What exactly is the "sim bin" in TS3?

[shannong]

I know that when immigrating new sims into the town (via the story progression engine), the game will randomly "grab sims from your sim bin", resulting in dopplegangers of your own created sims showing up in town suddenly.

I get this, but I don't get what folder is "the sim bin". Is it the Saved Sims folder in the My Documents path?  If so, is it safe to just delete the .sim files directly from that folder, or do you need to delete them via the in-game CAS function where you're looking at your custom sims?

[edalbformat]

The sims that you create in CAS are thrown in a file named Library. I don't know another could say but I wouldn't recomend that you delete the Library files directly. I did this and my game didn't start. I had to undelete to get things normal again. On the other hand you can delete them inside the game by just selecting the family you want to delete. It will come a dialog that gives you a trash bin icon to delete them. It is perfectly safe. When you export ingame families to use in another hood the game automatically place a copy of it in the sim bin. I always delete them. It doesn't affect the exported family that is saved on the file Export in my documents/blablabla.

Taking advantage of this thread, did anyone find a way to delete the families that come with the game? I would like to create some single Sims at my taste so that the game takes them instead when creating clones.

[Silverdrake]

Yes, it's in another thread.... somewhere.  You rename the family files in the library folder, or move them to a backup folder. I did this, and my game created a new bunch of families. I had raptured all the premade families first.

I have the doppelgangers, too, and I wish there was some way to separate my created sims from the pool.

[shannong]

Hmm, I guess I wasn't super clear in my original question, but thanks for answering what you thought I was asking.

I'm trying to figure out which of the following folders is used by the story progression engine to "immigrate" new sims into the town. One (or more?) of these is generically referred to as "the sim bin", which is holdover terminology from The Sims 2. My goal is to figure out from which of these three potential folders I need to remove specific files to ensure that I don't end up with dopplegangers in my town. For example, if I download and add the Stackhouse household to my game and then want to ensure that there are never doppleganger Stackhouse sims created through immigration, what do I delete? Likewise if I add Rose Tyler and The Doctor manually as individual sims: how do I ensure that no additional doppleganger Roses and Doctors end up in my town? From which folder should I delete them?

All this is complicated by the fact that the Exports folder is specifically used by Indie Stone Mod for a special type of genetically-directed immigration mechanic (for when I'm testing ISM).

Okay so to list the facts and terminology as i understand them. Which of these is "the sim bin"?

• The SavedSims folder (My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\SavedSims) is where all the single sims that you *save* from within CAS show up. It's also where all the .sims3pack files that contain single sims only that you install into your game via the game launcher show up. In other words, if you put a .sims3pack file in your My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Downloads folder (either manually or by downloading from the Exchange), and then you use the Downloads button on the launcher to install that sims3pack, the resulting installed .sim file ends up in SavedSims.
• The Library folder (My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Library) is where entire households (not single sims) are placed, whether you manually built the household in CAS or whether you downloaded and installed a household .sims3pack. The files created in this folder are named with long resource-style names and there's no easy way to figure out which file relates to which household name unless you keep manual track when you create each household. I'd be afraid to manually delete any of these particular package files because they might be indexed somewhere, so I always delete them from within the Edit Town interface. The Library folder also seems to be the place where custom lots that you download and install from a .sims3pack end up too.
• The Exports folder (My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Exports) is where all the single sims and households that you "share with others" ends up. Each exported file is in .sims3pack format. Both single sims and households end up here.

[shannong]

Yes, it's in another thread.... somewhere.  You rename the family files in the library folder, or move them to a backup folder. I did this, and my game created a new bunch of families. I had raptured all the premade families first.

I have the doppelgangers, too, and I wish there was some way to separate my created sims from the pool.

Getting rid of the dopplegangers is easy enough with AwesomeMod. The trick I'm trying to learn now is how to prevent them from happening at all. I'm pretty sure the Exports folder is okay and the .sims3packs in there can be left alone, and controlling what's in the Exports folder is useful as genetic seed stock for the new genetic immigration feature of Indie Stone Mod. Very cool idea.

I'm also pretty sure that the SavedSims folder is the vaunted "sim bin" but am checking here to see if someone in the know can confirm before I go mucking around with it. I'm also not sure whether the files in there are indexed and need to be deleted from within the "Premade Sims" section of CAS, or whether it's safe to just delete the .sim files directly from the folder itself.

What I'm not sure about is whether any of the households created in CAS (or installed from a .sims3pack) in the Library folder have any effect on the immigration pool or not. For example, if I leave the Reapers household (all the sims from Dead Like Me) sitting in the Library folder, will the game eventually immigrate a new household using all the sims from the Reapers household sitting in the Library?  If so, I want to delete such households from my game too. Although I am pretty sure that the only safe way to delete custom households like this is via the Edit Town UI.

----

Okay so to delete a doppleganger that does make into your town, you need AwesomeMod running and you need a house that is cheap enough for the doppleganger to afford moving into if it's currently homeless. The trick is to get the doppleganger into a house all by itself, then use Edit Town mode to Evict that sim from the house, then click the sim in the Edit Town clipboard, then click the trashcan to delete it for good from the town.

The hard part is finding the doppleganger. It might be homeless (use AwsomeMod's "listhomeless" command to see whether this is the case). Or it might be the named owner of a household (look at all the household tags in Map view or Edit Town mode to see). Or it might be a roommate of an existing household with a different surname than the doppleganger, and in this case I think the only way to find out is to use Edit Town > Change Household to examine every household on the map.

Since AwesomeMod enables you to split a single person from a household regardless of their age, if it turns out that the doppleganger is a roomate of people that you don't want to evict too, then use Edit Town > Split to move the doppleganger into it's own cheapo starter home, and then you can Evict it from the starter household.

[Silverdrake]

I was curious about this, too, so I deleted all the sims I'd made and stuck in the bin, leaving them in CAS. So if I see doppelgangers pop up, I'll know I have to get rid of them in CAS, too.

My inkling is that they came from the bin, because there was a double household of three sims I'd originally made as a family.

[shannong]

After some trashing around over in the Indie Stone Mod thread, with some code insight by Lemmy about how ISM's new "immigrate from Bin" feature works, I think I *might* know the answer to a degree. But I'm still waiting for confirmation.  I still think a lot of people use "the sim bin" to mean totally different things. It probably made sense in TS2 but in TS3 it's just confusing to newcomers to the genre like me.

So with that preamble, I'm fairly certain, unless someone comes along and schools me, that "the sim bin" is really the "Household Library" in TS3.  By that I mean the first tab of the window on the lower right when you enter Edit Town mode. These households by default are a bunch of EAxis-created households of varying sizes. But as you create new sims in CAS and click the checkmark, they end up here as single-sim households.  And if you make custom households of multiple sims in CAS and click the checkmark, then they of course end up in this Household Library too. Finally, if you download any household .sims3pack files from the Exchange or whatnot and install them via the launcher, they end up here too.

All of these single- and multiple-sim households in this Household Library are physically stored as those .package files in the Library folder mentioned above. The ones with all the long resource names.

It's this Household library from which all the Doppelgangers appear. At least, they do if you haven't enabled the relatively new AwesomeMod option called "No Duplicate Names" or something like that, which aims to prevent Doppelgangers, at least ones that have the same name as the sims in the household in the Household Library.

It's also this Household Library that forms the genetic pool for the new Indie Stone Mod feature "immigrate from Bin", in case you're interested.  I think all they're doing is overriding the default behavior to pull households as-is from that library and instead grabbing any 3 sims at random (from among all the households in the library) and creating a second-generation child of sorts from the three randoms to immigrate into the game instead. So the sim actually immigrated into the game would be the first-gen product of two out of the three mated with the third to produce a second-gen progeny fully grown to whatever target age and then immigrated into the game. Kind of a neat and simple math trick in the code to prevent a bunch of lookalikes and namealikes from showing up in your town ala typical EAxis crapcoding, while giving you a small degree of control over the genetic diversity of your town population.

[Silverdrake]

The IndieStone mod sounds really cool! I'm going to try it.

[myskaal]

Going by tooltips, I gather that in TS3 The "sim bin" is where you place and select premade CAS sims *in* CAS. When in CAS if you click on the "more" button next to the sim you are creating's thumbnail, one of the options is "place in sim bin" - which then makes him/her/it available for premade selection when in CAS.

The "Library" which was the sim bin in TS2 is now only the "Library" in TS3. However, habit from TS2 makes it very easy to call this the bin again which will be forever confusing in discussions about these 2 particular things.


my 2c

[edalbformat]

It seems that is very difficult to make a clear question. In my case I want to delete the families that are in the panel and they are not in any folder. The families that are in the game can simply be story destroyed (let them die or kill them ingame or just split them up and delete the ex-members that are thrown in the clipboard). There are no options to delete the families in the permanent library. This is what I want to do.

[J. M. Pescado]

The "Sim Bin" that can invade your hood is the "Library" simbin. The "SavedSims" bin appears to be inert.

[Simsample]

edalbformat, those files are in Program Files\ Electronic Arts\ The Sims 3\ Game Data\ Shared\ Non Packaged\ Library. It contains both the families and lots that came with the game.

[edalbformat]

Is it any direct affect in the game if I mess up with this folder in special? I mean, delete something in it can cause me to have to reinstall the game?

[J. M. Pescado]

Removing the files in progra~1 can potentially interfere with patches, but if you cut carefully and save all the pieces, you should not have any problems.

[socurious]

Does that include the files in the Program Files/Electronic Arts/ The Sims 3/Game/bin/HelpPages?  I deleted all the files with the languages that are irrelevant to me, after I patched.  If so, I guess I'll need to reinstall before the (inevitable) updated patch?