A few how-to questions about Uni

[C.S.]

I've only ever played Pleasantview & Sim State University and would like a change of scenery. I like the pre-mades from SSU, am curious about the ones from La Fiesta Tech but want to make Academie Le Tour the neighbourhood college instead. So...

1) Is there a way to extract the pre-made YAs from SSU and LFT and merge them into ALT?

2) How do I delete a college attached to the neighbourhood?

[ZephyrZodiac]

I suppose you could clone the premades and copy their personality etc.

I don't think you can safely delete a college that you've been playing for a while unless you're prepared for hours of work editing stuff in SimPE - and you could still miss something!

To be hones, once you've played them all, it dawns on you, the only difference is La fiesta is in the desert and has a lot of tatty houses!

[C.S.]

I'm not too sure on what to do with the cloning thing. Tried it once long time ago using sim surgery, exported the sim I wanted to give a makeover to but the experiment ended badly because I deleted the template from BS and sim went poof. Well, only the plumbob was left.

I don't think you can safely delete a college...

But it can be done? I've generated a new game, attached SSU then a custom college town, only the custom one can be deleted in game.

To be hones, once you've played them all, it dawns on you, the only difference is La fiesta is in the desert and has a lot of tatty houses!

LOL! Dunno about the tatty houses since I've only seen the LFT campus once, but it's the students I'm more interested in.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Did you use simPE to clone your sim?  I found it incredibly easy once I made the effort to try, the hardest part is after you've loaded your game and ued the template to make the sim, give them the name and personality etc., going back into simPE to copy over all the personality so they're as near to the original as you can get them.

I think people have merged hoods, though I personally haven't tried doing that, my hoods soon get big enough without that kind of help!

I think people have deleted the original Downtown and kept the custom one, so I suppose whatever method they used will work for Uni too.  But I repeat, it's not a good idea if you've played it for awhile, the dormies aren't a problem, you only get the one set, but you can end up with a lot of unlinked sims wandering around, and it's a long job getting rid of them and really would have to be done before you play the new college.  However, there's nothing to stop you moving all your students to the new college and just ignoring the old one.

[jsalemi]

But it can be done? I've generated a new game, attached SSU then a custom college town, only the custom one can be deleted in game.

Not quite -- I had all three universities attached to Pleasantview at one point, and deleted La Fiesta Tech with no problems.  It may be that the game won't let you delete the last pre-made Uni, but if you have two or more of the premades, you can delete any of them.

And BTW, this got me all the pre-made Uni students without having to clone anything.  Just add the uni you want the students from, and the ones in the sim bin stay there when you delete it. You can also move any of the ones already in dorms or houses to the bin first before deleting the uni. There's no problem with dangling relationships or memories that way, since the dormies that are added by adding a uni stay behind in the character set when the uni itself is deleted.

[C.S.]

Did you use simPE to clone your sim?

Well, after exporting the 'patient' sim to BS, is it ok to delete the templates after you are done? What happened with my sim surgery snafu was, I meant only to correct the size of the eyes of a female YA I had, not to make a clone-clone to play with. After making her eyes bigger, I deleted both the original templates (the one that was exported) and the edited copy, not knowing that the clone wasn't really a clone but was linked to the character file. Next time I loaded the lot, the female YA's thumbnail was still in the sim chooser but what's left of her was a plumbbob. I hope I'm making sense.

I think people have merged hoods, though I personally haven't tried doing that, my hoods soon get big enough without that kind of help!

There's the awesome Pleasantview, Strangetown & Veronaville Project by SaraMK in Peasantry, but I'm not ready to handle all 3 neighbourhoods at once.

I had all three universities attached to Pleasantview at one point, and deleted La Fiesta Tech with no problems.  It may be that the game won't let you delete the last pre-made Uni, but if you have two or more of the premades, you can delete any of them.

Thanks for the tip. I quit the game right after adding then deleting the custom one to see if there would be duplicate YA townies added and there were. I don't mind extra work like deleting excess sims, but if the game won't even let me delete the extra pre-made college towns, then I wasn't gonna waste any more of my time. I'll generate a fresh game later and try again.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Quote from: ZephyrZodiac on Today at 08:01:11 AM
Did you use simPE to clone your sim?


Well, after exporting the 'patient' sim to BS, is it ok to delete the templates after you are done? What happened with my sim surgery snafu was, I meant only to correct the size of the eyes of a female YA I had, not to make a clone-clone to play with. After making her eyes bigger, I deleted both the original templates (the one that was exported) and the edited copy, not knowing that the clone wasn't really a clone but was linked to the character file. Next time I loaded the lot, the female YA's thumbnail was still in the sim chooser but what's left of her was a plumbbob. I hope I'm making sense.

I never use Bodyshop, it used to crash every time I tried to load it and I just about lost interest.   I just use the cloning option in simPE, then export it.  I stick them all in Saved Sims if I want to use them in game, then enter the game, and their faces should appear in CAS.  Make your clone with the face, dress it either in the same clothes, or use the opportunity to change them if you want, then when you've made them all in their correct families (or not, if you want) close your game and load up simPE again.  Now you have the laborious task of editing.  I used a lot of sheets of paper copying down the data I wanted to transfer (if you do that before you make your new sims, then you can at least add the right birth sign, aspiration etc. in CAS, but very often you need to edit the personality points with Maxis made sims, because they don't stick to the CAS limitations).  You now have to go through each of your new sims, add the data you want, and save it all.  Next time you go into your game, they should all be waiting for you in the students' bin, ready to be moved into a house or dorm.

[C.S.]

I just use the cloning option in simPE, then export it.  I stick them all in Saved Sims if I want to use them in game, then enter the game, and their faces should appear in CAS.

Cloning option? The one among the lists of actions available when you right-click on a sim description, or is it somewhere else? How do you export them? With sim surgery? Or did you mean extract? Sorry for all the questions, I've never really cloned a sim.

[ZephyrZodiac]

You open sim surgery.  I'd need to open the thing myself to explain, I never can describe anything if I'm not looking at it, but my game is open at present.  However, there are several threads written about it by people who are far better at describing the process than me.  If you run a search for clones or cloning, you're bound to find something useful.

[C.S.]

Oh, I thought you were describing some new method of cloning sims. I've searched the SimPE website, got a couple of links to tutorials on MTS2, I've read them before actually. What I'm still not clear about is whether the template sims can be deleted after I'm done . If they can be deleted, then I might use cloning, start a new game, attach ALT and make the sims I want, instead of attaching all 3 college towns, deleting them then do the cleaning up of character files.

[Diala]

But it can be done? I've generated a new game, attached SSU then a custom college town, only the custom one can be deleted in game.

I was able to delete a premade college that was attached to one of my neighborhoods. However, this was pre-OFB, and I didn't play the area all that much (I thought I could attach a college and not have to worry about premade Sims, but boy was I wrong. Luckily, I have managed to get rid all of them).

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think you have to leave the package file in Saved Sims, but I'm not really sure, I mean, once you've made the clone in CAS and moved it into the game, there will be a package file in Characters, so it may be safe to remove the Saved Sims packages.

[Ness]

I have deleted colleges with no particular issues pre-OFB.  All that happens is that any sims in lots are moved out and will be waiting patiently in the uni sim bin for you.

I did have an issue at least temporarily post-OFB where I deleted a uni and then had errors that made the game unplayable.  After reloading they seemed to go away, but I decided to err on the side of caution.

It's worth trying though, add the unis you want the sims from, and the uni you want for them to be in - delete the ones you don't want, all the sims will be in the sim bin waiting for you.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That's strange - unless you mean that you first moved the residents into the bin.  I remember adding a second college and then deciding I didn't want it, moved my two playable sims that I'd put there (Angela P and one other CAS sim) into the bin, but it never occurred to me to move the others, the greeks and the others, and when I loaded the first uni, Angela and her friend were in the bin, but that was all.  However, the others, Shifting Paradymes and greeks etc. were wandering all over the place, plus a couple of unlinked townies - and I never worked out how they got there!

[Ness]

How odd!

Every time I've done this, I've found that resident sims are automatically moved out and put in the sim bin.  You've got a weird game there, ZZ!

[ZephyrZodiac]

It was a long time ago, before I had any hacks in the game, and the game only got wierd AFTER I deleted the darn college!

[Nec]

As long as there is more than one university, you can delete one. As far as cloning sims - if you do it through SimPE you have to make sure to make a clone of the clone in bodyshop, of else it will cause problems. After you have cloned, it is safe to delete the one you exported in SimPE.

[C.S.]

I have deleted colleges with no particular issues pre-OFB.  All that happens is that any sims in lots are moved out and will be waiting patiently in the uni sim bin for you.

I said I was going to generate a new game and try out the suggestions, but I got side-tracked and haven't gotten around to doing that yet. Tis' really good to know I don't have to move any pre-mades out from the lots manually. I've actually attempted a far more complicated and increasingly time-consuming way to get the pre-mades I want, since it was a new game I didn't care about. Glad I came here to seek help.

As long as there is more than one university, you can delete one.

Well, now I know for sure I couldn't delete the college towns because I was very blind, what with the silly complicated way I was using to get the pre-mades from other colleges. I just couldn't for the life of me see where the hell the delete button was . Not until the 2nd attempt at least, the one where I added only SSU and a custom college and only the custom one could be deleted. I was beginning to think it couldn't be done in-game. Again, very glad I asked about this.

As far as cloning sims - if you do it through SimPE you have to make sure to make a clone of the clone in bodyshop, of else it will cause problems. After you have cloned, it is safe to delete the one you exported in SimPE.

I still use Bodyshop occasionally, and prefer to trash whatever I don't need/want anymore (trying to save myself from any confusion and loading time), hence all those can-I-delete-this-and-that questions. I could probably count on one hand how many times I've used CAS. I better just shut up now and give cloning a try before I bug anyone further with more questions.

Edit: Ok, so I've tried cloning and decided that's the method I'm going to use instead of adding and deleting colleges to get the pre-mades. Thanks so much everyone, for all the suggestions and tips.