1. Sim neighborhoods can accumulate too many files because nothing ever gets subtracted, only added. That is, dead sims still retain their files, newborns get added to it.
Right. Dead sims must retain their files, since they're still referred to in memory and ancestry....usually. It's possible for a dead sim to become completely "disconnected", but the game doesn't detect this case, and so you never lose files: If a sim were to be dead and deleted (no tombstone), everyone who knew him were to also be dead and deleted, and everyone who had ever HEARD of him was dead and deleted, this would mean that sim was completely orphaned and could be cleaned. But the game doesn't scan for this case, and it's somewhat gruelling to do so manually, especially since the dead can be talked about for generations to come.
2. It's the actual character files that cause 'burnination' or 'implosion' of a neighborhood, not the actual number of visible/playable/NPC pixel people.
Right.
3. As soon as a neighborhood file hits critical mass, its doomed, with no way to fix it, even if you never, ever, lot-binned, deleted binned sims that have been played, or imported occupied houses.
Not entirely true. The Critical Fixes existing can keep a neighborhood chugging for quite a good while longer, but obviously, this doesn't account for any undiscovered bugs, or any new bugs of this nature (too many iterations is generally most visible sign) introduced in future expansions. If Maxis never wises up, this is going to require future critical fixes.
4. What IS the critical mass? Some say 300+ some say 500+, some (like me) say ??
Early errors begin to set in around 800-ish. All known problems of this nature are resolved by Critical Fixes. Advanced errors can set in around 1000+. These are also resolved by Critical Fix hacks. Obviously, once you have to resort to hacks just to keep going, you've crossed the Rubicon already. How long you can keep going after that depends on how long it takes you to be assassinated. This point is unknown.
5. One of the signs that your neighborhood is sliding into irreparable screwiness due to too many files is the disappearance of CAS sims and newborns after saving and quitting, true or false?
Unknown. This should not be occurring under any normal or abnormal in-game condition. This sounds more like failure to commit file changes to disk, which is a more serious problem. Causes include "locked files" due to being open in SimPE or "dead" instances of TS2 (even if they appears closed, they may not have terminated cleanly: Check your ALT-CRTL-DEL).
6. A neighborhood and its attached University count as one neighborhood, so all the NPC's (including the stupid secret society NPC's) get added to the neighborhood file. Thank goodness for the no respawn townies/dormies/secsoc hack.
Correct. Attached subneighborhoods share their populations with "main" neighborhoods, but not lots. No doubt Maxis will love to flood your neighborhood with yet more garbage sims, as well as new NPCs.
7. Unless you are very SimPe literal and can delete memories/characters/etc. manually, you might as well put the flag on half-mast, play the funeral march and bid your neighborhood goodbye.
Pretty much. Once you've passed the Critical Fix point, you're doomed. However, this point is very far away, as Critical Fixes have been able to repair neighborhoods in the 2000s. This is all assuming you're salvaging NATURAL populations, and not garbage bloat. Let us figure, as a reasonable number, you have approximately 40 families. That's about how many are in my neighborhood right now, although some are "crunchy" and will eventually be compacted together (college students, soon-to-die relatives living in small houses with no burial grounds, immortals, etc.). If your neighborhood is bloated because of *GARBAGE*, you're best off starting over.
8. JM's and TJ's critical fixes stave this off for a time, but it is inevitable, since, as mentioned before, there is no subtraction, only addition.
In theory, a meticulously maintained neighborhood can avoid a potential explosion on these grounds for the duration of TS2, assuming critical fixes are made for any such problem.
9. Deleting tombstones/urns only affects the size of the file, the file itself stays. The size of the file is of little matter, since it is the actual number of files that will cause 'burnination'.
Correct. However, the actual number of files needed to bring about irrevocable collapse is unknown. Unfortunately, each new expansion pack brings about more potential sources of error. As the hackers familiar with this particular class of problem tend to keep meticulously clean neighborhoods as a result, these errors will be slow to be identified.
10. EA/Maxis has a limit of sims in a neighborhood induced into the game-files; once reached, the neighborhood is doomed, true or false?
If you consider "32767" or "65535" as a limit, yes. Instance numbers are 16-bit variables. It is unknown whether they are signed or not, but both of these numbers are fairly large. My neighborhood has been played now for what will soon be a year, and I'm around the 500 mark. Calculating that maybe 300-450 of these files are NPCs, built-in ancestors, and other such, and it has taken this long to generate 50-200 sims naturally, (if not less - I know everyone in my neighborhood by name, an impressive feat for a man my age, and I'm pretty sure there ain't that many!), you can see that it would take years and years and years to hit the hard-mathematical limit. As to what point the game will be rendered unplayable and beyond recovery of any mortal agency? Beats me. I do know that it's theoretically possible to trim a LOT of debris if the right primitives were added (NID iteration by family!). If they were to, say, create a primitive iterating first through families, then through NIDs in families, you'd have a much lower instruction count bounded not by "number of sims living and dead", but only by "number of sims living", a far smaller number bounded by the user's patience, which is typically quite small.
After reading the entire thread, I knew my friends game was in danger, as I have known her to do a few of the VBTs listed above, including her favorite of Townie killing sprees. For years, I have implored her to go Awesome, but it wasn't until I forwarded her the above thread that she decided that she must give up her purist "No Mods" philosophy.
Is what we would both like to know, is...
Which of the above problems have been fixed over the years as the newer EP/SP and patches have come out?
And do the mentioned fixes, simply prevent the damage(s) mentioned VS. works around the existing damage VS. repairs damage?
In short, even after installing the Awesomeware packs that are rated important and higher, what manual repair work will still be needed? Is this covered with the "Bat Box"? Is there a 3rd party automated tool? Tutorials? Etc?
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