Hundreds of character files

[raynuss]

Firstly, I have all expansions up to AL. I have Pescado's hacks for no townie regen, no stray regen, no Secret Society respawn and his anti-redundancy hack. I'm creating a new neighborhood using the default templates with one shopping district, one downtown, one uni hood and two vacation hoods. I've not "played" the hoods at all. I'm just building houses and decorating the hoods. No custom sims have been created. When I checked the Character folder, it lists 635 character files . I opened the neighborhood in SimPe and it only shows 60 sims and they're all stray pets. The remaining 575 are all labeled "unknown". Also when I open the neighborhood, SimPe spits out a warning that duplicate sims have been found and could cause gameplay problems. The duplicate sims SimPe is referring to are the "unknowns" who all have the same Guid (0x00000000) and inst (0x0000). When I open the Character Folder with Clean Installer, it shows no duplicates and every sim has a name.  What in blue blazes are all these character files? It takes forever to load the neighborhood, because the game has to read all those files. I was advised on another forum site to just delete the character files, but I an hesitant to do that because it can cause the neighborhood to go all wonky and crash the game. Anyone have any suggestions as to how to stop this Eaxis nonsense and get rid of all those extra character files clogging up my game.   

[J. M. Pescado]

Ignore this issue. SimPE is just broken. Is this even AL SimPE? *IS* there even an AL-SimPE yet? Who knows?

[raynuss]

The issue is not whether SimPe works or doesn't, but why I have 650 character files in a hood that I haven't even played yet.  And for your information, yes there is a SimPe for AL, still in testing, but it does exist.  I thought you, of all people,  would know that!

[Emma]

Why would he? Pescado uses 'Ye Olde' SimPe.

[aubreylaraine]

sometimes simpe doesn't update names and pictures, but that may or may not be what's happening to you here. did you just look at the neighborhood or did you actually open the sim browser. i've noticed that if i am missing a sim in the neighborhood section they are marked as unknown until i click on them in the browser. but the duplicate message popup sounds like what i had when i didn't update simpe for pets, 'cause ima dork.

[Gwill]

Unless you are using clean templates you will get lots of characters when you create neighbourhoods.  Pescado's hacks only prevents the game from creating even more as gameplay progresses.

[jsalemi]

Ignore this issue. SimPE is just broken. Is this even AL SimPE? *IS* there even an AL-SimPE yet? Who knows?

Yes, there is -- Inge and Peter have released it in the absence of Quaxi.

[BrokenRobot]

Those character files are townies that were created when you added all those subhoods.  650 shouldn't be enough to cause problems, though.

[raynuss]

Thanks for the nice replies (not you, Pescado!).  But why are there so many?  I checked other hoods that I've played and the most I've found is 487 characters.  My hood with 650 I haven't even played yet.  Won't it generate even more as I play and NPC's are callled by the game? 

[Zazazu]

Have you played the other ones since Apartment Life? The template for AL has around 90 character files. Not 100% sure of the exact number as I threw that crap out before I ever started the game. Do you have more Universities in this 'hood? More vacation areas?

[SnootCB]

This is not unusual, though it is a bit annoying.  I have a brand-new custom 'hood with only 14 CAS or born-in-game sims, but a total of 690 character files, most of which were created after installing AL.  Many of the clique townies generated by AL are not based on actual templates as far as I can tell, because I have mods that allow townies to randomly generate with facial hair, glasses, and alien skin/eyes and about 1/2 to 2/3 of the new townies are generated with one or more of the above.  This new neighborhood has only a base, one downtown, one business district, and one university.  I finally got tired of the game adding 5-20 character files every time I opened the 'hood so I installed notownieregen.

[raynuss]

Have you played the other ones since Apartment Life? The template for AL has around 90 character files. Not 100% sure of the exact number as I threw that crap out before I ever started the game. Do you have more Universities in this 'hood? More vacation areas?

I played the hood that came with AL for just a short time to get acquainted with the new expansion.  That hood has 487 character files.  I guess it is normal to have >650 character files with AL plus the subhoods I have.  Sure is a annoying though.

[Ruann]

And this is why they invented Emtpy templates and notownieregen. 

[Dea]

Thanks for the nice replies (not you, Pescado!).  But why are there so many?  I checked other hoods that I've played and the most I've found is 487 characters.  My hood with 650 I haven't even played yet.  Won't it generate even more as I play and NPC's are callled by the game? 

No, NPCs are generated when you create the neighbrhood unless you have empty templates.  My latest neighborhood was created with empty templates and all I have done for a week is place lots and renovate them.  Guess how many character files I have so far?  None, my character folder is empty.

[Zazazu]

The exception being an unpatched BV last-EP game (unholy multiplying charlatans) and an AL game without notownieregen, due to apartment townies now spawning at an estimated rate of 1 per game load.

[maxon]

Have you played the other ones since Apartment Life? The template for AL has around 90 character files. Not 100% sure of the exact number as I threw that crap out before I ever started the game. Do you have more Universities in this 'hood? More vacation areas?

I haven't done a numbers test with AL yet but with FT in an otherwise completely new custom hood, the game will generate 506 sims.  This is when you include a custom and therefore empty downtown, university and shopping district.  If you use the Maxis ones, the total will be higher.  600+ sims for AL seems about right to me with the social groups and extra NPCs that come with it.  Character files are not generated until you open the hood and some character files are not generated until you play (reporter, garden club person etc.).  Edit: I am talking about loading a new custom neighbourhood without empty templates and no respawn hacks in.

[Skadi]

I have a new AL hood that I started for a new apoc challenge. I created 16 townies, turned 11 pre-made characters into townies, and made 16 YAs for the Uni. Family has 1 CAS sim and 4 born in game. I have wolves, but no strays. Total number of character files: 148. I'm using clean templates and all the no regen hacks. I'm not sure why some hoods get less than others.