Decorative Buildings and Lots - Is it possible to calculate distances?

[edalbformat]

To create decorative lots is not more than a creative activity, but I've been thinking - is it possible to make a practical use of it to simulate welfare? I mean, when creating a hood I would like to make distinct districts that would say if a Sim living in it is rich or poor.
Decorative lots containing public buildings like school, hospitals and other essential services could be marks for calculating how well located a Sim family is at the present moment.
Playing a Sim family on a lot and saving the game regularly, causes that after a while many problems and bugs start to be generated from aparently nothing that could be explained.
Sometimes it is necessary to evict a family, buldoze the lot and start all over again to solve bugged lots.
This could be used to move the family to another district or even another sub-hood. I've been dreaming to make it in a way that it simulates that those families are moving to a better, or worse, living conditions.
It is not that easy once Sims have no clue of their real living standard, but things could be changed if they were aware of how bad is the neighborhood they are living in. Mainly when talking about fortune Sims. Would not be fascinating if they could start to concentrate their interest on specific ways to reach the gold pot over the rainbow?
Presently I can place a shack side by side to a palace and this makes no difference at all in terms of game-play. In real terms, it would drop the value for the palace.

[Karen]

Playing a Sim family on a lot and saving the game regularly, causes that after a while many problems and bugs start to be generated from aparently nothing that could be explained.

This is a little misleading.  While I won't deny that occasionally a lot can become "buggy" or corrupted, simply playing that lot frequently and saving the game regularly doesn't cause the lot to become corrupted.  It's possible to play the same lots for months or even years (real time).

Presently I can place a shack side by side to a palace and this makes no difference at all in terms of game-play. In real terms, it would drop the value for the palace.

Well, I suppose you could use the familyfunds cheat to reduce the amount of money that the richer families have when a poor family moves in nearby, if you want to simulate something like that.  But your Sims have no awareness that there *are* houses nearby, let alone whether the neighbors are rich or poor.

Karen

[croiduire]

Interesting idea, but AFAIK unsupported by current code (although, admittedly, I don't know much). That may be a feature (or potential feature) in the upcoming L&P where it's rumoured that sims will be able to wander all around the hood.