Second gen kids are almost ready for college, so...

Rhiannon58 · October 2020

@igazor please check my thinking here. In TS2, since my families didn't age or have any progression when I wasn't playing them, and since I'm trying to basically duplicate that with TS3 using NRaas, here is my plan:

As soon as a second generation Sim reaches adulthood, put the current family in "holding" and move the newly adult Sim into their own house. Put that house in holding too. Leave that household and move on to the next one that has a newly adult and repeat the process with the Sim moving into the same house as my first newly adult. When I have moved enough newly adults into the same house, I can move the entire household to college and play them through together, moving them all back to the collection house, and split them up one at a time into their own home.

Since I'm just using the new household as a holding place to "collect" my college kids, do I need to do anything like get beds for them, make sure there are sufficient bathrooms, complete kitchen, etc? It's going to take a lot of Sim days for me to collect all the kids since they are in different households and I have to play each of them until that kid reaches adulthood. But each household will be put back into holding along with the college collection house.

Turjan · October 2020

Adding all the kids to a new household shouldn't take more than a minute with MC's "Add Sim" feature.

Then again, all that moving is unnecessary, as long as you have NRaas Traveler in place, which is recommended to prevent any oddities from happening during all kinds of different travel, including university. Just set Traveler to allow "friends" to be included during travel, and you can just choose all those sims to go together to university (as long as they are at least friends of the sim who starts the enrollment process), even if they live in different households. They will go back to their original household after you return from university.
Just make sure everyone who goes took the test within 48 hours if you want them to have starting credits and/or stipends.

For valid housing, SP will check for beds and fridges, but only after midnight. Time at your homeworld doesn't proceed while you are at university, unless you activate SP there. But even in the latter case, you can then disable aging for your homeworld in the Traveler settings while at university.

igazor · October 2020

In my experience, when the game is in vacation mode and a term at Uni counts the same, then no one ages in any connected world. The Traveler setting for foreign aging shouldn't really be changing that.

I've used lots as minimalist as empty 10x10s with nothing on them but a mailbox to act as staging areas to form temporary households for other purposes and I always keep a couple of those on hand in each world I play. But not for vacations or Uni terms, the Traveler mod option to allow friends in the travel party has always worked fine for me. The place I could see where it wouldn't is if you intend these sims to be strangers or actually dislike each other in which case pre-staging a household would really be the only way unless you want to MC Cheat their relationships up for the trip and then back down again after arrival. But my storyline has never taken me in a direction where I wish to have a bunch of sims who hate or don't know each other suffer through Uni together.

I also wouldn't put sims into a temporary holding unit like that if I require sim days to play the other households. It would really be better to keep them all in their original households on hold, as you say, and Add Sim them into the collection lot all around the same time.

Turjan · October 2020

Oh right, SP won't check anything for active households. I added that more for the case Rhiannon described, which implied switching to other households while sims are already on that holding lot.

Regarding the aging thing, I had some weird side effects when I activated SP in the University World, so I'm better safe than sorry nowadays on that front.

Rhiannon58 · October 2020

igazor wrote: »

In my experience, when the game is in vacation mode and a term at Uni counts the same, then no one ages in any connected world. The Traveler setting for foreign aging shouldn't really be changing that.

I've used lots as minimalist as empty 10x10s with nothing on them but a mailbox to act as staging areas to form temporary households for other purposes and I always keep a couple of those on hand in each world I play. But not for vacations or Uni terms, the Traveler mod option to allow friends in the travel party has always worked fine for me. The place I could see where it wouldn't is if you intend these sims to be strangers or actually dislike each other in which case pre-staging a household would really be the only way unless you want to MC Cheat their relationships up for the trip and then back down again after arrival. But my storyline has never taken me in a direction where I wish to have a bunch of sims who hate or don't know each other suffer through Uni together.

I also wouldn't put sims into a temporary holding unit like that if I require sim days to play the other households. It would really be better to keep them all in their original households on hold, as you say, and Add Sim them into the collection lot all around the same time.

ah I see. I don't have the travelers mod but in this case, most of my students don't know one another, some not at all. I see what you are saying about not moving them to the pre-staging house until I'm ready to move them to University. So that will be my plan. Once I rotate through all my families this time, I will have probably 6 YA ready for college. So I'll move them to an empty house and immediately to University.

Rhiannon58 · November 2020

More dumb questions time. I have finally rotated through all of my families and each one has a brand new YA ready for college. So I went to the first one, checked the family in with NRaas to stop all progression, and then tried to have the YA moved to an empty lot that has just a mailbox and trash can on it. The problem I'm having is the only way it will let them move is if I choose to have it be the active family and it's trying to take all of the family funds with them. How do I move them out and not take all of the money? @igazor

From the Sims Wiki: "In The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, single Sims are moved out by using "Find Own Place" from the newspaper or computer or by being asked to move in with a Sim in another household."

I do not see an option in TS3 to find own place with a computer or phone. I can't figure out how to move a single sim out of a household.

puzzlezaddict · November 2020

I think the term is "kick out," which forces the sim to find somewhere in town to live. The sim will take family funds up to §20,000, or more if you have NRaas Mover and have played with the settings. But you won't get to choose where that sim lives; they'll just wind up in a random house.

Try leaving the "Make Active Household" box checked in the right panel (for the sim you want to move, not the rest of the household), choose the empty lot you want, and only then switch back to keeping the main household active.

If this doesn't work or is being finicky, you can just click on the ground on the empty lot and select NRaas > MasterController > Add Sim, then add that particular sim. If you're running StoryProgression though, it may try to move the sim elsewhere, since an empty lot isn't considered a suitable house. So you may need to adjust your SP options; what you'd need to change will depend on how you've set up the options in the first place.

igazor · November 2020

I thought the goal here was to create a temporary household to ship them all off to Uni, not to actually and intentionally play sims living on an empty lot who have permanently split off from their households as if a storyline dictated this happening. There are two ways I would consider doing this:

1 - Use MasterController's Add Sim. When the Uni term is over and everyone is back "home" on that empty lot, use Add Sim again to put them into the households you want them in.
2 - Don't do this at all. Use Traveler as has already been discussed a bit.

Rhiannon58 · November 2020

I actually was trying to create a temporary household to ship them off to Uni together. NRaas is pretty complex and my aging brain doesn't do well with complex. I finally figured out how to do MC Add Sim and moved all my kids to an empty lot. I then chose to send them all to university and was going through choosing their degrees and number of credits they are taking. I hit some weirdness. One of my sims supposedly already has a degree. I can't figure out WHY she already has a degree. The last time I played her, she had just reached YA. She somehow skipped YA and is now showing as an adult. Some of my other students already have credits towards their degree. So I'm wondering if they are aging and somehow getting college credits when I'm not playing them actively, even though they are supposedly in suspended animation with NRaas.

So, I exited out of sending to uni and went to the main menu not saving my game. I started over and only chose the 5 YA that didn't have degrees already. Got them all on the lot and then started the process again. THIS time, TWO MORE SIMs are showing as having a degree already. Makes absolutely no sense. I exited out again without saving and this time, I popped in to check some of the Sims that supposedly were now adults with degrees and none of them do. They are still YAs as I left them.

I did install the Traveler mod before this process but decided to try the Add Sim first. While I was doing this, I got a traveler scripting error for a cat one of my Sims had immediately after a message that the cat had died for some unknown reason.

I'm not dissing NRaas as it is finally allowing me to play rotationally. I guess I don't understand how it can effect my game or if it's causing this weirdness at all.

igazor · November 2020

The granting of random Uni credits (not coming from the Uni entrance exam) and degrees sounds more like something EA's story progression does. I have to say that I have never seen this first-hand using NRaas SP. But DebugEnabler can be used to take the unearned academic credentials away, so can MasterController I think. And, in case it matters, sims can work towards and have more than one degree in different majors.

Traveler doesn't go around killing cats on a routine basis, we would have to see the script error log to be able to help figure out what might possibly have been going on there. The main purpose of Traveler is to quietly redo the world travel sequences with one that is more flexible, far less prone to errors, and allow worlds that are not WA, Uni, or Oasis to be travel destinations and to be linked within the same ongoing saved game.

Rhiannon58 · November 2020

Ok, more weirdness. When I saved and logged out of my game last weekend, I was playing a family with a mom, dad an adult son and a teen. When I just logged in, the dad is MIA. He was showing on the little picture of the family when I login but he isn't showing as being a member of the house now. He is still showing as being married to the mom but he's gone. Mom has the option to text him but not call him. I tried to use "Add Sim" on the lot and he's not on the list.

I did get a popup that says "Traveler Recorded: 1" and when I close that, another popup comes up that says:

NRaas.Traveler
Script Error
Snuggles Tucker
(that was the cat that I got a message on last week that they had died)

So I am not sure what is going on.

How do I turn off mods?

igazor · November 2020

If you would like assistance with NRaas mods when they produce script errors and totally unexpected results (not just funny quirks within the game) like the Traveler error or a family member totally gone missing like that, the script logs and description of the conditions need to be brought to us at NRaas.

The Dad missing at least sounds a lot like culling and is what can happen when EA's story progression is in control even if only momentarily. It should not and for most of us does not happen when NRaas SP is in charge, especially when rotational caste protection is in some way deployed. On the built-in Game Options, is story progression checked or unchecked? It really should be unchecked so that EA's version of it doesn't have a chance to grab control while the game is just starting up and the mods haven't had a chance to fully load yet. NRaas SP ignores that checkbox.

You might try running a MasterController Reset Everything (from City Hall) on this world to see if that brings things back to somewhat normal.

It's not a matter of turning mods off, but of course you do also have the option of removing them (and clear the scriptCache) if you wish to play without them or without some of them. NRaas mods are designed to be removable generally, but of course you wouldn't want to pull Traveler out if gameplay is actually in a custom foreign world at the time in much the same way that you wouldn't want to pull the Careers mod out while a sim is actually working in a custom career, or else they will be left doing something undefined when the game next starts up. But usually in most cases it's fine to pull the mods out. Mods by other developers may vary, depending on their design.

Rhiannon58 · January 2021

igazor wrote: »

The Dad missing at least sounds a lot like culling and is what can happen when EA's story progression is in control even if only momentarily. It should not and for most of us does not happen when NRaas SP is in charge, especially when rotational caste protection is in some way deployed. On the built-in Game Options, is story progression checked or unchecked? It really should be unchecked so that EA's version of it doesn't have a chance to grab control while the game is just starting up and the mods haven't had a chance to fully load yet. NRaas SP ignores that checkbox.

You might try running a MasterController Reset Everything (from City Hall) on this world to see if that brings things back to somewhat normal.

It's not a matter of turning mods off, but of course you do also have the option of removing them (and clear the scriptCache) if you wish to play without them or without some of them. NRaas mods are designed to be removable generally, but of course you wouldn't want to pull Traveler out if gameplay is actually in a custom foreign world at the time in much the same way that you wouldn't want to pull the Careers mod out while a sim is actually working in a custom career, or else they will be left doing something undefined when the game next starts up. But usually in most cases it's fine to pull the mods out. Mods by other developers may vary, depending on their design.

I am sorry it has taken me to long to respond to your questions and help. I got so frustrated with this problem, I took a long break from TS3.

Looking at the options for this family, "enable Story Progression" is checked as it always has been in this save. Are you saying I should ALWAYS have it unchecked, or just when exiting out of a save and then back in?

What settings would I chose when running master controller on city hall? Reset all settings?

Also, how can I find the dad in this family? Will resetting bring him back from wherever he is? So far I tried resetting all settings at city hall and reset the problematic household. The wife still can't call or invite the husband to the house. She can only send texts. On the main screen for this save, the husband is still showing as being in the household but on the actual house, he is still not showing as being in the household.

Can you give me instructions on how to remove a mod? The problems all started when I added the traveler mod and I don't want to use it. I found instructions on how to add mods but not how to remove/disable them.

igazor · January 2021

I was saying that the story progression checkbox within EA's Game Options (nothing to do with mods) should be not selected at all times if NRaas StoryProgression is in play and we don't want EA's story progression trying to take over if the SP mod is still in the process of loading or fails to load.

On City Hall, NRaas > MC > Town > Reset Everything. We're not talking about resetting mod settings, we're talking about resetting sims, lots, and objects. Reset Everything will return all sims to their home lots as part of the process, but what it really does is rebuild all sims, lots, and objects from the ground up based on the information that game has on them at the time. It can take a good ten minutes or more to run, depending on one's system and how many tens of thousands of objects there are to reset. If that and Overwatch do not bring the Dad home, and he can't be reached with Invite Over in any way, then it's pretty safe to say he is no longer a sim in your game.

But to try to force him back if enough of his data still exists in the game: On his home lot, NRaas > MC > Sim > Basic > Invite Over > Homeworld and "X" out while not actually choosing a homeworld. After a pause you will get a very long list of all sims in all connected worlds who are in your current game. If Invite Over doesn't work, then try MC's Add Sim command.

To add a mod to a game, we put its package file into Mods\Packages or a subfolder within that. To remove a mod from a game, we take its package file out of Mods\Packages or a subfolder within. That's all there is to it, except that the scriptCache file should be cleared (deleted) on a routine basis and whenever the contents of Mods\Packages changes in any way.

I'm sorry for all the frustration and everything, but NRaas Traveler does not delete or cull currently played homeworld sims. Something else we have not yet identified happened here and my theory that EA's story progression somehow took hold very briefly and did this still seems viable. Do you not have a slightly older save from before all this happened that you can safely revert gameplay to?

Rhiannon58 · January 2021

igazor wrote: »

I was saying that the story progression checkbox within EA's Game Options (nothing to do with mods) should be not selected at all times if NRaas StoryProgression is in play and we don't want EA's story progression trying to take over if the SP mod is still in the process of loading or fails to load.

On City Hall, NRaas > MC > Town > Reset Everything. We're not talking about resetting mod settings, we're talking about resetting sims, lots, and objects. Reset Everything will return all sims to their home lots as part of the process, but what it really does is rebuild all sims, lots, and objects from the ground up based on the information that game has on them at the time. It can take a good ten minutes or more to run, depending on one's system and how many tens of thousands of objects there are to reset. If that and Overwatch do not bring the Dad home, and he can't be reached with Invite Over in any way, then it's pretty safe to say he is no longer a sim in your game.

But to try to force him back if enough of his data still exists in the game: On his home lot, NRaas > MC > Sim > Basic > Invite Over > Homeworld and "X" out while not actually choosing a homeworld. After a pause you will get a very long list of all sims in all connected worlds who are in your current game. If Invite Over doesn't work, then try MC's Add Sim command.

Ok. Resetting the entire town didn't work (but it only took 60 seconds with my monster computer). Then I did the invite over from the house lot (MC/Sim/Basic/Invite over - selected him and clicked the check box) and what do you know - he's there! He appears to still be married to the wife, has his correct job and level and relationships. I think I'm good!

Thank you SO much for your help. This has been going on since last November and made me not want to continue to play to ruin my game. I did have an OLDER save but I've been really horrible about creating new saves. I will start doing that more often in case something like this happens again.

Shew! Back to my city after a long time!

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Second gen kids are almost ready for college, so...

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