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Sims 3 EPs & SPs, in release order, my notes:

EP01: World Adventures

Automatic keep: I like the holiday gameplay, and I often make use of the not-French Sims-French stuff, especially the not-wine Sims-wine ("nectar" lmao)

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SP01: High End Loft Stuff

This isn't really my thing, but I like the "Desk Pile Prop" (cds) and the "All My Fishes Aquarium" (large aquarium). I have a feeling a later EP added a large aquarium, and I need to verify that. I will look for extracted versions of these objects in the meantime, but I won't install the whole pack even if I can't find them - I'll find cc substitutes or do without.

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EP02: Ambitions

I loved this when I got it - the concept of sims being self-employed - but I don't really like any of its careers. The NRAAS Careers mod covers keeping sims out of rabbit hole jobs, and I'd get it anyway because it enables homeschooling.

This EP has laundry, but it's kind of annoying, frankly. I'd rather use deco items and pretend my sims are doing the washing. I already used cc for a clothesline and airers instead of tumble dryers

Simbots are not something I've really wanted to play with in TS3. Trampolines might be specific to this EP though and that will actually be a small loss (check store)

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SP02: Fast Lane Stuff

The only thing here I want is the "Speecy Spicy Chilies", dried chilis for the kitchen. But I have one from ATS3

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EP03: Late Night

Huge negative: the celebrity system, which I remember being more complicated to turn off than expected

But I love the bars and the music (even if the band stuff doesn't work properly), which makes it a must get! OR maybe not: guitar is BG, there's the store violin. I'm still on the hunt for a deco double bass, but I have various hand drums from ATS, which I'm happy enough with

I actually wasted a few hours trying to extract the music system... total failure. Though... I did get the objects. Maybe I can extract the bass as deco at least? I have never cloned my own object before, though! Scary!

For setting up bars and other hangouts, University should suffice. I always had more community lot types than I knew what to do with - and I only ever used the dive bar assignment for pubs and the fancy cocktail lounge assignment for... fancy cocktail lounges :)

I will genuinely miss the dartboard, though.

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SP03: Outdoor Living Stuff

There's some cute stuff here. I like "The Lemonade Baron" (lemonade jug, glasses, lemons) and the "Courtyard Coals" fireplace (open cast iron). I'll look for extracted versions or maybe think about doing it myself, but otherwise I will just not have them.

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EP04: Generations

I love the theme of this EP, but what is included? It's hard to research - there's a lot of confusion over EP features and features of the corresponding patch, and this EP is mostly new but mundane gameplay. For example, maybe this EP contains dating, which is a need for me? Or maybe it was the patch...

I hate the glitchy memories system which just has to be turned off to avoid bugs, and I hate the imaginary friend which is just... gross and offputting to me! So I need a mod to disable the latter, but I don't remember it being too hard

This EP definitely contains all kinds of parties like birthday parties etc. - absolute need!

Features like boarding schools I probably won't use. I have "clone child" written in my notes and I have no idea what this means. Oh - using the science rh to make a clone of yourself as your child? I don't really use that either and I bet mods could do it, but it's a nice to have I guess.

WEDDING ARCHES!!!!!!!!!

I also like quite a few of the hairs

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SP04: Town Life Stuff

Nothing here really

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EP05: Pets

This is an absolute must have for me. I didn't make one single note about it. THIS ONE HAS THE CATS IN!!!!

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SP05: Master Suite Stuff

This is another one where the concept appeals but the stuff itself doesn't so much. I like the "Sunkissed Curtain" set (lush but narrow), and some of the lingerie, but not enough to install the whole pack

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EP06: Showtime

I got this one as a gift in a pack with the base game, because I'd loved TS1 Superstar so very much. But this falls way, way way short. I tried the performing careers, but I don't like them.

Not installing this pack is a huge boon in terms of all the millions of special outfits/objects to fit different themes for your stage: a fun idea if you're playing the careers, or if you have some other use for them (amusement parks, etc?) but for me, it was just a bunch of junk to slow down loading and catalogue scrolling!

Sectional sofas either come with this or LN, I think, and if I'm not having either I guess there's no sectional sofas for me. But in fairness, I never really used them

Dominoes is another story - not just the dominoes object itself, but the way it's the basis for loads of 4 player games! ATS has loads and they're so fun... this is a genuine loss, but I will cope with just the chess-based 2 player games :)

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SP06: Katy Perry's Sweet Treats Stuff

This is super cutesy stuff that I think is really only of use for the same kinds of things as the ST objects I never used.

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SP07: Diesel Stuff

I know I looked at the contents of this SP when I was making this list originally, but I can't for the life of me remember wtf is in it. I guess... clothes I didn't like?

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EP07: Supernatural

This was a hard one. I often play with fairies and witches (and hybrids, thanks to NRAAS), but I'm not actually very attached to them. The herbs and beekeeping, though? ;_;

It's okay! The best herbs, like lavender, are a University thing actually!

The only real loss is the beekeeping (which is actually unrealistic to the point of annoying in the game, but boring if modded to be more accurate - I can maybe try extracting the hives as a deco item?) and the mushrooms you can grow, because I think they're cute. They are two of the things I was asking about in my MTS thread, and I never found the mushroom item I remembered, but I got some good alternatives.

I hate the zombies and the full moon thing, so not needing to disable those would be a plus. And none of the other occults appeal to me.

I like a lot of the witchy/library/kitchen deco in this EP, but I download a lot, too, and there always seems to be this overlap where I like my cc better, but it's not toooo different from the EP stuff, so it seems like a waste to have it installed... so this is actually a plus for not installing!

I panicked thinking rocking chairs were a SN thing, and they are, but they're a store thing too :) If I get brave I could try extracting the wooden one from this EP, because it's so cute.

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EP08: Seasons

Automatic keep: I love the seasons, I love the festivals!

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SP08: 70's, 80's, and 90's Stuff

This should have been right up my alley, but none of the items really appeal to me individually.

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EP09: University Life

I love the university gameplay itself, apart from the fucking social group shit that I need to mod out. It's not too hard though IIRC. Also need mods for homeworld university, something I've not properly experimented with yet

And I really love the herbs! Growing them, making herbal tea with its effects... Need the mod that lets you flavour food with them, too

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EP10: Island Paradise

I love this one - the resort stuff seems pretty crappy and I've never properly played with it, but I love the items, the houseboats, the diving, the mermaids...! All the beach stuff.

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SP09: Movie Stuff

There's some cute stuff here for themes, but none I super need. I like the saloon set: "Saloon Sal's Bar Stool", "Saloon Sal's Bar", "Rustic Rocker" - but I can't find extracted versions and I'm too lazy to do it myself.

But the "All-in-One Outhouse", which is also a shower, looks really useful for any kind of off-grid gameplay - I'm thinking, combined with a washstand in the house... - and I found that so yay :)

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EP11: Into the Future

The future gameplay was slightly fun to explore once, but mostly just annoying, and I never used it again. And I love some things like the replicator, but I don't tend to play sci-fi, so I wouldn't use it.

One plus: this EP has hedges, and I need hedges, but these are ugly! (Also I think I found some good cc ones)

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I think the below might have counted as a liveblog had I uploaded it live somewhere... It's just me going through the EPs I was about to uninstall. Or, more accurately, about to determine not to reinstall.

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I decided to go for it and extract those few EP items I missed. No idea how to extract the fully grown mushroom plants - too scared to try. Haven't tested my bass, beehive and dartboard yet but they should work (that is, they shouldn't lmao - they are pretending to be potted ferns). Idk why I am so scared following tutorials when I just dived right into the game files in S3PE last time. I used this tutorial which I hate. Maybe it would be easier to follow if the images were inline but ahh going up and down... well we'll see if it worked.

I also grabbed some SN chairs - the wicker dining chair, which I changed to a BG dining chair script, and the ~~beautiful rocking chair~~ which I was going to change to the Aurora skies cute 50s(?) one, but... they already had the same script! So I guess they added that to the BG in a patch. (?)

Grandfather clock - the one in The Now & Then Century Manor looks cute and apparently it's animated unlike the SN one (and this even cuter one by Ambular (SN also has the super cute Pointer Timepiece Replica, a little table clock, but... I hardly ever use clocks!))

Going through the catalog per about-to-be-uninstalled-EP is dangerous! The stained glass door in SN is beautiful, BUT I recall it doesn't really have a good matching set. So I will just ... be strong... (I was strong until I scrolled 3 entries down and saw the matching single door UGH i love these doors i love stained glass!) One thing giving me "strength" (it's actually a weakness) is I just feel like cloning working doors is not easy. Or... maybe I am thinking of TS1? I'm finding a few TS3 stained glass doors on TSR, or I THINK I am - god I hate that site. It's just one giant advert lmao. I am not desperate enough to lower my defences and wade out there. Ugh if I change my mind about cloning: doorSingleAntique, DoorDoubleAntique

SN has a cute retro "antique" coffee machine that matches the little desk clock... I don't need it! I don't need it! (AND A MICROWAVE!! ugh) (THE FRIDGE!!! NOOOOO!! I think I found a cuter larder recently but oh GOD)

I'm realising, writing my personal notes for my site like this, that maybe I sound a little insane right now... well, I am, but that's besides the point. When it comes to the sims, the other simmers know what I'm going through

Most of the furniture in this EP is gross and chunky. Not solid, just fat. And there's all kinds of like A LAMP WEARING A CORSET!!! IT'S GOTH!!! like okay...

Stopping myself on the cusp of cloning loveseatAntiqueWicker (but recording the resource name for future ref) - I think there's wicker furniture like this in a store set? Bohemian greenhouse or w/e? (I looked it up, I'm wrong, Stones Throw Greenhouse only has a bench made of old crates wood (fun but not the vibe), Bohemian Garden has a wicker hanging egg chair though). Sandy has some 4t3 conversions, they're not the right style though, but tbh neither is the SN stuff. Oh! She has these, too and they're adorable, but I wonder how they look in game with those ts4 alpha channel backs... that one armchair looks bad even in the preview tbh :( Hmm... her Moroccan living set actually might be closer to want I want. Something comfy, and carved panels are okay instead of wicker. I guess wicker is kinda high poly if rendered at all faithfully

Okay! I still don't have what I'm looking for, but every time I look back to s3oc, that wicker sofa leg-panel situation gets uglier. Next!

Aww, I'm gonna miss the brooms. I never really had a child witch in a world with roads to take advantage of the hilarious and adorable broom-stabilisers, either

Rocking horse... pile of rugs... forgot about those. Remembered the potion and book clutter, but honestly, I never used these! FIREPLACE TOOLS that's a one I might actually need. Feel like Sandy made some before SN though. No I'm wrong. Found one on the dreaded T$R, but they're not as good. Okay, one more for the export pile. Maybe I need to make these fireproof... Okay, it has FireType: 0x00000000 (DoesNotBurn) so that seems set? Or... do I need to turn that to 1?I can't find a tutorial waah Okay! I got it! That's actually a reflection of the value and came through the cloning fine, and was sensibly set from the start. Something else was 1 (chars)

Oh... some actually cute victorian tables, and a TRAIN SET! But I think these kinds of things might be in Midnight Hollow? No - but it doesn't bother me too much. Oh - and the train set is actually uglier in game than comes across in the thumb, which is probably why I don't use it

The bay windows... super cute but the lighting was always fucked, so I never used them (or, not for long)

Okay! Done with SN, on to SHT. Some cute 60s furniture I don't remember and hence probably never used... Oh, a chin up bar! Hmm. It's "chinUpBarModern" which possibly implies another one in another EP? Eh w/e I can do without it (but can my MEATHEAD SIMS???) If I need more gym stuff, I like Sandy's deco better anyway

Oh nooo fuck jukeboxes and karaoke are from SHT!!!!! Ugh. So is a whole heap of other crap so it's an okay trade but... oh and POOL??????????????? oh okay those are also in UL

That was pretty painless in the end. On to LN! Ooh... this one's gonna hurt! Arcade machines?? Oh, also in UL. The professional bars + their drinks are a real loss though :( Got the bass as deco at least now, seeing that can't harm me! Oh... more stained glass doors :( But so far it's okay, just a bunch of ugly counters. I got the drum kit while I was here too - don't think I'll use it though. Stained glass windows too, but I can do without! On to AMB!

Wicker chair but it's pretty ugly. Wow... american perception of airing clothes to dry always surprises me. It's like you said you dry your clothes on the moon or with the power of thought. Well... if those things were actually feasible.

There's a cute little waterpump style fountain... don't need it though. Oh! I need a clothes hamper. I have this 4t3 set by kandiraver with some useful items, I guess the round hamper here from Sandy is what I want, too! (evidence of how insane I am about all this: I didn't need to download it because I'd downloaded it in 2016. And before in 2015...)

The junkpile stuff is interesting. I remember looooving that when I first got AMB. But I never used it later and now I don't really care.

Oh no! An adorable streetlight: lightingOutdoorStreetEuro. I feel like later EPs and most store worlds have plenty of other cute options, though. I have the Light the Night Lamp Post which is from Hidden Springs and cute in a similar way; the panda one that's in a bunch of sets is seriously adorable for a playground or something, though I don't know how tall it is. The Dixie Street Lamp in the Old Town: Starter Kit is great for a shopping area, and I love the other stuff in it (TS1:HD take me hoooooooome) and I don't have this??? (I just dled it! yay) lightingOutdoorStreetGarden is cute too...

There are actually a bunch of objects here that I like, but not enough even to type them up. I don't think I'll miss them!

Oh no... birch trees! But I think my faves, silver birches, are in... idk... probably Aurora Skies (yeah they are I am a genius who has used her life sensibly to MEMORISE THE SIMS 3)

Okay! Done! Phew! It's okay, that was only 3 hours of my life, I have plenty more!

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Initial plans, moved off the front page because they're already out of date

But the lot sizes etc are still a useful reference as I keep working :)

The original labelled Monte Vista map and all the lot info comes straight from AznSensei's super useful writeup (he has most if not all of the store worlds, if you're interested!) I'm sticking to his label scheme, which is nice and simple: letters for residential lots, numbers for community lots, and X+number for empty lots.

Addresses I got from Summer's Little Sims 3 Garden but this comment makes no sense yet because I haven't uploaded them. But I will, as soon as I manage to match them all to AznSensei's scheme without actually loading the game. Wish me luck!

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Reshuffle!

Looking at my notes for this, all "AA to Z2", makes me think of chess. But I am not very good at chess...

To build:

On site of 19: Globe Theatre

This will be really cute in the town. I'm just planning to use the Dragon Valley rabbit hole and to decorate it. I don't think the 32x32 lot is big enough to add anything to the 27x23 rh. Maybe a food stand or something that doesn't quite fit at the market?

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On site of F: Coliseum

This is a 46x46 rh on a 64x64 lot. I'm going to steal the seating area idea and make a cafe, because this 2nd town centre (really needs a name) has lost the one it had. I don't like the way this lot is decorated so I might as well start from scratch!

I want to make a little cafe/tea room/food stand (something small) and add a diner RH rug so we can eat at some of the tables with the "eat outside" command + this mod. I'd like a UL cafe bar, but I don't want a register npc to spawn here because it's 24/7. Idk if a place like this looks right without someone at the till, though... Maybe a seasons concession stand, because they have their own opening times?

I think there'll be room for a small "visitor's centre" with toilets... accessible from inside the centre plus from outside (centre "closed" at night), and an outdoor eating area, 1/3 covered (with Sandy's cute Seasons stand and the rh rug) 2/3 uncovered.

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On site of 21: market (festival grounds)

40x35, plenty of room for the fun seasonal stuff :)

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On site of KK: church

20x15 is big enough for my church, but it means no graveyard (ooh maybe some catacombs or whatever you call it, though). I don't really like the mausoleum on 18, but I can keep it and also build a cuter graveyard on the former BB, which is halfway between the church and the mausoleum.

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Pub 3 (25x25), on site of 26 (25x35) > better pub

UL has the lot assignment Arcade, which is open 10am-4am with a 7pm happy hour. Closing times are useful because registers work best on lots that close. We can have a BG bar and a nectary register!

WA nectaries don't really need that assignment - they only need a nectary register and nectar racks that are set using the Shift + Ctrl + click command to contain sellable (and tastable) nectar bottles

This lot is cute, it's one of my favourites in the whole game really. . I need to work out where that should be placed - how far will they walk? Downstairs somewhere so they eat on the front is the most obvious, but there's that cute balcony too...

This doesn't need to be a huge place to eat, because there's 27 the pizzeria next door! It can stay more of a pub. We can add a playground or something because of the extra 10 width/length(?) we have.

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27 The Public Pizzeria 30x30 > cafe/bookshop/grocery/and yes, pizzeria

UL Java Hut assignment, opening hours 5am-1am (it's 5am!!)

This is a huge building! 3 stories and loads of outdoor space. It's kind of cute, but there's no way to make sims make good use of it.

Mini shopping centre: where the arches are, a lobby kind of area. Move the toilets along to be alongside it: the one in the middle opens into the lobby, the one behind opens into what will be the restaurant's back corridor. Its kitchen on opposite side. Fill in under balcony: this is the rest of the restaurant. Bistro rh rug, sims should "eat outside" outside and also inside (hopefully?)

According to this page by Sandy, the wood fire oven + a WA food register will make a register that actually sells pizza? I never knew that, I thought we just had to use the pizza oven like a grill. Could install this up on the balcony so we can also have NPCs eating up there! Stairs inside to imply it's all one restaurant?

Other half (third?) of ground floor is a grocery store. I'll really build it and also have a rh rug in there. Store Fruit and Veggie Stand just outside! (as if part of it)

Upstairs, continue the central lobby (lots of open, railings etc.?) and on the other side, above the food shop, a bookshop! Which can continue up on to the upper floor through internal stairs. Rh all the way up there? And register downstairs, so you see another sim on this floor along with the pizza person.

The downstairs part of the restaurant should have a UL cafe/cake/whatever bar! I wonder if sims will take cakes outside? Even if they don't, it'll still be cute.

Unless/until I find a better location: half of the top floor is another shop, maybe a gift shop kind of thing that is selling the stuff from the glassblowing set (perfume, jewellery). I don't think the glassblowing studio itself will look good in this world, but it's a possibility

This page makes more sense as a diary. It's never going to be better organised than that!

Today I've kept working on my Monte Vista plan. I've been thwarted by the way my existing install is fubar (I think I was trying to move it and edit registry and gave up halfway when something more interesting came along, as is my wont). I mean, it's fine, I was going to reinstall anyway (I am not brave enough to try simply uninstalling an EP. I install them all in order, too... I have rituals) but it means I can't just load up Monte Vista and have a look. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to uninstall and just install base (uninstall again when I come to properly install if I'm nervous about patches etc.) but that'd get in the way of my new project: default replacing hair!!

I have no idea wtf I am doing. It's so confusing. Really doesn't help that I can't test. Well, I used s3oc to do what I think should be a bgc version of the EP hairs I want to keep (but, I haven't removed the EP flags yet) and what should be a default replacement of the ones to replace (but, not really, because nothing is replaced... it's just "default" hehe). And then some day I will work out how to combine those. I have all my notes (in a spreadsheet table natch) and I even exported all the thumbnails so I could make illustrations for if I ever share them! But first... do them! Idk wtf a casp is, what does it do, is it really all I need to replace? And then how? ugh.......................

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Having a really good world plan is going to help me decide what store & cc to install. No more "oh, if I make a _______ I'll need--" WELL IS ONE ON THE PLAN?????????? There's other stuff like the WA destinations I always end up sprucing up, and I'd like to use Nilxis' beautiful Suvadiva as a custom destination too. But I don't need more content for those. The stuff in WA and IP and whatever I need for my actual world should be enough!

Need to check rh job times vs lot !

Trying to compare DR hairs and understand wtf is going on. I can't make sense of any tutorial I have looked at. The DRs I downloaded only have:

1. _KEY (it's pointing to, amongst other things, things in the DR: which is the diffuse, etc.)
2. _IMG (the textures and the only thing I know how to replace...)
3. CASP (from my reading, the only thing I need to actually override??)
4. THUM (okay I know how to replace these too)
5. GEOM (this is the meshes)

My extracted hairs are full of bones lmao. And, I don't see how the _xml escapes being overwritten, but maybe it can be made from the CASP? i mean... it's got the categories etc?

In the DR I've downloaded, all the parts have been renamed to the hair they're replacing. I don't know how necessary that is. Was it done by hand? What happens when you're replacing something with more/less parts??

The _KEY has the same instance in different hairs??? Also this DR has two but idk why?

The GEOMs have matching instances. Apart from one LOD in the files I'm looking at, but this creator often seems to have to fix the LODs and maybe this is the kind of issue she's fixing???

Everything matches on the THUMs too. The actual textures... some match something? Some are duplicated? Some don't match?

The CASP matches, and I expected that.

However, I still have no idea wtf I am doing.

Okay I finally found a tutorial I understand and ........... I don't think I can be bothered. But oh. Some of those hairs are VERY UGLY. And some of the ones I wanted are very cute...

no wait I didn't hallucinate this thread after all! (One time automatically deleting reddit from history has failed me! maybe now I don't actually use that site I can turn that off...) It's just the casp and it's just the name. Thank GOD the name means something, I was so annoyed that they don't when they're so unique (and ugly with all the random generated parts). This also explained what the keys are (generated by s3pe and not my problem). Anyway just in case it gets deleted:

You're overcomplicating things, no need for Milkshape or Blender to make a default replacement. All you need is to rename the replacement object's CASP file (or OBJD file for a non CAS object) with the name of the original CASP file you want to replace. You can also do the same with thumbnails. And that's all.

thank you 80sBabyGirl you are my saviour

I've decided to bite the bullet (soon) and do a BG + MV install for testing MV, I can test these at the same time!

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Okay rh career times (Carl's sims guide seems to have them all!)

1. Culinary always starts at 3pm, never finishes later than 9pm
2. Bookstore/grocery pt have identical hours and pay, 4pm-7pm
3. Business always starts at 8am, never finishes later than 3pm
4. Journalism (business rh?): 8am-2pm max
5. Criminal can start at 10am and finish as late as 3am
6. Science: always 9am start, up to 2.30pm finish (I really thought some ft jobs in this game were actually ft?!)
7. Sports: 3pm start, up to 9pm finish (okay so they do work, but weird hours!)
8. Politics (city hall): 9am start, up to 4pm finish
9. Music (theatre): 3pm start, up to 1am finish... oh apart from top symphonic track 3am-6am?! So, 3pm-6am, insane.
10. Military: 7am-1am I forgot the top level, astronaut, worked like that :)
11. Medical: 9am- some, -3am one, and the possibility of being on call... is that 24/7 then?
12. Police: 9am- up to 1am

Culinary, bookstore and grocery are all safe for Java Hut assignment 5am-1am :)

Monte Vista's spa rh is kinda cute and only 12x14 fp, so maybe it will fit on a lot. The pool is ugly so I'm gonna rebuild it anyway (spa pt is 3pm-6pm but this lot won't have a closing time whether it's gym or pool)

business is 26x20, looks really cute in the town with the dome roof. I'm going backwards and forwards on not using the city hall rh, I'd need something very cute to take its place though. But I think it's a shame for such a pretty thing not to be usable at all. I think a castle which is a town hall & art gallery would be fun. The existing art gallery is pretty boring. Could be a fun place for archery, too, in the courtyard! Oh... I forgot, but the city hall has very cute lighting though... it's 40x39 also if I want to know that

!! I could move the city hall rh to a lot more in the town. That could be cute. And build another similar thing where it used to be, which yeah, is definitely gonna be the new art gallery. (The one they have is totally realistic, it's just... dull!) UGH no none of the lots there are big enough. The town is so full of empty space.

I'm gonna go mad and have no real rhs apart from the globe theatre and the colosseum, because those are super round and not really possible to build!

Idk why I thought festival lots were inaccessible during construction, they're not. So that seems ideal for a kind of city hall lot... actually, a church... I wish there was a bigger lot in the town centre so I could be sure to be able to squeeze on those ice rinks etc. I can put them on other lots with the seasonal marker but oh well.

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I last played TS3 in 2017 when I was failing to make a world from scratch. Wow... that's a long time. Anyway, I will make an actual instructions thing later, but now, just for my reference:

Moving Documents folder

Move it to the correct location first, then cmd mklink /D "C:\Users\[name]\My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3" "E:\Games\The Sims 3\00 Docs"

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I finally did it! I installed TS3. Just BG, IP and MV for now whilst I'm testing (it took me FOREVER to get all the store fixes straight: note to self, stick to maty fgs!!!) I've been drawing up a map of MV and working on some community lots already. So far: I hate the pool, the gym is stupid, I forgot about the sports field next to the school, and I had the best and sexiest idea which is to put the colleseum where the city hall is, and put THAT down in the 2nd town area overlooking the sea :) I'm gonna rebuild the hospital (joined to the medicinal garden walls) and I have some sick park ideas

Too busy building to update :) Some snags: though I've given every lot a new address, I can't actually apply them without opening the world in CAW which I'm loathe to do. I hate CAW! I could also use NRAAS tagger but I don't think I want to (and it doesn't really edit, only appends to where the address shows up in your save - which isn't many places really). Also I need to check what's going on with mods and my patch level. I think 1.69 is broadly compatible with 1.67 which is my fave and what I'm staying on (some mods were never updated past it anyway) but ugh

I'm sure in the past I've installed Monte Vista as a package but I can't work it out this time, and/or I can't be bothered. I was like, oh, because it's my only installed cc at the moment, the launcher will cooperate and let me uninstall the items I don't want... no, they're linked. The thing is, I know damn well MV works without its cc because I fucked up my install (I forgot to decrap ellacharmed's fixed .world to match my .s3pack, so some of the items wouldn't load - interestingly, some did...)... so... I guess I'm gonna try to default replace some things. One is this dress and the others is two of the novelty street signs which annoy me (the no garlic and the llama warning...) - I'll try to replace with some more fun novelty signs from Pets. Hopefully the placements will be fine because they're all signs on the same poles and not offset? Hopefully? (Also, hopefully the ones in the world aren't baked in??)

With the MV signs, in the end I decided to replace the image alone. And luckily for me it was easy to find it because the signs all share a texture. Some hiccoughs trying to import my new .dds because I forgot how (you have to export with the S3___sdfosdfomgwtfbbq_.dds and overwrite it and then reimport that with its name. Idk what the "load .dds" options are for but they are not for this). I decided to use existing s3 signs as a basis, and not to be too realistic because the placement is not realistic. The Pets signs are fun, and I don't have any in my world because it doesn't depend on any EP, so I got to work replacing the "no garlic" sign with the unicorn (crossing? warning?) sign. And realised too late that the sign I'd created says something like "you need to be riding a unicorn" or even "you need to be a unicorn". Oh well - at least it looks better outside the gym I'm working on, and less like a hate crime!

I just uploaded this on the mods page :)

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I spent a lot of yesterday sorting through store content. I think I had it all - I certainly had a lot of duplicates! I hope to finish today (this isn't the same as sorting through it to decide what to install - this is just tidying up, finding/extracting previews for a bunch of things that didn't have them, and deleting anything I find truly hideous/dull)

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Trying to fix some lingering issues I ran into in the past: ghost entries of varying corporeality in build/buy catalogues; inability to use buydebug and also save after. I religiously installed storefix and decrapfix packages in overrides and packages because "I install store content as s3packs and packages" but that was the whole problem. I removed entirely the store fixes because I don't need them (and removed some ghost stairs, windows that had forever been pissing me off), but I kept the decrap fixes because I know from experience they're necessary. And I just tried removing them to see if it fixed either problem and... it solved both. So I was just about to open up the file and get to the horrible business of teasing everything apart when I realised: they were still in my overrides folder!!

Oh... but I've installed one piece of premium content as a s3pack: the pizza oven, which 100% needs the fixes. Ugh... I think there is a certain overriding order which is launcher, packages, override, which means maybe if I also install the pizza oven as a package, it will override the s3pack version, and hence the fixes in the override folder will work on it??? I can test it but so far I've been mostly avoiding testing with sims. Though not entirely (I needed to to work out which way is north in MV: it's the opposite way to the routing fix map here (which, I'm hazily remembering, is the CAW default: up is south)). And I can just save without quitting.

I'm also working on a birthday cake replacement that I'm pretty happy with. Just need to adjust the new plate underneath and the sprinkles on top. It's mainly just an edit of sweetdevil's chocolate cake. And this is how I found out about the GHOST CAKES!!!!!!! ~woooo~

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So my pizza plan didn't work. But my sim could still make pizzas - strings weren't missing, foods themselves weren't missing, moodlets seemed fine. It was everything that happened in between her tipping the dough off the board and getting pizza out of the oven that was broken. Like, her wrists were broken too. I guess that's missing accessories - the animations were fine, and the level of detail/realism/vividness is great that she still did look like she was kneading dough and making pizza... That kind of makes my fix easier, though. I just need to look for a bunch of meshes to extract and put in the packages folder - no strings and other scary things.

I found a bunch of likely looking things with "WO" in the name in the big file - some of which I'm sure were working - but let's see how we go now!

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IT WORKED!!!!!!!!! If you are having the same problem, you can grab it here - it's based on the fix compilation in this post, which I still have in my overrides for the rest of my store cc which will be installed from packages, and also KT's xml in both packages AND overrides, and someone's ccmerged in packages AND dcbackup (it's either KT's from that thread, or Nona's, and I'm not invested enough in this to compare and work out whose). Oh my god, I'm so happy, I can't believe I can use buydebug again!!!!! Autosoils and invisible lights here I come :)

I did finish going through the store content last night. Sooo many duplicates and so many ugly things... however, my hope was that the finished folder would be smaller than the zipped entire nonsense, and it's not. It's nearly 4gb and it was like 2.2 zipped, I think. But, I like that it's easier to search, now.

Now I can finally do what I came to do, oh, yesterday or even the day before? And find two pieces of cc I need: modern stairs for my gym (my notes are glass, l-shaped...) and glasshouse roof pieces. But... I think that was for my gym's swimming pool, but I decided a solid roof makes more sense (it's soooo big and ugly lmao, I put "solar panels" (solar panel floor) on top of a mansard to try and make it less of a LUMP)

I do need to be able to build greenhouses, though! They're a big part of my plan; also I love them (hm, that's probably why they're such a big part of my plan...)

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I'm struggling with the plan. I love building community lots - it's probably my favourite thing to do in the sims, and has been since TS1. My other favourite thing is finding cool cc sets for them: you know, here's what you need for a supermarket, a chocolatier, a salon, a garage, and 1000 different kinds of restaurants...

But I also love building and playing in rural worlds! They can only have a tiny handful of these things. Even in a city world, you run up against the limitations of the game: limited space, no real mixed purpose buildings, and the limited population spread thin making everything seem so empty and fake.

So, I'm trying to limit the number of community lots, and to combine several things on a lot. It not only keeps the number of lots down, it makes things look more active, and it makes it more possible to build things sims won't actually use (waiting rooms, kinds of shops and services that don't have usable objects), but have them look more used.

My ideas so far (they've changed a little since I started actually playing again!):

• Ruins, in town (maybe on the long residential lot)
  • museum and library
  • java hut lot assignment (has closing times, promotes reading ("studying" - it's from UL)) - with a bookshop and cafe
  • This could easily be two lots, but I don't really want to build a separate library by itself with library lot assignment - it's boring. And I can't put a bookshop register there safely without closing times. Hmm... I guess I could do a library with bookshop rh, NEXT TO a museum with bookshop register?
• Garden centre
  • this also needs its own cafe, not least because it'll be in the outskirts of the town with nothing else nearby
  • All kinds of fun little shops can be here, just like a real garden centre:
    • a water-y part with an aquarium shop, and a bunch of fountains for sale outside
    • a pet shop (for... dry pets?? haha idk you know what I mean) filled with cat and dog beds, and maybe some small pets and birds "for sale" if I can work out how to stock them (I'll need to see if I can stock the fishtanks, too)
    • and of course the main attraction, the gardening stuff!
    • And the nurseries "growing" the plants for sale, which can be harvestable greenhouses for visiting sims :)
      • Some should be for coffee! Which is "used" and "bought and sold" at the cafe :)
      • this is my idea for how they are growing coffee in a climate I modelled after England! Plus community lot harvestables stop me getting obsessive about replanting until perfect quality
      • they will also be growing cocoa, and drinking hot chocolate... :) and "selling chocolates" too
    • A florist... maybe also a gift shop
    • And also, a seasonal lot marker, because the housewares parts of the shop will become mainly a xmas shop in autumn and winter!!
  • not sure what lot assignment... park maybe?
• Botanical garden
  • maybe set to art gallery, but I don't like the way wall deco gets replaced by sims' paintings
  • an outdoor and indoor sculpture gallery :)
  • a gift shop... maybe decorated with the little jewellery and perfume stuff from the glassblowing studio set
  • this is yet another place that, in nature, would have a cafe/tearoom! and can also justify a bookshop
• Gym, where the old gym was
  • I started building this with the idea that it would have an indoor serious swimming pool (with the fun one next door on the old school, appended to the park from across the road - I'm super happy with this lot, but I realise looking at this pic that I need to extend the paving terrain paint towards and under the chess set, and put it under the cooking area, too)
  • the old gym building is so huge, even though there's loads of empty space outside... so I thought about adding things like
    • offices for the police and military, with rh rugs - these wouldn't be big affairs in MV and they can work on their skills haha
    • a spa, with a bunch of spa-y store objects as well as some hot tubs and a spa rh rug (spa rh rug doesn't draw sims, so my spa needs to be on a busier lot to have any hope of seeing use)
  • but the new building is sooo huge and I've done pretty well at breaking it up but I still don't like it
  • yet again, it's a cafe candidate. but I don't want registers on a 24/7 lot
  • actually I need to scrap this, or most of it (I've worked unnecessarily hard on the swimming pool and changing rooms...) and DO leave a lot of outdoor space, but NOT empty, and more concentrated: "tennis courts" which idk how to make... but yeah, outdoor adults sports!
• Hospital
  • the rh is a science-hospital combo which is fun. It's also a beautiful building, and I'm going to try to rebuild it for real, right where it stands. And have it merge more into the herbalist garden, as if they're really one building
  • this would be a great place for a spa, too... a roman baths kind of vibe. But it's pretty small
  • this would also be a good botanical garden candidate if I put it onto a bigger lot, but I like where it is in the little 2nd town.
• City hall
  • I kept the rh and its landscaping, but I moved it down to the 2nd town (the colleseum took its place in town) - to the lot directly opposite the road to the island
  • I saw some pics where someone had made it into a wedding venue, filling the courtyard with the right items. If it's routable - I don't think I saw a shot of it in play - it's a fun idea! I will use the church for this, but I thought archery could be fun. It's the kind of place that would have some medieval-themed activities in real life, if it weren't totally repurposed (and I guess it's meant to be, but as sims don't really visit the city hall rh...)
• Pub
  • A pub is a must! And I love the bones of the one that comes with the world. But first of all, I'm moving it into the walled town
  • What lot assignment? I thought arcade - and I'll add an arcade machine or two, a pool table...
  • You can have nectary stuff not on a nectary lot - you just need the register and the filled racks. So that can be the drinking here, seeing as I uninstalled LN
  • I thought the store deep fryer would be fun for "pub food" :) But it means it's self serve... but it's okay I think
  • I thought about a buffet table for a "carvery", but I don't like how they'd work and look
  • Because this needs to be an everyday eatery of some kind, and because the pizza restaurant this world demands occupies the same kind of niche... pizzeria-pub? It seems strange to me, but it's growing on me. It's no different to a curry house-pub, really.
• Non-pub evening restaurant
  • This could also be the pizzeria, taking it a different direction. But I don't want both restaurants to be pizza places, it's too boring. The "real" Monte Vista would have plenty, but this one has a walled city with like a dozen buildings inside lmao.
  • I would like to go super fancy for this one, as a constrast to the cafe(s) and the pub
  • I also really want a casino!!!!! This is a disease I caught from FNV and it's not showing any signs of stopping. There's so much cool casino content from the store, and I love the retro themes they have (50s Vegas, 20s... Chicago? NYC? Idk!!! A colder city, it looks like). So, the restaurant could be attached to the casino :)
  • The restaurant alone or particularly with the casino seems like it could be part of a hotel. This is, also, another place that can have a spa!
  • If I have a casino, it's a good place for the criminal rh. But, if it's got any people on the lot, it needs closing times, which will definitely conflict. I could put the rh rug at a "back entrance" or something (which sims won't then walk through to 'go to work', but w/e) and then it's accessible for work 24/7
• Church
  • Wedding venue :)
  • Ideally, if I were starting from scratch, this would have the graveyard. But there's already a cemetery with ghosts in, so I don't want to move it
  • Also, sims are little baby cowards about graveyards. They don't see them as beautiful, like they are in real life... they won't want to get married "in one" haha
  • If I can find a lot where there's room (in town), I'd love to make it a festival grounds, with a church fete outside on the carpark hehe :) No room for the big activities, though. I think I'd rather put those in a park or even the gym?
  • "small park" assignment should see some visitors but not too many
• Lavender farm
  • Mix of deco and harvestable lavender
  • ... that's as far as I've got, but I need need need this lot!
• Allotments, somewhere closer to town
• An actual aquarium, not just the shop in the garden centre. (This is another thing that irl can be a huge attraction, with a cafe/restaurant, gift shop and so on...)
• A big museum with things like an Egyptian exhibit :) This was my favourite as a little girl and the WA items should be perfect! Can also make a Chinese exhibit the same way, and there should be enough generic WA stuff as well as specific MV stuff to make (another) Roman exhibit!
• A natural history museum, but I don't know if I'll have the objects really. I don't want to download things just for one lot. But I love natural history museums!
• Some kind of non-LN nightclub, if the pub (and casino?) isn't enough
• A cinema (there's a cool store set for this!) - the theatre rh (I'm using the Globe) is technically a cinema, but with a cinema too I can say it's plays over there.
• A bank?? I'm not sold on this, but it could be fun. Maybe something to add as a filler to another lot
• Clothes shop - same as bank, no gameplay aspects, just for realism
• A herbalist - maybe at the hospital?
• Radio station - Sandy has so much cool cc that could be used for this, and the game has some kind of radio tower object too... But I can't see a gameplay angle
• Bowling alley (maybe combo with diner... I love that 50s diner look, and there's great cc store and Sandy for it...)

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Rabbit hole notes!!! These are from MTS and I should have made a note of where. If I put these on the resource page I'll look it up. Doesn't draw visitors: police, military, science, spa(?), criminal, mausoleum, business/journalism. NRAAS Overwatch required to make combos that ought to attract visitors actually do so

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Oh my GOD I've been wrong about EVERYTHING!! I knew there was a problem with role sims and lot closing times, but I had it the wrong way around! It's that things like WA registers and the UL cafe bar should be on a 24/7 lot - EA actually shouldn't have put the UL cafe on its special UL cafe lot assignment...

This makes some things easier, but requires starting from the top again haha.

The only closing time lots I believe I have access to with my install are from UL. And the only one I wanted for something other than java hut-cafe is the arcade for an arcade. So, if I make that my diner, and use the rh and store objects to feed 'em... that's perfect :)

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Diner 24/7, bistro 11-11

New restaurant plan:

• Hotel - hangout lot assignment, 24/7
  • Fancy restaurant (bistro rh, and maybe nectary register?)
  • Spa (rh and items)
  • Casino (store items... criminal rh?)
• Pub - nectary lot assignment, 24/7
  • Bar - nectary register
  • Arcade machine, pool, etc. + little playground outside
  • Pizza oven and deep fryer and a food register that ought to sell the food from both!
  • I can't decide which of these two should get hangout/nectary - the pub is more alcohol-oriented, nectary more attractive than hangout, so I think it makes sense to have this place be busier
• Diner - arcade lot assignment, 10am-4am
  • Diner rh and super cute classic diner
  • Bowling alley
  • Arcade with loads of games (basketball machine, whack a mole...)
  • Cinema with popcorn machine and any other relevant foods (ice cream, candy floss maybe... "gumball machine" looks good! guess we can have another deep fryer here too... another pizza oven? might as well haha)
  • I can split the food between the cinema concession counter and the diner itself, it's all pretty similar anyway
  • ICE SKATING OMG if this place can fit it... I want it to be in town but it's getting kinda big lmao. Oh... we could have an ice rink AND a skating rink...
• And I can have cafes on any 24/7 lots like library, gym, park, whatever! And as long as I don't have too many community lots in general, none should be too quiet.

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I was reading about the interplay between the tree of prosperity and the wishing well - I think I'll put both either somewhere in the church or the city hall grounds

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I had a dreadful hour writing down all the broken store objects in my testing. I was wondering wtf was wrong with my ccmerged when so many had missing accessories... but other bugs are weirder... Anyway, guess who accidentally let the launcher overwrite her ccmerged file and didn't notice?

Genuinely broken are two of my BGC extractions. Just two! One deco (fireplace tools), one usable (rocking chair). All my other deco is fine, and my usable dining chair is usable... I made them all the exact same way, too. It's not a huge deal, but it's odd. There's no thumbnail and you can't click them, but the names are showing up.

Speaking of names, I experimented with changing the string name of my new rabbit hole rugs, and it comes up as the in game name :) So I just need to name them and then go ahead and write it into the package.

Crossing my fingers for my popcorn machine etc! But I think I've got it :)

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It's still broken! Dying... it ought to be the decrap fixes actually but I have those where they're supposed to be. And I don't want them in my packages folder because it fucking breaks the unmodded game!!

Yeah, them in /packages fixes stuff (at least the cotton candy) but breaks the game if I use buydebug. Why have I had this problem for 5 years but never heard of it???

I finally fixed my store-fix problem! And everything is making a certain kind of sense: I remember being able to use buydebug once upon a glorious time, then it stopped working, and I guess I just put it down to too many mods or a broken save or something. But it's actually Captain Marie's combined fix (from 2 years before I stopped playing!) in this thread: if you have that in your packages folder, which you need even for store content installed as packages!! (this is like a 10 year old piece of misinformation??) you can't enter edit town or save after enabling buydebug. But without it, you can. And I'm sure it's no malice or even incompetence on CM's part because her OldMill+WoWonder-Fixes works fine. I have no idea what she did wrong, but that merged file is poison, don't touch!

I've made my own merged fix: KT_StoreFix_DecrapFixes + BohemianGarden_Plants_Fixes + CumulativeStoreTempFixes + DeliciouslyIndulgentBakery_Fixes + OldMill+WoWonder-Fixes, with various authors whose names are on that thread. I might have missed something, but this fixes all the store content in my game, at least. And it has to be in /packages!! (It's in /overrides too, I haven't tested if that's necessary, but it probably is).

I also made another version fixing something annoying, which is the doubled bakers station birthday/wedding cakes in the catalogue. I could have left one, but I'm not sure which is the best one to leave (as I recall, the bakers station worked pretty well without the fix... or with it only in overrides, at least) so I hid both. After all, they are supposed to be the ~handmade~ cakes. Decrap fixes, hidden cakes | baker's station, hidden cakes

Either of those fix files renders my pizza fix unnecessary!

One day I'll sort out my notes on these and put them on the mods page. I'd really like to attribute all the authors properly, but right now I just wanted to upload this. Then I can plaaaaaaaaaaay!

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I've been going back and forth on university: homeworld or destination. I think I just won't bother. The uni gameplay isn't fun in TS3 (maybe it was only fun to me in TS2 because I was a teenager and it seemed so exciting... but I swear sims had more time for socialising etc. in that EP). But I am gonna have a school, with these caveats about shorter term times etc., and I had already been thinking a kind of school-college lot with evening classes (which, so far, is just "a glassblowing machine") could be fun. It would be a good candidate for library lot assignment, too. I think it should be in town, but let's see. And anyway, it can have the uni objects in various "classrooms", like the skeleton and so on.

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I'm being so productive and proactive. I think there's something wrong with me. This is a mod for the chicken coop I still need to test: 1-3 eggs instead of 2-6, no "golden egg"/"rare exotic egg" and no rotten egg.

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I take everything back. Buydebug is still broken. The only thing I fixed is my ability to place autosoils, which is important, but I can't place daylight-lights, which is a shame, and I can't place seasonal lot markers, which is a disaster! Wtffffffffffffff I can't stand this shit

According to this thread on reddit it's at least a known problem? And hopefully buydebug itself not its items.

Okay, I feel a bit more positive about all the time I spent making a new store fix file, because it did actually help: I was able to enter buydebug and save, even to place autosoils. Or at least, store autosoils (because I was separately anxious about these being broken, I guess). Or, at least, blueberry... pecan... I mostly tested blueberry.

I have several options here:

1. Get to the bottom of this storefix crap once and for all. Worthy, but I'm too lazy. I did my part lmao.
2. Make overrides to make the buydebug stuff buyable. This will take some time, but I prefer it to collections because I basically never go into collections (I also don't really go into buydebug unless I feel I really need to). I'd focus only on the items I truly want, which is WA wine press/fortune cookie machine/martial arts equipment (to appliances > misc (I don't want them in large because they'll be in the middle of the fridges) and entertainment > sports); all autosoils including store autosoils (to build > shrubs); all spawners (to build > rocks, build > shrubs, and pets > misc, as appropriate); lights to the lights category; the seasonal lot marker (to entertainment > parties). But, ugh, just typing it out's a chore!
3. Give in and use collections. I can just fucking download some. I'll need to make my own for the store autosoils, but it's okay, because it looks like I can now (I couldn't before, because nothing would save)

I mean, this all hinges on the items not being the problem, just buydebug itself. But I think that's true. Anyway, I'm going to try the collections now, and if they work, I'll make one for the store plants too.

Note for me who never uses collections: they go in the docs folder, in Collections/User

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It worked and I have been happily building :) I used the collections I linked to, but I've also renamed them, changed some icons, and added the store autosoils to the collection with the others. I guess the reason only a few people ever talked about this problem was because most people were using collections! But I hate them... but I'll learn! Maybe this will turn me into a collections maniac, who can say.

Isn't it coming on nicely now? It's a lot more cohesive than my initial attempt, I think. I'm glad I got rid of all the fences and levels in the middle, and it'll get more use like this. It's so fun when the pool is full of sims, too. I hope to test it with some families soon and see if they use the playground.

I'm working on a recategorisation mod, mostly for the accursed function > decor > misc category. Even with only half the EPs and little store content, it's a mess. They got sooo lazy in later EPs...

I guess the point of the function sort is that decor has no function and is decor, but that doesn't excuse sculptures/wall art/plants not being in their appropriate categories. Also, it's just my default mode (oh, I guess because it's the only one in the earlier games). So I'm moving things like piles of books to the bookshelves category. The price itself makes a neat divider between decorative and functional objects :)

My method so far:

1. browse S3OC to find offending objects by EP
2. write down EP, resource name, current category and intended category (in a SPREADSHEET ofc!!!!!)
3. open the big game .packages in S3PE and find your OBJDs and export them to a package per EP (well, I guess per EP is only necessary if you intend to upload them for other people)
4. open your new .packages in S3PE, open your OBJDs in grid mode and recategorise to your heart's content! But actually probably more than your heart's content, because you need to make sure the main category matches your new subcategories, even though they are named as to be independent!!!!!!!!!!!! >:(

The last step is to finish, test, and upload :) I have succesfully moved one (1) pile of magazines to StorageBookshelves. Only 140 more objects to go! (Actually 131 - I couldn't find the drainpipes and electric boxes, and I decided I didn't really care enough to hunt them down)

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I found out this part of the site looks very different on mobile. It ~helpfully~ turns the diamonds into red diamonds... unhappy sims :)

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I finished my mods! I want to double triple check before I put them on the mods page, but just in case you want them, here they are. I don't have any plans to do the other eps or even store content. I'm just going to recategorise my actual store files. Oh, I guess I'll do an override for my MV flowers... or maybe I will just remember they're in the lovely new small misc deco section!

I've finally finished the pool and gym :) They are so cute! I ran into a small but extremely annoying problem: I forgot the wall mounted public showers are just... shower cubicles. Which can't be approached from the front. (And they expect people to pay for that!) So shower provision got a lot worse, but oh well.

They've both been HEAVING when I tested. Seems no-one wants to use the pool at the gym, but people were playing footie at the pool, so that's fun. And when my sim was at the pool, I could see people playing basketball through the gym windows :)

I'm nervous to save my lots for export if filthy sims have polluted them (seriously, I'm scared of introducing information from them/the world). So I quit and reload every time I actually start playing. (I'm really appreciating how pared down this install is when I do!) And I'm getting really attached to the sim I keep testing with: Simona Valenci. I'm going to make a special effort to befriend her with my real sim, or even marry her :) She's kind of my nearest neighbour, I think (being nearest to the island I plan to commandeer) so it will seem kind of natural and nothing to do with her weird week of dreams (she ate so much pizza and desserts in one day she got fat; she kept trying to eat popcorn but was physically unable; she kissed two frogs from a wishing well that was built where half of her house had been... you know! hehe)

Alongside the pool and gym, I've nearly finished the arcade! But... the coloured lights in the actual arcade light don't stick, whether I set them in edit town or with a sim :( It's okay but it's disappointing. The lights make it 100% arcade.

I just had my coolest and sexiest idea ever which is to turn a lot set up for fishing into a Cat Jungle lot assignment. There isn't really a cat equivalent of a dog park - though I thank EA for trying to even that score virtually - but I think a place where there are lots of fish, and sims fish, would be the closest thing :)

I don't really like fishing in games. Well, I do, but my dislike for it in real life taints it. When I was vegetarian and playing TS2, my sims fished and grew vegetables to sustain themselves (and the town, there was a complicated trading system, they would box up the food to sell...!) Now I'm vegan, it seems like my sims can keep cows and chickens for milk and eggs only (good job sims farm animals don't actually breed, right?), and buy them from the shop, but I don't want them to fish! Or, not to eat fish, anyway. And with a cat jungle tag on the fishing lot(s), I won't see the fishing symbol and start crying my oversensitive tears for the thoroughly non-existent fish, haha!

Elephant battery farm-lion cub mill is still my fave rollercoaster tycoon strategy, though.

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This is the biggest page on my site by far. It's going to get to 100kb soon, and I've added a bunch of images... I need to split it up, and I think some of my oldest notes can be deleted. Maybe I need to move all sims stuff into a sims folder, but that will require making sure all the internal links go back to the root folder (not a difficult problem, just, I'm lazy - too lazy to learn regex, also). But this is more of a website diary than a sims diary at this point :)

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Community lot types that allow parties: big/small park, pool, art gallery (but the stupid wall art replacement...), fishing spot, beach, horse ranch

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Day length. I'm going to use this mod as a base, and the instructions are good too :) Stockholm time is nearly good enough for me, but I might as well adjust it more precisely. Also I can remove my hated BST. Hmm... I'll go for midwinter and midsummer day length, because the extremes will show up better in how the gameplay feels. So, 8am-4pm winter (I believe I've actually granted another few precious minutes of sun than we actually receive at that time lmao) and... let's say 4.30am-9.30pm for summer (again slightly generous?) but because I am anti-BST, that's really 3.30am-8.30pm. Oh fuck, oh no, I like BST better lmao! Equinoxes are 6-6 and 7-7. Maybe I will make both 6-6 :)

• Spring and autumn, 6am-6pm: no offset
• Winter 8am-4pm: +2 sunrise, -2 sunset
• Summer ugh I'll split BST difference 4am-9pm: -2 sunrise, +3 sunset

Here if you want it :)

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Apparently I'm not misremembering, and there is a way to install worlds from packages. Now, if only I could remember where I read this... But hopefully I can then remove all the store content from the s3pack-folder ? And delete the things I'm not using, like most of the rabbit holes. And replace the dress texture. And hopefully, if it's all decrapped, it'll all take in the same way, and I won't need to replace things? If I need to replace things, I just won't bother - at least not for the items I want to keep installed.

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Now I've realised I can have objects with role sims on my community lots (I think I'm going to make the arcade-etc. lot a "hangout" instead, something I never used when I had LN and SHT installed, but there you go!) I'm thinking about role sims a lot. And reading about the nraas register mod a lot. And pondering...

1. I don't want too many sims
2. but I want lots of role sims
3. I want them to be inactives not homeless, so my sims can socialise with them
4. but role sims are supposed to be busy all the time! :(

I can't square this circle... I wish that the registers acted like real careers, with shifts done by sims in those careers. (For example, I wish Simona could work at a food register in the diner her rh rug actual employer will be situated in.)

It's fine to change inactives between role and career

Changing my mind about the offices above the gym. I realised I'd forgotten table tennis. We can have a weird little table tennis club up there. And, maybe martial arts? But then, if military and police are going back in the town, what kind of lot will they be on? I thought about academy, maybe, which means they need the martial arts stuff. But, I also thought I don't want too many visitors. But I want some. I don't want the lot to be dead outside the rh rugs. Hmm...

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Just to get this off the top of my tab pile: actual cell phone remover. I trust Arsil but I'm not totally confident about the implications (I don't think it means they'll get social contact/opportunities even, through house phone...)

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You can download here a tutorial about turning a save into a .world. I think I'll need this later but rn it's far ahead. And I can't vouch for it. But I downloaded it for future ref!

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A helpful simmer has identified that the problem with my fun bowling alley-arcade lights is probably... the bowling alleys!! I'm going to experiment with putting in a divider wall. Fingers crossed!

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IT WORKED!!! I'm so happy :)

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I've made a weird table tennis office and martial arts office above the gym. In the blue and red offices. And put some deco weights down in the real gym, which feels frivolous, but I hope it makes my sims feel big and strong. What should go in the green office, now?

I decided I definitely want at least police in the main town. I ended up taking off the top half of the gym, more or less. Some of the once magestic atrium is now taken up by a table tennis room, which has the blue office paintjob because it's cute :) And off the same little stairwell that takes you to the dance studio is the new martial arts room, which got the red paint (and some blue "mats" on the floor hehe). And the stairwell itself got the green paint! It's pretty cute altogether.

I've rebuilt ~Città Stellare~ on a new more rectangular lot - the one opposite the pool to the hospital. And I've given it an appropriately fancier exterior. I'm just putting the finishing touches on today :)

I'm getting pretty good at building cinemas now. (I already rebuilt the first one like 12 times trying to get something good). And because I was copying bits of the layout from the old lot to the new one, Monte Vista technically had two for a while. At the rate I was going, how long until every lot had a cinema? :)

I'm also working on the school. That's now going to be in the walled town. The base (and position) is that very long house, 20x60 or something, by one of the walls. I've condensed some of the 'buildings' and about 1/3 of the lot is free - that's because I was trying this for my museum+ruins lot and I might still do that. Monte Vista doesn't need a big school.

So far I've made a kind of combo nursery+reception class, and the art section with a bunch of easels in one room and two glassblowing stations in the other. If I have room for a few more classrooms for older kids upstairs (there's going to be a little school canteen in the rest of the downstairs), maybe there's room for the museum also? And it would look good, this little fake street. But... it means no playground for the kids lmao (they still have all their sports lessons at the gym ofc)

Ofc it doesn't really matter - sims won't play on the playground during the school day or even after. But, I do feel a little bad for them!

There's going to be a playground at the nearby pub, of course? Maybe they go there! :D

There also aren't as many ruins objects as I thought that I think will look good here, so it's okay if the open ruins are quite small.

I keep playing the sims instead of typing about it. Lame right?

I finished the school (it got a playground in the end, I'm soft) and the pizzeria-pub which is GORGEOUS literally THE BEST LOT I'VE EVER BUILT EVER IN ANY SIMS GAME! (no you can't see it, it goes to a different school) (also... I didn't actually build it lmao but I did mess with the shell just enough that I can slightly claim I did)

I need to take pics!

Of the whole world too. I also have finished moving lots around. I got brave and moved sims. I hope this won't get me. I think maybe I am thinking of TS2 or somehing and this was never really a problem in TS3 (like, I think the clipboard saves us here, and that's what it's for?). I feel a little uneasy because I'm using an out of date version of ErrorTrap (one I found in my old files that works with my patch) but ehhhh it didn't say it trapped anything and it's probably all fine! (Cool, now I've got black and white evidence of why my neighbourhood is going down in flames. I can stick an id on this paragraph and link to it and all.)

Next to build is my casino-hotel. I've been researching hotels and what kind of exterior this one should have. It's tricky. I've seen that, with the right windows, you can make a sims hotel that's in scale to your town/the lot but looks like the real deal (as if everything's twice as big, I mean). But with the wrong windows, you can make something that looks really stupid... But, I also learnt that some real architects managed to fuck this up on their real buildings lmao! So, it's probably a piece of piss, right? :)

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Traits for my self sim :) Won't be long until I can make her and her house! I'm using this list and ignoring ones for EPs I don't have installed.

• artistic - I'm not a painter, but I like that it's also got some benefits for writers and musicians
• avant garde - this influences sculpting which I don't have (AMB) and street art which I don't think my sim will do, but I like that it makes them a little insufferable
• bookworm - this is the trait for both readers and writers :)
• brave - I'm not brave, but I'd like my sim to be! Beating up burglars, putting out fires! Yeah!
• cat person - I am 100% a cat person
• childish - the additional fun need sounds like it'd be fun to play. And I am pretty childish!
• computer whiz, couch potato - accurate maybe, but no fun to play!
• excitable - better than childish, but a little similar
• friendly - maaaybe? I want my sim to be nice but not especially sociable!
• good - same as above, but I want the ability to go around slapping sims so maybe not!
• good sense of humour - this could also make them get along better with people without necessarily making them more social
• green thumb - actually I have a black thumb, but I love plants! I think this trait is a little bit boring gameplay-wise though
• grumpy - I'm grumpy...
• hates the outdoors - might be accurate, but I'm making a world I want my sim to explore!
• hopeless romantic
• hot headed
• inappropriate, insane - I like these but the wrong clothes thing would wind me up for my player sim
• loner
• neurotic
• over-emotional - might make the game too easy in terms of too many buffs
• perfectionist
• vegetarian

I think the only two set in stone are vegetarian and cat person. I want at least one crazy person trait (the former do not count!) and one actually positive trait lmao. I think I will cheat and give me a degree so I get that, maybe the social group one too, so that's 7. Hmm. It's spreadsheet time!!! (I was about to load the game lmao... you truly can't keep a stupid horse down)

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My spreadsheet was awful but I think I've got it:

1. cat person
2. vegetarian
3. excitable
4. hopeless romantic
5. bookworm
6. loner
7. neurotic

I mean, that sounds like me, right? (Loner sims can be around 1 or 2 sims, such as the one they're married to, without penalty - but they lose their solitude buff.)

I want my sims to use bikes preferentially but not alone (not really an option anyway unless you make the world chinese/egyptian?)

Why has no-one made a mod to get everyone in MV riding vespas anyway? The WA scooters would be perfect and they're already in the game. I thiiiiiink I know how to do it. I'd need to override the OBJD to give them a price and put them in the buy mode car categories. Then, with NRAAS SP at least, there's a chance for inactives to buy them. But to make sure they won't prefer the cheap cars, I can either reduce the price or disable those cars by setting a minimum car cost of at least 1 and setting those cars to cost 0.

But literally, why has no-one ever done this before? So weird. Well, if I can do it myself, I can also make bicycles more attractive.

Been working on the hotel - finished the casino :) it's tacky and I love it. I was inspired by the animal print wallpapers of TS1! I'll get pics when I've finished the rest, including the spa and restaurant (the furniture is more or less in place, but it all needs painting)

Cars: it works fine to use other cars to replace. I used two from Fast Lane SP converted/extracted to BGC by yvessimlaurent on tumblr. And for a guide of what OBJD name and number, I used danjaley's donkey cart replacements (name might or might not be necessary - name alone doesn't work, but name+number works) Don't bother trying a store bike (with the ♥ basket ♥) or SP scooter because the first just flat out refused to take and the 2nd just spammed me with NRAAS GoHere errors.

Now I wish I knew how to change the built-in patterns. I like the convertible best but I don't very like the pale yellow colour, and if I replaced both cars with it it would be awful and samey. I think a shiny-pearly dark green would be so lovely... and if I could have just one more colour, hmm, idk. Maybe the yellow is accurate after all. But a deep pearly red would be fun :) I'm going to get the people of Monte Vista their vespas too eventually, but at least they have their fun vintage convertibles in the meantime.

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I was intending to use some fun TS1 music replacements I found on MTS but first of all, though it was a cool effort from them, they didn't work well. Little audio glitches sometimes, and every track had a different volume. Well, they have to be converted between a million weird formats, so like I said, it's still more effort than I'm willing to make.

But the worst thing? The differences between the US and international versions! I always forget the "real game" has different neighbourhood music (or, starts on a different track?)... it's very strange to me. So I stopped playing with the loading+world replacements almost immediately, but kept the build+buy. But, I miss the Hot Date jazz, which I was kind of used to because I added it to the TS2 folders (so much easier than having to import shit!). And as I was wondering if I could be bothered to try my own replacement, I realised, it's so much easier and more convenient to just make a new foobar playlist with all the sims music I want. I can ~skip tracks~ and everything. Pausing in live mode is no issue for me with a pause key on my keyboard (idk if this is standard - it wasn't when I bought this thing, which has a bunch of worn away keys now. It's like a ~gamer keyboard~ or something (every few years I accidentally record macros and assume I have ghosts/hackers). It was just the chunkiest/most tactile keyboard I could find. I want a mechanical keyboard again next time, I was so pleased when I found out people started making and selling them again a few years ago!) If you want stereo etc. music, use some of these mods from twoftmama :) That's what I'm doing.

But, the next thing is to find the few TS3 tracks I've grown to like, and add them :)

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I also found loading screen replacements - I wanted to replace the logo with the base game logo - but again it seems US-specific. And I tried to find the right image to replace for my version and I was sure I had it, but it didn't work, so I gave up on that. The screen itself is fine - it's IP, which I think is quite cute (and with the blueness, not far from default anyway). I just don't like the idea that I'm playing IP specifically because... I'm not lmao. I am just playing TS3 and I want that logo on the loading screen!

I keep wanting to wait to update until I'm finished building because I'm ~nearly finished~ - you can see how that's going!

I've run into some weird snags like having a bunch of aquariums on a lot makes it really angry... I had to split up my garden centre, it's sad! But I kinda like what I've ended up with, mostly, which is:

• a small pet shop with only like 6 aquariums which looks like the world's smallest saddest aquatics shop, but whatever - at the cat jungle / fishing spot
• a super cute garden centre with room for a little pond maybe like one of my local ones it's partially based on :) but no fountain-fish world...
• a small fairground that isn't in a garden centre carpark (boring). At this point I almost wish I'd built the botanical gardens there and just installed the boardwalk store lot on the other side, but I think it's just a bit much for the town. About half of a small fair has come to Monte Vista... maybe the rest got lost in the winding hills :)

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Also I just played a really unnecessarily long 'test' of Simona, like 20 days or something, it was great, she broke up with her new boyfriend because on their first date after being best friends for a while, where they had sex in a hot tub, he was like "okay... maybe our next date won't suck?" and they became enemies (it's fun with a Good sim like Simona because they can't do anything about it lmao). She kept trying to win him back and after a long time and many returned love letters he accepted her apology (I know... he should have been apologising for his rude popup message!) But in that convo she found out he was Evil, confronted him over it, and then passed out in the snow in his garden because she was in her swimming cozzie and maybe I should have been paying more attention to that. And he was just like *shrug* and went back in and I really thought she'd die! I was watching her hunger versus the coming of spring... idk if it was that it warmed up enough (it was still winter, and nothing melted the snow) or she's just too tough to die but she pulled through. And I got her a choice of a new boyfriend or a girlfriend, also both her colleagues lmao; and a bunch of promotions... and I bought her some new furniture she wanted (she's very materialistic) and let her cook the meal she wanted just before I exited and KILLED HER AND HER WHOLE WORLD. See, I made sure she ate it but didn't have to wash it up. Don't you wish you had such a thoughtful god? (but maybe not that they smite you because of minor architectural concerns)

I did find out something: I haven't installed master controlller, or not properly, or I've forgotten how to get to it. So that's my next thing to look into.

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I'm also fixing the traceried windows from the store, I think the Gothique set. Nobody has ever fixed their wallmasks. I think I actually had it this time but I forgot to test them with all the other building-testing I was doing. Oh... actually I think it slipped my mind because I got a weird memory error earlier that required resetting my whole pc. At least that was fairly painless, but it was pretty scary, so I hope it doesn't happen again! I was worried I somehow managed to import a dds or merge some packages super duper wrong lmao

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Saving myself a problem tomorrow: I just straight up haven't installed MC apparently. Also, I notice I was supposed to be getting sims 3 music mp3s and I have not. But I have just been building like mad!

I think now all I have to do is the insides of the two museums? I think literally everything else is done... well, there's no real insides to the city hall (it has a loooottt of empty space, and just 3 rh rugs!) but idk really what to put there. I started to think maybe I should demolish the (adorable) (adorably ugly) tourist information centre - local exhibit - gift shop thing I built and put it there, as well as just some big reception area and some offices. Butttttttttttt idk i don't know (those are different apparently)

Actually the church still needs heavy tweaking, it's mostly placeholder, but the shell is done (unless I swap some windows to the broken windows i mentioned above) and the altar is done and the pews are done and the "graveyard"... IT'S CUTE! but maybe I need to work more into the little "fete" area. It's always a struggle to make things big enough to look at properly but not weirdly big for the world

But not-Star City, the hospital-spa-science lab, the hotel-spa-casino, the two shopping areas (bookshop and grocery rh don't play well together on one lot, or not with my awful stupid little sims at least), the pub-pizzeria, the botanical garden... they are all finished and they look soooo good :) I can't wait to share them (obvious lie but it's true too)

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Also before I forget. Simona's evil boyfriend got turned into a mermaid by EA SP just before their final confrontation. Part of how she got him to accept the truce was using these new options like "cool scales :)" "so what are your favourite kelp recipes?" lmao... I don't want to use NRaas SP for these little tests but yeah despite all the problems I have with it, at least random mermaidification isn't one of them!

This is something I must have fixed on my old installs but forgotten about now. To stop the FeaturedItems folder filling with junk, try denying write permissions, but if that doesn't work, just delete it and make a placeholder file with the same name and that does it. I'm going to see if the former works before adding either to my tips page :)

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Good news: changing permissions on the advert folder works fine, no issues, nice and easy lemon squeezy :) But I'm glad I looked at instructions because I actually wasn't sure who to deny permissions to (it's "me" hehe) Maybe it's more hit and miss for people who are on newer versions of Windows, or maybe they have haunted computers, who can say?

Bad news: given up on the tracery windows. Look at this bullshit!

That's supposed to be symmetrically wrong at least! In the wallmask there is only half of the big window, mirrored. I got the little one right, but there's nothing I know how to do about this. And I realised I have one pixel wrong still on the tall version (not pictured) but I wanted the set so I can't be bothered any more.

I guess that's also a mini preview of the church :) That's the tower and you're looking in to the bell. But this window obviously won't be part of it any more. The window doesn't even go on this side or level - this was just my easier/better-lit-up spot for testing!

I finished building yesterday, maybe the day before! Finished sorting out my bb cc yesterday.

Which has left me with two big projects: my town photography and cas cc! I have gone through my cas store stuff and made preliminary folders to install. It's nearly a gig, I only have just over 100mb non-premium-store bb cc, I guess hairs are so heavy.

This is all fine but I need to test them a bit. There are lots I think I'll want edited speculars/channels for... and I want to do default replacements wherever possible. It's just a lot to be starting with I guess. The middles of projects like this are so easy, but getting started and finishing up are just so complicated, you have to think so much more! Or I do, anyway.

I also still need to go through my non-store cas cc. I know there are lots of glasses I want; some TSM hair conversions; some store clothing/hair mashups/edits...

Ugh. I just remembered most of the store isn't even maternity-enabled. I can't believe people pay good money for that crap!

So remember how I said I was done with building Monte Vista? Yeah so I basically didn't touch the sims since then. I guess testing CAS stuff was just too overwhelming. I hate making choices!!

At least my install is still good and my BB stuff (mostly, I'm sure I'll swap a few things in and out). Anyway, the other day I was gripped by town design ideas and I realised there was more to do with Monte Vista by which I mean, starting nearly from scratch. I want to really lean into the retro stuff I already love for the sims, so it's gonna be this generically 20s-70s kind of era (you know, like in Pixar and Ghibli films most of the time...) and I'm not going to be mega strict about it but just prioritising it. It's gonna be cute!

After spending 7 years building community lots, I've also decided I want fewer. Because part of what I want to do is again lean into the rural vibes MV isn't really supposed to have (it has 2 urban centres, one is a regional capital and one is a market town as far as I can tell - but like 100 people live in the whole area because sims!) But it's fine, I generally actually prefer rural worlds in TS3 due to 1. you can (open neighbourhood my beloved) 2. the routing sucks if you build dense and 3. again you can only have 3 residents in your "city" anyway

So, so far I have: replacing the horrible rectangle park that I detest in the 2nd town with one of the houses from the town + a path (and I can build "another" house, a garage, a garden or something on the other side or just leave it for now); and, I'm keeping that awful thing I always delete, the Mucho Expresso Cafe which is on the opposite side of the pool to the hospital (and thank god, my hospital-spa remake is perfect and can just be plopped down!)

I can get several things on to that lot now: a big huge square (the half of the lot with like... a tree or something lmao) as the festival grounds, the little 2nd plaza as a market (with the veg stands), toilets in the walls (this isn't as dumb as it sounds written lmao: just the squares in the corners can be bathrooms, why not right (aside from all the rl reasons you couldn't yeah yeah I know)).

And that's just outside: in the buildings I can get some kind of eatery (WA register, diner RH rug, UL cafe bar, idk yet) on the big side and a nice small easy to decorate fast to load!!! grocers + grocery rh rug on the small side. And that leaves the upstairs, which I slightly extended on the top floor by incorporating that top balcony. I can squeeze some extra shops there - probably best NOT to have a bookshop because I remember bookshop+grocery = a LOT of sims - maybe some of my 'fake' deco shops like art shop, music shop (garden shop would be weird on 2nd floor) or maybe some 'offices' with business/crime/whatever RHs. Or I guess I could even leave it blank... I don't do that though lmao (then I wonder why my worlds crash and burn under their own weight)

I started writing this stuff in a cherrytree node before I remember oh I have a sims diary. The first line was "I'm gonna start again because I'm fucking stupid!!!!!!!!!". I suppose, most important line too lmao. But I have fun this way (somehow)

I'm thinking about HW Uni again which ughhh idk but it can be cute. Well, I think I'll keep my museum that replaces the spa in the 2nd town, so maybe something like that can go there. Or just the school?

Part of what I'm doing is I want to keep the community lots to the urban areas, but I want houses in them too (otherwise it would be weird to play, I think, if nobody lived in the city walls). So I'm thinking about a bunch of things like... swimming pool school? Library is more obvious but what if I want museum-library instead. I just don't know. (The museum can get smaller scale because of the smaller feel I'm more sensibly going for. So, it could be museum + "art gallery" (not lot assignment) on one wing, library + 'adult education' (glassblowing, easels, etc.) on the other)

The big reason I write this diary is to make my plans more clear to myself but ugh look at all those brackets lmao. Sorry if you are reading along!

I've been planning here and there. It's mostly involved trying to sort out all the (great!) Carversims deshine destencil stuff, and sort out some OEM pregnancy meshes (fairly easy 'cause most look too awful to use, I guess because free hanging fabric doesn't animate well)

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I'm back to the community lot drawing board. Here are some notes I made about careers (only for my installed EPs):

• Abandoned Warehouse (Criminal, Art Appraiser)
• Bistro, Diner (Culinary)
• City Hall (Political)
• Hospital (Medical)
• Military Base (Military)
• Offices (Business, Journalism, Video Game Developer)
• Police Station (Law Enforcement)
• School (Education)
• Science Lab (Science)
• Stadium (Professional Sports, Sports Agent)
• Theatre (Music)
• Part time jobs:
  • Bookstore
  • Grocery
  • Mausoleum
  • Spa
  • (I'm pretty sure Diner and Bistro also have a part time option?)

Bookstore and Grocery can be replaced by WA registers (and the market stand), but it's kind of a shame because when I give my sims careers it's normally those. But maybe it will make me branch out :)

On my cool hospital lot that I'm going to keep (might need to redecorate a little since I scrubbed my CC) I had science + hospital + spa, mainly because the RH I was copying was science/hospital. But I have a fun idea for a retro scifi kinda restaurant (it should be a bar, if I was playing with LN) with the Atomic Age store set and stuff like that. It would be fun to tie it in with an observatory, and if I manage to build something like that, I guess it's where the science RH should go.

Like always, this is one of the points where I can't type the answers. I need to get into game and look around and see what's what and test stuff. So, goodbye :)

So far my simplfying is going pretty well! Though I have a RH I've never used before: the horse ranch thing. It puts the small one in Monte Vista if you have Pets, and I decided to put it where the school RH was: keeping the school lot and the bleachers. The lot's pretty big, so I added a little changing rooms kind of block and made it into a small gym, and that's Monte Vista's official gym now :)

There's also a small one in the hotel now I moved and expanded it. It's taken the place of the City Hall lot. I tried the Coliseum there but it never looked right. I mean, nothing does with the missing walls. Even the City Hall RH doesn't line up right! But I have a rebuilt, hm, whatever that police-military RH is, with walls (maybe from the spa?) and the City Hall rug is in there. Actually, that lot is super empty inside, though it looks great and I don't really want to add features to it. I guess I will just decorate some fake government offices :)

I think my next job is trying to redo the fishing ponds again into a Cat Jungle + cafe + petshop, and moving that down next to the hospital (a rebuild of the Hospital-Science RH that incorporates a roman baths + Spa rh rug, it is so lovely and the only thing I think I'm keeping in so many ways: in the position/mostly function of vanilla MV, from my first rebuild attempt...)

The worst thing about Monte Vista is that there's nowhere for the Coliseum. How do you mess that up? But ugh. Driving to it like the out of town American stadium... hate it. Also, I think it should be the theatre not the stadium. But anyway, I am now trying to put it on the hill - where the fishing ponds was, just up from the 2nd town. And the house that was down where I've put the ponds, just behind it. It's weird, but I can't blame myself. There is literally nowhere for the colosseum to look right. And I tried mooing it everywhere in the main town, overlapping... just looks too bad when it overlaps roads.

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I've seen people saying the market stand is a suitable replacement for the Grocery RH. To an extent, but it doesn't have the same functionality. It sells 10 of a random selection of items including store fruit/veg/nuts and life fruit(!) and a few cooking/gardening books. No guarantee that you can buy eggs/tofu/whatever you need for most recipes.

I assume the stock rotates, but I don't know when. Something I do know is: if you have multiple market stands on one lot, they have their own selections. Also, you can sell to them, but only fruits/veggies, not e.g. ketchup which my test sim Simona had made :) Idk if you can sell those to the grocery RH though anyway.

Today's fun discovery is that you need buydebug to interact with the seasonal lot marker. Which means I can't use it. Silver lining: I hate it and how it works, so maybe it's not such a big deal. Also, my plans involved things like spring festival on lot A, summer festival on lot B and so on, which doesn't work very well, I'm just remembering. Some things - I think mostly the spring dance and egg hunt? - only work on designated Festival Grounds. Which means it will advertise itself to other sims and also to you the player even when there's no festival there really at all.

I've also installed the new Smooth Patch. I'm a bit nervous about bugs and poor performance. So far all I've been doing is opening my church and trying to get the SLM to work which of course it won't. However, I have seen the catalogue rotating fix from version 1 in action and it's nice to see them gently turning now haha

Maybe I just won't have festivals at all, though it's a little sad for my sims. But there's plenty to do in Monte Vista. Or there will be soon, when I make a cinema for the 100th time for my new in-town cinema+arcade. I also have the Globe theatre from Dragon Valley but maybe I'll get rid? I found somewhere it looks cute but I'm just not sure. Though, with my new strictness, I actually have a bunch of empty lots to fill!

So far I've also given up on the colluseum. It just won't look right anywhere!! So I guess I will just put a stadium rug in that little gym I built.

Actually, one thing I could do for a festival lot is like an all year fairground with all the objects. I like Sandy's neutral concessions stands, the trestle table specifically (which is already in place at the market and the church, too, though I wish very much it could be just spring and summer at the church). I'll have to think about it.

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Not gotten any further with what to do with the empty lots, but I finally got off my arse and did something about the awful beach with the lot's shadow painted onto the world in dirt. I don't really want custom terrain paints, so I replaced the raked sand which I never use with MV's sand, and repaired the beach!!!

Another list for adding to my resource pages when I stop being lazy! RHs with classes (in my install, minus Uni-RHs):

• Athletics: Stadium
• Charisma: City Hall
• Cooking: Bistro, Diner
• Fishing: Grocery
• Gardening: Science lab
• Handiness: Military base
• Inventing: Science lab
• Logic: Science lab
• Painting: School
• Riding: Equestrian centres
• Science: Science lab
• Scuba Diving: Science lab
• Writing: Office

So much building! I'm on the home stretch now (AGAIN yes I know lmao). I need to decide where to put the cinema. I want it in the main town (which is where the theatre RH is anyway) but I have a spare corner 30x20 in the 2nd town that could totally be an opera house or something, after all it's near the retired opera singer :) (Does she come from there? I think so, but I have shuffled everyone around so fully by now!) But, maybe she retired away from where she works and not next door!

But, I need something for that corner and it's all big, idk what to call it exactly, civic architecture on that side of the pool. I copied the Isla Paradiso museum for an observatory on the opposite corner (where I might move the science stuff + RH from the hospital which it is opposite, maybe move the science stuff from the big museum-school-library which is in the central spot, an extended version of... idk... either MV's library or art gallery (arcade on the front?))

I'm finally happy with the fishing ponds cat jungle-park-cafe-pet shop! I gave the new building some more, idk, lumps lmao and also I exchanged a few of the formal garden details for something more natural and lush (not all of them - it still looks formal overall). Maybe it is because I'm English but I always prefer naturalistic gardens :) The IP rhododendrons look really cute shading and kind of arching the benches on the main plaza area! (I kept picking until I got medium-small ones hehe)

I guess I could put an opera house in that corner and have a cinema separately in the main town? But, it's always back to that question of making sims use things: but also making them NOT use too many things at once or they get too spread out. I'm still not totally happy with having the theater RH separate to the fake cinema. But, I landscaped it cutely (even though it overhangs the back of the lot I put it on!) The landscaping is mostly just from the criminal RH which is what used to be there :) So I'm not really deadset on keeping it, but I do like the globe RH!!

I think I might change my weird equestrian centre + football changing rooms lot into more of a gym, which is what I assigned it as. I really liked the tennis & badminton courts on my old gym. I can keep it mostly outdoor like that. And I might build a real horse ranch lot elsewhere! There is a loottt of spare room, even though I've condensed everything so heavily. I might have room on that new gym for a martial arts room and a dance room which I don't have anywhere right now - or maybe they could go into that 3rd community lot spot in the 2nd town. But then, should I make it a 2nd gym lot? No because I don't want that. Ohhh I hate that stupid baked in football field ;_; Maybe I need to go back to my old approach there: have some tennis courts near it, and keep the bleachers, but make that a park. The gym can go elsewhere. (But where?!) I do need a real playground, right now there's only the little one at the back of the pub.

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I realised I can't for the life of me be bothered to build a horse ranch (oh okay lmao, I guess for my actual life I would) so I downloaded one: Tudor Acres Equestrian Club by cutsocks. I haven't tried it yet, or decided where exactly to put it, but that's my next job when I load up the game :) cutsocks has contributed a few other lots to my Monte Vista: I copied most of his bank and the adjoining commercial building for a lot in the main town, and I also added his Italian church. I had to rebuild it a little both to my taste and to compensate for my missing EPs but it looks sooo cute :) I kept my English church too. The town is looking so pretty with all these grand buildings!

... I think I'm realising I haven't actually built a single lot for this MV. Everything is done-up MV buildings, MV RH rebuilds, rebuilds of other game lots, and these few downloaded lots (I will also mention here this beautiful garage by Flora2 - I had to redo a lot but the shell is hers and it looks soooooooo cute in MV!!) Or... maybe I built the Ultra-Luxe (I might rename it lmao)? It looks so similar to all the MV buildings, I'm not sure. Maybe it was the library once upon a time. But, it has a huge ground-floor-foundation thing for its grand steps, which I don't think anything in MV had, so idk. Cool! I built one lot. (My English church is a ripoff of sionelle's Norman-style Country Church.)

Okay, I looked at (my downloaded copy of because it's super useful!!) AznSensei's MV guide and the Ultra Luxe is definitely not the library, but I was inspired by it. But that library is so insipid isn't it? My (TACKY) grand hotel really goes the full mile. It's soooo beautiful. Have I mentioned here yet how I finally extended it fully symmetrically? In its old position, where I built it inside the main town, it could only have one balcony-wing-whatever. Now, pride of place in the break in the city wall where the City Hall RH was, it has room to... stretch its wings haha. And I gave it this super condensed, perspective-trick 'long cypress-lined driveway through the formal lawns, past the winding road' (like, 6 trees, 6 rows of grass and the winding path that leads to the lot!) and omgggggggg it's just so cute. Okay, I feel really happy knowing I built at least 2 of the top 5 lots in this world (I've decided to take full credit for the hospital RH rebuild even though it's half EA lmao).

I was just thinking that the UL has a gym (very small, just a complement to the spa) so maybe I don't need more. But, a gym lot assignment is a nice thing for the meathead sims to... meet each other. hehe :) Anyway, the MV sims are all so fit and trim, you know they are all very into exercising. It has two spas, too - two RHs and everything. I normally avoid things like that, but they are all so glamorous and serene, I think it makes sense! (Also, I love the spa as a player - fabulous money sink and way to claw back some free-playing time for your sims simultaneously! And my little simmies are so happy and pampered hehe)

Just as I was thinking I was sooo happy with the pizzeria-pub - it is beautiful, and it playtests beautifully apart from idiot sims making endless salad from the fridges, so I replaced them with the pantry shelves :D And I took out all bars and coffee machines and just put in a cafe bar upstairs next to the food register - I want to redo it. I was reading my initial notes about it and I realised I hate how the action is on two levels, even though it's SO BEAUTIFUL really I can't express how beautiful it is. It literally glows. I'll take some pics and ofc back the whole lot up very well (I recently got into the habit of renaming my library lots, I'm sooo organised now) but it's time to redo.

Issues:

• A pub needs a pool table and I'm 99% sure there's a UL one (not just the LN ones I don't have any more) that I don't have room for in this version. The downstairs is kinda full though - I guess the toilets can go upstairs?
• Where to put my beautiful pizzeria?!
• How to make sims use the pub without an attached restaurant? I guess I can just make it a nectary, which was my original plan? (And the downstairs is set up like that, with buying and tasting racks and a nectar merchant on the 'bar'.)
• What to put upstairs (apart from toilets): this isn't too bad, I can make a fake home for the 'landlord' (actually it was a landlady last time I tested, but same difference!).
• Not issue: now I will be able to find a place for my extracted deco dartboard :)

So, my only real issue is finding a new home for the pizzeria. It really is so pretty up there... it needs to go somewhere else beautiful.

There are some spare deco buildings kicking about - I haven't done anything at all with the ones adjoining the basilica, for example, but I don't think they're right for this. They look more like the offices of accountants and solicitors! The other big one right now is the shops in the former Mucho Espresso Cafe which is in its original position down in the 2nd town. But, I want this restaurant to be in the main town.

... or maybe I don't? Is the bistro at the hotel enough? No... I don't think so.

Other things I still haven't built:

• Cinema - if it has an eating place, it won't be this
• Potential opera house - no! The pizzeria is too casual
• Arcade - no... the pizzeria is too nice!
• Gym - no OHHHH unless it's not even a gym. Building in town with a pizzeria on the ground floor and stairs to some little rooms, one of which would be a chiropractor or something irl but will be martial arts and table tennis here haha. But... I don't want to limit the pizzeria to sporty sims

Maybe it does need to be in the 2nd town after all. I found out the thing that acts like a grocery RH is the food register, not the market stands like some people have said (I mean, you can buy ingredients at them, just not the full selection). It's annoying though because you don't get the separate tabs, and every ingredient is mingling with every cooked food, too... but I normally play gardeners & with the any ingredients mod so it's not a huge deal anyway. So I was thinking I would add a food register to that market, but I didn't want to draw an indoor grocery (maybe just a housewares shop). That building is big and it has lots of room for outdoor seating, too, which I thought I wouldn't use because I don't want too many cafes in this world (my automatic instinct as a builder is to build cafes for everything haha)

It does seem strange that the only eating options in town will be the bistro, when it's open, and I guess the seasons stand at the church?? But ofc this just leaves me an opportunity for another cafe hehe :) I suppose I might even leave a cafe bar or food register in the pub. Don't want those sims drinking all that nectar on an empty stomach :)

I think I might experiment with this custom resort buffet mod. Everything icarus_allsorts makes is great, but I've never used this one before, probably because I played with a resort for like 5 minutes before deciding I hated it. But I could have pub food in my pub this way without an extra npc behind the bar :) The glasses with the folded napkins are way too fancy though lmao.

One thing I'll need to check is if kids go to nectaries! They definitely came when it was a hangout. Which I guess I might leave it as :)

I haven't done any building yet, I have been working on a new homepage :) (New tab browser page homepage I mean!)

Idk if I want a diner in the new pizzeria or not. I kinda liked only having one RH restaurant for the jobs, but I miss Simona working in the local diner, also - and this new pizzeria will be local to her. (The original isn't - but until this rebuild, she worked in my american diner near her in the 2nd town.) With the icarus_allsorts mod, I can set a custom menu with just pizza and related meals/sides/desserts :) That could be fun. And maybe I would add a waiter?? It's the kind of restaurant that would have one. (And if I do, I should definitely add a fancy one to the bistro in the hotel!)

But, also, the food register would work fine there - especially in conjunction with the cafe counter. And the food register is a place to buy actual food ingredients, when I don't have a grocery RH in this world. Hmm... also, I guess something I could do is diner RH + cafe counter and maybe not bother with a waiter necessarily, the place will look 'staffed' after all - also I'll only need to put mains on the menu. Oh, thinking about it, I definitely want the cafe counter - what's an Italian restaurant without good coffee??

If I do use the RH, I don't want to use the register. I want to see sims eating the same kinds of foods on a lot, even if that's 'any'. I still haven't built/found a place for my fun Jetsons kinda bar :) That could have whichever I don't use here - though it would be an odd place to buy eggs and tofu and cookbooks... the pizzeria is not a great place for that, but it makes more sense to some degree (not a high degree - I know there are lots of restaurants that end up acting as small scale local wholesalers of specialty ingredients, but pizza ingredients are not going to be a specialty in Monte Vista, hehe!)

Maybe I need to give in and have a grocery RH. Ugh. I really liked the idea of fewer careers in town - more coworkers at each one. But I haven't had the heart to cut any main ones, and now it looks like I'll have all the part time ones too.

I could avoid it if I had some way of achieving tofu without that meat plant opportunity thing that I could never even get working. Inactives, I don't care what they're supposedly eating - and for my family, I am using the any ingredients mod anyway, but I'd just like to be able to buy some fucking tofu!! Without loading every food item in a horrible list!! Growing it would be fine. Can you get soy milk out of the store cows??? I kind of feel like you can... you can get chocolate milk at least!

It looks like you can't and to get plantable tofu I'd need some big annoying cooking overhaul... x_x

I lied yesterday, I had done some building: a new gym where the old school was, keeping the bleachers, the school RH rebuilt as the gym :) It looks good, I am just working out what things to put there apart from the obvious gym equipment: so far I am thinking definitely table tennis, dancing and martial arts, maybe rockclimbing, maybe some skating?? I don't have a big place for it this time. BUT in looking up what the difference is between the big and small rinks (apart from: big and small, obviously) I found out you can skate on ponds??? So long as they're big enough. So I really want to make a big park with a big pond! I've never seen that before.

I finished the gym that evening :) It is cute. it is a bit weird. I built the building all the way in the back left corner, mostly because it fit alongside the mini gym/changing rooms I'd already made and I wondered about joining them (like it was a newer extension). In the end I demolished the new block and replaced it with some cute basketball courts but the whole lot is strange. A kind of maze of carparks, paths and tennis courts on the front, haha. I like it though :) One of the tennis courts has the stadium RH rug. Hopefully soon I will be taking pictures :)

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Trying to tune icarus_allsort's cook with any ingredient mod. I assumed because the xml didn't have all the settings in that they couldn't all be set there, but a comment there inspired me to try and add them myself. It seems like setting don't choose number of servings false there works, but not buy from fridge or don't rename.

lmao I think I'm going to have to do all of this so I can get in that dll and turn that shit off that way (or, maybe even add them as real tuning values it reads!!!!!!!). Maybe I will x_x but not rn because I am lazy

I need to do another test before I quit and reopen to build: are the buffs working now I deleted that probably clashing buffs xml mod? CHECK!!! Or something is very wrong...

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That's fine, but I have some more problems. Deleting duplicated spawners without buydebug: I can use City Hall > NRaas > Master Controller > Object Stats > Local to see and delete them

I couldn't work out how to set front of lot, maybe 'cause it's just shift click not ctrl+shift or plain clicking

I grabbed a no autonomous view mod. Stop looking at the items lmao

And a note to myself: maybe just one tea table at cafe, so when sims use it at least they drink together

I love the sims :)

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I didn't need to go into live mode to delete the spawners after all! I could just find them. And they hadn't doubled, or I couldn't tell so. But after all that, I think I want fewer fish spawners there anyway (after just placing the full lake set haha). I don't want to see sharks in the pond lmao, and I have little interest in making my sims fish, so I think I'll just place a common lake 1 spawner so there's somewhere to catch goldfish.

The set front of lot thing doesn't work! idk what I am doing wrong...

The MC thing was easier than that post said, though: just on the lot nrass > MC > object stats, and I could see I do have one spawner probably under the cafe but oh well lmao

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I found out that the food register isn't too bad for buying food! It has tabs! Idk why I didn't think so! tofu is in the meat/cheese tab, nice and easy to find. I also found out there's no hot chocolate at the cafe bar? I guess I have a mod that adds it to coffee machines only. It's not a huge deal, there's plenty else to drink. Though I noticed it was all a bit hit and miss, but once Simona was able to order one drink in a category it seemed to work afterwards.

I mentioned Arsil's no cellphones mod 72 years ago and I gave it a quick test drive just now and I really like it! Sims still get party invites and opportunities.

More notes to self: maybe remove some tea tables from ul and ADD FIREPLACES!! add music maypole to church!

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I couldn't get fireplaces to look right in the hotel, but I did the other stuff. I did add a fireplace to the top part of the Mucho Espresso Cafe, which I've made into a kind of (super old fashioned) apartment for the bookshop owner. I haven't made the bookshop yet. :) I could have put more shops up there but I'm going to try and keep it simple because I've added lots of 'fair' stuff to the big square - the store merry-go-round, the seasons kissing booths and pie contest and love tester. I like that the kissing booths will have people in who can look like they're operating the fair :)

I finished the market lot! It has a diner in the new/moved pizzeria and it works really well. I also removed the pizzeria from the pub. It's sad, but it's nice with the pool table there now :)

My middle click is on the fritz which makes playing TS3 nearly impossible for me! Maybe I can fix it. I don't want a new mouse. I like this one! It's sooo lightweight and doesn't have any unnecessary buttons. I wish TS3 had better keymapping or something though so I could idk hold end and twist the camera. I don't like the ctrl+wasd camera controls, I already use wasd for screen and I like being able to use them oppositely, like panning or wtf :(

I've gotten used to pressing really hard to use middle click. Also, I'm experimenting with the ctrl+wasd camera controls but ugh, it's so clunky to not be able to move and tilt at the same time.

Yesterday, I finally completed the separation of the saucer section pizzeria and pub! And the pub got new blue umbrellas when the red ones went with the pizzeria, it looks really cute. I also took 2 tables from the covered porch thing and added some of those cute store hanging chairs :) They both playtest nicely - sims prefer to eat from the diner (they don't seem to use the cafe bar much?) than the candy floss and snow cone machines I added to the square with the carousel (and the two kissing booth sims who are running the 'fair' :D), and the pool table has become more popular than reading at the pub, though people still do that too :)

I'm not sure if they eat from the buffet table I put in, which works great with icarus_allsorts' mod to 1. enable it for lots like this and 2. choose the food. I chose fish and chips (vegetarian, natch) for a classic pub meal and then the tofurkey dinner, macaroni cheese and apple pie as a carvery menu. The turkey is great (though idk if people have turkey in carveries... beef, gammon? maybe turkey too), and the macaroni cheese is kind of a stand-in for cauliflower cheese, maybe the most controversial 'veg' - sims don't really do separate side dishes, so this was the likeliest option. And the apple pie is actually correct. Maybe slight preference for crumble, but they don't have that in the sims, just pie or cobbler. And a cobbler is more like a crumble, but they're not really something we do, so pie it is :)

It's easy to make everyone on the lot sit and eat by choosing the 'dine with' option. The only problem is, they're obsessed with getting behind the bar. I made it a continuation of the counter (as much as I could - the top shares a texture with the skirt of the tablecloth, as well as the napkins, so you have to go fabric. 2 channels for the tiny hardly visible platters though...) and moved the nectary register around so you can pretend she's the bartender and doing the carvery. But the illusion, weak as it is, is spoilt by sims going round the back! So I flipped it 180 but no, they still love to go around. I think maybe they wouldn't if they could access the side, but that would look worse most of the time: when not in use. So it just has to be like this, and it's not too bad!

I've also been playtesting a lot, or more like just playing :) I got this mod: annoyance disabler. Does what it says on the tin! I think I overlooked it because I filter by EP installed and it's marked as requiring SN and ITF, which it doesn't. It just doesn't disable the annoyances of those EPs... 'cause they don't exist :) I replaced two old faithfuls: bluegenjutsu's mascot disabler and Anach's no free ingredients in fridge. And it does even more, like those awful "MOVE TO A NEW TOWN" (on your new save you just made) and all the rest.

I'm having one small problem which is errortrap resetting sims playing basketball. Not all of them! Just some. All I found is this thread about someone getting CTDs, which I'm not, thank god. It's just resetting sims doing "Work out until fatigued" I assume due to SP because it says user-directed because of "A null value was found where an object instance was required" which is some kind of animation I think, "Sims3.Store.Objects.Sims3.Store.Objects.BBallHoop:WorkoutAnimationWithoutIdle". But it's so weird 'cause I watched sims playing loads of basketball and not resetting. Hmm :S