Squiggly Lines & SimPE Editing Advice Please

[lechapeau]

I've searched through and seen topics similar but not an exact answer I can work with, and having never edited anything properly I'd like clear advice and instructions please.

I have a neighborhood made up by a group of people having made sim families for it. They were supposed to come 'clean' and unplayed, but not all were completely and things had to be sorted out.
Someone gathered them up and put them all together, then linked them up and made relationships in SimPE and sent it out for us to download as a complete neighborhood.

I've seen some squiggly lines of doom lately and know this could mean impending big fiery balls and thought I'd play till it exploded and see if I could get my story finished first.
I was looking for something else here this morning, and saw a thread saying these memories could actually be edited and maybe it could all be saved.
I never make them gossip, but sometimes I don't catch them in time.
I've got to the memories part of SimPE, but am not sure what I should do from here. I have backed it up as well though.

This one woman I'm starting with has a memory of gossiping about a character who is a dead unknown with no character details. He's left over from when we began last year and someone sent a house with I think two dead sims who were supposed to be ghosts on the lot but then couldn't appear pre Nightlife so were just left over data.
There are a few of these unlinked characters, they're supposed all to be dead relations and some show as such in a some family trees and some are sort of dangling ready to corrupt things further.

I don't know if I'm supposed to just make a new memory and that will stop it, would that fix it?
And does it matter what memory I replace it with?
Most of them have an $ subject, but I understand that's a SimPE thing that happens a lot...
Do I have to do anything to these unlinked people, or delete them but as said some do seem to link up properly and I'll have to go through them all to see where my troubles are.
I didn't get SimPE that long ago and have only just started looking through these things.

If it's too much or just impossible I'm no worse off than when I first saw it, as in I was prepared for losing it before this morning.
It was an experiment and I've liked it so far but I know things now that we wouldn't have done before and wouldn't do again.
Seeing the half information this morning got me wondering that's all...

This information I saw could have been very old, I didn't notice the dates. If anyone can help, I confuse easily with vague instructions so step by step simple ones that I can make sense of would be very nice of you!
Thank you in advance.
 

[J. M. Pescado]

I have no idea what you're jabbering about, so I'm going to say it sounds like you blew up your neighborhood.

[lechapeau]

Well that's what I thought really so you just confirmed it.
Thank you.

The jabber was to try to explain how and where I'd got these characters from, I'd never have installed played characters bringing extra files into my own game and I am usually quite vocal as to the dangers of it.
I was under the impression these were all checked before I got them.

I'll take comfort in the fact that I didn't blow it up myself, it was done before I got it and I've only just found out.

[Jysudo]

You are the MV creator and I hope its not MV that is blowing up! I like that neighbourhood 
The townies are so cute and have funny names. A friend and I both enjoy MV very much.

Have you thought of duplicating those sims and replicating your neighbourhood? It could be done if the neighbourhood is indeed blowing up.

And I don't know if this is what you are looking for:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2590.0

Fyi,the new version of SimPE does have a memory editor. I haven't used that before so I can't help.

Finally, I think you should never use sims that come in houses. Always use .package files or sims2pack.

[lechapeau]

Oh...I'm not the creator ov Maple Valley!
I can't let you think that because it's unfair on the others!
Zythe created the idea of it, I was part of the team making it, but lots of people sent families and that's where this problem lies.
As Zythe stopped playing and our team dwindled I carried on supporting it where needed.
I'm sad this happened.
I'm no SimPE expert, I know very basic things and if there was a fix I would grasp it with both hands and gladly try to make it work.
I needed step by step instructions...not just a 'do this' though and that's why I asked!

I'd not looked into that...I just saw two threads while looking for another thing saying it could be done but not 'how' exactly...Thanks

I could back it up and try, see if my other things get fixed too, but it's already affecting things and I'm not sure that damage can simply go away...
I more than like it...but as I see it this had the potential to cause problems from the start, but I didn't even have SimPE back then and now I do and have taken an unexperienced look I wouldn't know where to even start with editing things.

I don't think it's just a case of zapping the corrupt memory though, there are several unlinked characters and if I zap now, they'll crop up again when someone else talks about one of them and that's where I'm unsure...

And the houses were *supposed* to be made cleanly and the families unplayed and they were in sims2packs. People weren't aware at the time that sending ghosts would cause this...some people thought they were helping by adjusting this and that and it's backfired.
Zythe put it all together and installed all the families to it...that's a lot of work and he probably didn't realise or know at all or see...
I'll have a look at fixing and see where I get to...I've stopped the download...If it gets fixed then I'll carry on uploading it for those at TSR who wanted it.
Thank you, it gives me something to try!

Edit: I just read through and I have OfB and it says it's not going to work with that or the new SimPE...it worked with version 52/54 I think it said
I'll look to see if mine's the newest one and look at the memory editor again and see if I can figure anything out but when I looked the other day it confused me as to exactly what to put...Hence this thread!

[Jysudo]

Hmmmm...ok. I just like MV and didn't know who created it 

Suggest you replicate the whole thing if its really that serious.

Sleepycat has a great tutorial here on duplicating hoods and it is not difficult. Do a search for it.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you cleaned up such things as dangling SWAFs, unknown relationships etc.? Also made sure you don't have any unlinked duplicates of any of the sims in your hood?  Also, the latest version of simPE includes the option in neighbourhood memory to nuke superfluous memories.

Make sure that none of the sims in your hood, including townies and NPCs has any memories referring to any unknown other than the mystery sim.

[lechapeau]

Edit: Yes Jysudo, I have started as I say below, cloning them and getting their details and was planning on making it again even though I at first though it best not to.
I'll look for that information as well...I don't want to get anything wrong after all this!
It probably looks to many as if I made it, I had to remake most of the houses when we got another bug before and since most of the others left our group, I've been 'caretaking' it and am the one most associate with it now Zythe's gone.
It doesn't matter except if it were my own mess I'd know better how to sort it, and other than that I didn't want the others getting annoyed at me taking credit for it.


I've not managed to work out what SWAF's is...'sims with something...adult families?' is about as far as I got!
Because we have those...
There are two duplicated sims.
There are many with memories of various unlinked/no character detailed sims, townies included.
Some of them are invisible.

I did have a look, I downloaded the new SimPE, read through all tutorials I could see but apart from the complete 'mess'...I couldn't work out the order I should start with...
Delete the memories of each person who talked or has an invisible memory of the talk/gossip...
And is 'delete' the right thing to do, not try to replace the memory...
Then would I have deleted the sim as well...and what if there were more memories pertaining to this 'life before the game' connected with this sim?
And who might have shared those...and what if these 'life before' memories also applied to more of these no character sims...
And once that's trawled through...I guess I nuke the neighborhood memories?!
*shrug*

The neighborhood has two characters saying they are unlinked. They are supposed to be parents of four adult children.
They were added after the neighborhood was put together to give a history to this family.

There are another set of parents also added after that are apparently linked, but have no character details.

There are two (could be one or two more) that I know for definate sets of 'no character' people that were made along with the family and killed on the lot. they were sent pre Nightlife so the tombstones didn't appear correctly but the characters appear as part of the family tree and can be seen in SimPE, but have no details that it says link up other than if they show as a parents or husbands in the game.
It's one of these last sims that I have traced one set of squiggly lines to. Working out who all the sims may be that this particular nosey neighbor type that I saw gossip and has spread it to is a long process!

I found the part in SimPE that holds the memories, but I've never done this and am worried to click things I'm unsure of.
I did back it up first though.
I heard the new SimPE could do something with the memory, and as said I know one sim to trace it to, but there being several others it 'could' also affect, plus there being more sims *I thought* had squiggly lines but didn't get to in time to make sure it's getting more of a muddle.

My neighborhood is now crawling too...I imagine this is a sign of impending doom.
I did clone them last night. I'm looking to make it again, not bothering about who remembers what but I know how to make relationships so it will be (I think) like a cleaner slate than we were handed when this neighborhood was made.
If it doesn't work out, then I'll lose it anyway and be no worse off than before.

Because this neighborhood is until this Friday generally available, and many (but I don't know any numbers) have downloaded it I was trying to find if there's 'an answer' to tell anyone else that this happens to.
The people so far have said it's not affecting them, but I played it a lot as my main hood and from last September when it started, so maybe mine showed before anyone else's.
With all this extra stuff squished in it though, I guessed none of them were 'safe'...if it mattered to them. 

In about three days this game for me is *bad* with problems happening all the time, that's of playing, it's more than three days since I found it for definate.
Normally I'd have just deleted it and moved on.
I would have saved it if I could but that's a job and a half and what if it didn't fix it...
Thank you anyway.
You can either tell me what I could have done, or leave it as I seriously think Maple Valley has had it's day!
I already know what we *shouldn't have done* when making it!

[ZephyrZodiac]

The good news is, I had a neighbourhood which appeared to be totally fubared.  I had done all sorts of things I shouldn't, because at that time \i didn't know the problems it could cause.  However, I managed to clean it up, disappearing families magically returned to their homes, and the hood is now playable. 

The bad news is, cleaning it up takes a lot of time!

SWAF - Sim Wants and Fears.  If you click on this in the menu, then when they all appear on the right hand panel, as you click on first one then the next, you will probably notice a lot of blanks where there should be four/six wants.  These are normally unowned and can be deleted.  The number of SWAFs should be the same as the number of character files in you characters folder.

Cleaning up memories of met sims who are shown as unknown, just delete every single one you can find including invisible memories which are gossip.   Don't delete passed on gossip memories of the Mystery Sim, though, unless you have used the FFSdebugger to wipe mystery sim memories.  If you have such things as noaplusspam or nodeanspam, then you can delete all but the first of the actual memories (ie, Dustin got an A+ (Brandi) one memory is all you need, Dustin got an A+ (Beau) one memory likewise is all you need.  However, don't go deleting a lot of the invisible memories of this, as this is gossip and will only be added again so there's no point.)

Never delete any memory that has a token!

I think it's a case of taking it one sim at a time, and not trying to do too much at once.  You will, for instance, have to make sure that all relationships with an unknown for each sim are deleted from sim relations, but you can actually scroll through the top panel which lists all your sim relations including those with unknowns, and delete all those which have sim x towards unknown or unknown towards sim x.  This can take some time!

Hope you manage to get it cleaned up!  I would be inclined, I think, to tackle one thing at a time, then after each job is finished, back up the hood again.  That way, if you make a mess of one of the operations, you won't have lost all the work you did before.

[lechapeau]

Well thank you, that makes it much clearer...and possibly gives me hope!
It's work either way, we nearly didn't get it made because of it's previous trouble, I found a fix and it was very successful until now. So I've worked on it all along, it's probably better to fix this one if you say it's possibly got a chance.
I'll probably work on both this and the copy hood and see which works best.
It's all more experience isn't it!

[ZephyrZodiac]

True, but then, that's what The Sims is, when all's said and done!  And at least you'll be more aware of the pitfalls when you come to make another custom hood, and hopefully get it right first time.

[lechapeau]

For the wants & fears...do you mean blank as in nothing at all?
Because the want for 'buy new clothes' had no icon in the first few I'm checking, but the description is there and showing.
So far two characters, a Professor and Castor Nova both only have two wants showing at all...
But they would appear to belong to those people...
Some have only three wants and I've found one that has no name at all and only one want...so would that be the one to delete?

There are 458 characters, and the main Sim Wants And Fears says (SWAF )(412), wondering if that's the number you meant?

It's been suggested that I just take the original hood before any play has taken place and try to make that work properly and let people have that if they'd prefer.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, if you have less SWAFs than characters, I think that's due to some of those characters (NPCs etc.) never having been activated.  Basically, I think you don't need to worry if an icon is not showing in SimPE as long as they are showing in the game.  The only SWAFs I'd say to remove are the ones with no owner and which are blank.  These would, I think, belong to the unlinked sims I think you said were in one of the houses and which were deleted?  If you find SWAFs belonging to ghosts, then you should leave them alone.