Deleted 2: Electric Boogaloo!

[Theo]

The deleter tool from SimPe uses a different method that may be out of date, as new expansions add more junkdata to sims.

The Lot Debugger method uses the game's functions, so in theory it may erase additional undocumented junkdata. However, SimPe will still be needed to delete the remaining resource, for which there is no game function to do it.

The only situation that makes LD cumbersome to use is when you need to delete many sims at once, and those sims reside in different lots. But I think this will happen just upon installing a new expansion, not on normal usage.

[J. M. Pescado]

The only situation that makes LD cumbersome to use is when you need to delete many sims at once, and those sims reside in different lots. But I think this will happen just upon installing a new expansion, not on normal usage.

I suppose I could implement some manner of array-based "Exterminate Many", but honestly, how often does that happen? All you have to do is pick the out one by one. Families that are being deleted don't tend to live on many different lots. Or any lots. You could just merge them into a single Deletees family for faster hunting.

[Snuffle]

So... what I gather from reading all these pages is that I am, in fact, quite screwed.  After installing BV, I wiped out everything that I had (yay, bugs!) and started over.  I was set.  I had a plan.  I'd saved the physical images of my peoples in BodyShop so I could place them back in the game without all the horrors inflicted on them by my noobish use of SimPE.  I was happy.

And instead of having 2-300 townies/NPCs/filthySTRAYS in my neighborhoods, I ended up with 900. 

When I realised that the game was making multiples of everything, I'd already restarted rebuilding my neighborhood.  <whine> I don't WANNA remake everyone again, grow them up, send them through college... </whine>

Ahem.  Any suggestions on how to speed up the process?  Or should I torch the game and start once more, armed with your lovely antiredundancy hack?

Or maybe just torch the game.

Thank you, in advance, from a thoroughly non-awesome ferret,
Tika

(Edited to make a stupid question slightly less stupid. Ish.)

[J. M. Pescado]

Multiples of everything? Like redundant NPCs? Well, if it's gotten that out of hand, the only solution is to slash and burn.

[Snuffle]

Aye, redundant NPCs, townies, pets.  Often with the same name and outfit, though a different face.  It's incredibly irritating and slows the load time to a crawl.  I was hoping (before I came here and discovered how off-base I was) that if I found out their file name (N003_847 or something) and deleted them straight from the folder, it would make them be gone and stay gone.  Silly ferret, you broke your game again.

Slash and burn, eh?  Le sigh.  I was afraid of that.  Well, in that case...

*SMASHES WITH HAMMER*

Muahahahahahaha-ack-choke-gah!

Hrm.  Methinks I've lost me mind.  Again.

Thanks for the quick response!  Tis much appreciated.

Tootle pip and all that rot,
Tika

[HystericalParoxysm]

If I sever the family ties for a sim with relationships (that is, unwanted babies who are related to their parents and siblings) using InSIM, can I then safely nuke the babies using this method?  Says not safe for sims related to others, but if I make 'em unrelated, would that work?

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes.

[Lord Darcy]

That's great, now I can safely delete premade EAxis families like Travellers with the combination of InSim and Deleted 2. I was worried for the same reason as HystericalParoxysm.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'll probably eventually roll the tie-splitter into the Deleter itself.

[AxelValentine]

I'm not computer savvy enough for this....

I prepped all the sims I wanted gone for deletion with Lot Debugger then quit the game and downloaded SimPE.  This is where I get confused.

I'm doing this with the newest edition of SimPE because I downloaded the 5.0 and it wouldn't work.  It would "stop working" and I'd get the options to close it, or search online for a solution and close it.

So, I started searching SimPE.
In the neighborhood brower I found where it has each family with who is in it, amount of money, number of family friends, etc. and on all the ones not containing a sim of mine I selected the delete key from the top menu (yellow card-looking thing) including a few sims and pets I hadn't 'prepped for deletion'.

Will this work?  And if not can someone dumb this down for me please?

[Charamei]

I created a Sim in CAS, only to find that his surname was duplicated by a Townie and I therefore have no need of him - by my challenge rules, Townies are preferable since they don't reset the gene pool.

Said Sim has therefore never been out of the Sim Bin: no relations, job, business etc. Only memories should be Mystery Sim, if the game's even generated those yet. Am I safe to just use Crappy Delete on him, or will he still have a SWAF file hidden away somewhere?

Also, on a similar note: moving families between subhoods via the Lot Bin, yea or nay? I'm guessing nay,but it'd make my life much easier if i was possible, so I'll check

[jsalemi]

Also, on a similar note: moving families between subhoods via the Lot Bin, yea or nay? I'm guessing nay,but it'd make my life much easier if i was possible, so I'll check

I believe via the lot bin is a no-no; you can move them out to the sim bin, and then back in to another sub-hood (or the main hood), but moving the whole lot has problems, if memory serves.

[Charamei]

So it's the act of putting the occupied lot into the Lot Bin that causes the problem, not placing it in a different neighbourhood per se?

Fair enough; I'll separate them first. Baaa!

[awrevell]

I just followed SaraMK's tutorial on how to combine the neighborhoods into a single neighborhood with multiple downtown additions which are in fact the other neighborhoods.  Now I have a single neighborhood with a slew of unwanted occupants (over 1500 sims) and want to rid the thing of everyone and start with all new sims.  What is the best method for doing this?

[J. M. Pescado]

So it's the act of putting the occupied lot into the Lot Bin that causes the problem, not placing it in a different neighbourhood per se?

Putting an occupied lot into the Lot Bin is guaranteed to shit on your source neighborhood, regardless of what you do. Taking an occupied lot FROM the Lot Bin will then shit on your destination neighborhood if the lot wasn't "clean" and devoid of dangling connections. If you don't care that the game just shit on your neighborhood (neighborhood is doomed and being evacuated, is a test hood, playing the Scorched Earth Challenge, etc.), then you can go ahead and perform one or both of these steps.

[cwykes]

The hack will be in the directors cut - read the FAQ for a link to the directors cut for your highest EP.  FAQ is a sticky thread in the podium called something bizarre - 'Spore Torrents' last time I looked.  Download the directors cut zip file, extract the hack and put it in a hack folder in Downloads.  It isn't an object that you'll see in game; it works behind the scenes.

[Inge]

NB we're not including Theo's plugins with SimPE any more as we weren't doing a very good job of working out which version was the latest - leading to all sorts of support issues.  We feel it would be more helpful to users to download direct from Theo which would at least ensure they were aware of where to go for the best support.

[cwykes]

Ahh - hadn't noticed that.  Totally understandable on your part, but it's a shame.  I couldn't find the plugin on a quick search at MTS2 and Theo's shack (yes I probably phail at google), but thinking about it, I can't be bothered adding another thing to my list of "sims stuff I must keep updated", so I'll just have to live without the ability to delete a single memory from a sim and cascade delete it from all the other sims! 

edited for spelling

[Inge]

Well we only implemented that decision for the first time in 0.67.11 so you may not even have that one yet.

[Tarlia]

Just wondering, why exactly is it bad to delete the DNA of a deleted sim? Does this count even if you haven't played the neighbourhood first? I'm in the process of making my own clean EAxis hoods and so far I haven't dared to delete any of the DNA files, but there are an awful lot of them... far more than there were sims in the first place. Funny thing, really, it looks like EAxis made a bunch of sims, then decided to delete them and/or replace them, and they just left all the old garbage there when they released the game/EPs. In Every. Single. Hood. Stealthhoods, templates, main hoods. Gah.

[cwykes]

Yes there's a real mess in most Maxis created 'hoods.  Most of us use the clean templates in the War room instead of the originals.

Deleting unused genetics files will corrupt the other genetics files - you'll probably lose the recessive genetics data for all the other sims.  I think Ancient Sim might have been the one to find this out the hard way.  I'm surprised you didn't find something about it when you searched the board.   

I'm hoping someone's going to clean up the Free Time template sometime soon.  I had a go myself to get rid of the simbin families and the files were too big a mess for me to be confident I'd fixed it all.

[Roux]

I'm hoping someone's going to clean up the Free Time template sometime soon.  I had a go myself to get rid of the simbin families and the files were too big a mess for me to be confident I'd fixed it all.

I used the one IAmTheRad uploaded in the Empty Templates thread in Peasantry: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.msg317272.html#msg317272

It seemed to work just fine in my game!

[Tarlia]

Yes there's a real mess in most Maxis created 'hoods.  Most of us use the clean templates in the War room instead of the originals.

Deleting unused genetics files will corrupt the other genetics files - you'll probably lose the recessive genetics data for all the other sims.  I think Ancient Sim might have been the one to find this out the hard way.  I'm surprised you didn't find something about it when you searched the board.   

Thanks. I did do a board search but could only find multiple posts saying that deleting the DNA was bad, nothing saying why exactly it was bad/what sort of badness it might cause. I have been using the clean templates up until now, but then, because I hate myself, I decided to try making my own. I found that the extra DNA seems to have been deleted in the clean templates I downloaded from here, too.

I'll just leave the DNA well alone then.

[jolrei]

I have always read "bad" at MATY to mean "will contribute to your lots/sims/hoods corrupting and becoming a big fiery ball visible from space".

As you see, "bad" has a certain efficiency of expression going for it.

[Tarlia]

I have always read "bad" at MATY to mean "will contribute to your lots/sims/hoods corrupting and becoming a big fiery ball visible from space".

As you see, "bad" has a certain efficiency of expression going for it.

Yeah. I was just sort of curious as to why deleting the DNA files would cause this, while it's okay to delete SWAFs and relationships, etc.