The more I learn, the more I realize what a noob I am...

[dragoness]

Having read the brilliance of many posts around here over the past couple of days, I have come to realize that I know next to nothing about the sims.  So I have a handful of questions that hopefully you good people will answer.

1. I'm just starting to play with the idea of creating my own custom neighborhood instead of trying to butcher Pleasantview into being what I want it to be. I read a topic which detailed deleting all the sims in a neighborhood and creating your own. Is there a reason you would want to do this, other than not having the same hideous townies all the time? Like for example, leaving the maxis-made ones in will cause some kind of Doom and FUBAR the whole neighborhood.

2. Speaking of FUBAR... I've seen an acronym around here referring to fiery balls of doom and such. What does this actually mean, referring to the game? If you get over 500 sims (or whatever) is there a literal rain of fire? Does it just stop loading one day? Does it get too glitchy to play?

3. Is it bad to make a new sim in CAS with custom hair? Is it better to create them with a basic black/brown/red/blonde hair color that can be passed down through genetics, then use the mirror to give them new hair once they're in play?

4. I would really like to have my own custom townies, now that I know such a thing is possible. Would it be better to get rid of my beginning of a neighborhood and start fresh so I can use the directions outlined in the thread I mentioned?

4a. Would doing something like the above be the only way to introduce custom skin tones and eye colors into the townie pool?

5. I really enjoy servos, especially to use them as managers for businesses my sims own. But I hate their mechanical look. Ever since I found it I've used the technique in this tutorial here (http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=113665) to make Servos into androids. I make my template sim, move them into a lot, use them for Sim Surgery via SimPE, then move them out and delete them from the sim bin. They never talk to anyone. Is this stupid? Am I somehow inviting Doom by doing this? Is there some other, non-stupid way of getting servos to look human?


Thank you all for your help.

[Li'l Brudder]

1. They're just bad spawners.

2. BFBVFS: Yes, your game will get glitchy and mean and refuse to work.  This is rare, unless you are very stupid.

3. Try binning them.  Not deleting them.  Search for color binning.

4. Start fresh.  You neighborhood will not be as broken as Maxis' are.

4a. Yes.

5.You should prepare them for this by using Deleted 2.  Search for that too.

Use the FAQ's links section and Peasantry's Taster's Choice Section.

You will DEFINITELY need to get SimPE if you are to bin hairs.

With this and a little bit of effort, you too can become a Simmer Supreme...all for under 50 bucks!

[Mirelly]

Q2 is answered in the awesome FAQs.

[Assmitten]

Yes, I would hit the main FAQ first.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=7437.0

And then, for most hacks, especially the more complex ones like autonomous romance, there are extensive RFTMs.

Welcome, we don't bite hard. Except when we do. 

[RainbowTigress]

* RainbowTigress is very proud of the FAQ. 

[dragoness]

Thank you for the link to the faq!

I'm ashamed how retarded I sound when I say this but it's the honest truth, I find BBS systems with this many nested forms very hard to navigate, and I haven't been able to find these threads on my own.

Could someone link me to the forum where these awesome faq threads are held? (I'm checking out the links section in the faq you already linked, thank you again for that! but I don't want to miss any so pretty please link me!  )

I promise not to ask any more questions that have been covered in a faq!


Oh, and thanks very much for the welcome... but I've been lurking here long enough to know not to believe for a minute that you guys don't bite. Good thing I don't mind!

[Mirelly]

Hey no worries. Most bites are aimed at trolls. You're going to kick yourself but the FAQs are stuck to the top of this very forum: The Podium.

I also recommend that you make sure you have email noitification turned on. This allows the forum to automatically send you an email if a topic you are interested in has been replied to. The option will be found in your profile settings.

Don't feel intimidated. Many of the regulars here come across as fearesome, anally-retentive, fire-breathing dragons, but 'neath those scaly hides they have hearts of pure, red, cardiac muscle. OK, and the livers and kidneys of their victims as well.

[rosenshyne]

You'll be amazed at how fast you become addicted to this stuff, too. And once you begin to mess with the game, it gets harder and easier at the same time.

[gjam]

Could someone link me to the forum where these awesome faq threads are held? (I'm checking out the links section in the faq you already linked, thank you again for that! but I don't want to miss any so pretty please link me!  )

That one FAQ thread you've already been linked to is the only FAQ.  There are a lot of good infomational threads around, but not in any easily findable location. That's part of what that FAQ is--a collection of links to all the good stuff.

[Assmitten]

Thank you for the link to the faq!

I'm ashamed how retarded I sound when I say this but it's the honest truth, I find BBS systems with this many nested forms very hard to navigate, and I haven't been able to find these threads on my own.

Could someone link me to the forum where these awesome faq threads are held? (I'm checking out the links section in the faq you already linked, thank you again for that! but I don't want to miss any so pretty please link me!  )

I promise not to ask any more questions that have been covered in a faq!


Oh, and thanks very much for the welcome... but I've been lurking here long enough to know not to believe for a minute that you guys don't bite. Good thing I don't mind!

Yeah, we're also liars, so way to be an observant lurker first.

The other FAQs I mentioned are either in the thread or packed with the file.

*Puts on dorky hat and badge*

Hi my name is Assmitten and I'll be your MATY tourguide. Before we begin our tour, we would like to advise you to keep your arms inside the wagon. MATY Tours is not responsible for participants who are messily devoured or catch on fire.

To your left, you'll see a Fat Obstreperous Jerk. Do not poke or worship the FOJ. He merely is.

To your right you'll see some Senators. They don't really do much, except be Generally Awesome.

The threads break down like this:

The Podium is where we are. People talk about general Sims stuff here. If a thread gets too stupid (off-topic or flamey), it gets booted off to another section, Retardo Land, the spiritual home of emotionally-stunted peasants.

If you click "home" in the upper bar, you can see the overall structure of the board. We'll start with Burnination.

The War Room contains facts and research about the game, such as chance card odds. There is also a big focus on efficiency, like what appliances, etc, will produce the most useful meals.

Stay out of the Bowels of Trogdor, unless you are one of those pervs who get into geeks having a programming wank fest. Sometimes I go in there to go "OOOOOO" and then leave again.

The rest of Burnination is self-explanatory, I think.

Now, the rest of the board is where the FAQs are.

FFS Hacks are the ones that Pescado and his Associates make. They will make your game better and less annoying. You can read a thread and decide if a hack is for you. When you download a hack, it will contain a RFTM (as a small rtf), which will give you a little clue about what it does. There are lots of game fixes here. I haven't actually officially patched my game since Nightlife, and I'm doing great with what's here. The best information can be found in the threads, because people ask lots of questions there. I am lazy, so I just download Pescado's Director's Cut, which is like a burger with every good thing you can imagine, and then some unicorns on the side.

Not a Good Commando Name is TwoJeff's lair. He makes game fixes that remove annoyances and add fun, like a hack that will allow the sims to autonomously stir the macaroni  and even get knocked up. He is less obstreperous than the Grand Poobah.

Crammyboy is critical to know about, because of his Crammypeen. Once you depixelate, (you have depixelated, haven't you?) you will experience the shock and awe of Barbie crotch. Slap a peen on there, stat! He has other hacks and objects as well.

Peasantry (under Burnination) is worth exploring, because there are many talented peasants here who are making their own contributions, even some who could use their own sections *coughcoughSTEcough* but those individual hacks can be found there.

What to do with the hacks is all covered in the main FAQ. I advise you to just jump in and start reading threads that interest you. It took me a good six months or so (three of them lurking) before I could figure out WTF was going on here, and to feel like I was up to speed. Keep asking questions from a place of curiosity and (relative) politeness and you should do okay.

This concludes our tour. We want to thank your for choosing MATY tours and we would like to assure you that your eyebrows will grow back. Have a nice day!

[sewinglady]

I lurked a long time around here, too...lots of good information to be found on this board and it's really not that hard to navigate...I've seen much much worse.

I've never played Maxis anything.  Not from the first day of the first Sims1.

I make my own neighborhoods and using a hack from here, I kill all townies and they don't regenerate and I can play in peace with no Marsha Bruenig or any other annoying townie.

I also am a firm believer in TwoJeffs visitor controller...another game sanity thing for me.

I do have to admit that even though I once read here that the magic number was 800 sims before the neighborhood went wonky, I'd say that the number is much closer to 500...as my last neighborhood imploded for multiple reasons, but I suspect among them were that my sim count was closing in on 600.

But, I've also figured out that if you create ALL the sub-neighborhoods FIRST and THEN do the deleteallcharacters thing with the notownieregen installed...you get even fewer townies, so you start with a much lower number of maxis made characters.

In my experience hair is genetic period.  Even custom hair binned under the asterisk will appear on a toddler.  However correctly color-binned hair is the best way to go...gives you more options when it comes to attractions.  When I create sims, I use custom everything, the genetic offspring will have one or the other, all custom.

[Zazazu]

Heh, I'm hardly new to Sims (had Sims1 and all packs from the day they came out and same with Sims2 sans those waste'o'time stuff packs) and somehow I never knew about non-perv hacks until two months ago. I knew that neighborhoods could implode from messed up SWAF and deleting sims that have been played, but never about the 500-800 sim neighborhood limit. Considering my love for enormous neighborhoods with three colleges, 2 downtowns, and 3-6 shopping district/suburbs, I've been incredibly lucky.

The random fellow sheep at TSR who pointed me here for the baby/toddler spammage hack have my thanks. They started a disease.

[Sagana]

I believe the number you can have in a neighborhood increased with one of the EPs and nobody has figured out the new top yet. So if you're treating your hood well it should have a nice long life.

The biggest thing that messes it up is installing any lot (from anywhere, including your other neighborhoods) with a sim in it - don't ever do that

Next on the list is deleting sims without properly cleaning them up (especially certain kinds of memory issues and Sim Wants and Fears which do funky things but I haven't actually see totally make a hood unplayable - yet). You want to use clean methods of deleting sims (Pescado's got explanations around, I think there's a link higher up in the thread, and someone can link you if there isn't (just don't have time to go searching from work

Killing (rather than deleting and cleaning up) doesn't help with character numbers as the ghosts still have character files unless you delete them and do the same cleanup as above.

The very bestest way to have your own townies and all, and to have the cleanest neighborhood (likely to have the longest life, as well as it just being IMO more fun) is to start with the empty templates. Those are wonderful

Edit: <blush> I put this part here in the wrong thread.

Have fun, it's a great game and this is a wonderful site

[dragoness]

Wow, Assmitten, that little tour was exremely helpful! It's still a little wierd and confusing but hopefully I've got it now. (Also, my inner 12 year old won't stop giggling because I typed "Assmitten" and I'm not being rude. Assmitten! ...I'm done now.)

Okay!

So, after poking around the site, I've decided what I really want to do is start a brand-new neighborhood completely from the bottom up! (Gee, I'm not ambitious or anything for a noob, oh no... )

So... what are these empty templates? And where would I get one?

Barring those, what I think I need to do isi nstall hacks like no townie regen, no pet regen, etc etc etc. so that none of the generated townies/strays will come back, and I can put in my own using the instructions that are... uh, well I can't find it anymore but I'll find it, there's some thread around here that tells how to make your pre-created sims into townies.

1. Do I do this for NPCs like the maid or the Diva or the mailman, too? I don't recall that part in the thread, maybe I missed it.

2. How about strays? I think they're auto-generated the first time I enter the neighborhood, are they removed by deleteallsims too, and replaceable somehow? I don't see the benefit to making my own pets as much, except maybe to have a few custom breeds in the pool of strays... oh, and maybe not having 3 dogs named Noodle...

3. I'm going to need new community lots too. I've made a few of my own, but I've always used the default shopping district and downtown with my empty main neighborhood, so I'm going to need a lot of new, interesting, fun lots. There are some from the defaults I'm very fond of... would it hurt anything to put them into the lot bin and put them in the new neighborhood? Actually, what I like to do is move them somewhere, put a smaller empty lot next to it, and go back and forth between the two, copying the parts of the basic lot I like and cutting out all the wasted space, rebuilding it to be smaller, load faster, etc. Would it be bad to do this in my main neighborhood? I could have a seperate neighborhood for testing stuff and rebuilding lots like that, unless I'll do more damage moving around unoccupied lots *between* neighborhoods than I will adding-deleting-moving lots within the *same* neighborhood...

[myskaal]

Start here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=5861.0

That's a complete tutorial on how to succesfully create completely clean neighborhoods and has links to all the related threads with added information on all the questions regarding townie customization you have been asking for. It's excellent work. Read it more than once. Bookmark it. Copy it into a .doc for offline viewing.

In case you miss the link in Jordi's tutorial, the empty templates and how to install them are here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4306.0

Good luck.

[Assmitten]

You're welcome. "Assmitten" away. I do it all the time in traffic.

[angelyne]

Hey Moon,

Figured I'd answer a couple of questions which have not been addressed.  First of all deleteallcharacters is not a good idea.  It was never meant to be used at large, but was probably a tool used by developpers.  It leaves all sort of dangling thingies which can cause problems.  If you start with the blank templates you won't need to use the command.

Second NPC's will be generated as needed.  For example if you call for a maid, one will be created.  the noredundancy hack will prevent multiple maids and NPC's from being created.  The special characters like the Grim Reaper and the psychiatrist, the skunk, Crumblebottom and a bunch of others are created when you start the game.  The Diva and her male counterpart, the grand vampires are also special characters, but they are not created at startup.  They might be if you attach downtown, I'm not sure.  If not they can be created in debug mode.

Having said this (and having done it), I have to say that I am starting to reconsider the whole approach.  It works, no doubt about it.  However it's extremely time consuming.  You have to create tons of CAS characters.  You have to turn them into townies or downtownies.  Once that's done you aren't really finished.  Well you can be if you want, but all your new characters will be like CAS characters.  No skills, no badge, no job. zilcho.  So you need to go into SimPE and start modifying them.  I created an excel spreadsheet that generates random stats for a character, like job, job level, (and the required skills), private or public school, aspiration, sign, etc... So I used my excel sheet to generate stats to "round them out".  The whole process took forever, and by the end it was no longer fun.

Then I went to the SC2 social forum and checked out the "Makeover picture thread". That's when I realized that actually the Maxis character aren't that bad.  We only remember them as bad because we, like everyone else, we started playing the game with a premade neighbourdhood full of characters with flat eyes, dull skin and ugly clothing.   But put in some nice default skin, default eyes, a new hairdo, and decent makeup and all of a sudden they are pretty good looking.  And even for the really deformed hopeless ones, there is a solution. You can perform sim surgery on them.  With the aid of some new face templates (there are some in peasantry, and Helaene created a gorgeous replacement for the heart-shaped face on MTS2) you can completely change the look of the ugliest frog-faced townies. Or maybe just tweak them so they don't scare little children anymore.  And the replacement templates will prevent new NPC's and townies that are generated from being vomit-inducing. 

[Sleepycat]

I use face replacements by Doc Doofus
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=130190&c=1&page=1&pp=50

other people have made them also
http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=194488 (another set and has some links to other sets)


I use SaraMKs empty templates to get a totally empty new custom hood and then use "testingcheats enabled/shift-click on mailbox" to force the game to spawn townies rather then spending all that time making my own townies.

I don't bother with the noregen hacks since my townies/dormies/NPCs are decent looking (thanks to the face replacements!)

[Zazazu]

I just did a clean template neighborhood last night and am loving it so far. Make sure to get Jordi's name hack at MTS2 (the one that includes pets http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=207539, the one that doesn't http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=110889) and place it in Downloads before you load up the game so you don't get different-looking sims with the same old names. For default replacements, I use:

PlantSim eyes & non embellished skin (HystericalParoxysm): http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=223790
Fantastic pet eyes with many choices (awasegg): http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=220538
Sim eyes - the biggest difference maker! (Enayla): http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=217871
Default skin replacements (Enayla): http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=203024
I use these contacts for both my vampires and werewolfs (ciboulettebis): http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=168102

I use the hunter-natural eyes but am thinking of switching to the enchanting ones. I have one cat whose eyes are normally slit-pupiled, one whose are almost always wide-pupiled.

Another really important thing before you create your new neighborhood: colorbin all those hairs the creators were too lazy to take care of. You'll have lots less NPCs/townies in the flat Maxis versions, and your new babies will have a greater variety to grow into naturally. Colorbinning looks a lot harder than it is, and the tutorial is here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3844.0

[Khan of Wyrms]

3.  If I am not mistaken the character limit was raised significantly in one of the earlier expansion packs.  I have one custom neighborhood with 3600+ character files that works as well as can be expected.  Some of these are even junk files from a mass migration of sims from Strangetown to the custom 'hood that took place roughly two years ago.  (BTW:  Widely considered around here to be a VBT causing a BFBVFS)  I think you should have little to fear in this and you should go ahead and make lots of townies, who wants to see the same lame cashiers/waitresses/bartenders/etc. at every single lot visited?

[Marhis]

Well you can be if you want, but all your new characters will be like CAS characters.  No skills, no badge, no job. zilcho.  So you need to go into SimPE and start modifying them.

I just add a personal experience: when you turn a CAS sim into townie or downtownie (e.g. with Inge's shrub) it will have no job at first, but when loaded the next time (as walkby, etc.) the game will automatically generate a random job and level for it, and the necessary skills: there's an apposite function which handles this issue (if sim is townie and without job, then... etc.).
It should generate random badges also (if you have OfB), but I have witnessed only the job one, so for badges I'm not entirely sure.

In this case, you shouldn't need to perform any additional setting, unless of course you want to specifically set a job/level/skills/whatever for some of them.
I did this in my hood, where all Maty's self-sims are townie: Pescado townie was pre-setted General (that was mandatory). Erm... sorry, KevinTMC... team mascot  .

[SimulatedDork]

I am going to create a custom neighborhood - with my own NPCs and no townies. Should I use deleteallcharacters and risk it? What would I need to do in SimPE (if anything) afterwards? I don't really want to use a blank template thingy in fear of it ... in fear in general!

[angelyne]

Really Marhis? Damn!  Oh well I learned something new today

Dork, don't use deleteallcharacters.  Just use the blank templates.  You'll achieve the same thing but without the potential problems.  The templates aren't hard to use.  And the very worse that could happen, if you screw up big time, is to have to reinstall the game.  In any case, since you are starting over you have very little to loose don't you.

Maybe someone here could set up an automated template replacement program. Would be easy to do.  I'll think about it.   Hmmmm.... I think I could do it with a cmd

[kimmyfrmtx]

I used the blank templates but did not make townies. The neighborhood is pretty bare for awhile but that is ok for my purposes.

Before my adults reach elder I use the shrub to make them townies and this has worked out nicely so far.

Just my contribution and an idea someone else may be able to use.

[rosenshyne]

I didn't bother to regenerate townies this run, since they generate over time anyway. Everytime I visit a community lot, either a new townie or downtownie appears. My custom hairs are all binned, and most of my custom skins have been rendered "not custom," plus the face template replacements I have mean my new townies all look pretty and unique.