How Do I Changing Terrains?

Changing Terrains?

I seem to remember seeing information about changing a neighborhood terrain in another thread, but can't find it now.

Can this be done? Is it problematic? I have a neighborhood that uses the "Verona" terrain and I hate it. The Verona that comes with the game has so many more streets, at least it seems that way. The one I've got is so limited on space. I'd really like to get rid of the river, at the very least.

I don't suppose NL lets you add streets?

 

This is the list of cheat codes I use. It's from Gamespot. It has numerous codes for removing water, bridges, changing terrain, etc.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/thesims2/hints.html

 

Thank you! Have you experienced any problems after using the terrain changers?

 

I haven't used any terrain codes but the elevate terrain. I've tried to fit stairs from the main floor to the basement in a replica of my real home. (I decided to add the basement as an afterthought.) I used MikeInside's tutorials and it required the boolprop cheat for elevating terrain. I've given up on it for now. I can't get the stairs to work. I'm now waiting for the ep with elevators. I, also, tried using the elevate terrain on an existing lot and building. I just wanted to raise the whole lot to the main sidewalk level. It seemed to work until I tried to put steps from the porch to the ground. It won't let me. Apparently I'm totally incompetent using this cheat. I've decided it's safer for me to leave it alone.

Kristalrose, talked about trying to use SC4 to adjust terrain in an existing neighborhood. (This may be the thread you were asking about.) I think she finally decided to make a perfectly flat "Little House on the Prairie" terrain! With Nightlife and the need to have a certain amount of flat space available for driveways, I'm beginning to think that is the ideal terrain.

 

I agree that large flat spaces seem to work best. With the river running through the middle of my town I have lots of slanted lots, which I hate. It's just too hard to build a decent house on them.

I'm going to have to wait a whole week to try this, anyway. My friend told me he can't possibly upgrade my computer until Saturday at the earliest.

Whatever am I going to do? I can't even play. My computer is destroying my sims, so I've decided to put the whole game on ice until the upgrade.

Guess I'll just have to live vicariously through everyone else.

 

I found a great tutorial on more awesome than you. I think that's what Kristal was referring to.

I really want to try it, but I know with my inferior chip I should stay away from the game. Whine. Whimper.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to stand it.

 

On TS1 you could move neighborhoods out of your game to desktop. If I wanted to play neighborhood 8 for a period of time, moving the other neighborhoods out of the way saved resources. It made loading the whole game much faster. In TS2, it regenerates the Maxis neighborhoods. If you have multiple user created neighborhoods, you might be able to move those to desktop. It should reduce the resources the game uses and allow you to play a little while you are waiting.

Yep! That's it! I think Pescado wrote it. Some people have a knack for this kind of thing but unfortunately I think many messed up their games trying to do it.

 

Move to desktop? That sounds like Mac talk. How would I do that? Drag and drop to my PC desktop?

What I'm worried about is, my game is acting screwy. Giving people the wrong lifetime aspirations for their "main" aspiration, like professional party guest for a knowledge sim.

I would like to do a few maintenance things. I think I can manage that without damaging the game, but I'm kind of chicken ...

 

I go into "my documents", click on the "Sims2" folder, click on "Neighborhoods", passing the mouse over an individual neighborhood folder (N001,N002, etc.) highlights it. At the top of the screen is a "move to" button. Clicking on that will call up a list of all your computer files. Desktop is usually the very top one so it requires no searching. I use this to move all kinds of sim files around. You can choose "select all" and move all downloads in a folder to other folders. (This is for Windows XP.)

Have you got Pescado's "ltwvariety" hack installed? It changes the LTW's that roll up.

"FEATURES:
Lifetime wants for careers are no longer strictly aspirationally correlated,
and will instead vary by appropriate interests and personality. Career-wants
for varying careers may appear outside of aspirational boundaries due to
family influence, and sim personalities will match desired occupation. Crazier
lifetime wants (Marry Off 6 Children, Have 6 Grandchildren) will disappear in
neighborhoods of advanced age and therefore population to slow down Armageddon."

It sounds like you have this hack installed.

 

I did it with Sims PE and with SC4. I used the MATY JMP's tutorial. At 1st it worked fine, after I moved my houses out of the water and hilltops and whatever. But then I started having trouble with them duplicating themselves into "Unknown Data" files, and the neighborhood crashed. I don't think it was JMP's advice, I think that I moved the wrong files around. (I kept trying more terrains out to find one I like the best.)

 

I think I can kill a lot of time (waiting for fixes) trying to find a way to put driveways on many of my existing lots. I really wish all of these lots were flat as a board. Some families will just have to continue to call a taxi, I'm afraid.

I'm sure his tutorial was excellent. I just knew it was outside my ability. I've messed everything up using SimPE once too often. Modifying and manipulating the internal workings of the game is not one of my talents nor interests. I wish my brain were wired that way occasionally...but it's not. I'm simply happy that my game loads and appears to play normally. I've never owned any other game that I held my breath everytime I started it.

 

Nope. My game is hack free. I do have downloads that might have brought it with but I haven't noticed ... I am trying to run sims uni on a 600 MHz chip and I think it's just not up to it.

I may just reinstall after the upgrade.

Thanks for your help! I see what you mean now, just move the neighborhood folders. I wasn't sure how that would affect the game, so it's nice to know that you can do that without damaging anything.

BTW, how does one run a hack? Do you have to use a cheat code? How would I be able to find out if I do have a hack that was accidentally downloaded? Thanks.

 

Oh well...I had a detailed response but for some reason every time I tried to post it said I wasn't logged in. I'm not writing all that again! LOL!

Katanubis, I was curious if I could completely delete a neighborhood like Veronaville and replace it with an empty N003 file. Would this make the game load faster? My comp will handle all of this..my goal is making the game and various places like community, campus, and downtown load faster. (I didn't know the game didn't regenerate the Maxis neighborhoods when starting the game. That's good to know. Thanks! )

SBW, I use the SimPack2 Clean Installer to check my downloads and hacks. It's found at mts2. It will highlight your hacks in red. Downloads that are duplicated will be highlighted in pink. You can delete or just suspend a hack or downloads using this program. It's easy to use. (I particularly like that I can "turn off" a hack that I use rarely like 2Jeff's triplet and quad hack.)

You can use SimPE to do a lot of file maintenance but I find it rather complicated.

Hacks are generally placed in your download file just like objects or clothing. You can put them in their own separate folder. Once installed they do their thing! You don't have to use cheat codes.

 

Thanks for the info, Zy. I already have the Clean Installer and haven't noticed any hacks. The game is just doing odd things. (So that's what the items in pink are. I also notice a lot of "empty files" which I assume are modder mistakes in setting up the files in the first place?)

I think I need to wait until my upgrade, which now looks like it won't be until early next week. My friend had a huge tree down in his front yard in the severe weather we got just before Rita hit the Gulf. We had tornado sightings, and some people lost their houses. I saw the paper next day and at first thought, hey, they got coverage on Rita already? And then I saw that it was Brooklyn Park, Minnesota! My friend lives in Blaine, which is right next door ... (for those of you who don't live here, those are northern suburbs of the Twin Cities).

Anyway, if he doesn't hack up the tree and get it to the curb by Monday for city removal he'll have to pay to have it hauled away. So my computer once more takes a backseat. (I offered my husband as extra muscle in case that would help get it done quicker. )

He does plan to do it, though. I just hope it's before I'm curled up in a corner wearing a straightjacket.