tried a couple of times on purpose, and it took forever for the social worker to come.  Poor kid, I felt so sorry for it.  I had to fight the other sims off with a stick to keep them from feeding the child!  And it was just heartbreaking how the poor mother cried when they took her children away.  Then I quit without saving.  So I've never actually let that happen. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, it didn't happen to Lucy Burb, but this is what happened.  Jennifer was invited over by Daniel, who was alone in the big house after throwing Mary Sue out.  He asked his sister to move in, which she did, but she didn't bring Lucy with her.  Unfortunately, she did this whiole John was out earning a crust selling burgers, so when he got home from work, Lucy runs to greet him, but the social worker just appeared and took her.  (No warnings but the one that evening)!  Well, I exited, and the same thing happened again, so I exited again and went back to the Pleasant house and got Jennifer to invite John over and get him to move in with Lucy.

In the end they were such pains at bringing her up (no hacks back then) that I moved them out and let Daniel get on with the job of bringing her up.  He actually took the time to listen when she wanted homework help, he took the time to help her build body skills, he took the time to TALK to her!  Amazing, since he had been so hopeless with Lilith!

But leave a kid alone after dark, and the social worker comes!

[RainbowTigress]

I see now, I understand what happened with the social worker.  Daniel and Lilitlh are so hard to work with because of how Maxis set them up.  Lilith hates her whole family, so you have to really work at getting her and her parents to like each other enough so they will help with her homework.  I believe Mary-Sue and Angela have a good enough relationship for her to help her.  And it helps if they are both in good moods.  That's what the game is all about, relationship scores and personality points and mood scores.  You just have to know how to work them.

[J. M. Pescado]

If you move_objects a ghost, it will opaqueify (harmless), but if you save/reload the lot, it will go transparent again. It will also go transparent again if you simply ignore it and play on, and it remanifests later.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Didn't I say something like that?

Lilith and Angela never stay in the same house long enough in my game as Daniel always manages to get caught in bed with Kaylynn!  Either Mary-Sue throws him out, or he throws her out, and the one that's leaving takes a twin with her.  In one version, Kaylynn got fed up with Daniel after he'd moved her in, because he couldn't, of course, marry her, so she left and took Angela with her as by that time they were best friends.

[Bane~Child]

Val,

I have noticed that even though the doors require a 1-tile space for clearance on each side, in Sim reality they actually require a 2-tile space clearance for the Sims to navigate properly (sensibly to them).  It's the same with the armoires and dressers.  If you notice in game the Sim steps back a tile to 'fling' open the door/drawer of the dresser.  The clearance area cannot share space with any action or object.  If you have an appliance, especially a stove, that shares this necessary, although unofficial extra, 1-tile space, this just won't work for those little Sim brains.

Also, Inge mentioned that a light fixture on the ceiling within the clearance area in front of the door will prevent this, even with the sliding doors.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I never put a door on small kitchen, instead I cut out a section of wall.  If I want a back door, I put it somewhere else than the kitchen, often at the back of the hall, where you tend to get a little space behind the stairs.

[Bane~Child]

I once picked up a ghost with moveObjects on, the ghost became opaque and wouldn't go back to see-through, got frightened and never tried it again. Plus, it was disconcerting to see a now normal-looking sim floating around the lot  .

I did this too and it was very creepy, but they did go back to being ghostly sooner or later and before morning.  I have used this technique to impregnate someone with a ghost using the TofL&D, very amusing, but useful if you want to continue a particular bloodline.  Like I did with Mortimer and Bella, before I knew about SimPE and resurrected her.  It was Mortimer that was impregnated by Bella - he deserved it anyway.

[Bane~Child]

Yes, but I don't think they ever released a patch to cure the ruined staircases because a cat or dog had thought about going upstairs, then changed their minds!  They may, I'm not sure, have fixed it with SS or MM, but that wouldn't have helped people who didn't have them, and it certainly wasn't fixed with the Unleashed patch!  I was forever having to use Move_objects on just to sell the stairs!

It's a good thing the pets didn't go upstairs, but I think I would rather have that then having them turn around just to go on the stairs and having those ruined instead.  If we ever do get pets in Sims2, will the maid clean up their puddles, too?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, it usually takes the maid long enough to mop up the bathroom after a flood, not to mention standing at the top of the stairs moaning because a family member has just started down!  I dread to think how long she/he would take if they had animal puddles to clean up too!

And in Sims 1, if you got mice upstairs, you'd want the cat to hunt them!

[bluecatvon]

haha, i could get one of the 17 ( i lost a few tombstones, sadly, when my game crashed while saving) ghosts on the Specter house with moveobjects and bring it there. just feels creepy seeing an opaque ghost floating around the house.