Well I've downloaded the "rule of 6" XML file - it's closer to what I want than the one in the game.  I have it open in Postal.  With the kAgingStageLength settings for each age, I understand that a 1 represents 6 years.  Therefore, the 0.25 for babies and 0.75 for toddlers translates to a non whole number (1.5 and 4.5 respectively).  I guess this means that it will round down to 1 day and 4 days in those stages?  Or am I reading this wrong?  Now that I look at it, it seems to rounding down, so I will just change the values and see if it works the way I want it to.

Edit: It's not working so far - Postal will not commit it.  I'll keep trying though.  Any advice?

Edit: I've got it now.

So if I want to edit this XML file so that the child stage lasts for 7 days, should I tweak the number to be a little bit less or a little bit more than the exact number divisible by 6 (will the game round up, down, or to the nearest round number)?  I mean.... 7/6 equals 1.1666666666......, so should I put it at 1.166 so the game rounds up; 1.167 so the game rounds down, or does it matter?  I want to have the stage lengths at 1-4-7-6-17-30-(elder).  Yes I am very picky.

I read somewhere there is a hotkey function for cheats, but I now I can't find it anywhere.  I'm hoping I can find a mod that allows me to switch between my active households using a "next" hotkey.  Has anyone heard of this before?

With multiple games, I've found that you have to download the latest patch for all of them (base game, WA, HELS, etc.), instead of just the last one you bought.

About the skill difficulty configuration.  Is studying at the library adjusted by this as well?  It seems to me that studying at the library increases skill awfully fast compared to doing it at home - and this is with skill difficulty set at one of the highest settings.

I have a question:  Lately, some of my sims have lost the ability to see chosen tags from the neighbourhood view.  This seems to be completely random.  The sims don't really have anything in common, nor are they in the same household.  It hasn't caused any major problems yet, but I am still worried - something similar to this happened earlier, and the family ended up fried.

Let's see - we have Lily Lum, in business, played only once since I ported using Twallan's porter; we have Blair Wainwright and Tamara Donner, both living together.  Both were pulled up the career ladder unwantedly, but not Lily Lum, so that can't be it.  So what the heck is it?

I play with story mode turned off, so the homeless sims, I assume, are not generated.  I keep all of my neighbourhood sims chosen, and I am afraid if I added homeless sims just to man the registers, I would end up getting attached to them, and wouldn't be able to use them for the registers anymore.  I just wish the game would generate sims for the registers the same way they are generated for jobs.  By the way, I have not seen the scenario where the cashier shows up whenever sims enter the market, and the registers were working before, until I decided I didn't want my chosen sims to stand there 24 hours a day.

This is still driving me crazy:  I have the WA registers in my main 'hood, but the AI doesn't want to keep them manned.  I don't know whether awesomeMod intended to solve this problem, but I started using Twallan's register mod to let you choose who was at the register.  It wouldn't let me choose sims that I have not listed as chosen (i.e. the homeless townies), so I removed it.  Now the registers are never operational even if I delete them and put them back in.  Is there a solution out there?

Question: If I have the configuration set to "no unified billing", do the non-active sims still earn money from their jobs daily?

Somebody help me!  I just turned aging back on after a long time of doing it manually, and I need to adjust the amount of time the sim has left in the current life stage.  How is this done?  I looked through all the Ctrl-click, Shit-click, Alt-click, and Shift-Ctrl-click options, but there is nothing that would do what I want.

Never mind - it turns out I had an outdated version of the "Cooking and Ingredients" mod from MTS.  Everything works now.  But on the other hand, how do you actually get the General Store and Nectar registers to sell their wares?

I'm trying to solve a mystery. I just started a game in my finished CAW neighbourhood, and my sims can't buy anything from the grocery store except fish and bath products.  I'm sure this worked for me a little while ago.  The only things I can think of that might be related are 1) I am using the WA registers in my hood (none of them sell anything either) and 2) I planted harvestables on the community lots.  Can anybody guess why this is happening?

I enjoy your use of different-levelled plains.

Yes, but I already exported the world and started playing it.  I'm looking for a way to edit in-game, so I don't have to rebuild all the buildings and reload the families.

My launcher hasn't worked since 1.3 - I've had to download all my patches manually from third party sites.

Okay, my problem is, I made a world in CAW, and I gave all the lots in my 'rich' subdivision a 75 for beautiful vista.  In playing the game however, I realized what a mistake this was.  Now I am looking for a way to either remove the beautiful vista moodlet entirely, or reduce it to a smaller value on each individual lot.  Does awesomemod have any functionality like this yet?  If not, I would like to request it. 

Also, I would like to know how to change the address of a lot using Ctrl-click or whatever - if that's possible.  If not, I request that too!

It might be secret if it was illegal.  Maybe he's offering content that is inappropriate, like something where you could eat your babies - that would be sick.

My sims will stop literally in mid-air as they are walking.  Other sims contiue moving as normal.  All over the map, I see one sim after another stopping for 10 seconds then continuing on their way.  This only seems to happen when a large number of sims are on SC.

Let's say I had a computer with unlimited power, and I wanted to control a very large neighbourhood with 10000 sims, all being run smoothly by the AI (or supreme commander), which controls every move they make.  Does the game allow such a configuration.  I am asking because I'm using Sunset Valley with 90 sims on Supreme Commander, and it seems that although my game doesn't lag  per se, the individual sims do.  They will stop in mid-stride while running from one task to the next, and this is even when there's a clear path - I doubt it's a routing issue.  My guess is that Supreme Commander is only able to handle a limited number of sims at one time, and swaps them in and out as needed, stopping the sims in their tracks in order to get others moving.  Is this correct?  I am just curious.

I have Delphy's breast sliders AND Jonha's sliders installed, and I know I need a mod to increase the number of sliders allowed.  I thought Awesome Mod had this function, and the slider hacks even directed me to it, but I have AM, Delphy's breast sliders are not working, and I do not see anything in the Awesome Config to suggest that this function even exists.  I seem to remember it being there.  Was it somehow removed?

It seems like it would be just a small leap to add a feature to change the "default skin" in CAS evry time you went in.  I sure wish somebody would do it....Hint Hint.

I am aware of the little box, but that feature is new to WA - thank goodness they added it.  Still though, you really have to rough it at the beginning, while only a few days later, the sim will be rich enough to be worry free.  To me, the fun of moving a new family in, is styling the house exactly the way you want them to live.  As it is, there is no room for a second bedroom, and you have to choose between a nice fridge and wallpaper.  No matter what, the new family has to start out dirt poor.  Wouldn't it be nice if you could realistically tailor the size of the house to the sim's income, or give them a week or so to get on their feet, rather than force them all to start off in a piddly house.

I just read the discussion about the sim economy, and owners of rabbitholes earning profit from them.  I agree that making profits from rabbit holes would be unrealistic, and probably would hurt the game without producing very good results, but this whole topic got me thinking about some other things that bother me in the game, relating to economics.

The way the game deals with money is just plain ridiculous.  You start off with 16000, which you must use to buy a house.   The worthwhile houses are unaffordable, so you have to settle for a tiny cheapskate cabin with little or no furniture.  Unforturnately EA decided not to provide any of these cheap houses in the neighborhood, so you are forced to make your own.  Then while you are building your house, you receive no feedback on how much your house costs (this improved with WA).  Anyway, once you move your family in, you have almost no money, and the first few days are very difficult, as you must find a job, make enough money to eat, and buy another bed so everyone can sleep at the same time, etc.  After that, however, the sims are swimming in dough and have more money than they can possibly spend.  None of this seems logical to me.  Too hard, then too easy!

One solution I've thought of, is to allow sims to move into a house with a weekly payment arrangement.  Instead of paying 20,000 outright, they would pay a certain percentage bi-weekly.  The sims would receive a 2000 loan which would also become part of their biweekly payment.  The houses that are available to the sim would depend on the sim's household funds (2000 for new families), and the weekly income of the family.  The family must have the means to pay their bills for at least the first five payments.  This would have the dual function of making it easier on the household in the first few days, while reducing the "everyone gets rich" effect later in the game.

I would like to have apartments, just so I don't have to keep searching for all my sims that aren't on the current lot.  If I could even have three houses on one lot, and have each household recognize their own house, and not barge into the others to eat all their food and sleep in their beds....that would be great.  I would be totally satisfied if all my sims stayed on the Central lot and never left it.  You could have one three-story apartment building, with two sides, and five apartments across, that would house all 30 families - that could go in one corner.  Beside that you could have all the rabbit holes mousified into one work plaza, leaving the rest of the space (3 corners and the center) for venues.  1 corner could have a gym, pool, and games room; 1 corner could have a library, art gallery, etc.  All buildings could be 3 stories, leaving plenty to space for development, and there would be no overcrowding, because all the sims would be on one lot all the time.

Does this include your playable sims?  I'm still not sure how this works.  Does the rabbithole actually pull sims to it's lot every day, or does it just supply a score that increases the chance that sims will choose to go there.  I use awesomeMod, and was under the impression that they controlled their own lives, and also, I have no NPCs in my neighborhood (at least very few).