As far as I can tell, the 'Interaction - Clean Up - TEST' BHAV which this modifies, has not changed much if at all since OFB.  The only difference between the OFB one and NL is that OFB adds a check to see if the cleaner is a Servo.

This hack just adds two lines of checking at the start so it's pretty easy to make a compatible hack for earlier expansions if necessary.

Sims will no longer turn into an army of chair-squeaking obsessive dishwashing drones when they've finished eating at the table.  They will only clean dishes on their own when they've left the table.  You can still direct them to wash dishes while they're seated.

I came up with this after using a no autonomous dishes hack which wasn't quite what I was looking for.

The way textures are painted on in the vehicle editor is also not always right.  It can create swirlyness on the ends of whatever shape you're adding.

And all the while, they whine at you to do something about it.  It would be interesting to find out whether these ecology collapses start happening when you begin an alliance with them, or they happen randomly to any empire while the game is running.

Well it's no surprise that it's a fix for an unfix caused by the patch.

Apparently, adding -jobPriority:0 to your command line may fix some of the lag issues.

Made it to the core.  Made it all the way back home.  Surprised someone didn't turn my homeworld into an asteroid field while I was gone.

Uplifting new empires can pass some time.  It's amusing to come back and watch the tribes dive for cover, or doodle next to cities when they finally become civs.  Best of all, whatever nasty things you do to them before they reach the space stage, they don't attribute to you.  So, let loose the epic creatures of doom and watch the stompage.

Here's a couple of useful keys that weren't in the manual:

Home zooms you up out of the atmosphere, or after just a couple of presses out of the solar system entirely.

End is basically the same but zooming in the way or down below the radar.

The Page Up and Page Down keys will pitch the camera up and down, but those aren't useful for getting in and out of bombing range quickly.

Honestly, if they created more you wouldn't notice 'cause the game is like Swiss cheese at the moment.

I wrote a Spore review on Amazon.co.uk but it didn't appear until weeks after.  I predicted that there would be some kind of expansion to fill in the massive holes in the gameplay.

The only use I've found for allies is to give me a screen when I'm flying through Grox territory.  The rest of the time they get in the way, haven't the sense to shoot back at something, and should basically just stay in orbit while the professional lunatic pilot is working.

After ten days, one of your apartment neighbours will autonomously move out and go live with his sister in LA.

QFE.

At some point game companies decided it would be cute to turn the CD/DVD drive into a glorified dongle.  PC games run mostly from hard disk these days, so the software company requiring that the original media be in the drive when you play is an offensive and annoying means of getting you the average legitimate user to spend time playing their game and not someone else's, or to waste time pissing about with the physical media.  So is it really any surprise when the average legitimate user gives them the finger and bypasses the 'GIVE ME DONGLE!' routine?

Using tools like Alcohol and DT to play the games you paid money for isn't piracy, but it will stop you from going insane if you haven't done so already.

After thinking long and hard, I think I'd like my Sims to be able to manage their time and make plans for the future.  Because that's something I suck at.

This hack eliminates the animaton part of the 'Wave' reaction, where two Sims who've interacted for the first time since waking up or returning to the lot will wave cheerily at each other.  They will still react to each other (the thought bubbles are still used) but the wavetasticness is gone.  It doesn't eliminate any of the other varieties of waving, although in the process of making this hack I did manage to come up with other hacks which do.

Tested with Freetime.

I have an error when clicking on another Sim who's doing research (to choose the Join Group Research option).  Error log is attached.

It isn't that big of a deal since joining research using the bookcase works fine.

[attachment deleted by admin]

The Uni cheering does get annoying after a while.  This hack appears to work as advertised.

This allows Servos to retain appearance changes (if Servos have changed appearance) when visiting community lots as per the original hack by Squinge.

To fix for future EPs, simply extract the 'NPC - Put NPC Outfit On Me' BHAV from the newest expansion's objects.package and in SimPE add the first line of the hack which checks to see if whatever is walking onto the lot is a Servo.  If so, it exits the routine so Servo's default outfit does not assert itself.  Or at least, that's how I'm reading it

Obviously, you need the Open For Business EP and a hack like Servo Change Appearance.

N.B. Squinge has posted that he will not update Servo Change Appearance for Apartment Life.  I have issued a fix for the 'Can't Plan Outfit or Dress For Work from the new closets' issue.  This was turned down by Squinge as I hadn't asked him in advance if I could post it.

The export-import bit really isn't exactly difficult.  What I learned from messing up the terrain is to use the Replace function from the context menu so that I'm definitely overwriting what was there originally.  But I suppose using the same terrain tempate would work just as well.  Now that I have the means to create a populated college I'm looking forward to making a much more involved and complete template.

The neighbourhood.package file stores Sim data, as well as information on the lots in the main hood, and the university package file contains only the information on the university lots.  A lot-only template doesn't need the Sim data or the information on an empty main hood, I would guess.

I got around to doing the testing I said I would do.  Turning an inhabited university into a template and then adding the university  template to another new neighbourhood worked just great, except that I ended up with the wrong terrain and had to re-plop all the buildings.  When I loaded up the one inhabited dorm it was almost the same as when I'd saved it - the cafeteria worker wasn't there, and shortly after a different cafeteria worker showed up.  I was actually expecting it to explode on loading or something.

I created a blank base neighbourhood and added a new custom university with five lots total.  I added four students to the university, moved them into a dorm, and after letting them putz about under Free Will for a while, I assigned them a room each and saved the lot.  Then I exited TS2, copied the whole neighbourhood to the Uni templates folder, and opened it in SimPE for editing.  I exported the university data and then imported it into the main neighbourhood file.  Which is okay, since there aren't any lots in the base neighbourhood and there isn't any Sim data in the unversity file.  Obviously, the terrain information from the university either didn't take or I screwed that up somehow.

After a bit more work in SimPE I was able to fix the terrain on the template so that everything showed up properly when using it to create a new university.  Hooray!

If it makes life easier for downloaders, I can't say I mind.

I went for a lot-only approach originally because I just wanted a blank template to use with an existing hood.  Including characters isn't a problem, I don't think, because The Sims 2 already brings in characters when you install one of the supplied downtown, university or shopping district templates.  It's not so much substituting character and lot files from another hood, as it is importing additional content - except that instead of plunking down one lot at a time it does everything in one go.  If you think about it, the Sims 2 team have to do much the same thing as we're doing in order to put their templates on an expansion disc.

When I've got some time to fire up The Sims I'll try and do a bit more practical testing along these lines.

I had a few teething problems with trying to create a template at first, that was all.  Given that I was working without any kind of guide to help me, it was inevitable that it didn't work first time around.

There's really no difference if you create a template from a main hood or from a sub-hood, either approach is fine as long as the lot zoning is correct for the purpose you're intending.  The sub-hood approach is quicker though if you're merely intending to edit one of the Maxis-supplied universities to make a new template, which is what I did.  The main hood approach has the advantage that less file renaming is needed.

It looks like this was a problem with the lot.  I suspect it's because the lot wasn't opened and saved before moving the family in.  I've had no recurrence of this problem since moving the old family out, opening and saving the lot, and moving a new family in.

Add it to the list of weird stuff that can happen if you don't freshen lots before moving in

Even with lockable doors, customers still wander out of any door they please in order to leave the lot., rather than using only unlocked doors.  It doesn't matter since they won't interact with anything on their way out, but it's pretty ugly.  I can't imagine they spent a whole lot of time on this feature.

Sims who have 'Free Will' are generally the ones acting stupid.  Given the false advertising that is placed on many objects it's not surprising that they run to the ones which promise to boost their mood by thirty points and then obsess over them.

Even when I play with free will on, I generally tend to give them orders so as they don't screw up so much, grragh.