Ummm...are these the best she can do?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Didn't you post all that in your other thread, though, Blue?

[BlueSoup]

Yep, that's why I didn't go into details.

[Stitches]

dac isn't really enough though, you also have to remember to wipe the DNA and SWAFs before starting a new hood.

How precisely does one do that? I'm assuming this is a SimPe process, but I've never bothered with SimPe because the idea of installing the .net framework makes me very unhappy.

I'm one of those people that ALWAYS uses DAC and imagine my alarm when I read three separate threads in one day about the dangers of DAC and SWAFS.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think it's a case of "first find your SWAF" but what comes next I'd also appreciate some clarity about.

[jrd]

Step-by-step:
1) Create a new neighbourhood
2) Once it's loaded, do the delete all characters cheat
3) Exit TS2 and open the neighbourhood in SimPE
4) Delete all remaining sim descriptions (SDSCs) — the default NPCs will be recreated anyway
5) Delete all Sim DNA entries (SDNA)
6) Delete all Sim Wants and Fears (SWAF)

Optionally, also clean out all Sim Relations (should be empty) and Neighbourhood/Memory (NGBH). Do not touch anything else!

Safe and exit SimPE, and restart TS2. Now your neighbourhood is clean and safe to play.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Thanks Jordi, but what do I do if Marsha Bruenig left something behind after I manually took her out of my game?

[jrd]

Oh, in that case you'll need to somehow find her SWAF files. The extra SDNA won't be much of a problem so forget about it.
If you've already deleted her character file (SDSC) finding the right SWAF will be hell to do… check each and everyone and delete the ones for ‘unknown’. Any valid SWAF will report a Sim name, Marsha Bruenig's will not find one and say ‘unknown’.
You should have at least one extra unknown in NL (remote control car) and two unknowns in OFB/FFS (rc car and the robots), deleting them is safe though since their wants are not used anyway.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I'm hoping she didn't leave anything, but I shan't know till I go back into SimPE.  (I hadn't loaded a Downtown, and had a surplus of about 100 or so SWAFs, but I think they were nearly all blank and had no LTW in the frame.  I think they are all the new NPCs and Downtownies and ghosts for Nightlife - at least, fingers crossed!)

[jrd]

SWAFs can't be deleted in normal ways. DAC leaves them behind, as does deleting the character directly. So it's a good bet it is still around and waiting to do damage (which will begin the moment a new Sim gets Masha's old ID).

[ZephyrZodiac]

So how the hell do I fix that?  I probably have about half a dozen sims with the problem (however many townie kids there are in Pleasantview, as I got rid of them all!)

[jrd]

Manually delete all SWAFs for ‘unknown’.

[ZephyrZodiac]

And that will take them from the new character's file? Great!  That should solve the problem, but can I do that from within SimPE?  Or do I have to open up the character file?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I added a downtown, and gained even more SWAFs, so that wasn't the problem.  So, I have about 100 SWAFs that don't belong to anything, I found (I think and hope) five of the townie kids' SWAF that were in the right place in the list in amongst all the other original townies, but none of them were listed as Unknown.  All were simply nameless.  I have a few other nameless SWAFS, but somehow finding 100 which don't belong to anyone seems a daunting task, and since also some of the Wants of my existing sims are not appearing correctly (ie missing date such as icons), and also a lot of townie and dormie wants  are showing incorrectly, I'm beginning to wonder if the real problem is the new version of SimPE which decided to go and update itself.  I think I might uninstall it and go back to the previous one and see if the problem persists - I backed up before I started all this, but of course, it was this version of SimPE that made the backups!  I honestly can't see how half-a-dozen townie kids could have turned into about 100!

Unless it's all the munchiebots sitting in my sims' inventories?

[vilia]

Oh, Mitch Wolosenko...

Seriously, Maxis needs a new name database!  Mitch is not that common a name - there is no reason to have more than one!  I have 396 character files in this neighbourhood, is it too much to ask to have only one Mitch???

At the moment I have 4 Alon - even worse than Mitch but thankfully only 2 Brandi wandering around - in a previous incarnation of Pleasantview I had 5 of them.

[J. M. Pescado]

I have 8 Marylenas. This is rather overmuch, considering I've never heard of even one.

[jrd]

And that's why I made my name mod… I have some dupes but far less than with the default and obscure mix. I have no Goopy Jitsumakolwhatevers at least.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Manually delete all SWAFs for ‘unknown'.

Jordi, I have done a complete reinstall of SimPE and gone back to 0.56, and everything is identical.  the interesting thing is I started out after adding the downtown with 602 SWAFs, and there are still 602 SWAFs listed, even though I removed 5 of them.   I also have an enormous number of almost totally blank files in the SWAFs, with no name, not even Unknown.  I have one or two sims who have 8 wants shown, and deleting the 5 I did has made no difference at all to any of my sims.  I think something else is going on here!

[J. M. Pescado]

Deleting the SWAFs of the unknown has no effect, other than to prevent it from happening to other sims. In order to clear up errors on existing sims, you have to delete the SWAFs corresponding to them, Otherwise, they continue to use the corrupted SWAF they inherited.

[ZephyrZodiac]

So I delete their SWAFs, and then they generate new ones when I play them again?  That sounds a whole lot easier (if I've understood you correctly) than trying to hunt down the original SWAFs.

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes. Although they lose their extra want slots and locks, and who knows what else might be important in there? If you CAN restore them from non-damaged SWAFs, this is best, but failing that, I've had to delete a few corrupted SWAFs before....they SEEMED to be OK, but there's no guarantee it will work perfectly.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, when you start with something imperfect, the best you can hope for is to make it less imperfect than it was!

I still wonder what all these blank files are, though, it's very odd!  The only thing that did occur to me was to wonder if, when you upgrade a pre-uni sim, if the old SWAFs are wiped and a new set made, creating two files, an old, blank one and a new one.  If so, the number of blanks I have would probably roughly correspond with the number of sims I've upgraded.!

Well, it's a good thing I have a back up, because Sigrid Schilling now has only one want, and it isn't one she's likely to fulfil in the future! All the others were locked, unfortunately.  Still, I have a backup, which I'll have to use, and I can make sure all the want slots are unlocked before I try any more manipulations in SimPE!

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I've finally managed to get Sigrid back to her original 6 wants in game, and I'll have to check what's happening in SimPE.  At least if it's worked, I can go ahead with the other sims with similar problems!  But it's going to take ages, as I feel that it's a lot safer to deal with them one at a time!

[vilia]

Mitch Indie is...

Rather off topic but curious minds wish to know - which uni does Mitch Indie pop up in?

[ZephyrZodiac]

La Tour, I think.

[starrling]

Yes, and I think he's in the student housing titled "Friends".  His buddy Max is cool too.