More Awesome Than You!

I think I've heard that skins and eyes should not be removed from the game while in use by a sim. What can I remove without fearing BFBVFS?
Are clothing, hair, furniture, wallpaper and mods fair game?

You can remove skins and eyes from the game but the sim will revert to a Maxis skintone and the eyes will disappear altogether.  You get a rather dull brown set that are painted on the skintone (IIRC).  You can then replace them using SimPE though it can be difficult to get it to stick.

You can delete anything else - actually in theory you can delete anything.  Clothing will default back to a Maxis outfit (usually ugly but easy enough to change) - same with hair.  Furniture will simply disappear unless it's a recolour in which case it will default .... etc.  Wallpaper - disappear.  Mods will simply no longer be working in game.  The only mod that's a PITA in this regard is Inteen (and maybe ACR though I'm not sure about that).  You're supposed to uninstall Inteen if you remove it but then if you use such a big mod you should know that.  Having said that, as a long-term Inteen user, I have hoiked the hack out and stuck it back in again recklessly enough.  I don't usually load my regular neighbourhood when I do that though.  Only ones I am using to test stuff.

ACR is not a problem; the token will simply disappear and the controller will revert to the default Maxis decorative object.

Oh. I have too many skintones and eyes for my own good. I'm happy they can be removed without causing too much of a problem. Thanks!

I found this thread helpful (http://moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,14461.0.html)

Thank you. I knew I'd seen a similar thread somewhere. Apparently, I suck at using the search function.


This was what I was fearing and the main reason for my concern.

Isn't also removing the terrain paints from the game when they are used also a bad thing? I thought I read that somewhere but I can't remember where.

Removing terrain paints makes your lot flashing blue.

After removing the rugs from Echo/Windkeeper/Numenor from the downloads folder, the lots with this rugs are crushing.
Is by me with all EP´S and SP´s.

Well gosh! First them playing handheld games together gave them random crushes and now the rugs are crushing. What's next, cow plant crushes?  :D


No I wasn't being serious

No, not the rugs are crashing.
The lots with the rugs are crashing after I removed the rugs from downloads folder.
I seen this first with AL installed.

I think the word you are looking for is "crashing", as in "the lots with these rugs are crashing."    ;)

I don't think it's true that custom clothes will be replaced by Maxis clothes.  I've had multiple instances of the game crashing when I try to load a game free of custom clothes, when the Sims were previously wearing them.

Never had this problem.  I have test played my hoods that were loaded with CC clothing, objects, etc. as vanilla versions when new EPs come out, and the sims all revert to some sort of Maxiswear.  Never had a crash.

In fact, I used this method to "reset" the wardrobes of one neighbourhood where several sims had more than 30 outfits each to choose from (it bothered me at the time, for some reason I don't remember).  The sims all ended up with one maxis outfit in each category.

Whoever figures out how to make a tool that identifies the CC your game actually accesses in each neighborhood will be the hero of TS2 Community.

Sometimes you want to cull CC, but have forgotten which Sim or lot is using what. If a tool could scan the whole game for "stuff that loads up in this hood" and include non-occupied lots and not-selected Sims, people will kiss their toes in gratitude.

Removing something vital just because you don't recognize its name and then having custom architectural elements or wallpaper or plants or outfits  or terrains or accessories or whatever flashing blue / reverting to Maxis fug or the game refusing to cooperate at all is a PAIN IN THE REAR.

Hear, hear!  It would be great to build a neighborhood with all CC in, and then play it without having to load the whole deal.  I do something like that with 4GB of Bodyshop CC - leave it in while using Bodyshop, and then take it out so installing packaged sims only adds what is actually in use to the game.  It would be nice to do the same with neighborhoods, and have building sessions vs. quick-loading play sessions.  It would also make it much easier to share a game, make a version of your 'hood for a less powerful computer, or set up themed AnyGames.

Isn't it correct that removing custom careers might screw things up, if you don't make sure the sims using them are at home when you remove the career?

Perhaps a nutty idea, but, if one were desperate enough, one could:

• Back up your hoods, y'know just in case
• Package each lot from their hood, plus its simmies
• Put their neighborhood somewhere safe
• Let the game regenerate its neighborhood files
• Unpack everything with clean installer, ditching the lot and sim files
• Snag the unpacked files
• Chuck the new 'hoods
• Extract original download file, put it someplace safe
• Replace with snagged files
• Put the whole works into play
• Cry for lost time/ Cheer for something working, you choose

In theory, it could work, but I'm not desperate enough to test it. I'm sure Pes, or some other savvy individual will find the gaps in my logic, but yeah, there it is.

It would work if the in-game packager was less Fail.  Sometimes it will not package recolours of Maxis objects, sometimes it will package all of them.  ::)  Same with CC objects.  Sometimes all the recolours get packed, even if the lot only uses one.  Then of course, there's the knotty problem of master-slaved objects which bork in their own special way.

In short, it won't work even if you're desperate.

Removing a custom career can potentially fuck up your entire neighborhood, depending on how the career was made. If they made it with the Fallback GUID of a real EAxis career, the object will not properly disintegrate and there will now be duplicate objects on your lot, which is very bad.

Custom careers are bad.  Every time I had one in my game, it messed things up big time.  They are a fun idea, but putting them to use is bad.

Does that apply even when the careers is not used by any sim, or only when you have had a sim enter such a career? Is there a way to check if a career has a maxis fallback GUID, and if so, how? Most custom careers don't have this sort of information, from what I can see.

Edit: I assume there's a way to fix the careers so they don't bork your game?

I would think the safest way to go about removing a custom career would be to not only make sure any Sims using it are at home, but to switch them into a different career before removing the file.

It's not about the sims themselves. It's about the invisible object that the career is represented by. If you remove the custom career, it may "Fallback" to an existing EAxis object, resulting in duplicate EAxis career objects on the lot. This is uncool and lame.

So if you remove the career and the sim that had it end up without any career at all when you load the game again, you're safe?

No. THe only way to tell is to open up the career in SimPE and look at "fallback GUID". If the Fallback GUID is the same as the OBJD GUID, then you're safe. If it isn't, you're not safe: You have to change the Fallback to be the same, then load and re-save every single lot in your game first.