Can't turn Residental Lot into Apartment Lot

Gracefell · January 2017

Hey guys, everytime I try to change my residential lot from a "Regular Lot" into an "Apartment lot", I can't. As seen in the picture, the slot to change it is grayed out, and I can't touch it.

Any thoughts? Thank you!

HappySimmer3 · January 2017

Apartment lots ARE residential lots, so I'm afraid I'm still unclear as to what problem you are having. From that screen you can only change from residential to ownable lot (not sure if that is exclusive to World Adventures or not) or turn it into a commercial lot.

You do know there are two ways to have rentals, right? (I don't want to assume you don't know but this is something that does confuse people.) One is the apartments that came with Late Night and the other is the Roommate service that came with University.

Edit: If you were trying to zone the lot as a dormitory, I'm pretty sure that zone type is only available in the University world. To enable roommates in a "normal" home world, just use the phone to enable the service, then specify how many roommates you want, then specify whether you want all one gender or a mix. Obviously you have to have your residential lot set up to accommodate the number of roomies you want and you should be prepared to lock any doors you don't want them to enter.

A Late Night style apartment is enabled based on lot markers. It still shows as residential from edit town but the price is much cheaper because your sim is only paying for their part of the lot.

igazor · January 2017

No, there is a third Residential type called Residential - Apartment. You may need the Uni EP to access it. It's kind of silly though, it's really the dormitory concept ported over to homeworlds, meaning that the Roommate Service is always on and can't be cancelled ever. It's not what most of us think of when we think of "apartments" in the real world.

Perhaps try changing the lot type to Commercial first and then Residential - one of the others? But the reason the choices are greyed out might be that there are currently sims living there.

Gracefell · January 2017

@igazor Thanks. I have all expansions installed. I tried changing it to Commercial, then residential, but it didn't work. There are no sims living there.

It's not a specific building either, seems to affect the entire map?

HappySimmer3 · January 2017

No, there is a third Residential type called Residential - Apartment.

I stand corrected, then! Obviously I've never used that one.

Goulsquash · January 2017

Is it already built on? Can you change an empty lot to an apartment?

I don't think you can change residential zoning on prebuilt lots?

Gracefell · January 2017

@Goulsquash Thanks for answering. But I made a new lot, and it's still stuck on "Regular lot".

igazor · January 2017

Well, this is strange. If you start a new test game, does the stuck lot type behavior follow you over there or is it just this one world?

HappySimmer3 · January 2017

I know this is barely on topic but since I've never used that lot type, what is the advantage over just having a sim enable the roommate option? With that lot type do NPCs room there without starting it off with a playable sim?

igazor · January 2017

HappySimmer3 wrote: »

I know this is barely on topic but since I've never used that lot type, what is the advantage over just having a sim enable the roommate option? With that lot type do NPCs room there without starting it off with a playable sim?

I think that's right, all of the inactives living there would be NPC roommates rather than part of a "real" household in much the same way that sims populate dorms in Uni World when your sim is living off-campus (or in a different dorm). Many of us avoid that lot type after we realized what EA had done since, whatever it is, it always seems to be the opposite of what we really want.

There are some mods out there that make better use of them, though.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Apartment+Mod
http://modthesims.info/d/554197

TreyNutz · January 2017

@Gracefell , what world are you experiencing this in? I just experienced this myself. I loaded up a save in a fresh Sims 3 folder (i.e. factory reset, no mods), when into Edit Town, then loaded up the university world to edit. I found there was no apartment option on any residential lots. The drop down box was greyed out just like in your picture. I assume residential lots are the only choice in that world.

I'm going to try it again, but this time add in the NRaas Traveler mod.

edit: the NRaas Traveler mod unlocks the Ownable and Apartment lot assignments in university. I was thinking of reserving a residential lot by making it Ownable, but if that's not a normal lot assignment in uni I'm not sure what the consequence will be. I don't know what world you are in, but it may be that you need a mod to make the apartment lot assignment available.

Mrknowitall526 · January 2017

Not to hijack this thread for some self-promotion, but ... I wrote a mod that fixes the stupid behavior of the dreaded "Apartment" lot - find it here: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=554197

To answer your question, that's a bug that they never fixed. If you go to Edit Town, change it to something like Commercial - No Visitors Allowed, save, go back to Live Mode, go back to Edit Town and change to residential it should "stick" them.

The Sims Forums

Can't turn Residental Lot into Apartment Lot

Comments