So... I have played in the world for exactly one (1) Sim day, and the eco footprint has gone from fully green to neutral. In one day. I have no mods that should have anything to do with the footprint, so what's going on? Is it just a matter of Eco Lifestyle still being bugged beyond belief?
Origin ID: A_Bearded_Geek
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Makes sense; another reason to disable footprints. I find the same thing happens in the other English town; Britechester, where every fireplace makes the place go smoggy in no time.
Yes, even if you don't use the fireplace, and only have it for atmosphere. It would be nice to have an eco-upgrade available to make the fireplaces electric. I've been using them a lot in CL - seems more realistic and adds a bit of challenge not to have central heating.
In any case, I've had a terrible time getting any location to stay green, no matter what I do. I had one neighbourhood in Mt Komorebi that went green and stayed there, but usually, the best I can do is get a neighbourhood on the tipping point: every twelve hours, it shifts from green to neutral, or back. That becomes highly annoying - I'd just as soon it went neutral.
Electric or alcohol based. You can get them here, if you just want it for atmosphere. An insert for your fireplace that burns alcohol and have such clean emissions you don't even need a functioning chimney (no risk for poisoning).
All m y HoB households have fireplaces, and they seem to be lit most of the time. Still 2 of 3 hoods are in the green.
My Families Via PlumTree App
Hmph. That never works for me. I'll have loads of plants - both the planted and landscaping variety - and they don't matter a bit.
Yeah, my experience is that you have to push the limits and it is almost impossible anyway. Unless you turn footprint "off" (" " is right since the mechanic is still going in the background unless you uninstall the pack!! Typical EA). In that case all worlds everywhere slowly turns green and you cannot stop it!!.
I have had a house with over 20 garden plants, 6-7 big trees, 12 (!) solar panels, 6 (!) wind turbines and only green footprint materials in the house and it never goes fully green for more than an occasional day, mostly hovering mid way between green and neutral.
It doesn't help that virtually no eco friendly materials are good looking. Basically all good looking build and buy materials and objects such as windows are either neutral or more often Industrial. EA really wants us to only build ugly houses I guess?
My Families Via PlumTree App
I have one household that turned green and it doesn't have any solar panels etc. Or green wallpapers or flooring. I guess it's the plants but I replaced some in debug and it still stayed green. It's very frustrating because I use a lot of plants in all my builds and this is the only one that seemed to go green.
I still need to play with the pack more but I did get a mod called called basemental eco hacks which gives you the option to pause footprint for certain lots or neighborhoods and even slow it down if it changes too fast. I used it in Port promise to keep it Industrial.
I have had a green eco footprint in Old New Henford since shortly after moving a played household there about 40 game days ago. Since then, however, I've had members of the family go on 2 different destination vacations. Once to Granite Falls and once to Sulani. Both times, the eco footprint of Old New Henford reset to neutral upon returning.
Is it supposed to "forget" the eco footprint of an active household's lot when you go on a destination vacation?
It's really weird because I have two other neighborhoods which also have green footprints from other households I've played in this save, those were unaffected. Only the one neighborhood which has the homelot specifically of the household which took vacation was rolled back to neutral.
Also, just something not mentioned in this thread which also pushes a neighborhood to green and is super easy. Don't leave lights on, set them to auto light. It actually makes a significant difference both in the rate of moving toward green and also on electricity useage.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
I have only owned EL and CL for a short time and have hardly dented either pack. I have done just enough in EL to work out the mechanics and have been playing in HOB quite a bit since. As I have also just added Seasons, I started the game in Fall and have gone round all the houses and made sure their fires were lit and put in thermostats and got the homes toasty ready for winter. I am hoping that smog hits this world and is my gameplay intention, so I can have some eco sims put em right.
I did this as I live in the English countryside and this would be pretty true to life. When you have a small group of houses in a valley here and everyone cranks up their heating, lights their fires and starts burning piles of leaves for good measure. And, you can also add in bonfires in early November, then you can forget any notion of fresh country air.
Even worse, if the air is still and there is the right temperature gradient, then all this smoke hangs around in the valley bottom sometimes for days with each day's fires, etc adding to it.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
It was a very hilly area, so the smoke would just hang in the valley communities. I rather liked the smell, much more of a natural smelling smoke than the cities I have lived in.
As for getting your own communities to move toward industrial, it goes fastest if you also avoid the "green" things. So set lights indoors to be always on rather than auto-lit, don't have a garden, etc. All of my homes in Henford-on-Bagley have multiple fireplaces, but with auto-lights enabled and a garden, they all have slowly drifted toward green.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
Hmm, avoiding gardens is going to be tricky. Yup, keeping the lights on, that works. Folk round here seem to like their security lights as well, so I can pop some of those in.
We need 'muck spreaders' for cold still days as well. A muck spreader is a tractor attachment that spreads cow muck on the fields. Lends a very particular tang to the air
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
And yes, I'm familiar with muck spreaders. I grew up on a horse ranch (we bred, boarded, and showed them) and it takes a LOT of hay to keep horses fed through the winter when you have a lot of them. I have done my share of work in the fields, including driving the tractor with a manure spreader attached. We did it after every hay harvest.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
Both my daughter and I ride. Dales ponies, rather than horses. Utterly fantastic animals.
Your area seems to share a lot with mine. Being England, it is quite small scale of course. Mainly dairy herd in the valleys and sheep on the higher moorland .
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Ah, I have been assuming it is on the neighborhood level. I play rotationaly so I have been adjusting each lot as I play them. Looks like I am going to have widen my rotation.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
That should still work fine. I have only played on 3 lots in my current save game and have had no problems moving the neighborhoods of each of those lots in the direction that I wanted, and I even use a mod that slows down the rate of eco change. Neighborhoods where you haven't actually played an active household in don't even get their eco rating calculated by the game.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods