Hi guys,
I am investigating the subject of BFBVFS/neighborhood corruption just out of sheer curiosity. The main thing that I am trying to determine is how
exactly is deleting Sims from the bin (and thus deleting gravestones in vanilla game) is supposed to be harmful to your neighborhood, or if it's even harmful at all.
And yes, I am aware of the "official" explanation (i.e. "dangling" references pointing to non-existent data), but as I am a software dev in real life, sadly this does not satisfy my curiosity
I've conducted some experiments in my own game. What I've found is that The Sims 2 went down the "soft delete" route, and reasonably so in my opinion. If I was a Sims 2 dev, I would not want to cascade delete all references along with the Sim (performance! also what if the game crashes mid-deletion?), and leaving behind a stub file with only necessary information seems like a logical thing to do.
Personally, I haven't found any evidence suggesting that deleting Sims from the bin could cause corruption. The references are not pointing to non-existent data, as Sim Description entry still exists and character file is still there, although notably smaller (since it doesn't have 3D data, clothing info and all that other crap). NID is still considered as taken, therefore new Sims will never generate with it, even if SCID is reset. The information needed to correctly display references such as family ties & memories is still there (e.g. name, thumbnail). So, the way I see it, everything is fine, no corruption. I can see why straight up deleting the character file would be a problem (null references are never good news), but not the Sim bin route.
I understrand that there is consensus on this forum that the stub files themselves are the problem. As in, the memories pointing to stub files are corrupt, even if thumbnail & name is in place, because they cause the game to access some unspecified non-existent data. This is also why moving Sims between the neighborhoods would be bad, since they generate the same stub files (for moved Sims in the source hood and for all relatives in the target hood).
Case in point - this post:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,19966.msg566851.html#msg566851This is just an example of course, I've seen this explanation appear here and there on MATY. My question is: do we have any evidence for that? How can I observe this in game or in SimPe? I personally don't see why the game would try to access the data of a "shredded" Sim. Unlinked Sims are not allowed to spawn on community lots, they cannot be called, don't appear in a relationship panel and are as good as inaccessible in normal gameplay. I have conducted multiple in-game experiments and the game seems to have some safety mechanism regarding bringing up references pointing to unlinked Sims. Not only memories and family trees display correctly, but also Sims don't roll wants about missing Sims. They also don't seem to be able to gossip about them. If the deleted Sim was the only person that the remaining Sim knew, daydreaming/online chat thought bubbles just have random object placeholders, not the dreaded squiggly lines. I have also contacted LazyDuchess, who told me that he created a mod that purposefully tried to access the data of unlinked Sims, and he reported no issues. He basically agrees with me that the Sim bin route is safe.
Am I missing something? Or maybe deleting Sims from the bin does not cause corruption, and this was just an assumption based on the knowledge we had back then?
I have already asked this on MTS, but I've been only told that some modders agree with me (i.e. Lazy Duchess, Chris Hatch) and I didn't find out what caused people to believe that it's harmful, which is the main thing I'm interested in. So I came here, because I believe that this discovery was first mentioned on this forum. I would appreciate your insight - as I said, I'm a dev, so the more technical you go, the better!
Also I am hoping that Pescado chimes in, since he has been here from the very beginning.