Stuck on business lot, and cheat file

[sara_dippity]

Business Lot

After an eternity and a half of not playing, I'm starting a new hood. Actually, it only has two playable families. I put them on a business lot and they were going to go home after a day's work, but they kept shooing customers off of the lot, even though all the customers were gone. After a few sim hours passed, I broke the game. I stupidly put move objects on and deleted them, thinking they would be there when I loaded the lot. They weren't, and naturally I can't load the home lot either. So, I installed many hacks (all from the director's cut) hoping that would reset the family. That didn't help either the home or business lot. I loaded the other family, thinking I could invite them to move in (since the move and bulldoze tools did not work), and that family was indeed reset from the hacks. However, when invited over, the family that's borked did show up, only they refused to move in since they weren't saved on their home lot.

I did try the magic wand, I waved the thing over every inch of the lot. Nothin'.

I would  delete the hood, since it only has two families, but the families made it all the way through University, to the top of their careers, and the business was level 9. I just don't want to do that again if I don't have to.

Any ideas?

Cheat File

I can't seem to get my new cheat file to work, any clues as to why not? It's attatched. I keep it in the config folder. It's been so long since I made one, I can't figure out why it won't work. I'm sure the reason is as equally idiotic as deleting sims on a business lot.

[gynarchy]

Have you tried "Retrieve Missing Sim" on the debugger while visiting the borked business lot? Try removing the "bugJarTimeDecay " section of your cheat file and see if it works. That option has always caused anything after it to not work in the cheat file.

[sara_dippity]

I thought that was only when it wasn't in alias form? I had that problem with it too (way back when,) only I was able to use an alias okay. I'll try removing it though.

And I can't try anything on the debugger, because I have no sims. It's build/buy mode only on the business lot, and the home lot (an appartment) doesn't load.

ETA - removing the bugjar alias did nothing. Still broken.

[seelindarun]

However, when invited over, the family that's borked did show up, only they refused to move in since they weren't saved on their home lot.

Force them to move in with something like the simlogical teleporter cat.  Do not take no for an answer.  You'll likely have to write off the business and the house, but your sims will still have their diplomas and their jobs.  If you must try to save the business, at least make a backup after you've retrieved the sims so you have something to fall back on.

[J. M. Pescado]

Did you try using the Magic Wand? The Magic Wand should, in theory, conjure the missing sim when you wave it about.

[sara_dippity]

Okay, I managed to get the sims out. But there was a cat left in that appartment, and now there is an appartment (that I like) owned by a cat. Is that appartment doomed to be never played again? I used the sim cat teleporter thing. I like it better than the old bush. Nice to see that hacks have grown while I've been gone.

ETA - Never mind. Once I moved into a new lot I was able to summon the cat and move it in. Don't know why I couldn't before. Cheatfile still doesn't work, though.

[sara_dippity]

Did you try using the Magic Wand? The Magic Wand should, in theory, conjure the missing sim when you wave it about.

I sure did. Then I did it again. Then I tried saving with the wand box still in the lot and exiting to see if that would work. Then I deleted the box and waved it over every single square in the lot. Thankfully it was a small lot.

I have the sims now, just figured I'd reply so you knew it didn't work in my situation.

[notovny]

In the userStartup.cheat file, delete the line that says "CHEATFILE."

[sara_dippity]

In the userStartup.cheat file, delete the line that says "CHEATFILE."

Actually, that is leftover from an experiment. When I first saved it, that line wasn't there, and somewhere google showed me a similar problem where someone reccomended putting that in, so I tried it and nothing changed. In other words, the file didn't work without it there either.

I used notepad, not word pad, to save it, I never associated the .cheat file with any programs to open it, and at one point I copied everything and pasted it into a new file and saved it again in case something got corrupted. I use save as so it never had .txt associated with it.

[notovny]

I tested your file in my game not thirty minutes ago. Swapped out my userstartup.cheat file and replaced it with yours.

With the line "CHEATFILE" line in there, neither the "boolprop allow45degreeangleofrotation true" cheat, nor the "move_objects" on alias worked.

Exited the game, removed that one line,  loaded up the game again, and it worked fine.

Game doesn't care what Windows association your userstartup.cheat file has, as long as it's got the proper filename and extension. At times,I've had my computers associate the ".cheat" extention with Notepad, later with Wordpad, and most recently with NoteTab Plus.

The "config" folder you're referring to is "My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Config", correct?

[Marhis]

What notovny said.

Anything you write in that file which is not a cheat command MUST be preceded by a "#" otherwise it will not work.

Code:

#CHEATFILE

boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true

works

Code:

CHEATFILE

boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true

doesn't work

[Zazazu]

This has happened to me. Got the family back the way you did, with the teleporter cat. Then I couldn't get rid of the business lot and couldn't repurchase it since it already showed as owned. Couldn't load it as it showed it was being visited and (I believe) it would crash. I think what I finally did was use that lotload cheat from the 'hood view, then change it to residential, then bulldoze. It was a bitch to get rid of.

[sara_dippity]

Okay, I removed that line, and I was partially wrong but not fully. There are still cheats that are not working, and they happened to be cheats that I used to test the first time, only this time I tried others and they worked. I haven't gone through the entire list yet. For instance, "m+" works for moveobjects on but "m-" does not work for moveobjects off.

Right, leaving this open shows that further testing showed several other cheats are working, but not my moveobjects off. Since this was the line I used to test my cheats the very first time, and the two lines I continued to use in further experiments, obviously I used a line with a typo in it somewhere for my testing. I told you it was something stupid.

ETA - Right. It was the stupid capital "O" at the beginning of "off". Srsly. Pardon me while I crawl under a rock.

[notovny]

Change:

 alias m- "moveObjects Off" "" ""

To:

alias m- "moveObjects off" "" ""

The game doesn't care about case-sensitivity in the name of the cheat, but the parameters "on" "off" "true" and "false" must be lowercase.

Unsure if that's the case with your 'deleteallobjects' aliases, as I've never used those cheats myself.