Long term saves

siva20092403

OK I am aware of the bugs and problems if players choose to play several generations in one game. However the question is, if you stick to just one generation but play the game for 10,000 or more Sim weeks, will there be any similar problems or bugs faced by multi-generation players? Will moving towns after a very long term save game solve any problems?

Thanks.

Namaya92

Moving towns always helps! I always move to another town whenever my game gets too laggy. I think if you have story progression enabled it wouldn't matter if you play one sim for 10.000 simweeks or multiple generations because the town around you will still evolve and it will still generate a lot of memory or history or however you want to call it. I never tried that though. I gotta say Overwatch and Errortrap took away a lot of lag for me and ever since Igazor pointed it out I also reset the entire town with Master Controller once in a while that also lightens up any lag I have/had.

TadOlson

I've been working out how to make long term multi-generational legacies work in the same town and same game though it take using empty custom worlds to start with like Gibsons or my latest one when it's finished.I just play TS2 style rotational with a huge load of about 109 NRaas Mods and about 600 other Mods to deal with other game issues not fixed by NRaas.This has kept my games from exploding in corruption like when a child is taken by a social worker and deleted from the game or the town glitches out because the EA bugfest tends to break saves.

siva20092403

TadOlson wrote: »

I've been working out how to make long term multi-generational legacies work in the same town and same game though it take using empty custom worlds to start with like Gibsons or my latest one when it's finished.I just play TS2 style rotational with a huge load of about 109 NRaas Mods and about 600 other Mods to deal with other game issues not fixed by NRaas.This has kept my games from exploding in corruption like when a child is taken by a social worker and deleted from the game or the town glitches out because the EA bugfest tends to break saves.

Hi. If you are kind enough, can you give me the links to mods which are not fixed by NRaas?

jusMeh

After a while, this is what I do when things start to go wonky: (NOTE: I always play my legacy in Appaloosa Plains, thus the reason I mention using AP when 're-starting' - but ANY world will do):

1. Start new game, choose AP world (or whatever world your legacy/favorite family is located), load fresh world, choose any family, edit town and plunk down one of YOUR original households from older wonky save (assuming you'd previously saved an old household to the library bin in Edit Town mode). Switch to this household and check that everything's in place, and save and quit. Get into the game files (location of files is outlined below) and replace new AP nhd file w/ custom (old) AP nhd file. (or again, whatever world you were using before)

2. Load game. May take forever to load at first. Once loaded, original town, houses and intact families should be there including intact family trees. (but cannot promise - it usually works for ME).

So far I only had to use 'nhood' data, however if you want your old portraits to work you need to ALSO transfer the travelDB package file - ALL of these files should be located here: Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Saves > [name of your save(s) > [name of your fave world] .nhd file, and then the TravelDB package file (for portraits and memories). Those two files are the ones you want to transfer and replace in the FRESH world save. Make sense? That said, the travel DB -in my experience- had greatly bloated my games. I take a lot of Sim portraits, etc. & memories. BACK UP YOUR GAMES just in case before trying this!!

The first time I tried this, I went from a 1.26 GB save to 755 mb (after transfer) = at least 200 MB. cut from save file.

Kuree's Save Cleaner V. 2 cleaned 87% of save file, further shrinking save from 755 mb to 100 mb (that was the first time I'd used the save cleaner). All of this helped prevent error 12 issues, etc., plus game ran so much better.

This technique worked for me for the first several generations. It was the easiest way; but when things really got laggy, I had to manually move all my stuff to a fresh town (I think my game had gotten corrupted - but it took about 2 years for it to get that way). It took me 3 days straight to manually replace everything, LOL (Nraas Porter probably would help w/ this). Then I found out my Tree of Prosp. was acting up.... long story. Everything's great now, however. I'm on the 7th. generation & game is going as smooth as could possibly be. It's awesome.

edit: FWIW I do not use Story Progression. I do use Overwatch mod & a few others by Nraas.

cleo00

I get around this by nraas mods, moving worlds every 6-8 sim weeks, and multiple saves.
I have nraas saver so it promps me to save at 4am and 4pm sim time, and it changes the number after the save so I have about 10 saves of the same family that it rotates through saving. That helps for me at least.

TadOlson

I got most from Simlogical,MATY,Simsasylum,MTS and a few other places I can't link to on this browser until I port in the bookmarks.

Nikkei_Simmer

I just moved my first generation from Sunset Valley to Riverview because it was getting so laggy. The move got rid of the lag. However...when I went to look at the family tree, the ghosts who were part of the family tree before no longer are visible as family members. So if you plan to make a complete family tree, you will have to manually insert your family members into a family tree maker from a screencap of said ancestor Sim. I don't know if NRAAS has a solution for this problem, but I've resigned myself that Mayumi and Simis are no longer visible as family members. This problem may be even more pronounced as you get into the later generations with multiple deceased generations in the family tree.

Mikezumi

@Nikkei_Simmer Did you use Porter to move your family? If so, did you select the ghosts in the lists that come up when packing? I have not lost a single ghost in any town family in this way.

Nikkei_Simmer

I'll have to look into getting that NRAAS mod. I don't think I have it. But I'm going to have to get it before the next move so that I can keep Fiona...at least.

Teslachick2

@Nikkei_Simmer NRaas Porter helps preserve the family tree and relationships after a move. To be safe, I usually have a family member put the gravestones either in personal or family inventory before the move.

JACKIEJOY

If someone does not have mods, does putting the remains in the inventory work or does it mess up the game? My potato does not like mods or cc.

IreneSwift

When I've moved a family with deceased ancestors, I place the gravestones in the personal inventory of a family member. It works fine that way.

JoAnne65

Nikkei_Simmer wrote: »

I just moved my first generation from Sunset Valley to Riverview because it was getting so laggy. The move got rid of the lag. However...when I went to look at the family tree, the ghosts who were part of the family tree before no longer are visible as family members. So if you plan to make a complete family tree, you will have to manually insert your family members into a family tree maker from a screencap of said ancestor Sim. I don't know if NRAAS has a solution for this problem, but I've resigned myself that Mayumi and Simis are no longer visible as family members. This problem may be even more pronounced as you get into the later generations with multiple deceased generations in the family tree.

They didn't show up in the family tree of the sim who was carrying them ?

JACKIEJOY wrote: »

If someone does not have mods, does putting the remains in the inventory work or does it mess up the game? My potato does not like mods or cc.

I genuinely thought that had worked for me in the past, but now I'm in doubt.

Avatarit

Every once in a while I must move the family(ies) to a new save because the game gets corrupted. I don't know if it's because of the mods, the cheats, the costum content, the rotational play or what not... the fact is that I havn't mangaed to keep a save for a really long time...
(I saw at this blog that someone completly re-built Sunset Valley using edit town mostly, and she play with the same save for years... I don't know how it's possible but I wish it was working the same for me...

igazor

I haven't ever had to move sims to a new world in my game that's been ongoing since late 2011 unless I wanted to for other reasons, but to be fair this game is spread out over many Traveler mod connected worlds. So I have sims living in five homeworlds within the same game at any given time, not just one. There are players on MTS that report the same for games they have been playing since 2009. For some of us, the overwhelming bloat and game corruption just do not happen even though we are poised to take such action if they do.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips+For+Better+Game+Performance

TadOlson

I've not had any of my games bloat to the point that I had to move them and it would likely be something that might never happen as I start with an empty town and gradually add families to it and I have to roleplay as story progression as my settings won't let it manage more than the basics without my help.

coco

I haven't had to move sims since the save started in 2010. There are other ways that help decrease lag and so on; Save Cleaner, MasterController, Overwatch, ErrorTrap.