Please help with neighborhood & EP installations

[zeich]

I haven't played Sims in ages because my computer has been having some hardware issues. Now that I can play again, I've decided to buy all the EPs that I don't have yet. I currently have University, Nightlife and Open for Business installed.

I haven't played any of them very much because of lack of time and the aforementioned computer problems, but I have four custom neighborhoods. One of them, that I created before the Nightlife EP, I cleared out completely with deleteallcharacters. Only recently I found out that it's not a good thing to do, so I wonder if I've done some irreparable damage to the neighborhood or is there some way I could fix it? In the neighborhood I have 66 character files, 76 Sim Description files, 276 Sim DNA files and 243 Sim Wants and Fears -files. Is this normal or has something gone horribly wrong?

I also wonder if there's some way that I could easily get rid of, maybe even hopefully completely avoid all the townies that I suppose will come with the EPs. I have notownieregen but I suppose that won't help me at all? I've tried my best to keep the neighborhood mentioned in the last paragraph as small and un-cluttered as possible so I haven't even created any sub-neighborhoods there but the University one in fear of dozens of ugly townies and the unavoidable BFBVFS caused by too many Sims. Is that just an irrational fear?

Also, is there something important to remember to do when installing Pets, Seasons and Bon Voyage? Are there, for example, some downloads aside from hacks that could implode my game and that I should specifically find new versions for?

Please bear with me and help me with my problems! I tried searching the forum for answers but I didn't feel that I found enough information. I hope my english is comprehensible, please ask me to clarify if there's anything I've worded awkwardly. Thank You in advance!

[Skadi]

To make clean hoods without townies, use the empty templates found in peasantry. As for your hacks, were you going to play between installing the expansions or install them all at once?

The NL hood that you DAC'ed - did you ever play it?

[Invisigoth]

Jordi wrote a really helpful tutorial on creating a clean custom hood, here. Zarkan wrote another useful tutorial that will teach you how to decustomize custom content so that townies can be created with custom eyes, clothes, etc. You can find that one here.

[zeich]

To make clean hoods without townies, use the empty templates found in peasantry. As for your hacks, were you going to play between installing the expansions or install them all at once?

The NL hood that you DAC'ed - did you ever play it?

I'm going to install them all at once and not play between them.

And yes I've played it a bit, mostly just created some families (about 10), built them houses and played a bit with most of them.

Jordi wrote a really helpful tutorial on creating a clean custom hood, here. Zarkan wrote another useful tutorial that will teach you how to decustomize custom content so that townies can be created with custom eyes, clothes, etc. You can find that one here.

Thank you! Is there a way to safely import my characters (all 66 of them) from my current DAC'ed neighborhood into the new one? That would include even all the NPCs they've interacted with - a few shopkeepers, maids, the principal of the private school and some deliverypeople if I remember correctly. Or would that be also a big no-no?

[Invisigoth]

Thank you! Is there a way to safely import my characters (all 66 of them) from my current DAC'ed neighborhood into the new one? That would include even all the NPCs they've interacted with - a few shopkeepers, maids, the principal of the private school and some deliverypeople if I remember correctly. Or would that be also a big no-no?

That's generally a VBT. I've heard people say that there are methods to do it safely (as you said moving every sim that's ever interacted with any of the other sims) but I've also heard Pescado say that things can still get FUBARed when trying this. You can clone the sims that you want to keep using simPE's sim surgery (then reclone using body shop before putting them into your game), but that will only clone their appearance. If you want their personalities, interests, turn ons and turn offs, and aspirations to be the same you'll need to write that all down. You won't be able to recover their memories. Unless you're really invested in these sims I wouldn't even bother, but that's obviously your call.

[J. M. Pescado]

I haven't played any of them very much because of lack of time and the aforementioned computer problems, but I have four custom neighborhoods. One of them, that I created before the Nightlife EP, I cleared out completely with deleteallcharacters. Only recently I found out that it's not a good thing to do, so I wonder if I've done some irreparable damage to the neighborhood or is there some way I could fix it? In the neighborhood I have 66 character files, 76 Sim Description files, 276 Sim DNA files and 243 Sim Wants and Fears -files. Is this normal or has something gone horribly wrong?

This seems mostly normal, but you might want to purge the SWAFs that don't correspond to an SDSC and reset the Sim Creation index. Don't touch the SDNAs, or bad things happen.

[DrKeith]

I cannot really help you in any way, but I just wanted to mention that your English is very good. Your post was very comprehensible and nicely laid out. I'm a second-language English speaker myself, and I always appreciate adherence to linguistic rules, and people with a flair for the written word.

[maxon]

I haven't played any of them very much because of lack of time and the aforementioned computer problems, but I have four custom neighborhoods. One of them, that I created before the Nightlife EP, I cleared out completely with deleteallcharacters. Only recently I found out that it's not a good thing to do, so I wonder if I've done some irreparable damage to the neighborhood or is there some way I could fix it? In the neighborhood I have 66 character files, 76 Sim Description files, 276 Sim DNA files and 243 Sim Wants and Fears -files. Is this normal or has something gone horribly wrong?

Your sim DNA and SWAFs totals should be less than the number of sim files (SDSC) files - all those extras came from the sims you deleted with DAC and that's why it's been found to be not a good thing.  It leaves all that crap behind and worse, that crap gets attached to new sims and corrupts their files.  You can delete the SWAFs because they are labelled with the sims name (click on them and find out).  If the SWAF doesn't have a name attached, it isn't attached to anyone.  Deleting sims DNA without the original sim file is not possible because there is no label (easily read anyway) and you can't tell whether the information is attached to a sim or not.  I think the advice, already posted by others, to clone your existing sims (if you really want to keep them) and rebuild using the clean templates is the best advice.