How many character files are "normal"

[Gelina]

I have a new neighborhood with 2 vacation hoods and 1 university.  I have 134 character files for the neighborhood, 4 of which are characters I've CASed or birthed.  Does this seem like a normal amount?  The reason that I'm asking is because I'm only ever getting one walkby (the same teenage girl).  I do not have the localwalkby's hack installed and have installed marhirs-walkby hack and I'm still not seeing any townies to torture.

[jsalemi]

That sounds about right, so I would take out the 'marhirs-walkby' hack (whatever that is) and see what happens.  Unless you have JMP's notownieregen in the game, the game will generate additional townies as it needs them.

[Gelina]

I didn't have the marhirs walkby hack in until about an hour ago (it's supposed to cause a walkby once an hour), so I would say that's not the problem.  I've only had exactly one townie walking by for about 3 weeks now.

[Gwill]

134 isn't too many if that's what you're worried about.
I let the game spawn strays, townies and dormies, but kept anitredundancy and ended up with about 230 characters.

I like to have a certain amount of random townies.

[Gelina]

I'm not worried about it being too many, I'm worried about it being too few.

[jsalemi]

Don't worry about that, the game will generate them as it needs them.  Just make sure you don't have any hacks (like the notownieregen I mentioned) in your game.

[Gelina]

I don't have notownieregen or any other hacks that block regeneration.

[Gwill]

Characters don't really start spawning until you start seriously playing the game.  Visit some community lots and go on a few vacations, and you'll see the hood bloom.

[Zazazu]

You can also force-spawn 30 the easy way by activating "boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true". Shift-click on mailbox, "Neighborhood...create townies".

Shockingly, I only have 340 character files in my current 'hood. It's a travesty. Just have downtown, an unplayed uni, and the three vacation 'hoods. I really need to get creating more, but am waiting to finish my super-set of face templates. Three down, who knows how many to go. I like loads of walk-bys and community lots to be crammed full. Limits be damned.

[ililas]

I made some test.

I have three computer here so i decided to install the entire game on my office one, just to test how many characters the game put in the folder.

For the neighboor of MontSympa, the first one with the Gothick, don't know in english sorry.  "Plansantview" I guess?

I install ALL the game, means that I put the three University, the three vacance destination etc..

The basic game put 170 characters in the game and 26 lots.

Academy = 242 characters and 84 lots. 

Nightlife = 78 characters and 44 lots

OFB = 77 characters and 33 lots

Pets = 67 characters and 0 lots

Seasons = 17 characters and 0 lots

BV = 104 new characters and 39 lots

For a big total of 755 characters and 226 lots.

[Zazazu]

Pets = 67 characters and 0 lots

Seasons = 17 characters and 0 lots

For lots, you must not have been counting lot bin files. Does anyone know how many lots the game gives you in the lot bin? The only Maxis lot I have saved is Chestnut Park, which I believe is one of the placed lots in one of the uni's. That's about to be dumped because the garden lots look even crappier than normal in Fall/Winter.

Ililas, it's Pleasantview, with the Goths, in English. Good guess.

[ZephyrZodiac]

If you use Two Jeffs' Visitor Controller this should increase the number of walkbys.

If your game isn't generating townies, you could always create your own in CAS, then move them into an empty lot with Inge's teleporter plus from Simlogical, and click on the "Make me a Townie" option.  You lose the random element, but you gain from having chosen your townies' appearances and characters.......

[Gwill]

After having built my whole neigbourhood, and visited all the community lots with a test-sim, done some test-vacations, as well as running a test-sim through college to spawn dormies and proffessors, I have 231 characters.  I'm using anti redundancy, but I've allowed the game to spawn townies, dormies and pets, I'll put the anti-townie hacks back in once I've spawned a decent background population.
I created vacation locals manually (because if the game is allowed to spawn them they don't look very local), and I think I did 10 for each vacation spot.  That might be more than the game normally spawns.

[ZephyrZodiac]

In my present game my only townies are ones I created, apart from one Seasons creation that appeared when I removed anti-redundancy because I was having trouble with comm lots (found out later thanks to TJ that it was not anti-redundancy that was the issue) and I think about 5 SS dormies were created in the time the hack was out, even though nossrespawn was never removed.  The oddest thing about them, though, is all are male and all have been given Sims2sisters dreadlocks with the woolly hat!

[Zazazu]

Toby Bruenig, Peter Sims, and whoever that old guy with the evil mustache is? I forgot to replace my clean templates when I reinstalled Seasons months ago and got stuck with them when I created Queen's Cove. By the time I decided I was sick of them, they had friendships with several playables. Peter got struck by lightning and has the permanent dirty face that sticks until they shower (which, as townies, they don't). While Stella's still alive I just let her pummel them for fun.  After that, they've no further use.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Odd thing about the one I got - Willow Lam - I decided that since I'd banned pregnant sims on every lot, I'd use SimPe to make her pregnant, but unfortunately it doesn't affect her, so I've had to keep banning her!  (Funny, turn a burglar into a baby, he never returns, and the game never replaces him.....)  I guess for some reason the game reasons that townies don't get pregnant.....