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Guide to Houseboats in game & in CAW

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  • SimGuruGrahamSimGuruGraham Posts: 1,188 SimGuru
    edited July 2013
    Daedreem wrote:
    I created a Community Lot houseboat.... a Resort, as in the example in the article...

    When I put it in the bin so I could take it to other 'hoods, I cannot place it anywhere.

    I even tested with the default IP neighborhood and ports. Ports I verified are empty, because I can place normal houseboats (even one I built) on them I cannot place the community lot on. When I choose the place option, there are simply no map tags shown on the map.

    What's wrong, and how can I fix it?

    I see elanorbreton already answered (thanks! perfect answer), but this is a good question - I'll make sure to add it to the FAQ. Essentially, ports won't accept a community lot houseboat just being dropped on them. What you'll need to do is to create an empty houseboat of the same size on that port, convert the empty houseboat into a community lot, and then take the community lot houseboat from your bin and then drop it onto the empty houseboat.
  • SimGuruGrahamSimGuruGraham Posts: 1,188 SimGuru
    edited July 2013
    blewis823 wrote:
    In this part of the instructions for CAW users, there is a 17x22 barge. http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/690014.page#11001928

    Also in the game there is a houseboat that is 17x22, the more expensive one, forgot the name of it, but it has 3 beds and looks modern. I was able to get the residential one of that size to port, but still can't port the resort one. *totally confused*

    EDIT: I think I might know what to do. Thanks everyone.

    FYI, that houseboat in reality is 15x20, not 17x22. There's a "secret" extra tile around every houseboat lot, which is what allows you to build walls to the edge of a houseboat, and place wall objects along the edge of a houseboat. Without that extra hidden tile that wouldn't be possible.

    Unfortunately, clicking on a houseboat lot in Edit Town will report the houseboat's true lot size. There was some really deep rooted code that calculates that which wouldn't have been prudent to change for this specific case.
  • mds424mds424 Posts: 37 Member
    edited July 2013
    Are our Sims ever going to be able to use their beach towels on the houseboat roof like Olivia did in your producer walkthrough?
  • EllorienneEllorienne Posts: 26
    edited July 2013
    This is a wonderful tutorial - I was very easily able to follow the instructions and get my new lots built very quickly. I am having a problem though - I have built my port and my houseboat in CAW, and set the houseboat to the port in EIG, but every time I leave EIG the houseboat reverts back to being out on the ocean again. When I export my world, that it where it stays. How can I fix this?
  • EllorienneEllorienne Posts: 26
    edited July 2013
    I found the problem - I have been splicing in a clean global layer. It seems that some of the houseboat specifics are stored here. After splicing the the clean layer, I opened it in EIG again, reset the boat, saved and exited.
  • SimGuruGrahamSimGuruGraham Posts: 1,188 SimGuru
    edited July 2013
    Ellorienne, glad you were able to work it out. I generally don't dig into CAW at those advanced levels :)
    mds424 wrote:
    Are our Sims ever going to be able to use their beach towels on the houseboat roof like Olivia did in your producer walkthrough?

    That's one of the things we're investigating for a future game update.
  • mds424mds424 Posts: 37 Member
    edited July 2013
    Ellorienne, glad you were able to work it out. I generally don't dig into CAW at those advanced levels :)
    mds424 wrote:
    Are our Sims ever going to be able to use their beach towels on the houseboat roof like Olivia did in your producer walkthrough?

    That's one of the things we're investigating for a future game update.

    Yay! Thanks, Graham!
  • KatieM94KatieM94 Posts: 1
    edited July 2013
    Can somebody please help me, i currently have sims living in a normal house on land but i would like to create a houseboat as an additional house for them to live but i am unsure how you do this ?
  • blewis823blewis823 Posts: 9,046 Member
    edited July 2013
    @blewis823
    What size is the houseboat resort? I had a problem that I explained above, the base was 17x22. There is no option for that size but remembered that the 3 bed residential houseboat was in the bin and a 17x22. I placed that lot, bulldozed the house so it left the base and changed it to a community lot. Then I could place my casino resort.

    :shock: Oh a Casino resort on a houseboat please share your link. Thanks :mrgreen:[/quote]

    The houseboat resort was 17x22, although it may be another size according to Graham. Anyway, it wasn't built by me, I got it here: http://www.mysimrealty.com/ Scroll down to the Lucky Palms Casino. Kind of tight spaced, but it is really nice.
    jbeach34 wrote:
    I have a question!

    I have successfully built ports and placed residential houseboats w/o any problems. But I'm getting tired of building and have found a couple community houseboats at the exchange that I would like to use. But when I try to place them in edit town, I can't find anywhere to place them! I KNOW I have available ports...I can place res. boats no probs! But it's the premade comm. boats I can't figure out! ??? I've even tried turning on the testing cheat and the lot locking cheat...to no avail! :/

    Help Please! ;) Thank you!

    First click on the port and bring up the size of the community houseboat. It will be residential so you have to change it to a community/visitor allowed (or whatever venue you like) and it will leave a base. Then you can place the community houseboat on it.
    Nothing to see. I don't even care about the forums.
  • SimplyToriSimplyTori Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited July 2013
    blewis823 wrote:
    @blewis823
    What size is the houseboat resort? I had a problem that I explained above, the base was 17x22. There is no option for that size but remembered that the 3 bed residential houseboat was in the bin and a 17x22. I placed that lot, bulldozed the house so it left the base and changed it to a community lot. Then I could place my casino resort.

    :shock: Oh a Casino resort on a houseboat please share your link. Thanks :mrgreen:

    The houseboat resort was 17x22, although it may be another size according to Graham. Anyway, it wasn't built by me, I got it here: http://www.mysimrealty.com/ Scroll down to the Lucky Palms Casino. Kind of tight spaced, but it is really nice.
    jbeach34 wrote:
    I have a question!

    I have successfully built ports and placed residential houseboats w/o any problems. But I'm getting tired of building and have found a couple community houseboats at the exchange that I would like to use. But when I try to place them in edit town, I can't find anywhere to place them! I KNOW I have available ports...I can place res. boats no probs! But it's the premade comm. boats I can't figure out! ??? I've even tried turning on the testing cheat and the lot locking cheat...to no avail! :/

    Help Please! ;) Thank you!

    First click on the port and bring up the size of the community houseboat. It will be residential so you have to change it to a community/visitor allowed (or whatever venue you like) and it will leave a base. Then you can place the community houseboat on it.[/quote]


    Thanks so much for the link blewis. I can't wait to put this in Sunset Valley :thumbup:
    justlurking.gif
  • NovaRaptureNovaRapture Posts: 43 New Member
    edited July 2013
    how are yoi doing this
  • Sbenja52Sbenja52 Posts: 139
    edited July 2013
    This has probably already been addressed but there is so much great information, I may have missed it. I downloaded a houseboat from the exchange and now need to know how do I place it at a port. When I try to place it at an empty port in edit town the port and dock turn into dry land. The houseboat is 10x14 and the majority of the ports are 25x30. Do I need an exact 10x14 for it, can I not place a smaller houseboat on a bigger port? Thank you
  • Sbenja52Sbenja52 Posts: 139
    edited July 2013
    Please ignore, I went back with a fresh pair of eyes and got it done.
  • simplyzoesimplyzoe Posts: 428 Member
    edited July 2013
    Thanks for taking the time to post this information - it helped me to create a port on an island and hopefully in the future when I realize what CAW is to build a houseboat.

    Simply Zoe
  • jbeach34jbeach34 Posts: 34 New Member
    edited July 2013
    Thank you SimGuruSemedi and Blewis823! I did see that post after I posted my question. ;)
    But thanks for replying! *HUGZ!*
  • JET73LJET73L Posts: 3 New Member
    edited August 2013
    I'm actually JET73L, but I couldn't figure out my login and I had an issue with the password recovery system (Origin sent me here after this place sent me to Origin, plus other obstacles), but that's something to troubleshoot another time. ...Huh. :?:

    simplyzoe: CAW is Create-A-World, information on which can be found here > http://www.thesims3.com/game/tools/world. I'm pretty sure you don't need to go to the excess of using CAW for houseboats; it seems that all you need is to build a port like any other new lot, then open the click-menu from it to build a boat. If you have only worlds with no shoreline, you will need CAW, but you could also just load up one of the default maps which do have shores.


    Now, here are my questions:

    Question 1: zim2456 already asked something similar, but is there a way that a Sim can use a Houseboat as a second home, such as by owning it as a Community lot [1] or building it in a travel world from World Adventures and using it as a travel home [2]?

    Question 2: Might there ever be an Island Paradise Travel World?

    [1]: Can it be set up so that other sims don't treat it as a Community lot, or does owning it only allow your Sim to pilot the boat?
    [2]: I put off buying World Adventures until a friend showed me that a lot of the glitches had been fixed and the travel system was really fun, so I don't have any experience with travel homes other than the default tents that my friend used in Egypt.

    I want to play as my favourite character on a Houseboat (like a vacation break from town), but don't want to have to duplicate her or sell her house.
    Post edited by Unknown User on
  • GraceyManorGraceyManor Posts: 20,079 Member
    edited August 2013
    I built a community lot house boat and it can't be driven? I don't get the option to drive it.I do not want my community lot to be a resort, I think it is kind of silly you guys made it so it has to be a resort in order to be driven!!
  • Sphinx85937Sphinx85937 Posts: 32
    edited August 2013
    I feel like a dork asking this but where can I find the porthole window? I cant find it in game nor anywhere in the store. Is it some kind of special item because I assumed something like this was standard with this EP.
  • elanorbretonelanorbreton Posts: 14,518 Member
    edited August 2013
    What porthole window?

    There are a few small round windows in the game, one of them came with Barnacle Bay - is that the one you meant? (Strangely it's not listed amongst the world items, but if you look at the screenies on the BB page you can see it in the third pic).
  • Sphinx85937Sphinx85937 Posts: 32
    edited August 2013
    What porthole window?

    There are a few small round windows in the game, one of them came with Barnacle Bay - is that the one you meant? (Strangely it's not listed amongst the world items, but if you look at the screenies on the BB page you can see it in the third pic).

    Thats probably what I'm thinking of as I dont have Barnacle Bay. No wonder I couldnt find it. :oops:
  • klskrissyklskrissy Posts: 4 New Member
    edited August 2013
    WOW! This is the best tutorial and informative thesis, umm I mean written piece I have ever had the pleasure to read...in my life. Seriously! It's one thing to know a lot, but entirely another to be able to write all that information down in wording and pictorials so complete that newbies to seasoned Simmers can understand. As another member stated, "I hope you get paid for this". If everybody (including the upper big wigs) at EA were as dedicated and thorough as you, the game would be a masterpiece and probably have a lot less problems. Words can not express how thankful we all are, but here's a big THANK YOU SimGuruSemedi.
  • lollylisa17lollylisa17 Posts: 1
    edited August 2013
    I cant find gangway style!
  • JuicyJackieJuicyJackie Posts: 1
    edited September 2013
    I added 2 helms to my houseboat by accident. I can't delete the second helm. Someone please help.
  • MinakiMinaki Posts: 11 New Member
    edited September 2013
    27) After the gangway has been successfully placed, I also recommend adding a mooring post and a parking spot to your port lot. This is not necessary, but will make it much easier to purchase a boat or a car when living on a houseboat in this port. Instead of having to find room on your houseboat for these objects, you can now click on a parking spot / mooring post to buy a vehicle directly from them. You can find these objects under the "Vehicles" section of Buy Mode.
    28) Return to Edit Town mode once you're finished editing your Port lot.

    How do I buy a boat or a car when living on a houseboat? There's no room to place the boat trailer or a parking spot!
    It isn't intended that you place a boat trailer/parking spot on your houseboat to purchase a vehicle. We've actually added a new "Purchase Vehicle" interaction that's available when clicking on any trailer/mooring post/tie down/parking spot/etc that's on your home lot or any community lot in the world. You can buy a vehicle directly from those objects that your Sim will then own and use.

    I went to Edit Town mode, chose a port to edit. It already came with a mooring post so I only needed to placed down a car parking space. I then chose a boat to attach to the post, but when I went to choose the car I noticed there's no cars on the menu, only the parking spaces. They appear on houseboats and other lots, just not ports. So I've seen this information on the tutorial and decided I'd buy the car directly from the parking space. I tried left clicking, right clicking, shif+lclick, ctrl+lclick, shift+ctrl+lclick... nothing happens. What am I missing here? .-.


    Edit: So cars are not available on Port lot types. If I change the lot type, get the car, and then change the lot type back to port, will my sim be able to use the car when I attach her houseboat to that port?
    Post edited by Unknown User on
  • MsPrissy88MsPrissy88 Posts: 3,122 Member
    edited September 2013
    I finally figured out how to create a port (where there was none). duh :P However, I CAN'T PLACE THE STEPS I NEED TO GET ON THE DOCK!! I've already opened my cheat console up, already typed in the move objects.

    EDIT: Had to re-start my game SEVERAL times. Thought I remembered HOW to place the steps. Obviously - I do not.


    I already typed the "testingcheatsenabled", already typed the "moveobjects" ... I STILL CANNOT PLACE THE STUPID STEPS!!!!!


    Graham - Would you P L E A S E make a video and SHOW US how to place the steps ON THE DOCK?????


    (if i can't get the steps placed, this has TOTALLY been a waste of my money)


    p.s. I'M GETTING SICK AND TIRED OF COMING HERE AND **NOT** GETTING A RESPONSE TO MY QUESTIONS(s)!!!!! I ALSO NEED SOME HELP!
    Post edited by Unknown User on
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