Poll: Stealth Stairs

[Tamha]

I don't make them myself, I use Targa's Ascension or Ladder stairs, but I don't mind them as long as I don't have to look at them (hide them in a closet or something, please!).

[Zazazu]

Plus, sometimes a ladder doesn't seem appropriate for a house, and the stealth stairs still seem to me like a small staircase. Either that or it's like, don't even try, and accepting that it won't be realistic, whereas the ladder is sort of a weird half-solution.

Ladders are great for basements and attics. Otherwise they look silly.

[MistyBlue]

Have you guys seen this...it looks pretty awesome. It's a remake of Targa's stairs, I think, with proper animations. I would use these because I like when it looks real. The new animation makes it drool worthy! http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=241795

[Gwill]

Are we talking really new new animation here?  Not just silly recycling of old animations?  If so, that's very interesting.
I can't wait to get home to my real computer.

[MistyBlue]

Looking at the picture, it looks like a completely new animation. The sims grab the side of the ladder while they climb and the animation is for all ages, except toddlers cause they can't go up the stairs.

[notveryawesome]

Ladders are great for basements and attics. Otherwise they look silly.

Agreed, though they are PERFECT for zombie shacks, no matter what level they're placed on.

ETA: Marvine's ladder stairs look awesome. Thanks for the link!

[eaglezero]

I can't stand stealth stairs but I also can't stand the normal stairs... I just use Targa's elevators. Cheaty, but I don't want to have to either wait forty minutes for my sims to walk up and down huge effing staircases that block my view OR do complicated buildy things in order for them to be able to get from level to level easily.

[witch]

[J. M. Pescado]

I fixed the Targan teleport pad to actually avoid that effect, too.

[witch]

So are you going to share? 

[olsen]

I have never used strealt stairs, but have no problems with it stairs are partial broken anyway.

I love the new animated ladder, hope it don't make queues like the standard maxis stairs.
They are broken, if to sims are following each other the second is blocked get angry and decide to do something else.
I have found that elevators actually is easier to fit then stairs because you can place the exit there you want. Else I use the spiral stairs a lot, and the old ladder stars.
If someone could make shorter stairs, a three or even two tiles stairs would still look like stairs but take less room.

[kuronue]

I hate these fancy building shit techniques when I want a house to play in. If I go to remodel or add rooms or whatever, I get all these weird glitchy effects because, since someone HAD to have secret stealth stairs and split levels and a fancy roof, floor "2" is really floor 53-and-a-half but only for 3 tiles after which it becomes floor 7-and-three-quarters so you can't build a room there... blech.

[jsalemi]

I hate these fancy building shit techniques when I want a house to play in. If I go to remodel or add rooms or whatever, I get all these weird glitchy effects...

Yea, I hear ya -- I have a rather nice little house I downloaded somewhere for a couple that has a 'sun room' in the front.  Makes a nice dining room, at least until it started raining and the sim complained about weather in the house.  Whoever built the house made some kind of clear glass roof for the sun room that I could just not delete, or put a real roof over.  I ended up building a 2nd floor on the sun room and turning it into an atrium to solve the problem. But when those sims move out, the house gets bulldozed.

[Ellatrue]

Hmmm... most people making a roof like that would use glass floor tiles and the constrainfloorelevation false cheat. That could be difficult to delete, because it is hard to delete floor tiles that are sloped or at some sort of angle. However, floor tiles should keep out weather.

Did this lot use CC? Did the glass roof look like a curved half circle, with white ribbing? In that case, I think what you have is a custom fence that is shaped to look like a curved glass roof. I don't remember the site, but someone listed it in the Best of the Best CC thread... maybe I can find it for you later. So, if that's the case, I think you can use the wall or fence tool to delete it, if you delete along the inner edge of the "roof."

Eaglezero, would you like stealth stairs if they just came with a downloaded house, and you didn't have to make them yourself?

[Zazazu]

I have that fence. Love it, but yeah, it's not waterproof, and anyone designing a house who has Seasons should know better. I believe the original fence file is from 4ESF. I use it to make half-moon sculptural thingies in some of my mini parks.

Just tried Targa's ascention pads as I have a bit of an odd 'hood I'm playing at the moment (short attention span attacks). Quite nice, but I couldn't imagine using them in anything but a mod or cyber 'hood. Mine, Crater City, is kind of mod with human townies and "alien" playables using Enayla's fantasy skins.

[notveryawesome]

Yeah, I only use the Ascension teleporter things in my sci-fi hood, but within that hood I use them A LOT, because they're such great space-savers. In my normal hoods, I try to use the modular stairs as much as possible, but sometimes they don't work with the architecture (you only need three empty floor-tiles above the non-modular stairs, instead of the four required by the modulars).

[baaaflatfit]

I would definitely love to have some little houses with the stealth stairs nicely hidden behind a wall or whatever.     I've never tried building them myself.

Max

[prattle]

I hate these fancy building shit techniques when I want a house to play in. If I go to remodel or add rooms or whatever, I get all these weird glitchy effects because, since someone HAD to have secret stealth stairs and split levels and a fancy roof, floor "2" is really floor 53-and-a-half but only for 3 tiles after which it becomes floor 7-and-three-quarters so you can't build a room there... blech.

Yeah, I've had quite a few downloaded houses that I needed to expand/fix for Seasons/replace missing custom content/etc, but the builder had heavily used techniques (constrainFloorElevation being a prime offender) that made editing the lot, short of bulldozing the house entirely, very difficult. This puts me in the conundrum of downloading houses because I suck at building, but not being able to use downloaded houses because I suck at building. 

[jsalemi]

Hmmm... most people making a roof like that would use glass floor tiles and the constrainfloorelevation false cheat. That could be difficult to delete, because it is hard to delete floor tiles that are sloped or at some sort of angle. However, floor tiles should keep out weather.

Did this lot use CC? Did the glass roof look like a curved half circle, with white ribbing? In that case, I think what you have is a custom fence that is shaped to look like a curved glass roof. I don't remember the site, but someone listed it in the Best of the Best CC thread... maybe I can find it for you later. So, if that's the case, I think you can use the wall or fence tool to delete it, if you delete along the inner edge of the "roof."

No, they were flat, just angled into a 'tent' shape, with the low yard edging around and above it. The fence tool deleted the edging, but nothing got rid of the 'roof' tiles. It's a pre-Seasons house, so I can't entirely blame the builder.

Not a big deal -- I've already deleted the empty lot from my catalog, and this house will be history in the game.  I've only got one occupied in Strangetown, which is my test hood anyway.

[Ellatrue]

Hmmm... most people making a roof like that would use glass floor tiles and the constrainfloorelevation false cheat. That could be difficult to delete, because it is hard to delete floor tiles that are sloped or at some sort of angle. However, floor tiles should keep out weather.

Did this lot use CC? Did the glass roof look like a curved half circle, with white ribbing? In that case, I think what you have is a custom fence that is shaped to look like a curved glass roof. I don't remember the site, but someone listed it in the Best of the Best CC thread... maybe I can find it for you later. So, if that's the case, I think you can use the wall or fence tool to delete it, if you delete along the inner edge of the "roof."

No, they were flat, just angled into a 'tent' shape, with the low yard edging around and above it. The fence tool deleted the edging, but nothing got rid of the 'roof' tiles. It's a pre-Seasons house, so I can't entirely blame the builder.

Not a big deal -- I've already deleted the empty lot from my catalog, and this house will be history in the game.  I've only got one occupied in Strangetown, which is my test hood anyway.

For future reference, one way to delete sloped floor tiles like that would be to use boolprop constrainfloorelevation false, then use the floor tool (any floor will do) to flatten the surface. It's a little tricky because you can't see what you are doing, but the new floor tiles will flatten the area when the flatten terrain tool won't work (it only works if you start from an already leveled tile). Even if you can't flatten the entire area, once you get a few of the sloped tiles level, you can use control-shift to select all identical floor tiles, and then delete them with one click.

[CandyToast]

I actually don't mind stealth stairs, I just have no idea how to make them. That is to say I know they're made using a build cheat but I have no idea how to go through the process. If anyone is willing to PM me instructions / send me a link it would be appreciated  .

[Eleonora]

Have you guys seen this...it looks pretty awesome. It's a remake of Targa's stairs, I think, with proper animations. I would use these because I like when it looks real. The new animation makes it drool worthy! http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=241795

Unfortunately, these ladders aren't sim/fool-proof. I had two sims who managed to get completely stuck by trying to use the ladders simultaneously. One was up, the other downstairs. Both were complaining that the object was already in use, and both kept waiting until the other had finished using it ><.
I have now reverted back to Targa's, no spiffy animations but no traffic jams either.

ETA; causes a problem with ACR too. Couple decided to have some woohoo, female reaches ladder first, male throws hissyfit about object in use, drops auto woohoo from cue. -_-'

[witch]

Good info Eleonora, I've been back several times to try to download the new animations ladders but not have been very successful lately at MTS2. JM has fixed ladders he could share....

[olsen]

Have you guys seen this...it looks pretty awesome. It's a remake of Targa's stairs, I think, with proper animations. I would use these because I like when it looks real. The new animation makes it drool worthy! http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=241795

Unfortunately, these ladders aren't sim/fool-proof. I had two sims who managed to get completely stuck by trying to use the ladders simultaneously. One was up, the other downstairs. Both were complaining that the object was already in use, and both kept waiting until the other had finished using it ><.
I have now reverted back to Targa's, no spiffy animations but no traffic jams either.

ETA; causes a problem with ACR too. Couple decided to have some woohoo, female reaches ladder first, male throws hissyfit about object in use, drops auto woohoo from cue. -_-'

Yes, just as the standard stairs, except they allow sims to meet in the stair but don't follow, as stupid as it sound, you might not be able to meet someone in a narrow staircase in real life but it no problem for lots of people to go up in a queue.
This is a typical AI routing problem; you can see it in many games, I have used it as an exploit in RTS games, get a enemy unit to stop and block the way and the rest might try another entry while you are shooting at them.
The problem with sims is that they have zero patience and no common sense. If the access is blocked by other sims they should wait longer, they move out of way for each other but might be busy so it can take some time before they move. Also if the access is blocked by trash or leftover, clean up. This AI change would help for stairs to, I don't think the modular stars have this problem, at least it much less, probably because each module are treated independent.
 

[Gwill]

Unfortunately, these ladders aren't sim/fool-proof. I had two sims who managed to get completely stuck by trying to use the ladders simultaneously. One was up, the other downstairs. Both were complaining that the object was already in use, and both kept waiting until the other had finished using it ><.
I have now reverted back to Targa's, no spiffy animations but no traffic jams either.

Same thing can happen with Targa's stairs, but since using those is a lot quicker the chance of two sims trying to use them at exactly the same time is very small.
I usually always put two staircases next to each other, no matter what stairs I'm using.