Question--a bunch of character files re-generated in my game after Uni install

[Regina]

This is very odd, indeed!  I have no clue about this and am hoping someone else might.

The neighborhood I'm mainly playing is Strangetown.  Before I started playing I used the deleteallcharacters code so I could start fresh.  Then I made around a dozen sims and turned into Townies.  At this time I had TS2 and NL installed as I hadn't bought University yet.  After a while of playing, I attached a Downtown neighborhood which generated all the Downtownies and appropriate service workers which is what I wanted because I don't want the game over-bloated with sims.

I've been keeping the normal service workers to a minimum, only generating them as needed (ie:  newspaper, mail delivery, grocery delivery, etc.  Of course the family got burglarized so there's one burglar and one cop in the neighborhood, and no doubt a couple more NPCs I'm not thinking of.)

After a few sim weeks of playing this family I bought and installed University.  Being the curious sort I am, I loaded up SimPE to see how many new sims had been added to the neighborhood with the University neighborhood.  Much to my surprise, over 100 sims were added to my game!  I was thinking that although Uni has quite a few NPCs and of course the default sims in the college town that seemed like a lot of files!

I started scrolling down the list and seeing very familiar names popping up:  Lola Singles, Chloe Singles, Ajay Loner, Laslo Curious and a bunch more names I didn't recognize but that looked a little odd.  When I started looking at these files I noticed they're not regular game-generated sims.  Their files are weird.  For example, every one of them shows up with Life Section Unknown, Remaining Days 0, and treat as male, whether they were a male or female character.  They have no aspirations, no interests, no personality, no astrology signs, no skills, no nothing.  It's as if they're blank character files--all 34 of them!

I am wondering if these weird files could be the reason I'm seeing such poor performance in my game since installing Uni.  I've only played in one other neighborhood and that was with a single sim, so I don't know whether or not the same problems are occurring in that neighborhood or not.  I'm also wondering if there's any safe way to get rid of these files.

Any and all advice is more than welcome!

[ZephyrZodiac]

Sounds like you installed over your existing hood.  If you have a pre install back up, I'd suggest you have that ready, delete the present hood, uninstall and reinstall uni, then delete the neighbourhood it generates and then install your backup.  You'll still get the NPCs which Uni generates when you first load your game, but hopefully you won't get all these other files. 

Alternatively, you could make sure they have no relationships, make a list of the file numbers and delete them.  (But if those file numbers are gaps between your previous files, then they'll probably just get filled again, unless you go straight into CAS and make a few new families.)

[Regina]

That was the weird thing about it!

These are the steps I did:
#1.  Backed up my neighborhood and almost all important files (forgot my lot catalog, though) then re-started my PC.
#2.  Uninstalled Nightlife then re-started my PC.
#3.  Installed Uni, re-started PC and started up game, entered Strangetown, exited the game, re-started PC.
#4.  Installed NL, entered the game, exited the game.
#5.  Restored my backed-up neighborhood, re-started the game, enabled custom content, shut off the game and re-started.

I originally thought as you did because I accidentally did that in a neighborhood once, but it wasn't the case in this one.  It's very strange--but then again, it is Strangetown!

And oh, that reminds me!  You know where the real Strangetown is?  It's a community located about 10 or 15 miles to the south of me!  I kid you not--you drive off the main highway onto a roughly paved road and keep driving west.  After a couple of miles you run into this area with houses spread pretty sparsely, one house has something bizarre in its yard that looks like a look-out tower.  Another house has what looks like a radio tower or some such in their yard.  There's everything back there from beat up old trailer houses to spiffy new homes.  It's a hoot!

[ZephyrZodiac]

Maybe the Maxoids live there?

Did you take out the game generated files before you put your backup in, or did you overwrite them?  And have you got gaps in the file numbers?  If you have (ie. N002_User00030 followed by N002_User00036?39/41 etc., then the game generated files will fill those gaps, which may be why you have a Curious - if the rest of the family is overwritten by your files, he would become unlinked.

You may need to use your back up again with just the original Sims2+NL installation (if you kept the original and just copied it back rather than moved it) and make a lot of new CAS sims which would fill all those gaps.  You can then check the Characters Folder before you install Uni to make sure you don't have any gaps, then replace the Maxis installation with your own, then when you load the game, the game will generate a set of NPCs etc. using the filenumbers which come after all the original block - if there is already a file at say User00030, it won't replace it with it's own User00030.

You would eventually need to put those new families into your game as they will interact with your sims while sitting in the famiies bin anyway, but at least they will be sims that you have made rather than the Maxoids.

[Regina]

Yeah--unfortunately, I tend to back up my neighborhood once in a while so over-wrote that back-up with a newer one.  You know how it is, there's always going to be at least once you shouldn't have been so on-the-ball about backups! 

I'm thinking what you're explaining is likely the case, as in for whatever reason, the game used these files to fill in empty slots.  The character files are rather random.  Shoot, there's even a mail carrier in there!  Most of them are random Townies.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, it would be whatever character file has the number which is missing from your set of files that would fill the gap.  So yes, you could easily get additional maids, mail Carriers etc. since if you at some point deleted some extra characters with SimPE then you would have those gaps just waiting to be filled!  And if your total number of files was lower than the total of the Uni files (and with all those professors and dormies etc, that wouldn't surprise me) you would end up with some of those playable files from the base game reappearing and unlinked as they wouldn't have the rest of the family etc.  I only use deleteallcharacters in custom hoods, so at least those base game files won't appear.

[Regina]

I haven't used SimPE to delete any characters from this neighborhood because the last time I did it I ended up with some questionable results.  Do you think ultimately if I deleted these files and their corresponding character files that it would cause problems?  I was thinking I could delete a few at a time and generate some service workers or what have you to fill in the empty slots.

From the looks of everything they're lacking (life, personality traits, etc., etc.) it does look more and more like these are merely placeholders, but of course when a new sim is born or generated, they're not replacing these files but making new ones, because these files are already here.

[ZephyrZodiac]

If they have no relationships, then deleting them shouldn't be problematic at all. I simply use the classic version of SimPE to get the file numbers (which I've never been able to find in the new NL version) make a note of them and then go into the characters folder and delete them myself.

 If you would rather not do that, you could change them from unlinked to linked, replace all the character data, interests etc. that are missing, then use the teleporter shrub and mind control mirror to get them into your game as playable sims.

[Regina]

They definitely don't have any relationships or anything.  Everything for these sims is skewed! LOL

Oh, I had a devil of a time trying to find the character number info in the new SimPE interface!  Choose the sim, then click 'More' and there's an option for opening the character file, which shows the number of the file.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That's why I keep a shortcut for the Classic version on my desktop too, and only use the new interface when really it's the only option for something, I find it a swine to cope with, and quite often if you click on some other option, you can't seem to get back to the original page.  And you have to wait for it to load everything up too!