I believe that there are two major problems with "stub sims", separate from the issue with links to non-existent sims:

1) Since each family which is packaged has its own version of the stub sims, you can end up with a large number of identical Goopys (or other sims) in your neighborhood.  As if one wasn't enough.

2) Since each family drags along a number of stub sims, you will reach the "sim limit" of the neighborhood much faster than if there were no stub sims.

That said, I have always assumed that stub sims were EA's "fix" for broken connections.  Obviously, not everyone believes that.  Now that I'm doing the development on the Clean Installer, it's clear that the Clean Installer doesn't actually clean up the broken connections when you remove one of the stub sims.

I just found a group of people who recommend using the Clean Installer to remove some of the sims packaged with a lot, without removing the memories, relationships, and family ties which link to those sims.  One person who is making this suggestion has explained that this will remove the possibility of corrupting your neighborhood, since you will no longer be installing the sim stubs which are inevitably packaged along with a family which has not been properly cleaned.

On the face of things, this seems absurd.  I cannot help believing that the game deals with stub sims much better than it deals with memories, relationships and family ties with non-existent sims.

Can anyone confirm this?  I'd appreciate hearing from someone who had actually done research in how the game deals with stub sims, vs how it deals with non-existent sims.  Obviously, the best alternative is to properly clean up both the unwanted sims and the links to those sims, but does anyone know whether it is better to have stub sims or links to non-existent sims?

So, you're too lazy to figure this out for yourself, but you expect us to take the time to answer?  Better get out your bullet-proof vest now.

aelflaed has a great set avaialble:  residential and community lots in several sizes with both grassy and desert terrain.  Here are the grassy residential, links for the others are in this thread:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=251798


Not so much reviewing as making notes for my own benefit.  Still, I'm hoping that much of this will be helpful to other people.

It's probably not worth updating for other people, because the lighting for a lot will switch back the next time that the lot is saved.  So, the only lots which will retain their proper lighting are unowned community lots, which are never saved during normal game play.

Thanks.  I'm going to check out those lots without Nightlife and without the downloadable driveway and cars, just to see whether I can make them crash; I'll let you know the results.  I suspect that the cat was causing the crashing all along.  If you do a V7, you might want to think about removing the cat, so that you can honestly say that the neighborhood doesn't require any CC (except the camera hack) or extra EPs.


I'm not really an expert on this sort of thing.  Most of what I know about these problems is from things that I've read here at MATY.  I can't figure out why the Monty family tree behaves so oddly, but I've been writing down anything that doesn't look right to me.  That way, people can make up their own minds.  My understanding is that this kind of thing can take a long time to show any outward signs of corruption.

Perhaps Pescado (or someone with more experience than I have) could take a look at the internal structure and see what's going on.

[Update:]

I hadn't looked at the car showroom before, or any owned community lot, because I didn't want to actually play the owner.  However, I just realized that you can edit the lot using the LoadLot cheat.  The car showroom doesn't crash without the cars.  However, the bargain bazaar crashes without the cat and at least a couple of the other maxis downloadable objects... I haven't narrowed down which objects are required.

[Another update:]

Looks like it's the three lawn ornaments: Cat-A-Strophic, Four Dead Guys, and Jack-O-Hattern.

Would you know which lots these are?  Even one lot name would help, since I haven't been able to get any other lot to crash, even when running just Open for Business.  I'm trying to make sure that I know the minimum EP and CC requirements for each neighborhood.


I suppose that's why they call it catastrophic; it will crash your game unless you have it installed.

My list is in my latest journal entry at MTS (13th Jan 2011).  As you can see, I haven't even installed a lot of them yet.
http://www.modthesims.info/journal.php?do=showjournal&j=718

There's a download link for Maple Valley, but the website with the documentation seems to be gone now.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5LEC9Q8D

I still haven't decided which one to try to play next, but I'm having fun looking at them all while I try to decide.

I've been doing a survey of neighborhoods which can be downloaded and this is definitely one of the nicest ones that I've seen.

I saw that.  My impression was that I could use either NL and OFB, or OFB and the downloads.  The lot crashes with either option.  It also crashes if I use all EPs and SPs.  I'm re-downloading the driveway and cars now, just in case I have an old version.

Update: It wasn't the driveway or car, it was the Cat-A-Strophic Luminous Lawn Ornament by MaxoidMonkey.  Everything's fine now.  Thanks for your help.

I know that I'm very late to the party.  I just installed this neighborhood and it's wonderful, but I've run into a couple of problems.

The main problem is that Philip's Dream House crashes whenever I try to enter the lot.  I'm running University, Nightlife, and Open for Business with no CC.

The other issue is the family tree for the Monty family at Monty Retreat.  The middle generation is missing and when I click on any of the pictures, it's replaced by one of the two existing family members.

Don't forget to keep notes and post them here.

Community garbage is buyable in the buy catalog (try outdoor / misc).

But, if they don't have formals, what are they going to wear to their parent's wedding? 

I believe that you are seeing a "shared" and "unshared" version of the folder.  I remember seeing something about this on modthesims, but I don't have a link.  Nothing to worry about, just ignore the extra folder.  If you want, you can test this hypothesis by adding something to the folder and checking whether another computer on your network can see it.

You can copy the OFB lot bin lots from the DVD.  They are inside a file named compressed.zip.  You'll need to navigate to TSData\Res\UserData\LotCatalog within the zip file, then copy them to the same location in your C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Open For Business folder.

I'm not sure.  I haven't continued to play a family after getting the error.  When I got the error, I restored the neighborhood, since it was fresh from a backup.  I had the same problem with several different families in several different neighborhoods, so I stopped playing and tried to figure out which hack was causing the problem.  I reset the neighborhoods from my backup after each test; so it makes sense that this might be caused by a patch-reset.  It only happens if I have marriage-postmortem installed.  I can put marriage-postmortem back in and try playing each family longer, to see whether it recurs.

If the error clears up after a reset, is it likely to be OK?  Or, can I expect other negative consequences?

I have all EPs and SPs.  No CC except for marriage-postmortum.  I enter the Goth house in Pleasantview for the first time and get the error.  Error log attached.

I have an article which will walk you through adding a lot to a neighborhood using SimPE:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=275135

Note that the article is for Castaway Stories, so the information about lot rotation and roads isn't correct for TS2.  I have information on TS2 lot rotation, orientation, and roads here:
http://www.modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=1778075&postcount=12

If you are working with lots in the lot bin, then you'll also need this:
http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=LOT

Here's a post about using the LotAdjuster to resolve discrepancies between lot and neighborhood terrain:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?p=3169826#post3169826

Empty beach lots will place without any problem because they have no predefined slope.  Instead, the game sets the slope of the lot to match the neighborhood terrain.

The problem with downloaded lots is that the slope of your lot is too out-of-whack with the slope of your neighborhood.  If you know whether you have too much slope or too little, you might be able to use the neighborhood terrain editing tools to modify the neighborhood terrain.  Once the terrains are similar enough, you should be able to place the lot in the neighborhood, but you may still experience crashing problems when entering the lot.  This crashing problem can be resolved by using the LotAdjuster to adjust the lot edges so that they match the neighborhood terrain before entering the lot.  Once the edges match exactly, you should have no further problem *in that location*.

If you were comfortable using SimPE, you could add the lot to the neighborhood using SimPE, set the appropriate x, y, and z coordinates, then use the LotAdjuster to match the edges of the lot to the location that you've chosen.  However, this is definitely an advanced technique.

If you still have the lot package, move it to your LotCatalog subfolder and rename it to match the naming convention in that folder.  It will appear in your lot bin and you can add it back to your neighborhood.

Next time that you want to experiment, just backup everything first.

When a program file has a space in the name, you need quotes around it.  Try:
"SecureROM Remover.exe" /fulluninstall

or else, rename the EXE and remove the space.

If your graphics card is underpowered and you continue to play, you may actually be doing damage to your card.  Over time, your card will stop being able to do anything at all.

Not true.  If you run the Clean Installer and point it at a directory, it will show you all of the packages in that directory, along with any pictures that it can find for each package.

There are a few programs which will allow you to preview CC, but the preview that you see may not help you.  The pictures will not look anything like a sim, instead they are flat rectangles with bits of the clothing, hair, etc, in various places on the rectangle.  The game takes those rectangles and wraps them around the shape of the sim (mesh).  Some of these programs are:

Clean Installer:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=409950

Multi-Installer:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=37577

SimPE:
http://sims.ambertation.de/

I'm not familiar with this program, but the Wardrobe Wrangler may help you:
http://forum.jfade.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=457

If you try any of these programs, you will quickly see what I mean about the pictures.  You may be able to recognize the stuff that you want to delete.

Hopefully not while occupying two separate bodies, though.