More Awesome Than You!

This offering has been permanently pulled due to bugs. Please see post #58 for world files if you would like to try to fix the bugs yourself (road triangles and issues with carpools).

Presenting early-stage Asherton:

(http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/5166/ashertonlotoutlines.jpg)

And built-up Asherton:
(http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/7995/screenshotd.jpg)

It is a neighborhood with approximately 90 liveable lots, several small parks, a distinct office district, and a mix of tiny urban lots and potential mini-mansion plots. For ease of explanation, I have divided the map into zones. Zone A consists of small family homes set up for families with 1-4 spawn. Zone B is set mostly for childless couples, with a few homes holding 1-2 spawn. There is a special lot near the community pool that is staged as a retirement home with room for four couples in individual buildings (bedroom + bathroom) with a shared kitchen/dining/living/rec space. This zone also has several lots available for building. Zone C is set for small families with 1-2 spawn and holds the major office park. Zone D is for a mix of childless couples and families with 1-4 spawn, with a distinctly contemporary flair.

This neighborhood is better than Dragon Cay. The residential lots have actual addresses you can see in-game. There are no funky lots overlapping roads. Your sims can learn Kung Fu at the gym. They can add their own relics at the museum. They cannot climb mountains on their way to the pool. There are more huge-ass 20x20 lots and even a 30x30 for you insane people who like to waste space.

(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/314/screenshot9rz.th.jpg) (http://img199.imageshack.us/i/screenshot9rz.jpg/)     (http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/7716/screenshot8u.th.jpg) (http://img717.imageshack.us/i/screenshot8u.jpg/)     (http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/3376/screenshot7bn.th.jpg) (http://img694.imageshack.us/i/screenshot7bn.jpg/)

(http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/7073/screenshot6pl.th.jpg) (http://img109.imageshack.us/i/screenshot6pl.jpg/)     (http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2176/screenshot4ko.th.jpg) (http://img62.imageshack.us/i/screenshot4ko.jpg/)     (http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9552/screenshot2um.th.jpg) (http://img163.imageshack.us/i/screenshot2um.jpg/)
These are all houses designed by me. A handful are based on floorplans from Eplans, but then radically adapted. These houses were built specifically and for the first time for Asherton. Yeah, I basically hate building right now. While three or four are facades (no beds) the rest are fully furnished. Beds were planned to promote a stable population growth that should end in a neighborhood that will run well on the average player's machine. The magic number of beds is 75 aimed for spawn and 135 aimed for adults/elders. You should tap out at 210 and with NPCs should not exceed the magic 300 count that seems to bring about neighborhood slowdown for some users, including myself.

Requires: World Adventures, Riverview, and game patched up to at least 2.5.
Highly Recommended: The Insulator window and Mondernism windows from the Sims3Store. I tried to avoid using Store items but realized at the 11th hour that I had used these two. Neighborhood should function without them, but will look better with them.
CC Included:

• Half Wall by Flabaliki  http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=380720
• Immodest Pediment Recolors in Grey-Black-White by VoiceIHear http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=368872
• HugeLunatic's Colonial windows http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=371508
• Martine's CAW textures: WA_Pavement_Pattern.dds, WA_Rock.dds, WA_Rock_Dark.dds

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=385025[/li][/list]

Known issues: There is a tiny bit of a graphical anomaly by the diner. It is almost completely hidden, and is much smaller than it originally was. Between it and another issue that took me three days before I gave up and just bulldozed the frakking lot, I don't care anymore. There are a few extremely slight lot edge buckles, but I found that all but two resolved graphically given a few seconds. If you have a bug to report, please provide the lot address.

Installation Instructions:
I AM A BROKEN LINK (http://I AM A BROKEN LINK). Open .rar file. Install the Sims3Pack for the 'hood using the tool of your choice. My launcher still works for these. Take the "Build" folder in the .rar and place it in your */Mods/Packages/ file.
I AM A BROKEN LINK (http://I AM A BROKEN LINK) for those that might want to smush things around.

EDIT: 2/22/10 with built world files. Originals exists but I do not recommend using them and am not supporting them. If you have some oddities around the koi pond, please redownload.

Needs a more pumpkin-oriented theme.

My apologies. I will be sure that the populated version includes a pumpkin-colored home.

Ooh, make a pumpkin-colored home seperately so I can put it in Puddingland.

Love how there's no plausible way to get on or off the island. No one can hear my sims' screams.

The island could use something that looks like a seaport.

I like it!  I'm downloading it as we speak.  Personally, I am impressed with anyone who can build a locale with that stupid CAW tool; it is apparently far more awesome than I, for I cannot work out how to do anything with it besides accidentally create gigantic mountains.

Edit: Question - after installing and poking at the hood a bit, I am curious where the "huge ass" lots are - the version I have got seems to be comprised entirely of tiny lots.  Not that this is a bad thing, as space constraints will definitely force me to get creative; I'm just curious.

There are some medium-to-large ones surrounding the gym. Most of the lots around City Hall are at least 18x18 and one is a 30x30. There's a 20x32 lot against the office park, bordering the Bistro. There's a 23x23 and a 17x20 on the road to the Stadium on the Diner side (Saga Street). There also is a 21x17 across the street from the Community Garden. Last, there's a 20x20 on that little lane of land in between the hill that City Hall rests on and the Police Station.

I personally find it more of a challenge to build on larger lots, but I included a few for future Free Love families once mod capabilities allow my polygamous cult.

It's modeled after my last Sims2 'hood that I really loved, Abelline. Abelline had a CC train system that went through a mountain to the neighboring business district of Regina, which had a seaport. We don't have great seaport items right now, but I'm playing around with the idea of putting in a faux heliport. The airport we have in the game is just ridiculously huge.

I lol'd.

I'm far too lazy to give CAW a whirl (frankly, even recoloring something with the Create-a-Design tool is more creative than I care to be), so I really appreciate the industrious folks out there.  It looks great, and I can't wait to use it.

First house built on the smallest lot, in honor of Emma:
(http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/4825/screenshot18p.th.jpg) (http://img705.imageshack.us/i/screenshot18p.jpg/)    (http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/8282/screenshot17.th.jpg) (http://img503.imageshack.us/i/screenshot17.jpg/)
Two bed, one bath that will spawn one larvae with Awesomemod. Comes complete with a garden space. I'm building in the normal game and then saving to bin, because doing edit-in-game from CAW with a fully lotted 'hood results in a save process that could trigger epilepsy.

Fabulous! You have given me exactly what I want, small lots!! Will be trying this world out tonight.

I agree, I've been waiting for a small lot neighborhood...  my impatient inner-blueberry (who wants everything noowww) thanks you! 

Which is ....x...?

This looks wonderful! My favorite part is building homes so this is perfect for me.

I'm taking a break from the one I'm creating. The tool keeps blinking between before and after images of any areas I use the elevation tool on and its getting on my nerves.

10x11, in the block of five lots and the tiny park that consists of a fountain and a few benches. I have that block built up so far.

I look forward to your populated version as I fail at making lots look nice. Just square boxy houses for me. I usually download houses, then customize them however I like, but your lots are too small to do that with. Thanks so much though!

I absolutely love your neighborhood.   Small lots are one of the many things I missed from Sims 2.  I had a blast building a couple of houses on a 10 x 10 and a 12 x 12 lot.  I look forward to building more once I get my daughters off to school this morning.

I'm starting with the smalls, too. According to my averages so far, I should have the entirety built up in two weeks max. Unfortunately, I was sick yesterday until about 9pm and only got four lots done that day.

You have inspired me to go back to CAW to see if I can make anything myself that looks half-way decent. So far I have a mountain-y island with a nice little cove, so we will see how it goes. It took me 5 hours yesterday to even get that far (I scrapped 3 others before settling on this one)

Amazing neighborhood. I hated how the lots are so spaced out in the Sims 3 neighborhoods, it just did not look right to me. I've been playing with your unpopulated version for a day or two now, but I've noticed some work places are missing, such as the business one and science one I believe.

Science shares a lot with the military base. Business shares with Criminal. Both are the Riverview version of the buildings as they blended better with the terrain and other buildings (color reasons for Science, height for Business). Do you not have Riverview? I stated that Riverview is required for the neighborhood.

If you don't have Riverview, you can always just place them using moveobjects on so that they form this pattern:
(http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6721/screenshot26a.th.jpg) (http://img695.imageshack.us/i/screenshot26a.jpg/)
...or however you like. I can't guarantee that other areas and objects won't be screwy without Riverview, though.

Must be something wrong in my end. I do have Riverview installed, well at least I did. I went back to check and it isn't on the neighborhood selection list. The odd thing is that I was just playing on it a week ago. Might have been because of the patch, I'll go back and check what went wrong. But anyways, thanks.

I noticed when I played, my fellow Asherton's would go to the diner but exiting the back they would have no pathway (just stand there at backdoor with footprints crossed out).

Going into Edit Town I deleted everything on the lot and replaced the diner more into the middle of lot. Hope this helps.

Aside from lots im not on looking like blue square holes, I love the small lots. All day today I've been getting creative with the limited space.

Just had that problem yesterday, too. It will be moved in the next version. I wasn't aware that sims exited the diner from the back.

There seems to be a routing problem with the Police Station. A Sim of mine could enter it just fine -  when he finished his shift and exited to go home, though, he got stuck in front of the door. I had to move the Police Station closer to (and a bit into) the hill behind it, then he finally went home. Other than that, a wonderul neighbourhood - love the small lots.

I think there's a routing problem with the science building as well. I realize that when my sim's co-workers enter before him, he gets the route failure bubble above his head and drops work from his queue. He remains stuck where he stands so I had to resetsim him and send him to work again.

Thanks for all your effort!

That's odd. I've been playtesting Science from the beginning and haven't had any issues. I'll try putting a bunch of sims into the career line and see if I can replicate. I'd been testing the others for now during building breaks.

Yup, confirmed. Will be fixed in next version.

Any estimate when a built up but non-populated version will be up? I love it but don't think I can fill it on my own with houses.

There is a great tutorial for Creating a new World at The Sim Supply site. It is very clear and easy to follow. I am amazed  at my first World, it looks pretty great so far.  Check out the tutorial.

A week to a week and a half, depending on some meatspace concerns. I have most of the mainland done (the land that the school sits on, up to the stadium).

You should check out the Wee Barnoid series from Plasticbox at MTS. Each house was built on a 16x18 lot, so they'll work with almost all of the lots in this neighborhood.

There are 24 houses in the series, so far. Most cost less than 20K, and they're pretty well done.

If you're going to go Plasticbox route and you have Awesomemod, enter each lot and input the cheat "wandhere", then exit the lot. It will drastically reduce lot price. I don't think he does that by default. I know he didn't use the magicwand on TS2 houses. A typical $23k home will reduce to around $14k with "wandhere". Huge difference. Huge.

Mainland on my populated version is complete as of a couple of minutes ago. There is now a trailer park. Sleeping space is being planned in order to try to constrain population below 300 (seems to be the magic game crapping number for a lot of us) and maintain a good proportion of all age groups with Awesomemod Story.

The trick to 16x18 lots is the problem with lot depth alignment. If a house is being placed on a lot deeper than its original, it will end up centered oddly, and the paths that were ORIGINALLY supposed to be flush with the sidewalk now AREN'T. Very bad. Horizontal alignment is less of a serious problem, since centering USUALLY won't fuck anything up, but depth alignment is critical!

One at least one of the lots, (sorry forgot to check the address, but it is the one to the right of 14 West Gardener Avenue) the lot doesn't meet up with the street. Not sure if you can do much about it, but thought I would give you a heads up. Let me know if you need a screen shot or anything.

12 West Gardner Ave. Yeah. I know that lot way, way, too well. It was very bad in the version I first uploaded. It was mostly fixed in the fixed version and I noted it in an edit. Populated version should be perfect. I hate that frakking lot.

Just so you know I am still really looking forward to getting Asherton. No pressure, just thought I would mention it. Hope meatspace is going good and everything is all right and all that jazz.

Part of meatspace is much, much better and the rest is still stuck in limbo. Asherton is coming along, but definitely taking longer than expected. These are all original houses, and only two are loosely based on houseplans so far. There aren't too many repeats (there's a set of four townhouses off two models, three copies that are meant to mimic a housing project, and seven homes that are based off the same two models with slight changes over by the office park).

It's over 2/3 done.

Any chance of a fix on the 3 or 4 routing issues that have cropped up? I downloaded this under the (albeit mistaken) impression that there had been an update since the problems were reported, guess there hadn't been. Just had to rescue 3 sims from the back of the diner.

For the unpopulated version? No. Just edit the diner lot and move the diner a couple of squares towards the road. All noted issues in this thread have been fixed on the WIP built up version, which is in personal testing as of tonight. I have an interview this week, but am looking to release the goods either this weekend or mid-week next week at the latest. The later time would be due to me getting the job, since I get to go shopping for the first time in ten months. Damn, I need to get my linen fix.

I can't wait- I downloaded your undeveloped hood, attempted to build it up then realised that, oh yeah, my building skills fail.  The only thing I really got done was council scheme- the close together lots made that work really well.  I see that you said you did one too.

Your world is the only one I can realistically use because large worlds makes my brain explode from the lag. There were some other fantastic worlds made, like Nimuoa Simoa, but they were too big for my computer. Your world also creates some of the community feeling that Apartment life gave the Sims 2. I love that the houses are small and packed together.

Looks like my type of hood.  I haven't had a go a CAW yet.  I just did a 3rd clean install of my game with patches and got it going without the lag and all the problems it had before.  I've finally got all the CC I need in it and Riverview too and it's running well.  One day I'll be brave enough to try CAW but for now, this new hood looks fabulous.  Thanks so much for sharing.  I'm downloading it now!!

Post updated with built-up version.

Pescado, there is a pumpkin-colored house by the police station. However, we know it won't fit in your 'hood. Tell me what lot you want it for and I'll build one for you.

Downloaded and started playing the world first thing this morning.  I must say, it's absolutely gorgeous and I especially love the houses.

The only problem I've run into is the office district.  I put one sim in the journalism career.  He would get in the carpool, but the car wouldn't move from outside his house.  I canceled the action, and then sent him to work in a taxi which fixed the problem.  After work, instead of running to the end of the path to get into a taxi on that main road, he would run down the paved path and then down the hill to a carpool waiting right in front of house 21 East Geeder (I think, I didn't write it down...) which is at the base of the hill right behind the business building.  He would get in the car and again sit.

Now at first I thought this was due to the location of his house, so I tested it again with another sim in a totally different house.  Same issue.  I changed her occupation to science.  Still stuck in the carpool in front of the house.  Sent her in a taxi.  When she got out of work, the carpool was right in front of the military base (so she didn't run down the hill).  She got in the car, was stuck, and when I canceled the action, she was stuck on the sidewalk.  I had to resetsim to get her to move again.

I'm not sure what is doing this (other than a routing issue?).  I haven't checked the remainder of the businesses in the office district just yet.

This is a recent issue. I didn't run into it in the pre-built version, and did not find it in my playtesting. However, here it is. I've noticed the same thing with the Bistro. I haven't touched those lots since pre-built.

I'll look it over and see if I can't find out what the issue is. My only thought is that perhaps re-placing the rabbitholes will unbork them. We'll see.

I haven't downloaded it, so I'm going mainly by the photos, I think the lack of a road to some of the rabbit holes might be a factor.  Also, I noticed while building my own world that the first side of a lot you lay down is designated the front of the lot.  This is changeable for residential lots, by moving the mailbox, but is not for community lots.  I recommend to all new world builders to always lay the first line of your community lots against the road.  I'm honestly not certain if either of these things might cause the troubles you are encountering.  I just thought I'd brainstorm my ideas. 

I've been playing with the town for a few hours and I have to say it's great I love all the tiny little houses and that everything is affordable, it's definitely a playable town.
With that said these are the glitches I found so far.

I had the same carpool problem in the criminal career but sometimes the car would take me to work and sometimes it wouldn't. 

I'm also having a problem with small park b. The sims all get stuck inside of it, they can walk around and do things in the park but they cannot leave. The only way I found to get my sim out was to lead her out slowly on the sidewalks. I had to bulldoze it after it killed a sim.

finally, I see this:
http://s957.photobucket.com/albums/ae52/mandarambong/troubleshooting/ (http://s957.photobucket.com/albums/ae52/mandarambong/troubleshooting/)
(grass stretched out onto the road for those who don't want to look at pictures)
in front of 6 west Gardner road I thought it was the millions of bugs infront of the house causing it but i found the ground stretched in front of the public pool as well. I don't know if it's the map or my computer causing it so if it's my computer I'm sorry for bringing it up.

Anyways, it's still great regardless. I'll bring up anything else I may find. 
 

LOL!  Killer park!

The grass by the road can be fixed by using the ‘Grading Road Tool' or flattening the land under the edge and redoing the lot next to it.  This happened in the early stages of my world too.

Ok, office park carpool issue is rather strange. It seems that changing the lot types to "Graveyard" fixes it. I'm testing a couple of different rabbitholes in the three lots to make sure that all will work. For now, I'm pulling the download files until I can guarantee those are fixed, and check for issues with Small Park B (never have witnessed an issue before there, but creating 'hoods with CAW is very buggy and I don't discount it) as well as with 6 W Gardner and the public pool. Those issues normally can be fixed by redrawing the lot.

Grading road is a double-edged sword...I've found that more often than not it ends in screwing up things worse or further down. Flattening/smoothing land around it almost always ends in just moving the error. Redrawing the lot has almost always worked for me.

Yes, I hate building lots in CAW.  I got around it by uploading a work-in-progress world and using the actual Sims game to create the lots, then I packaged them and laid them down in CAW.

As far as grading roads messing things up further down goes; I created my roads before laying any lots down and smoothed the terrain before laying the lots.  Many times this meant laying a lot, then destroying it and re-laying it after further smoothing.  There is a lot of trial and error involved in creating the perfect game environment.

I did the same thing. Still, after placing a zone, I'd start getting those lovely graphical errors caused by minor terrain ridging. Zone A, which is where Gardner Ave is and my bane, the housing development surrounding Small Park B, were the absolute worst for them. And it should have been all flat before, or so damn close as to not make a difference. I have lots built on a sloped road with no problem ever.

Pool and 6 Gardner are fixed now, but I also realized that the evil housing development is fucked again. I don't even know. I want to give up, but I'm too stubborn to.

I can't even tell you how many times I had to hit that ‘Lots' Conform edges' tool on the same lots.  I'd hit it for one and the one next to it would get off kilter.  I think that it is easier to align if they aren't so close together, but I like my neighborhoods close too. 

hello again,

I don't know how you would fix this or even if you would care to, it's not really a bad thing just a funny, time consuming one.

My criminal sim got arrested a couple time now and when she does, the cop car parks at the bottom of the hill underneath the whole downtown/rabbit hole area and my sim runs out of the warehouse all the way down the road and around the hill to the cop car so that they can turn around and drive the 2 blocks or so to the jailhouse.

I've never seen anyone so intent on being incarcerated.

As far as I know, things like that happen in the standard 'hoods. It's not something I would know how to fix in this one and would not be a focus.

I've spent 8 hours so far shoving shit around because every time I fix one thing, something else goes wonky...often on the complete opposite side of the 'hood. Then it will look perfect in CAW/Edit in Game, but be screwed up when I actually export it. Now 6 West Gardner is screwed up again, plus the hospital, plus the whole rear of Capital Hill (Zone B, South Park Ave). So damn frustrating!

I think it's because the door to the warehouse is closer to the lower road, but it's funny that the carpool can get her there but the cop can't pick her up.
Maybe you should take a break from the town before you start hating it (or hating it too much?). Sooner or later you'll tweak it all or maybe you won't, either way the town is still more than playable and a million times better than sunset valley.
After bulldozing the park I haven't witnessed any other killer lots, so that's a plus.

This is exactly what the maker of the Overlook Bay at the BBS is saying. How did they manage to make Sunset Valley and Riverview with this tool?

I think we got the dumbed down version...

Dumbed down and probably purposely borked.

Mostly fixed version is in personal testing. I say "mostly" because there is a bit of road triangling over by the koi pond now. If I try to fix it, I get several other graphical/terrain anomalies, the worst of which is this:
(http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/5099/screenshot2rel.th.jpg) (http://img682.imageshack.us/i/screenshot2rel.jpg/)

That's way over on the other side of town. WHY GOD WHY?

The only thing I can think of that would fix that is: Save, to a package file, all the lots along that road; delete all the lots in CAW; remove the lamp posts (If you don't, the next step won't work properly); re-flatten the terrain; put the lots back in.  What a nightmare!  I don't envy you.  You have your work cut out for you.

Ok, I'm officially pulling this offering. However, if those who are motivated want to play with the CAW files and see if you can eliminate the bugs, feel free to do so. You can keep it for your use or post fixed files here and you will get half credit. Here are the CAW files (http://www.4shared.com/file/227956134/9a97cdec/Asherton_CAW_files.html).

I've been playing the 'hood since I pulled the files and carpool issues are tempermental. Townie sims (those not actively played or chosen in other households than the one you are focusing on) seem to get to and from work just fine. It is the active household that has issues. I know that the diner, mausoleum, and sometimes the stadium work well, as does the spa and military base once moved one square away from the road. The stadium has intermittant issues. Police, Bistro, and Politics carpools are borked. This can be fixed by manually directing the sim to use a cab or by having them have a bike or Kenspa as primary vehicle. I can't speak for the other career lines as I haven't tested them as extensively.

I still love the 'hood as it is, but do not feel right about subjecting the masses to bugs I personally don't mind working around.
Pics from my own gameplay. (http://zazazuabubu.livejournal.com/19521.html)

Looks great, is there a fix to the broken links?

(http://i416.photobucket.com/albums/pp249/swayedhead/PAYATTENTION.jpg)

Zazuzu, this might fix your road tears. Go to View and select the top option, which is to turn on bounding boxes. You'll see that every object on the map has its own small bounding box, but there are also a grid of bounding boxes over the entire map (how many depends on the size of map you used). Now check to see if you have lots that are over-lapping any of the box borders. If there are, delete them.

I can't guarantee this will fix the problems, but I do know lots overlapping the bounding boxes create some nasty, nasty tears in both roads and water.

Slowly and painfully. Remember, it took them years to accomplish this, and they only managed to make TWO, and the second one wasn't even finished at release time and carries a somewhat thrown together feel.

Thanks for the advice, and I'll keep it in mind for my remake of a TS2 neighborhood of mine. As far as Asherton goes, I no longer care. I've burnt out on it. That's why I said that I'm done and threw the CAW files to the wind.

I thought I would give fixing things a try and I can already see why you are burnt out on it. I have found so far that sculpting the terrain does not always behave the way it should (using smooth in some areas leave nice jagged polygons), and conform lots is acting really weird. However, I really like Asherton overall and hope I can fix a few things, even if just for myself.

If you are able to fix it, I would be very grateful if you could upload it to this thread. I get burnt out just building one house (short attention span).

Zazazu:  Where did you get that badass two-story window?

It looks like two windows set underneath each other-- most likely these (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=371508) by HugeLunatic.

Sigmund wins, Jonas fails at spelling.

Thanks!  I will definitely get those.  Zazazu - I am so sorry about your name fail.  I had it spelled correctly, but then saw the previous post quote from Regina and thought I was in the wrong!