More Awesome Than You!

I'm sending a family to the simpotence hood and I need help/advice on a few things. I've figured out some stuff, but not all of it I'm sure.  Bear with me if I cover a few basics - if I've screwed them up I want to know!

Cleaning up files
- I used cleaninstaller to delete all custom content apart from the things on the lot or the sims.
I've used SimPE
1. to delete all relationships outside the family in sim description AND in sim relationships.
2. to get of memories owned by unknown sims and a few bits of gossip from known sims.
Can/should I get rid of memories of Met unknown sim? 
If I delete memories owned by the sim I am working on (met 99 unknown sims), do I have to track down all gossip about that item in the other sims' memories?
Anything else I need to clean?

Wants and Fears
Sims I'mve moved are rolling wants like it was day 1 instead of day 100. This is a major tear-hair out job -  Help please.  It looks to me like the wants and fears history counts are reset to zero when a sim moves 'hood.  Is that the problem?  Is there a way round it?  I can't expect Simmiecal to fix the wants and fears history of my sims!

Base game to NL
Simmiecal and I think you can just put my 'NO EP lots with sims' on into the NL hood, open them up, add LTWs and turn on's and be home free.  If anyone knows different please tell me!  They are trailer trash, so we're not worried about lack of Uni degrees.

Storytelling
I've figured out how to send an album for a sim household.  thanks again for the help I got.  I get simmiecal to make an album for the lot and send me the webentry____.xml file.  I cut and paste my entries from the middle of the old xml file into this one and send it back with copies of all the pics in the album. This works for me, but I figure I probably should renumber all the photos (and the names in the xml file) to fit the new lot number.  Is that an absolute yes you MUST?
 
If anyone sees more problems than these - please tell me!

Well, I delete (down/)townies' and NPCs' memories of 'Met Unknown', 'Made Best Friends with Unknown', 'Had Very First Kiss with Unknown', and 'Kissed Unknown for the First Time', all standard CAS memories. I do that upfront because I didn't want them spreading invisible memories of this 'Unknown' character, and I track down and delete invisble memories that has been spread by a new NPC that was spawned when my sims visit a community lot just to be on the safe side. I don't know if anything bad will happen if the invisble memories of 'Unknown' in other sims' memories are left un-deleted, but I've been deleting the visible ones and so far, everything is still working.

It's time consuming, but when done early, less invisble memories to delete, and I figured might as well do a thorough job so I don't risk ruining the game files.

What I do now is delete the memory of the unknown sim before they become unknown - in other words, before I delete the relationship in the relationships panel.  However, when you package a lot to move to anothr neighbourhood, beware that the lot doesn't take baggage with it that CleanInstaller doesn't find, like unlinked clones of every sim your sims have ever met!

Oh that's a good tip!

Oh ZZ - I thought cleaninstaller found them all!  Please don't tell me there are character files it can't see....    :'(
It certainly shows you a long list and you can uncheck them all.

I think it probably does, but to be on the safe side I'd check in simPE that something hasn't slipped through.   They'll be easy enough to spot as they'll have the unlinked blob on their pic. 

I thought lotpackager was only picking up stuff because it was linked.  Sighes - you're right though I should be more suspicious and go look at unlinked sims in SimPE.  trouble is I'd have to put them in a totally empty hood to be sure where unlinked sims came from.  Also  I can't work out how deal with unlinked in the latest SimPE.  ... goes off to wrestle with it again...

do you think there's any chance we could get maxis to change the way lotpackager works?  Even if they can't deal with the extra recolour junk, they ought to be able to mindwipe the sims - they manage that for townies OK....  The memories also cause problems because they and the skills don't match the new blank wants history.  We'd be a lot better off if they were mindwiped!!

Well, you can always mindwipe them yourself.

The unlinked sims that might hitch a ride will usually be quite small files.  But the point is that in simPE they will show as Unlinked, but NOT as ghosts.  They aren't difficult to spot, truly, and of course, you may not have any, I just think it's worth checking out.

I think I've confused myself and you - When I've got a packaged lot in front of me, I always open it with cleaninstaller and delete all the family friends and some of the relations.  I Save as and install that repackage, then go and clean out the memories in the new hood..  There aren't more files piggybacking in that clean installer can't see are there?

Is there a one step way to mindwipe?  cos the way I'm going it is tedious!  Of course I do want them to remember the rest of the family.  I can see why maxis left the stuff in, but it causes more problems than mindwiping.  downloading off the exchange would be considerably safer if those gray files didn't tag along and sim memories were cut right down to zero (mems owned by a sim on the lot would be better)

Well, if you have got rid os all their relationahips outside the family, then you need to delete wll those memories that aren't owned either by the sims whose file you have open or the other family members.  It's no use getting rid of the reltionship with goopy, it you still get (invisible) Met Unknown sim (owned by Goopy Gilscarbo)!