From what I can tell, it allows you to install the newer store sim3packs that s3pe can't import because of the unexpected file type.

However, after tracking the source of the program's origins back to an unknown site in Portuguese,  I will not be testing this out.

If you're using printscreen (or were), I'm assuming you don't care about the GUI being in the shot.  If that's the case, you could download FRAPs and assign your printscreen key as the default picture taking key.  It'll save the image in the FRAPs folder.

You can download it at http://www.fraps.com/.

That pizza mod would rock, Ness!  Especially if JM coded the macrotastics to loop the 'eat pizza' command until the sim was full, rather than having to use it after each slice.

And I've used the food in the inventory trick for a lot of sims (especially teens just about ready to move to college), but would actually like to use the bots, instead of just making them and selling them.

Bleh.

Oh well, thank you all for your help and feedback.  It's much appreciated.

Well crud.  *grumble grumble*

Guess I'll need to find someone to hack the munchi-bot to bring something like full turkeys or serving platters of pork chops.  Hehe.

Thanks for letting me know about that, JM, much appreciated!

Selzi, I could hug you for that but...since we don't know each other, it'd probably be a little awkward to be hugging, so accept my thanks instead!

You're right, on the original run.  However, when testing it again, when he was barely hungry, the sim sat there and ate for 2 hours before I manually canceled the action.  I tried it again immediate after, and he would've kept eating before I stopped him after half an hour.

So, they eat until the box is empty, even if they're completely full, which is annoying.

Okay, here's the scenario:  My sim came home from work, nearly starving.  His munchie-bot immediately flew off and brought home some Chinese takeout.  I click on macrotastics and to my surprise, there was no 'eat' command available.  So, I manually click the food and have my sim eat it, no problem, except that apparently the hack that prevents sims from overeating doesn't apply to the chinese food either.

So..my questions to JM are:

Can you update Macrotastics to allow you to use the eat command (as well as pizza if it's not already there)?
Can you update the hack that prevents you from stuffing your face to work with chinese food as well (again with pizza if it doesn't already)?

And to any modder: Can anyone make it so that you actually eat chinese food faster?  It took the sim almost 3 hours to refill his hunger bar.

I think the asperation recharge hack is from Pescado, but it could be from Twojeffs and I just don't remember.

Regardless, is there any way to get the Elixir of Life and the new pet dish asperation reward to be rechargable?  I'd greatly appreciate it, if it could be done.

The only way that I know of to change the music for those, is to choose a different speaker.  Each one is a different color because they only play one station.  Or...if you want to be able to have the normal stations, just pull the speakers off the walls and put in a normal stereo.  Just dont' accidently mark it for sale.

oh bruddah! i ALMOST did this last night (i don't like the uniforms because of the hair thing, too. you should be able to decide what you want to keep) cuz the uniform i used stripped my sim of his eyebrows and goatee even though it had NOTHING to do with sideburns n goatees-lol! but i got sidetracked by the coffee maker n forgot-wheeeeewwwww! OFB just might break me of my sim addiction at this rate   
[/quote]

It's a bit of a pain, but you can decide what to keep.  When you go to assign a uniform to an employee, just scroll through the head/hair section until you find their normal one, and assign it for that employee, then add that uniform to your choices.  The only annoying thing is, you'll essentially be making a new uniform for each person, unless they're twins and have identical hair.

Just wanted to let everyone know that after looking through all the face templates, I've mixed and matched them, then started a brand new neighborhood, letting the game generate the NPCs.

I'm loving it.  Not all of my sims are gorgeous, but none of them are so hideously butt-ugly that I feel a need/want to have them take up residence in local cemetary.   

Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions!

...

I think I love you...or least, would be willing to raise your children as long as you had them with someone else first. 

Thank you so very much for the information.  Now that I know there are several different ways to do it and most can be combined, I'm very very pleased.  And I'll be getting that DMA appearance changer to use in my already established hoods so I don't have to start them from scratch.

Again, thank you so much!

Heya, thanks Motoki.  Yeah, after I'd sent the PM, I'd thought of a few more questions so I figured I'd just go ahead and post instead of constantly bothering you with it.

And I'd read about the boolprop way to restock, but I meant to restock with just CAS created sims I've made, no more butt-ugly game generated townies for me...plus...some of their swimsuits and pjs/undies are just plain hideous.

Okay, so after looking around here and quite a few other forums, I've yet to find a tutorial or even full answers/help to my question so, here goes...

If I create a new neighborhood, or use an existing one (such as Strangetown), and want to completely restock my townies, what exactly do I do?

I'm fairly sure I've worked out how to do it in the standard neighborhood; deleteallcharacters, create the people I want to be townies in CAS, and use Inge's bush to add them to the townie pool.

But..does that work with downtown, the university area (dormies), and the new shopping district as well?  If not, what would I do to make sure to only replenish those areas with sims I've created and then be able to add them to the pool?

Also, NPCs such as maids, gardners, headmasters, etc are all re-created on a 'need' basis by the game so I'm not able to create custom versions of them as per above, correct?

Any help would be very tremendously appreciated.

Edited to add: Also, do I need to tweak their skills or will the game auto-assign skills and such once I've put them into their respective pools?

I agree with ya on that part (over at MTS2).  Trying to wade through 5+ pages of "Thank you" when looking for additional information, notes, (or in the rare times it happens) other people's post about what they've experienced that's wrong with the item, is annoying at best.

Wish the mods would clamp down on enforcing the use of the thank you button.  I mean..that's what it's there for.

On a side-note and totally OT, Motoki, I'd sent you a PM yesterday.  Was curious if you'd gotten it or not.

Er...how?  All this does is prevent Sim-family-you-created A, from blowing their money on the stupid crap at Sims-family-you-created B's shop that you only want the townies to buy.

It stops sims you play from showing up, and thus buying.  It doesn't affect townies at all.

If you want Family A to buy from Family B's store, just play Family A, and go to Family B's lot.

Of course, this only works if it's not a home business.

Feel free to PM away...along with your GM name.   I wanna know who you were now!

*cackles like mad*  How far back do you go?  I remember the days my Moonie would open rogue Moongates in front of the bank and unleash Void Spawn to clear out the retards.

Telekinetic Throw?  TKT?  ...as in a Moonmage?

Hehe, yep.  Especially about the RPG part.  I've never understood why people thought a warrior should be balanced to a mage who should be balanced to a thief, etc.  It's why I play the Palladium system.  They flat out say, it's 'not balanced' because not everything is or should be equal.

Of course, YMMV, but for the most part, I've found that both (Sims 2 and Palladium) are balanced just right...for me (and the people I play Palladium with).

That's actually a good point, Paper.  The Sims (1 or 2) has never been balanced, even with just the core game.  Also, keep in mind that when I'm using the word balanced, I'm using it coming from an RPG perspective of balance...which I've never agreed with anyways. 

Each new EP adds new options and features (actual features, not just those bug 'features'), but...none of them are needed to play the game.  In fact, you could have all of them installed and never once use one of the new features (as long as the new feature is selectable).  Of course, that'd be a really odd thing to do...but you could do it.

It also helps when saying something is balanced or imbalanced, what your perspective of those terms should be.  I'm pretty positive that my perspective is going to be different from everyone else's.

And, like just about everything else about this game (using cheats/hacks etc.), it's all a matter of your play style.  If for you the game is not balanced, not everyone else will think the same thing, and if asked why, you'll get about hundred different answers.


Yeah but...do you -really- wanna be friends with those butt-ugly townies?   

You only need to charge admission if your lot is like a spa (hot tubs and swimming pool everywhere).  If you're just running a resturant, take out the electronic charging thingy, and put in a podium, then assign a sim to host and one to serve.

As far as 'balance' goes, that wasn't thrown out the window with this EP.  I mean, when could you buy a house for under 50k?  As for their wages, take a look at what your sims made during their jobs when then were at job levels 4-7 (roughly the same levels for bronze-gold badges)...it's about the same.

As far as sleeping on the lots, I've no clue about that at all, since if I wanted to sleep on the same lot that my business is on, I'd just start a home business...but then, you can't have the resturant podiums or stove on a residential lot without using a hack.  *shrugs*

Edited to add:  http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3307.0  ...that has a link to a hack for sleeping on community lots.

Hehe, nah, not a tough crowd.  We're just very bit..er...opinionated, and not afraid to say so. 

Personally, I have a TON of custom content in my game.  Unfortunately, I don't use a good 90% of it because to me, their priced wrong.  Cloned expensive beds (normally a couple thousand simoleans) for only 300, a really nice looking end table (cloned from the cheapest one in the game) for 2k!    Same with wallpapers that I think are only 'meh' priced in the 20s, where the really neat ones are only priced for just 1simolean.

Until I figure out how to re-price (and in some cases re-catagorize) those objects, walls, and floors, I won't use them.

Also, for the record, I did download the collections so I could see the evil kite and water thing, the promptly deleted them.  I'm going to have to slave my sims until they make at least one of each of those now, Hehe.  Thanks for letting me see them!

That actually made me smile, and yes, I agree with you on that part.  Any sim I've had that went through childhood (even the shy and mean ones) haven't had a problem having enough friends. 

In fact, that got me to thinking, and sometime tonight, I'm going to start a whole new neighborhood without the 'no friends for jobs' hack and see if I can cut it.  Plus, my current neighborhood is growing pretty stagnant and a brand-spanking new one always makes me giddy since I still enjoy building and landscaping the homes even more than I do playing the actual game.

I just need to PM someone first...

I just had to comment on this one -

I could never for the life of me (even with TS1) see why friends were required to increase your job level.  Since when did you need friends, who had absolutely no actual connection to your occupation, to advance?  Also, if I purposely made an extremely shy, and maybe not-so-nice sim, because of a (in my opinion) stupid requirement to advance in jobs, my sims would be stuck at L3 pretty much for ever.  I'm failing to see where the fun is in that.

Oh and yes, I use the 'no friends for jobs' hacks.  It just makes no sense for me to -have- to make my mad scientist sim have a ton of friends.  I mean, look at Dr. Frankenstien...