Pescado has said that the things-stay shrub leaves behind unnecessary garbage on your lot. Thus he recommends that one not use this method. It might be easier to use the shrub, but apparently it isn't good for the lot.

I've had that problem, too. Vacation locals are showing up as walkbys (even with local walkby and the VC). I made my own, but I had Argon's fix before I made them. I've been on vacation, they show up properly there (and only the right ones show up at the right areas), and they use the correct gestures. I don't have any tourists yet, but after I finish the vacation I've sent my sims on now I'll probably make a few. It was kind of neat to pretend that they'd found some remote village in the middle of nowhere that no tourists have discovered yet. But I don't think I want to play that way forever, it gets lonely at the hotel. Anyway, the only thing that's worked for me is to "ban specific sim" using the VC. Banning locals doesn't work for me. It sounds like maybe I did something wrong when I made my locals since others are reporting that the VC works the right way for them. The method that I used was to create them in CAS, drop them all on my special townification lot, put them all on procrastinate, spawn the townie creator, then one by one I turned them into townies and then vacation locals (to clarify, yes I picked "Asian", "Tropical", or "Mountain" under the townie gun to make sure that they were assigned to the proper destination). Then I cleared all non residential sims off of the lot and I saved. Does anyone see a step that I missed or something?

Did you know that Argon posted a cleaned up template for the vacation subhoods? Obviously the special characters are necessary, but his template won't spawn the gross Maxis default locals/tourists/NPCs. The thing is that BV comes with a stealth neighborhood, which is an invisible hood that gets automatically added to all of your hoods (when you first load the hood after the EP install for the first time). IIRC the stealth hood came with 50 or 60 character files this time around. And all of them were fugly (didn't use my face template replacements etc). If you're anal like me then one could make one's own (with the hacks you mentioned) or one could take notownieregen out and allow the game to make locals and tourists (but they should be generated using decustomized CC and face template replacements). Argon posted the template somewhere deep within SaraMK's cleaned out and empty templates thread. I don't know why he didn't post it as a new thread, but I don't have the energy to go digging up the specific post now.

I've never heard the UI transparency thing before, that's a really great tip! Thanks for sharing. I'll try it out when I play tomorrow.

I believe that RAM impacts load times, particularly since my game's RAM usage spikes during load times. But I'm sure that processor speed and graphics card (well, I'm not sure if this counts as technically during the load time, but if you have a shitty graphics card you might get as much as about 10 seconds of black screen while the lot tries to display. On really big complicated lots I get the black screen for a second or two) are also relevant factors.

Uh, I play TS2 with all EPs including BV with 512 mb RAM with no problem. I have a 2.4 ghz intel celeron processor, an intel eXtreme onboard graphics card (yes, I am using a laptop. I know, my game simply shouldn't run, but she's sturdy and tough as nails so she manages). And I have just under a gig of CC. Sure, my load times are long but it's not that bad. I've heard some people talking about waiting 30 minutes or more to go from the desktop to the lot. I might wait about that long if I've just deleted all of my thumbnails.package files, but not typically. Obviously my computer is teh suck and a better computer would be better (duh), but have some consideration and respect for those of us who are less fortunate. 

I have no files in that directory, although I do have folders. One is called Broadcast, which has an empty folder for each channel, for commercials, and tv_weather_summer (and the other 3 seasons of course), and one labeled "static". The other folder is Games which also has empty folders in it. If you go into C:\Program Files\EA Games\Any EP that added tv stations or games\TSData\Res\Movies you will find folders with files inside of them.

I'm confused about the want tree available on MTS2. I understand that for the woohoo wants for teens to work correctly I will need the want tree but the latest available one that I could find was for Seasons. Am I meant to use that version or have I overlooked a BV version somewhere? Or maybe I am just totally confused?

The way that you are going about this reminds me of how I did it at first. I didn't want even one unnecessary mod in my game. Now I am using almost every single hack by JM. You probably will end up doing the same thing eventually. But I understand why you are doing it this way and I respect that. I think that it's really important to know every single mod that you have, what it does, where it came from, and where it's located. My organization system for CC is almost identical to yours. Organization is critical if you're going to be downloading things that muck around with game code, IMO.


That's the beauty of macrotastics. You can stack macrotastics commands in the queue, so you can say skill/cooking and the sim will put on the thinking cap and start skilling. After that you've lined up skill/cleaning, skill/body, macro/clean (makes them clean everything that needs to be cleaned), macro/pay bills. If you kill the macro cooking once they've gotten the skill point they'll move onto the next activity. They will automatically take off the thinking cap if their aspiration falls into the green. I mentioned macro/clean because it's one of my favorite parts of macrotastics. You'll never have to worry about that one plate that a stupid guest dropped out in the back yard for no apparent reason getting forgotten and developing roaches. Macro/clean will also automatically compost trash if you have a composter on the lot so you don't have to worry about them wasting valuable material.


You don't have to use any parts of macrotastics that you don't like or want. BUY is critical, once you've played with it you'll never go back. Yeah, it's mostly less clicking but you can also use it in conjunction with APO (authorized personnel only) to keep guests out of family only bathrooms, you set the toilet paper on to "deny guests" and if you want to make sure that they absolutely don't get into the bathroom set APO as well. Then you don't need to worry about your sim being unable to get into their own freaking bathroom. It also helps keep your guests from peeing on the floor because they'll get "pulled in" to the appropriate bathroom.
I also used to think that with all of the automation I'd have nothing left to do. But it's not true at all. I can set one sim to do exactly what I want and then pay more attention to another sim without worrying about the first sim dying or setting the house on fire. The first sim will be doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing when I return to him. These hacks are especially useful for large households because it makes everything easier to micro-manage. Plus, isn't it annoying to knock those stupid autonomous actions out of the queue?


Autosoc comes with three options on the target sim "socialize friendly", "socialize unfriendly", and "socialize romantic". If you select the first option they will not attempt to flirt or otherwise romance the target sim. They will only choose appropriate interactions that have a good chance of being successful. It will stop at 100 STR. The phone hack understands "cooking" LTR so when you use "call friends" it will skip over the friend with a high STR and a low STR until the STR drops down to around 50 or until the LTR has reached 50.


That's just it, macrotastics = no more deviations from your obsessive control.


A gay/lesbian club, a brothel/strip club with workers of one gender (you can allow only gay men and straight women for example), a vampire club, a teenage hangout (so that your teen sims can meet potential mates without being harassed by adults), a bar (only adults), as you mentioned an extremely expensive store (right, no poor people, but would you really want children there too?). There is an add on hack for the customer selector that looks like a little clock which can be used to control the customers allowed based on time as well. So you could have a kid friendly environment during the day but ban children after say 11 PM. You can also change the settings whenever you want. So maybe you want to have an elder only dance at your club. Set it to elder only and when you've finished set it back.


I have a four year old computer and virtually all of JM's hacks. His hacks are always as small and lightweight as possible. With nothing but JM's hacks in game my load time is not noticeably impacted. It's all of the other types of CC that start to add up really fast, IMO.

Oh yeah, another random thought. Have you ever had that one sim who always comes to your business lot, never buys anything, and spends the entire time harassing and bothering your actual customers? BRY's "bugger off" option will kick that sim off lot without you needing to find a playable and walk them over to the annoying sim. You can also toggle the open/close without your sim having to walk over to the sign which I find convenient.

Actually, (according to Jase) inteen doesn't need an update for this patch. As for the part about it not working properly with cracked executables can you show me a source? I can't find any sort of reference to that in the inteen documentation or anywhere on their site.

I haven't patched yet. I have had antiredundancy in since I've started playing with my real hoods, so I should have only one tour guide and one unsavory, IIRC. I am unusually anal about keeping my character files low and I am not thrilled about the idea of even two unlinked character files per hood. Of course if I decide to bother with the patch I can deleted 2 them before putting the patch in, but what a pain in the ass.

Most of the other stuff is already handled by FFS hacks but one issue remains. I've heard a lot of stories lately about the shuttle coming back after dropping the sims off at the end of the vacation and bringing you back to an empty hotel lot which I believe can result in both the hotel lot and the residential lot getting FUBARed. This hasn't happened to me, but I'm not eager to experience it. The patch claims to fix this, but Pes has put the patch on the not recommended list. So, will there be a comparable FFS release or will I just have to cross my fingers when I send families on vacation?

Do you have the kitten killer? I saw something like that on Jase's user to user support forum in this thread. Maybe this will help.

Yes, you must use a cracked .exe to keep secuROM off your system.

It doesn't matter that the original exe is gone; you can get a clean .exe from the disc. Click explore and then open the TSBin folder. Copy the Sims2EP6.exe and paste it here: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSBin.

Yeah, if they're NPC available then they don't show up in CAS. You have three options, 1. have two full sets, one for NPCs one so that you can see them in CAS. 2. NPC available skins still show up in body shop so you can create one sim with each skintone and save them so that you can later access that skin in CAS (by opening the saved sim with the skintone you want and then modifying to your taste). 3. you can create sims with NPC available skins in bodyshop as needed.

None of them are exactly what I'd call ideal. I use a mishmash of the methods. For my larger sets I was too lazy to make body shop templates for each skin so I sucked it up and took the double hit on my harddrive space. For my smaller sets I used the bodyshop option.

Oh yeah, the NPC available ones spin up when you hit random sim in CAS so sometimes you'll get lucky and get the one you want fairly quickly. I don't recommend this method, though, for obvious reasons.

I had a great reply all written out and edited, but Pescado said it faster and more concisely than I did. But he missed one terribly important thing. I wanna see a screenshot of the melted hood please!

Thanks for pointing that out. Since I CAS made mine they were dressed properly, but for some reason I thought that Argon's thread said that it would fix the clothing too. I went back and reread the thread and I was wrong. I suppose the most important thing is that they behave correctly as locals, though, since clothing isn't too hard to fix.

Why would you need a tutorial to tell you how to get all of the sims that you want into the same lot? There's an ingame feature that allows you to merge families from the hood screen. If you want to add townies to a family you can use Inge's teleporter shrub or another teleporter object of your choice. If you want to merge families beyond the 8 sim limit you just need to use this cheat:

uintProp maxTotalSims 50
uintProp maxTotalHumans 35
uintProp maxTotalPets 15

First number needs to be larger than or equal to the second two. You can change the numbers to fit your needs. I would imagine that you would have to do this in the hood screen. I have that in my userstartup.cheat. That makes things a lot easier. But it would be pretty crazy to try to merge all of the sims in a hood onto one lot. If you could be more specific about what you were trying to accomplish then maybe we could help you a bit better. And yes, you ARE that difficult to understand. I am not the only person who has expressed this opinion.

And you do a lot of bitching for someone who's gotten quite a bit of help while providing hardly any useful information. My previous post was hardly mean by MATY standards. Here's the deal. MATY is mean. Get used to it or leave. If you pick the second option please be sure to tell all of your friends that MATY is a horrible place that should be avoided at all costs.

And just to set the record straight, yes you can get simPE for Bon Voyage. It's incredibly easy to join the QA team over at the simpe website. All that you have to do is ask them and wait a day or two for your membership to get approved. There's a thread where you can "apply". It is a beta version but I have it and I haven't experienced any problems. Of course you should still backup your hoods and downloads before screwing around, but that's always good advice.

Did you click on the link that Xuriel posted? The first words in that thread are

And seriously, stop asking for stuff before you look for it yourself. You've got to understand that we get tons of posters asking the same shit over and over again because they didn't bother to search. It's rude and we get sick of it very quickly. What you are asking us to do is to put aside whatever we are doing to help you when you are too lazy to help yourself. Beyond that, telling us that you haven't even bothered to search yet is unacceptable. You don't have the time? Next time you ask for help I don't think I'll have the time to post a reply.

Not to be obtuse, but I think that people should post links and pictures. We need the picture so that we don't have to chase down a million fugly tops, and we need the link so that we can make sure that the submission was posted before the start of the contest and to verify pay status (IIRC fugly pay content usually gets awarded extra points for audacity).

Argon created a fix for turning townies into vacation locals (with proper clothes and behaviors) when using the townie and NPC creator. I decided to create my own and it didn't take long. I've made 8 for Takemizu Village so far and I want to see if that's too many or not enough before I create locals for the other destinations. But I don't see why it would be a problem to just turn the locals that the game spawns into townies and then back into vacation locals. That should fix their clothing.

So, I have no idea what might have caused this. I've had some free time this week and I've been playing almost every day. I have directed sims in this household to go fishing without any errors, but this time something popped up. I haven't downloaded anything new lately. I am running all EPs (including BV), FFS, GL, and basegame is holiday garbage v2. My sim, Victor, was fishing at his home business lot and he invited two townies to join because I wanted him to work on relationship with them while accomplishing something useful (procuring more fish to sell). He caught several fish before the error occurred, although it did look as if he was just catching another one at the moment of the error. HDCU comes up clean. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I used Paladin's seasons and weather controller to sync the season in this lot to the rest of the hood. It is verified BV compatible and no one else has mentioned an error involving this object, so I doubt that it's related. But I am trying to cover all the bases here.

Dormies will spawn as needed unless you have nodormieregen by Pescado. If you use this hack then you will have to create dormies yourself by making them in uni CAS and then turning them into townies with Inge's teleporter shrub (or another similar hacked object of your choice).

I keep a bunch of MATY tutorial type threads under a HEELLLPP!!! folder in my bookmarks, so I happen to have the geneticizing skins thread handy. Since the post that explains the process isn't the OP I linked directly to that post so that you don't have to scroll through everything to find it.

My experiences might throw a bit of a wrench into figuring this whole thing out. I've never had this problem. I play on a dell laptop, 512 MB RAM, 2.6 ghz intel celeron, intel extreme onboard graphics card (not T&L capable, obviously), 64 MB video RAM, XP home with SP2. It wasn't even a terribly good computer when I got it in 2003. Until Seasons I always played from the CD, but then my CD/DVD drive decided to go insane so I switched to using an image. With Seasons I used the image + YASU. With BV I have to use an image + YASU + a noCDcrack. It always has loaded on the first try. My boyfriend plays on a desktop with similar specs, I'll have to ask him if he's had loading problems when he gets home. But then again, he has random crashes, bizarre graphical errors, and a boatload of other issues because he does VBTs quite often, so his experiences may not be helpful.

Yes, we all saw that already, there's another thread where we are discussing it. If you'd read any thread on this forum about MaxoidSam you would realize that he is a big huge liar who knows nothing about the game. The bug IS harmful. He is stupid. EAxis doesn't fully test their products whereas MATY hacks are tested by hundreds of users and we are lucky enough to get nearly instant support. If someone posts an error log it is not unusual for JM to have a fix up in an hour or less. Many MATY users have taken their time and energy to independently test the NPC spawning bug (both in BV and with previous EPs, this isn't the first time that this bug has reared it's ugly head) and they discovered that it is in fact harmful. It is common knowledge at this point that having too many character files can bork your hood in a number of unpleasant ways and dramatically increase load times. Listen to us, not MaxoidLiarSam. We, both individually and as a community, actually hold ourselves accountable for the research/testing that we do on the game and with various hacks (with the exception of the color scheme "experiment") and for the fixes that we post.

You're not on the BBS anymore, honey. Here search is your BFF. Also, lurk MOAR and you won't get poked with sticks. Although your handle is pretty fucking awesome, so that may help sheild you from some of the wrath. I already like you better than all the other n00bs. Also, go find the FAQ in the podium. It will save you from a lot of pain and suffering. I'm not going to link you because I am sick of linking n00bs to the FAQ. I want to see n00bs take some initiative, dammit!

HyperNeko, you need to read the FAQ too. Seriously. Right now.