More Awesome Than You!

Has anyone Awesome looked at the Lot Expander http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=175884 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=175884) for changing the size of a lot?  Is it safe? 

If you scroll down to post #28, there are downloadable 1x1 and 2x1 lots.

Edit:  I obviously suffered a mind fart on entering links

Link: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=175884

Well, I just downloaded the 1x2 and 1x1 lots so I'll check them out.  :D

*old codger voice* Your link is faulty there, son/missy.

Here is a fresh one:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=175884

ETA: Damn ya, Dizzy! Meddling kids!

*shuffles off*

Beat ya by 44 seconds.  ;D

Only 'cause I took my sweet time typing out smart-assed snarky commentary instead just postin' the link and being done it.

So I deserved it. *big grin*

Looks interesting by the way. Never heard of the programmer though.

If it works... we are going to see some neighborhood-sized lots out there.

On the other hand, I have been DYING for a lot that's something like 10x1 so I could build a real street full of shops or apartments. And small lots in various sizes will be great too. This thing, if it works properly, will be very cool.

Remember that carpool problems are anticipated if a lot is 1x# and the 1 is the road.

It appears to have a max of 6 in any one dimension, but yes, the carpool issue is one of my concerns.

6x1 would still be cool. I just want a skinny long lot.

omg, I can't imagine 6x1...I'm so sick of 3x1 lots I could...
SCREAM.

OK... feel much better now.   ;D

Whose idea was it to do the Brixham Project anyway...mutter mutter

yeah, well I figured out how to stack stages :P

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/nectere/snapshot_00000007_d1f506ee.jpg)

OMG share share!  Please?   :-*

1 x 1 - 1 x 2 lots
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1359102#post1359102

i'm about the most happies ppl on the world.. actually... just for the next 5 seconds   ;D ;D ;D

I tried using the tool to change an existing community lot, and it worked great. You have to enter the lot and save before you can move it around the neighborhood.

The only thing I would make a fuss is that the place where the cars stop doesn't change, so it may not be centered with the road after using this tool.


nectere, that's pretty cool! How did you do it?

Does shrinking a lot mess up the placement of the car and pedestrian portals? If so, that's a bad thing. Extending the depth of the lot from the rear should be safe, but changing the width of a lot is uncool.

The portals seem to behave normally, as I made a business on that lot, and customers appeared without any problems.

It appears that the new version of this tool allows you to choose the amount to expand on each side of the lot.

This way you can expand an equal amount to the left and right sides, so the phone and car stops remain centered.

Did they appear at odd points in the middle of the sidewalk, or at the normal ends?

That would limit your expand/contract size to 2 minimum, 1 from each side, yes?

Erm, can't tell you right now, but because I used the first version, that may be happening:

However, this problem was supposedly solved in the latest version, I might try it on another (expendable) lot. ::)

I'm excited about the possibility of being able to change lot sizes, but not awesome enough to try it until I have more information from trusted sources.  ;)


Please, please share!   :-*

basically the concept is pretty simple, you need a floor between each stage however you acheive that is up to you, but the fastest way to get there is having walls the same height as the stages so you can put a floor in between. I use the unlevel wall because I am kinda lazy like that. You could at that point stack regular walls on top of the mini walls. I was also considering that an internal staircase (*not touching any walls) could certainly be doable...but work calls.

In the picture I removed a all the walls inbetween the stages.

Thanks so much for that information, Nectere.  I think I understand what you're saying.  I'll have to play around with it and see if I can figure it out.   :)

I played my enlarged community lot last night, and the sim portals were at the correct positions, on the edges of the lot.

But I guess the reason this worked so well at the first attempt, was that the lot was empty when it was enlarged, I picked a 3x2 template and made it a 5x2 (wider) lot.

To recap, the sim portals work fine, but the car portal doesn't change position.

Can lots be shrunk? If so, you'd be better off taking a 5x5, and cutting off the back to turn it into a 5x2, leaving the streetfront intact.

I didn't even try that, and I shudder at the thought of what could happen to a building cut in half!
And to the sims that were in the extirpated portion at that moment ???

Wouldn't this discussion be more useful in the creator's thread at MTS2 so they can get the benefit of these comments and probably be able to answer questions with more inside knowledge too?

You're right, but then I'd never have learned how to stack stages  ;D

Yeah except that we would have to follow someone elses rules which we all know stifles free thought, expression and creative input...not to mention if you dare go off topic your post gets deleted and the thread locked. pfft.

I am sure if anyone actually wanted to go there and ask questions they would...

Also, it appears that English isn't the creator's first language, which makes it a little more difficult to communicate.

I tried the expander on a lot that I didn't care about that was in an uninhabited part of the neighborhood, just in case of problems. I expanded a 4x3 lot to a 6x6.

When I went into the game, I could clearly see the lot because it was so large and bright green, looking empty (which they said was normal). I tried to move the lot, and could not find a place in the neighborhood that would take it, even though I have a large portion of the neighborhood still empty.

Also, it appeared that it was going across the street, which I thought that they fixed. Plus, I didn't expand the front, according to the UI. There was another post about going into SimPe and checking for direction of the lot. Do we need to do that? The interface calls front 'looking from the street' so I didn't think we needed to do the SimPe thing. Plus it kinda confused me.

Can the lot be expanded in front and therefore move the house back away from the street more? Or does it actually make the lot cross the street with the street in the middle?

I got scared and didn't go into the lot I expanded, but just deleted it. I wanted to try to understand what I am doing a little bit more before trying again.

Seeing as im rather stuped about these thing's, could you give a few more detail's please?

Well my experience has been that if you expand the front, the lot crosses the road but takes its share of the road with it, which doesn't look good.  If it crosses the road and leaves the road where it was, I feel it would be more useful to my purposes.

If you're nervous about wrecking things, can I recommend you start a new neighbourhood (not a linked neighbourhood to your existing one) specially for trying out the more adventurous hacks?  Then if it all goes horribly wrong it won't have affected your serious game.

So am I to assume that the front of the lot is correct in the user interface and I can ignore what it said in that one post about using SimPe to determine the 'front' of the lot?

I am going to do the work on a discardable neighborhood. I just want to understand a little first so I don't spend all my time doing reloads.

Inge, I noticed that he/she posted the smaller lots as a download. Do I put the file in my lots folder?

Thanks

Yes once you have undone the download and got .package files in front of you, put them in your LotCatalog folder.

Well I didn't use simpe at all.   In version 1, I went by which side was facing my in the neigbourhood view.  In the latest version, front is the real front of the lot - ie where the bus comes.

Okay. I tried out the 1x1 lot (and did a little building on the 1x2 lot), and they both seem to work fine. On the 1x1 lot, the carpool simply appears and there's barely enough room for it to appear to move a little before it vanishes. Very cramped. I'd hate to see what would happen if you had a gardener, a maid, a repairman and a fire all break out at once.  :P

The 1x2 lot leaves just enough room for a small but nice one-room house with a driveway. Perfect for a downtown/shopping-type lot.

Do those work with just the base game? Maybe I can use them in a challenge...

Has anyone tried expanding a lot that already has sims living on it? I want to expand a legacy lot but fear repercussions.