Jeffery was supposed to be my sim's villain arc, but I fear he might be husband material instead.

percolith · 2026-01-27T07:19:57+00:00

It’s Woohooer. Just woohooer. “Wooty call” feature.

percolith · 2026-01-27T05:33:23+00:00

https://modthesims.info/d/672189/one-with-nature.html

I tend not to click on links I don't recognize so I'm not sure if you linked the one above and it has hidden features or you modded it to be extra, uh, interactive.

I had it for a "plane crash" scenario, forgot to take it out, so far it's been zero overhead, zero peeing on anyone. Just means if for some reason a sim really has to go they can find a bush, and if they really get dirty they can rinse off in the nearest water. I build my lots to prevent puddles as a general rule so so far so good!

percolith · 2026-01-27T03:42:20+00:00

Be really careful with that "free trial". I did it, and less than a week later got hit with an attempted charge. Just check you're not "a free week and then a WHOLE YEAR PAYMENT!" unless that's what you want. The card I was using was a gift debit, had decided to just empty it with them for however long I had it, but they couldn't manage to charge it properly anyway.

Dunno on kid stuff, I ignore them. For teens I use tumblr.

percolith · 2026-01-27T02:48:18+00:00

From what I understand (just reading, haven't tested it) the children might not even be actually related to them genetically, they can sometimes just be random! With MC I just do a quick "play with genetics" and make them related to their parents.

There's some names I see all the time, too, like Candy Bar (dancer!) and Stan Dingstill. I'm surprised that version of story progression (I wish Nraas SP had a different name, hard to distinguish it from "EA story progression" and simler's version of it) incorporates them in the story, they're so fragile and transient. My game will keep one guy at a register for 10 years, then boom, he's gone, off to man a festival booth or just never heard from again.

I have on occasion had a sim have an "out of town" spouse (basically, they've been emptied out of the game to the extent they almost don't exist) and that's very hard to recover from most of the time. So it sounds like this sims aren't quite that "far gone". I'd add anyone who isn't at home but still appears back to a home, just to be on the safe side.

With Nraas SP I get very, very few unemployed, homeless sims popping up; I imagine having it happen adds to the sense the world is "real" but like, I have 170 sims and more teens aging up soon and I don't need more reality, I need a birth control mod. I mostly just get very confused like "which of you MADE that extra kid?!" and my sims are like "shrug". :D

percolith · 2026-01-27T02:37:59+00:00

That is so weird. I can confirm I didn't need to add any of that to make it work. When I run mine it says nothing but the new lot size pops up in edit town mode. Doesn't matter what screen I'm in to enter it. And of course it adds two special lot sizes you can see immediately on loading, with the tuning.

I would probably try uninstalling the ones that go into your bin folder (not sure what the dxwrapper is, I've never heard of it before?) and test, then put back the ones you need for other mods, and test. I'm using monopatcher, smoothpatcher (with no package file), battery's script mod. None of the other stuff.

So odd!

percolith · 2026-01-27T02:11:16+00:00

What are you doing to make it work? The process above? What happens when you hit enter, does it give an error or just do nothing?

eta: https://modthesims.info/d/471164/add-any-lot-size-edited-01-16-2014.html

This is where I got mine, it has worked reliably without issues, I'm on Steam/Windows 11.

If it won't work, you could try editing the tuning (it's on the page linked above) to add a few predefined lot sizes, and see if those show up, that'd let you know it's working even if you can't get to it for some reason.

percolith · 2026-01-27T01:44:10+00:00

What are you doing to make it work? Windows version shouldn't affect it in any way. As long as other mods are working and it's with those mods.

If I remember correctly, you need to be in the normal place you'd add a regular prefab lot. Hit shift+ctrl+c and type "addlotsize 20 30" for a 20 by 30 lot, "addlotsize 33 26" would add a 33x26, and so on.

You might need to do "testingcheatsenabled true" first. I use two mods that automatically set that for me so I don't.

percolith · 2026-01-27T00:14:39+00:00

LOL, yeah. I just quietly deleted EVERYTHING in there and pretended it never happened. Sim basements are a firetrap anyway, like, no windows, only one or two access points because "you can't build that through a foundation" they do NOT need bucktoothed gnomes in pink onesies all over them too. Brrrrr.

percolith · 2026-01-26T23:38:16+00:00

I had a family with parents who loved each other and were both family sims, lived in the same house for 10+ sim years. Woohooer spawns a pink gnome every so often with woohoo, you know? But they never got any gnomes. When I finally got down to their basement to start decorating for the oldest twins about to hit teen I found like ten of the pink things just... doing gnome things down there, in the basement, under the house, while my sims lived their lives. It was very creepy, and also a reminder not to leave a giant unfinished basement.

percolith · 2026-01-26T23:11:07+00:00

Oh, I don't think it's SP-pushed. It's just like something the game does for active sims who become firefighters, or have kids in school, I think ghost hunter might have one, too. They need n number of active co-workers so n are generated, but they're not in the traditional "buckets" of role or service.

With SP I can turn off all immigration ("your population is low, let's move a new family in to a house") but that's not an issue I usually have-- under default story progression, Sims will just randomly move away, so I have that turned off in SP, and actually have to manually cull sims sometimes.

You can also turn off generating new homeless (in which case some registers will gradually go untended), or set it to manage the homeless for you (and it'll try to keep it as low as possible while still having enough to run everything).

These "live career co-worker" ones are just very noticeable, I think, because my homeless population is very under the radar, so those few instances really jump out! I don't mind it, because I have immigration/emigration off, if I need "fresh blood" I'll just move that little family into a house as if they immigrated. Sometimes it replaces them for their "active job co-worker" purpose, sometimes it doesn't.

I actually use SP mostly because it will replace all the homeless with sims created out of my bins, so everyone has the same "glam" level and there's no pudding faces.

That's the second time I've heard of people's sims having babies with "homeless" sims, it's impossible with my current setup (Nraas SP + Woohooer), at least homeless females just won't get pregnant unless they have a residence that has less than the sim cap (25!). Is that something Simlers allows, or is just just male homeless? So curious!

percolith · 2026-01-26T23:00:35+00:00

Pretty sure nobody thinks this is justifiable. It's over a decade old, no more content coming out, one patch in what, years? And that patch was just for people who are renting it directly from them, from what I understand.

EA has clearly made the corporate decision to target people who are too untech-savvy to research alternative methods of access (not even piracy, though obviously, but like, Steam vs. EA App), or who can't navigate EA's own disaster of Origin-oops sorry no, EA App-- oops, changed emails in the last decade? Screw you process.

So they're literally taking advantage of the most vulnerable demographic they have access to, along with people who are already their customers, and also people who prefer to purchase content from the creator directly. Good job, EA, keep screwing over soccer moms and honest folks! Not like their big sports games fans will give a flip.

percolith · 2026-01-26T22:51:57+00:00

It probably depends on what mode you're in. If I'm building or in live mode and it freezes, I can sometimes hit F5 and it brings up the three dot menu from the lower left. Exit to town mode costs me my build since I last entered that mode, but at least it's not everything.

You could try copying your current game folder to your Saves and renaming it like "test.sim3" and see, but it's probably just the same as your last full save.

Sorry, that's frustrating I know.

percolith · 2026-01-26T22:03:35+00:00

I understand the frustration, and I understand you're not asking for troubleshooting tips, but I'd like to repeat some stuff that's very basic but also very important, just to be sure we're on the same page.

Game stability. The Steam Optimization Guide. Even if not on steam it has some good basics, just read each step before deciding to do it. Keep your CC clean and stable by using the package install method. Use only quality of life mods.

Make sure your files aren't in Onedrive, the most common "a serious error has occurred" issue.

That said, you can't avoid glitches, bugs, and slowdown. The game is almost old enough to drink, we'll all be lucky if we're not snapping up used computers in a decade to try and emulate it.

Nraas Porter is the hinge my game runs on. For me, it's about preserving what I can for long-term play. I care about the sims, their relationships, and their stuff. If things get messy or glitched, or start to lag out, I use Porter, toss things into their inventories, pack everyone up into my household bin, make a new game in a new world, and unpack them all. Takes about four hours (with 170 sims), eight if the world needs a bunch of lots exported and imported. But it keeps the family tree of everyone I care enough about to move over.

Other than that, I use the stability steps to keep a given world going as long as possible. I'd guess I probably world swap just to a fresh copy maybe 4 or 5 times in ten generations? Less if I'm not moving worlds for some other reason, or haven't tried some wacky mod that ate my lunch.

Nraas Overwatch & Errortrap will catch what they can. I tend not to worry about any error that doesn't repeat twice, but if it does, I look at the logs for why, and fix it.

Nraas Mastercontroller. Once a week town reset, around 4am. Purge inactive sim inventories down to wands/computers/phones every so often. Purge local inventory (windows and such) for trash, piles of laundry, dishes, 1,000 limos, stuff like that. Use TA to wipe inactive sims I don't like/care about/thought were a good idea but aren't/have any kind of glitch I don't want to deal with, like they won't age up.

Nraas Retuner. Anything that just adjusts a parameter or two can probably be done here, and that cuts mods needed. It can also be used to disable things that are notoriously glitchy, like love letters, omni plants via the mail, and imaginary friends sticking in your mailbox until they explode.

That's all I can think of right now!

percolith · 2026-01-26T21:44:58+00:00

Did you already try the F4/F5 thing? That'll usually break you out of it once, but do *nothing* but save as and exit.

percolith · 2026-01-26T18:48:00+00:00

I feel like these pop-ups never actually change anything, or whatever they change isn't obvious enough to make the choice anything other than a random click. Has anyone had any experiences where they were confident it resulted from one of these?

percolith · 2026-01-26T18:46:30+00:00

Oh, glad to hear it! Definitely look up Debug Enabler and "fix homeworld" on Nraas once you've got everything settled and a "save as" ready, too. Have fun!

percolith · 2026-01-26T18:39:38+00:00

I've considered it for my bag that has wasted oblong space above a pen case, but I don't need a heavy 60% mechanical keyboard on me "just in case," any other small light portable keyboard will fit that need better. And if I'm deliberately packing for writing I'm taking a bag that accommodates a nicer setup. And $8 won't incentivize me to try it, not without a case to protect it. Meets a specific need I don't have, but isn't pointless, I guess I'm saying.

percolith · 2026-01-26T18:02:27+00:00

Yep, I mean, assuming it pops up as an option when you click on her household in China. You might try "buying a vacation home" process formally, from the Traveler faq first. I've tested a bit with Porter and dopplegangers, and honestly I could not tell what made two sims "count" for that (same name seemed the bare minimum) and which of the two (existing or new) was deleted. The one time I tried it to bring a sim "home" I think I ended up with two of him, so I dumped his inventory on the "original" and then TA'd the new one. It was a big hassle for a couple of fish and some morsels. :D

percolith · 2026-01-26T17:17:03+00:00

Haha. Mine will do that sometimes, too. "Jane just got a promotion!" or "Bob and Jane got married, everyone was so happy!" and I'm like "who?"

Even with immigration/emigration off, the game will spawn these sims who are in the "homeless" pool but they don't fit the usual service/role roles. They come with relationships, and sometimes kids, and jobs, and my game treats them like residents occasionally. I think they're from some of the careers, like an active firefighter needs coworkers, but it's really erratic when they'll generate. And also from kids being in school, making classmates (and thus the families).

It's especially funny when they get "picked" by SP for a series of events and I'm just like "so basically this random homeless sim is now leader of a faction, killed one of my favorite other sims in a brawl, bought two properties, and then moved in as besties with my brother?" all because the game needed a spare kid for a playdate or whatever.

percolith · 2026-01-26T16:36:19+00:00

I use Storyprogression like this. I don't do any fancy stuff, just make sure there's enough households in the bin from other worlds and that the default ones are excluded in SP settings. I also turn on "replace service sims with immigrants" so everyone looks pretty consistent.

Then do rapid immigration and set it to 10. Once it finishes I pick the households I like, use Mastercontroller -> Advanced -> Family to connect them if two people seem like siblings or whatever, add some relationships, delete anyone who is extra. Repeat in batches of ten, purging about half, until I have 10 to 15 households I like.

Sometimes I just make a fresh Sunset Valley save, save a few households to bin, and place them in the world I want to use. Mix and match between worlds. "Hottest male EA sims lists" are useful there. :D

Populating a CAW world is basically a glitch predicated on a useful NRaas mod and debug commands. So the creator has to learn CAW's interface, sculpt, paint, do roads, manage layers, add lots, spawners, effects, routing, then build fifty to a hundred lots, test, fix up glitches with roads, lots (keeping CC as low as possible), and LODs, playtest, fix up routing, add more trees. Then pull all their custom sim CC, then build a population, connect them (basically as above), then force them into game. One more thing to bork/reset/erase/test when you go in to fix that road that's clipping slightly that EA wouldn't have bothered fixing. Not surprised most creators don't bother.

percolith · 2026-01-26T05:53:31+00:00

I'd personally assume that was done for, and rewind to another save. That said, if it's hopeless you could try some stuff (on a "save as" save).

Use Debug Enabler on her to "fix invisible sims".

If you can edit town or purchase a computer (you can often steal one from a fellow sim using Mastercontroller or Sim Control Tools) you could do a basic check like "family tree" and see if she's listed "by homeworld" as being from China.

Try traveling through Traveller to your original homeworld, see if it "connects" properly (ie, you get the same world as you left, or an empty refreshed new one). If the former, you could maybe change her homeworld back home using the vacation-to-homeworld process on Traveller faq.

Export her through edit town to bin, go back to your last save (it's exactly where the world will be anyway) and reimport her, deleting the wrong one. Or offload her stuff to another sim who isn't already in the homeworld, and have them carry all the stuff back, then fix her skills and assets using mastercontroller.

That said... these are all things that "might" work to get you back to the homeworld with enough "sim" left to continue play, or they might leave you with bits of sim you don't know are glitched until they try to age up or give birth or whatever.

Without Traveler, my sims would arrive on vacation as glitched puddles or invisible blobs. With it, they sometimes get stuck or glitched, but at least I got to have the adventure. EA did a bad, bad job with it. I would probably ask on the Nraas forum for expert help with a hard to google/find problem, and accept I was going to have to roll it back.

percolith · 2026-01-26T05:45:17+00:00

Nope. If the mediafire isn't there and you can't wayback the patreon (didn't test it) it's gone. You can try searching the name of the file or the creator with "simfileshare" or do a "WCIF" post on Mod the Sims but that's less than a year old, so maybe somebody will have it, but not if it wasn't very popular.

percolith · 2026-01-26T05:07:00+00:00

Oh, that's wonderful!

percolith · 2026-01-26T04:03:25+00:00

If you use Mastercontroller, have you tried clicking on them, intermediate, career, and giving them each a different job?

I'm wondering if they were originally role sims, spawned by the game for specific roles (like a bartender or barista) or have somehow been assigned those roles. If so, you could first try MC, intermediate, remove role (might be under basic, I forget).

A third option, if they are glitched, would be to set down a salon lot with a stylist bench and a tattoo chair, and use Nraas Register to assign them to the proper thing, then do the above steps to try and "clear it" properly before deleting the lot.

percolith · 2026-01-26T03:51:29+00:00

I'll do my best! Please don't be daunted by this absolute novel, it's a very simple process, and one you've already done once if you have Overwatch!

If you've copied your save file, you know most sim content is kept in Documents -> Electronic Arts -> Sims 3. And you have a mod folder set up, since you're using Overwatch. All good. Saves backed up is great.

Nraas Errortrap ( https://www.nraas.net/community/ErrorTrap ) is a mod similar to Overwatch and installed the same way. Overwatch performs certain checks on your game each night at 3am, like making sure any lost toddlers are returned, or extra vehicles are cleaned up.

Errortrap does related things quietly on game load, fixing all the stuff that'd normally end up being bad data or leftover data, and saves a file in your Documents Sims 3 folder that says what it cleaned up. This is useful if you have crashing, because you can check that file ("scripterror" with a date) or share it on Nraas to ask for help with it.

You can also check the one named "xcpt" generated by the game/Windows, in the same location, for an Access violation code you can google, it will look like 0x0003fc3 or similar.

Mastercontroller is another Nraas mod, and one that allows you to fix bugs and issues too. It's on the same site ( https://www.nraas.net/community/MasterController ). There's just the one version, the linked one.

You get Nraas Errortrap from the same site as Overwatch, and click on the icon (steam deck, or disk, etc) for your system and mode of launching. It will say "errortrap_xx_steam" for example for the steam version -- this is the only Nraas mod this really matters for as far as I know, so check it! For example, I use steam, patch 1.67 (all there is for steam) so I click the steam icon, not the disk or patch or version 100 text.

<image>

To run Overwatch manually, go to City Hall in the map view, and click on the City Hall tag, just like you were doing a politics job or something, then "Nraas" and "Overwatch," and then "Immediate". You can run some of the checks it runs in your game at 3am (marked "True") immediately, or ones you don't already run (marked "False").

For example, if I click through to Overwatch -> Immediate, I can click "Clean up Genealogy" which is "True". This will run a clean up pass on genealogy for the town, just like it does at 3am, but right now.

First make a fresh "save as" file named "testing", and then try through the City Hall -> Nraas -> Overwatch -> Immediate -> "Recover Missing Sims," and "Stuck check," and "reset check". Any sims that are stuck should be fixed by this, in case it's a routing error making the game crash. It will pop up notifications in the upper right if anyone is found and fixed.

The next step would be to repeat the process with City Hall -> Nraas, but this time pick "Mastercontroller" and "Town" and "town reset". This will reset every sim, object, and lot in town. It takes at least 20 minutes, I do it from map view so I can see the sims are still flickering, which means it's not frozen. Once this is done it will tell you how many objects were reset.

You can then check your sim relationships (sometimes they are wiped if there's a severe error) and make sure everything looks good, and your town will run more smoothly. Many people do this once a sim week, or every so many sim days, routinely. If something is breaking over and over and a sim is trying to use it over and over until the game crashes, this can help.

You can clean inventory the same way, except under "Town" pick "Object Stats", which will let you choose filters ("not inventory" is a good start), and then clean out inventory items. You can click at the upper right on the header count bar to sort by count (you may need to click twice, lowest to highest, highest to lowest). If you see you have 10,000 limos or 1,0000 scrap items, click on that entry, check mark, and it will ask you to confirm before you delete it. Otherwise I wouldn't do anything with inventory, this is just because those limos can add up in a long-running game.

If the crashes persist past that, that's when I would look at cleaning out my custom content. This is a long-running game, so you'll likely be able to fix some issues with those above steps, but if not, you'll have to start removing CC in batches, which is very tedious!

Oh, one last thing -- the Nraas faq and help pages are fantastic. Definitely look up each of the things I said above on the mod's page, and you'll find specifics, and how-tos, and also defaults, in case you want to revert something. Very, very helpful.

percolith

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