I have a BAR!!! I have a bar on a community lot!! Woot!! Now my Sims can work on that drinking habit they've been putting off. How to do it: 1) Go to Veronaville. 2) Click on Lots and Houses button. 3)Click on Veronaville market 4) Do not enter the lot--click on the Package lot button on the little splash window. 5) Leave game. Go to where the game stashes saved lots. 6) Unpack the file and import into game. 7) Place the new Veronaville neighborhood and name it Blank Bar. 8) Delete EVERYTHING except the bar. 9) Package this lot. Now you have a bar to use at any time. Just unpack the file for each copy of the bar you want in your lot chooser.
YOU may have a *BAR* on your community lot, but *I* have a COFFEE DISPENSER! *MY* sims can hang around on the community lot long enough to actually hang out! Bwahahaha!
It's very complicated, involves complex file manipulation, and may destroy your neighborhood. I have a lot done in such a manner, and it appears to be functioning correctly, and is quite popular amongst the Sims, who flock to it in great numbers to hang out. Apparently, Maxis did not quite anticipate that a community lot would be "active" for so long, so on rare occasions, visiting Sims will get so caught up in the entertainment that they pee themselves. This seems to stopped since I made the bathroom unisex instead. Apparently, it's a pathfinding glitch of some kind which causes them to endlessly try for the closest toilet, only to find it inaccessible because it's the men's room. Pretty much. Anyway, here it is: Start with a blank neighborhood. Like I said, this runs the risk of hosing your neighborhood, so let's do our construction efforts someplace expendable. Plop down a lot of a residential lot, and a community lot, of the same size. Place the abnormal objects (bars, coffee dispensers, beds, etc.) into the residential lot. Now, save the game, quit TS2, and copy the .package file corresponding to the lot over the other lot file. Since this is your blank test neighborhood, there should only be two of them, one of which is puny because it is untouched. The relevant files will be located in C:\DOCUME~1\<YOUR USERNAME>\MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\NEIGHB~1\N###\LOTS, where ### is the number of the neighborhood you are using as your construction site. Don't screw this one up. Now fire up TS2 again, and enter your new community lot. Unfortunately, it'll still have a residential mailbox and trashcan. Flip on your trusty move_objects 1 code, nuke these, and replace them with the public phone and community waste bin. Voila. Community lot with stuff that isn't normally supposed to be there. Special note: Certain items are not fully functional when used as such: Items not normally usable by visiting sims will not be usable when you visit the community lot: For instance, you cannot sleep on the beds, although you should still be able to woohoo on them. After woohoo, you can then sleep. Neither this, nor the normally available public hot tubs, count as public woohoo. It is also possible to install aspiration and career awards, which are then usable on the community lot. I will leave this as an exercise for the reader. The ramifications of this doing this will also be left as an exercise for the reader. The long-term consequences of such manipulation remains unknown. Placing the newly created lot in your real neighborhood will also be left as an exercise for the reader. And don't try and claim you thought of this, or I'm going to be annoyed with you.
Please note: I am not responsible if you accidentally destroy your neighborhood, this unusually-generated lot does something nasty to any of your sims, or whatnot. While all testing so far seems to indicate that a lot created in this manner looks and functions like a regular community lot, long-term exposure effects are yet unknown, and I suspect that a community lot was never meant to be "active" for the length of time that having an all-needs full-service lot would allow. THIS PROCEDURE IS EXPERIMENTAL: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Holy Crap!! I am so all over this :glasses: !! I will make a blank neighborhood just for the purpose of exporting kick-butt community lots. Thank you!! EDIT: Omg, as of this post I am now titled "member". I feel so special!!
Now THAT is cool. All this time I've been trying to find a solution through the hex editor. I can take the needlessly complicated routes sometimes in approaching these type of things... Anyway, it works fine and I've also tried a few money trees, which so far have received a healthy heaping of attention. I wonder if SimVacs can work?
ive used the sims vac it works well but i havent tried the fountain thingy yet im not sure if i want my sims to live forever!
They don't really live for ever, it jus adds a couple of days of life, wich can come in handy,when you have young children, i don't know if it's me but i find the old sims to move slow compared to young ones and they get tierd faster too.
Heh, just don't forget to mention who taught you this trick. Pandora's box is opened. Yeah, I tried hexing first: This led me to an interesting revelation: A freshly placed community lot, and a freshy place residential lot, were completely identical when compared side-by-side in a hex editor. This led me to the suspicion that the zoning data was stored elsewhere, and that perhaps I could get it to work just by pulling a switcheroo. Yes, they work. All the aspiration awards work.
Adding residential objects to already-existing community lots. It's very easy to add residential objects to already-existing lots in a similar way as above. Create a new neighborhood (I have an entire neighborhood that I use only for this purpose). Create a residential lot that is the same size as the community lot to which you would like to add the objects. Exit the Sims 2 --The difficult part-- You must figure out the .package filename of the lot you are trying to edit. This is easy if it is your newest lot. Just go to the neighborhood's directory and find the highest numbered .package file in the lots folder. If the lot you're editing is not the newest lot, you'll have to find another way to figure it out. Copy the community .package file. Paste it over the .package file of the residential lot you just created in your new neighborhood. Start the Sims 2 again and go to the new neighborhood. You should now see your community building where the empty residential lot was. You can now edit this lot as though it was a residential lot. Save when you are finished and exit The Sims 2 again. Go to the directory of the new neighborhood' lots, copy the .package file again, and move it back to the original spot in the existing neighborhood's lots folder. I recommend keeping a backup of the .package file of the existing lot from before you edited it. I do this by adding ".orig" to the end of the filename. Start the Sims 2 again and have fun with your public bars, coffee houses, internet cafes, etc...
This is pretty much the same procedure as outlined above, yes. It does, however, have a few caveats when done this way: Firstly, if you move people into the new "Residential" lot in an attempt to install aspiration or career awards, Bad Things Happen. Figuring out what the lot package number is really is trivial, though: Simply save it, forcing it to become the most recently edited.
Woot Thanks to Pescado I now have a market with an inn (rooms include beds and showers), a bar, a coffee shop, and internet booths. CHOKE ON THAT LOT RESTRICTIONS!!
Unfortunately, AFAICT, Sims visiting a community lot cannot actually SLEEP on the beds, except after woohoo.
No sleepy I know, but at least now the inn feels like an inn. An inn full of picknic tables and benches is not the same.
You could make it one of those sleazy dive motels or a honeymoon inn, which would cover why you don't sleep except after woohoo.
"Rowan's Sleazy Inn" I can dig it...I have a few sims that might want to drop by as well. Are you taking reservations yet?
