Tips for restarting to avoid slowdown?

[MuertoElBarto]

 

[Renatus]

If you don't mind not having townies or are willing to create your own, create the neighborhood and the university and then type in the console deleteallcharacters. This will delete absolutely EVERYONE, and with notownieregen you won't get townies back. NPCs will generate as needed, which causes a short bit of lag. You can make your own townies by making CAS sims and using Inge's Teleporter Plus Bush. I also recommend getting the nodormieregen and making your own dormies, and making sure you have the barista fix or simply not ever using coffee bars, if you go this route.

[nothingbutsims]

I have a question - I have seen others mention this before, but what do NPC's like the maid, gardner, etc., have to do with your game as far as this matter is concerned?  How can calling the maid to your house, which is the same maid almost everyone else has, gunk up your game?  I'm just curious is all.

[Renatus]

There's the too many character files problem, and there is also the occasional problem of NPCs getting stuck, or the portal for their cars vanishing completely so that they can't arrive in the first place. I believe ViveElBarto is concerned about the number of character files.

[ZephyrZodiac]

If you're worried about corrupted houses, why not create your own, then package them so you can use them as often as you want.  If you do this before you put any downloads or hacks back into your game, the houses should all be pristine!  (And they can all have bedrooms large enough to take a double bed!)

[miramis]

To avoid bloating..

Get Pescado's Barista fix if you have Uni - it will stop the game generating new ones nearly every visit.
Get Crammyboy's 'preventative' to cut down on the chance of the NPC/Slowdown bug striking (you can add hundreds of new npc's just from one attack of that bug in no time, let alone several lots getting hit!) http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=727909#post727909

Get Pescado's Critical Fixes, many deal with problems resulting from bloatedness.
Don't download any lots with Sims, they bring along all their invisible aquaintances (I tested this last night on a lot with clean installer, there were 83 junk sims that would have gone with the packaged lot!!)

One Uni per Neighbourhood only
Don't transfer sims between neighbourhoods (again they will take along copies of invisible aquaintances to the new 'hood). 

Pescado says that moving an inhabited house to a lot bin is a no-no, it's probably a good idea to follow that advice too.  Can't think of anything else to add right now though.

[veilchen]

Yep, you nailed it.  At least, I know that purging the download folder was pointless, and using only spartan little homes didn't help.  But I did have just over 500 character files.  Thanks for the help - I think the CAS townies will be a lot more interesting than the game-generated ones.

They definitely are more fun than the maxis townies. I play that way all the time, and except for a lag when the game re-generates a NPC, there are no problems. As an added bonus you get to give them names yourself, no more 3 Ivy Copurs, 4 Tosha Gos etc.

If you want to also make Secret Society members, go to VS and get Carrigon's Helping Hand. Before you make them dormies in your Uni neighborhood with Inge's teleporter plus shrub, make them Secret Society members as well.

By the way, wasn't it you ZZ who had hordes of nannies arriving at your sim house once. That thought still makes me shudder. :D

[ZephyrZodiac]

It was indeed!  Nannies by the score (and the original ones had all ben turned into babies, and they still turned up!!!!)  I never use nannies now!

Incidentally, turning burglars into babies doesn't seem ever to generate replacements, and no more burglaries!  Definitely worth doing.

I've just started a new custom neighbourhood and I used deleteAllCharacters before I started, haven't put any CAS townies or dormies into the game, but the game seems to treat my first few groups of sims as replacement dormies!  I've three sims who never normally kick trashcans (only if they're very down in the red, which I never let them get to if I can help it) but they'll walk past lots of sims they know, and which often include a friend, and they'll suddenly kick the trashcan.  They're obviously being used by the game to do the nasty dormie things!

[Motoki]

LOL there's a perverse side of me that wants an army of nannies in my game. I think I have hired as many as 8 at a time once. It's also fun to influence them to fight with each other, particularly with the new furious state.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Trouble is though, that in the end they tend to foul up your lot and it gets totally corrupted!

[Regina]

Once a neighborhood is wiped clean, the service workers don't generally cause too many problems (unless, of course, you have 50 of one type suddenly generated).  As a rule, no more than three of any one type of service worker will be generated at one time within your game with the exception of the Barrista problem.  One exception to this is if you use a hack, like the NPC maker (which hasn't been updated for NL last I checked) and if you create say four of each type of NPC worker and move one of them in, the game will go ahead and generate a replacement and keep the number static at four intead of the default three.

I've also noticed that quite frequenty when my sim families in previously wiped neighborhood call a repairman they end up with the same repairman as long as they live in that house rather than the game generating a new one.  Now if you keep all your sims' houses close together within the neighborhood they're also much more likely to end up with the same newspaper and mail carriers.

One of the upsides is, you'll never have service workers generated that you don't need.  If your sims don't start fires there'll be no firemen.  If your house is never burglarized there'll never be cops.  If your sims all do their own cleaning, there'll never be maids, etc., etc., etc.  This alone can keep somewhere around 30 to 40 extra character files from entering your game.  (Pre-NL I noticed that in neighborhoods that were wiped clean, burglaries seemed to never happen and in neighborhoods where I had created four burglars with the NPC-maker, crime was rampant.  Since installing NL it doesn't seem to matter.  My Legacy family was started in a clean neighborhood, gen 2 is halfway through adulthood, and they already know two burglars!)

At any rate, deleting all the characters at the outset, using the no townie regen mod and making your own Townies has got to make a neighborhood last quite a bit longer because you have so much more control.

[cwykes]

Don't download any lots with Sims, they bring along all their invisible aquaintances (I tested this last night on a lot with clean installer, there were 83 junk sims that would have gone with the packaged lot!!)

If you use cleaninstaller, can't you clear out the junk sims before you put the lot in your game?  Is it then OK?

re Nannies - someone on my usual board has a "scary" nanny problem.
http://thesims.ea.com/us/index.html?frame_src_content=%2Fbbs%2Fmessages.php%3F%26threadID%3D1e1944f2a13aec4010f2ce0351eb8824%26directoryID%3D341
" Oh help! Not only do I have two nannies and can't make them leave, the older one was tired so she got into my sims' bed in her underwear and is now roaming around the house in her underwear. I'm pretty sure she wears a girdle and she'll traumatize the toddler, the kids going to grow up to be a sociopath if he has to keep seeing this. She's sure scaring me. Yikes! How do get rid of her!"

[Motoki]

My nannies also have a tendency to move themselves into the house uninvited (they don't count as part of the household, they just never leave!). It seems to be some bug with the nannymobile preventing them from leaving so they just stay instead. They stop doing any work, if they ever did in the first place, and you get to see them roaming around in their orthpaedic underwear lol!

I actual rather like and have even made bedrooms for them when that happens. At least this way, I never have to worry about leaving the kids alone and having the social worker come. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, at present I have no burglars at all since I'm in College town and none of my students are ready to graduate yet, but if any do appear, they will be turned into babies pretty smartish! 

I tried experimenting with one of the cheerleaders, but I decided to try toddler, as in college if you turn dormies into babies the suddenly appear through portals and lie on the ground.  anyway, Audrey the cheerleader has started crawling into houses and can't be zapped with the NPC zapper, so I have to keep deleting her!  But she was annoying me so much, although I ban all cheerleaders etc., she always had to be indvidually zapped, as do two of the professors who keep turning up, and one coach!  Some are definitely unbannable!

[bluecatvon]

To avoid bloating..

Get Pescado's Barista fix if you have Uni - it will stop the game generating new ones nearly every visit.

i can't find it. what's the name? is it the no npc spam sort of name?

[ZephyrZodiac]

That's the one, and it works really well!

[C.S.]

anyway, Audrey the cheerleader has started crawling into houses and can't be zapped with the NPC zapper, so I have to keep deleting her!  But she was annoying me so much, although I ban all cheerleaders etc., she always had to be indvidually zapped, as do two of the professors who keep turning up, and one coach!  Some are definitely unbannable!

Haha , cheerleader crawling into houses! Sounds like one of those horror movies (esp Japanese ones) where there's usually a scene of the spook crawling towards their victims to terrorise them.

I haven't played the college neighbourhood in a while (all my pre-made YAs are in limbo until I get Nightlife; still waiting for the patches to be released before I buy it), but I liked using Inge's TeleporterPaintingPlus to clear off unwanted visitors. Very handy, the teleporter .

[ZephyrZodiac]

True, it does save having to go into buy mode!  And enter the moveobjects cheat if you've not already done so!  I actually took a pic of Audrey, so if I can find it I'll let you know! But I still find it odd that there's always one or two that the zapper doesn't automatically get rid of!

[cwykes]

My nannies also have a tendency to move themselves into the house uninvited (they don't count as part of the household, they just never leave!). It seems to be some bug with the nannymobile preventing them from leaving so they just stay instead. They stop doing any work, if they ever did in the first place, and you get to see them roaming around in their orthpaedic underwear lol!

I actual rather like and have even made bedrooms for them when that happens. At least this way, I never have to worry about leaving the kids alone and having the social worker come. 

Isn't this a form of NPC slowdown bug caused by a missing/non-working portal?  I thought this was fixed in the patch and that's why I'm worrying the guy still has it!