More Awesome Than You!

I looked around but didn't see one, so does anyone know of a hack that stops those ugly townies from following sims home from the school bus and carpool?

-Thanks....  fee free to throw things, point, and laugh at me.

There isnt one for the carpool that I am aware of but TJ has a school bus mod

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1239.0

There are two that I know of:

NPC & Visitor Zapper (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1235.0)

and

School Bus and Bring Home Friend Dialog (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1239.0)

both by Twojeffs.

Thanks!   I think those will do.

If you mean - following him from Downtown - you need the Phone hack.

When you are at Downtown, and want to go home alone - select a sim, click on the phone booth, and order him "go home".
Select thus all the chosen group, until your sim is left alone. Then call a taxi.

Notownieregen is my favorite :) Of course, you do have to kill them all before it does any good, and that's a bit of work, but then they're gone! Once and for all! Of course, this will probably be of less use to you if you have any use whatsoever for townies, but I don't, so I like it.

I don't kill off the Downtownies, they aren't so bad!  But until I learned how to get rid of them with SimPE I used to kill them!  Especially on lots with a Knowledge sim desperate to see a ghost! ;D

Can't you just "End casual group" or "End date" or whatever?

No, you can't end the date, very annoying. You can end the group, but only after the outing.

Well, all you need to do is to clear all visitors with Inge's shrub - if you have them on your downtown lots, you can do it BEFORE they get into the cab or the car!

I was talking about visitors that follow your sims home from school or work.  I usually have the sim who brought them home immediatly say goodbye, but I hoped for something that would keep them from every coming home.  I think the two hacks mentioned previously will work fine. Thanks!

Yes, unfortunately, although you can stop them coming home by various means, you can't stop your sim from getting to know them and then rolling the Be Friends With ant!

Tell me about it! I used to wish there was a 'Don't bring friends' mod or something, along the lines of TJ's 'Welcome Wagon Fixes'. I didn't want to delete the entire townie/downtownie population so I kept some. I used to do this little 'cops and robbers' thing, like shoo-ing them from helping themselves to my sims' hotdogs/hamburgers on community lots (because if they weren't sitting far enough, they could strike up a conversation from the next table and my sims will get a memory of meeting and knowing them) or sitting on the same bench to drink coffee etc etc, or use the mind control mirror to grab them and make them 'Watch Clouds' or 'Star gaze' so there's no chance of them meeting my sims. But with NL, it just seems too much work :P. And now that they'll get to meet and know the hosts and servers, might as well let my sims befriend these townies/downtownies as well, at least they'll have a number of friends needed for their next promotion when they are made into playable characters :-\.

The Downtownies aren't actually too bad, most of them, and you could always try them in your game as playable characters.  Too me it makes a lot more sense than that they stay forever the same age, and your sim baby grows up and makes friends with them and eventually dies, but the townies etc. go on forever - wierd!  But I do use SimPE to edit their skills and careers, I mean, there's one female, you move her into your game and all she can afford is one of the cheapest houses, but she's a Chief of Staff!  So I give them a minimum of skill points just so they can cook a meal and don't start out too far behind (although they are still ahead of CAS sims) reroll their LTWs as they are usually in the wrong career path for their aspiration anyway, and then they have to get a job in the new career, or at least start out at the bottom of the ladder!  Then, if you use Inge's teleporter shrub, and the new moveinall from MTS2, you can move the kids and teens in with them.  I also built a retirees' apartment block for the elders.

Well, yes, there are a handful who looks good, but because I usually plan in my head who's gonna marry who when they grow up (I even exited and re-entered a lot during labour if the babies born were not of the sex I planned :P), those that survived the deletion are made into playable characters (that's why I kept them in the first place), sometimes earlier, 'cos there's no one left who aren't related by blood, when the kids grow up. It's just, you know, I wasn't quite ready to let my sims know them yet, what with the amount of time they'll have to spend to maintain these friendships with these many townie sims. I could make my sims ignore these townies, but then they wouldn't be much different than the neighbourhood scenery - immortal :P. It'll be great if I could unlink or disable them or something until I'm ready to make them into playable characters, but I'm not sure if that would fubar my game files, or if it's just as simple as changing one value in SimPE :-\.

If you unlink them, they'll leave the Garth household and be in Unknown.  What you could do, though, is turn them into babies but beware, if they are on a lot in downtown when you do it, they could still be there lying on the sidewalk when you go back.  However, they will be unplayable and incommunicado until you return them to kids, teens, adults or whatever.  (But be sure to remember what they started out as.)  You could also send all the teens direct to the Uni bin, but they could still come home on the school bus unless you just move the lot into a dorm and then leave them there.  The kids you could do the same if you first turn them into teens in SimPE, move them to the Students bin, then into a dorm  - when they will grow up in one go into YAs.  I suppose you could do the same with the adults and elders too.  They would be around Uni, of course, and walk past lots, but you could use the visitor zapper to simply ban all uninvited guests.

Turn them into babies! *slaps forehead* I was rather inspired by your ingenuity and wanted to try it for myself on characters I wasn't quite ready to put into play but didn't want to get rid of, but in my impatience in bringing my sims' lives up to speed in this latest gameplay (damn the hard disk crash that couldn't wait till I got new cd-roms, I was so sure something bad's gonna happen and wanted to burn a backup on disc, which I would have done but the crash happened 6hrs before I could get my hands on a pack of shiny new plastics >:(),  I completely forgot about that! Argh. Too late now, as most of the townies/downtownies my sims had inadvertently met while dining out.

So what would I need to do to put them back in the Garth household if I unlink then re-link them? Note down the family instance before unlinking, then enter the family instance to put them back in the household they were originally in? Or is that not necessary if they were going to be moved into their own lots or with my sims? I've never tried messing around with Family Instances in SimPE, might just try it one of these days with a backup to find out if unlinking and re-linking characters would fubar the game files, just not feeling up to spending time testing it out for now :P.

I don't think it would fubar anything, and if you want to eventually put them into their own houses, then you wouldn't need to put them back into the garth household when you relink them, just use Inge's teleporter shrub and get them out of Default or Unknown (I think they lurk in one of those).

As to turning them into babies, it works with townies, for some reason, but not for dormies, SS or Downtownies, and whatever you do don't try it with a nanny!  But it's great for Burglars!  You don't get any more burglaries, and the game doesn't seem to spawn a replacement!


And why is it, you go on playing happily for months, saving backups religiously, then when you start to get careless it's like the computer knows and deliberately goes on the blink!

I used to make townies into playable characters by making them temporarily selectable with the mind control mirror then have them find their own place, but it doesn't seem to work with NL anymore. A message popped up saying something like "this is the only sim living on the lot, use the move family tool in the neighbourhood view!" Just as well, as these (down/)townies sometimes comes with goodies in their inventory so propose move-in might actually be more profitable ;D.

Thanks, I'll be sure to remember turning dormies, SS, downtownies and nannies into babies doesn't work. I've been able to avoid hiring/spawning a nanny so far, none exists in my game. I actually don't mind burglars, but the only burglary I've ever had happen without shift-clicking on the mailbox was the one that was programmed to happen in the Caliente house.

Okay, I gotta ask: what happens when you turn a nanny into a baby? 

Big Fiery Ball Visible From Space?

Or a baby nanny that refuses to change her own diaper...

Insists on waking herself up to be held.  Then obsessively cleaning the toilet (at least they seem to in my game).

Probably new ones show up one after another and keep on spawning and spawning and spawning...


Mine swims in the pool a lot. Or put something in the oven to be cooked then wander off to do something else.

Curious, you're absolutely right - nannyspam!

If you move two downtownies into the lot, one of them can move out.  As long as two members of the Garth household are there, it works fine.  Just means you end up with one left minding the kids.  But, if you move the kids out with the new moveinall, then the last sim in garth can be moved out the same way.  (There's a version where you don't have to get them to be best friends or near it first. As long as they have a plus relationship, it seems to work fine.)

See, I've never had a nanny wet herself or cause any sort of fire.  Mostly they annoy the kid, and clean.  I've been really lucky although, after the first time of the nanny not showing up, I simply "hire for now" as opposed to tracking a schedule.  Also, I tip them §100 immediately on arrival.  Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not.

Well, a bit excessive seeing they already charge double what the poor maid earns - not to mention the gardener!

Yes, but I've never had a fire, have I?

I suppose it's worth it then! ;D  As long as your nanny doesn't leave puddles on the floor and annoy the maid so you get the furious maid and the slowdown bug!  I wondered why in my new hood the maid was furious with Don, until the same thing happened with Mitch Indie flooding the bathroom and the maid (Hailey McCullough) came back that night and sttod at the protal and thegame started to crawl!  Now I know why.  Funny, though, it doesn't bother the other maids, and after all, the more they have to clean, the more they earn, right!

To my knowledge you can end a date at any time you wish just by clicking on the date and select "end date".  I did that a few times after I reach the "dream date" level and did not wanted to wait until the date finish since it kept adding hours.

I think I've done that too, but maybe only if you've reached dream date?  I dunno, I don't do dates very often.

That slow dancing is sooo boring!   And what really gets up my nose is the way you can't just queue them to do something else, you have to click it off and then wait five minutes RT before they stop and do what you've set them to do next!  Now, there's an idea for a hack!

I only had the slowdown bug once, with a delivery person.  I had no idea what it was, all I knew was that I was getting delivery people showing up in the backyard of my Legacy lot, and just standing there.  It was uber-creepy to me, lol.  I reinstalled, and never got that problem again.

Well, this happens to me in a new install, with a new neighbourhood (custom) all original townies deleted, so the maids are all newly created by the game.  This maid seems fine until, as I say, she turns up on the lot at night.  She either just stands there, or goes and kicks the trashcan.  The other two maids are fine, so I might just turn this one into a baby and let the game generate another one.

No you can end a date at any time, I also did it with a date that was really going bad lol.  Did not use the slow dance option often yet but I do remember that it takes a long time to stop it.

Is that maid furious with that family?  Because she is acting like furious Sims.  They come on the lot in hope to steal the newspaper but if it is gone they stand there a few minutes doing nothing or they just kick your trashcan.

Funnily ernough, she hardly knows them, only contact has been when one of them tipped her, and her relationship is 0/0 with them - and no furious sign above her head.  It's just something really wierd, but it only seems to happen on a lot with a sloppy sim who leaves puddles in the bathroom!  Mind you, I just think she doesn't like being a maid!  And who can blame her?

Sounds like a puddle rage (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2085.0)....

I thought that too, so I made them clean up any puddles before she arrived, but it didn't stop it happening, and besides, she wasn't at all annoyed with them - when I checked in SimPE, although she knew Mitch (and I haven't a clue how!) she was 0/0 with him  What I did, though, was simply to uncheck the known sim boxes and delete the relationship, after going to the Neighbourhood Memory and getting rid of the relationship there first.  Since then, I haven't seen her on the lot except when she should be.  However, I think thre's something screwy about this whole custom hood, as when I first started to play, a dormie came past the Pleasant clones house and kicked over their trashcan at midnight!  Downtownies is one thing, they do wander around the main hood - but apart from at a community lot I've never seen a dormie in the main hood before!  (And this one doesn't kick trashcans at college!)

IIRC, just select "Leave Group" and it will end.  You can also "End Date" at any time, for any reason.

I always thought domestic helps aren't supposed to 'feel' anything in the first place while they are on the job, even if they know their employers; that instead of getting cross with the sim who made a puddle of water, they'll go about doing whatever they were supposed to do, even if they couldn't walk a tile without stepping in a puddle of water, get paid at the end of the day then get in their van and leave if they weren't invited to stay as a visitor. I suppose it's the same as if they caught their lover flirting/kissing/woohoo-ing with their spouse (think the Daniel, Mary-sue and Kaylynn love triangle) and they'll drop whatever they were doing to slap the living daylights out of the cheat. Well, if I remember correctly, that's what'll happen, yes? Been a long time since I played romance sims the way they'd like to be played :P. So maybe it's now possible with the new state of furiouness in NL that if the maid saw the puddle of water made by a sloppy sim in the shower before, and they knew that sloppy sim, they'll kind of get mad, but yet not really mad because they were supposed to be neutral while on the job, and it is their job to clean afterall. Boy, am I rambling. 'Tis probably rubbish I'm saying anyway ;D.


I wonder about this too, 'cos I have a lot of this one-sided relationships as well. If these were sims who attended a birthday party of a baby sim, then ok, understandable. But I've got 2 sims who knew their driver - since when??? And it's not like the drivers could be made playable without any cheat/hacks/mods.


I've actually seen a dormie in the mainhood on a few occasions. I thought maybe they've come to 'collect' a townie child brought home from school of whom I've forgotten about, but there wasn't one on the lot. *shrugs*

1. Dormies don't collect children.

2. The maids and Mitch knew EACH OTHER.  It wasn't a onesided relationship.  All I can think of to explain it is that he's walked onto another lot that I've been playing and spoken to the maid there.

3.  They all knew their drivers in the base game, but I have a feeling a lot of this was corrected with the patches.

I realised that after posting :P, and that they are actually adults until they've shown up in a dorm and claimed a room, then they are flagged as young adults ;D.


I never knew that, 'cos they weren't in the phone books, and when they tagged along on rare occasions when a guest asked if they could bring a friend, I thought it was just some glitch since they couldn't be interacted with :-\.

They did appear in their list of friends, and i'm pretty sure in the phone books too, but it's a long time ago!  Not only that, but if you looke at their files in simPE (and you could have an awful lot of them) they would have a tremendous number of invisible memories.  I suppose when your on your way to work there's nothing much you can do but spread a bit of gossip.

Not in my sims' phone books they didn't, that I'm pretty sure of, 'cos I remember feeling sorry for them that they are stuck as drivers forever. That was way back in the base game, long before I had Inge's teleporters (which is superior to the TOL&D in this case as it comes with an option to make them into townies). Hadn't tried to move one in with it, but I'm considering making use of these NPCs, just 'cos it seems unnatural for them to live forever even though it's just a game ;D.

Yeah, the invisble memories, all that A+, overachievers and promotions, it's one item on the to-do list while editing/deleting memories in SimPE.

Well I think I have only two drivers in the game now, so it's not such  a problem. I can't understand why the drivers wouldn't appear in the phone book, any other NPC your sim has spoken to does  (both the maids that Mitch had a known sim relationship with were in his phone book.  When I unchecked the known sim and deleted the relationship, they then disappeared from the phone book.

I still only have the base game, and my drivers dont show up in the phonebook or friends list. I have a very shy teen knowledge sim with a job who only has 2 friends (like i said, shy) outside of his family. Neither of them are his work driver.

By friend i mean acquaintance/sim met in relationship panel.

Oh, well, they must have made it so the drivers don't have phones.  Curiouser and curiouser!  I mean, you can phone a townie, you can chat on-line with a townie, you can email them.  Same applies to maids and other NPCs, so why is the driver different?  (Unless they didn't want us to find out how totally screwed up they were?)

The drivers aren't supposed to be social. But then again, neither is the Social Worker, but ever since NL, not only are my sims meeting the SW, but they are able to call, invite, be friends with, and move her in. I'm still waiting for the big fireball, since it's not entirely clear whether this is supposed to be happening.

The drivers aren't supposed to be social, but they are - I mean, why else would they be in lists of known sims etc. and before the patch, if I remember correctly, we needed a hack to stop the game constantly generating new ones!

Sure you haven't accidentally acquired one of those Grim Reaper type hacks?  Or maybe the SW works differently if your sims adopt kids rather than have them taken away?  But what I'd do is to delete your groups.cache file and let the game generate a new one and see if it still happens.

I ran into it the first time when I installed Sims 2+ Uni + NL on a brand new computer. Since then it's happened twice on my own computer, which admittedly does have just about every hack under the sun. :)

They meet her only when children are being taken away, not when adopting. I'm not sure if it happens all the time or not, since most of my sims lose children because they've left the lot or dropped dead, not because they neglected them... so there usually isn't anyone around to be lectured by the SW.

Well, it seems very odd!  But a new groups.cache may help - I read where some people do it every time they reload their game.  I did notice that the old one which I took out was huge in comparison to the new one, so a lot of stuff is obviously being stored there, and maybe this is what causes some of these glitches.

Proof of Social Worker weirdness. I allowed the game to generate a completely new set of Maxis neighborhoods, no hacks or custom content. Then I tortured Beau Broke until he was taken away. Weirdness followed:

Poor Beau Broke! And here comes the SW.
(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/broke/1.jpg)

Lecture. Watch as the SW appears in Brandi's relationship panel!
(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/broke/2.jpg)

Yup. Just like any other sim.
Obviously with a -7 relationship she can't be invited over yet, but in my other families where this happened, once the relationship is high enough, anything can be done that can be done with a normal sim.
(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/broke/3.jpg)

The same thing happened to Don recently when he got burgled.  Like an idiot I zapped the burglar and then had Don call the cops, so Don got fined and lectured, after which he had a -90 relationship with the cop and the want to be best friends!  (And sims can be -100/-100 and furious, yet within about four hours it's down to less than -50 which is just crazy.) 

There are some wierd anomalies which really just don't make any sense.  (Poor Beau, how could you do that to him? :'()

I've done some horrible things to my Sims, purely for testing purposes only.  :P

Well, true, but Beau?  Why not Alexander? ;D

Eh? Someone has a problem with me torturing Beau Broke?

Does it make you feel better that I didn't bother saving when I exited?

;D


But at least both the cop and the burglar ARE social. The SW isn't. Or at least, wasn't before NL.

No doubt they now have the desire to be friends with the repoman to!

I guess I should go see if the repoman is now social too.

Maybe Maxis did rework some of the non-social NPCs. But personally I think they were editing one or two (maybe the burglar) and screwed up the rest in the process. And now our games will explode even sooner than expected. Or at least mine will, since I don't see anyone else complaining that their sims are now capable of making friends with the social worker.

Well ive had to reinstall since the last time i had a social worker in my game, and i now have a no social worker hack, so cant really help here.

Ive just realised this is a totally pointless post.   

Oh well.

Well, you have to have them appear in your game first, and if you don't torture helpless toddlers, etc., then maybe they never will!  And if you always pay your bills on time, no repoman (at least they fixed that glitch with the mailperson not collecting the mail).

I don't know....I think simply for the reason that Social Workers and Repo-men don't have names should mean they're NPC's that aren't supposed to be interacted with on a social level.  ???

Which makes it even odder when they ARE!

Yes, that's what I mean....I agree.

Sorry, it's still early o'clock, and I'm a little tired.  :P

I just wish they'd made the game with a choice (like the choice you have to either enable or disable custom content) where you could either enable or disable certain NPCs,  and replace them with your own, with an area in CAS specifically to do this.  I know then I'd feel like I owned my own neighbourhood instead of it being a time-share with the Maxoids always barging in when it's my turn!

I tested repoman and he is not sociable.

Thank goodness for that - make a friend of him he'd come visiting and take your piano!