More Awesome Than You!

Tracks lot time in rotations to day-length precision, and allows jumping directly to lots in the rotation without going through neighborhood load screen.

WARNING: Lot-jump feature appears to exhibit odd side effects with OFB and has been disabled in OFB.

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/terror/green.gif)
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/zip.gif) synctimer.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/nl/hacks/synctimer.zip)

Lot Sync Timer for TS2NL v1.0p1
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado)

Special Thanks To:
Quaxi, for writing SimPE

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

INSTRUCTIONS - INSTALLATION:
Place in your MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\DOWNLO~1 directory.

INSTRUCTIONS - UNINSTALLATION:
SHIFT-Click on clock in debug mode and choose "Uninstall From Neighborhood".
Negative side effects may occur if clock is deleted from downloads without
properly uninstalling.

FEATURES:
Keeps track of time played on a lot relative to global time, and allows you to
see what the time is on other configured lots and jump directly to them without
going through the neighborhood screen.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS hacks. Tested for TS2NL v1.0p1. Theoretically works for
all versions.

SIDE EFFECTS:
May cause computer damage, incontinence, explosion of user's head, coma, death,
and/or halitosis.

WARNING:
Do not open, crush, dispose of in fire, put in backwards, short-circuit, or mix
with non-awesome hacks - may explode, leak, or catch fire, resulting in injury
and/or death.

Guess I am confused as to why this is needed?  Maybe I don't understand what it does.

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!   Thank you Pescado :D

Wow!

Shiniest.Thing. Ever.

This is pretty dang awesome.

Basically, it tells you how long you've been playing each lot, so you don't have to keep notes to stay in time sync. This is a very good thing for those of us with serious note taking issues. It's basically an auto note taker. If you want to keep your neighborhoods time sync-ified, this is very important, because otherwise you're liable to forget to note down day/play an extra day/ etc. and before you know it someone's kids are older than them.

It's for lazy people, really. Or those who can't be bothered by little pieces of paper.

This has already come in immensely handy.  I love the new lot jumping feature you added to it; it's awesome.


And I think I should be thanked instead of you calling it the "All BlueSoups Suck" edition, but whatever.  ::)

Great, I really need this!  Just one question, is it retrospective, or does it just begine counting when you install it?   (It was one useful feature we had in Sims1 that I've really missed!)

You can set forwards or backwards the amount of days you need the lot to go.

To set up in the neighbourhood:

Buy and place the lot timer for each lot you want to keep track of (looks like an Elixir of Life bottle, located in the Misc/Misc section).
Click on bottle and choose "Install for family"
Set the day timer to the appropriate day (IE.  If it's the fifth day on the lot, select +5).

Set all families the same way.  Once all the families are set up, you can use the lot jumping feature to switch between them (it auto-saves the lot).  You can click on the bottle to see which family is on which day and who you need to play and for how long to make sure the aging is even for the neighbourhood.

I can't think of anything else now, I'll edit if I do.  :)

Thanks for the help, BlueSoup!  Useful info for the future, I'll just have to guess at how long families have been on current lots. 

Oh, and if you have Aging Off, does it count those days too?  If so, a useful way, if you start your family from CAS, of keeping track of the REAL age of adults, so if they take a full bottle of elixir, you'd know they are 15 days older than they appear!  (I mean, if Icould take elixir in RL, I'd look and feel younger, but I'd still be the same age!

I haven't tried it with aging off, but I believe it would mark the days, although they wouldn't actually count for anything.  For those families, it would only be useful to know how many days you've been playing, not how old the family is in relation to the others in the neighbourhood.

One thing I forgot to mention as well...

If you are on high days in the neighbourhood (50+), you can go into debug mode, and shift-click on the lot timer, and select Resynchronize (or something like that).  It will set the current lot back to 1 and the other lots that are on the timer back the same amount of days.  The ones that don't have as many days on their counter will go into negative numbers.

Wow!  This is super shiny, and muchly appreciated.  Am downloading it right now. ;D

This is just... superb!

If aging is off, the timer will not tick. You will have to advance the timer manually.

OMG yay! Thanks!  ;D

Finally :D I was wondering what you were waiting for :p

This has come in really handy for the way I play. 
The lot hopping was a great addition!

So, really, the only advantage to having this on a non-aging lot is a lot-jumping feature?

Edit:  I think in the next edition, aptly titled, "All BlueSoups are Really Cool Chicas," it should also count for aging-off families.  After all, you're not counting the age of the family, only the days played.   :P

Age of family is the entire point of tracking time on the lot. If your family doesn't ever age, you can't lose sync, since you've frozen them. It's the same reason why a lot populated by immortals does not lose sync.

Yes, I know it's the point, and it works marvelously for my families, who *do* age.. I really only posted the edit for the name the next edition.  :P

Well, in a sense it would, since if you have grandparents who are still have 26 days (thank to the elixir) before becoming elders, and on another lot you have their child and their family, who, because you have to have aging on for babies and toddlers etc., it would be confusing to say the least if those on that lot couldn't afford elixir!  But I get the point, and the manual reset option would help in that you would know how old he lot is.

I downloaded this  and when i installed to few houses i get a List menu and when I click on the List menu I get  L## F##, Family Name, Days. What does L## and F## stand for?

Lot and Family?

Lot number and family number?  Internal numbers used by the game to identify each lot and each family (you can see them in simpe).

I've been using this and it's great.  Less paper on my desk!  *Does a happy snoopy dance across the forum*  (Ahem ... just demonstrating my total lack of awesomeness there for a moment ...)

How does this work across sub-neighbourhoods - eg families that live downtown.  Am I right in assuming it won't keep track for my uni lots given that young adults don't age?

Guess you'd ned to only age the home families by the equivalent number of days, then graduate the kids and bring them back - or play them long enough to get them back in sync again.

I changed this hack in my game to an All Pescados Suck edtion.  :P

I can't blame you!

OK, I'm posting this here, so you are sure to see it.

I installed a few new families over the past couple of days, and I finally got around to buying Reggikko and Hegelian a lot timer. I installed it for the family, and now it shows up for them at Day 0.  But, there are no other families listed!  I have about 7 other families in this neighbourhood that have (and are configured on) the lot timer.

So, what seems to fix it for me so far is to go into the other lots (manually) and then click on the lot timer and choose, "Install for family".  I have to do this for each and every family in order for them to be recognized again.

I think this is a purely BlueSoup problem, perhaps because BlueSoup either keeps uninstalling from neighborhood first...or because BlueSoup tripped the anti-BlueSoup code.

This is not a BlueSoup-problem.  First, in order to uninstall the damn thing, one must have the debug mode enabled.  This is not the case, since I rarely have it enabled.

So, this is YOUR problem.  It's clearly a defective product, you really should stop blaming it on me.  :P

Well, I haven't got that far yet, I've only installed it with three families, and have about another 17 to go!  I do hope I don't have to keep restarting it!

What I end up having to do is reinstalling it on the families, but it does maintain the timer settings that I've given that family.  :-\

So I should be OK until I make a new family in CAS?

Well, even then I notice the problem doesn't occur all the time.  I'm not sure what's going on, really.  :-\

I have noticed this also, whenever I install a new family with a timer, I have to go back and reinstall it for all other families as well. I assumed that was designed so that the timers could sync to each other and update the family listing...I didnt know it was supposed the be smarter than that and do it automatically. However even though I have to reinstall for each family, it still has its proper time settings.

So in conclusion, yea it would be nice if it were smarter than that, smart sync!

What kind of new family are you installing with a timer? It's not supposed to delete the tokens at all. Unless you're somehow invoking the uninstall-all routine, it's very strange that you're managing to remove all the tokens. Describe the exact steps which cause this. Does this always happen?

Try the following procedure:
Before installing, check the list: Does the list appear to be correct? If not, don't do anything. Otherwise, save. If the list is correct, proceed with the install. Check the list again. If the list remains correct, everything is good to go. If the list is NOT correct, exit to the neighborhood without saving and try again.

I dont know if you are asking me or what, procedure:

Install for families in play everything is fine. Install NEW family and install timer, seems fine. Go to previously installed family with timer, click on timer, only option is install for family (again). Install and everything is fine again, but I have to do this for each family that was previously installed whenever I add a NEW family and timer.

I have no idea if that made sense, but thats what happens in my game.

Well, it would only take a moment, and if it's fine once you've installed it again, and you don't have to reset it or anything, it's not really a problem, is it?  It's not as if the timer resets to zero.

correct, it only takes a moment per household that it is already installed in. No big deal, just making  general observations. Pardon me for intruding

You weren't intruding!  I would think it was useful to a lot of people to read your observations so they'd know what to do, and that it isn't a serious issue.

It's not a serious issue, but it does require loading each lot (and then the neighbourhood screen) to install it again.  And if it does it every time you install a new family, that's sort of a pain in the ass.

In that case, you could have a mad session in CAS, install loads of new famiies in one go.  Not the ideal solution, but at least then you'd only have to re-install the timer for each lot once.

It kind of makes sense to me; the lot timer seems to know how many lots are already in the neighbourhood. I've got 48 lots, and when I installed it, the first address was Lot 28.  I think the Awesome One has configured his masterpiece so that it knows how many lots with families are already in place, even if they are not in sync.  So if you add a family to a brand new lot then its data ie brand new address has to be installed.  I don't think the issue is the fact that the family are CAS made, I think its the fact that a new lot has been added to the neighbourhood.  Please note that this is a totally uninformed guess. 

Makes sense!  I'll have to check when I load my game again!

Look: This isn't supposed to happen. Installing a new lot or a new family is not supposed to delete tracking tokens on existing families, and this does not occur in testing. Perform the procedure as described above to verify the listing at every attempted change so I can isolate exactly when and possibly why this occurs.

I'll check it in a few hours when I get home and let you know; I have a bunch more Sims to install.

I've got some time to kill...going to install it on fresh families, play a few days, then introduce new families and see what happens.  That is a reasonable way to recreate this error correct?

I think that's a reasonable way to try to replicate the error, yes.  I plan to do the same (along with trying Pescado's suggestion).

have installed it on 3 lots so far with families at different days, no problem so far.  Still testing though :D

Input:  I installed this on all my lots tonight.  I had to move 2 families into lots in the midst of going lot to lot and adding the timer.  When I jumped with the timer to a lot where I had previously installed a timer, after adding a new lot, I did not have to Install for Family again.  Everything was still just fine.  These weren't newly created Sims, but ones returning from University.

Waste of bandwith:  This IS great.  I actually use a rolodex to try and age my families together and this will make Sim life much easier.

Question:  If I move an entire family off a lot and take the timer with them (in their inventory), will it save it's tokens?  And will the family number be the same when I move them into a new house?  I'm assuming the lot number will change when I move, but I have many families with the same last name (inbreeding) and am hoping I can still track them around by family number.

The family number does not change unless the family is disbanded by either everyone dying or merging with another family, or graduating from college. But since college families cannot use the timer, this doesn't affect them.

Well, I made 7 separate families last night, all at different times.  I installed the sync timer first thing on all of them, and played them for a while before making a new family.  (These were all CAS families).  Try as I might, I couldn't recreate Blue's bug.

I just had my game crash on me (will not go beyond the splash screen, just shuts down) and am currently diagnosing this.  (It works with the stock "My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2" but not with my current version, so it is in the user data side, not the game data side)

I dunno if this is normal corruption, but this is one of three hacks that I installed in the last couple of days, so I am curious about what files this hack touches. 

Anyone?

Edit: Corrupted groups.cache file.  Probably not related to this hack.

Okay, here is a picture of all the families in my neighbourhood, and all of them are currently installed with the Lot Timer (my name is blurred for privacy).  The family I've currently got loaded (Laverwinkle) is not listed, and I have one Sim currently in the lot bin awaiting a lot placement.

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/Sims%202/Lottimer.jpg)

Now, looking at this, there is no family 9 - could this have anything to do with it?  I have no idea what the Sim-binned family is numbered.

Um...is it possible the Laverwinkle family is family #9?  They would not be listed anyways, as you're playing them.  No need to save and load their lot. ;)

It's possible, I have no idea.  I just want to know why this keeps happening to me, and no one else can re-create it.  I'm frustrated.

Well, I had all mine uninstall too, but I think it was related to the fact I took my downloads folder out of my Sims 2 file in order to upload a clean house.  I haven't tried adding a new family to the neighborhood, but I had all mine reset after I reloaded my game with my downloads back in.  Not a big deal, and twas my own stupid fault for forgetting the negative side effects of taking out the hack without uninstalling it from my lots first.  But other than that, I've not had any problems.

Oh. My. God.

I suddenly feel incredibly stupid.

It *is* the All BlueSoups Suck edition.

It would appear that families living Downtown are separated from those living in the regular neighbourhood, which is a bit of a pain because in most cases they need to be synched-up with each other.  Is it possible to alter this, because although it's a separate neighbourhood screen, they're all part of the same neighbourhood.  When I say separated, I installed my first clock for a Downtown family and it didn't show any of the clocks for the families in the main neighbourhood who already had them.

Thanks for posting this Blu
I was looking for a new clock cause I hadn't read beyond the first post till now.
Now th check out the awsomness!

According to Crammyboy, inventory tokens will self-destruct if the tokenating object, in this case, the Lot Clock, is removed from the game.

Since the Lot Clock is also an inventory token that goes in your family inventory when configured, removing it from your downloads folder, then starting the game, will remove all of the installation tokens that allow the lot to be tracked from off-lot.

So All BlueSoups Suck!

That's particularly tricky since they're in a seperate neighborhood entirely, and their lot data can't be loaded until you go there. There is no primitive that iterates between families, so this becomes much more difficult.

Okay...reading this thread made me want to give it a go.  I love the idea of not having to go through the neighborhood screen.  Sure you can do that with NL, but only if you see the lot next door

Now I just have to try to remember if I ever want to get rid of this how to do it properly.

One other thing I've noticed is that if I place this under the lot, like I do with the Lot DeBugger, it still shows 'up top' - in other words, it can't be hidden away in the basement.  I'm having to put them next to the dustbins and mailboxes for want of a better place, as the elixir thing isn't really something you can use as a decoration.  Is there any reason why it won't hide away in the basement?  Is it just a matter of ticking something in SimPE so that it will do that?

The reason that happens is because it's taller than the lot debugger's placeholder box, so would poke through the foundation, whereas the debugger's box does not. Proposals are currently being accepted for how the object can be made lower profile for those who absolutely can't stand seeing it around.

What about using a CD? Like Inge uses for all her hiders. These objects can be hidden beneath coffee tables with ease.

How about the alarm clock? Small, but still quite easy to see.

It's already being used for the Sleep Control clock.

I like the 'clock' idea since it's related to time.  Since you're already using the grandfather clock for something else, maybe a decorative wall-clock of some kind - with an appropriate MATY appearance of course.

But then I like the CD idea too.  Not only because it's hideable, but because it could also be used as decoration - on the floor near a teen's study desk for example.  (Sometimes I like to simulate the appearance of a messy teen's bedroom for story purposes, even if the sim actually has high neatness.)

I don't really think that matters. I mean, both the FFS Debugger and the Macrotastics controller are both based on the yellow placeholder box design.

Oh, and while the grandfather clock would blend in easy with rooms, it would be quite impossible to put it in a low basement without the object appearing to go through the floor.

I have put this object on several of my lots under the foundation, and it doesn't show through on the next floor.  The only problem I have is on homes that don't have foundations, because there is nowhere to hide them.  Why am I not having this problem?  I discovered this using TwoJeff's personal electronics tree.  I can put it under the foundation and I can't see it when I go up a level.

I don't know why Rainbow, I actually haven't tried to place this anywhere special.  I usually just plop it down in the corner of the lot somewhere. 

I was wondering though, if someone could possibly make a recolour of it and turn the green liquid to clear, so as to more simulate a bottled water setup, then I can place it in the kitchen.

Any takers?

Could it not be made much smaller so it resembles an egg-timer and can go in the kitchen?  Would be better if it wasn't something that's already used as a mod - I get terribly confused between the LotDebugger and the Macrotastics boxes and always choose the wrong one both in the catalogue and on the lots.  It's even worse with Inge's bushes - I have 5 or 6 of the things and I swear they change order in the catalogue everytime I go to buy one.  How come things in the catalogue don't show details on mouseover?

I get around the lot debugger/macro/whatever placeholder boxes all looking the same by making them point in different directions. The macro box always points towards the house, the lot debugger points towards the street, etc.

Good idea, I will try that.  I've been having one on the left and one on the right as I look from the front of the house, but for some reason I still get confused.  Doesn't help with choosing in the catalogue, though - why do I ALWAYS pick the wrong one?  I suppose it's Sod's Law again.

I love this. It is great to be able to keep track of the families w/o having to remember who you need to play next, not to mention the added benefit of not having to exit to the neighborhood each time you want to change.

My solution in many houses has been to build the garages out an extra two tiles beyond the end of the driveway, and put the placeholders and the timer next to the wall.  I add a few things like some of the smaller sculptures, and the whole works looks like the usual pile o' crap most people have in their garages.

I agree.  It's really making a big difference in my game, adding a level of realism that wasn't there before. 

Karen

I took a look at this item.  The hack references the model in the game. I cannot create a recolor package for it alone because it has no Material Defination files to alter.  I made a recolor of the aspiration reward instead but this item comes up as "non-designable"  I will test to see if my recolor works at all as SimPE only pulls the reference to the outside of the object, not the liquid.  *sigh*...

I was hoping for a recolor or possibly even a clone so it could be a house plants or vase. The idea is awesome and very useful but the object does leave a bit to be desired in the decor department. No offence J.M..... just leave me my lips intact please and drop the cheese here.Thanks

Well, perhaps you should have been on the planning committee, then.  :P

I don't mind this object, I don't even notice it most of the time.  I stick it in the back corner of the lot, and as I mostly concentrate on the house itself, I don't even pan out that far to check on things (except when I'm in omniscient mode of Sim management).

But the original idea was that it is hourglass-shaped, and as it *is* a timer....well, you can see where the thought process led.

I actually think it's a cool idea.  I know (after looking it up) how to change the color of the liquid inside the thing. I just don't know if I added the second Material Defination to the package correctly.   So the big thing is: How is this linked to the original item and is the original item color enabled?

I just stick it in the kitchen like a water bottle, so yeah clear would be cool.

When we were talking about this we wanted something that had to do with time.  Not a lot of options that hadn't already been used. 

By the way WHERE the hell in the inventory is the damn sleep clock???

It's in electronics, in small electronics.

Thanks Blue, you are great. :p

I could just drain it to empty, thus there wouldn't be any green in it anymore, it'd be an empty-looking, and thus clear, bottle instead. Cloning the bottle is no-go. Item uses hardwired GUIDs.

Totally up tp you, Oh Awesome One...

But looking at altering the liquid it seems that a clone is infact the only way to do it.  I can (and have) cloned the elxir and managed to change the color, but I lose the original option in the process.  The base however can be recolored...

Draining it to empty would be cool.

As I'm still not totally sure what to do with this, I have a couple of queries.  Seems to me that if I introduce a new family when all the other lots are on, say, 6 days or whatever, I will still need a piece of paper to note down the fact that this family needs to be 6 days behind all the others to stay in synch.  Similarly, if a child leaves home and moves into their own place, I would need to remember that the child's lot needs to be X number of days behind the parents' lot, thereby needing another piece of paper.  So, once someone moves out, are we meant to reset all the timers back to 0 to avoid a growing mount of pieces of paper, or is there a more sophisticated way of handling this? 

You can add or remove days for each lot from the timer itself. If your families are on day 6, and you introduce a new family, you can use the timer to set that family to day -6.

Or you can just set the days for the new lots at the same as the others, and then you don't have to worry about keeping track, although you won't know how many days you've actually played the lot unless you remember it.

I love this!  :D I've never tried cycling through a neighborhood to keep everyone in sync before, it seemed too hard.

I know this has been posted somewhere, but I don't seem to be able to find the proper search parameters.  How many days in the neighborhood per year or semester at college?  I sort of remember 3 days, but don't know if that's right, or if it's per year or semester.  Ta in advance.

A semester at college is 72 hours long - i.e. 3 simdays.

Different players handle how that equates to main neighbourhood time.  Some players say 1 semester = 1 simday.  Others say 2 semesters = 1 simday.  There are people who put the graduates back into the main hood the day after they left, to keep aging consistent with sims who don't go to college.  Still others work out how many days of teen a sim had remaining when they left for college, and use that to work out when the graduate should return (with the aim of keeping aging consistent with sims who don't go to college).

Personally I think of 2 uni semesters as the equivalent of 1 simday in the main hood - that's what works for me.  But it's your choice which method works best for you.

OMG!  How have I missed this for 14 days???  I never even dreamed this was possible.  Can't wait to try it.  I have been using a system of symbols to determine which Sims/households should age together.  I was running out of little symbols to use.  This will be soooo much easier. 

Where's the stupid thanks button?

Perhaps you missed it because you're a speedreader?

Yeah yeah, I know, lame joke.  Whatever.  :P

OK, the family number, how do I change it in SimPE?  I can see where it is (Instance in Family Information) but there appears to be no way of changing it.  Because I've amalgamated families and deleted lots and so on, all my numbers are totally mixed-up and it annoys me intensely that they're in the wrong order (can't help it, Virgo ascendant).  Anyone know how to do it?  And what's this thingy I found saying "Uninstall BlueSoup's game"?  Did it work???

Ok I found the problem I think, when someone dies I have to reinstall for all the families. After a death, now when I enter each lot I click on the sync timer and it's only option is install for family, on a sync timer that was previously set. It is probably just my game though so no biggie. I can say however that when I do click install for family (again- like after someone in the hood dies) it does show the previously correct number of days etc. And it didnt do it right away after the death, it was after I quit the game and restarted it later. Other notes, I am not exclusively using the sync timer to jump lots, I do exit to neighborhood quite a bit still for various reasons, I dont know if that matters in any way.

It is not possible to renumber families. Family numbers are assigned basically in order of instantiation, where if a family is de-instanced by merging or extinction, that number is vacant and reused later. The numbers are purely internal and under normal circumstances, users never see them. The lot clock displays these numbers to let you differentiate between families that have the same name.

Only if you're BlueSoup.

This item affects the game at a neighborhood level. If you ever remove the file from your downloads directory, all of the neighborhood level data is lost, even if you put the item back before visiting any lots (causing the item to not disappear from your lot). Do not remove the lot clock from your downloads directory for any reason, or the tracking will be lost and you will have to reinstall on everyone.

So if you want to remove your downloads temporarily (such as before installing a new EP), it sounds like your best bet would be to sync up all the families ahead of time, then remove the timer from the Downloads folder.  Then when you restart the game after adding the timer back into your Downloads folder, you simply add the same number of days, for example, 23 days (or 5, or -14, or whatever) to each family after you put the timer back on their lot.  Does that sound right?

Karen

No, if you remove the timer from the game, all you have to do is Install for Family again, and it maintains the day settings for the family.  No resynchronization required.

Your best bet is not to actually remove the timer from your downloads folder at all. Backup your neighborhood before installing a new EP (you should do this anyway), then boot up the EP, make sure that your custom contents are still loading, and then put this one back. Self-contained objects, such as this one, are not hacks and cannot conflict with future expansion packs except in the highly unlikely event that Maxis takes to stomping people's GUIDs.

1. Can I just stick this on the lot, install it, then put it in someone's inventory? Or will that un-install it?

2. Is there any way to change a family's name in SimPE? I know the lot/family numbers are there to differentiate between families with the same name, but I can't remember them. I'd like to just be able to hyphenate them so I know which couple it is, rather than have the name only include the man's name, which is of course the same as his parents and siblings and fourteen bazillion cousins. Also, due to rearranging of families, I have a few households where the name listed as the family name (on the loading screen and presumably also on the lot-timer menu) no longer belongs to any resident sim and so makes no sense and is annoying.

I don't know what happens if you put it in an inventory - why don't you try it and see?

As for changing the family's name in SimPE - this is easy to do in the Sim browser general overview area.  There's a field where the name is listed, simply write in the name you want it to be, and commit and save.  That's it.

Probably not the greatest idea to put a lot timer in someone's inventory. I suggest that, if you try it, do it with a family you don't have any particular attachement to. I know that sticking objects that have relationships with other objects on the lot (graves, beds) in the inventory can result in small explosions and general weirdness.

Besides, it would be awkward to have to take it out of someone's inventory and click on it every time you want to change lots or see how many days have passed on that lot.

The object is rendered inoperable while in someone's inventory, but transporting it via inventory is harmless (and pointless, since the family lot time settings are retained on an invisible token that is associated with the family, not unlike the family's ownership of non-SSX3 games). You won't lose your time settings if you move to another lot, but the lot timer object must be placed on the lot to be able to count time.

Going back to the 'where to put objects' part of this thread:  If you put this in the 'crawl space' under the house just locate it under something like kitchen cupboards and it cannot be seen.  In houses that have no basement, I put a few floor tiles in the 'attic' near the peak of the roof.  Then I can place all the boxes and stacks of books, etc. up there.  Easy access and out of site.

Why don't you guys just lower the ground under the foundation? Doesn't matter in the crawlspace anyway.

**edit**

I still like the idea of making it smaller and more hour-glass like

Anyone else tried this without NL yet or shall I be the first to risk the Fiery ball of Incompatibility?
Just curious...

You can always copy your neighborhood folder somewhere else on your hard drive, then try it and see what happens.  If it blows up, just delete your neighborhood folder in the Sims 2 directory and replace it with your saved copy.

It worked fine for me in Uni, before I got NL.
It's in the Uni hack directory too.

heh heh, my game has already blown up (not from this)

University worked great until I installed the Patch which turned it into a fiery ball. I couldn't even enter an empty lot in a newly generated game!?

Was this in build mode?  I can't think of what would cause that.  I had problems moving sims into an empty house who I'd upgraded to Uni status using the Lot Debugger, but that has been fixed now.

I have that problem as well. It seems that homes that were occupied at one time are the problem. I can't even enter them in build mode.

One word: Bulldozer.

No, I'd installed the patch and tried to go back in to play. It crashed trying to load a house (that worked after Uni, pre-patch) I tried smaller lots that had also worked and it would load about half-bar, then crash again...

I decided to try the 'move Sims 2 folder' and let it respawn, but to no avail.
Using only Maxis hoods, I tried entering the Goth lot (first I saw)... crash. Tried smaller Broke lot - crashed. Tried taking a single sim from the bin and putting her on a new lot - crash. Tried CAS, tried an empty lot....

It gave me 1MB error logs, mostly that TS Audio log, which I looked up everywhere, though almost all discussion centered around incorrectly typed cheats (I don't use typed in cheats often and hadn't used it since installing Uni, so it wasn't that) and texture errors... can't find this, replacing with that... also a bunch of references to 'Grill Cheese and Pleasure Asp' which prompted me to check I had installed the Uni patch, not NL, (heh heh, no, I did not install the NL patch)

Works great for me so far EXCEPT on dorm/greek lots. It doesnt let me manually set the time and such on dorm lots. Not really sure if it tracks the time properly on dorm lots for that matter. Works fine in the standard neighborhood lots though so far.

Once i 'install for family' on a greek house/dorm lot it only gives me the 'list' option instead of the usual ability to choose + or - days and such so not sure if it is by design, bug, or just some quirky (and knowing them, probably broken) way maxis does the time on uni lots causing problems...

Awesome mod otherwise though - as usual.

Time has no meaning on uni lots. Uni lots don't run on time, but on the college clock. Hence this mod is nearly useless for Uni.

I miss the function of switching between lots with it on college lots.  Does anyone know if this part works in Uni?  I know the time tracking doesn't work.  I guess I'll try it myself and see what happens.

Oh, and it doesn't track between the main 'hood and downtown either. Unfortunately.

Well, it would be nice if it did, but it makes sense that it doesn't because Downtown is a subhood like Uni...even though they are all a part of the same neighborhood.   :-\

Although if it even just tracked in the same sub-hood it could be nice. Not sure if it does that or not downtown... doesnt for the uni lots like i said before. (seriously, is it just me or is 90% of the work in this game keeping lots reletivly in sync with each other?? o.O Maxis really needs to put in a counter in the household info screen like "This lot has been played for xxxx days" or something....)

Downtown lots dont really matter to me though, i only go there to buy cellphones and stuff and dates for my sims. Yet to use a single downtown residential lot so sync between main and DT isnt too important to me personally. (incase i'm missing something, is there any real advantage over the main neighborhood on residentials there? far as i know its just a 'incase you managed to fill up your main neighborhood some how' thing)

The only differences I've heard of so far is the types of walk-bys there are.  There was a discussion on this somewhere around here not long ago.  Some people are intrigued by the House of Fallen Trees lot that is downtown.  Also, load times when visiting Downtown lots is shorter because the game does not have to load Downtown first, then load the lot, and then load the neighborhood and then the house on return.  Lots downtown tend to be smaller with very little yard, typical of real life city houses.  Also, sims that do not live downtown cannot buy groceries downtown, and sims living downtown cannot buy groceries at a commuity lot in the main hood.  (Don't ask me why, this was Maxis' idea.)

Anyway, there are a few ideas, but try searching the forum because I know this has been discussed a few times.

OniRyo, it does seem to track lots downtown with each other, just doesn't show the ones from the main hood. So, you can still keep multiple downtown families synced.

If you don't have anyone living downtown, then you can't lose sync with it. Downtown doesn't display because of difficulty iterating between lots when the lots aren't present. Risk of malfunction is present if I were to search every conceivable family ID by brute force instead. I could try adding a "Safe Mode" toggle, though.

Time sync will work on DT lots, but you have to be DT to see the DT fambly list. No useful effect occurs on Uni lots because Uni lots do not have time.

I'm finding the lot timer incredibly useful. I even moved a family, forgot about the timer, put a new timer on the new lot and thought I'd have to manually reset to stay in sync, but the timer already knew the daycount. YAY, idiot proof as well.

One question, that I know has been discussed before but I can't remember the answer, and since uni is under discussion...
Do each of the four years at uni equate to a day in the main hood?

I wonder if the Grim Reaper's hourglass would work for this?  Is that possible?  It would look pretty cool, I think.  I can't wait to give this a go, my NPC neighborhood is just getting settled and will really benefit from the Lot Sync Timer.

There's no hard and fast rule that is universal. That's the rule I currently use, but depending on how long you normally play out the teen stage, and what effect you desire, you may or may not use anything from 2 Semeters:1 Day to 1 Semester:1 Day. The exact tuning effect really depends on what you want to achieve, but I would recommend evenly divisible ratios.

Cheers for the quick reply. 1 day for 2 semesters sounds good to me then, I think it'll work in well with the parents aging too. They get about 28 days as adults I think, so four years/simdays for their kids at uni feels right.

I send my teens off to Uni when they have four days remaining: this way college time is deducted from the extremely long teen lifestage. Two semesters = 1 day.

Yeah, true, teens stay teens too long. So 4 days off a teen's lifestage seems to work better? I'll try that. :)

hmm, I don't mind teens, (usually because my homes are crawling with toddlers and they're so helpful) so I've been sending them the day before they transition. I guess because they had more skills and it gave me more time to figure out which friends to take along.

Yeah when it came to the crunch, I wanted to have the last few days with the teens too, I'll let them have their alotted time of carefree fun. ;)

In this one, RTFM is *not quite enough*. (Sorry, JM! - and you *know* I loves 'ya!) IMHO, everyone who downloads this, should read the thread.
(Shall I post in the "whine" thread? - I've *never* gotten cheese.)

It can't hurt.

I always say people should read the threads of any hack they download; often, the RTFM is  not enough, especially if it's JM's hack.  :P

At least there is an RTFM, though.

I have yet to download a hack that didn't, although most of my hacks come from this site.

I've seen a few, but the info on the download page is usually pretty thorough.  for example, Inge doesn't include anything in the download but the hack, but the info on the page is more than adequate.

Polite request for clarification... :)

so... if I back up my Hoods with this timer installed in the houses, by copying out all the My Documents\EA Games\Sims 2 stuff,
and then play without any downloads, Neighbourhoods or anything installed (eg when installing a new EP or when i want to make clean stuff for uploading, which I do frequently)
can I then paste the whole folder back in and the clock still work? Or does it break at that point?

It's a great mod anyhow but I like to know all the possible consequences - if I have to reinstall it for all my families every time I do that it could be a bit irritating.

I don't know about that, but if you move house and give the family a new timer, it doesn't have to be opened, it's already installed for the family and set at the correct day.

If I'm not answering your question, I apologize, but I hope this helps.

I copied my entire Sims2 folder to my desktop when I wanted to make a new game for testing terrain paints.  When I was done, I moved back the folder and overwrote the new game, and the Lot Timer still worked.  I didn't have to install it for anyone.

Ah thank you, that is reassuring. That's exactly what I need to know.

:) /me runs off to play with the lot timer.

However, I would make sure you have your Downloads folder back in place before you enter any of the lots with custom content of any kind, or you will lose it.

You don't have to put the timer in the inventory when you move the family.  You can buy a new one at the new house, and it will still have the settings intact because they are not stored with the object, they are stored with the family.

!
Rainbow, you took the words right out of my post!

Oh sorry, I guess I need to get more sleep...  :-[

Thass alright - I was about to make three. ;)

Seeing as I was the one who tested the idiot-proof nature of the lot sync timer, yup it's proof against this idiot.

Okay, I'm assuming I have to uninstall the version I currently have before installing this new one for OFB.

1st question - how do I enable "debug" mode? then how do I disable it?

2nd question - for clarity sake, this can be installed for OFB to keep track of time but you can't hop between lots like previously?

No, just install over. No need to uninstall.

boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true/false, shift-click on object. But you don't need to do this.

Correct: the jump-between-lots function produces some odd artifacts in the game core. It is not known how harmful this is. Current evaluation suggests it is MOSTLY harmless, as long as you don't move anyone in. Research is currently being conducted on the matter. Until then, the feature has been disabled for OFB-equipped games.

thanks.  :)

I don't have OFB yet, just NL.  But I recently had the Lot Timer become uninstalled on all of my lots.  I had to click Install for family, and then I had no options to jump between lots.  I had to visit all of my lots and install it again.  I believe I had just moved some sims to another house.  But after I installed it for all the families again, it became uninstalled again.  I don't remember moving anyone that time though.  This was one of my favorite features of the Lot Sync Timer.  I hope there is a way to get it to work out.  I love that with NL we can click on neighbors and play them, but you're limited to only those you can click on from the house your playing.  In Strangetown, it's hard because of all the hills.  I moved some houses to make it easier, but then the neighborhood doesn't look the same.

I noticed this oddness today with the jump facility.  I was playing the woman who has the flower business (Delarosa or something) just to see how it all went and I noticed that all the main neighbourhood families were shown, which they didn't used to be on Downtown residential lots.  By mistake I clicked on the Dreamer lot and their loading screen came up, but when it arrived at the lot it was actually back on the flower woman's.  It did save what had occurred up to then, so at least that facility is still working.

I noticed something similiar in my game today after I installed OFB.  I saw all the downtown people on my list.  I clicked to go to a downtown lot and that lot's family screen loaded but I went back to the main neighborhood lot I was on.,

That seems to be an effect of how OFB has altered some low-level primitives in lot iteration.

The other issue is that lot jump exhibits some peculiar artifacts as a result and is presently disabled for OFB in the current version.

Lot-jump does not apparently entirely dissassociate from the originally loaded family anymore and issues may occur if you move anyone into the family after entering it via lot-jump. The exact extent of this is under evaluation, and until then, the jump feature has been OFB-disabled and is not recommended for use if you have an old version. Use at your own risk.

Does clicking on neighbors as introduced by NL still work?

It better, that's a Maxian feature.

I've always felt a bit wary of that particular Maxian feature, it it's so seamless, why did they not have that from the beginning? The only time I've ever lot jumped is with JM's sync timer, I trust his programming.

Won't have to worry about OFB just yet - it doesn't get released in New Zealand till 9th March. :( Went to buy it yesterday and had to pre-order.

I'm not sure why they didn't have it from the beginning, but I love it.  I guess they didn't have it because they didn't have clickable neighbors. 

More to the point, you couldn't actually see the neighbours.

Apart from some oddness a little bit like the above mentioned I noticed that I have to Re-"Install for family" from time to time.
I don't know why, but annoyingly often the lot sync timer "uninstalls" itself from normal residential lots though the number of past days is displayed correctly upon "re-installation".

The oddness that occured was this:
I played Lot A and used the lot sync timer to jump to Lot B where I invited the folks from Lot A over along with some other townies.
When I tried to send them home saying goodbye to them, there was no pie menu option to do so.
So I used a townie to send everyone home. All townies left, the two Sims of Lot A however didn't.
When I saved an reloaded the lot, they were gone.

This particular hack of yours is something I can't do without, so I can't wait until you have some time to look into these strange behaviours...which hopefully will be some time soon...

If you're jumping with OFB installed, this is not recommended, there have been some latent underlying issues in the core code with jumping from lot to lot.

I don't know if it is something in my game, but I have never had the option to jump from lot to lot before anyways.

I just got around to playing some of the Maxis sims in Bluewater Village today, and when I installed the lotsync timer on their home lots, I noticed that the list included ALL of my Pleasantview families too!  I was rather surprised, as I thought this didn't work across sub-neighborhoods.  It this a side-effect of the 'neighborhood jumping to your business' that OFB added to the game?

It appears to be an OFB side effect, yes, since it won't occur under previous game versions.

I haven't had any problems with the built-in Maxian lot jump feature in OFB so far.
It doesn't appear to draw the same artifacts as the sync timer.

What is the "built-in Maxian lot jump feature"?  Do you mean clickable lots, or the cheat that apparently takes you to ANY lot (whether you can see it to click on it or not)?  I tried the cheat, but it didn't work.  It loaded up what I thought was going to be a different lot (it had no name), but I ended-up back in the same lot, just as I did when I clicked on a lot on the Sync Timer by mistake.

The built in jump is the ability to click on a neighboring lot (with clickable neighbors turned on) and switch from your current famly to that family.

I downloaded this when it was updated - but now it seems since it has been updated again for OFB (the lot-jump disabled)... I can't download using IE, I installed Firefox just to see if I could (and could not).... any ideas?

It's because the links have been fubarred since the site implosion.  Try looking at www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/

I can't seem to find the "Lot-sync timer" here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/hacks/ maybe I'm just too tired (or too blind).

For a while I've had a contrary opinion that I'm going to make public now: not *all* BlueSoups suck!

Thank you, BlueSoup for your reply.

[edited to fix typo]
[edited again to add]
Can't even find it in the Mar 22 edition of the MoreAwesomeThanYou zip!
...day 8 of 10 day stretch at work (plus overtime) - tired/brain-dead... be kind, please!

Yep, it's there, 7th from the bottom. He calls it the Sync Timer.  (Not sure why the two different names, but whatever)

And also, thanks for your opinion.  :)

Thank you so very, very much, BlueSooup!

My opinion has been increased now to: You are one of the BlueSoups that seriously *do not* suck! (don't have an opinion about the rest of them, though)

I found and downloaded it.

What does the shiny new Time Warp button on the synctimer do?  I figure the days of the week will set it to that day, but what does Initialize do?  And does setting days of the week really work?  I've tried doing this with other hacks, but it was a known issue that it doesn't stick.  At midnight, it will revert back to whatever day of the week it would have been had you not changed it.

Shiny new time warp?  Ooooh....

I wonder what Pescado's done now.

Noticed a new version of this is out. Has it been fixed to work with OFB now? (I know it kinda worked with OFB already, but some features of it didn't.)

It always did work with OFB, the only feature that didn't was the lot-jumping feature, which really had nothing to do with the original purpose anyway.  Apparently, there is a new shiny feature for it, but I am not sure what it's for.

I know the lot-jumping feature wasn't the original purpose of it, but it was the feature that made me want to install it.  If I ever install OFB, I know that will be one feature I'm going to really miss.  :(  Helping to track time is nice, but it was so nice to see the other lots and be able to jump to them without having to scroll around and try to click on the neighbor's house I want.

Oh I totally agree.  I miss it too.  :-\

The Lot Jumping feature is "back", with a few attendant caveats: Don't have any babies or move anyone in or out if you got there by lot jump.

Initialize activates the option (the set week option was actually not supposed to appear before initialize, this is harmless, but has been fixed now).

The order in which you perform the time warp function is that you must first initialize (using this function is potentially risky so this is basically the glass shield over the missile firing controls), then dial in the warpage you want (Choose whether you wish to change the day of week, hour, or minute: We recommend only attempting to change the day, not the actual time of day on residential lots), and then hit Engage to perform the warp.

Is it ok to use the Lot Debugger to re-randomize before the baby's birth, then reload the lot if you got there by lot jumping?

Yes, the Lot Debugger Re-Randomize ejects to neighborhood screen, allowing you to reenter normally.

The new version of the synctimer seems to be interfering with the phone options relating to businesses.  The scenario goes like this:  Family A and Family B both have community lot businesses.  I have the timer installed on both of their home lots.  I start with Family A, use the Check in with a Business, everything is fine.  I use the "lot jump" to switch to Family B, without saving first.  Once I arrive at Family B's home lot, the game still thinks the current family's businesses are the ones owned by Family A, but I'm not even playing Family A anymore.  If I Call...Taxi from Family B's lot, the only lots shown as "owned" community lots are the ones owned by Family A.  If I try to check in with a business, it only lists the businesses that Family A owns.  I have no way to get to Family B's owned businesses.

I tried saving the lot while on the second lot, but it made no difference, I still couldn't access the current family's owned businesses.  I did not try exiting to the neighborhood and coming back in to Family B's lot, though I suspect that would have reset things back to normal.

I am running the latest version of the synctimer, dated 5/11/06 7:42 am.  I also have the latest versions of businessrunsyou, macrotastics, phonehack, etc.

For the time being I think I'm going to avoid the lot jumping.  It seems more trouble than it's worth.  I do like the day-of-the-week syncing, though, and I am slowly cycling through all my lots to get everyone on the same day of the week.

Karen

This would be one of the aforementioned "harmless artifacts" that seem to occur. Apparently OFB now retains some internal hardcoded record that runs in parallel with what formerly worked pre-OFB, and this record is inaccessible and not able to be updated at this time.

Any chance you could make the lot-jumping an option that the user could turn on and off, like the options on the baby controller?  That way people who don't want to use it wouldn't have to worry about side-effects from accidentally clicking on the family name in the synctimer menu.  Just a thought...

Karen

What the dickens is "frobnication"??? (apart from being something you do on Uni lots).

UGH   :'(

I saw the lot jump feature was working and used it to jump over to the fiance's lot and inventory her stuff, back to the other lot, married her and moved her in.  Had RTFM but not this thread to see this was a no no.  Now my Sim is jumping out constantly.  Anyway for me to fix her?

Attach the error logs from jumping. Probably an unrelated problem.

Going to have to sound like an idiot... what error logs do I attach?  I have 43 files in my /Logs folder.
Thanks

The ObjectError_* file from the error. You'll have to run the game in debug mode to get an error dialog and corresponding log.

Sorry for the slow response.  Have not had time to fire up the game for a while.

And yes, it must have been an unrelated problem.  I was unable to reproduce it.  She was fine after I reentered the lot.
Thanks!

Anyone know what the new option does in the lot sync timer?

Which new option -- the time warp?  That lets you set all your lots to the same day of the week.

It is good for new lots. Set the hour back to before 08:00h and those !@#$ kids will go to school, and if your Sims have jobs that start early they can go tot hem.

Unless you're rich enough to get them a car of course.

JM explains just a few posts back (when I asked him) here: 

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2386.msg118433#msg118433

I had some wierdness last night that I think might be due to using the sync timer to jump lots.

I"ve played this version of PV for about 9 days or so.  Dustin is not far off from adulthood - leaving it to one day to adulthood before I send him to uni because I want to get him as many scholarships as possible.

I used the sync timer to jump from the Broke household to the Dreamer lot.  Dirk brought Dustin home from school.  At the time that Dustin was due to go to work the carpool arrived, Dustin got in the car and went off to work.  Came back when he finished work, with a message about earning cash and the cash was added to the Dreamer household.  Got a message about 2 days left to adulthood for Dustin at 6pm.  I sent Dustin home by teleporter shrub.

After playing the Dreamer lot I used the sync timer to jump to the Pleasant lot.  At 6pm I got a message about Dustin having 1 day left til adulthood.  He hadn't come home from school with the girls.  I presume he was a walkby.

After this I stopped using the sync timer to jump to the next lot.

I haven't gone back into the Broke household yet to see how many days he really has left to transition.  This is a combined PV/ST/VV neighbourhood, so have a few households to play before the Brokes come back up in my rotation.

Two questions

1. Is this another artifact of using the sync timer to jump lots? 
2. Will I get the same weirdness if I save (I was saving anyway before jumping lots) then use the load lot cheat?

Since OFB, there is known weirdness with using the Lot Jumper feature, and I thought JM had disabled it but I guess not?

He put it back in according to this post:

Huh, I haven't actually noticed that feature at all and haven't tried to use it.  Perhaps p2 broke it again?

The feature has been disabled again due to even more problems associated with it.

It worked when I tried to use it post p2.  I had it all set and then I Lot Jumped to a neighbor.  No problems at all.

Why don't you fill the hour glass with sand? ???

There have been many requests for a recolor, but no one has figured out how to recolor just the fluid since this is cloned from the Elixir aspiration reward.  And as JM himself has said, he has no Skills of an Artist.  He just manipulates code.  ;)

I have the skills of an artist, but not of a mesher or coder.

I think a calendar shoul be more easy to be placed on a house  than that huge sand-glass :P

JM what did you think about it ?
we shall remeshing it ?

I would like something that fits under the foundation or at least that wouldn't disappear with the walls down, because I play wtih the walls down quite a bit.

there are also paint that will remain visibile also with the hidden walls...
i'll steal a calendar somewhere an i will prepare mesh and texture.. the rest will depends on JM

I am puzzled with regard to the Time Warp function.  When I finally got all my lots onto the same neighbourhood day and remembered about it (took a while for the two to tally), it was Day 36.  I started all the original lots at 8am on Monday on Day 0 and it therefore became Day 1 at 6pm on Monday.  Day 1 continued through to 6pm on Tuesday (the weekday changing at midnight, obviously) and Day 2 was Tuesday/Wednesday.  By the same token, Day 3 was Wednesday/Thursday and so on.  As a result of this, I make it that at 6pm on Day 36 it should have been a Monday, changing to Tuesday at midnight.

However, when I went into these original lots, the ones before midnight were on Tuesday and the ones after midnight were on Wednesday.  I genuinely can't see how this can be right, but presumably it must be if they were all like it.  Can someone please explain to me which of these is correct and if it's Tuesday/Wednesday, tell me where I'm going wrong?  I've looked at it every which way and I just can't get it to anything but Monday at 6pm on Day 36.

... I'm getting Monday at 6 as well.

I do not understand the question.

If you started with Day 0 on a Monday, then Day 0 goes until Monday 6pm, at which point it becomes Day 1.  Based on this, Day 36 goes from Monday 6:01 pm to Tuesday 6 pm.  If all your lots are showing Day 36, then all your lots should be somewhere between Monday 6:01 pm and Tuesday 6 pm.  I would suggest changing the ones that show a time later than Tuesday at 6 pm manually using the time warp so that they all fall within this range before you go any further.

I have been using the lot sync timer since it was first released and my lots are now transitioning to day 69.  It definitely works, as long as you set all the lots up correctly in the first place.

Karen

I personally don't try to organize the entire neighborhood so Day X is always the same day of the week on every lot. The reason for this is that if you do, you're going to get heavy "clumping", where tons of children will be conceived between 1500-2100 Wednesday, which is the optimal time to do it. If that day is the *SAME* day # on every lot, then you're going to get a large gap between university classes, which will thus come in waves at 7 day intervals, making it harder to keep a Greek house continously populated.

Was this going to happen? *curious*

But if you're using Twojeffs' Casual Romance, this sort of "clumping" is less likely, because you're not the one making the decision on when to try for baby. 

Yeah, and I'm *REAAALLY* going to leave a critical timing decision up to a random number generator. Nobody does anything without the proper authorization. Period. You have any idea what the abortion rate would be like if I did? Note how I have decisions like this pegged to the exact hour.

JM, what makes Sim conception between 1500-2100 optimal?

Timing. 73 hours pregnancy, 72 hours baby, 72 hours toddler. The toddler becomes a child on a sunday, you invite the headmaster the same day, and the child enrolls in the skillpoint-giving private school on monday. No days are wasted.

From another thread

Jordi and travellersside, since I am non-awesome and not good MATY material, I am allowed to say thank you for the information. (I understand that it is non-awesome to say thank you on this board). And yes I do know about the thanks button.

I couldn't be that organised! My sims give birth as and when, most don't even go to private school, just like real life - some get a lucky start, some don't.  :D

My sims max out their skillpoints too fast as it is (at least in my opinion).  No smartmilk, no thinking cap, and still that's a problem.  The only solution I can see is to either stop micromanaging so much (I'm trying, I really am!) or to stop sending them to college so they don't get all those extra skilling days (but that's so unacceptable that I'll forget that's an option).  The last thing I need is to give my toddlers an extra day of toddlerhood or give my children an extra day of private school.  Thus, my sim have spawn whenever I/they feel like it.

i've made the new mesh with a working calendar but JM didn't support me enough so i've aborted the project :(

aww. I was really hoping for something not so large and bright green and unhidable.

And they say romance is dead. :P

I don't play TS2 like a strategy game myself. Way too boring *g*.

Do you recommend that in real life, also?

Real life has its own analogues to this, yes. Certain timings you want to arrange if you don't want your kids to meet various age-related cutoffs, such as how kids born after a certain date have to choose between either being held back, or homeschooled. If you don't want this happening to your kids, plan accordingly.

Do you have children JM?

is it possible to add the ammount of the played days on the family description ?

It would be rather shiny if you could know what day your houses are on without loading a lot.

if i click to jump from uni to a family the game will show the family's screen while loading but at the end of the load i'm at the dorm again  :o
and also, i notice that it ididn't refresh the dorm's days count .

but that little bug, with all installed (uni, nl, ofb, ffs, glamour) it works great ^^

Update to the new version. That version sounds really old. And you never did send that whatever-it-is-you-were-doing.

I get the same if I try to jump from a uni place (dorm, geek house) to a normal house.
Sync timer date 03 Sept.

ops.. i'm in old version .. thnx  butta.....

i've "Uninstalled" the package
i've saved the lot (uni - dormies)
exited the game.. replaced the LotSync.
loaded the dormies again and i've "installed for family" ... but the days remain the same :\
also, now by clicking on other family nothing happen  :o

I thought the Universities were only manually adjustable, not automatic?  Or has that changed since I stopped paying attention?

Nope, they're still manually adjustable, so you can pick your own rate of semester/day.
Something about the lot jumping from uni is weird though.

The current version has no lot jumping, that feature was apparently broken in OFB and remains unresolved.

So that I can attempt a jump on a uni lot to another lot is a bug, as the option is not supposed to appear at all?
That explains it then.

The OFB director's cut still has the May 11 version of synctimer.  Can you update it with the latest version?

Oh wait... I have the DC version. Will update.

Okay, I've read over the last few pages and am good and confused now.

I'm running NL; don't have OFB yet. Does this mean that I still can use the lot jumping feature with the latest release of the Lot Sync Timer?

If so, does the no move-ins/no move-outs/no births on a jumped-into lot advice apply?

Also, is lot jumping to and from Uni lots a good idea pre-OFB?

Man, it all gets so complicated when we try to do Maxis' work for them...

In theory, yes. It is not known whether the problem begins in NL or not, but was not observed. Test for us.

The option to attempt such a thing does not exist pre-OFB, as lots were not detected in other neighborhoods in the NL engine.

Yessir. Will report back with any findings of interest.


Aaah. So that's why I never autonomously attempted it.

P.S. Happy whaling! Bring back some ambergris for us all...

with the new version it didnt' jump any more form one lot to another :(
i've broken it ???

Read back a couple of pages. Lot jumping has been disabled since more recent Maxis code has led to some pretty undesirable effects.

 but it was working fine :P
i want the jumping lot back

What kind of problems was the synctimer causing with the lot jumping in OFB? I was using (still am) version dated 11 May 2006. I can jump from lot to lot and have never ran into any problems. I'm glad that I always keep the older version of a hack until I check the new ones out so I can go backwards to one that was working good for me if there is something I dont like about the new ones (like the lot jump disabled).

Here are some problems I've experienced with the "lot jump" function: 

1) If you jump to a lot where a baby is about to be born, the game thinks the baby belongs to the previous family.  Baby items such as cribs, changing tables, etc. do not work because the game does not recognize the baby as belonging to the current family, even though the baby is present on the lot.

2) Traveling to an owned business does not work because the businesses listed are the ones that belonged to the family you just jumped from.  There is no way to access the current lot's owned businesses if you got to the current lot by jumping.

3) Change Appearance doesn't get reflected in the family portrait if you leave the lot by jumping, rather than going to the neighborhood the normal way.

It can be handy sometimes but I've found it's more trouble than it's worth.

Karen

Thanks for the info. I kind of wondered about the baby thing. But I just go into simpe and fix them so its no big deal since I really like the lot jump more than that. As for the business lots I have never used the lotsync to jump so I never noticed it from there anyway.

Here's a problem I was having with lot jumping:


When I went back into the Broke lot, Dustin was at 1 day to go until adulthood.  One more day and it would have been too late to send him off to college.

So I decided not to use the feature again.

the jumping lot was one of the best feature that i've ever seen
that's a shame :(

If this is any help to anyone, I have OFB and tried this mod after installing it, and found this problem (don't know if anyone else has had this):

None of my residential lots are home businesses. Yet after playing one lot and jumping to the next, a member of the family I'd played before would turn up and invite him/herself in as though they lived there. There was no option to say goodbye, I couldn't select the Sim but messages were popping up saying the carpool was about to arrive, as though they lived there rather than visiting. On returning to the neighbourhood after saving, I was most puzzled to find a taxi in the loading screen instead of the usual neighbourhood symbol.

BUT! One time after playing a lot for a bit experimentally I went to quit without saving. I got a warning dialog asking not only do I want to quit without saving, but explaining the dangers of quitting straight away from a business lot! Or words to that effect. At any rate, I think the game thinks you've got a business specific item on the lot, like a ticket machine etc. I believe that's the source of the problem :) Is that any help in getting it fixed?

The Lot Jumping tool shouldn't be used after you've installed OFB.  It's been fubar'd since then.

I kinda skimmed through this whole thread and I'm so confused :(

So just a simple question I guess - Does this currently work with OFB?  I already went through the hack directory for OFB but can't see it listed there.

The object itself works with OFB, but you should not use the lot jumping feature or bad things will happen.  You should save and travel to other houses the normal way instead.

The current version does not have the lot jump enabled in OFB, so you don't have to worry about it. Anyone who can still do that is using an old version. With many missing shiny things.

You can still use the lot jumping feature built into the game as of NL, where you can click on neighbors and go to that lot without having to go to the neighborhood screen.  That should still work.  If your neighborhood is large, you may have trouble seeing some houses to click on them, but it can be done.  It's just not as convenient as it was using this hack.  You do need to have clickable neighbors turned on, though, and the wider your view settings are, the more neighbors you can see to click on from the current house.

I never lot jump anyway, just not used to it I guess.  Thanks for replies, putting in the new shiny now :)

I no longer use the lot debugger to jump to the next lot.  If the next lot I want to play isn't near enough to click on, I use the loadlot cheat.  It doesn't seem to be causing any problems for me.  You need to know the lot name for the cheat to work so for the Beaker lot you would enter loadlot "1 Tesla Court"  - to remember the lot name I use Sims2DB, which has a field for recording that info on the Household screen.

I didn't know about that cheat, or if I did, I forgot it.  :-\

I tried looking, but I can't find it. What does the Time Warp do?

It allows you to set the exact day/hour/minute on the lot.  If you try to use it you will get several strongly worded messages telling you not to do it.  But if you want to try it, use Time Warp to set the day/hour/minute to what you want, then click Engage to actually make the change.  (Or Abort to cancel, if you change your mind.)

Karen

This all happened while my net connection was down, so I had to find that out for myself - I just posted that in the hope it'd be useful ;)

Why so strongly worded? What kind of bugs would it trigger?

I also would like to know of any possible problems.   I really need to move my main Royal Family to a 'more playable' home i've already built them.   I already know i need to do this when everyone is at home (preferably before everyone goes off to work/school.   I've already tested it on a 'throw-away' family, but i only changed the hour/minute, not the day, went thru the entire day and the day changed at midnight correctly.  For the Royal Family, i'll be changing the day from monday to friday, plus moving back time 30 minutes.

Some things operate in a "pulse" mode where they're supposed to occur at a specific time. When that time occurs, they then perform a "long pulse" of waiting an hour's worth of ticks. If you change the time out from under it like that, there's no telling how confused it might get. In most experiments, there do not appear to be any lasting effects from changing the hour, or changing times on community lots, but changing anything other than the day can be potentially risky on residential lots.

When will this be compatible with OFB?

Now?

Lately I've had the problem that each time I load a dorm lot, the lot sync timer there is uninstalled for the family. I can install it again, and it will remember what day it was on, but next time I load the lot it will be uninstalled again.
This does not happen in college residential lots or greek houses, or in normal residential lots.

Paladin's hack scanner doesn't find any conflicts.

Any clues?

I'm happy to report that the synctimer is working just fine with Pets.  I didn't bother deleting it from my downloads before installing, and the settings were exactly where I expected them to be when I loaded the game with CC enabled.

Karen

Edit -
nevermind.  :-[

I noticed the same thing.  I actually find it useful, as it's an easy way to keep track of which lots haven't been played yet since I installed Pets.  I imagine that once you've played every lot, things will go back to normal.  I've visited 20+ lots now out of 37 and the list is filling up as I go.

Karen

I know its been asked before and I don't mean to be a nuisance. Its just that I was playing last night and again this bugged me. Is there any way possible this could be remeshed into something smaller? I'd actually prefer the plain square box like Macro and the Debugger to this huge neon green fits into none of my houses monstrosity. Those at least I can hide under the foundation or under a bed. Its not that I'm ungrateful. I use this item in every one of my houses after all. I thought it might hurt a little to ask but figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

Have you tried using the moveobjects to hide it in the foundation?

Given how tall it is, I expected it to poke up through the floor, but it doesn't.  I don't seem to have any graphical artifacts in my game (EPs up to OFB) from it at all.  In houses without a foundation, I tuck all my MATY tools in the attic.  Just a few floor tiles under the peak of the roof does the trick.  In one house where I have neither foundation nor peaked roof, I just built a small 'closet' with no door.  It doesn't show in pictures, and sims don't interact with anything inside anyway.

I know none of those solutions is as elegant as a new mesh, but I get the feeling Pescado isn't an elegant sort of guy.   ;)

I've been trying to hide this and the debugger and Macrotastics controller in my foundations but can't figure out how to make it work. Can that even be done if the whole foundation has already been laid...and if so, anyone have some handy instructions to share?

This would be a good idea, although I hide this under the foundations also with no problem.  There are some houses without foundations though that are a bit of a problem.  Once we were discussing this with the Baby Controller, and Pescado mentioned making it morphable at one point.  Nothing ever came of that though.  But after playing with twojeffs ACR and the option to change the model of the controller, I find I absolutely love it.  I can make it into a small plant on a desk or table or a large plant to sit on the floor, and hide it in plain view.  If I forget where it is for some reason, I can click on a sim and click Adjust...Casual Romance...Zoom to controller.  I'd love it if similar functionality could be added to the FFS controllers.  Incidentally, InSim has had this for the various sectionals for some time.  ;)

ETA:  Kevin, have you tried turning on moveobjects?  Normally you can't place objects in the foundation, so you have to enable moveobjects on.

hmmm... it poked through the floor in my game... though I haven't tried in a while. maybe its changed since then? worth a shot I suppose.

and Rainbow while I agree I love the morphability of twojeff's ACR controller I didn't want to ask for anything that elaborate from J.M. I thought the plain "placeholder" box was asking a lot as it was! *laughs*

Edit: I just this minute checked and it definitely still sticks up through the floor in my game.

Open the cheatbox: Ctrl-Shift-c

Type 'moveobjects on' and enter.

In buy or build mode, use the hand tool to move your stuff into the lowest level of your house, which should have at least some tiles of solid foundation.

Re-open the cheatbox and type 'moveobjects off' and enter.

Against all reason, the sync timer doesn't poke through the wood floor in my houses when I level up above the foundation.  I actually prefer tucking all my tools in one obvious spot, because I play quite a few large lots.  I used to forget where these special objects were from house to house, because they were so well hidden in plain sight.  :D

It might be the option to see objects on different levels in video or game options, I forget which.  It's always been turned off in my game.  Maybe that has something to do with it.

I put mine in the foundation underneath an appliance, like a stove. I can't notice it, unless I zoom in on the oven.

Nope, I'm having the uninstalling problem too, but I have to reinstall it every time I play :\

ack! What happened to the list of families in the neighborhood with the number of days each has played?

It probably reset with the new version, a lot of stuff was changed. There should be fewer resets in the future as I moved the token to another GUID. To get the lists back, you will have to open and re-save every lot, but you probably want to do this to make use of the new "event stamp" feature. Generally, you set it to some important day that will occur in the future, like someone's age transition, and when you're playing another lot, it will warn you when you're about to, or when you have, overrun that day, indicating you have to go back and catch up.

I love this object, but of course the visuals are a little off, I have hidden it in the hedge, inside a statue, or behind a wall. If it were a plant, or a street light, or a fire alarm it would be easier to hide and still be accessible to the click.

That said, it is for me one of the can't do with out objects for the four families vying for control of the evil kingdom....

Thanks, J.M.

As far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't try to hide it at all. Stick it someplace obvious, and declare it OOC. It's not an in-game object, it's the referee.

I'd just like to report something about the lot warp. I have the newest version, but the lot warp seems to still be active. I was looking through my list of installed families, when I accidently clicked one. It warped to lot without asking or saving. I only noticed one bug: the family it warped to became uninstalled, and uninstalled itself again when I returned. I haven't tried it again, but I imagine it would do the same thing.

According to RFM, you can still click to move between the lots using the lot time sync timer.  According to this thread, you can't.  Does this feature work or not?

Pre-OFB, it should work. Post-OFB, it should be deactivated.

Rats.  I'm placing timer in my lots again as I was forgeting which lots I hadn't been playing.

See why this item is awesome? Not only does it tell you which lots are behind, but you can set an "event trigger" to warn you when something is supposed to happen on a specific day, so it doesn't happen out of sequence.

I especially love the "event trigger". That was the feature that got me to finally try this item. Now, of course, I wish I had been using it all along. 

See, that's why this stuff is AWESOME, and why you should thus always check out the latest in Shiny Things.

Is the "Event Trigger" a Pets only feature? I've never seen it.

The Event Day feature was added only in the newer versions. You will have to download the update if you want to see it. It's under "Set Event Day".

Had a look through the thread, but couldn't see anything that answers my problem.

On some of my lots the number of days counted by the timer no longer advances at midnight, but at some other hour of the day.  I'm assuming this is a result of my ignoring the warnings and using the time warp feature when I've moved families.  Is there any way to fix this and reset it so the days advance at midnight?

The timer never advances at midnight. The time advances at 1800, the same time as when everyone ages. Since the objective is to track synchronous aging, this event thus occurs at 1800, not midnight.

I need help with this - I've RFM which doesn't say much really on what everything does and I've read through this thread and am still unclear. 

What exactly is Event Day - how do you use it?

And...I think I want to use the warp but want to make sure I wont screw up my game.  Maybe I'm being too anal but the situation is this.  I was playing the Broke family for a while - maybe 4 days.  She gave birth to little Chav Broke and Beau had his birthday.  I decided to get her engaged to a townie (who I made very wealthy) and move them out.  I want this to be a "pretty woman"-esque story,  Anyway, so they've moved to their mansion and now it's Monday 8:30am, but everyone in her family are three days older or whatever.    All my other lots, I've basically just moved them in, set up stuff, saved, but not played much - at most it's the Tuesday on all the other lots.  Is there a safe way I can make the Brandi Brokenomore Lot the thursday is should be, or should I just give it a fuckit and not be so anal?

Event day is for sequenced events. You know, things like aging. If you know a sim will age in +4 days, you can set this as your event day. When playing other lots, you will be notified when another lot is about to hit its scheduled event. Say you have a family. At the moment they're pretty dull at the moment. You know that someone will age up in 8 days. So you set "event day" for 8 days. Now you can stop playing them. Go to another lot. Play them. When day 8 is about to come up, you'll be notified that you should attend to these laggards, and hopefully you'll have thought of something interesting to do. No more having to stick to an ironclad rotation of 3 days (which can overrun events).

Time warp seems to have exhibited no ill effects to date, so it should be safe to use for this exact purpose, yes. I'd just say fuckit, though. Because if every single family is synchronized to be on the same day of week, remember that since Try For Baby Day is between Wednesday 1800 and Thursday around noonish, every single sprog will end up popping that exact same day, and you'll basically have babies show up in waves, which makes it difficult to keep a continuous rotation in Uni.

ahh...I see.  You're right, let's see if I can let it go though - not having the days coincide.  Thanks for answering so quickly. 

ETA: My game has started crashing since I started installing this and I'm wondering if it had anything to do do with not yet having them installed on all my playable lots, which is the only thing I can think of.  What happens is I place the thingie on my lot, (btw, I put in in the foundation and it does not go through the first floor) install for family, and play a bit because loading other lots takes too long.  Eventually the game crashes.  Any Ideas?  And no, I haven't used the warp option.

What edition of game are you running? I'm not sure how it'd be related since it runs purely Maxian meshes, so it can't be that. Unless it's the NL random-illogical-BHAV-crash, but I don't see that happening either.

Do you think there could be a option so it announces which day it is at 18:00 hours? I set the event day to tell me when it's a certain day on the lot, but that day comes and goes and I never get notification.

When I send my teens off to college I set an event day for +4 on the lot if they're going to be returning to live at that lot, so that I'll remember to return them on the appropriate day.  Every other household gets the event notification, but not the one lot that I want to be notified - the lot the sim will be returning to.

Can we can please have the option to toggle whether we display the event notification on the lot the event refers to?

If the lot sync timers work on Uni lots, you could set the lot time on the uni lot and get the notification at the correct time on the home lot.  If not... just make a dummy lot with some stupid ugly Maxis Sims as residents and set it on their timer.

Lot sync timers can be placed on Uni lots, but since Uni time is asynchronous, you will have to manually advance the clock.

We will take this under consideration.

Any plans to enable season changing via the time warp?

Use the Weather Machine, cuz that's what it's for.

Does putting this in the downloads folder cause a lot reset?

No, this is not a global hack and will not reset your game.

Problem. 
Yes I'm a noob, but I'm not new to downloading, even mods, it's just I've stayed away from hacks for obvious reasons.  I even thought about installing this one for over a week and then I finally got the courage and ended up being so excited that I forgot to back up my game (BIG mistake). 

So when I first installed this it erased all info in my families.  :o  All their personality points were gone, their careers and their relationships were empty and their aspirations are in lowest red.  All this before entering one house.  I naturally went into a house uninstalled the thing from neighborhood, got rid of the object and now my house catalog in neighborhood window is gone.  All the houses, even Maxis, let alone the ones I made or had downloaded.  :'(  and of course the families are still without their previous lives.  So now what?  I just screwed up my game for good?

I have no other hacks from anywhere else but at the same time as installing this one I also put in game the telephone hack and the flush toilet hack, both from MATY.  I gather those didn't cause such effects.
Any help appreciated, hopefully someone still comes this way.

Clarina

Well, there's no way this (or the other two you got from here) could have caused the effect you described. It's not a global mod, and has no affect at all unless you add it to a lot and install it for the family.

It sounds like something else got fubared in your system.  All empty unplaced lots are stored in the LotCatalog directory and your neighborhoods (lots and families) are in the appropriate sub-directories of the Neighborhoods directory.  Both directories are found in your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 directory, which is also where your Downloads go.  Look there and see what's in those directories to start finding out what happened.

Thanks!  I've actually been at it for about six hours now.  As I closed and reopened the game more times enough I got the lots to appear again in the lot catalog.  They are all in correct folders in correct places, the files never left.  Now the custom neighborhood I was talking about is other wise correct but the families are still friendless, without jobs and in aspiration failure, all of them, including their pets. 

Weirdest things are if I remove a lot in that neighborhood to put in the bin it never appears in the bin.  Also it was Pleasantview and Strangetown that appeared empty.  I never really played Strangetown but in Pleasantview I lost 3 months of game play (I KNOW).

I removed my Sims2 folder and started afresh.  Pleasantview appeared fine, when I put lots in, they showed up correctly.  When I put characters in, nothing changed, just default characters in fresh install situations and when I swapped the neighborhood.package file to the older one all lots were gone again and the neighborhood seemed empty.  :-\

It's just so sad, I went in game again with my own Pleasantview lots, since the characters don't show up it's like they just left, In one house there are still birthday balloons outside and half full pet dish in the kitchen... the kid's bedcovers are crumbled like he just got up...  I can almost see their ghosts, it's all ver tragic...  :-[

But I never installed the hack in Pleasantview (or Strangetown) only in my custom hood, so yes I guess it wasn't the hack, but I can't think of anything else since I hadn't put in anything else long before those and the families in my custom hood were messed up instantly after getting this hack.  So I'm lost... still...

So I wish I knew what went wrong exactly seven hours ago (that's when my neighborhood.package files were last modified) I can't make use of most helpful programs like Clean installer and such because I'm on a Mac...  But I'm willing to try most anything  :-[

Best i can figure, it sounds like your old neighborhood packages got corrupted somehow.  You can't just swap an old one into a new install of an existing hood -- the neighborhood.package stores most of the info about the hood and its residents, but you'd still be missing all the lots and character files.

Do you have an older backup of your hoods?  If so, you might try restoring it and see if everything is ok.


I'm confused by this -- if you properly place a hack, mod, or any custom content in the Downloads folder, it shows up in all hoods currently present in your game.  There's no way to install custom content so it only shows up in one hood.  So I have to ask -- where exactly did you put the mod and hack files?

Sorry I'm being so unclear.  Of course the hacks were sort of installed in them but what I meant was just that I never entered those two neighborhood while the hack was in game I only entered them once I had uninstalled the hack from my customhood and then removed from downloads.  Strangetown seemed ok at first people were okay and houses there but Pleasantview wouldn't actually load up at all, it crashed my game.  When I reentered the game Pleasantview loaded but then was without houses and without lots and I then entered Strangetown and that was empty too.  But My custom Sim Islands is fine.  Except for the sims.

Another thought crossed my mind though.  I installed Norton Antivirus yesterday as well.  Before hacks, before entering the neighborhoods.  Yes, I've read it's not the best or most appraised, but it was the only thing they could give me at the Mac store.  And yes, I probably don't even need it but now I have it.

I did notice I couldn't swap the package files, but I got my two customhoods working.  the problem was that even if I put in the character folder my characters weren't there, just the originals that come with fresh install.  But lots did show up when I put the old lots folder in the fresh install.  Anyway, my Mac game is only three months old, before that I played on my PC.  So no backups available because I never did any backups since I haven't installed new EPs since I got the Mac game.

Thaks for your help Jsalemi.  I'd move this somewhere else if I knew where to go...

If you go to the main forum index, near the top is a forum called "the Podium", inside is a sub-forum called "Oops I Broke It". One of those two would be a good place to try, since it's not this hack after all. Good luck.

Despite the fact that something deep inside me told me not to touch the shiny, I installed this. I then noticed that aging was off. I can manually advance aging with the timer, but it doesn't go over at 6:00. This is a problem for many reasons, the least being pets. They aren't aging either, and I can't manually advance them.

So. I tried uninstalling from the neighborhood and then removing the hack from my game. Still stuck. I put it back in, still stuck. What can I do, short of restarting the neighborhood again?

FYI, I ran the conflict scanner and no conflicts came up. I also installed Business Runs You and Grow Up Townies at the same time, but not only can I not see how those two would effect age progression, but they were removed and aging still was frozen.

And, to state the obvious...no, I don't play with aging off and never have. Just in case, I entered the aging on cheat at the 'hood screen (shouldn't have any effect there) and in each and every lot.

Lots that were originally built in a University will not have a correctly functioning aging controller, and sims will not age correctly on those lots. Check that your lot was not originally a Uni lot.

Drat. They were. I built them in University Land because the terrain there was completely flat before I started up Monopoly. Any way to add a functioning aging controller?

EDIT: Forget it, my boo-boo, I can fix it. Just rebuilt the effected lots and time passes as it should. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Is this also true for community lots that were built in Uni?

Sims do not age on community lots.

I'm having problems with the sync timer. A couple of weeks ago I installed H&M Stuff and Celebrations Stuff, and haven't played other than to check out the new stuff. Today I decided to play. It's been awhile so I didn't remember which family I was on. I went into a lot and clicked on the sync timer to see which household was at the lowest day. The menu looked like this:

(http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f232/Nat363/sync1.jpg)

There was no "List..." menu. So I entered a few other households to see if they had the same problem. They all did have the list menu, but there was only one famliy on it.

(http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f232/Nat363/sync2.jpg)

The household that doesn't have the list at all is the only one that's showing up on the other family's lists. I have eight households that use the timer.

Might this be related to the stuff packs I installed? That's the only thing I can think of that's changed between now and when I played last. I have the latest version of the timer.

Did you quit without saving after checking? If you loaded your game with no-CC-enabled after installing a stuff or expansion pack, this will result in the loss of all custom tokens, which will render the Sync Timer unable to see the other family clocks. The Sync Timer, however, will still remember the results on the timer and will attempt to reload those results once you start playing again. To avoid this, remove your neighborhood files from the save directory before loading a new expansion pack and fixing all your settings.

Unfortunately I saved the first family. I didn't save the others. If I replace the neighborhood file with the backup one from before I installed the stuff packs, with CC enabled, would I be able to see the list again?

You should. The loss of the custom tokens is not a fatal error to the lot sync timer, anyway. The tokens will be regenerated the next time you load those lots, so unless you use other custom tokens as well, the loss of those tokens is merely a minor temporary nuisance until you load every single lot and allow them to be recreated.

It worked, my lists are back now.  :)

Yeah, this happens to me with monotonously depressing regularity, but I always get all the lists back once I've done a round of the lots and saved. In a way, it's good, I know which lots I haven't played again yet.  ;D

Something weird is going on with the latest (12/1/07) version of the Lot Sync Timer.  I have been using it since the first version and I've never seen this before.

I moved some family members from an existing family into a new house.  On entering the new lot for the first time, I did "Install for Family" and set the days-elapsed value to 168 to match the rest of my families.  Then I noticed that the current day on this lot was Wednesday, whereas all of my other lots are on Monday.  So I went into the synctimer's Time Warp function to set the day to Monday.  Ignored the warnings, clicked Engage.  The day now said Tuesday.  I set the day to Sunday via the synctimer.  It set it to Monday.  Every time I do it, it's off by one day (the synctimer sets the day to one day later than the day of the week I selected.)

I know you don't recommend using this function unless absolutely necessary, but it was working fine prior to this version and it seems to me that something broke.  Not a big deal, but could you look into it when you get a chance?

Karen

How odd. I switched the string printing to DayLocal to save space. Will look at it.

Tried the latest version and it's fixed now - thanks!

Lot swappage isn't available if you have OFB installed. Which it says in the first post.

If you turn on clickable neighbors and visible neighbors you can just click the lot you want and it will give you the option to start playing that lot. I can't remember which EP this came with, though.

I've had some weird problems with the Lot Sync Timer since I re-downloaded the DC the 9th. Trying to change the life expectancy on pets makes the game crash, and when I tried to skipday it errored, then skipped four days.

I are not happy cat.

I have a log from the skipday error, if The Awesome One wants it.

OK, OK, but necromancy is probably the least of my problems, so . . .

Is any attempt going to be made to make the lot sync timer work uniquely for each apartment in a block? Or are we stuck with time spent on each lot 'counting' in every apartment?

Not sure what you mean by "time spent on each lot 'counting' in every apartment".  I have been using the synctimer since it was first released, and most of my lots are on day 203 now.  Just as an experiment, I went into one of my apartment lots, where I have two different playable families.  Both were on day 203 when I saved last time.  I went into apt A and bumped the counter up from 203 to 204, saved and exited back to the neighborhood.  Went back in to apt B.  It was still showing (correctly) its previous setting of day 203, and it also showed (correctly) that lot A was at day 204.  (Both synctimers are located inside the individual apts, not in common areas.)

As far as I can tell, everything is working fine in my game.  What specifically is the problem you're having?

Karen

The trick is that you have to have a sync timer in each apartment, MM -- you can't have just one for the lot like you do for residential lots.  The fun part comes in trying to find a place to put it in the smaller apartments.

Exactly.  I wish somebody would re-mesh the thing, maybe to make it small enough to place on a desktop?

Karen

Did you use any cheats to edit the apartment after they were occupied?

I have one apartment lot with three households where one of the sync timers (all 3 families have their timers on the balcony) stays visible all the time and keeps ticking on.  The timers on the other households on the lot are only visible when playing those households.

It only happens on this one lot, although I have several other apartments lots with multiple families.

This household with the always-visible, always-counting lotsync timer is unique, because it's the only lot where I used a cheat to edit the lot while the lot was occupied.  I'd already moved all the households out to edit the lot (twice), and it wasn't until after I'd put them all back in for the second time that I realised I'd forgotten to move one door.  Since I didn't feel like moving them all out for a third time, I just used a cheat to move the door.  Next time they come up in my rotation I'll move them all out again, and edit the lot.

Editing apartment lots is a pain.  To make changes stick and not have weird glitches (like seeing inside the other apartments or having lotsync timers counting when they shouldn't) I find I have to enter in build mode, rezone to res, save & exit, re-enter the lot, make the changes I want, rezone back to apartment, save & exit, then enter the lot for a third time to check the mailbox changed, save & exit - which is why I didn't want to move 3 households out and go through all this just to move one door.

I'm only just setting these apartments. What I am seeing is that the newly placed sync timer is taking its time from others placed on the lot (and, yes, I am placing one for every apartment and also placing them inside the apartments proper). These particular apartments haven't been editted (other than in non-cheatie permitted ways) since move-in.

I will go back and see if time progression is normal after the first day. From what you have said I am perceiving a problem where one does not persist (at least not after proper setup of the timer).

This side effect has been noted. A fix will perhaps be available shortly, so that the clocks in other apartments don't fire.

As well as the time being off (I just set mine back with the -days function so they were the same and after that they counted fine), the "list" feature isn't listing the other apartment lots for me. When in another household totally, they all list fine, but when playing the 2nd family in an apt, the first family isn't on the list.

Yea, I noticed that one too, but I figured that's because both families have the same lot id, which is what the sync timer uses.

I just noticed that the version of the synctimer that's in the AL DC (dated 7/28/08) includes lot jumping.  Have the issues around that functionality (mentioned earlier in this thread) been resolved?  Is it safe to use lot-jumping in AL?  I admit it would be convenient, especially for moving between apartments on the same lot without having to go to the neighborhood screen in between....but there were so many issues with this function before, I'm just wondering if it's safe to use it now.

Karen

No, it's not. That's a version detect error. It will be resolved in the next version, soon as I resolve the apartments issues.

So...for now, it's not recomended to try to use this in appartments?  I just downloaded it to use in a new neighbourhood, but many of my families will be living in apparmtnets in that hood, and I basically need it to keep track of where everyone is in the whole neighbourhood; if this won't work with apts, I might as well just keep track of everyone manually.   :-\

New version should be moar apartmentsafe and not stomp anything. Lemme know how it works out.

Soo... if I put this in all my playable lots, click install for each family, then use time warp to set the day of the week to 0 without fiddling with the time on the first lot I want to play (say its the Goth Family in Pleasantview which I presume is Lot #1), then use the maxis clickable neighbors function to switch to the next lot in the # order the lot sync timer puts the houses instead of using the lot sync timer version, plus never save the game without this hack being present in the downloads folder...this hack should run smoothly???? I really tried to read the whole thread to understand the issues and how it works BTW I don't have OFB but do has UNI, PETS, SSN, BV, FT, GLS, MGS.

F*** necromancy I need clarification please!

Been having a problem with the lot sync timer in the last couple of weeks.  I haven't been playing much, but last week I was playing a family and after several Sim days clicked on the lot sync timer to check when an event was coming up, and it said "Install for family."  It had been previously installed and the lot had been played several times before, so I figured this for a fluke.  I installed for family and it went to zero, so I reset it using the approximate day I thought it should be.

Today I entered that lot just to check the timer.  It was fine, so I exited the lot and went to the next family I wanted to play.  Checked the timer.  It was fine.  Played several Sim days, then wondered when the next event was coming up.  Checked lot sync timer -- "Install for family."  Installed, went to zero, reset manually to approx. day.

I'm not sure why this is happening.  These are houses, not apartments.  The only things I've installed in the last many weeks are updates to the Director's Cut.  The Sims are doing nothing out of the ordinary:  going to work, engaging in ACR, getting pregnant, going to school, going to community lots, going to hobby lots, skillinating, hobbinating, talking on the phone.

The neighborhood is only about 8 Sim days old.  I've got an event coming up on Day 11 and just started the next neighborhood round of play to bring everyone to Day 11.  There are about a dozen families.

Thanks for any insight.

I switched out the elixir mesh for the bg fern, more info here (http://shastakiss.tumblr.com/post/132906177057/i-switched-the-elixir-mesh-that-pescados-lot).