Is this bad?

[RainbowTigress]

How can you tell?  All I can see is a bunch of tiny boxes and a bunch of lines.   

[radiophonic]

How can you tell?  All I can see is a bunch of tiny boxes and a bunch of lines.   

The top node is a pink square, the following nodes are two more pink squares and it spreads out from there.

[Brynne]

I still need to do this. I'm scared. 

[RainbowTigress]

How can you tell?  All I can see is a bunch of tiny boxes and a bunch of lines.   

The top node is a pink square, the following nodes are two more pink squares and it spreads out from there.

Oh I see.  I wasn't looking at the colors.

[Brynne]

I could barely make out colors, either. I see them now. *squints*

[vilia]

I have re-ocurring nightmares about the family tree of my main family.  I've been trying to put it together for about a year now and each time it makes my brain sizzle.

This is about a quarter of it, at 4% zoom using a geaneology program....

Have you tried putting in the relationships that didn't end up with kids?  I started doing that and well, I can be quite silly at some times .  On the plus side though, you must have some great stories with all of those relationships

[Jorenne]

That is every sim, living or dead who has a familial link with anyone else on the tree whether through birth or marriage, even if no children were produced..  I started with Raisa and her twin daughters, Alesky and Tatyana on one side, and Louisa and Michael and their son, Cletus, on the other.

It wasn't too bad for a while.  But then Cletus married Natalija (Alesky's daughter) and she's a family sim, they have eight children together (two adopted) plus two Natty had from her first marriage, plus three Cletus had from his first marriage, plus four from an affair (Bad Clete)  It all went totally awry when Clete's oldest son, Sam, aged and became a romance sim.

To date Sam is onto Mrs Jones number four (that's just the one's he's married) and is the proud father of 26 children.

[ebonyspiral]

The mind boggles glancing at some of those trees! 

This thread together with another about the Tricou family has inspired me to start a little in game mystery story, starring Mortimer Goth as the mad scientist/detective. I believe one of his ancesters in a Tricou. Anyway, this will no doubt lead to many zombies and confusion on my part...
Hmm, perhaps the premise needs a little work... but the bizarre pre-made families always draw me in...

[agcons]

I'm going to have to start mapping the family trees now, before things get out of hand.  I'm at the third generation in some families (Dustin and Beau have children), and so far only the Goths and Dreamers are connected by blood.  The Brokes and Pleasants are connected by marriage (Brandi and Mary-Sue), but there is no issue.  I'd rather not have anyone become his own gran'paw, if only to save my own sanity. 

[cristalfiona]

I have family trees for the sims i play- although just done in paint and paint.net, as i cant really justify buying photoshop just for my sims family trees. Means they arent as good as the ones above, but it helps me keep track.

[Zeljka]

Heh, if you use my Lot Clock, you CAN keep track of date of birth. Even if you didn't note exactly when they were born, you can back-date them once you install the clock based on the listed age of the sim.

Lot Clock? How is it that I've never heard of this magical thing and why can't I find it ?
Anyone?

[BlueSoup]

It's called the Lot Sync Timer (I'm not commenting on the rest of the name  ), and it can be found here.

[radiophonic]

It's called the Lot Sync Timer (I'm not commenting on the rest of the name  ), and it can be found here.

I'm a bit confused about what that actually does. If I use it, and it is installed in multiple homes, does that mean it is the same time on all of those lots? What is it synchronizing? What is the Matrix? Is there a spoon? Does a bear shit in the woods?

[BlueSoup]

In the thread I linked, Odyssey has a really good explanation as to what exactly it is.

Basically, it tells you how long you've been playing each lot, so you don't have to keep notes to stay in time sync. This is a very good thing for those of us with serious note taking issues. It's basically an auto note taker. If you want to keep your neighborhoods time sync-ified, this is very important, because otherwise you're liable to forget to note down day/play an extra day/ etc. and before you know it someone's kids are older than them.

And no, it's not the same time on the lots.  It's simply to help you synchronize your neighbourhood, so one family is not several generations old, and another started at the same time is still not out of the first gen toddler stage.

[radiophonic]

In the thread I linked, Odyssey has a really good explanation as to what exactly it is.

Basically, it tells you how long you've been playing each lot, so you don't have to keep notes to stay in time sync. This is a very good thing for those of us with serious note taking issues. It's basically an auto note taker. If you want to keep your neighborhoods time sync-ified, this is very important, because otherwise you're liable to forget to note down day/play an extra day/ etc. and before you know it someone's kids are older than them.

And no, it's not the same time on the lots.  It's simply to help you synchronize your neighbourhood, so one family is not several generations old, and another started at the same time is still not out of the first gen toddler stage.

Ahh...see, even reading the f'ing manual I was confused. I get it...finally.

[RainbowTigress]

Don't forget the cool feature allowing you to switch to a neighbor's house without going through the neighborhood screen.  Even with NL awesome new feature of clickable neighbor houses, I still have to scroll around sometimes trying to find the house I want.  This is better and automatically saves your game.  The only problem I have is with all the kids moving out and having the same last name as the parents now, so I have like 6 Goth households now, 3 Brokes, and 2 Williams, etc., and they haven't all graduated college yet.  I wish there was some way to keep track of that part.

[BlueSoup]

I wish there was some way to keep track of that part.

Theoretically, that's what the lot and family ID's are for.

[vilia]

The only problem I have is with all the kids moving out and having the same last name as the parents now, so I have like 6 Goth households now, 3 Brokes, and 2 Williams, etc., and they haven't all graduated college yet.  I wish there was some way to keep track of that part.

Do you use SimPe? If so, why don't you try renaming the households to something other than their surname but easy to remember. I've got 3 Tricou males in one household and I have called it "Tricou Boys".  I had Dirk move out of home & renamed his household "Dreamer II" so I know it is 2nd gen Dreamer etc

btw I love the neighbour house option as well. i spent half an hour once just flicking between houses - not out of any need but because I could

[RainbowTigress]

I wish there was some way to keep track of that part.

Theoretically, that's what the lot and family ID's are for.

Yeah I know, but I can't remember all those numbers.  I'd have to end up writing them down, and that would be more paper cluttering my desk to keep up with.    I might have to try renaming them in SimPE, if I can think of some brief, descriptive names.  I have started combining families, like one house has a brother and sister married to another brother and sister they were best friends with in college, if that makes sense.  Maybe I could name their house Goth-Rose or something like that.

[Emma]

I really wish there was a chance to rename households before moving them into the neighbourhood-it would be so much easier to keep track of who is who.

[flowerchile]

I started with naming them all with the same first initial.  One family would be Andrew Anderson, wife would be Andrea, kids, Andy and Amelia, then on to B and so on.  There was just to many affairs going on, I couldn't keep track of who was supposed to be doing who.

[Kyna]

I use SimPE to rename my families. 

I was using a combination of surnames for each house (not renaming the sims, just the lot) to reflect the maiden name of the bride.  So if Angela married Dustin their house would be the Broke-Pleasant house.  It gave my hoods a small town gossipy feeling.  I grew up in a small town and people did use that information to identify people - "You know Dustin Broke ... yeah he's the Broke that married one of the Pleasant girls, didn't he do well for himself? ... anyways I heard..."

I've simplified it a bit since I started using Sims2db.  In my newer hoods I just rename my families Broke1, Broke2, etc.  If I want to play a particular branch of the family I just look up which branch it is in Sims2db, not that I do that a lot, I tend to be anal about my lot rotation order.  Since the lot sync timer was added to my game, I've dispensed with the notes on my desk listing lot rotation order and I just go clockwise around the timer.

[Zeljka]

It's called the Lot Sync Timer (I'm not commenting on the rest of the name  ), and it can be found here.

thank you so much!

you clearly do not suck

[RainbowTigress]

No, Bluesoups do not suck.