Ghost Containment

Ghost Containment

I've been wondering for awhile ghosts were more trouble than they were worth. In TS1, for instance, they were unable to traverse the stairs, so if you buried them in the back yard, and your entire family slept upstairs, the ghosts would be unable to bother you.

In TS2, of course, Ghosts retain their ability to clip through walls and furniture, and can now phase through floors. However, I have noticed several things: Firstly, the Goth residence is regularly haunted, but the Ghost seems to stay in the yard, and practically never comes in the house.

This seemed to be strange, so I did some investigations, and discovered that while ghosts have no problems phasing through walls, and floors, they seem to have difficulty traversing foundations, and a house on a foundation where ghosts are buried outside, like the Goth house, has far lesser difficulty with ghosts.

On a hunch, at another haunted house, I built a mausoleum: An enclosed mini-house, on a foundation. I put all the tombstones inside, but did not bother to install any stairs leading into the tomb. Then I waited until a ghost manifested. It didn't manifest inside of the mausoleum, which made me wonder where a ghost decides to manifest. Instead, it manifested, apparently, upstairs, in the loft, where I had previously been keeping the urn, and then floated its way downstairs. Perhaps they manifest where they last de-manifested at daybreak, since that certainly wasn't where it died! Flipping on move_objects, I grabbed it and stuffed it into the mausoleum. Sure enough, it was stuck there. I guess we now know why people built mausoleums. Stayed tuned for future discoveries on WHERE a ghost manifests.

 

Cool, finally a way to contain ghosts! The ghosts (not old age) could make real asses of themselves sometimes, but I could never bring myself to delete the tombstones/urns of Sims I cared about.

 

Well, it's definitely tested that if a ghost manifests inside of a mausoleum as such, it will not be able to escape. Only people who can teleport will thus be able to visit the ghosts. I'm performing more tests to see what will enable the ghost to escape.

However, where a ghost will manifest is yet unknown. It could be linked to the site of its actual death, the place where it last de-manifested at sunrise, or possibly a weak link to its tombstone. Either way, having to cross a foundation appears to be a somewhat daunting obstacle for a ghost. It is unknown where a ghost will actually use the stairs if they are provided, as ghosts ordinarily just phase through floors and ignore normal stairs. If they ignore stairs and simply are stuck even in the mausoleum when connected by stairs, then the place can be made visitable by foot traffic for knowledge sims seeking to meet their ancestors without joining them quite yet.

 

Okay, well, more Mausoleum tests conclude that a ghost can be contained in a mausoleum ONLY when it is raised upon a foundation, and impassable to foot traffic: Ghosts are not able to cross foundations at all, perhaps due to their half-height nature, except through the use of connecting stairs.

Ghost manifestation site is currently still controlled by unknown variables, but if a ghost manifests in a weird location, you can prevent it from disturbing your sims by flinging it into the mausoleum, where it will be trapped.

 

Thanks! I was hoping that I could still have a door. It would make a great halloween haunted house. I haven't gotten anyone to the teleport stage.

 

A door does not affect the passage of ghosts. You can install a door on the mausoleum if you choose, as long as there are no stairs, so that the tomb remains physically impassable. If stairs are installed, regardless of whether a door is installed, the ghosts will be able to escape.

Further research in Ghost Containment reveals that ghosts also appear to unable to cross pools. Unfortunately, ring-shaped pools are not possible, as Maxis has seen fit to remove our ability to create pool-moats and allows only purely rectangular pools. However, in conjunction with foundation blocks, pools, provided they are ladderless, can contain ghosts as well. However, the installation of an accessible pool ladder results in a very unusual ghost behavior. If the only means of traversing the divide is to swim through the pool, and ladders are provided to enable entry and exit from the pool, the ghost will swim, changing into its swimsuit to do so! So it appears that while a pool can block the passage of ghosts as well, it also remains a similarly impassable obstacle for humans. Ghosts swim in a very amusing way, however: A ghost will occasionally "pop out" of the water, and do the screaming and hand-waving thing, while the water ripples remain at its neck, now above the water, before plopping back in and resuming swimming for awhile. All in all, highly peculiar.

So far, however, all attempts to create a ghost containment unit that is freely accessible by humans without aid from move_objects, teleportation, or buy-mode add/remove have failed.

 

LOL! I just HAVE to see that! Can you post a screenshot?

 

I agree... make with the screenshots.

And I say that in the most loving and nonthreatening way of course.

 

In the interest of research, I'm trying to remember where my ghosts have been able to go. They always appear right next to their tombstones or urns, of course, but in all cases except Opal (roof) and Kaylynn (urn in TV room) their gravestones were in the yard. I'm going to use names because it's easier to keep track than "ghost 1", etc.

Opal Friendworthy died on the roof and mostly haunted the roof and the third floor, right below the roof. House had no foundation.
Dante Alighieri died on the first floor and had free rein of the entire two story house and grounds. House had a foundation.
His wife, Lia, died downstairs too. I don't ever remember seeing her upstairs. She preferred scaring the pants off of people on the grounds.
Abby Normal died of starvation in the haunted house, and mostly haunted the first floor. I never saw Para's ghost. (She drowned in the pool.) House had a foundation. Saw Bob's ghost once, he died on the first floor and stayed there during his haunts too.
Buffy Summers was hit by a satellite in the yard and never went into the house as a ghost. Can't remember if the house had a foundation or not: I suspect it did.
Kaylynn the maid died in the first floor bathroom and only haunted the first floor and grounds. House had no foundation.
Dead College Guy who was eaten by the cow plant in the yard only haunted the first floor, but he was the most fun ghost. Floating tables, scaring people in the shower, you name it. House had no foundation.
Haven't seen Tyson's ghost yet, as I haven't played that lot lately. He died outside, house has no foundation, might be interesting to see where he can go.

Those are all of my ghosts, to date, that I've seen, other than the ones on Olive Specter's lot, but I have no idea where they died.

Just help you with your research, JMP ... so far my data is extremely inconclusive. As far as I can tell their ability to manifest may be determined randomly, since I have had a ghost go upstairs in a house with a foundation where he died on the first floor, while no other ghost I've had has been able to do that. He was especially fond of taking bubble baths in the upstairs shower, but Dead College Guy had the same shower model available to him on the second floor, so I don't think that was a factor in his mobility.

Hmmm ... methinks we need more samples.

As for containing them, the only thing I've tried to date is putting a pond around an island with a tombstone on it. It didn't keep Dead College Guy contained.

 

If you're using structures to contain ghosts, you need to contain them at the point where they last manifested, not their tombstone. Ghosts tend to initially manifest at the site of their death, but later manifest at their last known manifestation. Inducing a ghost to go somewhere else can be accomplished in various ways, such as placing his bed where you want him to go, zapping him back to his tombstone with one of my objects, or forcibly hauling him there with move_objects (causes ghost to lose transparency until you save/reload lot).

 

Oh, I'm not trying to control them.

I just thought, as a scientific type of personality, you might want more samples of ghostly behavior to form a hypothesis.

 

Silly KatAnubis.