Starting over, 'hood-wise

[Count Four]

I'm getting tired of my custom 'hoods. I've got too many of them, there are too many boring, useless sims in them, whine whine. So I'm gonna start over. (Right now, I'm collecting tutorials and asking questions first...)

This is what I want to do.

--Export some born in game sims from my existing custom 'hoods. There's a family I'd like to recreate later.
--Delete all my cruddy custom hoods.
--Delete all the cruddy cluttered EA'hoods.

*At this point, I will have a game with no neighborhoods.

--Restore Strangetown to original state, 'cause it's gone kind of glitchy. It's the only one I like.
--Try to build a decent custom 'hood.
--Possibly delete default townies and replace them with my own in my new custom 'hood (if the tutorials on that stop intimidating.)
--Try to create uncluttered but interesting sub-hoods, per Night Life and possibly OFB.

So I'll need SimPE to export the born-in-games. Is it imperative to dowload the Seasons version of SimPE for this? The only thing I want to do is export them for use in CAS and Body Shop. No editing characters or anything else; just export appearance. (NONE of them are plantsims or anything.) I clicked SimPE, first thing it gave me a warning that it wasn't compatible with the new expansion and might fuck up my files, so I cancelled. Will it really screw something up or are they just covering their butt? Considering that I plan to delete and trash all 'hoods, does it matter?

How much of a pain will it be to restore Strangetown? (There are some instructions on it over at MTS2, I believe.)

And any tips on creating uncluttered nieghborhoods would be cool, thanks. I keep ending up with community lots I never use, even when I want to take my sims off the lot.

[Chafe]

Well, if you are going to delete all the hoods anyways, you can have the game just recreate Strangetown. After you've done everything you need to do (backups and saving stuff) if you delete the entire neighborhoods folder (the one in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2) the game should just up and recreate it. This'll make all the EA Hoods again, and bume, original Strangetown. You may want to check SaraMK's clean and empty hoods thread over in Peasantry before you do this, as it has all the DNA fixes for the Strangetown crew but also gets rid of some townies and such, but those are pretty easy to generate.

Can't really help with the rest, I've never played with SimPE and I haven't ever wanted to export a sim yet, but I have deleted a lot of stuff. So here's one more reminder to back up every single thing you hit the delete key. Mostly in case of screw ups, but you never know when you might want a neighborhood back.

[akatonbo]

I'd definitely advise using the newest SimPE.

If you're going to use Strangetown, you should probably see if the fixed version is still available in Peasantry, so the genetics aren't b0rked. Not sure if it's a complete download (in which case you can just use that to get the hood back) or just a partial one (in which case it's not at all hard to get the game to recreate it, as the above poster indicates, and then you just replace the relevant files).

[Zazazu]

And any tips on creating uncluttered nieghborhoods would be cool, thanks. I keep ending up with community lots I never use, even when I want to take my sims off the lot.

Don't place any community lots but one all-in-one downtown so your simmies have somewhere to go if they have a buddy fond of inviting them downtown all the time. Then either build or download community lots that have what you find yourself wanting. I like having at least one:
-restaurant
-community garden
-clothier
-public graveyard
-playground
-public pool
-convenience store
-park w/fishing pond
-bowling alley
-arcade

I'm building one community lot & one residential lot each generation of my current Alphabet Legacy, and it's really working well to make the neighborhood seem like it's growing naturally...and I've a custom terrain I made with loads of plot space. Uni is the same, but I'm building one lot every generation that actually attends, which is about half, and works since it is a significantly smaller terrain.

You also can play with the Visitor Controller. I haven't yet, but it's something I'm planning on doing. Then you can make community lots and specify that they only have teens visiting, or only singles, or only sims of X persuasion, etc.

[witch]

I would rename your sims 2 folder and get the game to generate a new vanilla one, then go through SaraMK's empty templates business.

[Count Four]

I am very wary of doing anything in C:\Program Files\EA Games\Sims 2...

Not to mention that saraMK's cleaned up Strangetown seems to only be available bundled with Pleasantview and Veronaville (special barf for Veronaville; does anybody actually play it?)  That makes it 26 MBs. I'm on dial up, it'd take forever to download that.

What about Dea's DNA fixes instead? http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7086.0.html
And if I download Dea's Strangetown, do I have to put it in Program Files\EA? Or only in Documents\EA?

And thanks for reminding me I can let the game regenerate the native hoods. Got so busy thinking about my precious sims I want to rescue I forgot about that. 

Zazazu, I used to use conglomerate community lots, but after OFB they got laggy. After Seasons, they got impossible; it was just painful to watch a sim take a half-a-real-world-hour to get to the terlet. Is there anything in Visitor Controller to limit the number of sims allowed on a community lot? I went and looked but if that is a feature, he didn't mention in the post.

[SaraMK]

I could separate out Strangetown for you, if you like. If you use Dea's version, remember that some stuff won't be fixed that is fixed in mine, since hers can't edit any info that's stored in the character files themselves, and does not remove any townies/NPCs.

[Count Four]

Oh, could you? That would be very amazingly awesome of you. *kowtows*  The bundled set is such a big download, with the two neighborhoods I wouldn't use.

I presume the instructions for install will be the same as in the thread...? Or do I presume wrong? (I hate doing something stupid because I forgot to ask an easy question.)

Edit to add: I've downloaded notownieregen. Now, I don't care if Strangetown has Maxis townies. Should I install notownieregen before or after installing/creating the new Strangetown?

[Zazazu]

Zazazu, I used to use conglomerate community lots, but after OFB they got laggy. After Seasons, they got impossible; it was just painful to watch a sim take a half-a-real-world-hour to get to the terlet. Is there anything in Visitor Controller to limit the number of sims allowed on a community lot? I went and looked but if that is a feature, he didn't mention in the post.

I feel your pain, I used to run Sims2 on a laptop that technically didn't meet the specs, but I somehow got it up to Nightlife. I only do a conglomerate downtown...and it's my only lot there now. It's not necessary, though...just personal taste. Basically, you should have at least one community lot downtown for invited outings & dates, and it can either be some huge everything-in-one 5x6, or a phone booth on a 1x1.

Whenever my sims get a want to meet someone new or flirt with some non-specific person, I make them go out of the house that day. Where they go depends on their highest interests. Enviro/Outside ones go to a garden, Paranormal ones go to the graveyard, Food ones go to a restaurant, Games ones to arcades, etc.

[SaraMK]

Oh, could you? That would be very amazingly awesome of you. *kowtows*  The bundled set is such a big download, with the two neighborhoods I wouldn't use.

I presume the instructions for install will be the same as in the thread...? Or do I presume wrong? (I hate doing something stupid because I forgot to ask an easy question.)

http://www.4shared.com/dir/2250323/a7d398b0/Temporary.html

You want the file called CleanAndFixed_N002.

Installation:

You are downloading a file that has two things: N002_Neighborhood.package and a Characters folder with 93 files in it.

Go to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods\ and make a backup of the N002 folder. Open the N002 folder and delete the Characters folder and the N002_Neighborhood.package file. Then put in the ones you downloaded from me.

Edit to add: I've downloaded notownieregen. Now, I don't care if Strangetown has Maxis townies. Should I install notownieregen before or after installing/creating the new Strangetown?

My fixed Strangetown comes with no townies and no NPCs. This means that if you install Pescado's hacks, such as notownieregen and antiredundancy, you will get no townies at all and only one NPC per job unless the game needs more at some point. It's up to you whether this is desirable. If you want to create custom townies, I would put in notownieregen before creating Strangetown.

Also, remember that you need to install my fixed neighborhood BEFORE you allow the game to regenerate Strangetown, otherwise there is no point.

Or, your alternative is to place the stuff you downloaded from me into the My Documents directory instead of the Program Files directory. Just remember that if you ever restart Strangetown again, the version you'll get will be the old, unfixed one, since you haven't changed anything in the Program Files directory.

To install into the My Documents directory, let the game regenerate the Maxis neighborhoods, but do not enter any neighborhoods once you get to the neighborhood selection screen (just exit at that point). Then go to \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and open the N002 folder. Delete the Characters folder and the N002_Neighborhood.package file. Also delete any N002_Suburb00# files. Then put in the file and Characters folder that you downloaded from me.

[Count Four]

Thanks so much, and for the instructions. I think I will create custom townies for Strangetown. I will give me something to do while I'm planning how I want to lay out the new custom hood. 

I'm working up my list of how I should do this. It looks something like this:
--In SimPE, export Chosen sims.
--Back up Documents...\Sims 2\Neighborhoods in case of accidents.
--Install antiredundancy and notownie regen.
--Delete C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N002.
--Install cleaned up Strangetown saraMK kindly provided (thank you muchly.)
--Install empty OFB and Seasons templates to prevent weird families in family bins.
--Start game and let it generate clean Strangetown (it'll do this when it finds Documents...\N002, instead of renumbering subsequent hoods?)
--Delete doomed neighborhoods from main menu in game.
--Create Strangetown townies while trying to think of fantastic name for a new custom hood.
--Create new custom hood and townies.
--If I've done every thing right, say "Ta-da!"
--If I didn't do everything right, have migraine and shot of vodka. Start over.

I've got the clean custom neighborhoods/townies tutorial printed out to be followed. Have I missed anything obvious?
(And thanks for all the help, even if it is out of style around here.)

[Chafe]

--Delete C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N002.

For the game to generate new hoods you've gotta thwack or rename (in fact rename and then delete when everything is looking good is prolly best) the entire neighborhoods folder, not just N002. If you delete just one Maxis neighborhood, or have any neighborhoods that exist at all, none of the old hoods get deleted recreated.

--Delete doomed neighborhoods from main menu in game.

Not necessary, cuz you thwacked the whole neighborhoods folder, so the game doesn't know they exist anymore.

[SaraMK]

Chafe is right, you'll need to delete the entire Neighborhoods folder in order for the game to regenerate any of the Maxis neighborhoods. The game only regenerates the Maxis neighborhoods when the Neighborhoods folder is not found at all. It doesn't care if one neighborhood is missing, and won't regenerate it.

But you will need to delete neighborhoods that you don't want, because all of them (3 or 4 depending on whether you have Seasons) will be regenerated when you remove the Neighborhoods folder.

I take it you have decided to put my downloaded Strangetown into Program Files? Because your steps will not work (they are out of order) if you want to install it into My Documents.

[Count Four]

Okay. I was wondering about that. I knew it would renumber when a hood was deleted from the main menu. Wasn't sure about deleting a hood from windows.

So instead, it'll be something like this.
--In SimPE, export Chosen sims.
--Back up Documents...\Sims 2\Neighborhoods in case of accidents.
--Install antiredundancy and notownie regen.
--Rename C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods. (Delete when I'm sure everything's cool.)
--Install cleaned up Strangetown in Program Files.
--Install empty OFB and Seasons templates in Program Files.
--Start game and let it generate EAxis hoods.
--Delete Pleasantview, Veronaville and [that Seasons hood] from main menu.

Continue from there with making Strangetown townies and new custom hood...
Yeah, I figure it's just more straightforward to install your Strangetown in Program Files.

[SaraMK]

Move the Neighborhoods folder entirely out of the My Documents\EA Games\ directory. The game will still try to read it if it's there, even renamed.

[themaltesebippy]

I'm getting tired of my custom 'hoods. I've got too many of them, there are too many boring, useless sims in them, whine whine. So I'm gonna start over. (Right now, I'm collecting tutorials and asking questions first...)

This is what I want to do.

--Export some born in game sims from my existing custom 'hoods. There's a family I'd like to recreate later.

1. Open SimPE and use the neighborhood browser plugin
 
2. After it loads use the sims surgery plugin

3. It may take a while to load, go make a sandwich or something. Ok when it is done, an alphabetical list of the characters from your town will be in a separate window.
4. Pick Sim you want to extract and use as prototype for sim surgery. On that top area, there is a link called Extract that has a little thank you text from Quaxi. Just extract to Saved Sims folder. I recomend changing the file name to the name of your sim.

5. Repeat as necessary for all of your beloved sims.

Close SimPE and open Body Shop to make sure everyone is present and accounted for. If you have extracted sims that came with the game or children of game sims there may be no option to delete them. You can use extract for another sim and give it the same name as the one you are tired of and it will overwrite.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE!!

If you changed a sims' ugly maw with Danny's coa or Dr Vu's machine and it want to extract the new look YOU MUST alter the DNA as explained here:

1. Open Simpe, then open your neighbourhood via the neighbourhood browser

2. Open the Sim browser

3. Find the Sim that has recently been to the plastic surgeon (they're listed by their first name) and click "open"

4. You'll see a lot of info. Click on "more" and choose "open character file"

5. Then the character file of your Sim opens. On the left hand side you will see "Facial Structure", click it and on the right hand side two lines will appear (if you've done plastic surgery that is!!!)

6. Right click the second line and choose "Extract..."

7. Save the extracted file in a directory of your choice, KEEP THE ORIGINAL NAME

8. Back in Simpe, right click the first line and choose "Replace..."

9. Then select the file you just extracted. IMPORTANT: use the file with the .simpe extension NOT the file with the .xml extension!!!

10. The first line will go italics, telling you that it's been changed. Click "Save" and you're all done!

[Sleepycat]

Is there anything in Visitor Controller to limit the number of sims allowed on a community lot? I went and looked but if that is a feature, he didn't mention in the post.

not that I know of and I've been using it for a very long time but are you referring to base hood community lots or Downtown? Downtown allows more visitors at a time then the basehood. So if you are referring to Downtown lots then I'd suggest just having community lots in the basehood and not attaching a Downtown.

[Li'l Brudder]

Nobody ever says anything about eating said sandwich.

[Kyna]

Is there anything in Visitor Controller to limit the number of sims allowed on a community lot? I went and looked but if that is a feature, he didn't mention in the post.

I've had a line in my userstartup.cheat file since the base game (or maybe uni).  I have a crappy integrated graphics chip and used to only get 2 visitors per community lot, so I added this line:

intProp MaxNumOfVisitingSims 8

Most people use this for parties, but I don't throw parties in my game.  It does allow me to have 8 visiting sims on community lots.  I did have it set to 20 once, to see if my computer could handle it.  While it was at 20, I had a sim abducted into the Secret Society - and 20 SS members turned up.

I have had this in my game since before NL, so I'm not 100% sure what happens with outings.  I haven't counted sims on the lot when I've been on an outing, but it looks like I get whoever is in the group + 8 non-group sims on community lots during outings.  Plus any NPCs (baristas, djs, etc) that the lot requires.

You could try putting this line in your userstartup.cheat file with a lower number if you want less visiting sims on community lots.  Keep in mind that this will also affect the size of parties you can throw, and the number of SS members at the SS lot.

[Count Four]

saraMK--I'll move it to the desktop till I'm sure it can be deleted.

Kyna--Oh, good. I was hoping there was something I could do. SS isn't a problem as I don't have Uni, so that's cool. Small parties aren't an obstacle; I'd just like my community lots to function at something faster than the speed of molasses.

Thanks, Bippy (sorry, couldn't resist.)  I've never heard of the two things you mention. I've always just endured the ugly sims. Of course now I'll get curious and look into them. After I'm done hacking 'hoods.

Nobody ever says anything about eating said sandwich.

...I've got a dog around here somewhere...

[themaltesebippy]

Nobody ever says anything about eating said sandwich.

That's because the sandwich is for ME whelp!!

[Count Four]

I followed all advice and got Strangetown set up nicely, with custom townies added and it's great, thanks.  I played Strangetown for a few days, fiddling with the natives and adding a couple of my sims.

Last night, I got ready to start my custom hood. Picked a (default) template and gave it the name 'Skygusty'. The game did its "Creating Skygusty" thing. When it got to the part where it generates weather (or whatever it says), the game crashed.

When I restarted it, I had two hoods showing in game.  The first one is named "Weather". It has that green grid picture and the description is something like 'New Seasons Neighborhood' or similar. There is no option to delete it in game; the little trash can ain't there. Strangetown is now the second hood.

Since I had made backups, I tried again to create a new custom hood without deleting the "Weather" hood.  This time it worked fine, and my new custom hood is working, is placed as the third nieghborhood, has some custom townies and one sim moved in.

In C:\My Documents\...The Sims 2\Nieghborhoods, I have-- N001, N001-bak, N002, N003 and Tutorial folders, and the NeighborhoodManager.package.

C:\Documents\...\N001 contains-- Characters, Lots, Storytelling and Thumbnails folders, and N001_Neighborhood.package, N001_Neighborhood.png and N001_Suburb001.package. 
The Characters, Lots and Storytelling folders are empty.
The Thumbnails folder contains N001_FamilyThumbnails.package.
The N001_Neighborhood.png is a pic of the default template I chose for my custom hood.

C:\Documents\...\N001-bak contains: Characters and Lots folders, N001_Neighborhood.package, N001_Neighborhood.png and N001_Neighborhood.reia. The Characters and Lots folders are full of files.  The .png is the Pleasantview picture.

N002 is my new Strangetown. N003 is my custom hood, created last night.

What did I miss or do wrong?
Can I delete the useless N001 and/or N001-bak from C:\My Documents...\Neighborhoods with no weirdness afterward?
If I delete N001 (the "Weather" one), will the game just do the same thing when I create another custom hood?
Should I have moved N001-bak from C:\Program Files, instead of just renaming it? I followed Jordi's tutorial and it says only to rename N001 in Program Files.  I did not download a clean template for Pleasantview, since I don't want Pleasantview in my game.

(I zipped the default templates for OFB, NightLife and Seasons and moved them to a safe place.  Then replaced them with the empty templates according to instructions. I haven't tried adding any subhoods at all yet.)

[SaraMK]

N001, N001-bak,

You CAN NOT have renamed neighborhoods (backups) inside the My Documents\EA Games\ directory. The game will still read them, no matter what they're called. You basically have the same neighborhood installed twice, and the game will not like that. I don't know if that's causing your problems, but it's the first thing you need to fix.

[Count Four]

N001, N001-bak,

You CAN NOT have renamed neighborhoods (backups) inside the My Documents\EA Games\ directory. The game will still read them, no matter what they're called. You basically have the same neighborhood installed twice, and the game will not like that. I don't know if that's causing your problems, but it's the first thing you need to fix.

How I ended up with N001-bak in Documents...\Neighborhoods, I'm not sure. There was no Documents...\Neighborhoods folder when the game was started with the cleaned up/empty templates. I backed up, installed empty and cleaned up templates in the proper places (with the tutorials open for reference) and then moved the Documents...\Neighborhoods folder bodily to the desktop.
After starting game, that Seasons hood (which I still can't remember the name of), Strangtown and Veronaville were regenerated and showed up in the Main Menu.
I deleted Seasons hood and Veronaville from Main Menu.

The only place N001-bak, with a Pleasantview .png, could have come from is Program Files.
The N001 folder in Program Files was renamed to N001-bak according to the instructions in Jordi's tutorial; the only instruction in that tutorial was to rename Program Files...\N001.

I suspect this might be a result of having Program Files...\N001-bak with no other Pleasantview template while the game is regenerating the whole Documents...\Neighborhoods folder.

But I'll delete the N001 hoods in Documents.
The only crash I've had was making a custom hood, and that seems to be something to do with Seasons.

[SaraMK]

It sounds like it probably did come from Program Files. The game simply copies everything from over there. It doesn't do any checks to see if what's in there is what's supposed to be in there. You'll want to move those N00#-bak folders out of the UserData folder.

As for your problem, look in Program Files under Seasons, and see if you did anything similarly screwy in there. For example, a -bak folder in there could result in the game trying to attach the Seasons sub-hood (which is weather) to your neighborhood twice.