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Kathazia
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Post by Kathazia » November 30th, 2018, 4:30 pm

Hello. I'm new to mods and this site, which may be a problem since I just saw an announcement about moving site providers and downtime in these next two weeks, but I might as well ask anyway.

I'm considering downloading the mods Overwatch, ErrorTrap, and Master Controller. If I don't need Master Controller, I don't even really want that. Long story short, I have the freezing in the early AM because of stuck sims problem as well as buggy adventure boards among other inconveniences. The 'resetsim *' cheat has been working on a temporary basis, and I've always been in the habit of saving when my sims go to sleep anyway. I have very little lag outside of the 4 am - 6 am range, less so when there is no full moon. Remove zombies and reset sim have been working, but I've been considering these mods to reduce the number of times I need to manually exit the game and take care of this. I've also deleted the cache files (which come back due to design and are temporary things, I know, although I only know because I read the article) and thumbnails and back up saves that I didn't need anymore, which also only helped for one sim day. I do play the game every day currently. I've never checked the fps rate. I'm currently using medium settings for everything except sim detail, which is on high. I ran the game on high settings on this PC for years without issue until I downloaded the new expansions and started experiencing more glitches, so now they're on medium, but changing the settings didn't seem to have much impact as the only issue I seem to be having is stuck sims in the early am, as I've just repeated unecessarily.

Regardless of all of this, my question is do I have to uninstall and reinstall my game in order to start using the mods? I do not currently have any mods or downloaded cc from the store or from third party sources of any kind. I have version 1.69 with World Adventures, Generations, Late Night, Supernatural, Pets, and Seasons. I only have one stuff pack that came in a bundle. I do not encounter many bugs or glitches of any kind until I start reaching weeks 3 or 4, and even then I only really encounter them in the home world if I've started amassing collectibles. I do not want to uinstall my game. I have over 15 families that I've created in order to populate a future town from scratch that is themed after another game that I play. While I could deal with losing my current families and starting over, losing the world-building content that I've been working on is a bit beyond what I would prefer. I've also never created a sims 3 account and never play online. I'm just an immersive gamer that likes to make up my own stuff and role play, and not share. I'm a closet gamer that way. If there's some way to save those families while I uninstall the game, I guess I could give that a try, although losing my current play-through would be quite sad. I have started a blueprint for her future castle, after all.

So, I don't really need a repeat of 'why is my game freezing and how do I fix it' because there are plenty of those everywhere that I can reference. I just want to know if I have to reinstall my game if I start using mods, and if so, is there a way to save my unplayed families? Thanks in advance if anyone has the time or desire to answer these questions.

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littlelambsy
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Post by littlelambsy » November 30th, 2018, 4:54 pm

Someone else will answer you soon, but as far as I know, you don't have to uninstall and reinstall your game. I started using these mods years ago and I never had to uninstall/reinstall.

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TreyNutz
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Post by TreyNutz » November 30th, 2018, 5:31 pm

You don't need to uninstall your game to start with mods or custom CC.  You do need to install the mod framework from this page.  Also see the NRaas tutorial about installing mods here

If you are having performance issues I would definitely check your FPS with the FPS ON cheat.  If the numbers are in the hundreds you should look into capping your framerate.  With a properly capped framerate I was able to bump up my graphics settings a notch.

One of the mods here fixes some things regarding the adventure boards, but I don't remember which one it is.  Possibly Traveler.  Unfortunately the revision notes aren't up and I couldn't find them on the wayback machine. 

MasterController might be useful because it has an option to Reset Everything in the town.  That will essentially rebuild objects and sims in the world and can deal with lag causing issues like doors and other objects being stuck in use.  I usually run that command every 2-4 game weeks, at night just before my sims go to bed (because resetting sims brings them back home and it's just more convenient for me that way).  The command is similar to the resetsim cheat but includes objects and is a more in-depth reset of sims. 

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igazor
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Post by igazor » November 30th, 2018, 5:53 pm

Just to add to the above that the impending web server move is entirely behind the scenes and will not affect the site as you see it now except that it is expected to behave better, not display the page error issues that many are currently seeing, and we will finally be able to finish the loading of documentation pages that went missing or became damaged during the setup of this new site last month. Any total outages related to the server move would be sporadic and temporary.

Let us know how you get on with the installation of the mods that you do want and we would be happy to help in any way that we can.  :)

Kathazia
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Post by Kathazia » November 30th, 2018, 9:14 pm

Wow. I'm new to forum posting and pleasantly surprised as to the number and quality of responses. Much appreciated. I did a quick check of my fps for a single sim day. It averaged between 50-65, hitting 12 at one point and the highest was about 70 for a brief moment when I was at the Moonlight Falls library with a bunch of sims. I also appreciate the links for the mod installation tutorials. I was going to sift through other posts I'd read to find the instructions for it again if I found out I didn't have to uninstall and will follow those in the morning to get started with the mods. I am going to stick with those initial three as I've seen videos and other posts about them being essential to keeping the game smooth, and I've had the patience enough so far to tweak with my home opportunities and clicking the board in buy mode to luck into the adventures. My last resort for that was going to be just to make the keys for the tombs myself through debug since she has the Great Explorer LTW, but I was putting that off for immersion sake. If these three mods work out well, I'll consider looking for Traveler or whichever other one helps the boards.

I'll add the Master Controller. Even if I don't see much use for it in my current playthrough, it might be useful in my other town. I was going to turn story progression off for that town since I have a cheat town for 'setting up' those pre-made families to have the skills, inventories, and job levels that I want them at for the 'real' town. The Master Controller might give me easier control rather than having a maurading sim that switches households and advances the stories in each one. I don't know how to tag people in forums if that's a thing, but thanks for the speedy replies as well as the site explanation. I did experience the page error the first time I tried to come to this page. I actually thought it and the mods might not exist anymore since most of the posts I've read are from several years ago XD glad to see that's not only not the case, but that the site is active enough to have so many responders. I will let you know if I encounter any issues due to my own lack of meddling with computers.

Well met.

Kathazia
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Post by Kathazia » December 1st, 2018, 1:46 pm

Update: by following the instructions in the links provided, I acquired the mod framework and downloaded ErrorTrap, Overwatch, MasterController and its module MasterController Cheats with no issues and with a sample of three sim days, I've encountered zero freezing, two unroutable sims (one fixed itself, the other I had to use the command prompt to reset them since the MasterController reading said not to use that reset sim option except as a last resort), and a few error traps that were of no surprise. I have spent several hours reading and re-reading through the MasterController and Overwatch FAQs and found most of it explained and detailed in a sensible manner. Through your rabbit-hole of mods, I did discover that I would prefer not to install Traveler only because I have no use of the features aside from the board fixes and while I have not yet tried the MasterController Opportunities interaction to spawn adventure opportunities, I feel that it should be satisfactory. Although, I appreciate the suggestion.

I've been experimenting a bit with the Master Controller to home most of the homeless since I've read that they cause several issues in the long-run even though I know the EA Story Progression will eventually change everything I've done to them. In the rabbit-hole of this site, I also found that I will have use of the StoryProgression and Register mods in my world-building town. While I probably won't do the interesting rotational caste system examples, I can still implement those settings to achieve the NPC effect I would like for those townies. Also, since downloading ErrorTrap and Overwatch, my fps has dropped to staying below 50, so I might improve my settings.

A few questions that were not covered in the FAQ's, and because the modules do not seem to have FAQs  or interactions, and I couldn't find all of the answers in their parent mod's explanations. I did find the MasterController and Overwatch Interactions pages that are separate from the FAQs and bookmarked them, although one of them doesn't seem to be currently attached to this website.

MasterController Progression: do any of these features overlap with the Story Progression mod, and if so, will they conflict in any way? 'Personalities' are referenced in both of these mods and while I can deduce that the Story Progression mod is referring to the optional module personalities, the MasterController Progression module makes no reference to what it is referring to precisely. Is the debt functionality of the former available in the latter? Am I able to create personalities, or are there just pre-set personalities that come with the module? Edit: create personalities with mod features, not through coding or downloading additional content.

In the MasterController mod, there is also a reference to the 'service bin' regarding adding service roles to sims and that they will be adding to this. I assume it is just referring to the filtering system offered by the mod? The StoryProgression mod references a Service Household in this same regard. Am I able to add service sims to a household and they will stay there, or will the StoryProgression mod allow them to move out even if I designate the 'don't allow move' function of the mod, since they're service? For example, make the father a handyman and keep him with his family?

With the StoryProgression mod, am I able to manually pair sims together? I understood the allow and disallow functions and while I'll need to play with it to become familiar, I don't think I recall anything about manually setting up two sims to be romantic interests without one of them being selectable and creating the relationship myself, but I could be forgetting it amidst the mass of information and I didn't take note of it. I planned on manually doing all of that story progression myself anyway, so it doesn't really hurt me if I still need to. I may have the whole town as a rotational caste regardless.

With Register, am I able to purposefully break a connection between a sim and its register? For example, my current China merchants do not have their needs static and go to each other's registers to get food, swim in the water in front of the shops, (resulting from the mentioned resetsim * command that I did a few days ago) etc, but they return to their registers if I select buy, so I don't mind the broken connetion and think it makes them a bit more real, anyway. If not, that's ok. Am I able to assign more than one sim to a register with this mod? I ask mainly because of the Elixir register as it functions 24/7, but I would really like the owner of the shop to be the one operating the register. I can tolerate her being a statue there as she's a vampire, but if I can break her connection to it so that she actually 'lives' around the shop while still selling me things while I'm there, I'll be happy. If I can't do that 'safely,' no real loss. This mod also states that it allows these role sims to maintain relationships/jobs outside of their role, which also led to my curiosity as to whether I could assign more than one sim to that register and how they maintain these things if they have that role. Would the store/register simply be unmanned in the hours that they need to go to their regular job?

ErrorTrap. The ScriptError documents or whatever they are I know that I can alternate the ending to .txt to read what the script error is, but I have no programming experience and believe that would probably be useless to me since the game fixes it as they happen. Is it safe to delete these accumulating errors since any debugging with aid from this site in the future would use the logging interaction from Master Controller? If not, is it safe to compile them in a new folder in the Sims 3 folder to reduce clutter?

I have more questions, but these are the ones that I think would be more difficult to discover through play and have not been able to answer through my own research. If there are interactions/FAQs for these smaller modules that answer these questions, then I would be happy to read through them myself without making someone answer each individual questions I've asked. I also understand that there are forums dedicated to each of these mods, and apologize that I still posted all of them here in one post, but most of the other posts I found in individual mod forums were...user error of messing things up before asking for clarification or reading instructions before taking action. So, I felt it best to just put the follow-up questions here. I apologize for the length and OCD nature of my research, but I felt it appropriate since I'm unfamiliar with the content. I suppose I could google more to find the interactions and FAQs of those modules, but I sort of just want to play some after reading and testing the game's functionality.

Thanks in advance, and sorry again for the book I just wrote. It's sort of my trade.

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JohnL83
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Post by JohnL83 » December 1st, 2018, 2:06 pm

Kathazia - Welcome to the site!
I was all new to this just less than a year ago and completely new to the Sims a year ago as of November. I've have found this forum and it's members to always be kind, courteous, funny and helpful. No question is too silly (even if they secretly think so, they'd never say...lol) I was very leery of using mods and had a terrible time learning how it all works, but I can't imagine playing now without them!  My best advice is just keep asking advice, reading and experimenting with all there is to offer. 
If this old dog can learn to use and LOVE these mods I am sure you will too! ;)

Kathazia
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Post by Kathazia » December 1st, 2018, 2:38 pm

I definitely love them so far, although I realize I probably don't sound it because my written voice is just trained to be as professional as possible, especially when research and analysis are involved. I was leery as well, but regret not adding them years ago. C'est la vie. I'm binging now XD and excited about all of the new things Ill be able to do. I've been with the franchise since its release when I was a kid, but I'll never switch to 4. I can't give up my open world. Thanks for the welcome, and happy simming :)

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TreyNutz
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Post by TreyNutz » December 1st, 2018, 3:16 pm

I'll leave most of the questions to others who know better. 

MC Progression links the two mods (MC and SP) so you can use MC's filters to find sims and then access their SP options at the sim and household level.  That's all I use it for and I don't use it very often.  SP is more geared to work with groups of sims (castes).  SP doesn't have any functionality to help you find a particular sim in order to click on them to change individual StoryProgression settings, which can be problematic for non-household sims because otherwise you have to find the sim in your game.  MC Progression allows you to use MC's filters to find and select any sim in town and access that sim's SP settings.

I don't use SP's personalities modules so have never noticed the Personalities command under Demographics before (or anywhere else for that matter).   I think the answer to your quesiton is that the references to personalities in the MC documentation you are asking about are actually the SP modules and the individual sims chosen by those modules to be Personalities.

SP does have a setting allowing you to designate two sims to eventually form a relationship.  That's under SP's sim options, look for "Romance: Arranged Marriage: Sim'.  That setting requires the SP Relationship module.  But that doesn't always work out in my games.  Maybe 50% of the time in my very limited experience.  If you just want to establish the relationship directly, use MasterController.  (Going by memory:) City Hall or a computer>NRaas>MasterController>Intermediate>Long Term Relationship by Category>and then I think you pick the two sims and then the new relationship category.  Or click on one of the sims in question if you can find them, and follow the same path to select the other sim and the new relationship category.

Error Trap:  the script files can be viewed with Notepad, or probably any text editor.  I use (the free) Notepad++ just because it's an improvement over Notepad.  ET will eventually overwrite the oldest script error file after 10-12 accumulate in your TS3 folder.  You can just leave them be.  There's no need to keep them or delete them.  I do look at them occasionally, and sometimes I can figure something out.  But I only upload them when I get a repeating script error and want some advice from the experts here.

Kathazia
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Post by Kathazia » December 1st, 2018, 3:30 pm

Thank you! Now that you mention it, I do recall the arranged marriage feature and will have to look more into the MC features regarding long-term relationships. It's good to know about the script files, and I take back about wanting to purposefully break my registers (lol) because on my first trip to China the broken registers seemed to be causing a lot of lag and it disappeared after I reset the market lot. The opportunities feature of MC also allowed me to trigger the remaining adventures with no issues. It's good to know about the MC Progression and SP. I'll download both once I experiment more with just the MasterController on my dummy town. I don't plan on using the personality modules either. They seem fun, but just don't fit my play-style. Your input was helpful and covers most of what I asked, to be honest. Although I no longer want to break my registers, I am still curious about the funcitonality. I'll look on the older site that I found to see if I can find the register interactions and some more in-depth info if someone isn't able to answer or doesn't find the question. Any more specific questions about each mod, I'll direct toward the individual mod forums. Thank you very much.

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