Squiggly Lines of Doom!!

[Process Denied]

Thanks for everyone's advice about the tokens and other stuff in sim memories.  I just thought I'd pop back and mention one real oddity with this though.  I've just started a new sim in my neighbourhood called Bob Newbury (yes, that one).  I made him a janitor of a block of flats.  I've literally played him for three sim days and that's not long to get a lot of memories.  He has one token in there with this description:

Token - Misc Skill (owned by Therapist)

I really can't think what that is about.  He hasn't bottomed out with his aspiration (yet) BTW.  In fact, he's been quite happy and pretty social too (he's just met Betty).

I have a lot of those also.  Also some from dead sims.  I haven't touched them but I am curious.

[RainbowTigress]

I can't remember what the Misc Skill refers to, but the owner doesn't mean anything.  JM says SimPE doesn't know how to display the data for the owner in this field for this type of memory token, so it displays seemingly random Sims.  This doesn't mean anything, but they shouldn't be messed with.  I have a lot of Toddler Skill tokens owned by Mortimer Goth in one neighborhood.  I think he is the first sim listed in the Sim Description, so his Instance number matches whatever data SimPE is pulling up for that Memory.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Seems that to Maxis 0000 and RANDOM mean the same!  And why, whatever direction you set the telescope, is it ALWAYS the sim with that number who charges in and attacks the peeping tom?  (I remember, before Uni, that both the Calientes were also able to rush in and attack Don Lothario, so they must have changed something!)

[agcons]

For ages there was no other sim besides Mortimer who barged in and poked the peeping Tom.  Once Mortimer died I wondered what would happen . . . like father, like daughter.  She suddenly appeared in a dorm, and walked up to one of the dormies and poked her.  I thought something had gone very seriously wrong, but she left the lot normally and the game seemed fine.  The next time she barged in was back in Pleasantview, and I made the connection:  the dorm lot and the neighbourhood lot both had telescopes.

In SimPE, the list that populates when I click "Sim Description" is in Instance order, and now that Mort's dead, Cassandra is the next playable sim on my list.  It looks like the game is moving down this list, so once Cassandra dies the barger-in should become Alexander, then Dan Pleasant (not likely, as he's older than Cassandra and I'm playing the lots in rotation), Mary-Sue (not likely for the same reason) then Angela. 

[RainbowTigress]

It was always Mortimer and John Burb in my game, until I installed TJ's fix.  That's what I was told though, that the game choses the first sim in order of appearance. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, obviously once Mortimer is dead, the next on the list would be the new Peeping Tom poker - but I just wish it was a little more random!

Funnily enough, in a custom game where I hadn't played the main hood (deleted all characters there, then chose a University and played that) the character chosen was Joshua Ruben!  He even attacked his best friends!

[maxon]

Well, obviously once Mortimer is dead, the next on the list would be the new Peeping Tom poker - but I just wish it was a little more random!

Funnily enough, in a custom game where I hadn't played the main hood (deleted all characters there, then chose a University and played that) the character chosen was Joshua Ruben!  He even attacked his best friends!

I've always played custom hoods - it's always Phoebe Vaughan at the moment in my present main neighbourhood, the first sim I created and the first in the list in SimPE.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I wnder what would happen if Maxis ever got in first and stuck the grim reaper at 0000!

[maxon]

I wnder what would happen if Maxis ever got in first and stuck the grim reaper at 0000!

Every time I've done the numbers experiment (how many sims does Maxis put in an empty meighbourhood before you even begin to play?), the numbering always starts at some number other than 0000 - damn I forgot to make a note of that in my anal quest to work out exactly what was going on.  I can tell you exactly how many sims though - it's been the same each time and I've done it three times.

[tunaisafish]

I can tell you exactly how many sims though - it's been the same each time and I've done it three times.

Hey, are you some kind of tease ?
Tell us! Tell us!

[maxon]

I can tell you exactly how many sims though - it's been the same each time and I've done it three times.

Hey, are you some kind of tease ?
Tell us! Tell us!

Really?  Crikey, you're the first person who has ever wanted to know.

Well, ok, with the base game, University, Nightlife and the Xmas Pack installed:

263 files exactly (three times the same remember) are added to your Characters folder for one neighbourhood plus one University plus one Downtown.  This is in a custom neighbourhood with NOTHING in it before I started - i.e. not Plesantview or other Maxis neighbourhood.  SimPE will tell you 272, however, and this is because there are 9 universal characters which appear in every neighbourhood but do not appear as individual files in neighbourhood folders.  I think these are:

Santa Klaus
Therapist
Unknown (Potato Head Man is the icon)
Grim Reaper
Toddler New Year
Father Time
Hula Zombie
Pollination Technician
Mrs Crumplebottom

Making a neighbourhood adds 87 characters and these are numbered 71-160 (with some numbers missing) - yay! I did make a note of the numbers.  Plus there are 8 of the universals shown in SimPE (1st eight - obviously there are fewer of these if you don't have the Xmas Pack).  All the names of the NPCs and townies are the same in every fresh neighbourhood unless you murder and/or rename the lot of them (which makes them distinctly unfresh). 

Adding a university adds a further 98 files, 24 of which are professors and 50 of which are students.  Names are 'random' and I think the file numbers are filled in up to 70, and then after 160.  A further universal is added - Mrs Crumplebottom. 

Adding a Downtown adds another 78 files.  Obviously, Mrs C came with NL but she seems to get added with the University (look, ask Maxoid Tom).  Names are random except for the Tricou family (my Tricou short story is called Tricou Treat BTW - sorry, I'm absurdly pleased with that for some reason).  If you add another University, the game will generate another 50 students (the same with a third University).  The game uses the same physical archetypes for the students so you end up with sets of physically matching students (same face, same hair, same clothes) but with different names. 

Adding a second and third Downtown adds no further files.  Deleting the test neighbourhood made over 2MB of space on my hard drive. 

Is that enough?  (There's more - oh yes)

Oh, that was a happy afternoon that was.

[ZephyrZodiac]

NPCs and townies get different names with Strangetown and Veronaville.  Downtownies' names are different too, as are dormies and SS members.

[maxon]

NPCs and townies get different names with Strangetown and Veronaville.  Downtownies' names are different too, as are dormies and SS members.

Yes, I did say it was an empty neighbourhood, not a Maxian one.  I also said the Downtownie and student names were 'random'.

[tunaisafish]

Well I might be the first to ask you, but I know I'm not the only one who is very grateful you posted this.
It's not just you who's the addict here

It's now a text file in my sims info folder.  You did a good job there.
I know some of this has been discussed here before, but good to have it one file.
And there's more you say ?

This info will be good posted in 'The War Room'.

If you like that sort of thing, then "Maximizing personalities" will probably interest you too.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=323.0


Oh, about the names.  Do you have Live.package ? From variousimmers.
This gives more names to choose from, but I didn't know that townies/downtownies/dormies pulled from different lists.

[RainbowTigress]

I wnder what would happen if Maxis ever got in first and stuck the grim reaper at 0000!

I think that it skips NPCs if they come in first.  It skipped Mortimer and went to John Burb, who was not the next on the list because there was the Grim Reaper and another NPC, but John Burb was the next playable character listed.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Probably just as well!

[akatonbo]

Those bubble with lines appears in my game when a Sim would "talk about" (or something like that) another Sim that it is furious with.  Ex:  Sim A is furious with Sim B, Sim A talk about Sim B to Sim C result, bubble with lines in it. 

No Sims in that hood is dead and I do have JM fix but those lines still appears when I use that action.  Depending on the reason why they appear, I think in this perticular case they are harmless, but then again they might not be, I have no idea but did not notice anything wrong following that action happening in my game.

I just had that problem in my barely-played-with Strangetown, and I thought I had all of the appropriate fixes installed. I got Loki and Circe good and mad at each other and she threw him out of the house, and then I let her Bad Mouth him to Nervous and one of her speech bubbles during the Bad Mouth social was a big mess. Was there an issue related to furious state or to breakups that I might have missed a fix for, or that is known to occur but hasn't been tracked down well enough to fix yet?

[RainbowTigress]

I've had this in my new Pleasantview and other neighborhoods as well.  I have not seen where this problem has been tracked down yet, but I sure would like to know.

[ZephyrZodiac]

One of my sims got it and when I checked his file there were half a dozen furious reverses one after the other (and since I'd only just created this family and moved them in, he hadn't had time to fall out with more than one of the three visitors!  And although he had a minus score with them, he wasn't actually furious at all!

[Process Denied]

I hadn't seen this in Veronaville before and I've played a lot but,Isabella just bought a restaurant and whenever they would show the menu to someone the thought bubbles would be squiggles.  I don't have any custom foods on the menu--didn't want to take a chance.  Don't know why--it's not a memory.

[bluecatvon]

i want to get rid of the squiggly lines for good. however my SimPE is lagging like hell..i'm using version 0.50.2120.35905

can anyone direct me to an older version? i've searched by apparently i'm at a lose. all i can find is this current new version i'm using. thanks so much!

[maxon]

i want to get rid of the squiggly lines for good. however my SimPE is lagging like hell..i'm using version 0.50.2120.35905

can anyone direct me to an older version? i've searched by apparently i'm at a lose. all i can find is this current new version i'm using. thanks so much!

I DL this recently - I don't know if it might help?

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=8524&highlight=hacked+painting

[Kristalrose]

I was checking my Sims' memories with SimsPE and found over half of them were invisible gossip memories from other sims!  I have JMP's Director's Cut for OFB installed, and I thought there was a hack in there that took care of this? 

For example:  I'm looking at Noah's memories.  Someone has gossiped to Noah about Leia's recent infielity on her husband John.  So, Noah has 4 memories about the event!  "Leia cheated on John." "John caught Leia cheating".  "Leia lost John as a best friend." "John lost Leia as a best friend."  He even has one listed as a "Toddler Skill Token:  Gossip about Jasmine Olshlinksi"!

So, would these memories be causing squiggly lines?  And, will removing them damage my neighborhood?  Because, so far, I haven't experienced any problems with this hood, and it's 8 months old, my longest surviving hood ever. 

[maxon]

I was checking my Sims' memories with SimsPE and found over half of them were invisible gossip memories from other sims!  I have JMP's Director's Cut for OFB installed, and I thought there was a hack in there that took care of this? 

For example:  I'm looking at Noah's memories.  Someone has gossiped to Noah about Leia's recent infielity on her husband John.  So, Noah has 4 memories about the event!  "Leia cheated on John." "John caught Leia cheating".  "Leia lost John as a best friend." "John lost Leia as a best friend."  He even has one listed as a "Toddler Skill Token:  Gossip about Jasmine Olshlinksi"!

So, would these memories be causing squiggly lines?  And, will removing them damage my neighborhood?  Because, so far, I haven't experienced any problems with this hood, and it's 8 months old, my longest surviving hood ever. 

Don't delete the skill token but you can delete the invisible memories.  And no, it's not these types of memories that cause the squiggly lines - I believe it's the ones that don't have an owner (you can see who owns the memory in SimPE).

[Kristalrose]

Great!    Thank you, Maxon.