Hi Guys,

I have a problem with the SP and it affects any town I play in, basically, all the lots that are available throughout the game normally to buy keep getting taken by inactive sims so when it comes down to moving into a bigger lot, for example, I can't because a family has been moved in.

The only way I can is by kicking that family out, then turning the lot into not purchasable so that I can have a chance to move in, the problem is that it just breaks immersion and in the past, I had to turn all the lots to not purchasable to stop this but then I would not be able to see how much they would cost via the real estate on the computer/phone.

I'm happy with the SP it's just this is very annoying because it does not help with certain worlds because you can't even build new lots because the game does not allow it due to space, especially when I am wanting the bigger size ones I think it's 50x50.

Are there any settings that I can change to help with this, I don't mind that sim marry, move in with one another ECT... I just don't want all the buyable lots to go which then leaves nothing for my Sims.

(You can image how annoying this is in Bridgeport for example and want to work your way up from an apartment to one of the beautiful lots where the celebrities live and can't because every lot has been taken haha)

You want to prevent a chosen subset of unoccupied (or vacated if you move sims out of them yourself) lots from being purchased and moved into by the inactives? There are at least two ways to do that.

1 - Within Edit Town, mark the lot as Residential\(Player) Ownable as opposed to Residential\Regular. I think the exact name of the Ownable designation depends on the EPs you have in play, or maybe it changed with patch releases along the way. The map tag icon of the lot will change to one that has a star on it and inactives looking for a new home or to split off from their existing households, as well as incoming immigrant households, should leave it alone.

There is a bug in the game where this lot type designation does not actually stick. The way to fix that if it happens is to change the lot type to Commercial\(anything, No Visitors is fine) first and then change it again to Residential\Player Ownable.

2 - Less intuitive, but very effective: pull out the refrigerators on these lots. Sims will never move into a lot on their own that has no fridge, they would rather be homeless. Of course put the fridges back later once the lot is populated as you wish it to be. I use this one all the time, but especially in already played vacation worlds and Uni where I want to reserve some specific lots for my sims to choose from and not find inactives or other students shoved into all of them by the time the travel transition has finished. With respect to Uni, dorms are fun once in a while but can be tedious to work with and off-campus housing is a better option for many of my sims. Or so I like to think.

In theory, the third way is to mark the lot for No Progression by way of SP. But this one, for at least some players, is the least reliable because sim households might shift around on you while the game is starting up and the mods have not yet taken hold. Having the built-in (EA) story progression Game Option switched off is supposed to prevent that kind of thing from happening, but not sure how reliable that method really is either.

Hi Igazor,

Thank you for responding I didn't think the legend themself would get back to me.

Just in case I am not misunderstanding anything, is the Nraas SP not the culprit here? Because with the EA SP I never had this issue so surely the Nraas SP is doing this?

I guess you could say that sims spreading out and taking up all the available (to them) lots is a by-product of a more robust and usually less random form of story progression. NRaas SP certainly gets more aggressive at some times than others, and then this kind of thing happens. The Broken Home move scenario, all SP's doing, is one that I catch running far too often for my tastes for example, up to and including Grandma or a teen moving out because they had a disagreement with the family dog. Fortunately we can just turn that scenario off among SP's General > Options: Households when we catch this happening all over the place.

But it's not really a bug overall, so SP being the "culprit" might be a bit harsh. How about "catalyst"? Bridgeport does make it worse because it's such a difficult world on which to build as you noted. But if you really want to horn your way into one of those nice mansions belonging to the rich and famous of that world, the solution is to re-examine your sims' priorities and consider marrying your way into the family. How badly did you want to live on that lot, again?

Under EA Progression, the sims in town get ignored or, much worse, they eventually get culled out of the game for no obvious reason for many to most players. So yes, if the sim households around yours are not really moving forward with their lives much or keep getting removed from the game, then they aren't going to mess around taking up all of the available real estate on you. It's really kind of a trade-off. Or progression-related growing pains, if you prefer.

As for the legend label, thanks for that but hey I'm just a guy with some computers around him who likes to be helpful when time permits.