More Awesome Than You!

Quick question: I downloaded a lot from MTS2 and, in opening it yesterday to clean out some furnishings, noticed that the builder had moved the mailbox and trashcan (and evidently spawned a second trashcan somehow) away from their usual places. Now, I don't know anything about the trashcans, but I do know that moving the mailbox is probably a Very Bad Thing, given that it controls portals...

So, what I'm wondering is--is there any serious harm in leaving them where they are? Should I move them back to the curb? Or should I just nuke the lot altogether?

Sometimes the mail boxes or the trash canes block the way to the sims who come from work and from school.
I move them with "moveobjects on" to another place, even near the door,  but if I am going to buldoze the house, I move them back to an uncontrolled place, change to "moveobjects off" and buldoze the house.
Till now I didn't have any problems.

The trashcan is probably ok where they put it so you can leave it alone.  Im not sure what to advise about the mailbox...I never touch mine-I don't like taking chances with that.  I've never heard of having a second trashcan. CC , perhaps? or a replacement one? I've heard of people placing the garbage cans in their houses..although that sounds gross and unattractive to me.

I've never had a problem with the trashcan being moved, and it actually helps by making it harder for the trashcan kickers to get to it. :) But I do believe that the mailbox has to be somewhere along that strip between the sidewalk and the street, or things can get wonky on the lot.

I've never had any problems at all moving my mailbox. I keep it by the door so if the house is far back from the road my sims don't have to walk very far to pay the bills. I've never noticed anything wonky in doing so...

I've never heard of a second trashcan, either. But it's not CC--I install all my downloaded lots with the Clean Installer, and all it installed with this lot was the lot itself, no CC. So I'm not sure where the extra trashcan came from.

Looks like I'll be moving the mailbox back where it belongs, at least, though--I'd like to avoid future wonkiness.

I have moved the trash can and the mailbox since...well, since I started building lots. I have never had any kind of trouble with the lot. The only thing that happens that is not normal is the taxi drops the family near the mailbox when they move in. Other than that, nothing. I have no portal trouble, they can still get their mail, and everything else that is mail box related.

I don't see what the big deal is, but if you think it will cause problems with your game, then delete the lot.

And if you are talking about a lot by plasticbox, that extra trash can is not CC. I think he uses some unlocked objects.

You can get trash cans and mailboxes in a collection from http://daydream.etowns.net/

This is useful if you are changing lot zoning, or if a mailbox or trash can gets deleted accidentally. I recommend having it installed, since the game does occassionally kill vital objects for no apparent reason. I've had the mailbox poof out of existance several times.

If you leave the facing 180 degrees clear and accessable, you shouldn't really have any problems. I've only ever experienced problems if the mailbox is closley located adjacent to walls or fences (possibly the Captain Hero carpool causing the problem, as the Sim needs to reside to the side for the carpool flying animation). With that said, I always move the trash can and mailbox on lots.

The Backdoor Lane lots are awesome, I have a new hood specifically with those. Hopefully plasticbox will create more community lots though. :P

If you don't want multiple trash cans (I had problems with sims favouring a single bin and walking great miles to make use of it), Windkeeper made decorative fake objects which are equally as effective.
Available here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=153293 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=153293). The mailbox recolours are also good: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=151949 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=151949).
On TSR, there is a similar set of recolours which you can apply in-game with the design tool instead of only a single replacement file found on MTS2.

On a similar topic... does anyone know of an invisible trash can recolor? I'd love to have one.

I think it would be weird to see Sims dropping garbage and have it just disappear...

Yeah, and then how would you know if someone kicked it over?

Well, I tend not to notice the visible trashcans have been knocked over until the roaches show up, so...  ;)

*laughs*

Yeah, me too.

And we all know that Pescado moves his trashcan to the kitchen, because it never needs to be emptied.

I have one. I love it! Visible trashcans on the curb look horrible in pics. I don't spend a lot of time watching my sims take out the garbage so the fact that it just disappears into a void doesn't bother me.  :D
 It's from targa at MTS2 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=92088)

Actually, I leave the trashcan more or less where it is, preferrably pre-kicked. With the trashcan pre-kicked, it can no longer fall over and create a garbage pile (despite nothing having ever been put in it), and can never be kicked again. Then I use bogarted community lot trashcans from ownable businesses, which never need emptying, and put them in places where trash MIGHT theoretically occur, like the kitchen.

Ooh! Cheaty! :D

Silly Emma. It's entirely legitimate to do. You can buy community lot trashcans if you own a business. From there, you can stuff them into your inventory. :P

But then how can you make your sims sick without cheating?

Low logic Sims using the science career reward tend to misuse it and get sick from that.

Is that the "mysterious illness" that seems to cause waking from sleep and plummeting bladder and hygiene? I've got the goddamned plague in my neighborhood and I just canNOT get rid of it.

Me, too! I have a doctor sim who was working in his lab and he suddenly came down with the mysterious illness. He has since infected the entire neighborhood. Every time I cure a sim, someone else gives it to them. I've cured the doctor 6 times, but the plague is already too out of control! I may need to quarantine the town and drop a bomb soon.

Well, yes, it is the supposed mysterious illness. I don't believe that its effects are consistent, though. I've had Sims come down with said "mysterious illness" and get better within a few hours. Actually, I can't remember the last time I had a Sim that got sick.

You could use TwoJeffs' visitor controller to prevent visitors from coming until you have a chance to play each house and root out the problem.

Unfortunately, that still leaves the question of what to do with infected townies...  as soon as you cure your playables and lift the quarantine, the townies will start another epidemic.

-perk- Oooo... infect a townie. Must do that.

In the hood that got infected I ended up using a no-disease hack. Now in a new hood, I quarantine until the sim is well. I hate it when I get the announcement as the sim arrives home from work, I'm always worried they've infected others, as Ness points out, once the townies are infected, you've had it.

Though I didn't have SimPE then, maybe going through all townies and unticking the diseased option - whatever it's called - would cure the townies.

Interesting idea, but it seems like far too much work. I don't even know which townies are infected so that would take a while to go through and I am a person of oh-so-little patience.

So far, not taking my playables to community lots is working, but I think that I'm either going to have to make the doctor go to his community lot office and shove the cure down everyone's throat or do a DAC.

Insim has an option to remove sickness from the whole neighborhood; it's handy when some illness is borked.

Oh. Doh. I am silly, I never thought of that :D

Download the Insimenator. You can spawn any of it's (its'?) parts on any community lot.

- Spawn the Medical mode:

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Insimmedical.jpg)

- Click on the sim you want to infect:

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/getill.jpg)

Same goes for private lots.

The plague I could not get rid of in base game, was vastly better after
1.  I installed OFB which changed the rules so disease doesn't spread on community lots
2.  I stopped saving when visitors were on the lot

I'd cure a sim, go to another lot, invite them over and have them arrive coughing and sick again.  I decided that the game was vastly confused by a sim who was well on the saved home lot, but sick on other saved lots.  DK if that's right, but I have got the plague behaving sensibly now I save sensibly - or maybe it was just OFB fixed something.

A little OT, but has anyone ever had a cold or flu deteriorate in pneumonia?
Even if I forcefully keep Sims awake and working during their entire sickness they just get better.

It takes real determination to kill them off from being ill.  You have to keep them away from anything comforting at all - so only partially eaten meals (to keep them from starving) and make them sleep standing up; no sitting ever.  It still takes several sim days.

I have done several intensive tests with killing sims but admit I get bored trying to kill them from starvation, by flies and/or illness - takes waaaaaaaaaaay too long.  Mind you none is as hopeless as trying to get them killed by satellite the 'natural' way.  That's what Rodney's Death Creator is for.

I should look into the disease code then... code up a more deadly flu/cold. Or hope for someone who actually knows what he is doing, to do so instead.
Satellite -- with twojeff's increased odds, I have had two deaths from it thus far (over a few hundred Sim days).

oh excellent. It's just so annoying to think you have it licked, then have a wedding party and as soon as the visitors start arriving, you start getting the pop ups about so and so being sick.