Clean and fixed Uber-Megahood! OUTDATED!

[Eva Aisling]

Could you please explain to me how I can get rid of Bella Goth from Pleasantview without ruining any memories in your Uber-Megahood? I want to have Dina marry Mortimer before he dies and I noticed he is still married to Bella. I like keeping to Bella's story of disappearance. Can I just delete her, or do I need to fix some memories in SimPE? I have deleted Strangetown from the megahood, because I like to play that separately.

This doesn't have anything to do with your 'hood, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to make the Strangetown Bella have the same facial DNA as the Pleasantview Bella. (She just looks so generic in Strangetown.) As I said, my Pleasantview 'hood and Strangetown hood are separate.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Madame Mim]

Kill her or have them break up. Don't delete her.

[Mixreality]

Yep, just kill her off. Morty will perhaps get a little desperate, but he'll get over it Btw, when you delete Strangetown from a Megahood, the Strangetowners are not gone for good. They'll remain in the sim bin, as you've probably noticed. Don't delete them either. Kill them, townify them, whatever, just don't delete them.

As for your other question - the best way would probably be extracting Pleasantview Bella and copying her features to Strangetown Bella with Theo's Sim Surgery plugin for SimPE. It's on MATY somewhere, but I can't provide a link just now and I'm not really sure if it still works as intended (would like to know that too).

[Eva Aisling]

Good thing I didn't delete anyone.    Thanks, guys.

I'm busy this weekend, but I'll let you know how it goes with Bella's surgery. I was under the impression that the sims had to be in the same neighborhood in order to use the sim surgery plugin. Maybe I overlooked something...It's been a long time.

[Mixreality]

I was under the impression that the sims had to be in the same neighborhood in order to use the sim surgery plugin.

Normally they do, but with this plugin, you can clone a sim straight from the package (so the archetype sim may simply be in your body shop bin). And here's the link! I guess it's outdated but it may work.

[Eva Aisling]

Okay. I have to get these kids to bed, but I plan to do this tomorrow. I went into SimPE and extracted the Pleasantview Bella with the sim surgery plugin. It went into the SavedSims folder just as it is supposed to and, theoretically, it should work.

I plan on making my own combined neighborhood, because I don't like Strangetown, Veronaville, Bella, or any other stray sims caused by deleting the neighborhoods. Has anyone shared any problems that need cleaned up in Pleasantview? I know Strangetown was pretty bad, but I'm probably only going to clean Pleasantview and use other's templates for my neighborhood. No sense in doing all that work again!

If you could warn me of any potential problems in Pleasantview, it would be most appreciated. Of course, I don't expect you to do it for me, so don't go to any trouble if you don't already have a list. I just thought you might have kept a record of changes.

Thanks! I'll try Bella tomorrow and share her if it works.

[Mixreality]

I hope I won't sound like "Don't do another megahood 'cause mine is so goddamn awesome!!!111". BUT - the merging process itself has some kind of flaw. You will end up with corrupt memories, no matter what. Every single merged hood has corrupt memories, even SaraMK's compact one (and I'm not talking about the 'default' corrupt memories of dead, unlinked relatives, but the memories of very much alive, perfectly unbroken sims). It *could* be just my unquestioned faith in Lot Debugger. So I wish someone would explain to me, please - why does Lot Debugger wipes memories that look perfectly fine? I'll provide SimPe screens of a corrupt and non-corrupt memory, if needed, 'cause I don't speak technical. I'd really like to know that, because I can't figure out how to make a Downtown template with living Tricous without corrupt memories (read more here).

Long story short - I took the time to un-corrupt all the memories that are not corrupt by default. You might as well take advantage of that. If I were you, I'd Delete 2 all the unwanted sims out of this hood. If you've never done it before, it might sound scary, but it's not, really. It's even easier now when the batbox is updated to automatically kill all the relations of the sim-to-be-deleted, and you don't need to switch back and forth between the two versions of SimPe.

If you do decide to merge the hoods, unfortunately I never made a full list of changes. I keep everything in my head, which is incredibly stupid. Using clean templates should cover all the major maxian stupidities. The only thing I can remember was not cleaned, are the duplicates of Skip Broke, Michael Bachelor, Darleene Dreamer (and Nervous Subject in ST), which you'd need to Delete 2 (or not - they shouldn't cause any problems if left alone) and adjust their relatives' memories. Pleasantview Bella is also included and alive in cleaned Pleasantview template so you'd might want to delete her too. If I think of anything else, I'll nudge you.

[Eva Aisling]

Thanks! I'll just Delete 2 the ones I don't want then. I don't see any reason to go through all the trouble of joining a neighborhood, if I'm going to end up with more problems. I don't have enough knowledge to think I can clean it any better than you have. I'd probably drive myself crazy trying to make everything perfect.

The sims surgery tool works just fine and I have all expansions and stuff packs. Maybe it isn't outdated, after all. It's really easy to do if you care. There's not that much difference in her appearance. I just don't like her to look like other default sims. You just load the neighborhood that contains the Bella sim you wish to use. The Pleasantview Bella looks a bit different, while the Strangetown Bella has a default face.
1)  Open SimPE
2)  Load Pleasantview using the Neighborhood Browser.
3)  Go to the Tools menu and select Sim Surgery.
4)  Make sure the Uneditable box is checked, so that Bella is in the list. Pleasantview Bella is an uneditable sim apparently.
5)  Select Bella Goth from the list and load her into the Patient Sim box.
6)  Click Export at the top of the dialog box and save Bella Goth into the SavedSims folder by default.
7)  Start Sims 2.
  Load the neighborhood which contains the Bella Goth that you want to change.
9)  Go to Create Family and choose the cloned Bella Goth from the sim bin. It would be a good idea to name her something different so that you can tell them apart in SimPE. For example, I named my clone "Bella_face Goth".
10) You can leave her in the family bin and close the game.
11) Load your Bella neighborhood in SimPE.
12) Open the sim surgery plugin again.
13) Load Bella Goth as the Patient Sim and check Face only. The makeup and eyes are already the same. (I don't know if it is just a coincidence, but my test Bella had eyes that kept spinning upward every couple of seconds in game after I used the surgery plugin on her with both Face and Eyes options checked.)
14) Load Bella_face Goth as your archetype sim and hit [Surgery].
I think anyone can manage this if desired. The Pleasantview Bella looks similar to Cassandra. I don't know why they gave her a default face in Strangetown...
It appeared as if your Bella Goth already had the Pleasantview face, but the pictures in SimPE are small so I may be wrong. Did you resurrect the Pleasantview Bella, or did you put her in the family bin from the Strangetown townie pool? I was already in SimPE and ready to do the surgery and was too lazy to load the game and see if they already looked the same.

If you haven't noticed, I am a perfectionist...It's equally (or more) annoying to me! I hope I didn't seem ungrateful! Thank you so much for sharing your hard work and taking time to answer questions!

[Mixreality]

So you do infact need an extra Bella (archetype) in Strangetown  Than the plugin doesn't work, its purpose is to avoid having dummy sims in neighborhoods. Oh well...

The Pleasantview Bella looks similar to Cassandra. I don't know why they gave her a default face in Strangetown...

I suppose it's part of the 'ZOMG-aliens-took-Bella-and-cloned-her!!!' storyline  Or a simple Maxis laziness, who knows...

It appeared as if your Bella Goth already had the Pleasantview face, but the pictures in SimPE are small so I may be wrong. Did you resurrect the Pleasantview Bella, or did you put her in the family bin from the Strangetown townie pool? I was already in SimPE and ready to do the surgery and was too lazy to load the game and see if they already looked the same.

Yes, she's the Pleasantview Bella. She's a living townie in clean Pleasantview template that HP used to make her Uber-Megahood (which I stole). I didn't want to leave her as a townie because of the stupid townie memory loss and other bugginess. I accidentally deleted Strangetown Bella and never bothered to get her back 'cause she's a stupid face 1 sim with nothing spectacular about her. She's easy to be added if one wants her, and I think most people don't want two Bellas running around. That would be incredibly annoying in this particular hood which has, like, 5 townies total, 2 of them would be Bellas.

I hope I didn't seem ungrateful!

No of course not! People have different plans for their games. I personally don't want any Bella in my hood and the first thing I'll do when I start playing (no, I didn't start yet...) is to plant her in Olive's garden

[Eva Aisling]

So you do infact need an extra Bella (archetype) in Strangetown  Than the plugin doesn't work, its purpose is to avoid having dummy sims in neighborhoods. Oh well...

As it turns out, your Bella was already the Pleasantview one, so I didn't need the surgery. I just assumed that she would be the Strangetown Bella since that is the one that is already alive in the game, but I really just wasted my time.

You don't need to keep two Bellas. I just need the Bella that's already in Strangetown and the Pleasantview Bella to copy genetics from. After that, I should be able to dispose of the copy of Pleasantview Bella, right? She is just a body shop sim, hasn't moved into a household, and hasn't met anyone. The plugin extracted her correctly and can perform surgery, as long as the Patient sim and the Archetype sim are in the Sim Browser list. I don't see how the plugin could avoid this, since she has to be in the body shop bin to be editable in SimPE. If she's not in the bin or the neighborhood, then she can't be accessed in the sim browser. It's been that way as far back as I can remember. I like the export plugin! That's a nice addition. I don't understand why Pescado was complaining about it. He is obviously more awesome than me, so it might be safer to take his word for it.

[Mixreality]

Ah, ok.

...
7)  Start Sims 2.
  Load the neighborhood which contains the Bella Goth that you want to change.
9)  Go to Create Family and choose the cloned Bella Goth from the sim bin. It would be a good idea to name her something different so that you can tell them apart in SimPE. For example, I named my clone "Bella_face Goth".
10) You can leave her in the family bin and close the game.
...

It's this part that got me all confused (especially the bold part).

As it turns out, your Bella was already the Pleasantview one, so I didn't need the surgery. I just assumed that she would be the Strangetown Bella since that is the one that is already alive in the game, but I really just wasted my time.

I thought you wanted to change the face of Bella in your original, separate Strangetown. Otherwise I would have told that Megahood Bella is the "real" Bella. Apparently I'm all confused Sorry about that, and the late reply. It's great that the plugin is working!

[Eva Aisling]

I think we were both confused. 

You only have to use a clone if you want to use the looks of a sim that isn't already in the neighborhood of your Patient sim. The export plugin just takes their genetics, clothing, and makeup, and saves a copy of the sim in the sim bin for you. It seems like a good way to take your favorite spawn and start their lives over in a new neighborhood.

[Mixreality]

*bump*

There's a new problem with this hood, and this is the only place where I can ask for help.

The problem is - multiple PT hacks with custom skintones do not work (custom skintones don't show up and the alien babies are the clones of human parents). The same particular hack DOES work in HP's original hood, so I messed it up myself somehow. The trouble is I don't have TS2 anymore and I can't check out anything myself. And another trouble is I haven't even touched anything genetic while "cleaning" the hood up. I have absolutely no idea what could possibly go wrong. I read a tutorial on making multiple PT hack and it did not help. The one and only thing I did that could be even remotely related to this problem is messing with family instance numbers (in order to clean up empty families and put Bella in the bin).

More details:

- The problem is reported by more than one person (two, to be precise );

- It was well tested, on new CAS sims and on existing sims, and with more than one multi-PT hacks (neither worked);

- Custom skintones in general (non-alien) are working fine; (The geneticized custom skintones were not specifically tested, though. The multiple PT hack with custom skintones does not work when the custom skintones are geneticized. Did anyone have problems with normal geneticized skintones in this hood?)

- I repeat, the hack works fine in other hoods, and in HP's original hood.

- Here's a link to LJ entry where problem is reported.
 
My main question is - what could possibly go wrong? I'm fully aware that I am the one who should know the exact steps I took with this hood, but I'm not exactly sure anymore. Again, the possibly related thing is deleting family instances. Another possibly related thing is aborting existing pregnancies and making them from scratch. (But how could a pregnancy of a sim A affect the pregnancy of a sim Z?) So, does anyone awesome have any idea? Yeah, I tried to provide support for the thing I shared, but I can't. Um, halp?!

[Sunbee]

Well, I'd downloaded and installed Hysterical Paroxism's version, and started messing with it.  (Not really playing--getting tombstones put away properly in a community graveyard instead of scattered at private residences, evicting lazy sims who need to learn parenting skills from their opulent housing to get them ready for the 'refuge camps'.)  Then I see this thread after I found all these pesky toddlers and kids with LTWs.
Could someone please tell me how do I delete the SWAFs I need to in SimPE?  I can find them (at least I think it's them) from the window that shows the sim's stats but I don't see a 'delete' button.  I think I also need to fix the pregnancies, but I don't know if I'm up to that--I might just tolerate weird parentage stuff. 
Also, is it safe to delete all the 'unknown' sims?  I really don't care about the Maxis memories that are corrupt--I just want to be able to use the sims for my own purposes.

[Mixreality]

Gah, I was hoping for some help 

This comes from my rather poor memory (don't have simpe anymore), so back up everything first. I think there is no delete button. You must right click and delete the SWAF you want in the resource window (or whatever it's called, the big window in the upper-right that lists... stuff). Make sure you use the filter function to delete the appropriate SWAF: find out the instance number of your sim (you'll see it in the first tab of plugin view of SDSC, the one with the sim's thumbnail), then use the filter function of simpe to list only the resources that are attached to the sim in question, then delete the SWAF from the upper-right window. I hope this made some sense.

As for the pregnancies, I must admit I haven't noticed any weirdness with the non-fixed pregnancies. You might just want to abort Samantha Ottomas pregnancy, as people generally do have problems with her spawn. Then give her twins again. You can do this ingame easily.

[Sunbee]

I think I have a different version of SimPE than you did, or I may be totally confused, because when I look at the SWAF it has the sim's name and pic that it belongs to, and also it stretches across the bottom half of the screen.  I'm good at being totally confused.

Oh, well, if I break it, I can always start over, and I'll have learned something.  Sorry I can't help you with your problem.  I appreciate your advice on mine.

[Mixreality]

It's probably not a different version. Hazy memory or my inability to form an understandable sentence is more likely. I'll try again.

You don't need to open or look at the SWAF at all (the bottom half of the screen). All the resources are listed in the upper-left, SWAFs are among them. Click on the SWAF entry on the upper-left and a list of all the SWAFs in the hood will show up in the upper-right. Now you need to find the offending SWAF. The safest way is to filter by instance number of the sim whose SWAF you want to delete. Once you find it, right-click on it and delete it. Repeat for all SWAFs you want deleted. I'm pretty sure it's done like that.

There's probably more information about it but I failed at google.

[Tarlia]

Hello. I'm currently working on my own set of cleaned/fixed EAxis neighbourhoods, and there's a couple of things I've been unable to figure out. I was wondering how you switched the negative memories in Riverblossom Hills from green to red, and how you set the career memories to point at the correct job instead of the sim? I've been looking for options to do this in SimPE but I can't find anything, and my searches on the Intarwebs hasn't given me anything either. Much thanks in advance.

[Mixreality]

Yay, I actually know that!

For the job memory: open the SDSC of the sim with the wrong memory and check his job. I think it's on the first tab. The instance number of the career is shown right there. Write it down. Now open the memory and open its Raw Data. Write the first half of career instance number in Line 6, and the second half in line 5, after the 0x. Example: medical career number is 0x0c7761fd. You need to write 0x61fd in Line 5 and 0x0c77 in Line 6. There's a picture on page 1 of this thread. That's how I remembered it.

The red vs. green is even easier, but I can't remember how it's done. I do know you only need to change one number in the raw data tab. I suggest you compare a red death memory to the green death memory raw data, and see what number differs.

[Tarlia]

Thank you! I somehow missed that whole post on the first page, even though I was looking through this thread before I posted. I blame it on spending all day fixing memories in Riverblossom Hills.

Now off to experiment with this and satisfy my OCD.

Edit: found out what sets the memories as red - it's the first line in the raw data, it has to be set to 4 instead of 0.

[Mixreality]

Edit: found out what sets the memories as red - it's the first line in the raw data, it has to be set to 4 instead of 0.

Yes, that certainly rings a bell. Have fun fixing!

[Tarlia]

I'm back with another question: You say that when merging the 'hoods, some memories become corrupt because the GUIDs change. Now, I've had this happen with some stealth hood families (Ottomas etc) and Bluewater Village families while testing, especially with the BV dead relatives. However, when I look in the memory tab, the GUIDs shown there on the memories that were corrupt match the ones of the characters they belong to. I was wondering what you did to fix these?

Also, I think I figured out what's wrong with Sarah Crittur that you mention on the first page. I believe it's a bug in SimPE. Her original pregnancy token is listed as a gossip about another random pet (cat named Felix). When I Theo-deleted Felix, her pregnancy token vanished too. In the raw data there's a line called "Speed Up" or something, in it is the value 39. SimPE seems to link this to the character instance 39 for some reason. I set it to 0, deleted Felix, and set it back to 39, and all was well. I guess this same thing linked it to your random Veronaville dude. I don't think the gossip thing does any harm, though, it really seems to be a SimPE bug. The 39 value is probably a countdown to when the character will give birth, and when set to 0 she'll give birth instantly.

[Mixreality]

However, when I look in the memory tab, the GUIDs shown there on the memories that were corrupt match the ones of the characters they belong to.

I don't get it, you'll have to explain it all over again. If the GUIDs are correct (if that's what you mean by matching the character they belong to), than what's there to fix? Mine didn't match. Let's say, Loki Beaker has a memory of marrying Circe. Loki's GUID was correct, the marriage memory GUID was correct, but Circe's GUID wasn't. The memory looks perfectly fine though (Circe's name and picture show up), but the Lot Debugger's wipes this memory as corrupt. And every other Loki's memory that point to Circe. So, poor Loki now only remembers stuff about Nervous, because it just so happened that Nervous's GUID in Loki's memory matched the actual Nervous's GUID. The number of memories with this kind of corruption is huge. This only happens in a merged hood (I checked SaraMK's hood, and HP's, so I assumed every merged hood suffers from this problem), but not in any single hood (that have the "usual" corrupt memories). Are you talking about the merged hood or the "normal" one?

What I did to fix it? Well, it's kind of embarrassing. I loaded a lot, summoned all sims (in groups) and wiped all of their corrupt memories (sometimes that would leave a sim without any memory). Then I made new memories entirely from scratch (by looking at original hood memory in another instance of SimPE, for reference). It took weeks   The embarrassing thing is that I never got an answer whether these memories were actually corrupt or the Lot Debugger got confused or something. Loads of this (possibly useless) work did actually made a difference, i.e. Loki's memory about Circe wouldn't get wiped. His memories about his dead parents (which I remade too, just because) would get wiped though, but that's because (most of) the dead are broken, it has nothing to do with the merged hood, and they're irreparable, for all I know.  

Of course, Loki, Circe, Nervous and Loki's dead parents are just examples. Which particular character will get wrong GUIDs differs from one merged hood to another. I could have spare you from the sad, sad, Loki's story, by just saying that it's the Memory Subject* GUID (and not the Memory Owner GUID), that gets changed when merging a hood. But it's too late now.

Sarah Crittur - that's most likely it. I didn't think of such a neat workaround, so I convinced myself I don't care about it.

(Also, are you by any chance meetme2theriver? She's also doing a cleaning of her own, and mentioned Felix the Cat. Yes, I lurk a lot. )

*ETA - Actually it's more likely that the GUIDs of the sims themselves change (e.g. Circe's), but the Memory Subject doesn't which results in them not matching.

[Tarlia]

Yep, you caught me - I'm meetme2theriver. Actually I originally shared the journal with my SO but I've sort of taken it over, that's partially why it's got a different username.

Sorry for not being very coherent about my explanation. Basically, I have not merged anything yet, but I was testing Riverblossom Hills with all the stealth hood/"suburb" families in and Bluewater Village as well, which is pretty much the same process as merging, isn't it? Merging is just adding other 'hoods as a shopping district (like Bluewater Village) or a downtown. So I tried the FFS debugger on various characters to see what would happen.

For the residents of Riverblossom Hills - the base hood - all memories were fine and the option to wipe corrupt was not present. This included memories that I'd constructed myself in SimPE, since a number of memories are missing for premades. But then I tried the Ottomas family, and they all lost memories relating to Dora and Sharla, some constructed by me, some created by EAxis. Same thing happened to some of the other stealth hood families. Then I tried the sims in Bluewater Village, where I've constructed almost all the memories myself since the sims really don't come with any, and they all lost the memories of their dead relatives and of a couple of the townies which they know. This could be due to bugginess in the dead characters, I'm not sure. No one seemed to lose memories about themselves, so it's all problems with the memory subject, as you said.

So I figured it might be due to wrong GUIDs, like you experienced, but when I went into SimPE, all memories match the correct GUID of the character they link to... so that's not it, it seems. Maybe this is a different problem? Maybe I'll get the same problem as you when I do the merging? Granted, you didn't do the merging yourself, so you might have gotten a buggy template to work off of to begin with - that's part of the reason I'm doing this myself now, 'cause I want the templates to be all fixed before I merge them together (and I'm kinda enjoying all this anyway, because I'm a nerd).

I guess we really need an explanation from Pescado about what exactly makes a memory corrupt, and what difference it makes to wipe it or leave it in. I can't imagine they do any harm, though, and they do work (the ones that have a proper function) in that if a sim has a corrupt memory of a first kiss, they won't get a new first kiss memory, etc.

[Mixreality]

Ha, got you! Now I feel like the creepiest of stalkers.

First let's get this little bit out of the way:

No one seemed to lose memories about themselves, so it's all problems with the memory subject, as you said.

Such memories where the memory owner is the same sim as memory subject (like "Grew Up Well") would get wiped too if the memory subject problem occurs. So, back in the Beakers example, Circe would lose all memories of growing up or being an overachiever. So, I guess it's not the same problem as you experienced.

But, it actually might be, because IIRC, in some later hoods, such memories don't have a memory subject at all. Now, it's going to become very confusing. I managed to confuse myself.

which is pretty much the same process as merging, isn't it? Merging is just adding other 'hoods as a shopping district (like Bluewater Village) or a downtown.

It's supposed to be like that, yes. You trick the game to think that it adds just another, regular subhood. Now, something just crossed my mind. I've edited a Downtown template so that it has living Tricous. When I add such a downtown, the Tricous' memories get this dreaded wrong memory subject number. It never occurred to me to do what you did - to check what happens when any old regular subhood gets added. Now, this is where it becomes a bit of a stretch - I'm starting to suspect the very same thing happens. I suppose you fixed, say, the Bluewater template (by adding your own memories that are not corrupt) and the Riverblossom. Separately. At that point you made a backup of both templates. You did all that prior to loading Riverblossom (which also adds a bunch of your fixed stealth hoods) and adding Bluewater to it. Did you make a backup at that point too? Then, you wiped the corrupt memories with the LB. Then, you opened the backup in SimPE, and saw that all the GUIDs of the wiped memories were actually correct. Now, the main question is, which backup did you check? And here's a little test you can do to see if I'm definitely on the wrong track with all this nonsense. After the wiping of corrupt memories, go and remake a set of such memories all over again. I'd go with Tommy's (or whoever) memories of Sharla, in an already loaded Riverblossom with the Bluewater added (cause I came up with this crazy theory that the corruption takes place as soon as you load the hood). Then wipe Tommy's memories again. If his memories of Sharla stick, then I'm right and that's a horrible, horrible thing. I hope that I'm just wrong and simply drawn a wrong conclusion from your post. OR it could be that such memories are actually just fine, they were never supposed to be wiped, and it's the Lot Debugger's fault it just wipes stuff ruthlessly.

That was a desperate attempt to try and prove that the thing that happened to you is the very same memory subject problem that I go on and on about. I could be just plain wrong, in which case I have no idea what happened.

I guess we really need an explanation from Pescado about what exactly makes a memory corrupt, and what difference it makes to wipe it or leave it in. I can't imagine they do any harm, though, and they do work (the ones that have a proper function) in that if a sim has a corrupt memory of a first kiss, they won't get a new first kiss memory, etc.

Oh, I wish someone would tell me what does all this mean already. Like you said, they do work (and look) just fine. The only thing that bothered me (enough to spend weeks working on it) is that, unless made from scratch in an already loaded hood, that damn debugger thing would just wipe them all. And I only want the broken dead wiped, and that's what I get from having undivided faith in Pescado's stuff. I'll stop now, before I cause this thread's death by LOLcats.