Goobered unawesome stairs in a most-awesome house

[starrling]

I downloaded this really great house but somehow they goobered the stairs so bad that I can't remove them even with moveobjects on. 

This is the 2nd floor - you can see a little bit of the bottom stair railing poking up.

Here you can see what it looks like when my sim comes upstairs.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can delete these?  Other than bulldozing the house, which is owned by my legacy family and they're finally running a fairly successful busines, though 

[J. M. Pescado]

The stairs on top are likely blocking the action of the stairs tool. You'll probably have to remove those if you can't manage to tag the stairs lurking below it.

[ZephyrZodiac]

The house with the maze in Veronaville has a similar problem with stairs - you can remove them, but you can't replace them with any others, and you can't replace the floorboards after they've been removed!  I think sometimes when people use cheats to build a house, it doesn't transfer well to someone else's game.  (And that includes Maxis houses.)

[Magicmoon]

I downloaded a house that had weird stairs that couldn't be removed. This is how I solved my problem.

First move anything away from the stairway that might be important to you. In my case I had the chess set setting next to the railing. So move stuff like that. Also windows, paintings, stuff on walls if the stairs are next to a wall. Otherwise you will lose these items.

Next use the burninator. I had to use it close to 20 times to get all the mess cleaned up. I had to use it on both floors to get it all clean. From the way it looked while I was doing the procedure the person who made the stairs had used "moveobjects on" and had doubled up the stairs in several places. Eventually though I was able to remove the entire offending staircase and replace it with normal stairs. But you absolutely must use the burninator enough times to get rid of all the offending stuff...even the invisible stuff before you will be allowed to place other stairs, floorboards, or items in that area.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Thanks, I might try that on that Maxis house!  I really like the maze, but the house needs remodelling, and if I can't move the stairs then I can't remodel it!

[Magicmoon]

Try it out. If things get messed up too bad you can always leave the lot without saving.

[starrling]

Okay, it's late, I'm tired and I have a really dumb question:  what is the burninator?  I see it mentioned now and again, and the picture I have in my head is ... vivid.  But what is it/where is it? 

*covers lips

[J. M. Pescado]

That would be the Stuck Object Remover.

[starrling]

Thank you!  No wonder "burninator" wasn't getting me anywhere.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yes, I have it and have used it, it just never occurred to me that things would be "stuck" before sims had been anywhere near them - but then, maybe the house was used by the Maxoids to create some of the characters in Veronaville, since there are so many ghosts.

[starrling]

I've now used it more than 1,000 times total on both levels of the staircases (family funds are shrinking... might have to resort to kaching) and still can't move the blasted stairs.  Could it be that bad that I should keep going? 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Dunno, but don't use it on a community lot to remove stuck buyables!  I just did and my PC froze and nothing would work except resetting it. 

I couldn't make out why all these townie shoppers at the Ramires store were standing around looking at a kitchen counter which didn't exist!  then I thought, maybe there's a stuck object there somewhere, and there wasn't just one, there were hundreds!  Eventually, I must have tried to remove too many and it just gummed up the works!

I've come to the conclusion it's a phenomenon caused by all those shoppers who have stuff in their shopping cart and haven't yet bought it - you know how they put half a dozen things in their carrier bag, then decide to leave and don't stop to pay, then when they return, they bring the bag with them and march up to the counter and pay?  Well, the counter I think was a case of removing something which didn't get properly removed, but all these other things were things that appeared to have been sold.  I was basically having a sale and getting rid of everything, and I'd wanted to simply reopen with a new layout and new stuff, but it wasn't possible.  Pity, really, the store was at level 9 and only had 11 customer loyalty points to get!

But, rather than continue with an obviously wierd lot - it has levels above the ground at the back which you can tile, but then the tiles get stuck too! - I had Checo sell it, and then bulldozed it and rebuilt from scratch. 

It's a pity you can't use the stuck object remover if there isn't a sim on the lot, though.

[Hegelian]

I downloaded this really great house but somehow they goobered the stairs so bad that I can't remove them even with moveobjects on. 

Here you can see what it looks like when my sim comes upstairs.

That's actually kinda cool. I've lived in houses where the stairs use the same stairwell:  The upslope of the upper staircase creates the sloped ceiling of the lower staircase.   

[starrling]

Yeah, it's cool alright.  Except it gives me a totally useless third floor (which I had fully furnished before I realized it).  I am pretty sure I'm just going to have to live with it like this though.  I'm up to 2,500+/- burninators used and still nothing.  I even went up to the roof to try it there.  Oh well.  Pretty house...just diseased I guess.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That's actually kinda cool. I've lived in houses where the stairs use the same stairwell:  The upslope of the upper staircase creates the sloped ceiling of the lower staircase.

   

But you're not a sim!  For starters, if there's someone halfway up the stairs you don't stand at the bottom shouting for them to get out of the way!

I think I'd be inclined to just scrap the house and build them a new one.  If you feel strongly enough, you could let the creator know there is a problem, since they built it, they may remember what they did and be able to put it right.

[BlueSoup]

Yeah, this is one of those lots that probably look really nice from the outside, but totally suck for actually playing.

[ZephyrZodiac]

But they look so good when you see the screenshots at the website!  I have a few of those, and they never get taken out of my files nowadays - they sometimes give me an idea or two, but mostly I prefer my own houses.  If I'm going to spend hours modifying a house, I'd rather it was one that's already in the game, as some of them have other features one doesn't want to lose and cannot easily recreate.

[starrling]

I'm just getting started with making my own good houses (made lots of shitty ones, that's for sure).  But blame it all on Jade Elliot   I'm working on my small neighborhood (created my own Itty-Bitty-City-Committee) and haven't mastered classy 2x2's yet so I downloaded a bunch of great looking houses she suggested.  They are indeed great looking.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Oh, there are plenty of good houses out there, it's just hard to tell from a few screen shots which are playable and which aren't, so while I don't mind sharing my houses with other people when I can be bothered, I rarely download any now.  To be honest, I don't want houses with custom content in, as I then get loads of files that I have to get rid of if they are duplicates of stuff I already have, or else I'm stuck with files which I may never use again and which add megabytes to my downloads folder.

[Magicmoon]

I've now used it more than 1,000 times total on both levels of the staircases (family funds are shrinking... might have to resort to kaching) and still can't move the blasted stairs.  Could it be that bad that I should keep going? 

If I remember correctly I had to remove the roof to get the job done. But then I run into the problem of losing the cool looking roof they had with the house because I'm not good at custom roofing and don't really want to learn it. So I just put back an autoroof when I'm done.

Is the stuff disappearing when you are using the burninator? What step of the process are you stuck in?

[starrling]

Nothing disappeared - it just kept sucking up the simoleans with each click.  I finally gave up.  I'll probably use the house a little more (legacy family and all) and then dump it.  Not worth the aggravation.  I'm slowly cleaning out stuff I no longer want.

[BlueSoup]

Well, in order to use the Stuck Object Remover properly, you have to place it, then go into Live mode and make sure the game is unpaused.  A popup will come up and tell you if something gets nuked, or if nothing does.

[starrling]

oh!  geez, did I not RTFM?  I'll try it again.  Thanks.

[BlueSoup]

I have no idea what the RTFM says for that particular hack.  If it's not sufficient (as so many aren't - Pescado's great at the mods, not so much with the explanations), I'll update it.

[starrling]

Bluesoup, a treat for you!

It worked!  And I didn't find anything in the RTFM except "put in downloads" unless I'm blind...which maybe I am since dealing with these stairs for too many hours.  But it worked!  I put new (working) stairs in!  My sims walked up to the empty third floor and said "ahhh" or something simlish.  Whew - the timing was great since newlyweds are now preggers and needed more room.

*wanders off planning what to burninate next...