Collection spawners

[harobed7756]

This continues to be a problem with no mods, no CC, no nothing added to the game.  I suspect it has more to do with completing a collection (possibly frogs) than any mod.

[piperbird]

At this point I have also accepted that EA is not going to fix this issue.  It really has made the game unplayable for me, and I have not played the game in months.  I cannot collect, I cannot design (no CASt), Sims disappear while I am talking to them.  I went back to TS3.  I have not bought the camping pack for TS4 and will not buy GTW.  It is extremely unlikely that I will buy anything for TS4 at this point.

[crinrict]

Hi @harobed7756 

do you still have the spawners not spawning at all ?

[Camerota]

I am also having this problem where both mineral and frog spawners stop appearing on lots other than my home lot.  In fact even those on my home lot now spawn less often.  For example in Willow Creek in Magnolia Blossom Park when I visited for the first time in a while there were no mineral or frog spawned. In Willow Creek I visited Oakenstead and again nothing. I waited there for the best part of a day and eventually 1 (and only 1) mineral spawner worked.

I also tried the Desert Bloom Park in Oasis Springs and again nothing. However having noted someone in another thread saying one possible impact was the presence of dirty plates I did find this to be the case here and after cleaning up all the mess lo and behold multiple minerals were spawned.

So that is one thing to try - however it is not the total answer as it was not the case in my Oakenstead example. I forgot to look in the Magnolia Park example to be honest.

Hope this is useful. 

[samsam713]

Hi, you're correct, the game only treats the area your screen is in as "active." Inactive places will freeze in time in which collectables will not spawn (plants won't grow, stones won't pop etc.) typically a collectable takes 24 Sim hours to re-spawn, but plants have different lifecycle which I recommend you to check out blogs for detail. However, the game do have mechanics to clean up dishes when you revisit the area, which makes it seems active but actually not.

As for your active lot issue, I've encountered it once and fixed it with game repairing. To do that, right-click TS4 box art and select "repair the game."

Hope this helps.

[daarsim]

Wow, I did not realize some have had this since 2014! Anyway, I only recently had have this problem. Seems like it started after the Day of Dead patch. I don't know about frogs because the save I'm actually trying to complete all collections in already has all the frogs so I stopped collecting them. All the previously spawned frogs are still there. Rocks are not spawning in any neighborhood besides the one my Sim lives in. In his save I had only played his household and never any others.

Some background history. He started life in in Willow Creek next to the Bargain Bend empty lot. He was a Tech Guru for career. Then I had him quit his job and move into Bargain Bend to see if he could survive by collecting alone and began to build him a house bit by bit. He was able to do pretty good so I decided to have him move to the biggest lot in Newcrest and began building a new house from scratch with the idea that I would now keep and display one copy of each collectible. I built his living areas from premade rooms available from build mode and began building display rooms for his collectibles of my own design. I also wanted to "collect each type of rocket through game play so I finally had him marry and move in Liberty Lee from the BFF stock house hold since she is in the rocket career. I figured I would have her complete both branches of that and unlock both career rockets while my main Sim finished out his collections.

Anyway, since in his early days he had sold most of his collections to survive, I had to go re-find some of the same ones he had already collected so I could have a copy for display. About two weeks ago it seemed the rocks were getting harder to come by and then they finally stopped last week except for in his current neighborhood. I was about to have him join the scientists career as I figured there would be all those rocks on that lot at least at first but then I had another idea. Over the past couple days I went and started playing some of the other households. I systematically played one household from each neighborhood in Willow creek for one Sim day each. Each time I played a household in a new neighborhood at least some of the rocks would spawn within a few Sim hours but I did not collect any of them. At the end of the Sim day I would put those Sims asleep, save the game, and go select the next family to play. The rocks that spawned seem to be persisting so far, so tonight I'm about to return to my Sim and go collect all the rocks that I can.

This is kind of a work around but only for residential neighborhoods. You can't really do this trick for the park in Willow creek or Oasis Springs or the Ruins in Windenburg. I'm not even sure if the problem will effect the science career lot yet as I haven't played my scientists save in a while so I don't know what happens if you collect all the rocks from that area. Hopefully this info helps at least a little.

[crinrict]

Them only spawning when you're on the lot is by design.

I'm not sure what you're saying but are none spawning even in the neighborhood you live in (that would be a different issue that has a thread somewhere I would need to go and find)

[samsam713]

"Rocks are not spawning in any neighborhood besides the one my Sim lives in."

This is how the game works since launch, spawners of any type are only "active" when you are actively in the neighborhood. Rocks typically takes 12 to 24 sim hours to re-spawn, so if you wish rocks in other neighborhoods spawn, have your sim visit those neighborhoods as many as possible; they will eventually appear when the countdown completed.

Hope this helps.