At some point I plan to do my whole neighbourhood, but apparently the current count is a rather depressing 1209 sims.  Clearly I'm going to have to set it to run at some point where I'm going to be out of the house for an hour or two. *g*  (I had it down to just under a thousand before installing AL, after going through and manually deleting over 100 gardeners caused by the gardner-spawning bug in the early base-game only days, as well as extra tour guides and charlatans..)

The pet issue; the post at the beginning of the thread hasn't been updated yet but the RTFM in the .zip file has to say that the problem with pets' salaries with the second patch is fixed. 

Apparently this may just be an issue of time.  I tried importing all my NPC's (..about 50 pages worth, apparently), and the first time I thought it had crashed.  However, I set it up to try again, walked away and watched an episode of Futurama, and when I was finished with that, came back to the computer and found it was done.  As such, rufio's suggestion of including a progress bar ought to do it - and, when the program does have some documentation written up, a note in there that large numbers of Sims do take a long time for the list to compile. 

Ah, I didn't think about editing them at the time of import.  As it is the drop down field ought to make it fairly simple to do it after import, the main problem is that going in and typing them repeatedly would get annoying and that it opens up the possibility of typos as well. 


They show up as thumbnails when I'm looking at the folder with them in.  However, I was thinking I'd open some in PSP, resave them as .jpg or .bmp, and try adding them that way - but no dice.  PSP wouldn't open them at all and it's normally pretty good with weirdly/slightly incorrectly saved stuff. 


I'll give it a shot later.  Maybe due to being presumably "lower" down the system than the game?  With me, The Sims 2 folder is on a level with the SimSheet one - ie My Documents\EA Games\SimSheet-test and My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 are at the same level, C:\SimSheet would be "higher", but presumably the Simdata option is "lower" and so it's having trouble?  No idea. 

Edited to add: misunderstood the filepath slightly.  Tuna's running it from the desktop, correct?  If I move it to the desktop it also fails when I select filter.. but as I general rule I'd never install a program on the desktop normally anyway; I use it for shortcuts only.  It does *not* fail if the program is directly on the desktop, but as soon as you put it in anyfolder (even Desktop/SimSheet), it will crash when the filter is used. 

Does it crash when placing it, or when browsing to it in the catalogue, or..?

Checkbox working again, and identically named Sims differentiated between in the family ties list.  Woo!  I assumed that to add a new household, I should use the "Add Household" button, but it doesn't seem to do anything when I click it.  I've found that I can force the creation of a new one by editing a Sim directly, so it's not a huge problem, but I'm not sure if it's intended to not work yet, or if it's broken, or if I'm flat out doing it wrong..!  Also, adding Sims to a different household at the moment, unless I'm doing it wrong, seems to require you to edit each Sim and enter the household name as a text field.  It would be useful to have some way to either select multiple Sims and do a mass add-to-household, or to be able to choose the Household from a drop down list when editing a Sim - I'm cheating at the moment and using Copy/Paste rather than retyping it for each one.  It's a bit of a limited-use feature though, I suppose - I need it because I have a lot of Sims with the same family name spread out over lots of different households, but others may not.  

Would it be possible to add some sort of confirmation that the file has saved once you press Save As?  

I assume you're aware of this already, but the thumbnail images generated have a .png extension, and SimSheet only gives an option for .bmp or .jpg when you try to use the Add Image button... additionally, I tried opening a couple of the thumbnails in PaintShop Pro and got a error message that they weren't valid .png files.  

(Incidentially, I've got the Program in C:\Documents and Settings\coralleane\EA Games\SimSheet-test\ and am not having trouble with the Filter list at the moment...)

At the risk of being the bearer of annoying news yet again.. having downloaded the new version, clicking on a Sim in the main list brings up a dialog box that lists a relative and their relationship to the Sim.  Then moves onto the next relative, then the next, etc.  And cycles back to the beginning after getting to the end.  I couldn't find any way out of the loop short of closing the program with Task Manager.  Screenshot of the dialog box:



Clicking okay simply moves onto the next relative, as does trying to close the dialog. 

..not sure if this is just me or not, and I hope I can explain it properly.. I haven't reimported the list, simply opened my saved list.  When I select a Sim, and go to family ties, their list appears.  If I uncheck the "Show only living Sims" box, it seems to add a few more Sims in.  If I recheck the box, however, their entire list disappears, and unchecking it doesn't seem to bring it back (or only brings back one or two Sims, instead of the full list).  Even if I then go back to the main list, and select another Sim, when I go back to the family ties window the list remains empty.  The only thing that brings a list up again after that is reloading the sim list, and it only works until I check and recheck the box.  Fiddling around, it seems it even loads some Sims with blank or partial lists initially, although I'm not currently seeing any pattern about which it'll give a list to and which it won't.  I'm about to create a new list for my other large family so I'll see if the issue comes up again there or not.  The only thing I can guess at, given that I know very little about coding and programming, is that the checkbox hasn't picked up the changes you made to the way that family ties are found, so the search isn't running correctly? 

ETA:  Tried with a newly imported list, same problem I'm afraid. 

..I could have sworn I made an edit to my original post, but apparently I didn't, saying that once I altered the names slightly using the actual "Edit This Sim" button the changes took and they separated out.  (I did once try to make a tribalpages family tree, and in that case differentiated between them by appending "II" to the younger Martin and the married-in Alice acquired her maiden name in brackets, so I simply did the same here.)  I'm about to head out to work so I'll get the new version and test once I get back.  Those screenshots were also taken before I went back and fixed all the spouses of deceased Sims, so it's possible it looks marginally crazier now. 

Yep, that's sorted it.  Also, behold my twisted family:

http://www.coralleane.co.uk/images/familyties.jpg

Actually, having just looked at one of his children's family ties page I think I have spotted a problem - unfortunately due to some sloppiness I have two Sims called "Alice Marener" and two called "Martin Marener".  Instead of reporting two Alices and two Martins in the family ties, it *seems* to be counting the two Sims as one.  Not sure if this is a known problem yet. 

http://www.coralleane.co.uk/images/familyties-bon.jpg

http://www.coralleane.co.uk/images/familyties-leo.jpg

Leo (the second example) was the son of the first Martin Marener and the father of the second one.  SimSheet reports him as both Father/Son.  The less said about poor Bonnie's family ties the better, I suppose, but if you look at Martin's line, it's reporting four different relationships, whereas most of the rest of her relatives have only two.  I think. (Except Casey, whose existence is partially responsible for the fuckery in the first place since he was the product of an irresponsible fling between two first cousins once removed... the rest is due to her father, who is Casey's half-brother, marrying his second cousin Jemma, who, incidentially, is Casey's first cousin.. and second cousin once removed.) Bonnie's ties are a thing of.. perverse beauty.  I can't stop staring.   

(Moral of the story: stop making cousins breed, idiot!)

Actually, looking back over this, I'm frankly amazed the program coped with this on *any* level.  My brain certainly can't.  But I *think* the double name thing is a problem.  I've tried manually editting the names on the first list-of-sims tab and it doesn't seem to have made a difference.  Off to fiddle more.. I've just had an idea.

Okay, sorted.  The game is on the C: drive - however, because it was only a test version of SimPE, I installed *that* in the EA Games folder under My Documents, which is where I run a few other Sims programs from.  I didn't realise it would cause an issue, but what happened was that it created the list in My Documents/EA Games/SimPETEST/Rufio instead of in the TS2 folder (which would be My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/).  Moving the folder manually seems to have worked so far; the character list has come up and it's time to wade through the list.  So in summary, not having it in a top level folder seems to have been the problem.  Thank you both for your help.

Can't believe I didn't notice this was updated yet (..never can that notify function to work correctly).  I'd love to test it out, I'm dropping you an email to get it, rufio. 

Edited to add:  Got it now, but whenever I try to import, I get an error message that says "cannot find output file.  Check that you are using the AL version of SimPE" - I'm using the one included in the email.  Presumably I'm being dense and have missed a step somewhere along the line.  I went into settings in SimSheet and changed the location of SimPE to the location where I've got the test version installed, and ticked the expansion packs that I have (which is all of them).  My understanding of rufio's post was that I wouldn't need to load SimPE at all, simply tell it to import, so that was what I did next, but all I get is the error message.  Suggestions?   

Ha, I've got a family living in this house at the moment... It was surprising how much more bearable it became when I replaced the stairs with a spiral staircase, though the terrain is a bit hellish.  I might give this one a shot if work permits. 

I'm getting it showing up without being in debug mode, so it looks like that's not actually a requirement.

I've run several outings since installing AL - scored and unscored, residental and community lot (Though probably not on an apartment), and haven't had any problems with them at all. 

I mostly stick to bug and annoyance fixing hacks, but I'd download *that* if someone could make it.. since I've not actually got around to ordering a vacation photo album yet, I'm not quite sure how it works, but it'd be funny if someone could use that to make a "Grandkids album" that only elders with grandchildren could order, and whenever anyone was around they'd have an option to "Show Off Album to.."

*raises hand*  I allow my Sims to live a "natural" lifespan.  On the odd occasion they might have a shot of elixir, but I don't do it as standard.  The one thing I do tend to have is a lot of long-lived elders solely due to them generally being in platinum by the time they age to elder.  Obviously it varies from Sim to Sim, but quite a lot have high scores, if not max, in one or more hobbies due to the skilling, and even ones that start with a standard 20K on leaving college (instead of going back to the original house and therefore 'inheriting' everything) seem to end up with a fair chunk of money without a great deal of effort.   I'm getting a lot of Sims getting to Perma-Platinum from the Lifetime Aspiration thing, which is actually getting a bit annoying - it's especially bad with born-in-game-after-FT-install Sims.  The male of the family I loaded today was a toddler when I installed FT, IIRC, and he hit PermaPlat (while I wasn't even playing the house...) with twenty days left to go of adult stage.  I remember seeing a mod floating somewhere around here that slowed down lifetime aspiration gain... I'm seriously thinking about giving it a whirl, since LTW's are almost superfluous now, especially for Sims who get married and have a kid.  

Edited to add:  I just had a look at his LTA Milestones using the Lot Debugger, and "Max Career" is greyed out despite the fact that he, er, hasn't.  Unless it's counting teen career... which would be too stupid for words since, with private school, that's a whole.. one promotion, correct?

I'm fairly positive I haven't seen it separate from the reviewer.  Unfortunately I have no idea if it was making a difference or not - the Sim ended up with an army of six robots working round the clock at crafting stations so I never paid much attention to the amount of money going in or out with that lot constantly paying for materials..!  Is there a way to force a visit from the reviewer? 

Alright, I'm *almost* with you now - the only times I've ever had what I think you're talking about pop up is immediately before (or after, maybe?) my Sim was notified he'd received a Good Review/Best of the Best.  I haven't really played businesses much in the past and, now this Sim has acheived his LTW to get 5 top levels, I probably shan't again in the future, so I just assumed it was some weird coding bug I'd not noticed in the past and just clicked to get rid of it.  I didn't *notice* him receiving additional money but I wasn't keeping a particularly tight eye on it anyway - with the sales, restocking and item creation going on almost constantly it was fluctuating widely and I doubt I'd have really realised since I wasn't expecting it.

Salary thing?  I've had a few Sims get the "Wow, I'm in the same career as you, I think you should get better wages!" benefit.  I agree that it doesn't seem to actually require social group townies at all - a couple of the benefits have come from standard townies IIRC, and the reputation increase is with anyone on a community lot.. so my business owner had max reputation incredibly quickly, as does anyone who goes out on a date or two to a comm lot. 

Apparently the prototype can be a TV or a computer - I seem to mostly get the computer, but I've had one or two TV's as well. Another benefit/penalty is lower/higher rent if your Sim lives in an apartment.. apparently promotions/demotions as well, but I've not seen this yet. 

Edited to Add:

..on the original topic - I'm not really using apartments much, and I only have one witch, and I still rather like the expansion pack overall.  The little things that have been mentioned above, such as the ability to move items up/down walls, spiral staircases, ceilings (I use a minimum of CC so never bothered with custom versions of ceilings/stairs), skipping, the new playground stuff (some of which builds body skill - always useful!) and so on are things that can make the pack worthwhile even without the main draws. 

That's good to know - I'd love to start using it but the sheer number of Sims I'd have to enter makes me run screaming in the other direction.  Is there anywhere on the SimPE site or forums that deals with this (or anywhere else, come to that) or is it just this thread for now? 

No; I've had two Sims bringing home the same person each day - in one case, it was a cheerleader from Uni (..who really needs to die anyway, since she insists on cold calling people constantly..) and in the other case, it was one of the Uni mascots.  I really need to start looking into mods dealing with 'home-brung' Sims anyway since my teen Sims only ever seem to bring home vacation Sims, despite the fact that there's still a good handful of normal townie teens and a few playables around. 

If you look under Game Options while playing TS2 there's an option called Camera Rotation with options of "Sims 1 style" or "default", I think.  Why it should have suddenly reset is anyone's guess, but I'd say that's probably the first place to look.   

From the RTFM of the latest version (though apparently not in this post at time of writing..) :

8. No longer required to greet Gypsy(impossible) or employees<->customers.

..does this include members of the manager's household as 'employees'?  And will customers still insist on greeting each other? 

I normally don't play with OFB businesses much but I had a Sim with the lifetime want for 5 level ten's, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  He now has all the perks.. including the one that means you can call every single Sim in the neighbourhood.  And my neighbourhood is large, to put it mildly.  Loading that phonebook, especially the first time, was 'fun'.  Luckily he doesn't use the phone much since his social is nearly constantly green thanks to spending pretty much his whole life running businesses.