My Secret Science Club is Don Lotharios House

[Faizah]

That's kind of funny -- in an 'I won't be playing Pleasantview any time soon' sort of way -- as Don Lothario's home is frequently my own little science club, and Don my lab rat. More biology really. He could have his woohoos, as long as they satisfied my curiousity about sim genetics. My most bred sim, he had over 30, to 30 different sims, in one of my earliest installs, but I never did get any 'memorable' spawn from him. Cassandra, on the other hand, spawned what would later become my pollination tech.

To get back on topic, if it were my game, I'd just remodel Don's lot to suit. Put in a few telescopes, ant farms, etc... Does the hobby instructor still show up? If so, it might be salvageable, if a little fiery and ball-shaped.

Second thing I'd try, being fairly less awesome, would be to restart Pleasantview from scratch...

I'll have a look in my recently restarted Pleasantview. I think I'll use Don.

...

Don got in, went to the [correct] lot, went home again. I used 'Walk to lot...' if that makes any difference.

[Zazazu]

Sounds like your neighborhood has crosslinked lot entries. I think that's a BFBVFS.

I have blank hobby lots in my custom 'hood, but I'm not entirely sure I didn't do it to myself in a half-assed attempt to prevent getting crappy Maxis fug in my lot catalog (why can't I delete the damned hotels? WHY!?!). So of course there's no way to edit the hobby lots. Is there a way to replace the files with files for a built lot? I have about half an idea, but the half that's missing is the one that explains what I'm thinking.

[danicast]

Trashy hexbin code inside the lot. Evict the lot, is the only solution.

I did exactly this same thing in one lot, hexediting:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,11098.0.html
Big hole, you are seeing the hood foundation.

No solution, lot is lost. It doesn´t affects the rest of the hood. 

[Zazazu]

Danicast, I think I'm having some communication issues here.

Basically, are you saying:
1. There is no way to replace the lot with a valid lot.
2. Replacing the hex code of a secret lot with the hex code of an existing lot will work (this would be super-easy).

[Tigerlilley]

Ok so it turns out.. I'm not 100% on this, but I think my game spawns more than one hobby lot.



At first I thought this was just a graphical error, but now it seems like those lots are different places.  (Yes I realise thats not the Science lot but its the same for all my hobbies).

Basically, the first "Hobby" lot in the phonebook is Dons house.  The next two are the correct Science club.

My arts and crafts lot does this too.  I haven't been to Fake Backwards House Club yet for that one though.  To be honest, Fake Backwards Houses are a helleva lot more interesting than the clubs.  Whoever designs EA lots needs to be shot in the face.

[danicast]

1. There is no way to replace the lot with a valid lot.

Yes, there is, but you must evict that one, is corrupted.

2. Replacing the hex code of a secret lot with the hex code of an existing lot will work (this would be super-easy).

Not exactly.
This kind of weirdness is generated by some trash code, data corruption. Can be at the header of the file or at the end of the file. If you be able to safe clean the hexbin code of that particular lot replacing the header or the end of file for a clean code, is possible that you save the lot. It´s what I was trying to make in my game. Since I always have fresh backups of everything, I don´t really needed to try to save the lot, I just evicted and replaced by an old copy. Then I edited again and everything went fine.

[Zazazu]

When you say "evict", do you mean "delete"?

If so, that won't work for me. I have no original hobby lots, and honestly I'd rather not get those EAxis fug things. I'd like to make my own and replace the reference within the game code. It should be possible, I just have to actually download the SimPE QA and look at things. Just not tonight...had a rough day and I really can't take a code-reading headache.

Too bad there isn't a "changelotzoning hobbyfitness" code!