Is it possible to clean up a Sims2pack sitting on your desktop?

[cwykes]

Is it possible to clean up a Sims2pack sitting on your desktop?   Clean installer will delete the grey sims and content, but you are left with the lot file, the familysegment collection file and the essential character files.  Those need their memories and relationships cleaning to delete all references to the grey sims that cleaninstaller just got rid of for you plus any memories of "unknown" sims.  So we know what we need to do to clean it up, but it all has to be done in a 'hood as far as I can see.   If there's another way of cleaning a sims2pack file  than putting it in a test hood, cleaning and packaging again, point me at it please!  I suspect I'd have found it by now if it existed, so.....

If this doesn't exist, do any of you noble code warriers feel like tilting at this windmill?  The Community needs something that goes a bit further than CI on cleaning lot files.

[Gwill]

I guess you have to install the family in a dummy neigbourhood and clean the family with simpe first and re-packaging the lot.

[cwykes]

that's what I do and isn't it tedious!  I've done it a lot of times and I've got it down to a fine art, but I resent every minute of it.

There are a lot of simmers out there who don't even know they should be doing it.   I end up helping them with messed up hoods later.  I meet quite a lot of new simmers on the board I usually hang out on and they all want to move sims between hoods or delete them in the sim bin.  I hate that their game gets messed up right at the start.

[gethane]

Sorry to tag onto your thread. I tried search but wasn't really sure what to search for.

I have a pair of Sims in another neighborhood that I want to get into a different neighborhood. Y'all have scared me with BFBVFS and so I'm scared to just package them into a house and install them.

How can I get clean sims, with their relationship (father/son) and memories (being abducted, etc), interests and personalities, into my new neighborhood?

[Gwill]

How can I get clean sims, with their relationship (father/son) and memories (being abducted, etc), interests and personalities, into my new neighborhood?

All the sims on the lot will keep their relationships as they are.  Relationships with anyone outside the lot will be broken.  Again, I suggest temporarily parking them in a dummy neigbourhood, and deleting all their outside relationships and memories with SimPE.
I wouldn't attempt that unless desperate though.

[V]

Well, I can tell you how NOT to do it, lol. Do not try to modify the file using the Clean Installer and then use "save as" to save it as the same name. That will result in an error that will destroy it all.

[cwykes]

How can I get clean sims, with their relationship (father/son) and memories (being abducted, etc), interests and personalities, into my new neighborhood?

All the sims on the lot will keep their relationships as they are.  Relationships with anyone outside the lot will be broken.  Again, I suggest temporarily parking them in a dummy neigbourhood, and deleting all their outside relationships and memories with SimPE.
I wouldn't attempt that unless desperate though.

Thats safest.  You can put them straight in the destination hood and clean them up.  I've done that a few times, but I'm more waryl now and use an empty hood.  I usually uncheck all the names other than family in CI and save as a new name   I sometimes leave one or two grey sims like grandma & grandad or ex-wife.  In SimPe you are then looking for relationships to and memories of "unknown" - I find it easier to look for unknown than a list of names. You need to crawl through memories hitting commit every time(!)  If you have theo's tool or plugin, you can right click and choose cascade delete which cleans out other sim's memories of that event and speeds things up.  If you deleted grandma you also need to edit the family tree.  I usually close SimPE and then go back in again to check all the changes got committed and I didn't miss anything.  If I find anything I missed, I check a third time because I offer some of these lots for download.

I'm not sure whether you should take out the 5 best friends memories or not.  As far as I can see, the SWAF history gets reset when they move hoods, so I think you are better off cleaning them out too so the memories match the history.   That means, by the way, that your fortune sim who has been happily painting masterpieces one after the other will stop throwing wants to do that so you need to spend a bit of time bedding them in to get that back.   Would welcome advice on this one.

[V]

Aren't the "grey sims" listed as objects in the clean installer? When I install them now I check the "install lot only" button, then I manually check the actual family members' boxes and, if they have ancestors, then I check the boxes for the "game object" sims. I have only done this step a few times, but I think that I have had less mess to clean in SimPE for the families I started doing this for AND they got to keep their family trees.

I usually clean up all of their memories from their previous life with the occasional exception of memories of dead parents teaching them to walk or whatever. If the parent is in the tree then I will keep that memory. I have one sibling set that I moved to a new neighborhood and I took out all of their memories of their parents and their siblings except for the "learned to study" memory. I realize that was bad, but I had aged them down to teens to play a different story and I didn't want to have to hijack a grown-up for a day to teach them to study.

But I do take out all memories of any friends that they made in the other neighborhood, and with those memories go the memories of 5 best friends, etc.

What I want to know is if I should go through SimPE and delete any of the SWAF's that do not have a name with them. You know they say, "Sim Wants And Fears of Velma Looney or whatever it actually says, but some of them will not have a name on them at all. Are those the ones we should delete? I have just been leaving them alone for now.

[cwykes]

I'd say, yes those are the ones that need deleting.  But I'm not the expert around here.  They don't usually have a name associated with them if they are a problem.  If theres a name, i think the sim character data is still around.  Last time I did it SWAF's didin't have names attached and I had to check all the instance numbers.  You'll probably find the thread where I stumbled through it a while back.

[maxon]

Well, while we're on the topic of cleaning up character files, lots and hoods, can I ask about the Unknown character files?  I deleted all the dangling SWAFs and unnconnnected SRELs in my main hood (Little Carping) religiously and felt very smug about it.  In fact, I have a little weekly clean up routine whcih involves cleaning all the memories too.  However, many of the relations to the Unknown character files seem to ge regenerated every time I play the hood.  Is this because the Unknown character files are still in there? - as far as I can see, they don't actually have a character file in the main neighbourhood folder.  At least SimPE doesn't give a character file name and number.  In which case, I'm assuming they are a universal NPC character like the Grim Reaper and that the game has some specific purpose for them.  The game generated two more with Pets and now I have 4 Unknowns in Little Carping.  What are these Unknown characters for?  I have not been able to find out - though I've not been on a determined research mission I confess.  And more importantly, is it possible to get rid of them?  I notice they get generated in every new neighbourhood they seem to disappear when you DAC but then get generated again when you play the hood.

Also, Sim DNA - I am assuming that the number of DNA entries is supposed to match the number of sims.  However, in LC I have 491 sims but just over 500 DNA entries.  Is there a way to identify which DNA belongs to which sim and so a way I can delete the extras?

[jrd]

A few unknowns are normal. These are standard (objects.package) NPCs which quaxi simply doesn't label in SimPE.
The remote control car is one, the hoverbot (munchie, security) another, and the driving bot (gardening, cleaner) is a third. The fourth one is also some default NPC (don't know which one yet).

Leave SDNA alone. It will be overwritten if ever needed, and deleting one or more will corrupt your nhood file. Only delete ALL entries (best done directly after DAC), or none.

[maxon]

A few unknowns are normal. These are standard (objects.package) NPCs which quaxi simply doesn't label in SimPE.
The remote control car is one, the hoverbot (munchie, security) another, and the driving bot (gardening, cleaner) is a third. The fourth one is also some default NPC (don't know which one yet).

Ah, that makes sense.  I should have realised it'd be something like that.  I feel better about those now.  But why though do they continue to generate relationships when I don't use any of them in the game?  Sigh.

Leave SDNA alone. It will be overwritten if ever needed, and deleting one or more will corrupt your nhood file. Only delete ALL entries (best done directly after DAC), or none.

mmmm ... ok.  That answer doesn't appeal to the part of me that wants a clean, efficient neighbourhood but I guess I'll have to leave them be and be a good girl.  Thanks for your quick response Jordi.

[jrd]

I'm thinking the fourth unknown may be the bird. It doesn't appear to follow the hoverbot logic (and would need its own entry anyway as not all Petsians own OFB).

[miros]

Well, my 'hood seems to have survived deleting the SDNA for the unwanted strays.  Of course, the next time I played, the game just replaced them with new Townies.  I don't use notownierespawn until I've got quite a few, because I start  my hoods with DAC.  The only oddness I see is that one Townie seems to have a SCOR resource now.

[jrd]

I was used to deleting SDNA, but I trust JMP here when he states it should not be done.
Certainly I've never had problems due to leaving SDNA in.


As for the unknown's relationships--most of them are to other unknowns in my game. The two OFB bots seem to build a 0/0 to eachother and to some service NPCs (repairmen, repo men in a recent 'hood). Seems Mostly Harmless ™.

[cwykes]

I get a huge number of relationships to unknown after I've play a business lot where bots were watering and cleaning.  I guess it's unavoidable if the bots have a generic character file, but I really don't like it.  I hope we get the bots named in SimPE sometime so we can easily tell them apart from the "unknown"s that aren't supposed to be there.  I'm deleting them as I find them, but I'm thinking now that might not be safe.  Are there any memories associated with meeting bots or seeing bots going crazy that would need to link to knowing the bot?

I was thinking when I originally posted that the file format etc of the sims2pack couldn't be nearly as hard to crack as the whole game format, especially as you can see the data in the 'hood files after you've installed it as well as in the sims2pack itself.  Surely maxis are just copying recognisable strings of data around.   Yeah, yeah, easier said than done, but you guys are awesome!

[jrd]

Any Sim (or Sim-like object such as the robots) encountering any other Sim will create a relationship to it. Don't bother about it, don't care.

I have unsuccesfully been trying to convince Quaxi to add these "unknowns" to his list, but still no success. I have no idea where in SimPE this is defined anyway. Just take a note of their numbers: 0x2C996F9C is the remote control car, 0x50596292 is one of the OFB bots, and I forgot the other two for now. Like all default NPCs these resources are the same in each 'hood.

//edit: 0×6DD33865 is the "Mystery Sim" which may occur sometimes.

[cwykes]

I've added my mite to the request - thanks for your help Jordi.  I've put a question about the faceless sims in "oops you broke it"
http://ambertation.de/simpeforum/forum/viewthread/3980/200000