I'm kinda glad I started from scratch - much more entertaining!

[KellyQ]

Heck, I'll even use hacked objects to tailor some family's skills, jobs, etc., to be such that it looks like they've already been played for a bit of time and I'm really just picking up at a certain point.  After all, isn't that what the pre-made families really are?

[/quote]

I do the same thing for some sims as far as skills go. For instance if I use CAS to make an elder, I think it's ridiculous that an older person wouldn't have at least one skill at cooking, cleaning, etc., By the time a person is older they surely would have accomplished some skills in life (at least I would hope so!), so I give them what I think is a reasonable amount of skills and then have them work on the rest.

[Motoki]

I played that Capp family with the 4 kids, it was kinda rough. LOL Oh and be prepared to throw Hal in the plastic surgery machine when he grows up. He's a very cute kid and teen but suddenly morphs into being butt ugly when he grows up to be an adult.  

You actually can find some good starter houses for families. They're rare and you reall have to dig but there's a few out there. I was just browsing over MTS2 and found this one that looks like it would work out very well for that Capp family. All it needs is a crib for the toddler.

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=68111

[ZephyrZodiac]

Another thing you can do is what I remember reading that Gali (I think it was) does.  She builds one house, then packages it, and then you can install it as often as you like.  A bit like RL, too, with a new housing estate of identical houses, but once people start living in them, they all add their own bits until eventually the houses are very different!

[AllenABQ]

 Heck, I'll even use hacked objects to tailor some family's skills, jobs, etc., to be such that it looks like they've already been played for a bit of time and I'm really just picking up at a certain point.  After all, isn't that what the pre-made families really are?

I do the same thing for some sims as far as skills go. For instance if I use CAS to make an elder, I think it's ridiculous that an older person wouldn't have at least one skill at cooking, cleaning, etc., By the time a person is older they surely would have accomplished some skills in life (at least I would hope so!), so I give them what I think is a reasonable amount of skills and then have them work on the rest.

Yup.  Hard to imagine an elder with no skills, etc., and $20,000 in funds.  What did all such sim elder do with their lives?  Live off a trust fund?   

[simmiecal]

Another thing you can do is what I remember reading that Gali (I think it was) does.  She builds one house, then packages it, and then you can install it as often as you like.  A bit like RL, too, with a new housing estate of identical houses, but once people start living in them, they all add their own bits until eventually the houses are very different!

I'm getting ready to start over as well. I went from "no way I'm downloading anything" to "how many gigs is that download folder?".      There's a lot of amazing stuff out there, but I'm not going to be using as much as I thought I would.

This is what I was thinking of doing. Please let me know if you see a problem with this.

1. Build all my homes, furnish them and package them to a file (as if I was going to upload them). Packaging them will save any custom content that was used in their creation.  (Or will the system just replace items -like the Simlogical doors- with Maxis defaults if they are not in the download folder when the home is unpackaged?)

2.After I've created all the houses I will want to use and packaged them, delete custom content from the download folder (or just move it out of the download folder) and delete the Sims folder in my documents.

3. Start the game and have it regenerate the base neighborhoods.

4.Use Clean Installer to put my homes back into the game and at the same time, it would re-install the custom content that I am actually using (versus the endless junk I downloaded for whatever reason).

[AllenABQ]

Another thing you can do is what I remember reading that Gali (I think it was) does.  She builds one house, then packages it, and then you can install it as often as you like.  A bit like RL, too, with a new housing estate of identical houses, but once people start living in them, they all add their own bits until eventually the houses are very different!

I'm getting ready to start over as well. I went from "no way I'm downloading anything" to "how many gigs is that download folder?".      There's a lot of amazing stuff out there, but I'm not going to be using as much as I thought I would.

This is what I was thinking of doing. Please let me know if you see a problem with this.

1. Build all my homes, furnish them and package them to a file (as if I was going to upload them). Packaging them will save any custom content that was used in their creation.  (Or will the system just replace items -like the Simlogical doors- with Maxis defaults if they are not in the download folder when the home is unpackaged?)

2.After I've created all the houses I will want to use and packaged them, delete custom content from the download folder (or just move it out of the download folder) and delete the Sims folder in my documents.

3. Start the game and have it regenerate the base neighborhoods.

4.Use Clean Installer to put my homes back into the game and at the same time, it would re-install the custom content that I am actually using (versus the endless junk I downloaded for whatever reason).

One thing you are overlooking.  When you package a lot, it doesn't just include the custom content you have in the house, it include every single recolor of an object you have in the house.  So while you may have that nice double bed with the custom bedding packaged with your lot, you're also going to get every single bedspread and frame color attached to it as well.

[ZephyrZodiac]

The trouble with that is, instead of a useful file name like XSimsdiningTable3.xxxxyy3.package, you'll get all the long file names!  why not sort your downloads into Modern, Victorian, etc., then use one set for each neighbourhood?  You still keep your downloads folder fairly small, but you keep the variety. (Oh, and large sets you can put into a collections folder when in game, so it's easy to find the whole set!)

And you can save problems with the extraneous recolours, etc. if you keep nothing in your downloads folder that isn't in a file, all your skins can go into Savedsims.  the only file I have that isn't in a folder is the CEP file.  Then after installing any house, I can go into downloads and get rid of all those extra long filename files which I used to spend hours hunting down!  Also, I tend to use Maxis originals for housebuilding for that reason.  Once you put the house into your game, it's easy to replace everything.

[simmiecal]

The trouble with that is, instead of a useful file name like XSimsdiningTable3.xxxxyy3.package, you'll get all the long file names!  why not sort your downloads into Modern, Victorian, etc., then use one set for each neighbourhood?  You still keep your downloads folder fairly small, but you keep the variety. (Oh, and large sets you can put into a collections folder when in game, so it's easy to find the whole set!)

  Putting dunce hat on. 
I have a bunch of files with those ugly long names already. How do I find out what each file is? I am just learning SimPE, so that's all new to me. Is this something I can do in SimPE - look at what each package is? I can't get the preview to work on most of the files when using the Clean Installer - it might show me the texture or color of what's in the package, but I have no idea if it's clothes, a wall or a floor.

When I put something in a collection, is that just another way to sort the items or will that item only be found in with the collections?

Thanks.

[Motoki]

I have a bunch of files with those ugly long names already. How do I find out what each file is?

The short answer is, you don't. :p Welcome to file management for The Sims 2.   

Some of them if the creator named them something useful and you didn't install them with the default Maxis installer (which scrambles up all the names into hex code) you might be able to figure out what they are, but for others that are all seemingly jibberish pretty much the only way to open the package and look at the texture or the geometric data container if it's a mesh and try to figure it out. 

Having subfolders to narrow your stuff down into categories and subcategories helps, but still there's going to be some files where you look at the name and are like "What the hell is this?"

[simmiecal]

I have a bunch of files with those ugly long names already. How do I find out what each file is?

The short answer is, you don't. :p Welcome to file management for The Sims 2.   

&$#%*& !!!
Should have asked sooner.
I had everything in nice folders with the site name where I downloaded the files from. I noticed that some of the packages weren't showing up in the game, so I used the installer on all of them and they got that new ugly file name. In the middle of this, I got the brillant idea that I would organize the folders by function rather than where I got the file from.  Basically, my download folders are a mess (when it comes to objects - my hacks are all VERY carefully labeled and sorted). I'm thinking I should just kill this folder as well and start over.

So, what is the best way to organize the folders: by the site where the file comes from, by function, by style/theme, by
Thanks.

[Motoki]

Never, EVER use the Maxis installer. Not only does it scramble up the filenames but it has a nasty tendency to sneak in lots of extra files you don't want, particularly with houses.

How you organize it is up to you and how anal you want to get with it. I find in general I like to keep any new meshes together in a folder with their recolors because if you ever decide you want to get rid of them it is a royal pain in the ass to hunt down the meshes that went with those textures you deleted in buy mode or in the body shop or CAS.

My folders are really super categorized. I even have my hacks folder with subfolders for J.M. Pescado, TwoJeffs, Inge Jones etc lol.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I just sort objects by site but walls and floors I have much more organised - it helps a bit so they stay roughly together most of the time (though not always) and every time I get a new bunch of wall, everything goes walkabout again!  I do need to get my objects better organised, though.

If a package doesn't show up in your game, it may be that it's a recolour for which you don't have the mesh.  (I'm assuming you have CEP installed.)

Sometimes SimPE will give you a description of the object, but more often than not, you just get something like Quaint endtable which tells you nothing!  And the thumbnails are totally useless as a means of identifying everything!  If you kept your original zips, then maybe it would be best to just discard the downloads folder, make a new one and start installing all those files again.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I was also going to suggest the family funds cheat.  It's never seemed right to me that a family of 8 starts out with the same funds as a family of four so I've never been against using money cheats in situations like that.  You could put them on a smallish lot and just add enough money to their account to get them started with the necessities.  I wouldn't feel like that was cheating at all.

I don't know if this is any help, but I noticed today that, if I have the Mind Control Mirror in a lot (for example, the Gym, but a community lot should work too) then you can select and NPC, say, the Barista, and get them to serve food, and select the dorm cook and get them to work as barista.  All the money they earn goes into your family funds!  Mean or what?

[Venusy]

I was also going to suggest the family funds cheat.  It's never seemed right to me that a family of 8 starts out with the same funds as a family of four so I've never been against using money cheats in situations like that.  You could put them on a smallish lot and just add enough money to their account to get them started with the necessities.  I wouldn't feel like that was cheating at all.

I don't know if this is any help, but I noticed today that, if I have the Mind Control Mirror in a lot (for example, the Gym, but a community lot should work too) then you can select and NPC, say, the Barista, and get them to serve food, and select the dorm cook and get them to work as barista.  All the money they earn goes into your family funds!  Mean or what?

It may be mean, but it's downright necessary in some cases. For example, I have a bad bug in my game where vampires can't bite autonomously. Now, given my already poor choice of a sim to vamp, I would have normally left it well alone. Something aroused my interest of why the Contessa Sophia Conley couldn't bite. My soloution was to make her temporarily selectable, then Bite Neck.

If anyone wants a look at the error log, you can't, as the game saved over it. But I do have an error log of Contessa Sophia's failed attempts to bite a different sim... Also, this has only slight relevance on the post quoted.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[ZephyrZodiac]

I rather like the idea of a vampire that can't bite!  I imagine her motives fell very low!