More Awesome Than You!

Being stupid, I accidentally deleted the Maxis adult female swimsuit mesh. For some reason, it showed up as starred custom content, so, being silly, I actually thought it was custom content, and, well...oops, I broke it. Having done a search on this topic, I know I need to go into the compressed.zip part of the Sims 2 disk (presumably the original disk, since the thing I deleted was the blue flowery one-piece) and extract some packages, but I don't know how to tell which packages I need to unzip and extract. (Also, I extract the package to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\3D, right?)

I really don't want to have to do a full re-install, which I know would fix the problem, but would suck, so help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help.

You can't delete clothing meshes from inside the game, but if you somehow managed to fuck up the game meshes you need to replace Sims03.package, Sims04.package, Sims05.package and/or Sims06.package, depending on which bit you managed to corrupt.

You might not be able to delete the mesh, but you CAN delete the individual uniform, and the package that contains it, resulting in the destruction of all the uniforms in that package, I.E., all your Maxis uniforms.

Also, DO NOT SIGN POSTS WITH THINGS THAT ARE NOT YOUR USERNAME. In fact, DON'T SIGN POSTS AT ALL! We can see your username already.

For future reference, is there any way to tell which package contains which meshes?

All clothing meshes are contained within those 4 packages.  A mesh isn't one file as such, it's a bunch of parts that say stuff about the shape of an object, and those parts are spread out across Sims03.package, Sims04.package, Sims05.package and Sims06.package in the 3D folder of the EP they came with.  Textures are in Sims07.package.  If in doubt, replace all the files in the 3D folder.

I just tried replacing all the files in the 3D folder, and the mesh is still gone. (I have the DVD version of the original game, so the files weren't in compressed.zip, they were just in a folder within the disk. I copied all the Sims.packages and texture.package and put them into the original Sims 2 folder (in my C:/Program Files/EA Games/Sims 2/..../3D folder.) The only changes I noticed when I restarted the game were that my custom content was suddenly disabled, that it gave me an offer to restart Game Tips, and that the Riverblossom Hills neighborhood, which I'd deleted, was regenerated. I don't think I broke anything, but all the one-piece swimsuits are still gone.

What did I do wrong?

I have no idea what you actually managed to do originally, but what you deleted was not the mesh.
Try replacing:
...\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Catalog\Materials\Materials.package
...\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Catalog\Skins\Skins.package
and
..\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Objects\objects.package if you haven't already.

If this works, I suggest you mark the entire game folder (and that of all EPs) as READ ONLY.
If it doesn't work, you re-install, and then mark everything as read only.

I replaced those packages and it worked. I will definitely mark the game folders as read-only. Thank you again for your help.

Gwill, I'll tell you what artemisia managed to do originally, because I did it to several months ago, and have missing all of my university clothes since then!! AND YOU FIXED IT (remotely)!    :-* I did all of the usual crap, including replacing the university simspackages. I even asked for advice at Modthesims2, just to get a generic 'replace the objects.package file' message. I should know to only trust those who have dogs and cats as their avatars. Anyone else is suspect.

It is the work of the non-awesome, and some old awesome-mods that allow maxis meshes to show up in other categories and age groups that also recategorized said outfits to custom. Useful for making new stuff with Maxis meshes, horrible because a great deal of us purge our downloads often and accidentally delete that urgly 'WTF was I thinking' content-- that came with the game :)

I'm thinking any of those mods by everyone from Windkeeper, Fanseelamb, to Motoki-. I know the one that failed me was the University for Adults mod that was last updated with Pets (by Windkeeper).  Every time another EP comes out I have to redo the mod ever-so-slightly to disable the custom star in SimsPE. I, being stupid, forgot to fix it. And then I deleted something fugly....

My only regret with fixing the problem is that now my cheerleaders will be dressed like cheerleaders again, but I no longer will have to be disturbed by YA walking around without torsos and arms. I think that's a fair trade-off.  ;D

That's why you should put that kind of files in the overrides folder.  Then they won't have the star, and you can't accidentally delete them from the game.
Or you could just mark those mods as read-only too.