Splitting "Households" Hi, I recently picked up Sims 2 along with a few of the expansions. One of them being the Univ. expansion. I'm still learning the mechanics of the Univ. expansion and I'm having a small problem setting the game up the way I want it. Say I make three sims, one being Bob, and the other two being Craig and Jen. Essentially what I want to do is place Craig and Jen into a dorm, and then place Bob into the same dorm. But the only sim I will be taking control of is Bob. I can't seem to do this without being forced to merge the two households. Is there some way of accomplishing this? One thing I noticed is that when I place Bob into the dorm, misceleaneous(sp?) sims enter the dorm and claim rooms. I have absolutely no control over these new sims (which is good.) Are these extra sims created randomly by the game? Or are they picked from a pool somewhere? I know for a fact they don't come from the Student Household Pile (or whatever it's called.) Thank you for any help! I like this community you've all made here. = ] - Triv
So far as I know, you can't do what you are hoping to do. The miscellaneous dormies who move in, out of your control, are the Uni EP townies. They always fill up any spare bedrooms in the dorms, and pretty quickly, too, so I always have my controllable sims claim a room as fast as possible. It also makes the bigger dorms more difficult to play, because of the crowds of sims, even if you are only in control of one of them. You could vary your plan by setting up Craig and Jen in another dorm and calling them for a visit, or meeting them in a community lot. It would be like the base game--you don't control them unless you are playing that household.
Is there any way to add or remove sims from the Uni EP pool? If there is, I could always add Craig and Jen to that pool and hope for the best.
As far as I know, you can only take from the townie community, not give. In other words, the only way you can make a townie part of your life is by them moving in with you. You can't move in with them because they don't technically live anywhere. (Unless of course, in the case of dorms, the situation calls for it.) Therefore, when you marry/move in with a townie, they become a playable sim, not the other way around. My best suggestion would be to just move your second household into a different dorm and meet your first household for Outings (if you have Nightlife). Hope that wasnt too confusing. i get kinda long winded sometimes
With a hack there is. I use this myself. I create sims when I start a neighborhood to add to the townie pool...that way I can design them myself. This is a teleporter shrub...directions should be on the post at MTS2. http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=188501
Thanks, Jup! I'll give it a go. EDIT: Hmm.. having some problems installing/working it. I'm fairly new to adding custom mods to Sims2. Is there a link I could read over? Or could someone explain to me what I do with this *.package file? Thanks again.
Easiest and fastest way so you don't have to worry about it is to download the Sims2 File Maid. She'll install it for you then. The only thing you'll have to do is set it up so that all your downloads end up in the Downloads folder. This should be the path: C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads If you don't want to do that then click on the .zip option to download and save to your desk top. Right click on the new folder and select Extract all... then extract it all to the same downloads folder I stated above.
I'm slowly making progress! Haha.. Unfortunately I have no clue how to get this "*.package" working in-game. What exactly is a shrub? How do I access the ability to play around with the townie pool once the package is installed. Here's what I've done: -Downloaded 'Sim File Maid 2' -Created a "downloads" folder within my Sims2 directory where all the custom installed packages can go into. -Dragged the TSP zip into the Maid program. The program says the package was successfully installed. So now I run the game, and everything is fine but I'm not exactly sure how to use the add-on. Does the Maid need to keep running in the background as I play Sims2? Sorry for all the questions, folks. As you can tell I've never added custom content into this game before. -_- I appreciate all the help though!
First, I assume you put your Downloads folder in the My Documents/EA Games/the Sims 2 folder, as Shana explained, and not up with the program files. Second, the file Maid does not have to be running. You should close the program. Third, after entering the lot where the sims you want to convert live, find the object (a bush/shrub) in the Build catalog. I would assume it's there, with the rest of the bushes, trees and flowers. It should have an asterisk in the corner of its icon/picture. (All downloads you add to the game will have that asterisk.) You put the bush or painting on the lot somewhere, click on your sim and then click on the bush and pick the option (from the standard pie menu) that you want. I don't have this download so I don't know what the options say, but I would guess that one of them asks if you want this particular sim to leave the household as a townie. What I'm not sure about at all, is if the bush allows you to have your sim leave as a young adult townie in the University--meaning, a young adult who now roams the campus and perhaps moves into one of the dorms. It would need to be a very specific option for that kind of townie, as opposed to the regular neighborhood townies, because it's an entirely different age group that doesn't exist outside the University EP. As I said, I haven't got this download so I don't know exactly what it offers. Good luck.
Don't worry about all the questions. It's part of learning this game when you start doing downloads. A shrub is another word for a bush. 1st before I go there however make sure your downloads folder is with a capital D. For some reason that makes a difference. Okay; once you're in game go into the lot that has Craig and Jen that you want to make into townies. Now go into build mode and then into Garden Center (which is where all the trees, flowers, shrubs are.) Now click on the Shrubs options. There should be a shrub that has the blue flowers on it that has a little star/asterick symbol in one corner indicating that it's custom content. Place that anywhere on your lot. Now go into live play. Click on the shrub. There should be an option that says "make me a townie" ...or something along those lines. It should be pretty straight forward from here on out. Once you have done that they should disapear from your controlable sims on your left hand side. They are now a townie and if they are young adult age then they should be uni-townies or there might be a specific option to make them uni-townies. There are other options with the shrub as well such as moving in any sim; even teens and children townies; regardless of if you know them or not. It is suggested however to NOT move in the Repoman, Social Worker, Social Bunny, Grimmy...etc. These Sims are not intended to be interacted with outside their normal NPC duties, and doing so may cause game corruption. Any of the maids, mail carriers, firemen, police, or delivery sims you can do this with just fine as if you talked them up enough you could always invite them to move in anyway. Edited to say: Sorry Lynet; wasn't stepping on your toes, you hadn't posted yet when I started typing this!
Hi, Shana. I guess I owe you a coke or something, for posting almost at the same time. Not a single toe got stepped on. Good point about Grimmy, etc., the NPCs we must not touch.
Ah, okay. So it literaly is a shrub I'm looking for, heh. Gotcha'. When I first installed the Maid I set the Downloads path to within my Sims2 installation folder, so it wasn't in MyDocs/EAGames/Sims2/etc. The problem is I can't seem to change the path to the MyDocs one, even after reinstalling the Maid. I dragged the Downloads folder into the MyDocs path after installing it elsewhere, and when I run Sims2 it asks me if I would like to enable or disable the new custom content, and I of course click to enable it. But the new shrub is not there in the Garden Center (I tried both the regular town and Univ). I'm assuming this is because I did not install it to MyDocs. Is there a way to get Maid to ask me where to place the Downloads again? So I can clear this up. Thanks for all the help. 'Really appreciate it.
Hmm...I just tried seeing if there was a way to change the path as well and I couldn't find one. I'd suggest just uninstalling the maid and then reinstalling her and correct the path that way. I'm you're probably right about it not showing up because of where you downloaded it too. Good luck and let us know.
There might be a problem with that, unless the File Maid software has changed since I made the same mistake: http://forums.worldsims.org/showthread.php?p=86255&highlight=File+Maid#post86255 Read the rest of the posts after mine, too, because a possible solution is offered. But since the thought of screwing up my computer scared me (and it is a risk when you mess around with the registry, apparently,) I never tried to fix the problem. I just downloaded the Q-Xpress Installer from MTS2, which I've used ever since.
'Makes sense I need to jump into the registry. I'll give it a shot. Thanks. EDIT: I managed to find two reg-files linked to the path of where I set the Downloads folder to. Deleted them. Then reinstalled Maid. But she still doesn't ask where to set the Downloads folder and uses the same location as before. I can't seem to find any other reg-files that have anything to do with sims2 or the maid. And I'd rather not guess for obvious reasons, heh. Are there other programs out similar to the Maid?
This is what I've been using for a long time: http://qxpress.modthesims2.com/ After you've installed the Q-Xpress, you will find that it has three tabs: Web Install, Local Intall, and History. Local Install lets you browse for the local directory on your own computer where you've stored the files you've just downloaded, whether from MTS2 or other sites. I set up a desktop file called New Downloads where I put everything as I download it. After I've installed the files I either delete the .zip/.rar files I have in New Downloads, or move them somewhere for storage (in case of problems with the installation, which happens on occasion.) I clean out the New Downloads folder religiously after each Q-Xpress installation because otherwise it will duplicate what you've already installed. Which just clogs up the game. Sometimes, if things don't install correctly, it's because it's a package file that requires the Sims2Pack Clean Installer, found here: http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com/. I use this for Sims 2 Installable Packages, like lots, where you can see everything that comes with the lot before installing it.
