Indeed some autonomous gazing would be nice. It's one of those options that just never gets used because I never even think about it while playing. To see a sim do it on their own just for the sheer heck of doing it as an alternative to, oh say, lounging on the couch or relaxing on the bed, would be grande.

So using the lot debugger's rerandomizer didn't help. The game is still choosing to spit out majority .80 skintoned with blond hair (and a couple red) sims.  it is in fact choosing one of my custom skins rather than the .90 default. I have no idea why the game would decide that skintone to be the most popular.

Meh. Yay for SimPE. I just need to find out if it's possible to change hair the same way it is to change skintone and I'll get over it.

I'll give the debugger a whirl. I did it the old fashioned way (loaded up CAS and hit the random button about a dozen times) and then went about building before moving my sims in.

I've gotten a few with red hair, too, but the game is definately loving the dark skin tones... and one particular custom dark skintone more than the rest even. One of those things you like to giggle at on the random sim, but when it's one right after the other, followed by the white guy with black dreads, and then back to the dark-skinned blondes... well. 

Long story short I'm spawning some dormies for my Uni and they're being spewed out almost all (definately +90%) are being generated with a dark skintone (my tones between 7-9) and blond hair. Since I haven't had a problem with townies being spawned with this much same-ness before, I'm thinking this is one of those incidents of stuckness the game sometimes gets... stuck... in.

Anyone found a trick or 3 that relieves these little sticky moments?

Hopefully someone with more computer knowledge will come along and offer some better insight for you in regards to this but I would like to just add that I, also, have a 7800GS and have had many many many an issue with it. Same deal basically with the game/system locking up until eventually the thing just fried out. Fortunately (maybe not) it was still under warranty , so after a few calls to tech support and finding out that they have had issues reported to them often on this card but have no idea how to fix it, they shipped out a replacement.
I've had that one in and running fine for a bout 2 months and then just last week BAM lock ups/freezes/blue screen of *error*.

This card also seems to have some serious issues with  Driver updates. i.e. I can't update them. Every attempt results in a high pitched screeching from my speakers and a flash to blue screen with an error report regarding the driver - of which for 6 months (the total time I've had the computer and from whence the issue with the 1st card started) neither Nvidia or Dell's (I have a Dell  ) support has been able to figure out a fix for even though they have on record that this is an issue with this card from other users.

Personally, I think it's nothing to do with the computer itself and everything to do with the card just being manufactured crap. My advice: Get something else as soon as you can. I know I will be.


edited for clarification and typoes

So an update here, since I don't want to spoil Jordi's pretty as yet untarnished thread with useless info.

I put the hack back in, the teen now having an A+ and a few skills (including logic) built up, and off to school he went with no problems at all. All other sim kids are going to school just fine, including those in private school.

So the guessing game is: Was it because he had an F grade and 0 skills? Or was the game still reading him as an adult and a few sim days had to pass? Or was it just some really weird random out of the blue will only happen when the moon is full on a Sunday on the 3rd day of the 7 year hoolabalah when Saturns rings align with Jupiter...


I'm sure I'll load up some test families and do some random experimenting with skills and grades and a couple more de-agings but being that it's now my weekend and I've had one hell of a hellacious week at work I think I'll just do some playing for now. 

Ahh well. Sorry about that.

Newp, portal wasn't blocked and I started off with 0 flavor packs. Thought maybe the "adult perks" was interfering being that it's a teen living parentless, so I threw in No Adult Teens to try, which didn't work.

End of the week and he's got an A now, I'll put the hack back in and see if it happens again.


To note: I was using this (the InTeenimated version) with InTeen in Pets, before Seasons was released and had no problems with normal teens going to school. I haven't tried with any normal teens in Seasons yet. I started this project right after installing the new InTeen.  So I'll play around with it a bit more the rest of the week and post whatever I find over at Jordi's Chop Shop.

Meh. It would be great for the orphans if it didn't have the exact same problem as SimPE in that it's showing (for me) things are orphaned that I know for a fact aren't.

I'll stick with S2PCI for all my other organizational needs.

After going back in to play for a bit, now that he's off to school and everything is functioning normally, it occurred to me that it couldn't have been the grade level that was affecting it because I did try to send him off after adjusting his grade up to a C and he still wouldn't go.

Nevertheless, removing the InTeenimated Harder Grades did indeed solve the problem, so there's some wierd conflict going on somewhere. I'll pop it back in and see if I can get an error log.


ETA: Error Logs attached. The first one I forced the 2nd one occured on it's own when I tried to manually force him to go to school.

Problem solved.

I have the InTeenimated Syberspunk's harder grades in and that, indeed, was what was causing this. I think it has to do with the grade level and his inability to afford any logic building toys, though, rather than an actual conflict. I think it's coded that way on purpose - which is fine, just makes it impossible to start a teen off going to school in this fashion.

Anyway, temporarily removed to get this kid rolling. Thanks for the replies!

I posted this over at the InTeen forum because that mod is the one that made this idea possible to begin with. I thought, though, that with the variety of people that come here I may have a better chance at finding a solution:

I'm attempting to complete an experiment (of sorts) that I had started a few Xpacks ago and never finished. The goal was to populate an entire hood playing Legacy style with the added twist of starting the founding sim out as a teen. InTeenimater and the ability for teens to live on their own is what made this possible to begin with. Having long ago given up that hood (along with the entire game) I no longer have any reference point and created a spanking new hood and fresh off the CASboat sim for such purposes.

Ok so, with the sim modder the sim is aged from adult to teen. Their grade, naturally, is set as an F. The teen starts at the full 14 days but just in case I've also intalled the No Adult Teens flavor pak. The problem I'm running into is that the sim just will not get on the bus to go to school. I've made sure his mood is entirely green and have even tried adjusting his grade up to C with no change. The action just disappears from his queue - no matter where on the lot he is standing. I've had him run right up to the bus doors and then clicked for him to go to school. The action disappears and he wanders off to attempt to read a book...

Now I don't think this is an InTeen issue (unles something has changed since the last time I tried this). When I did the experiment before I had InTeen and the teen had absolutely no trouble going to school starting from day 2 (Tuesday) when the bus showed up. He followed to auto-queue just fine.

So I'm hoping maybe some tossing about will pull out a clue as to what's making this particular teen *not* go to school. Any ideas or little/well known facts on what would make a sim teen ignore the bus queue?

I'm thinking this is random. I tried altering the seasons from the default setting in my game and my lots still loaded on the last day of the first season chosen.

Aha! So it is something that's passed down through generations. This is what I was looking for. The "twins gene", so to speak. Thanks, Mim!

I think you're probably right. After having gone through just about everything I could think of to go through in SimPE and doing more searches it does indeed look like the game doesn't actually classify any sims as "twins". Ah well. Thanks for the reply at least.

I've searched the SimPE site, MTS2, and here for anything relatively close to this question but can't find anything that actually answers it.

Is it possible to mark 2 existing sims as being twins and if so how? I've found a few threads with information on editing the pregnancy token - but this pair of "twins" was made in CAS as toddlers and the mother has no pregnancy memory. I've never - not once ever since base TS2 - had twins. I've never delved into the info on it becuasea I honestly wasn't that interested. This new family, though, is based on fictional characters for a themed neighborhood and the brothers are twins. So if there is a way to mark them as such I would like to do that.


Also, is the likelihood of having twins a trait that's passed down through generations in the game? I think I remember reading somewhere that it is but I don't know for sure if I actually read it or if I did if it was a truth.

edited to clarify

Start here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=5861.0

That's a complete tutorial on how to succesfully create completely clean neighborhoods and has links to all the related threads with added information on all the questions regarding townie customization you have been asking for. It's excellent work. Read it more than once. Bookmark it. Copy it into a .doc for offline viewing.

In case you miss the link in Jordi's tutorial, the empty templates and how to install them are here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4306.0

Good luck.

De ja vu?

I recall there being a rumor regarding color preferences in Sims1, also. never could figure that one out. My mind is old and creakity but I seriously seem to remember reading an official statement somewhere about if you chose a particular objectand your sim didn't like it to try a different color of the same object. Or something.

I never really followed up on that but... if it was true I don't see why they wouldn't have done the same for TS2. Not that I really care if my sims like what color their bed is or not. I don't seem to have much environment score trouble and where I do I let them suffer with it.

Just in case you ever run into the "now how the heck did I do that?" on this again... it's the L key on your keyboard. (no ctrl, alts or shifting involved)

I haven't had a fussy kid yet... though I'm waiting. I know it's just around the corner with 3 currently on the way and full houses already.

My routine so far: Play, feed, cuddle, bathe, set on the floor for a bit and attempt to have the caregiver pee/eat, change diaper, put in the crib and take care of the parent. Doing this twice a day has so far kept 'em quiet and happy.

Murphy's law for my game. I never had the problem of the maid or macro-cleaning sims get stuck on the fishtank until after installing Pets p2. I haven't tested the maid but I do have macro-cleaning sims get stuck now.

TwoJeff's fix installed now. 

Only mod I am begging for the Seasons' return of (at the moment) is Dizzy's No Attraction mod. Farting hears all over the place. I forgot how annoying it actually was.

How strange is this!  I recall seeing one incident of flashing after getting pets. That was with a vampire and at the time I had somebody's mesh alter for vampire teeth.. made them smaller and I can't recall who they were by but it was off MTS2. Anyway I figured they weren't updated for pets, removed them and have never seen another flash since.

Maybe I just don't use enough accessories?

Sadly, it may soon become a MATY joke, too, as Macro...Clean with a fishtank in the house gets your sim stuck in the same constant loop.

Ah I see. I checked all through the main Podium board to make sure it hadn't been brought up but didn't think to check in Oops/ Sorry about that.

Over there at that place, it looks like they went ahead and updated the pet's patch and decided not to actually let anyone know about it.

At least I don't recall seeing


On the first one or that it even needed to be as it was the first pets patch that borked those things.

ETA: Also on the list that might not have been there before (I don't really recall)