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The Forgotten Child
RiverBlossom
Posts: 255 Member
So, here's what's going on with my current family. The mother is fine, the father is fine, and their two daughters are fine. It's the middle child, the boy. As the title implies he is in the Child life state. The daughters have so far had no problem getting on the bus both ways. And the boy can get on the bus to go to school. But he cannot get on the bus to return home. I thought something was unusual when, each night, I suddenly received the curfew notification for him; so today I zoomed in on the school and waited for him to exit. But I could only click on the bus when either sister was the active Sim.
And while I'm here, every Sim who tries surfboarding usually returns to the shallows, then stands in the water and says they can't do anything. Sometimes they actually swim to the land, and then instead of standing up and wading out, they swim everywhere they go. They swim through the concrete, they swim through the grass. I don't know what to do.
Thanks for reading.
And while I'm here, every Sim who tries surfboarding usually returns to the shallows, then stands in the water and says they can't do anything. Sometimes they actually swim to the land, and then instead of standing up and wading out, they swim everywhere they go. They swim through the concrete, they swim through the grass. I don't know what to do.
Thanks for reading.
Be safe.
0
Comments
For the kid, what happens when he's leaving school and you click the Go Home arrow on him? Does he use the bus or a bike? Has he gone on a field trip recently? Without mods, you don't have a whole lot of options to reset things. You could temporarily place a second school, bulldoze the first and replace it, and then get rid of the second school; having it in place ensures that sim teachers will transfer their jobs back and forth, rather than getting fired. But the kids' school performance will reset to zero, i.e. a C.
Or you could go to Edit Town, evict the family, save the household to the bin, bulldoze the lot, replace it with its bin copy, and move the sims back in. If you do all of this in one Edit Town session, without saving and replacing the sims themselves, they'll keep their jobs and relationships but lose their promised wishes and opportunities. This kind of reset fixes a lot of issues that can't be addressed in normal gameplay.
When troubleshooting, you should delete the five cache files in your game folder in Documents each time you quit. In fact, they should be deleted regularly even in the absence of any issues. But especially now, each time you try some potential fix, use "save as" to rename the save, then quit without saving, delete the cache files, and reload to see if it helped. For reference, those files are:
- CASPartCache.package
- compositorCache.package
- scriptCache.package
- simCompositorCache.package
- socialCache.package
Also, I'm curious if this is the same save, or one of them, that you asked for help with a couple of months ago. Did you manage to address the issues you described, or did you start a new save instead? Corruption can build up over time, even in an otherwise well-managed game, especially when you're not using mods. But then again, what you've described doesn't seem game-breaking yet.Unfortunately the rest of your comment confuses me, because to paraphrase Shaft, "I am a simple woman, and no one understands me but everybody."
When I mention the cache files, I'm talking about files you'd find in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3. This TS3 folder is your game folder, where all of your created and installed content lives. It's also where corruption would be, since your program files (the ones that run the game) don't generally change at all. Anyway, it's always a good idea to delete those cache files, whether you're having game issues or not. They fill with stale data, both from your current save and from any previous ones you've launched since you last deleted them.
It's also a good idea to select the option to "save as" instead of saving, because that way you'll create a new copy of your save game, and the old one can be a backup in case you need it. You can find those saves in Documents\EA\TS3\Saves and clean them out when you're sure you're done with the older backups. Another reason to use "save as" is so that you can test one of these troubleshooting steps without overwriting your existing save file. If something doesn't work, you can revert to the backup.
Since you don't use mods, the Edit Town tinkering I described is the best way to completely reset your sims. In the same menu where Save, Save As, Options, etc. are listed, you can also go into Edit Town and start placing and deleting buildings. If a particular lot is showing signs of corruption, you can click on its tag, save it to the bin, bulldoze the lot, go into the bin and place the saved copy, and test it out to see whether the issues are gone. The reason I suggested placing a second school temporarily is so that all the sims who work in the Education career won't get fired—they'll just transfer their jobs to the second school, and then to the replacement of the original after you place it and delete the second school.
The only way to reset your sims without mods is to evict them and move them back into their house. This doesn't fix everything, but it can resolve low-level corruption before it ruins your game. If there's an issue with the house, you can bulldoze and replace it while your sims are evicted, and that should address the problem. Again, the best way to approach this is to delete your cache files, evict your sims and move them back in, "save as," quit, delete your cache files again, and then reload to see if the issue has resolved.
If you have questions about any specific steps, feel free to ask. I can give some mod suggestions too, if you decide you want to try them out; there are a few that will work in the background without your having to intervene. But really, the only thing to do is keep trying various ways to troubleshoot until something works.