Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
Safeguards?
StormyDayz
Posts: 4,035 Member
Hello all! 
I'm technically not new to Sims 3. I have all of the expansions, most of the stuff packs, most of the worlds, etcetera. I just haven't played much at all since Sims 4 came out. And even before that I didn't really take things like saving and clearing caches (all of the important stuff!) seriously. Which is probably why after Sims 4 came out and I later went back to play my Sims 3 100 baby challenge something went wrong and it crashes when I try to get into the save! But this question has nothing to do with that.
Now, I have a save/story that I'm really attached to. I don't want to lose it. What I want to know is what safeguards are there other than backing up saves on an external drive like I do with everything? This save at this point is 3 different worlds including uni and one of the households I plan to move around and explore some other worlds so after a while, there will end up being several worlds sort of interconnected and probably several households when I get bored with the two I'm currently playing and start new ones... sort of like a rotation. So if somehow something happens to this save I would lose not only one household and not just one world and the townies and builds in them. And I would have yet another story on my blog that would just abruptly stop because I'd lost the save file!
For Sims 4 I back up my Saves folder, repair my game, and clear my caches once a week. I have up to 5 "save as" files for each save/story. But from what I hear Sims 3 is a more volatile game. So! Safeguards? What do paranoid cautious simmers do in Sims 3 to avoid losing everything? Is there a guide somewhere because if there is I haven't found it. Any advice would be appreciated.
I'm technically not new to Sims 3. I have all of the expansions, most of the stuff packs, most of the worlds, etcetera. I just haven't played much at all since Sims 4 came out. And even before that I didn't really take things like saving and clearing caches (all of the important stuff!) seriously. Which is probably why after Sims 4 came out and I later went back to play my Sims 3 100 baby challenge something went wrong and it crashes when I try to get into the save! But this question has nothing to do with that.Now, I have a save/story that I'm really attached to. I don't want to lose it. What I want to know is what safeguards are there other than backing up saves on an external drive like I do with everything? This save at this point is 3 different worlds including uni and one of the households I plan to move around and explore some other worlds so after a while, there will end up being several worlds sort of interconnected and probably several households when I get bored with the two I'm currently playing and start new ones... sort of like a rotation. So if somehow something happens to this save I would lose not only one household and not just one world and the townies and builds in them. And I would have yet another story on my blog that would just abruptly stop because I'd lost the save file!
For Sims 4 I back up my Saves folder, repair my game, and clear my caches once a week. I have up to 5 "save as" files for each save/story. But from what I hear Sims 3 is a more volatile game. So! Safeguards? What do paranoid cautious simmers do in Sims 3 to avoid losing everything? Is there a guide somewhere because if there is I haven't found it. Any advice would be appreciated.
0
Comments
@igazor might know more of what needs to be done besides what all I do in my folder...
And it's best to "Save as" when saving a game so that you have an earlier save to revert back to in case your current game crashes. I try to save when I'm done something such as decorate my lot or at the end of a Sims day or when a Sim had leveled up a skill or 2...
http://store.thesims3.com/myWishlist.html?persona=lisasc360
My stories on this site:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/991317/my-sims-stories/p1?new=1
@puzzlezaddict Yes, I am using quite a few nrass mods including the ones you've mentioned. I'm a bit of a mod addict normally so I didn't play for more than a few days before searching for them!
@lisasc360 I have been clearing the caches you referred to before I start the game each day. I found a tutorial to make it so that the featured items folder doesn't need cleaning out. It's really easy. I also have the saver mod set to save the game every 12 sim hours in 3 different save names. I'd do it more often than that but Sims 3 takes forever to save.
My Twitter
(I am, of course, not being serious yet)
I have 16 Traveler mod connected worlds in my six year old ongoing game, with several thousands of sims between them. I play five of these worlds where "my" sims live in rotation, and also leverage NRaas StoryProgression's caste features to rotate through anywhere from 2-10 households in each of those worlds. The other connected ones are the WA worlds, Uni, Oasis, custom vacation destinations where my sims might have friends and vacation homes, and a couple where no one I play really lives there anymore but there might be some friends of the elders or some very distant relatives still hanging around whom I don't want to lose completely just yet. To some, this game of mine seems extreme. But from chatting with colleagues at NRaas and on MTS, I can say that I'm not the only one who plays this way. Some have ongoing games started in 2009 when TS3 was first released that they still play, some who play more often or much faster than I do or who rotate less are on Generation 150 or something, etc.
With NRaas Traveler, there is no hard limit to the number of worlds one can connect. But I don't know of anyone who has, say, 50 or 100 of them within the same ongoing game. Seems like the TravelDB file that holds all of this together might corrupt and things would maybe begin falling apart somewhere along the line.
Things can of course go wrong, even with all of the mod protection in the world this game is delicate, and there are times when I have to revert to a prior save in the single timeline to replay around something awful happening. You can call me overly cautious, paranoid, all kinds of names, I call myself these names in fact so it's all good, but I have easily over 150 copies of this game from different points in time saved on internal and external drives. The notion of losing the entire thing at once is just not tolerable to me, the only ways that can happen would be if someone broke into my apartment and stole all my computer equipment, the entire building burned down (reminds me, I really need to send a few of these saves up to the Cloud one of these days), or if I get clonked on the head and don't even remember what a sim is. Plus it's fun to be able to open up one of those now ancient saves when looking for or trying to remember how something worked or what it looked like back then, whatever happened to that great painting so and so made, etc.
If you told me back then when I sat down, created my first sim, and placed him in Sunset Valley that I would still be playing TS3, and that same game save, six years later I would have said that you were crazy. This was only meant to be a let's check it out kind of thing, if I don't like it I'll easily find something else to play. That...didn't happen. And none of this was really planned out in advance, it all just sort of evolved over time.
As far as safeguards are concerned, it sounds like you are already well on your way to doing what you can for your ongoing game. But there's two issues to separate out a bit -- Prevention and Recovery. The system of backup saves however one arranges it are for Recovery should something catastrophic go wrong with the in-progress game or the computer on which it is being played. It's easy to say when one has successfully arranged that, just look at the number of saves you can resurrect at any given time. Prevention is, of course, trickier and some of it is more art than science. We have a page full of performance enhancing tips at NRaas in case you haven't seen it that covers most of the things we do to keep our ongoing games from imploding on us. Feel free to ask for assistance here or at NRaas if any of that requires further explanation.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips+For+Better+Game+Performance
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
1 - Set the folder to be Read Only for the current user and at the System level, then empty it out. This has always worked for me, for some reason it doesn't for everyone.
2 - Delete the folder entirely. Create and save a text document using Notepad, Word, whatever you like, called FeaturedItems, but with extensions showing remove the .txt or .rtf (whatever it has) extension so it's just a generic document. Put that document in your TS3 user game folder. The game can't create a new folder with the same name of an object that's already in the folder and it can't store its junk in what is really a document rather than a folder, so after a while it just gives up. We've seen by watching Process Monitor tools that it still tries for a while when the game starts up and shuts down, but those failed attempts are less stressful on the system than actually allowing it to keep repopulating with useless items.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
My Twitter
MasterController - Is Dream Catching if you set the option that way in MC > Settings. But then only for when an MC command is actually used to switch households.
StoryProgression - Is Dream Catching only if the household being left behind is set that way in Household (Town, Caste) Options. But then only for when an SP command is actually used to switch households. Thus you can set some households to always retain their dreams and opps while others not, but again only when an SP command is used to make the switch.
PortraitPanel - Is Dream Catching if you allow the switch active household option in PP and display inactive sims on the panel. This is probably the least used of all the methods.
Selector - Right-clicks to switch active households are always Dream Catching if that right-click to switch option is allowed for in Selector's settings.
Mover - If you are splitting a household and switching active play to a newly created one, the switch will be Dream Catching if it is allowed for in Mover's settings.
Edit Town - This is the EA way to switch actives and is not Dream Catching. Mover is supposed to provide the same protection here as it does on the moving by phone/computer screens, but it's not very reliable.
The Dreamer mod, although not required for any of the above, enhances dream management and makes things a bit more stable.
Having listed all of these out, I should mention that having Dream Managers running on inactive sims is very resource intensive. In most of my worlds I can't have DMs running on more than one or two inactive households, in some none at all, without seeing a huge performance hit. You can see how many DMs are running by way of a MC filter and can cancel them on all of the inactives (it's all or nothing) by way of an MC > Town command.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
When I did it I thought I was using SP so I'm not sure what happened. I don't plan to have sims living in the same neighborhood often so it shouldn't be much of an issue but I was testing it out just to see if I knew how to do it and so I could have the two households meet. I didn't add selector because when I was playing a household with up to 18 sims in TS4 I got into the habit of right-clicking sims to switch to them so I'd drive myself nuts switching households by accident if I had that!
My Twitter
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Sims 3 can have its whims though, so it's a good idea to take some measures. I see you already got a lot of advice concerning mods and mods are great, but I must also add (after playing the game vanilla for years) it can actually be mods that make your game more sensitive/fragile. Ever since I use them I have occasional crashes, something that hardly happened before. This is not me being anti mods; the mods - and CC - I have now I wouldn't want to miss anymore, but it is a warning to be aware of that and not stuff your game with them. I often see mods presented as a solution, where I can't help wondering if they might in fact be part of the problem in some cases.
Though I hardly suffered from actual crashes when playing vanilla (I was not familiar with 'Sims 3 has stopped working', nor with the infamous error code 12), Sims 3 does come with save breaking bugs. Which is why I learned to 'save as' and number my files. That way, whenever things do go wrong, you can always return to an earlier save. Another thing I always do is saving my family on a regular basis (to MediaFire).
When you do use mods (and honestly, I can recommend them and in some worlds you'll have to because they have severe routing issues only NRaas mods will solve), you'll have to make sure to clean your cache files before playing (the ones @lisasc360 mentions). And whenever your game does crash, make sure to empty the currentgame folder before restarting the game.
Sims 3 is delicate, but also quite user friendly where it comes to saving the game, sims, families and houses. Which in my view makes it anything but a volatile game, as long as you take precautions.
Oh geeze. I seriously thought that all the Selector mod did was allow you to change households by right-clicking! I'll go read up on it. Thanks.
My Twitter
You mentioned that you save households to mediafire. How do you do that? I'm used to the gallery in Sims 4 where I can save households or builds as a backup.
My Twitter
The file will end up in your Exports folder and from there you can save it to MediaFire. I prefer this to Sims 3’s “gallery” (the Exchange) because EA deletes them from there from time to time. Plus you may not always want other simmers to be able to download your household.
As for getting bored with one family, funny thing in my case is that that’s what happened to me in the beginning (jumping from one to the other). At one point I just decided to stick to this one family and make every new generation a fresh and different one. Not using any cheats helped me not getting bored as well (before that I’d constantly cheat
Oh, p.s., another tip concerning saving: not only save as, but also make sure to save at a regular point (in my case at night, as soon as they go to bed I save my game (as) and it’s become such a habit that I never forget). Sims 3 doesn’t have autosaving and this is what secures that. I also save after an event I really don’t want to lose (at night I number my file, when I save during the day I add a, b, c to the number).
Oh cool, thanks. Yes, I've seen that export button but assumed that it was just for the exchange.
I'm with you on the not cheating thing. Which is why I usually get bored about 4 gens into a legacy... they always have tons of money and there's no reason to even leave the house and explore. There are usually so many sims in the family it takes constant monitoring to keep everyone's needs up and working on whatever tasks it is they need to be doing. After a while, it starts to feel like a chore. I'm probably feeling that way because all I've played up until recently are huge families though.
My Twitter
For those who might be interested in an extra challenge in this regard: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=432449
I've been using the "Hot" version, the one in the middle of the three, for a couple of years now. It really changes gameplay tremendously, at least it did for me. Suddenly all of the little +5 and +10 moodlets become very important and it can be really difficult even in the best of environments to be able to send a sim off to work/school with enough persistent positive moodlets to keep them happy throughout their day.
Fortunately inactive sims are not affected, only the actively being played household at the time. I would hate to have to keep doing that many creative things to keep the inactive sims around mine happy as well. There's only so much shoving of perfect meals and herbs into my guests, forcing them to sit on overly comfortable sofas in lavishly furnished living rooms playing games to keep their fun levels up, and so on that I can tolerate before I just don't want to have guests over anymore.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
That mood mod sounds pretty cool. I really like the moodlet system in this game. There's a lot more of a motivation to keep them happy. I had a heck of a time keeping one of my uni students happy. I ended up paying for one of those expensive spa treatments. I think I'll try out the mild flavor at first.
My Twitter
On the inactive households and their lives, I use NRaas SP Money and its Unified Billing together with graduated income/property taxes and misc fees to ensure that they are all being taxed appropriately. Courtesy of what is currently the beta testing version of NRaas GoHere, I also charge entry fees at the door/gate for most venues -- obviously not the municipal ones, the Public Library is always free, or those where the sim is supposed to be shopping anyway like grocery and book stores, but the venues and even some of the parks. It's very difficult, although not impossible, for the inactives to rise up in the world in my game but it's not happening automatically either as in a modless game where inactives don't have to pay bills at all.
It's also kind to help out the others in town if your household has millions that really aren't getting put to better use, but sometimes it really isn't. If an inactive household that is only making just enough to get by and maybe save a little here and there on their own suddenly finds themselves the owners of exorbitantly expensive hot tubs, appliances, and electronics, to the point where they cannot afford their property tax bills, and these are things they cannot sell as they aren't personal inventory items, then they will have to move (by way of SP) to a house that they can better afford and sustain.
Usually I go for the kindness thing, though. I love playing around with an entire town to see what kinds of impact I can have even if I never have any intention of making all 200+ residents in it actively played.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Which brings me to wonder what is a good number for inactives? You mention 200. I'm not sure if that's just an offhand number or if it's closer to what you have. My original thought was that the more the better so I have a selection for my heir but I've got this whole obsession with knowing what everyone is doing all the time. Seriously, I even have it set to prompt me to name the babies and once I get the notification they are born I go to see them! So, I was thinking a small number of sims would be good. But at the same time when one of my played sims goes into a venue it would be nice if it isn't the exact same sims each time showing up. I'm just wondering what is a good balance?
My Twitter
See now, I always stayed on the legacy lot with the heir. Until I played a challenge called the Drifter Challenge in which each generations heir left their parents home with literally nothing but the clothes on their back. It's how I learned to build since they start on an empty lot with no money. So fun! But the reason I stopped playing that one was that you could only play the heir. You couldn't play spares or return to see how the parents were doing. It was depressing to suddenly get a notification that the other sims had passed away! Same thing with legacies. The spares move out of the house and your heir might visit them and invite them to parties but you're cut off from them. Which is why I've been moving away from challenges even though it's been the main way I've played for almost 4 years!
My Twitter
I like having more sims in each world than my actives can possibly ever know real well and there always being strangers to meet. Or even more than I can know and keep track of. I would never try to watch over what all of the sims in town are doing individually unless I had a population of smaller than 35 or so, but I use Tagger to sort of get an overview of world activity from Map View and periodically zoom in on or MC Open lots of those I am curious about -- typically while my own sims are sleeping, at work, or engaging in some time-consuming activity where they don't need my involvement like reading books or practicing on skill objects.
Most of the worlds I play can accommodate well over 200 residents as long as I provide more housing. Riverview is the central world to my game and there's over 250 there now. Somewhere around 300, for me, performance begins to degrade or RAM usage gets dangerously high especially with NRaas StoryProgression running (on any progression speed). Others with stronger systems can take things a bit further. I have just over 160 crammed into Twinbrook, but it's a mess because I hate building houses on swampland so the average residence has something like 6 or 7 sims in it now. But the demographics also went top-heavy on elders in that world, I've got to sort that all out the next time I switch into it. For the WA worlds and any that are really only ever going to be vacation destinations and not homeworlds, I'm happy enough with smaller local populations. My sims only tend to stay around 3-10 sim days at a time and it's not always necessary to lose myself and them in the crowds like they can do back home. Unless, of course, they are vacationing in a dense urban setting like Bridgeport but that's a world I'm already playing actively anyway.
And some players just don't want all the overhead and will be much happier with 50-100 residents in each world they play. Or even fewer. But you can't really expect to have wide varieties of sims to date and breed with (at home, anyway) if your high school graduating class is your own sim plus one or two others.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Anyway, we all have our own ways of playing and enjoying the game I think. The art is to discover what works for you.
My Twitter
Very true. And it changes... at least for me it does. I like your way of doing things. I think I'll try it whenever I actually play long enough to get to the next gen.
My Twitter
One way to manage this and allow someone moving out of home to not start with nothing might be to use Ani's Buyable Moneybag available at NRaas. This way you can choose how much money they start with by buying moneybags with family funds, placing them in their personal inventories which they then cash in after you have moved them out (assuming they are going to be the active sims). You might also want to look at Ani's original page on MTS where she gives more info about the mod.