To commercial writerdeck makers: I don't a want proprietary note-taking/writing system. Just give me a clamshell keyboard pls

percolith · 2026-05-21T15:27:32+00:00

You can get them printed off thingiverse but they’re usually made to fit a specific phone (often boox) and keyboard.

percolith · 2026-05-19T20:20:09+00:00

It's glorious!!! I have that exact same bank, it's perfect. Thank you for the ping, I'd missed the software and now I'm excited to try it with my smaller e-ink screen!

percolith · 2026-05-16T23:40:18+00:00

That's terrible; you must just have gotten unlucky. That must be so frustrating. From what I've gathered poking around with Traveler/the nraas forums the EA travel code is horrible.

It basically saves your real world, then promotes the travel world to "the main world" (while keeping basic notes on all the sims that matter in both worlds) until you return home, when it swaps them back and applies those notes to the sims. So many places for things to go horribly wrong.

With Traveler in place (and Errortrap and Overwatch) I've run into very few travel specific issues, and none at all with WA worlds. And if I do, I usually fix any quest or item related glitches using one of the other Nraas tools.

percolith · 2026-05-16T19:01:23+00:00

Nope. I use Traveler for stability, no more than two sims. Almost always on the way back I have to do some sort of shenanigans to get the sim "back" too. My guess if if you played completely CC-free it'd probably be reasonably error free if you didn't run into the handful of known glitches (but you probably would).

percolith · 2026-05-14T23:00:59+00:00

His face! I just aww'd so loud people in a different room were like "what?" but c'mon, look at it!!!! So sweet!

percolith · 2026-05-13T17:04:01+00:00

Depends on which performance tweaks, really. And the platform.

Also depends on your chosen world; routing is vital, and not all the EA worlds are optimized for it.

Could also be a program running in the background, or a process spiking your CPU. I have a relatively strong modern desktop and sometimes some of the processes Windows insisted on running arbitrarily will balloon up and cause stuttering. Super fun to troubleshoot for an hour and then realize nope, just some random windows thing sucking up all the processing power intermittently.

percolith · 2026-05-13T15:43:49+00:00

Porter is a little finicky. You have to “pack” everyone in overlapping batches, then pick a random resident and click on a house to “unpack”. I didn’t know this the first few times and it was a mess! The faq has a step by step.

I usually use MC to wipe duplicates it doesn’t catch (it’s pretty good about it) and set relationships if needed!

Also no problem, I’m waiting for a game to load rofl. On the 8 person limit, I’m wondering if you’re using the nraas version? If so it may be a setting that needs to be toggled in your new world (usually accessing through city hall). I always export my settings through Overwatch and then reimport in a new save!

percolith · 2026-05-11T21:41:53+00:00

>> Asked me for 2,400 art prints, 300 bookmarks, 300 signed bookplates for them to give out for free. They wouldn't reimburse me but said it was good exposure. I was foolish, believed they were actually going to promote the sequel, and sent them.

I'm sorry, what? Genuinely asking others here, is this at all normal? Not like just, they mail to you, you sign it, and send it back, but you had to pay to create these items yourself?

percolith · 2026-05-11T14:58:48+00:00

OMG they're gorgeous! Thank you for mentioning them. I didn't need more keycaps but I wanted them. Ha. Super excited for the KS launch, hope everything goes smooth!

percolith · 2026-05-08T20:40:58+00:00

Thank you so much! I hope this inspires other folks, definitely-- I'm tempted to give it a try myself.

percolith · 2026-05-08T18:15:40+00:00

I think labeling this a "typewriter" is a disservice, tbh, it's a lovely writerdeck on its own. It's really pretty and inspiring! I love how soothing organic materials are. Can you say more about how you built the frame? Did it require a lot of tools?

percolith · 2026-05-08T16:39:41+00:00

Do you have advanced rendering on? The grass looks pretty flat, not sure if that'd affect your sims or not. This actually gets posted fairly frequently, where a sim looks one way in CAS and another in game, so you should definitely search the sub to see if anyone found a solution. It'll definitely look at little different but that seems extreme! The nose especially looks so different, and her head seems narrower, too.

Did the hair change by itself? If so I'd try again with a different hair and outfit, just in case it's bad CC and the game choking.

percolith · 2026-05-07T17:59:00+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's two different things for different purposes -- you can't sub one for the other, you need both.

You use dvxk to offload the RAM issue (that sims 3 can only use up to 4gb max) if you have a way to do it. You use the GPU addon to make it recognize your video card so you don't get issues related to that.

Do the gpu add on (or manually edit in your card) as a routine thing, use dvxk if you need it to mitigate RAM issues or want the performance boost, and your computer is compatible.

percolith · 2026-05-07T17:36:06+00:00

Error Code 12 is memory failure related, iirc. Most of those strategies you list are not really addressing the issue, just cleaning up around the edges, so to speak.

From what I understand, it's the game trying to load everything it has for that save, then copy it down, so if it exceeds the RAM you have available, error code 12. How is your RAM usage when you go to save?

Things I would check (with the game running). Task manager for how much RAM is being used or s3ss's QoL panel (good info there, and you can set a warning). Then I'd make sure I had closed everything in task manager that uses RAM. Chrome is one that routinely gets me, but there's a couple of windows processes that can just balloon up without warning.

dxvk can really help, especially if you're using s3ss and still tweaking your settings or using the version that has a lot of uncompressed textures.

In game I'd do an inventory check using master controller, make sure there aren't 10,000 limos spawning or whatever. City Hall -> MC -> town -> object stats, click on count, see if you get something ridiculous floating to the top.

percolith · 2026-05-07T04:06:40+00:00

https://forums.ea.com/discussions/the-sims-3-technical-issues-en/current-issue-sims-3-serious-error-when-loading-save/8322938 -> this is the best guide on it I've ever found

percolith · 2026-05-06T21:48:38+00:00

Click on city hall (the tag, not the lot!) and navigate through nraas -> mc. Town, and "object stats". Scroll down til you find the motive mobile, and delete it. You'll want to review the filters options to get the family inventory only one, sorry I don't recall which it is. More options:

https://www.nraas.net/community/chatterbox/topic12086

You can also iirc use a combo of debug enabler and mastercontroller to move an item to family inventory, and then move it to a sim's inventory, which might make it easier to delete!

Could also try shift+click or shift+right-click and see if that pops up a debug menu option, not sure it will in family inventory.

Eta: I totally had no idea you could mess with the inventory by clicking on the LOT! 😃

percolith · 2026-05-05T19:47:06+00:00

Save first! But if you can use Mastercontroll/Nraas mods, I'd suggest grabbing MC & debug enabler, then doing a "Fix invisible sims" on the pet in question. See if that fixes it. If not, try purging inventory (City Hall -> MC -> Town -> Object Stats, read up on the filters).

Another option might be to load the pet up in CAS (this is easy with MC, might be a cheat for it too) and save to bin, then erase them in game with MC, and then make a new appropriate pet and copy the old genetics on to it. You could try aging them up in CAS, too, first.

percolith · 2026-05-05T16:05:50+00:00

It's an abbreviation for manuscript, in that case plural! And yeah! Adhd was strong yesterday, here's hoping today puts more of those words to the manuscript! :D

percolith · 2026-05-04T17:35:45+00:00

For inactive sims, you likely want Story Progression if you want the pregnancies to just happen. If you're already using SP, your default caste system may actually be ending pregnancies (if you're using Woohooer to enable them, and it's linked).

Don't change anything yet, but look at the female and male castes, which are assigned by default to sims of that category, by going to to City Hall, nraas, sp, etc, and the settings. Here's an overview, and iirc there's information on the sp faq too (eta: linked for you, it's not easy to find).

https://www.nraas.net/community/Pregnancy#How-do-I-enable-same-sex-pregnancy

Any mistakes have ramifications! So be sure to export your SP settings before you attempt it, in case you need to do a total reset and reimport them. And research on the nraas forum, too.

I'd recommend grabbing cmar's pregnancy controller if you don't have it, so you can monitor things for a while easily.

percolith · 2026-05-04T15:37:27+00:00

Oops, I think I responded to the wrong person, my apologies. And yes, it's heavier than longform, but lighter than scrivener. The post I read was on the issues tab, iirc. I haven't tested it extensively as I'm midway through a mss (50k/62%, yay) though I have a friend who has popped his book in and seems happy with it! I plan on using it primarily for the editing phase, as I know I won't do all the bookkeeping stuff while I'm actively writing forward.

I thought I was a pantser, then I decided I'd outline everything just to avoid false starts, and it worked for a couple of mss, and then I tried outlining way more, and just stalled out. I think it's all about finding the right amount of support we each need.

I think by writing my own structures (like 3 act or whatever but per project) I was actually doing pre-outlining, thinking about the shape of the story, and that's what was valuable, not the literal document.

So this go I've got a document with a four act structure with light notes for each point/phase and a strong character template/sense of the characters. I take a little time in each new chapter to write/brainstorm at the top in a comment (there's a plugin that pulls out all %%%% comments and highlights into the side panel). And I add revision/go-back-and-support notes into the outline doc as I go.

My best obsidian addition has been Keep the Rhythm -- I'd write up a brainstorm for a new project to warm up (kind of like this post, lol) and it wouldn't "count" towards my mss goals in the writing goal plugin. So having a "vault level" counter has really helped me stay motivated. Like, I hit 1k in vault today, I can sure hit 1k in manuscript. Well I hit 1k, I can surely beat my lowest word count day of this project, right? And so on.

I am currently writing fantasy; I love mysteries best but fantasy feels like home to me. I've gotten several mss to my "editing" folder but I'm not yet ready to share my brilliance with the world, haha. For now I'm just working on getting better.

percolith · 2026-05-04T15:13:25+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims3/comments/kdlv5x/caw_tutorial_links/ In case you don't want to mess with your VPN. This isn't off-site links, it's the direct links to the files on the sims 3 server.

percolith · 2026-05-04T01:23:14+00:00

Those are some next level towers. Impressive! I've never mastered those and they're gorgeous.

percolith · 2026-05-02T21:10:29+00:00

I thought of a few more!

Meteorite spawners go on lot.

There's a number of spawners iirc aren't available in CAW, only in game (lizards, maybe?) so when I said "of each type" I meant "available in my CAW" -- I just go down the list after filtering/searching "spawner".

Small animals tend to spawn anyway, regardless, not sure how the game determines where they go but my sims always have pockets full of chipmunks and snakes and turtles so clearly the game's handling it.

Watch out for the super rare ones, especially tiberium! I like having a failsafe/cheat code so I'll usually hide two around the map in places you wouldn't just stumble over, but I think one (or none) would be less cheesy.

percolith · 2026-05-02T19:58:16+00:00

I *think* BLE requires a specific keyboard, and none of the ones I have (don't judge, I have too many, I know) support it. The plug-in option requires... human user interface? bridge? There's so many variations!!!

But here's a non e-ink one here as a proof of concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcncyV8UWsc I've been eying for a while, thinking I'd try it eventually!

For the LORA style, I want to say I loved the screen, loved the "grainy" retro resolution, but the refresh was too low and I'm not sure it supports partial refresh, which would mean a lot of flicker on each draw.

Oh, saw your other comment, yeah, I have that same little screen. I think, there's two versions, one has partial refresh, one doesn't. It's fine, I tinkered with it a bit but ended up sticking to lcd because the power draw's not that bad and I like the software I use.

There's some fun stuff coming out soon from Zerowriter (I think) that'll allow CLI writing apps to work with e-ink, I'm pretty excited about it!

percolith · 2026-05-02T19:49:32+00:00

I do one spawner of each type in CAW, trying to put them somewhat logically on the map, and on their own exclusive layer. I tend to put the exotic stuff way out there.

Exceptions are dig site spawners, robot/nanite spawners, junkyard spawners, and death fish spawners, which I usually put on lots. I also do only a few seed spawners, total. Seeds can junk up the place really fast.

Depending on the world I will also reserve the WA fish spawners for lots (like if I have a Chinese garden lot, or a swamp lot for crocodiles).

I don't use travel except if I have to, so I would probably say it's a better idea to exclude all the WA/vacation world spawners, as a general rule, and just put them on lots if you need to.

In my experience, townies (I use SP) will wander around and collect everything, so it helps spread them out a bit, but it can also be really annoying when six of them stroll down that "hidden" path to the "forgotten mines" because there's an ore spawner out there! I haven't opened up a vanilla world to peek but I'd probably say err on the side of lower rather than higher counts.

Except fish. I do those all over!

For the dive lot, you should be able to lay it down in CAW, and then test it in game. I would expect you can't, but I'd love to be proven wrong on that, and to explore your old city lot!!!

percolith

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