I also use the "Add Sim" option in the Master Controller to manage families, but you can skip makesim cheat step.

To create a new homeless family, simply click somewhere outside the lot (for example on the road) and select MC > Add Sim, select the sims you want to add, and game will combine them into a new homeless household.

You can also add sims to an existing homeless family. To do this, open MC menu on the Town Hall > Household > Add Sim > Select the desired household (homeless families usually don't have an icon) and select the sims you want to add.

You can also create a homeless lot, so you can visit and know where they are.

A residential lot, set to not rentable.
On the groundfloor (public area) I placed open kitchen and living room with television, sofa, a bath and toilett, first floor all rooms are hidden rooms (with doors to set for npcs. Areas/room to use you need to place public room markers.
In addition place a doorbell so you can call the NPCs (I namend the lot NPC House).
Place it near to cityhall, I remember someone said, that this is better.

When you wanna edit and to see the ball room markers (they are available in buydebug), use the cheatRestrictBuildBuyInBuildings false After turn it to true again.

Tutorial
https://simswiki.info/index.php?title=T ... ldid=64479

And finally use Register Service and set
Is Recurring to TRUE, so it will try to assign the same SIM each day. And set no aging via Mastercontroller too
Register-Interactions#Service-Register-Interactions

phantom99 wrote: ↑

March 25th, 2024, 4:02 am

Yes, this cheat can be used in the game. A sim created with it is always homeless, you can check this in the sim's household status with MC. IIRC, in CAW they also start out being homeless, but once you enter build/buy mode or edit town mode, the game can move them to a random residential lot, so an active homeless sim stays that way only as long as you don't exit live mode. I think the same applies to the game, so it's best to avoid exiting live mode when populating the homeless pool using the method I described, and once all sims are added, switch to a regular household living on a lot using MC's "Make Active" option.

I only used that cheat in Edit Town mode so far, so I'll try it in Live mode, thank you!

Knight wrote: ↑

March 25th, 2024, 6:16 am

To create a new homeless family, simply click somewhere outside the lot (for example on the road) and select MC > Add Sim, select the sims you want to add, and game will combine them into a new homeless household.

It does make sense as the world itself is referenced as "world lot" in CAW...

C-Dark wrote: ↑

March 25th, 2024, 8:16 am

You can also create a homeless lot, so you can visit and know where they are. A residential lot, set to not rentable.[...] And finally use Register Service and set Is Recurring to TRUE, so it will try to assign the same SIM each day. And set no aging via Mastercontroller too

I will double check the settings for the Register Service, thanks! Not sure what you mean by "set to not rentable" though? There is the regular residental, the ownable and the uni apartment lot type. How do I set any of those to not rentable? (feel free to dm me, this might be a translation issue as my game is localized, too).

Norn post_id=100537 time=1711401434 user_id=12305 wrote:Not sure what you mean by "set to not rentable" though

Ah, sorry, this you only get when using SP, which you don't.

I think then simply don't place a fridge and no real residential sim will accidentally move in.
The Service sims don't need a fridge or beds and stuff.

I tested the "evicting" process strictly in live mode and it does seem to work reliably this way. Thanks for pointing out that detail! As they say, surprisingly things work well once you do them correctly.

Thank you all for your input, learning smething new everytime I come here!

I'm sorry to bother again. While I can manage the homeless pool a little better thanks to your help, there are still some questions open.

How do I find certain service sims? E.g. the pizza delivery sim, the service npc akrobat/singer/dancer, the service npc police officer... I would assume they are only spawned when the service is called. But they are already in pool, even after having Overwatch cull all homeless sims. Without finding them, I cannot replace them. If I give a service role to a homeless sim this just adds to the pool without replacing the (off-world existing) sim.

Also that paparazzi error persists. I can have 3 or no Paparazzi. Any lower number is disregarded and NPCs spawned until there are 3.

I know it's very specific and usually I don't fuss that much with the NPCs. But this is a starting save game which I want to share (so no editing as I go).

Norn wrote: ↑

April 2nd, 2024, 8:49 am

How do I find certain service sims? E.g. the pizza delivery sim, the service npc akrobat/singer/dancer, the service npc police officer... I would assume they are only spawned when the service is called. But they are already in pool, even after having Overwatch cull all homeless sims. Without finding them, I cannot replace them. If I give a service role to a homeless sim this just adds to the pool without replacing the (off-world existing) sim.

There may be easier ways, but when I want to add my sim to the service pool, I do it this way:

1) Suppose I'm going to add a new policeman. I pause the game and check the police pool size in Register settings (Service > Police > Pool Size). It's also worth checking the ages allowed in the pool to make sure our sim fits.
2) Make sure that the number of sims in the pool does not exceed the limit and free up one space (or more if the pool is overloaded), or increase the pool size for our sim. Otherwise Register may delete our sim when performing pools cleanup. If you don't need the previous sim from the pool - just delete it via Total Annihilation (Town Hall > MC > Sim > Advanced > Total Annihilation > Type of Service filter > Police > Select unnecessary sims). If you want to keep the sim - add it to an empty lot and save the household to the library in Edit Town mode. Then also delete the sim via Total Annihilation. Deletion is needed to instantly free up space in the pool, in my game when adding a sim to a lot it doesn't always free up for some reason.
3) If the sim, which we are going to add to the pool is now active - switch to another sim. If you care about service uniform - check and delete all career outfits of this sim through MC. Then click on sim and add him/her to the pool via MC > Advanced > Set Service > Police. After that I usually send sim "home" or reset it via MC.

You can also invite a service sim, making them appear in the town. To do this, use the Invite Over function from MC on the active sim with the Type of Service filter.

Norn post_id=100668 time=1712062173 user_id=12305 wrote:paparazzi

If you ALWAYS want only 1 paparazzithen you may tune it from games NpcRoles file, create your own tuning with S3pe:
you need the gameplaydata.package
(I think you know how, but for others it is maybe relevant )
1. from C: > Program Files(x86) > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Game > Bin > Gameplay
copy the GameplayData.package to a new folder somewhere else like _MY-tunings
2. Open it with S3pe
3. mark "fillter active" and Filter "Name"
4. enter npcrole into the name field
5. locate the pure NpcRoles xml
6. mark, right-click and
7. export to packag
8. name it NpcRoles_yourname.package
9. save it in your new folder
10. open it with s3pe
11. mark the xml and right click -> NOTEPAD
12. CTRL + F for search Paparazzi
13. edit the value all to 1
<NumInMinSpec>1</NumInMinSpec><NumInMidSpec>2</NumInMidSpec><NumInMaxSpec>3</NumInMaxSpec>you can even change the time when they "work"<StartTime>16</StartTime>
<EndTime>19</EndTime>

This you can also do for roles, merchants (which will influence the open time of the lot), bartenders and some more.
After you add this to your mods folder check with delphi's dashboard if there is maybe another mod which alters the npcrole file too.

Some more fiddling, some more testing.

I found out that it's NOT a good idea to set the NPC services to recurrent. At least not those that are called for a single event. I noticed when the 5th repair sim showed up to fix the shower, which had already been fixed by the first one. And a university mascot started spawning again and again and again and again.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

April 2nd, 2024, 12:30 pm

If you ALWAYS want only 1 paparazzithen you may tune it from games NpcRoles file, create your own tuning with S3pe:

I had indeed already looked at those files, I might do that for my own gameplay, thank you!

Thank you @knight for the detailed description! That helped a lot!