Constant offworld loiterer bombardment

[Zootyzoot]

My legacy lot is being constantly bombarded with offworld loiterers, with one generated every few sim minutes. Short of constantly clearing them with the FFS lot debugger or moving the family into a different lot, what can I do?

[Ivy]

That doesn't sound very good...I'm sorry to hear of your problems!

Are these loiterers NPC's, service folks, other people in the neighborhood?

Hrm...would a corrupted portal do that?

Ivy

[ZephyrZodiac]

Ivy, you're probably right and it's a corrupted portal, with millions and zillions of nannymobiles stuck trying to get in!

Zootyzoot, have you got Crammyboy's fix from MTS2?

[Zootyzoot]

No worries - I decided to just move them out and in again, which seems to have worked. I think you're right, though - it happened after a cock-up involving a delivery van.

And sweetheart, I never employ nannies! If the parents aren't high enough on their career tracks to have enough days off between them to care for the infant themselves, they take alternate days off. I will not have a madwoman razing my house to ashes while I'm at work.

[Karen]

A word of warning about this:  I had a similar problem on one of my lots and decided to move the family in with another existing family (play the 2nd house, use Propose...Move in to move them in).  This left the house and furnishings on the first lot intact, but unfortunately it still left the hordes of offworld loiterers for the next family to deal with.  I didn't try moving the family out from the neighborhood screen.

Karen

[ZephyrZodiac]

Unless you deal with the portal problem, you have lost your lot's usefulness and will have to bulldoze it!

[Zootyzoot]

Ah. You are completely right. My sims just called for a food delivery and have been inundated with offworld loiterers, but no food delieveries. Where do I go to download the fix?

[ZephyrZodiac]

It's at MTS2,  and you'll find it under Downloads/Hacks or just search for Portal, and you should get both Crammyboy's fix and another which is a portal replacer, which it sounds as though you may need.

[Zootyzoot]

And these fixes are utterly cushty-woo and will not burninate my game in the slightest?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Everybody speaks very highly of them, although the portal fixer takes a fair amount of know-how - but I think you have that, from your previous posts here and at SF.  Also, once your portals are fixed and your sims can continue to live in their house, you could remove the replacer until Crammyboy's fix tells you you have a portal problem again - it will display the message "Portal deleted, exit without saving", so you can exit, replace the portal replacer and then put things right.  Who knows, you may never need it again, as part of Crammyboy's fix is designed to prevent a recurrence.

I've had both in my game for a while - just wish I'd known about them before I moved Brandi and Don and bulldozed one of my favourite houses!

[Zootyzoot]

The most relevant fixes I've found are this one by Crammyboy which is preventative but doesn't fix, and this one by Erzengel which fixes, but mentions carpools not showing up, which doesn't accurately describe my problem - it's the NPCs that don't turn up, not the carpools, which are fine. Are those the ones you were talking about?

Thank you for your flattery regarding know-how, but the above blundering sort of disproves it 

[ZephyrZodiac]

They are the ones, and it still seems like a carpool problem, and there's one way to find out!  Back your game up and try them!   Erzengel's comes with a complete set of instructions, which are, I know, rather complicated, but other people here have managed to follow them so I think as long as you take it one step at a time, it should be slow but possible!  Depends how much your house means to you, I guess!

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=283.new;topicseen#new

This thread is about similar problems to yours, and may be helpful.

[RainbowTigress]

The most relevant fixes I've found are this one by Crammyboy which is preventative but doesn't fix, and this one by Erzengel which fixes, but mentions carpools not showing up, which doesn't accurately describe my problem - it's the NPCs that don't turn up, not the carpools, which are fine. Are those the ones you were talking about?

Erzengel's post says "carpool, bus, taxi, and service vehicles."  NPCs use service vehicles.  This doesn't fix just carpools, but the two different types of portals, one for carpools, school busses, taxis, and vehicles for teens to sneak out/go out, and the other for service vehicles such as the maid, gardener, firetruck, etc.

The package contains 4 replacement portals, 2 for each type of portal to Start and Stop.  It goes in your collections, and it doesn't hurt your game for them to stay there, you only "buy" them when you need them.

[Zootyzoot]

Erzengel's post says "carpool, bus, taxi, and service vehicles."  NPCs use service vehicles.  This doesn't fix just carpools, but the two different types of portals, one for carpools, school bus, taxis, and vehicles for teens to sneak out/go out, and the other for service vehicles such as the maid, gardener, firetruck, etc.

Yes, I realise I was being pretty pedantic. It helps to know that there are two different types of portals, though - I think one of them's broken and the other isn't.

I'll stop fannying around and install them both. NOW. Thank you all for your help and patience.

[Zootyzoot]

It worked! The car did drive along the far pavement a little, but that's nothing moving the portal around a bit won't fix. And it was the delivery guy I have lined up to marry one of my teen daughters, so they can get to know each other! Thank you all again for your wonderful help.

[RainbowTigress]

Glad it worked for you!  Unfortunately, you can't move the portal once it's placed.  That's why they recommend trying it before saving.  But if you already did, the important thing is it's working now.  I'm so happy for you!  I know how exciting it is to be able to get something like this working again.

[Zootyzoot]

It's very satisfying, especially after following all those instuctions and tinkering blindly in the unknown.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Gald you got it all sorted out in the end!