Ah, I forgot about the phone. After giving it a try tonight, it looks like I can only collect my earnings one place at a time. For some reason I thought that I could collect them all by using the computer, but now that I think about it, it was probably an AM feature that existed before EA took the ownership certificates out and came up with this more cumbersome system instead.

Nope - primarily because I don't have WA. The closest thing I could do in parallel to that would be to either put the computer behind a locked door or constantly move it to the family inventory when it's not in use. The former is impossible as the sim can still 'see' it, and the latter would be incredibly tedious. I'll have to stick to sending my sim off to the library to pick up its real estate earnings, unless there's another way that I've totally overlooked (most likely).


If it doesn't, it should. Usually a power cable temporarily wrapped around the culprit's neck serves as a timely reminder that the computer should be LEFT ALONE!

Also, whilst I'm on the subject of no-autonomy mods, is there one that kills off the annoying "view object" interaction that virtually every sim in the neighbourhood must do every time they walk past a potted plant or an exit sign? I've searched (again), but only came up with the equivalent "no look at" mod for Sims 2. I vaguely remember that pre-Ambitions, only artistic sims would stare and gawp at objects, but now they all do it. I mean, what on earth is so fascinating about a sign telling them where the exit is?

Scratch that - I've been directed to one here.

I'm looking for a no-autonomous computer use mod. Yes, yes, before before you toss me into the vat of boiling, overcooked-and-therefore-harmless sharks - I'm fully aware these things already exist, but they disable autonomy for the entire town, and what I'm after is a mod that only disables autonomous computer use for the active household. That way, I can have a computer in the house without having the entire household swarming towards it to play computer games or chat online. Does such a thing exist?

The only real change I've noticed is the shortcut "rbbb off" now actually works, instead of all that tedious typing. Loading times remain the same; the lights are still borked; the el cheapo floors (basic or whatever they're called, under miscellaneous) still utilise the wrong footstep sounds and my sims still insist on spamming "ask to get in" in all posh bars and nightclubs. So much so, in fact, I've scrapped that LN hood and gone back to a hood that just works.

Nope. It seems to be a built-in requirement. Basically, CAW takes a snapshot of all the EPs you have installed and then sets them as a requirement for anybody else who uses your hood, even if all you are actually using are the base game terrain paints and objects. Trying to run the 'hood with missing EPs - even when that 'hood lacks any objects of lots related to the EP always results in a CTD, presumably because the game can't substitute or remove the missing objects. I suppose it was meant to simplify the uploading process to the Exchange where it would automatically display the required EPs (except it doesn't - the Exchange doesn't list EPs at all, or any useful information for that matter) to avoid confusion for the person downloading it.

There probably is a way around it, but it'll be well beyond my knowledge and expertise, and I get the feeling that the final outcome will be a heavily-borked neighbourhood that'll last a week before exploding in a BFBVFS.

Looks like a great world, but it's too bad I'll never be able to play it since I refuse to have WA in any form installed on my PC (I have zero interest in vacation-style EPs. Weather, on the other hand...). Why can't worlds behave like lots and drop/replace anything that the end user doesn't have installed on their PC. Oh right, money.

I think the most insane thing about CAW is that even if you try not to use anything other than base game objects, as long as you have other EPs installed, the game will require the end user to have them installed too.

Stuff packs have always been little more than a cynical ploy to get dimwitted sheep on the BBS to buy overpriced crap. Why would EA change a habit of a lifetime? No doubt the sheep are busy on the BBS bleating away about how special they must feel.

Equally laughable is that Barnacle Bay thing. Apparently it sold so poorly, that EA are planning to sell it in real bricks-and-mortar stores on physical media. Probably charge £30 for it too.

That was far too legible.

Wouldn't it be more like: OMG! wats iz zip? why dusnt awsum mod work? i cant it 2 work!! it wont work!!! BAWL!!!! it sez sumthink ab2 conflit? lol plz reply!!!!!!!1111eleventyfuckingone!

Presumably the code for this is in the base game patch so EA can start flogging functional hot tubs in their damned store. It's a shame that EA don't bother using the patch to fix annoyances like the running bug/halo-of-water-from-swimming bug/broken AI that sends every sim swarming to the same occupied seat/swingset/usable object just so they can bitch and moan about it already being in use.

I think in the case of GT5, it actually is the 60fps that's giving the smooth appearance. Some games "fake" 60fps by using a blur filter to blend framestogether, but the side effect of this are washed-out graphics, trails and muddy textures which GT5 doesn't appear to exhibit. I've seen a few games do this with mixed results.

MW2 on the other hand was specifically coded to run at 30fps and at least for the 360 version I played on (a mate's 360 - I have a PS3, though most FPS action I see is usually on the PC), it appeared juddery though consistent. Apparently the PS3 version is worse as it drops frames thanks to crappy code porting - Still, I didn't expect any less from Activi$ion really. Neither console really got a game that utilised the hardware properly.

Hmm... Not sure about that. Gran Turismo 5 on PS3 runs at 60fps and is silky smooth for the most part. Take a rehashed/done-on-the-cheap generic "realistic" FPS in comparison (like, say erm... Modern Warfare 2) running at 30fps and there is noticeable judder, especially when panning the camera. In the case of a game like Sims 3 though, anything more than 30fps for what is basically a simulation really is overkill.

Do you mean to copy an outfit from everyday to sleepwear? You need outfitcp everyday.1 sleepwear.1

Speaking of which, is there a command that can force an entire neighbourhood to revert back to everyday clothing? I'm getting a lot of lazy sims wandering around in their athleticwear who never appear to revert back to their everyday clothes.

I do use FPSLimiter, but there are times when I load up the game directly by mistake, and it's those times when I've noticed the drop in FPS between patches.

I gave up on Bridgeport a long time ago as it was just a buggy, untested mess. My current 'hood is Riverview with an expanded bar where that useless redneck-looking juice bar thingy used to be (opposite the cinema) and a couple of jesslla's bars dropped in, so no routing issues from slow, buggy elevators there, although I do still find sims preferring to piss in their own pants rather than using the conveniently-located toilets less than ten feet away from them.

I notice from that thread that the game calculates settings based on clock speeds rather than the number of cores a CPU has. So in my case, it's ignoring the fact my i3 has two cores (or four with hyperthreading switched on) and appears to be treating it as a single core CPU instead. When I get the chance to play around with it tonight after I get my job applications out of the way, I'll follow those instructions and see if it works.

I remember trying to increase the number of protesters outside the town hall once using an XML mod - anything above 15 sims crashes the game and anything above the default 8 sims causes sound issues (clipping usually because the game only seems to allocate eight virtual audio channels to the protests). What a crappy, crappy game engine.

EDIT: It looks like I can't use the fix suggested in that link because the DeviceConfig.log already rates my CPU as 4 (the highest rating), which theoretically means I should already be getting up to 20 sims appearing on lots. In practice, I'm getting eight if I'm lucky, and upwards of twelve in any lot marked as a "Big Park".

I tried the other suggestion of removing the velvet ropes and it makes no difference at all - I didn't expect it to considering that I had already set the bouncers to allow everybody in.

When was the last time you played it? There's been a few graphical overhauls with the last couple of patches including new water shaders, more detailed trees, more/improved shadows, overhauled lighting (though not quite the "overhaul" that some of us want), overhauled reflective shaders (i.e. for windows and rooves) all of which can knock off quite a few FPS in the game. with my GTS 250, I've seen the frame rate drop from 110-120 to around 85-90 since the last couple of patches (1280x1024, everything maxed - excluding external nVidia settings like enhanced AA and 16x anisotropic filtering which bring it down to around 60 FPS). Also, LN or not, the invisible car glitch is now around ten times worse with both AM and NRaas Master Controller reporting on average 500 or so cars being purged in my Sunset Valley and Riverview hoods every night.

You know, for bars that are meant to be "boppin'" and other out-of-fashion descriptions, I would hardly call eight sims in a bar or club a happening hotspot.

Is there a mod out there that 1) Increases the number of sims in a supposedly crowded bar or club and 2) forces at least a couple of sims into bars that are meant to be "dead"? I've been to pubs and bars on a slow night, and there's usually at least a couple of people around that aren't bar staff!

I've experienced erratic mood drops but not constantly as people here seem to have. I do notice that if my sim attends a party hosted by someone with the Party Animal trait, my sim will gain a moodlet (great party or something like that - it states "from Party Animal" as the influencing factor)that's meant to last three hours, but never actually goes away unless I ctrl+click it. I can't say for sure if it's a factor in your mood drop situation though. I've also noticed that my sims will acquire trait characteristics from drinking certain beverages that never go away either.

I'm experiencing a different problem though - The shuffleboard table will cause any sim I control to freeze up the moment I instruct them to use it but NPC sims can use it fine. I thought it was the result of a corrupt 'hood or lot, but even starting fresh games with fresh sims and all the different 'hoods, it always happens, requiring a resetsim to get my sim back under my control. For the moment, I'm having to remove the shuffleboard table from any bars it's in (the dive bar in Bridgeport, and Jesslla's dive bar I DLed from Pudding Factory) to stop my sims from freezing up. Is anyone else experiencing this, or am I alone? I could always reinstall LN, but there's no point if it's a common glitch that can be avoided.

Oh fuck yes. She makes our chavs look ejumacated in comparison!

I want the bloody lighting that EA broke, fixed.

I wonder how he finds the time to post on any thread with 130+ sims on the go...

Unless you're one of those people who actually got a kick out of playing TS2 with a strict rotation pattern and heavy micro-management due to a lack of universal aging, TS3 is clearly better for those of us to want to play the game rather than work at the game.

I never did understand this need for playing households in rotation except for storytelling purposes. The moment you start micromanaging everything is the moment it stops being a game, and becomes more like a chore.

My gripe with TS3 is (among other things) the fact your household isn't aware of the neighbourhood's existence. Your sims will not autonomously go to the park or a nightclub without your prompting and so, to all intents and purposes, you are still playing an independent lot, cut off from the world. The difference is, the rest of the world is no longer static, but it still makes it frustrating and dull if you're playing anything other than a single-sim household as the other members will merely stay at home, rolling wants to do things beyond the lot instead of actually doing them.

What about the newsbox? Easy to see from any thread/section.

Anyone else noticing that sims on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion will now always choose to nap rather than bloody sleep? Worse still, if you cancel the nap action and force them to sleep, they'll insist on waking up two hours later anyway with a near-empty energy bar.

Tried it with the maid and butler. The game generated new ones every time and ignored the NPCs already resident in the building. When fired, I followed them to see where they go, and they simply did the usual vanishing act outside a residential lot.

I get the impression this was why EA disabled this parking space. They would've been bombarded with sheep on the BBS complaining that the food truck space wasn't doing anything in a non-Late Night hood.