This fix removes just the part of the UI that plops an extra-large button on top of the shopping district template chooser.  It still allows you to choose Bluewater as a shopping dsitrict if you haven't already added it to a neighbourhood.

Before:


After:


Obviously, this requires that you have OFB installed.

To find this part of the interface and change it, I first looked through the actual images in the ui package file using SimPE.  When I found the one which showed the Bluewater button in its various states (disabled, pressed, unpressed) I took a note of its identifier.  I found that I had to unpack the UI data files and use find from the command prompt in order to search their text for that identifier.  There's a clearly identifiable section of the file which brings up the button and the 'Bluewater Village' text beneath it, so I erased that and then packaged up the modified file.

13 March 2007: Tested with Seasons.  Gets rid of the button and allows selection of any custom sub-hoods as above.  I still have no idea if it works with Pets.

Yeah, and if you're only intending to have your employees use the toilets (in a retail store, it's unlikely that many customers should stick around long enough to use them) set the controller to reject visitors.  That will mean less Sims 'needing to be used'

I think the radio button was labelled 'Free Will' by mistake.  It should have read 'Flirt with anything that has two legs, run around the house looking at all the new stuff, and leave the dinner in the oven to watch the TV.'

Of course, that would have taken up too much space but I'm sure there's something which summarises such behaviour in two words (or less).

As far as drivers go don't necessarily pick out the most recent ones because these can actually be unstable with your installed games, unless they specifically say (in the readme) that they address certain issues with those games.  Choose drivers that were around prior to a game's release, those should work fine.

The customer time controller is a neat way to ensure there are certain times when no new customers will appear (when you want to wind the business down for the day and send your tired shop owner home, for example) and it makes it easier to plan the business around what labour you have available.  Good stuff.

So is there any way to stop top dogs from pulling strings to give other Sims a promotion to the top flight?  For example there's only supposed to be one Mayor of SimCity, and it's a difficult position to attain.  But, a Senator who makes nice with this Mayor can find themselves promoted to the same job

It's not a new problem.  If you recall, in the first EP you could work as barista or tend bar on a community lot.  The code that pays a Sim on a non-owned community lot is still alive on owned community lots.  However to my knowledge this only happens to employees, not controllables (owner and owner's family).

I get that it's memories that are the problem.  As far as I remember from discussion here, they're flat-filed which means when you want to go check if Sim X has memory Y, it's easy to clock up a lot of iterations doing so.  Or something like that.

Anyway if there was a means of moving a Sim from one neighbourhood to another without ill-effects, you and I could avoid the negative consequences of this shoebox filing system.  Or, EA could hire someone who actually has a clue how to code a database, rip out the existing system, and start over.

Either way you look at it, it's a feature I want to see more than pets

I guess it's going to become a cliché to say 'Why do it this way when they could have done it differently?' but why did Maxis even bother making occupied lots packagable if they knew that these sorts of problems would result?  Why not build in functionality to safely move Sims from one hood to another from the get-go?

I'm guessing that the answer starts with an E and ends with an A, which explains a lot.  Still, if the time and the money were available, what's the list of pitfalls in having neighbourhoods which are not effectively on different planets?

It works quite well, the only snag is that Servos tend to revert back to their original skin temporarily when visiting community lots.

You'll also note that the glowing green orb in Servo's middle can still be seen now and then just beneath the skin surface.

All you need to do to generate a log is enter debugging mode and shift-click an object on the lot to pop up the Force Error option.

Just pick Cancel when the error message pops up, but take note of the filename that the error log has been saved to - you should find it in My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Logs/ and since it will be the most recent log created, it will have the latest modified timestamp in that directory.

Is it all employees or just one in particular?  The reason I ask is that a while ago I noticed that there is an additional ching ching at the bar if you have a non-controllable tending it.  It's the same pay that you get if you tend a bar on a non-owned community lot (this functionality was introduced in the first expansion pack as a way of letting students earn a little extra cash) when it usually comes up every 12 sim minutes.

However, because this functionality is supposed to be disabled on an owned community lot, you can get an extra ching which goes straight into the business funds, because it wasn't intended to seek out a specific Sim and pay them instead of the household funds.

Another possibility, with a bar at least, is that you're seeing the customer pay for their drink.  Provided your customers aren't lured away by other attractions, a bar can be a good way to make extra money in a place which already charges for entry.

Sims pass up the opportunity to socialise while doing something else so often it's crazy.  They need a sanity check or something.

You need to be very patient hanging out in Downtown at night.  Of course, as with any randomly-appearing NPC, you can bump into them during successive trips with different Sims on different DT lots, it's just unlikely.

I have had this problem too.  The bars are useless if you have any kind of home business, open or not.  I placed one because two of my Fortune Sims living in one house wanted one (I figured hey, two lots of asp points for one bar....) but decided to remove it afterwards and buy them something else instead.

Sims are social creatures, one would think that if one of them saw the spouse of their best friend cheating, they would call their friend or even drop by as a matter of urgency.

However as has quite rightly been pointed out, Sims are also morons.  They probably wouldn't even know about making babies if we didn't tell them to

Of course if there is something more expensive in the shop you can still show it to them, they may say that they'll look at it, it just depends on whether you can afford the loss of stars if they either don't want to look or don't buy it.  For example, if they're a very loyal customer, then you can possibly rake in more cash this way.

Well, that's a relief because even with locked areas I still can't seem to reproduce the problem on the testing lot.

And if there's one thing I've noticed from this it's that customers seem to be rather more interested in socialising within a shop that sells telescopes, than actually buying something

It would be slightly better if there was an actual breakdown of expenses e.g. build mode, non-sale items, sale items, materials cost (for crafting), and of course wages.

I've now done proper trials without and with the Business Runs You hack installed.  I didn't get any reporters, but I did help over a dozen 'lost shoppers' in each case over the course of four Sim days.  The problem I was having did not recur.

This leads me to believe that something is different between the lots where these problems have occurred, and the ones where they haven't.  One thing that springs to mind is lockable doors; in the trials I just performed the employees had their motives frozen so they did not need a break area or facilities, and so there wasn't any need to lock a door as employees only.  On the shops I usually play, these facilities are present and they are locked to employees.

I guess the next thing to try obviously, is to make a back room which only employees can get into, and see what happens.

The second S in sshack stands for Services

I believe there's one to adjust the crafting costs of robots and toys downwards, over on MTS2.  It makes it actually worthwhile to have a robot or toy store, considering the actual time you have to put in to make them.

I am, but I'm not saying that that proves anything, because when I replaced the controller on the lot I was still able to interact with 'I am so lost' customers, and I was still able to get the reporter to interact after some blatant fiddling.  While it's true that I haven't run into this problem while not using the controller at all on a lot (a home business) the small customer base and randomness of reporters makes it hard to draw any definite conclusions.

You first need to use the Neighbourhood browser to pick out Strangetown, or load the package file for that neighbourhood yourself, and click on Family Ties as above.

Bear in mind that changing family ties may not have the desired effect if the memories of the two Sims conflict - for example, if Sim A remembers having had Sim B as a child, they'll continue to treat them as children.

You can edit (create) family ties in SimPE.  Just remember to use the backup facility in case you cause a spontaneous family combustion

This is the Larson family that I'm using to give you an example to work from, I've first selected jason in the left-hand panel.  Kate Larson isn't actually related to Jason, so I've right-clicked on her in this panel and added her to the family.

She defaults to being Jason's new sister, but I could also make her a child, parent, or spouse.

The 'Keep Consistent' checkbox on the bottom-right is to make sure that when you commit changes, the relationships work in both directions.