Archived from groups: alt.games.the-sims (More info?)
I wrote about this earlier, but I feel this deserves its own thread with its
own subject line.
There have been a few discussions lately about packaging individual sims
using the sim surgery option in SimPE, namely, packaging the sims so that
you can use the sim again while creating a new family by having a copy in
the Pre-existing Sim queue.
I did this myself, packaging about 20 sims from both of my neighborhoods,
and the problems started almost right away. The package files would become
corrupted somehow, (and I think this may have been caused by changing the
appearance of a sim ingame using a mirror) causing a game crash when I tried
to use a mirror to change a sim's appearance, trying to create-a-sim in the
create-a-family screen, and crashing Body Shop when I tried to create new
sims in that program. Removing the packaged files would stop those crashes,
but for me, that caused another serious problem.
Somehow, the package files in the Saved Sims folder were still referencing
the character files in the neighborhood folder, because the sim whose
package file became corrupt would be ruined. The sim's plumbbob was
disembodied and hanging in the corner of the lot; the sim himself was not
visible, and the invisible sim could not initiate any activities, including
eating and going to the bathroom, for example. They would be immediately
cancelled. In addition to being invisible, the sim was also not selectable.
Selecting the plumbob with the move_objects cheat active would only identify
it as "plumbbob," not as the sim. Deleting the plumbbob did nothing. It
would be regenerated if you were to select the sim from the family panel
(the only way you can select the sim). I have had this happen to five sims
now of my original twenty or so packaged. One was completely ruined, who I
was only able to restore partially through a backup and some fiddling with
SimPE (which took a couple hours). I doubt she'll ever be fully fixed. The
other four were not ruined only by virtue of the fact that I had a recent
enough backup of each of those sim's character files, and that the sim did
not undergo an age transition between the creation of the backup file and
its restoration. If I did not have a backup of any of those sims, I would
have had to have killed the sims, and probably their whole family with them.
(I should note that restoring an old backup file does not change as much as
I thought it would. A sim's memories, friendships, job status and quite
possibly many other things were not overwritten when a restored backup was
put in the game. Those aspects of a sim's life are stored somewhere else,
which may help explain why these corruptions might have happened in the
first place.)
So I would advise anyone reading this to not use sim surgery to export your
individual sims into your pre-existing sims queue. If you absolutely have
to for whatever reason, however, I would strongly suggest that instead of
packaging the sim you play, package that sim's family, run the package and
install a copy of the family in a neighborhood created for this purpose,
then package *that* copy of the sim using SimPE. That way, if the file
becomes corrupt, you're not losing a sim that you play.
HTH,
C
I wrote about this earlier, but I feel this deserves its own thread with its
own subject line.
There have been a few discussions lately about packaging individual sims
using the sim surgery option in SimPE, namely, packaging the sims so that
you can use the sim again while creating a new family by having a copy in
the Pre-existing Sim queue.
I did this myself, packaging about 20 sims from both of my neighborhoods,
and the problems started almost right away. The package files would become
corrupted somehow, (and I think this may have been caused by changing the
appearance of a sim ingame using a mirror) causing a game crash when I tried
to use a mirror to change a sim's appearance, trying to create-a-sim in the
create-a-family screen, and crashing Body Shop when I tried to create new
sims in that program. Removing the packaged files would stop those crashes,
but for me, that caused another serious problem.
Somehow, the package files in the Saved Sims folder were still referencing
the character files in the neighborhood folder, because the sim whose
package file became corrupt would be ruined. The sim's plumbbob was
disembodied and hanging in the corner of the lot; the sim himself was not
visible, and the invisible sim could not initiate any activities, including
eating and going to the bathroom, for example. They would be immediately
cancelled. In addition to being invisible, the sim was also not selectable.
Selecting the plumbob with the move_objects cheat active would only identify
it as "plumbbob," not as the sim. Deleting the plumbbob did nothing. It
would be regenerated if you were to select the sim from the family panel
(the only way you can select the sim). I have had this happen to five sims
now of my original twenty or so packaged. One was completely ruined, who I
was only able to restore partially through a backup and some fiddling with
SimPE (which took a couple hours). I doubt she'll ever be fully fixed. The
other four were not ruined only by virtue of the fact that I had a recent
enough backup of each of those sim's character files, and that the sim did
not undergo an age transition between the creation of the backup file and
its restoration. If I did not have a backup of any of those sims, I would
have had to have killed the sims, and probably their whole family with them.
(I should note that restoring an old backup file does not change as much as
I thought it would. A sim's memories, friendships, job status and quite
possibly many other things were not overwritten when a restored backup was
put in the game. Those aspects of a sim's life are stored somewhere else,
which may help explain why these corruptions might have happened in the
first place.)
So I would advise anyone reading this to not use sim surgery to export your
individual sims into your pre-existing sims queue. If you absolutely have
to for whatever reason, however, I would strongly suggest that instead of
packaging the sim you play, package that sim's family, run the package and
install a copy of the family in a neighborhood created for this purpose,
then package *that* copy of the sim using SimPE. That way, if the file
becomes corrupt, you're not losing a sim that you play.
HTH,
C
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