More Awesome Than You!

Is there any cheat (or other trick) that will let me build walls or foundations closer than the 2-square limit to the edge of the lot?

Simply put: No.
People have been begging for it since the base game, but the answer is still no.

You can put fences on the edge, and greenhouse walls go as close as one square from the edge, but that's it.

You can, however, build right up to the pavement (or sidewalk, if you prefer) and your upper story can protrude over it - I think with moveobjects on it would be possible to build a "floating" upper floor  right out into the road, although I've never tried it.  Also, you can put outside staircases at the side of the house, which effectively means you are using one of the two tile widths for your house.

Also, if you are aiming for a terraced effect in your hood, you can extend the front wall to the edge, and put an archway in it - a lot of terraces have passages between them and doing this looks quite realistic.  I've done it with 1x1 lots to create 2-up 2-down terraced cottages, and then divided them with the high wall (the old, broken brick type wall, not one of the fancy ones, can't think offhand what it's called.)

Ah, okay... 

I am working with 1x1's and 2x1's.  The opportunity to own vacation homes in BV  makes it appealing to try to design the cheapest house available.  It seems as though a half-decent cheap furnished vacation home will run about 8000 unless you get extra clever about it.

Hello Doc Doofus,

While there might not be a mod for building to the edge of a lot, there is a method in testing.  I recently read through the thread by Mootilda who has been working with the Andi LotExpander and has updated that for BV.  In that thread at MTS2,

http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=175884 (http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=175884)

the link is given for the general discussion and within that discussion, the link for the discussion of the work being done by plasticbox toward being able to build to the edge of the lot.   

Please find Mootilda's  'Discussion: Lot Size, Orientation, Rotation, etc' thread here:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=250693 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=250693)

Please find the plasticbox thread here:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1801416&postcount=527 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1801416&postcount=527)

Great discussions. 

Plasticbox has also posted a tutorial about this-I can't wait to try it! :D

Tutorial (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=254032)

Are you going to run into any problems building to the edge of the lot?  Is it going to help speed up routing or make things works?  How about portals?  any danger of screwing them up by blocking or building over them?

I'm working with 1x1 and 1x2 lots at the moment as well - I've been using that concrete wall to join adjacent houses.  My current practical problem is that I'm working in base game with the BasegameStarter and am having trouble installing the MTS2 empty lots into the game - they end up in my main game teleport folder! Moving them to the correct teleport folder seems to crash the base game.  Also, the base game system of moving lots out of the lot bin rather than copying them sucks if you are wanting to build 10 houses on a template in the lot bin!

Cwykes, first of all check your teleport folder is empty for the main game. Install the 1X1 etc, lots. DO NOT RUN YOUR MAIN GAME! Open your teleport folder for your main game. Copy and paste all the files in there. Paste them into your 'Base Game' teleport folder for the basegamestarter. If there isn't one there, create a new folder, it won't matter. Run the basegamestarter. Voila, your nice empty lots will be in there, base game compatible.


I haven't got a clue. I think there is a link to a hack that shows portals in the lot expander thread, but haven't read all the threads yet. I know there is a problem with the pizza delivery guy, he just walks up and down and you can't greet him, he just puts the pizza on the floor. The sims still pay for it though.

If you use Clean Installer you should be able to redirect anything you want where you want anywhere on your PC.  Just uncheck the default box and browse.

Yes you can totally screw up the portals if you want to  :D but as of v1.2.7.8 (or .7?) of the LotExpander, the whole procedure has become much easier -- LE now moves the portals for you when you shrink a lot, so you never need to touch them at all, and they seem to work perfectly from what I've seen during testing. The only unresolved issue I currently know about is the confused pizza dudes -- but there may be other still undiscovered problems; I've just uploaded a row house on mts2 and am begging for feedback here (http://www.modthesims2.com/member/showthread.php?t=254042).

The latest supported test version of the LotExpander is 1.2.7.8, available here (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1801236#post1801236).

Inge Jones has posted a portal revealer here (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251392) -- you can use this to mess around with portals to your heart's content.

In the tutorial (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=254032) I posted, there's a summary on possible problems/things to keep in mind when building wall to wall.

(That tutorial, and a few row houses, is the only thing that's *my* work btw -- I wasn't even able to help out with testing very much, due to lack of time. The new LotExpander, with the shrinking feature, is basically a gift that fell in my lap .. I'm only using it, I didn't write it -> kudos to Mootilda and the other testers, not me!)

Cool. I'll play with it tonight, although only for three sim days. Lynn & Antwan need to move out of their respective parents' houses, and Queen's Cove needs a semi-urban section to cushion the Badger Square from the sticks.

Hehehe - having literally just seen the posts on MTS2 a few minutes ago, I came here to post that it seems that someone's found a way to make terraced housing in Sims 2, but this thread has beaten me to it. Ah well :).

Thank you so very much for clarifying things, plasticbox.  I sincerely appreciate it.  I saw the very first brief post from Mootilda some time ago and was totally blown away with what I found in this recent thread of what was discovered and shared since.  I couldn't tell from the post other than it looked like you were making it a bit easier for others to begin to experiment with the methods Mootilda had found by way of your row houses.  One way or the other, I felt it was brilliant work by all involved and that it needed shared here as soon as possible, especially since Doc had asked the question at a perfect time. 

I agree, it sounds like an awful lot of fun ahead with these.  This opens up a new world, at least for this one.

I have been having some issues with my game cannibalizing itself, so I am trying to put things back together in a useable form, but when I have it finished, I am dying to try your row houses.  Seems for me the trouble began with the installation of Celebrations to an otherwise stable game.  I really want to try your houses, so I may bag the whole thing and start anew...  and it will be your and Mootilda's fault I couldn't wait  ;)   

Commence the fun!

It's a good house so far. Just slight issues with changing wallpaper on the shortened sides (you can't put windows on the ends either. To be expected. I posted a bunch of feedback for you at MTS2, Plasticbox, and will put up some more when I next get a chance to play...tomorrow or Saturday, but I think I'm out for the majority of tomorrow night.

I posted a note over on S2c about this...  but the Lot Expander is telling me that my 3x2 lot is a 3x3, before I even do anything.  LE is wrong.  My lot is definitely a 3x2.  Double-checked it.    I'm going to wait for more feedback about that before I do any shrinking.

The LotExpander isn't wrong.  It says that it is including the space for the road.  Thus, a 3x2 lot becomes a 3x3 lot, including the road.

OOoookay...  Going to test it now...

That's what I've been doing Emma and the lots appeared in base game just fine and I placed one and built on it.  Unfortunately the whole thing crashes at the hood screen next time I try and change hoods or load the one I was working on, so I figure it's probably that.  Guess it could be something else, but that was all I did!

It worked!  Fantastic!  Followed the directions to the tee....

It's absolutely essential that you get all the windows and walls (including INSIDE walls -- I missed that) just the way you want them before you shrink the lot.  After you shrink it, you can't move or change the windows off the outer walls.  You can't connect inside walls to the outer walls -- they are still subject to that two-square limit pain in the ass.

Going from 3x2 to 1x1 chopped about $2500 off the price of the lot, although it took a couple of saves for that to register.

I did all my work starting on an empty vacant lot and got it how I wanted it before moving in a Sim.  Played the lot for hours, no problems at all!  Well one...  Because it's a 1x1 lot, Sims arriving in vehicles don't always get out using the animation but, instead, just pop up.  No biggie, though.

The released version of the LotExpander (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1747180) has an advanced "over the road" option which will allow you to place an upper floor over the road.

Pbox, you say you've made a "few" rowhouses?  Do you have any others posted on MTS2 yet?  (I mean the individual side-by-side ones.  I obviously know about the whole Backdoor Lane series ;) )  I've only just seen the one, Backdoor Lane 42.  Love it, btw.  I can't wait to try making my own. 

This is slightly OT, but related to the shrinking feature in the new LE - has anyone tried shrinking beach lots yet? 

There are two *experimental* *test* downloads in the R+D thread (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=250693) at mts2. Links are in post #1. I'm probably going to repost them somewhere else though -- if you download them, please don't post in the R+D with feedback, please use the row house tutorial thread for now .. the R+D thread is getting too cluttered with build mode stuff. Thank you!

Check the R+D thread, I think Inge posted about it a few times -- I don't have BV so the beach lot stuff doesn't really register.

Someone had some success shrinking a beach lot on the side, but (as far as I know) no one has tried shrinking the depth of a beach lot yet. If anyone would like to try this, I'd be happy to help in whatever way I can.

Update:
Inge Jones just succeeded in shrinking the depth of a beach lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1804821&postcount=630

I would share my 1x1 row house here if I could figure out how to get around this 640kb limit on attachments.

Sweet. I hope she shares.

Doc Doofus, MTS2 not an option? I use 4shared.com for alternative file saving.

You can get it here:

http://webpages.charter.net/ronunderwood/1X1furnished-a.Sims2Pack (http://webpages.charter.net/ronunderwood/1X1furnished-a.Sims2Pack)

row house 1x1 sparsely furnished, about $7500, two stories plus basement.

Also of probable interest here is that the currently in development version of Lot Adjuster allows you to have landlocked lots, that are not attached to a road.  I have a lovely little communal rest-gardens with pond at the back of my houses.  I didn't want to spoil it with car parking areas and community phones, so it's a walk-to only :D

That's very much of interest. I currently have a few random-sized lots I use for 'hood deco...don't really fit Queen's Cove as they contain all tropical plants & rocks, but they looked great in my desert 'hood. They are tied to road, though. One of my many gripes with the games is that the restrictions on placement for most deco items results in odd little spots in the middle of blocks with absolutely nothing in them.

I've read through the R&D thread. Understand about half of it without having looked at the Lot Expander, but it's an awful lot of information!

Inge, until we have officially changed the name of the LotExpander to LotAdjuster, I think that it's just confusing to use this new term.

With such a small lot size, I think if you just packaged a totally undecorated lot, you might well manage to zip it to something small enough to upload here.  Or as an alternative, you might consider having your own Yahoo group, to which you could upload your lots and then just post the link - I think if you are the owner of the group you can opt to allow all visitors to download, but you'd need to check that one out.

Since you're here and MTS2 is down, I will answer a question you asked and tell you yes, setting U10=0 does correct the lot outline.

I have been having fun with this all day, building houses for my Old Town/Port, downtown for my medieval village. This is of course far from finished yet, its still located in a test hood and not ready for sims to move in.. I have a lot of work to do before I get that far, the Old Town needs several blocks! But anyway, doesnt it look nice:
(http://charlamov.com/games/sims/oldtownblock.jpg)
There are 13 lots in this pic.
This is so much fun! TY all you clever modders!
(Ooh.. lots outside the road system.. must make those too!)

 ;D I know. I now have a base 2x1 townhouse with one space on each side (so I can use windows, plus that kind of matches the houses in my neighborhood). Next I want to do a 2x1.5 or so that can fit front-to-back in those tricky 3 x X blocks. Most of Wren Nest (urban area of Queen's Cove) is like that. Doi. Just realized you can't do halvsies. Only after working on a lot for half an hour!

ingeli,

this is beautiful. Looks very Scandinavian to me  :)


All,

please be aware that resized lots may be glitchy and LE 1.2.7.8 is a TEST version. There is an issue with crashes at 7PM that seem to only occur on shrunken lots. We're currently trying to figure this out, see this post (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=10117.0). It would not seem wise to post such lots at this point in time without appropriate warnings.

TY Pbox! Thats the goal, to create an old medieval town with cities as Stockholm or Copenhagen as a model :D
(I myself live in Stockholm, took a walk in Old Town the other day for inspiration and ideas :).

Ok. Got a set of four done. 2x1 townhome (3 bed, 2 1/2 bath) with the right and left edges on the ends of the lot, back side one space from the edge (so I could add windows). 1x1 townhome (2 bed, 1 bath) with right, left, and back sides one space from the edge. Then both with a back yard and bonus room added...a 2x2 and a 1x2. That way you can stagger them to fit in 3xX blocks without having blank sections in the middle. I'll get them up to MTS2 once this supposed 7 pm crash (which I still haven't seen, even after testing my four) is figured out. They come without the fencing and plants/pools and...shockingly...no custom content.

(http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/4450/karitownhouseseo6.jpg)

They certainly look good, Zazazu, and I for one like sticking my own stuff in rather than having houses already furnished, so personally I prefer them that way.  Once I get my hard drive fixed/replaced, I'd love to give these a try.  I love playing and creating terraced housing, and it's always annoyed me how you couldn't keep the two families apart, if one lot cooked a meal, they'd wander next door to use the microwave, then wander back to serve the meal, and sims from both families would feel hungry and come and eat!  However, to complete the realism (and no doubt asking the impossible) is a through the garden gate/door mod so next-door's kids could pop in and use the swing, or their dog could decide to take a pee in your backyard etc!

Yeah, I know. When I set up the townhomes in Queen's Cove, I added the fences in such a way that it seems like a few of them have connected yards. It's all visual, though. If I can play with the ability to use the Expander to make lots independent of roads, feasibly I can make a community garden to fit in the center section (I have a thing for community gardens  8) ) but still...everyone would have to walk to it. If they can, I haven't seen anything on the R&D thread to indicate that you can. Not ready to play with that yet.

I don't like putting furniture or landscaping on lots I'm going to repeat, because I always want to change that a bit on each house. I had a townhome (ye olde style, 1x2) in Urban Paradise that I repeated, and I'd change the ivy on the outside, landscaping, and outside wallpaper on each house so they looked individual.

Inge's 4-key doors, found at simlogical.com, work wonders for apartments/flats on the same lot. You need to have one sim lock the door for her/him only, and then you can assign up to four 'keys' that allow other sims to use that door. I now use the regular doors for dorms instead of the Myne doors, and it makes things so much easier.

Tried that a while back, but I lost them all when my hard drive got fried, and I couldn't find them again.  Also, I remember Inge saying that they shouldn't be used with OFB (I think it was) as they'd break the default doors in the game.  In fact, I couldn't find any of her apartment stuff again, so maybe she's just not put it back up, or maybe I just missed it!

Hmmm, I have OFB installed, and they work wonderfully, though I think she's updated them since the first time around. Before, they were standalone objects within the Build catalogue, but this time the mod seems to be a global patch that affects all doors used in-game, even custom ones (or maybe that's the broken part). Regardless, I've had no problems with them.

There's a lot of confusion here :D

1) I have 4-key lockable doors which are seperate (non global) doors.  You can use them anywhere and with anything.   They don't offer any of the locking options that came with OFB but they continue to work, as what they were designed to be, perfectly well.

2) Seperate from point 1, I created an "apartment" or security system which had room controllers and could be used with any Maxis door, but depended on a global patch to make doors sensitive to the room controllers.   This patch breaks the Maxis locking that came with OFB and therefore should not be used beyond that EP.  However I did get as far as making *one* door that works with the security system without a global patch  :D

3) Seperate from 1 and 2 above, I have more recently made a patch that allows all Maxis doors to have 4-key locking *in addition to* the Maxis locking options.  There is a version for Seasons, and one for Bon Voyage.  The patch does not apply to, nor affect, hotel doors.

The above are three completely seperate downloads, all available from the doors section at Simlogical.

1.  I did see those, true.

2. I used to use those, plus all the objects - if I remember rightly, you had a whole section devoted to apartment living.

3. Maybe I'll try the Seasons one.

The main problem, though, is if you have two terraces on the same lot, and you use the 4-key doors, every time you have a visitor for one family in particular, they (a) always choose one front door over the other and (b) cannot enter unless you change the instructions on the door (as applies to the Maxis doors too - if you allow all sims, then the neighbours will use your house as their own, and your visitors may well spend all their time in the neighbour's house.  There's the money thing too, one sim may be hard-working, have a good, well-paid job etc., the neighbour idle, always wanting stuff that they can't afford from their own earnings, but the hard-working sim can afford, so they might as well be living together since one is dependent on the other anyway. 

This way, of course, with separate but joined lots, you do get two separate households, the disadvantage then being that you have to play them as such.  No-win situation, really.....

Zazazu, those look great!  Do they have parking? 

Oh yes, lockable doors are no substitute for proper apartment coding in the game.  I just wanted to untangle all those things.

Well, I was pretty grateful for your efforts when I used the apartment stuff, mainly for Uni, and I guess students living in separate apartments would be in and out of each others' homes to raid the fridge or play the piano etc. so it wasn't too unrealistic.  I also used them once for an old folks' apartment building, and again, old folks would probably do that too, although human ones would probably ask first......

Inge has a set of buyable portals available at modthesims2.  With these, your connected yards can work by adding pedestrian portals near the gates in the fences.

Bon Voyage adds the ability to walk to another lot.  So, a no-road community garden will still be accessible.  If you don't have BV, then you can create a winding dirt "road" and move the car portals to appropriate spots on the lot - your community garden will be accessible by car, but won't look like it is on a main road.

This is all do-able right now.  I am currently adding logic to the LotExpander so that it will delete the roads for you, but the research thread at modthesims2 has a tutorial for adding and removing roads from your lot.

Not as designed. My next set (I need 6 blocks worth, I think, to cover the as-yet-unnamed urban section of Queen's Cove) will be brownstone 3-story 1x1-2's and 2-story 2x1-2's with garages as I can fit them. The current set can be modified to have street parking on the 2x1-2's. I actually used street parking when testing one of them.

I have the 1x1 and 2x1 up if anyone wants to test them, in my 4shared account (http://www.4shared.com/dir/2710440/c8824f7a/sharing.html). I'll submit them to MTS2 tonight, if that's acceptable at this point. With the dire warnings, of course.

Mootilda, that's what I was brainstorming...I have Inge's portal flamingo and buyable portals and was thinking that I could probably put in the pedestrian portals. I'd like to eliminate car use to them altogether, but that's something I don't even wanted to build on my main account in my test 'hood....that goes on my test account from the build stage on! I usually build stuff for sharing or repeat use in my test 'hood so I have my CC available, then package and install on my test account and repackage so that I can eliminate all the recolor redundancy that the game creates. I'm sure there's a better way, but it works so why reinvent the wheel?