A few customisation questions

[Jackathyn]

I don't like getting Eaxis's sad excuses for lots and NPCs forced on my neighbourhoods, so I'm one of those freaks that customise just about everything. So, here are my questions. I'd go at it blunt-force, but that hasn't exactly gone well for me in the past.

1. Can you change the name of the hobby lots? They have failure names, simply put. But I'm not sure just changing them on the lot themselves would suffice since they're referenced in memories- therefore, can that text memory string be altered? Safely?
2. Is there an approved awesome method to modify the Hobby lots, terrain, names, neighbourhood, etc?
3. Not quite 'Oops, I broke it!' because I'm not sure I did break it yet- In my test hood, a guy brought the Repo Man home from work. I nixed all relationship he had to the guy and it hasn't happened since- but why might this have happened? Is it a VBT? How do I fix that?

[J. M. Pescado]

1. Can you change the name of the hobby lots? They have failure names, simply put. But I'm not sure just changing them on the lot themselves would suffice since they're referenced in memories- therefore, can that text memory string be altered? Safely?

You could, but I imagine it would involve more extensive work that you are capable of performing.

2. Is there an approved awesome method to modify the Hobby lots, terrain, names, neighbourhood, etc?

Nope. Pretty much any attempt to do so involves a great deal of arcane chicanery in SimPE. And if how to do this isn't apparent to you, it's probably not something you can do. It CAN be done, but not in any way I would recommend to others. Professional: Do Not Imitate.

3. Not quite 'Oops, I broke it!' because I'm not sure I did break it yet- In my test hood, a guy brought the Repo Man home from work. I nixed all relationship he had to the guy and it hasn't happened since- but why might this have happened? Is it a VBT? How do I fix that?

I think this is a naturally occurring game bug.

[nocomment]

Changing the lot names requires going through the whole complicated process.

I found that editing hobby lots wasn't a good use of my time, because I rarely use them.  If you decide to try it, practice with a test neighborhood first.

You can read about the process here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,11323.msg345422.html#msg345422

Basically it involves:

Send a sim to visit each hobby lot you want to edit. 

Send the sim home, exit the game.

Open SimPe, and find the hobby subhood.

Edit subhood to un-hide it.

Edit hobby lots to un-hide them.

Fire up game, edit lots.  You can't make new lots, you can only modify the existing ones.  At this point you change the lot names.

Close game, use SimPe to re-hide subhood and lots.

[Tarlia]

Is there a way to easily change the seasons of the hobby 'hood, or does that involve unhiding it? I don't care enough about the lots to bother editing them, but it annoys me that the hobby 'hood's seasons don't match up with the rest of the neighbourhood.

[ritaxis]

Just think of it like this: the hobby hood is Elfland.  The seasons are different because you go to a different world.