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I'm actually making progress with my cc sorting, for once. And for all? I'm going through category by category, deleting and fixing right down to the descriptions. I've got about 700 finished files so far, all build and buy mode, and I'm working my way through another 2.2k or so objects (wish I knew how many it had been before I whittled the first part down to 700 - honestly, I feel like the figure 4k was around in my head for some reason, so... maybe halfway!). Then there's 356 patterns lol, they're already pretty heavily sorted but can you imagine waiting for them all to load in game? then omg, 1.8k cas items, I think.

So like fuck all that, I was thinking about replacing the vacation worlds, seeing as I don't want to run NRaas Traveler with simler90's mod. I never used to use Traveler lol, so I felt fine about 'losing' it... but now I'm craving more locations. I guess as backups for whatever I can't fit into my world. So far, I'm thinking:

• Riviera with a Monte Carlo-style casino (fun France replacement)
• or Las Vegas - probably just use Lucky Palms
• tropical island resort (probably Suvadiva)
• something snowy mountainy, whether alps or something more Three Lakesy
• or the kind of christmas river cruise to St Petersburg I obviously cannot actually take

The Monaco will be fine as a Champs-les-Sims replacement, and I was thinking the tropical island could be somewhere near enough to China that it could be used as a replacement, but then wtf am I going to do with Egypt becoming snowy lol! Also, when I think of all worlds I kinda wish I was playing too, there are post-apocalyptic ones like Woeford which are absolutely, resolutely not holiday destinations; make no sense as somewhere your sims could travel... but... I want!!!!!!

I guess I can be more sensible:

• A desert location is good because I'm playing on a temperate island (even though I have a hell of a lot of leeway flora-wise)
• A city location because it's rural? I guess it would be easier to fake a big bustling city when it's not truly playable (no time to notice most buildings are objects when you're only there for a week)
• Is there a third opposite of St. Fleaby's in any way? I guess it's extremes of temperature: either a tropical paradise (as opposed to a shitty and awful merely subtropical paradise) or a winter wonderland

I can mix those somewhat. It could be a desert city, tropical city or winter city. But, I think I'll rule out tropical city right away. If my sims are holidaying somewhere hot (especially if this is a bit of winter sun), it's just white sands and palm trees and perhaps some variety of hut.

So, maybe desert city is the best choice, even though I'm more attracted to the true desert (not exactly playable though) or at least the rural and small town desert. But I think maybe a redo of Lucky Palms with a more Strip-like main town is doable!

That leaves the winter wonderland free to be more idyllic. It needs to be somewhere big enough for a christmas market and a spa hotel, but that's pretty easy!

... actually, I can do something quicker, easier, more playable and also crucially far funnier than Lucky Palms 2: Sim Primm. Miniaturised, maybe just 2 far smaller resorts, and nothing else (okay, maybe a little bit of something else). I can do a large world as fake distant terrain but yes! Travel halfway around the world to just go to somewhere like Primm. For an entire fortnight. If you're good, I'll let you leave the hotel to go and do hot air balloons or something. Okay. I am fucking sold. I just hope the world-replacement thing will actually work! And I need a proper idea for the christmas village.

So, which worlds replace which? I just remembered I was going to make sim-Natalia French so she was "european" - I thought the cheek kisses would be cute. Doing this implies Soviet France - or at least that if I am going to use the Russian set for the winter wonderland, it should be France :) But maybe I should just do that anyway.

It's been too long since I played in the WA worlds, so I'm going off the wiki: apart from the songs, the big two things are Chinese chopsticks and French cheek kisses. Egypt doesn't have anything on that level. Where should they eat with chopsticks? Neither stands out as particularly suitable. So maybe I should just keep Egypt as the desert world!

• Sim Primm: Egypt (spring-summer only)
• Tropical island: China (perma-summer)
• Winter wonderland: France (perma-winter)

Ooh, a plan! But I'd better finish building St Fleaby's first. I guess I feel a bit better knowing I can have big rollercoasters, hotels and snow activities in other worlds :)

Just a note to myself - it looks easy to change Arsil's icecream counter mod to sell the van icecreams (from Pets, why is it from Pets and not Seasons or at least Generations lol). I think also its nature as a modded concessions stand means it should be fine to only have it in summer or at least spring-autumn. I need a way to kinda block it off in a seasonal-lot items kind of way the rest of the time (if I want it to be a hole in the wall like it should be)

I've been thinking about reinstalling Nraas Careers just to get some placeholders. I'd like an unemployed+stipend to reflect a housewife receiving child benefit. I've also redone the characters after already writing about them here ;_; Some are dead and gone but a new one is a vicar. I'm hoping to use PJ's social club mod to get a sunday service, so he needs to live in town. I think I'm alright with vanilla for the fishermen, I think angler is a career I can assign them, or maybe it's ambitions-only? In which case I do need to give them a placeholder too.

I need to think about the other jobs in town. And what I'm going to do with the counters! I hate how unplayable they get (apparently you can't invite them to parties even when they're supposed to be off-duty), but I don't want randoms. Anyway, for the bistro, I'm thinking I need to mod the rh as well as the career to get like weds-sat 12-10 or something. There's no good way to give separate shifts lol so everyone who works there has to constantly work.

Still thinking about jobs. Despite it being on my spreadsheet, I'd neglected that the part-time careers have no mandatory coworkers, which is good; but they're really designed specifically for teenagers, which is annoying (especially because they work every evening instead of on a saturday??)

I just stumbled across 99simsonthewall's Kit Island, where she's built a ferry to the mainland with a bunch of rh rugs on it for the 'commuters'. That's a really fun idea! Not sure I'll use it, but it's a great option. I'd been thinking about a ferry anyway, mainly a car ferry so I could justify car ownership.

I'm also thinking about worlds & vacation worlds again. Maybe I'll just have a 2nd world for playing in, idk. I really want to build a stupid New Vegas world (instead I should be finishing my actual NV building mods!). I could also go back to MV this way too (but will I?) I'm thinking I just will have the amusements on St Fleaby's regardless of how little sense they make. I can always make townies for tourists when I feel like it. And totally-annhilate them when I stop feeling like it. :) The holiday stuff just bloats the game soooo badly. I never really succeeded with a save after doing those adventures or even just holidaying in those worlds. I think that's something to do with all the inventory items you accumulate as much as all the new sims and lot info to load (shouldn't matter so much when it's not fully loaded, but it seems to). It's a shame, because I really love the idea of them going on holiday, and even of certain sims being all tomb raidery!

I can also think more about hotels. I'd like one to have a spa, but that means either a really grand hotel or something kind of too modern. I'm not wedded to historical gameplay by any means, not least 'cause I can't pick a specific time, but some things just ring too modern (or maybe just too fancy, or too city, but it's all the same).

I really want a pink Streamline Moderne hotel on the beach! And the b&b I was contractually obliged to have. I'd really like it to be a specific one I stayed in as a child, but I can't really remember the whole layout: I can't remember if the owner's quarters were actually separate or to what degree (I'm thinking something like: 2 halves of a semi/a few terraces, downstairs is guest sitting room up to guest bedrooms/bathroom, guest dining room, kitchen, through to owner's sitting room up to owner's bedroom/bathroom). Thing is, I'm not sure even the pink hotel, which might even have en-suites, has a spa. I recently had lunch at Moor Hall, and that's a good example of a non-city, erm, vintage-era(??? 20th century lol, definitely post WW1, probably post WW2, that's how wide my net is) hotel with a spa, though idk how long they've had the spa exactly. But I don't want the Trevellicks to either live in/run a hotel or to have been evicted from one, and idk how many grand houses St Fleaby's could realistically have. But my idea for them was already that they're not (any longer) part of the main landowning family, so maybe the hotel is somewhat like Moor Hall, torn down and rebuilt and then never actually lived in by whoever actually inherited. Because, much as I love stately homes and indeed building them in TS3, they're not very playable, so I was thinking the Trevellicks would be living in a simpler (though still grand) georgian affair of some boring boxiness, but oh, I apparently can't even type about it without obviously doubting my decision.

Otherwise, the spa should just be a kind of treatment room maybe above another business. Which is also fine, but I really enjoy making big spas with swimming pools and saunas and and and haha. Well, I was thinking about that big grand greenhouse as a swimming pool, so I guess it could be a spa too - why not? Maybe a good place for the tea tables, seeing as I'm faltering on having a dedicated cafe (I know, I know, it's the most insane thing anyone ever said about a sims world, but like 3 people live here)

Okay so I'm still alive. Idk what I was doing for those months. Probably DF, Warband, Civ5 but also lots of X-Men films and fanfic lol. But then I heard Cherry ChaCha last night and immediately shifted back into sims mode. Except I don't know what I'm doing

I've been catching up on cc, first through MTS, and for some reason I'm thinking I want no story progression ? And to play multiple households, not exactly as a rotation, well maybe. But I wouldn't want to stay away from houses with kids too long, but that might neglect the adult households. Hmm, on like the 5th of February, so like the day after I fell off the face of the internet lol, I was finalising a new new lifespan (I never put the inbetween ones on here... it ended with a 48 day year which represented 4 real years) - real ageing 'cause I'm insane. That's a 36 day year, which was as low as I could stand & makes a 100 year lifespan of 3600 which was as high as I could tolerate (too high!!! I was happy with my min 900, avg 960). But I want baby birthdays :) And it should be easier to catch and delete unwanted (impossible!) pregnancies like this lol.

For the agespans, I'd worked out that 0.75-3-13-18-36-66 are the kind of real ages. But that for gameplay reasons I'm going to do 1-4-11-16-36-50. Real baby-toddler birthday turning 1, starting school at 4 (ideally 5 but I don't want toddler that long), starting high school at 11 (fine but annoying that it's called "teen") & leaving at 16 (lol the bright ones can go to uni but now at least they can all work & have sex), still getting fully adult at 36 (like mEEEEE the sims child) & elder at 50 for old fashioned vibes lol, better greys if I miss anyone, but mainly as a stopgap menopause! It's perfect for menopause really (but a bit weird they all hit it at the same time haha), a bit late for greys, a bit early to look old, very early to retire, but whatever. And I'm going to start the auto roll for death at 100, but I'll do my own rolls before that. And also just strike them down like a vengeful god!!!!11

Then for cats/dogs (based on cats), kitten for a year (mix of how they're actually kittens for half a year + little baby cats for 2 years, and to enjoy the kitten stage more!), elder at 9, start rolling for death at 13 like poor baby Flea :( But maybe that's extended to 18 with the animal lover LTR. About a third will survive to 18 without it, to 21 with it; 3% will survive to 23 without it, to 28 with it. So that seems fairly realistic and also allows for cat ghosts and kitten turnover!!

The year is divided into astronomy decans! There's 36 of them & it helps me work out what the birthdays are :) The seasons aren't evenly divided: there's 8 days of winter (3 at the start of the calendar year), 9 days of spring, 11 days of summer & 8 days of autumn. Spring starts at Candlemas mainly so the xmas decorations will go down, summer starts on May Day 'cause it's traditional, autumn starts at the end of August which is a concept that seems to piss a lot of people off but like, it should be the start lol considering where midsummer is, and then winter starts immediately after Bonfire Night which is the day after Halloween which means the default Spooky Night or whatever it's called should work there. I wish it was possible to actually have Bonfire Night :( Leisure Day fireworks party could kinda work, but not so much the pool parties!! Anyway, also, Christmas Day & New Years end up as the same day which I'm kinda not sure about, but then New Year's Day can be a wintery Leisure Day, idk how well that will work but whatever :) There will be two Love Days, one for Valentine's/Pancake Day and one for Easter, and a Leisure Day immediately after Easter to be both the easter bank holiday & the May one (which is too close to the turn of the season); a midsummer Leisure Day and another one for the start of the school holidays (which I'll have to do manually every year...).

yeah then I spent like an hour writing this up... but I'm sleepy!!! night night

Omg it's August. Where has this year gone?

Notes for me (but also you):

If you turn off Story Progression, Story Progression is off. I don't know what they mean who told you that it is otherwise. There are, however, some mechanisms in the game that some people think are part of Story Progression but which actually are not and are independent of it. Co-workers will be chosen randomly or created afresh if an active Sim works in a rabbithole or a profession like firefighter that requires co-workers; some roles like Stylist or Consignment Clerk are filled with residents, if there are none the game will move some in; the Neighbourhood Pet Adoption system is not part of Story Progression either. Story Progression also has nothing to do with inactive Sims leaving their houses and visiting their neighbours or community lots; this is done by MetaAutonomy and I don't know whether NRaas SP can disable that. And turning off Autonomy is only valid for the active household.

- Don Babilon in this post in this thread

This is why you have no inactive resident pet adoptions. Unchecking those boxes means you are telling the game that you do not wish to have pets in town other than those you place yourself, and do not want pets created in any automated way, so the portion of the world simulator (game engine) that automatically creates and places them through adoption or breeding gets switched off.

And that's totally fine, but I think many players do want some inactive households to acquire a small and reasonable number of pets over time on their own and maybe have them mate and give birth to litters on occasion. But, rightfully so, they do not trust the built in systems to recognize what "small and reasonable" even mean.

The scenario that Overwatch controls is a weird and special case of the above, not related to what might be regarded as the more natural flow of animal populations through households with pets immigrating in, other forms of adoption, and animal births.

- igazor in this post in this thread

So I'm fine with EA SP off, hopefully simler90's gameplay fixes still working (I need to test a barista bar with it off, actually, because that's the big one), Overwatch pet adoption disabled, Register or whatever stops strays & limits service sims (plus my xml mods for the missing ones). Then the only things are: register sims (I think I'm most okay with letting them be called ____ Townie and ignoring them...? I wish real sims could work them like real careers) & making sure to limit the number of careers so people only have real coworkers and bosses.

Just when I thought I'd finalised the time stuff, I'm having second thoughts. Though it seems too long, maybe it's not long enough? It's too long for one family play (...or is it? Being slightly bored of them might encourage me to let them die!!) but it's not long enough to move around the town. I was never considering a proper rotation thing - just to drop in at interesting times and, with progression off, to move their lives forward whenever it seems necessary.

I was mad because I really like my decans thing. It's a nice way to divide up a real year. But now I'm thinking I'm going to simply add a Christmas/New Year week, which I really wanted anyway, and an Easter week to have fun with and also kind of to balance the year & enjoy more spring. I was wondering what to do with pregnancies, but I think I'll just extend them to whatever the right percentage of the new full year is - the differing 'real' lengths adds realism haha, and it's another reason to have 2 weeks in 2 parts of the year so it's not that everyone at one end of the year is premature/overdue! Although, I might do just easter weekend & some more days somewhere else.

I was also thinking about seasons and realism. I can do weather with Tempest, so the big thing is the seasonal effects. Winter means xmas decorations, which I've already mostly accounted for but maybe means it ought to start at Advent. That only means moving it by a day (from Scorpio 3 (Nov 13-22) to Sagittarius 1 (Nov 23-Dec 2), see, it's an amazing system!!). Autumn means falling leaves, and spring means wildflowers. So I should probably have a later, shorter autumn. It can start in August but it's more the grass that goes. I don't know about the weather in the Isles of Scilly, but up here I suppose I associate October with falling orange leaves & November with knee high sludge lol. Let's say because it's mild it only starts in October, when there's no more hope of an indian summer. I'm happy with a super long summer because of it being mild and also because it fits the vaguely nostalgic vibes, and I want the little kiddies to be happy. Oh - I can move the extra extra days to the summer holidays!

Without a full week for easter and hence a guaranteed weekend, I guess it means we're getting real moveable easter haha! I'll need to find the weekend around the time I add the extra days and then that's easter and I should, well, can I move Love Day at such short notice? Or should I just give everyone a day off through Master Controller? Ugh, I wish the valentine's and easter stuff was separable :(

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I have a good-looking year now! I think! Aries 2 becomes 3 days to give some room for easter, Leo 1 becomes 3 days and Leo 2 & 3 become 2 each to give a nice long summer holiday for the kids! And I started with Capricorn 1 being split into new Capricorn 1 just the 22nd and 23rd, then Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, Capricorn 1.5 from the 27th to the 30th, and New Years Eve as its own day :) And I'm going to manually do Boxing Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday + Easter Monday as days off, separate to the Leisure Day bank holidays throughout summer :) So Snowflake Day is just actual xmas, Love Day is actual Valentine's (also Pancake Day haha), and I'm still on the fence about Spooky Day but we can do that and/or bonfire night party the next day. Hopefully.

Now I'm thinking more about careers. Turning progression off has given me a lot more freedom because I don't need to work around its dumb decisions. But yeah, part of the reason I wanted to change the years was because I was thinking 100 years, a super long lifespan, was going to be 3600 days (now 4800), which is 4x the ~900 I wanted. So it's like 4 generations... or... well... no... it's even worse isn't it because generations overlap ;_; It's at least 8 generations. I normally get bored well before even 4, but I thought that would be good. The other consideration is eras. I think I'm going to play actually historically. So 4800 days now will take us from 1920 to 2020. It seems so much, but just 480 days with lame changing outfits every decade, but can I really be bothered to change a whole town more than that? But honestly, maybe yes. Anyway, it's the youngest ones who'll change clothes most and also have more fun clothes, so it's not so bad to change them every year & their parents every 5 years and their grandparents every 10 years, or something vaguely like that.

But anyway, careers! I'm so bad at staying on track. The main reason I write this diary is to organise my thoughts and my notes, but you couldn't tell, could you? The thing is, the island at least at first is going to be a rich family who don't work and a bunch of fishermen and their wives. And a tiny smattering of their elderly family who are truly too decrepit to keep doing what they've done their whole lives. A vicar is a good idea too. If he's married, his wife can be the schoolteacher. But that's a grand total of one actual sims job - which I can't actually use because it's ambitions, rofl! Now, missyhissy has a BG teaching career, but it would require installing NRaas Careers. I'd been meaning to to provide child benefit and pensions through its unemployed module, but child benefit only came in in 1945. Pensions for 70 year olds began in 1909 so that's fine. But also, sims always have too much money!

I can't find a proper fishing job. The profession is ambitions-only, but anyway, it's not right. I want them to go out on boats! Even though I think it's mostly on the shore but whatever. There's no satisfying farming jobs, either. But then, I guess that makes it okay to be unemployed? Sims really do accumulate money too quickly, so I'm sure they'll all be fine just selling bits. They'll only need money when I'm playing them, anyway!

The other thing I'm going to need going forwards is a way to send the men away in WW2! Well, the farmers would be exempt, and idk what kind of military I'm going to have on the island still, so I suppose they could be working there. I don't knooooow I never intended for this to happen. They were supposed to be living in a bizarre perma 1970, probably.

... I just got sidetracked looking for more ww2 stuff, because I don't have a lot (because it's ugly!). But I'm sure I don't need anything. I have plenty of midcentury stuff in general, and CaST makes everything so versatile. But okay, back to careers.

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Okay, one afternoon sidetracking & and a chinese takeaway later and I have something: rich family should be doing the "horse(wo)man" (I guess horse-person sounds too much like a centaur, and nobody can spell equaisitiatsiian) career/profession/whatever which is just about them winning competitions & selling horses and getting ocassional bonuses for doing so. I really want lots of horses on St. Fleaby's & this will be an incentive! It can obviously be a part-time affair for other families too, whether or not they're signed up. And it will be part-time for the miserable rich people too :)

I can't use the nectar and photography ones even though they're really WA - they require AMB too. But I should remember photography exists at all, and that nectar can be a career and not just a hobby! There's also scuba diver as an IP profession (which kind of works for fishing), and maybe I should remember lifeguard.

I tried out some custom worlds. One is this super cute complete TS1 world. It's so fun to look at and was obviously so much work, but it's too big to play and not really my style anyway. But it's really amazing. The other is Saint Greer Islands which is terrible, but has made me feel better about my own CAW abilities. But I like her idea of 3 islands. I'm thinking I need to do that with St. Fleaby's. I love the idea of filling most of a large world with one beautiful realistic island, but it's a lot of landscaping for nearly no play value! I did also want to do St. Agnes and Gugh anyway, but it was too big, but if I'm willing to take liberties I can have that + 1 or 2 more outlying islands. But then, they get all clustered together when I'm not planning to make a custom terrain with the 'other' isles of Simly... so idk, maybe back to confusion lol.

Late last year I'd worked out a plan for recipes: to use more of the any/veg/fruit ingredients for more freedom but also making most recipes 2/3 ingredients instead of 1/2, and adding things like cocoa to the chocolate chip cookies. It's because I can't be doing with the otherwise wonderful cook with any ingredient mod and I just want something simpler aside from the dodgy tuning. But I'd love an easy way to get the baking stuff on a normal oven. I'm going to look into custom recipes, but in the mean time I'm checking how transferable the slots are to other objects with the transmogrifier. So far, it seems the wood fire oven is an okay replacement, but the tray gets stuck to their hand when it's supposed to be in the oven! Same with small and big bbqs. It works on a fireplace but not a firepit, but it makes them emit light permanently which looks odd. Lol, also the fireplace is not deletable, even after replacing the script. Can use a sink (in the same shit way), but can't use a counter, when I was thinking it's just about a counter-height slot. A normal oven seems to kind of eat the food???

I have a nasty feeling I did all this testing before, but I'm actually in the middle of a website redesign and it's annoying to check ;_;

I also keep wondering if I want the bakers station at all. Is that too crazy? I love to bake. But it's annoying in the sims because they never have room for afters. Though I did make a mod to make food less filling for that reason (and that they could live on a salad a day...)

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With the historical start I'm probably now going to do (I might revert to my vague-retro preferred style once we get to the 90s), it changes what buildings we'll have. We'll actually be able to see the art deco houses go up, and the midcentury bungalows, for their original owners! But what about the community lots? That was already a crazy mystery to me.

Oh, and seeing someone talk about IP reminded me of another reason to have one island: to stop them swimming and getting water taxis everywhere ;_;

Anyway, yesterday's sidetrack was: do I want savvy seller bullshit? I hate the way it works, yes even with ani's mod. (It's crazy - I think I hate all ani's mods, even though we have vaguely similar playstyles. But I suppose the playstyle is ultimately "control freak", so it's no surprise!) But I think I want to sell & buy nectar this way rather than the register-sim and the racks of generated wine. I wish you could kind of like, trade with other sims. Like Fallout. Just catch the nectarmaker and buy what you want!

I need to check seasons transition length. Or maybe Tempest handles that intelligently for me.

This is because I'm thinking 48 day years aren't long enough lol. I just don't think I'll have time to rotate nicely with 5-10 families which is the goal. But doubling means 96 day long years. I think 100 days is normally when I top out so this is obviously insane. But that's when I play as a single sim in a large populated world, generally. I'm going to try doubling the old 36 year as a base, even though I just sat and added new rows between all 24 lines of the 48 year. Wish me and my wrist luck!

Did I do nothing yesterday, or just forget to write it? Maybe I finished the new longer year then...? lol I just forgot to change the date.

Anyway, today just now I made a mod to stop all the mean sims shooing cats off furniture (actually just to make it user controlled only, but it only had adverts for those traits anyway). So now I can play with grumpy and mean-spirited sims, and I guess evil too but I doubt I will! I should upload it but I'm soooo lazy. I will upload it one day. Anyway it's easy, if you are the kind of person who reads this kind of blog for modding ideas for themselves.

I am going to make my Magneto sim I'm going to make hot-headed and mean-spirited lol. But also good... and athletic... and genius or brave idk. His husband is a genius obviously. And charismatic. Perfectionist? I want to give all sims at least one bad trait. But yeah also family-oriented (to adopt all those kids such as the one they'll come with which is babby Jean Grey) and a hopeless romantic to have married him rofl. They are going to arrive in the mid 70s I think and I'm going to make them married and officially her parents but like, secretly.

I'm glad I have a version of the social club mod before she silently updated it to need mono patcher ._. idek why I don't want it, I guess I just don't want anything haha!

Anyway, I put it in game in my little test Sunset Valley to have a good look at the options. I'd like to use it for a school, and I ought to be able to either put the teacher in the class or use the register object I'm also looking at. I can set every school day in individual clubs (with season settings!) assuming 1. I can be bothered and 2. I can be bothered to close and open each club for the summer holidays. I'd like to do morning and afternoon classes, and I suppose I can double/triple/more those up through the week to save on admin. So, okay, school-y activities!

More for toddlers: activity table. For all: collect insects, rocks/gems, seashells, wildflowers; paint; play football, "table" tennis (I have tennis mod!); practice chess; practice guitar; practice writing (but that would be pcs/equiv); read; "research science" (what is that); study with group (needs uni items in inventories); swim. Maybe trickier to set up: give lecture... I want only the teacher to lecture lol! Also one for the church. And there's also "do homework", but that will only work if they're NRaas homeschooled. Which I suppose they could be...

I was disappointed ballet wasn't an option, but apparently it is, but only if I place the item! And archery, but not violin :(

Also, if a club has no activities, they'll just do stuff on the lot. And the collect things won't collect anything without spawners - they'll just pretend. And, every club needs its own item.

Something I forgot to write down is that I can add sims to community lots and apparently it works pretty well? They don't have mailboxes and you shouldn't add one, so what is that, no bills, no book clubs, no charity donations? Not a huge deal, and honestly no bills for a business owner is kind of a plus for me (my sims are not really going to have "bills" for a long time, so it's more like general costs, and so an unsimulated business's income can be counted against that). Idk why I didn't know this until recently! It changes everything.

Oh, one problem - the no cellphones mod I use requires clicking the mailbox (per family??) No, it's global, bless you Arsil (again) ♥

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I just finished the little site redesign and also committed myself to a 100-day year, largely because I saw an even more insane person than me telling about theirs being 120. I just don't want the years to go by too quickly!

So far I have 6 spare days. It's kind of like the 72-day year except every decan started as 2 days, and then I did the same +4 easter days, +7 xmas/NY days, and +9 summer hols instead of +8 (and that's with every day already being doubled! so it's 18 days, nearly a 5th of the year!) And there's also a Valentine's Day and Bonfire Night. But what to do with those spare 6 days... I'm kinda wondering if they shouldn't go all around easter, too. The year balance kinda needs it (even with something like that, the 1st of July is (the end of!) day 47...) Hmm... I could make May twice as long, seeing as it's my favourite month???

Going back to my recipe modding... I still don't understand why I can't make the bakers station things cookable from fridge. I'm staring at them in winmerge and really struggling to see what that crucial difference is :/

Anyway, I just found out cocoa must be a fruit, 'cause Bella Goth just made Cocoa Cobbler after buying from fridge. I suppose it makes sense - it will fit in any of the sweet recipes that work this way, which is just pancakes and cobbler.

God, I hate the baker's station so much! I wouldn't care that it was a counter - I just hate that it's an oven! It's beyond ridiculous to have two ovens in a small kitchen. And I just hate the only mod that fixes this madness ;_;

I think it's recipe_class that makes it cooked??? I don't even know this much ;_;

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I thought I had it finally, but no... ugh!!! I hate this shit so much.

I gave up. I'm going to go the opposite direction and just have normal + pizza oven recipes, but I'm going to get rid of most of them (I was already getting rid of meat), and rename and redo most of what I keep. (Actually probably all of them are going to at least get 2nd and 3rd ingredients and different times of day.) Maybe I kind of miss the simplicity of TS1! Or even just the much more normal food of TS2.

Yesterday I went through the library houses and deleted all the ones I don't like, which is most of them. It all loads so much faster now! I kept Aero Dynamo, my favourite, A Doll's House, Rose Haven and The Rookery. All need redoing in some ways - actually, the doll's house is kind of ugly and stupid, but I just love it!

Just now, I was having a look at the pretty world Mariners Reach and also using it to try to test if pushchairs work without roads, and they do. But for 'go for a stroll' at least you might need paths. That's okay, I was going to have paths anyway probably!

But I found out I have a mod, probably by TSS, that lets toddlers learn how to walk by themselves - and also that they'll do it in like 2 hours ;_; I need to get rid of that and slow it down massively I think.

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Ugh, well, I found the mod, it was standalone, and I realised I didn't want to get rid of it because it's so cute, but the tuning only maybe let me divide it by 7 which is still waaaaay too fast, like even on normal lifespan!! So I thought oky I'll try 0, and see if it worked. It didn't crash, but it just gained skill normally :/ So I have to get rid.

Not sure what I've been doing exactly apart from just plodding along. I haven't made any more progress with my cc. Now I'm thinking again-again and more seriously about installing LN. Which I think would mean a full reinstall lol because I really did so much like cleaning up the library, and I think that messes with anything that patches, and idk if I'd need to patch or what - I have a real aversion to installing packs in the wrong order and I'm not sure if that's more for TS2 or TS1 reasons, but it just seems deeply verboten.

But I want LN! I don't want ugly vampires or stupid celebrities, but I want the instruments a lot, darts and wine glasses a fair portion. I'm not sure there's anything else I haven't already got extracted - even the aquarium window. I suppose there's the bubble bar? It's kinda lame though & even Sandy's hookah version won't fit my world. And I have all the light effects, even. But yeah - piano for my sims, bass for me, darts for everyone!!

Oh, there's also these signs that require LN, I've remembered now. Though idk if I'll use them - not in St. Fleaby's, at least. But - I love signs!!

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I forgot, but these nicely labelled hiders are not just a useful shortcut for hiding items you do have, but a thorough build/buy catalogue for all eps and sps you don't have installed!

I'd forgotten that LN has some fun tiled floors, cute ceiling lights, and some fun neon signs. I remembered the cute paintings because I have them as BGC. There's also a load of bathroom decor I'd have to recategorise...

... and this is all also making me want to reinstall a bunch of SPs. Though, I can only find my installers for TLS, MSS, Decades and Movies. And I was looking for hiders for Movies when I found cas hiders for every sp and ep :) And here is the best overview of Movie Stuff build/buy.

I need to look up if there's any meaning to paths vs roads for horse riding. Hmm... and jogging. I know sims can ride/jog anywhere, but idk about the automated stuff. Also, I need to know if horses can fit down paths - being ridden and being led (can you lead them outside of lots??? it's been too long since I played with a horse!)

I need to remember that there's no actual underwear in TS3. I'm still in TS2 mode thinking I need actual undercrackers as well as pajamas. I'm thinking I should go robe heavy, especially as they have a tendency to wander around in whatever it is (absolutely ridiculous when it's underwear for 99% of sims!) I'm annoyed because I spent a lot of time sorting out some MSS & store separates that are so cute (probably all by sweetdevil, but I'm too lazy to find you the links). I also have a bajillion cute JoshQ stockings I suffered through the loverslab ui to get, but if the lace isn't even going to be visible in any outfits now... ;_; Though, I think the suspender belts will make me happy just knowing they're there and holding the stockings up, lol. And I'm sure they'll sometimes be somewhat visible. But it does make it easier to pare down the collection!

Ooh, maybe I could do summer/winter pjs, like I plan to with outfits? But maybe the route for forcing the change on the town doesn't work. I'm still not convinced that will work at all ;_; Oh, if only they'd done more with the seasons outfits. How amazing if you could do it like the accessories per category, totally optional, but all categories having 4 seasons?

Maybe I can keep just the knickers from this set. I only kept 2 bottoms and 3 bras anyway (and I didn't keep them for all ages when they were too young/old - I really spent some thought on this ;_;). We can do knickers + vests/t-shirts for some women. Maybe. But that balconette is so pretty!!!! Anyway, it makes things easier in a lot of respects, less choice and more about patterns :) I seriously need a big sheer feather cuff kind of robe though... and I think a few more choices for men. The MSS open robes are good, but I need a closed one, and I can't remember how much I like the plain pjs.

I can't find the feather robe of my dreams, and people have been looking for nearly a decade, but I found a pair of surprisingly cute TS4 conversions: sheer sleeves and fluffy trim, just unfortunately not together ;_; But these are slightly more usable for more sims, I guess. I also have the slippers thanks to CherieDawn67 who made them in request to a wcif :)

So, I'm not just considering reinstalling LN, but uninstalling UL? :/ It was my favourite for a long time, but I guess I play differently now. Even now the barista bar is fixed, I'm not going to use it, for example.

The things I thought I loved just seem blander. Like the herbs: I was thinking of making basil an italian recipe ingredient, for example, but that's it! Ofc there's ♥lavender♥, but it does so little. There's lavender tea which has the same better sleep effect chamomile should share, but it has some social group bullshit instead, and those are the only interesting herbs. The coffee is downright annoying when it's clogging up the random spawns. They have peppermint tea and it does nothing? I don't even necessarily like the moodlet mania, but why is it so patchy?

I should like plantsims, but I don't. I think the only good thing about them is the flower trail, and I don't like that it comes up on floors. I don't like all the replacing that's needed, either. They're sooo ugly by default! I do like the photosynthesising, though. I've been amassing dryad/nymph cc, so I can make her as a normal sim (how to pause her aging though hmm - gen age freeze potion!)

Items I'd maybe miss and could conceivably extract:

• deskOpenSidesCenterUniv2x1 - big fancy heavy desk
• sculptureWallUnivShelfBottlesTileable - bottles on a shelf, I use it in bars not bathrooms! (but this is better, I think)
• sculptureFloorUnivMakeupKit - nice all in one makeup box
• end tables: cheap tableEndUnivTvTray, magazine rack tableEndUnivRack, and cute tableEndUnivGlobe
• shelves: kind of rustic shelfWallUnivDorm2x1, industrial/bathroom shelfWallUnivToystandTileable
• cheap old community lot chair chairDiningUnivPaint
• leather sofa set sofaUnivReading & loveseatUnivTuft (although idk how many families I'll have that would really have these lol)
• kind of pleasantly midretro telly tvUnivJock - decluttered version
• cute record player with records stereoTowerUnivRecordplayer (even cuter player only version but the link is broken...)
• art stuff: sculptureTableUnivPaintbrushes and sculptureTableUnivFigure
• lightingTableUnivDuck - DUCK LAMP
• a bunch of teenage wall stuff: sculptureWallUnivPosters2x1, sculptureWallUnivPhotosPinned2x1, sculptureWallUnivBulletinBoard2x1, sculptureWallUnivHeart2x1, mirrorWallUnivDoll
• sports awards: sculptureWallUnivFrames, sculptureTableUnivAchievements
• kinda like sculptureTableUnivGriffin though idk if I ever used it
• the NEON: sculptureWallSignNeonJuice, sculptureWallSignNeonScience, sculptureWallSignNeonTarget
• the signs, particularly the generic sculptureWallSignHipsterA, sculptureWallSignHipster & sculptureWallSignSportsBar, but also sculptureWallSignComic01, sculptureWallSignComic02 and sculptureWallSignGymEP09. and also sculptureWallSignBowling if I was going to have bowling :/
• pile of recolourable books sculptureTableUnivYearbooks very useful!!
• 1-tile end table height dresser dresserTallDorm, though there's also more attractive taller dresserTallGenTeen in Gen
• sculptureWallUnivOars2x1
• painted carpark spaces parkingSpace1stripeEP09 & parkingSpace2stripeEP09 still need, and all build:
• fenceTallPostDorm with its tall columns
• nice plain sash windows windowStoreSimple & windowStoreSimple2x1
• shop windows windowStorefront & windowStorefront2x1
• doorSingleFratArch2x1, 2 tile version of base game arch with glass panes
• 2 of the wood panel walls (the tall ones)

UPDATE: most if not all of these items (direct for logged out?) thanks bellakenobi!!!

Items I don't think I could extract:

• bowling ♥
• pingpong (less for itself, more for tennis)
• sketchbook (don't really use it, but I should)
• podium (for church)
• maaaaaaybe the keg - I was going to use Sandy's in my pub, but it's not exactly what I want
• the BONFIRE! I need that for bonfire night!

CAS stuff:

• hairs: afHairEP9BraidBand, afHairEP9SidePony
• shoes: **ShoesEP9Canvas t-eU (yves sim laurent has these on elder somewhere, I'm too lazy sorry), afShoesEP09Boots which I think I have all ages conversions for?
• a/emTopEP9ProfJacketBowTie & a/emBottomEP9ProfSlacksPleats - nectarcellar has great edits for the am set trousers and jacket, but not the em set unfortunately

I didn't want them originally, but simtzu's edit of afBottomEP09Game is cute

Other: I'll need a pool table. They're patched, so it's okay to get any. Idk if I truly like poolTableCollegiate the best anyway. Oh, I can get Severinka's - I already have that floor deco!

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Ugh, so one of the reasons I was turning against UL is that with SP supposedly off I had sims getting degrees (and worse, extra traits) for no reason. And now I've found they're writing books - not even a bookworm, wtf! I wonder what's going on with simler's mod and whatever... hmm... Oh - maybe false alarm - I can do it with a child too and I don't think they can write books. Or can they?!

I updated yesterday's entry with some more links to bgc UL stuff I found!

I need a list of the things in the different packs. Like the actual things, the gameplay things, the things a younger more energetic me foolishly tried to extract from LN without ever having even cloned an object before.

World Adventures

• Nectar!
• incense (mainly that I am using for smoking rn)
• martial arts stuff I don't really care about
• fortune cookie machine I also don't care about
• photography I never use (also in UL)
• mummies
• foreign sim traits, songs, cheek kisses and chopsticks
• 20 million grapes and PLUMS and CHERRIES and some annoying fruit.
• tent, but it's just recoloured in IP lol

Ambitions

• sculpting
• inventing, simbots
• active careers: architect, fire brigade, ghostbusters, private eye, hairdresser, tattoo artist
• TRAMPOLINE
• gnubb
• motorbike?
• dramatic trait
• consignment... don't think I like it though

Late Night

• vampires ugh ;_;
• MUSIC
• ugly lame bubble bar we discussed earlier
• darts ♥
• lifts, apartments in general I guess
• food truck - I could use this as a fish and chip van maybe
• subway
• shuffleboard
• shy trait

Generations

• stag/hen dos, wedding stuff
• sleepovers
• imaginary friends gross
• ... the annoyance of sims being "from" a particular high school even when they're not
• dates
• chemistry table. why do I hate it?
• I think all the kid furniture is patch/store/pack ? spiral stairs.
• but not the costume chest which is fun
• ooh and not pushchairs maybe
• video cameras, but if it's not the best one they literally get unhappy from watching their home movies lol?
• canes!
• kids dreaming, nightmares
• asking in laws for permission to marry...
• daycare I have never used
• rebellious and nurturing traits

Pets

Look, I probably wasn't going to uninstall WA or GEN, but this would just be silly!

Showtime

• diva trait ♥
• the disappointing showtime careers... (lol I just read that singers can't join LN bands)
• dj, it's fine but I don't really care
• jukebox, but I have it as a radio already :)
• mechanical bull
• golf
• karaoke :)
• dominoes, mainly for all of Sandy's 4 player games
• bananas!
• genies I guess

Supernatural

• fairies and witches I guess
• hideous ugly evil werewolves, MORE vampires, and zombies
• bonehilda, but she's lame and glitchy in this game
• alchemy, very boring
• brooding and proper traits
• MUSHROOMS! truffles and cooking... chili pepper too!
• BEES honey wax candle mod. wow can you make honey-nectar mead too i don't even know. I can't know because I hate zombies too much
• kids checking for monsters under the bed ♥
• skipping stones!!!!!!

Seasons

The other non-negotiable.

University Life

• plantsims, on the fence about these
• traits: avant garde, irresistible and socially awkward
• murphy bed, I swear they worked better in TS2:AL (but I don't remember how)
• photography, same as WA
• BONFIRES!!! and bonfire party
• keg - I made up my mind from yesterday lol
• bowling!!
• pingpong (tennis!!)
• sketchbook
• podium for church ;_;
• barista bar I technically still love even though it sucked. just for residual ts1 reasons I guess
• frisbees, I thought those were IP hmm
• too many annoying coffee bean breeds
• technically beautiful yet actually lame lavender, basil, chamomile and mint
• useless and fake herbs
• stuff like skeleton, radio - I never really use it but kinda fun maybe

Island Paradise

• MERMAIDS!! like all TS3 occults they kind of suck actually but I still love them. (And they actually do more than you can do with roleplay, cc and cheats!)
• houseboats! I never can make one that's realistic, comfortable and beautiful, but I still think it's properly sick watching ACTUAL REAL LOTS bobbing about!
• scuba diving and snorkelling :)
• idk if normal boats is good or bad. I mean if they would use them sensibly, pure good, but as they're all stupid (and let horses captain.......)
• stupid sucky resorts, could be so cool
• traits: love to swim and sailor

Into the Future

• uhhhhhh the time travel I guess? I never really found it fun
• jetpacks... hoverboards... it's technically cool?
• replicator & sonic shower :)
• like more servos different to amb idk.... idc
• weird pod bed and holocraps, but you know what, I think those are bgc actually. the soil rugs which are actually very cool definitely are
• mannequins, I've seen them in some cool clothes shop mods
• high five and dip kiss, oh, I wondered where they'd gotten to...

Reading this thread about non-trait traits, seeing this interesting but really annoying mod to swap some traits for ltrs (wtf does he mean 'couch potato' is "so 2009", like literally what???) and then wondering if anyone had done the one that sprung to mind, vegetarian, and finding missyhissy had has set me on the deadly path of trait modding. I already had some all-ages stuff. Looking at traits.xml, it's easy to recategorise the ones I can never find because they're in the wrong flaming categories. And yeah, I'll get some of those out into hidden traits and LTRs and vice versa! But this means going through all the traits again and writing down more details ;_;

Maybe I know what was wrong with the baking recipes - I don't think I changed the name when I pasted them over, so they were just being overwritten! Could it be that simple??? Well, future me can look into that!

I'm looking at cooking again. I need to do something with the hunger motive. I don't understand motives at all :( Why are they so complex. But just changing the hunger value of the meals isn't getting me the result I want.

I was thinking about recipes again again again. I think things will be a lot more simple without UL. For example, I was thinking I need more chocolate recipes, and the most obvious/simple is hot chocolate (btw, yesterday or the day before I remembered I can't hack stbls so I don't know how to update my coffee mod to be 100%). I was vaguely thinking there is hot chocolate in game, and oh no, is it a barista bar thing? No, but those options were kind of obscuring for me the hot chocolate option in this coffee machine mod. Oh my god, I hate those 15 types of coffee so much! So I'll be glad to see the back of them. I'm still sad about lavender in general and also my ideas for basil in italian food.

Uni is so crazy with 17 plantable ingredients. No wonder I was wowed and didn't want to get rid, but like, they suck. Unfortunately! Btw, there are 13 ingredients in the store (and I just directly renamed Purple Eggplant to Aubergine), 10 in WA, and nothing else I have installed adds many. There are only 12 in BG, unless you count meat and cheese rofl.

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Before I forget, I'm making a pomelo to grapefruit default replacement and if the string doesn't work I need to change the stbl instance number lower (omfg I HATE stbls!!!!!!!!)

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Anyway, I'm thinking about going (largely) tofu-free due to both my plant & my hatred of evil stbls but also like, historical whatever. And I thought, what fish do they have in this times, let alone the game? There's no banana blossom lol (I actually don't think I've tried this one yet - well, I never really actually liked fish, and most places that have it on the menu have something else I'd prefer). So I thought aubergine :)

Pomelo testing: the yellow rind is fine, but I have a thumbnail replacer I need to replace too - and the only string I changed is for the autosoil lol? I was surprised there was only one, but whatever. So it is "grapefruit" autosoil makes "pomelo tree" with grapefruit-looking "pomelos" that have green thumbnails. Oky! well it's something!

Okay, I separated and (probably) named these great thumbnails and you can download them here. I actually don't know why I went to so much effort for a nothing-upload in my diary but whatever, what's done is done!! And I can delete all the unused ones more easily.

And here's the grapefruit! I just uploaded it to tumblr & SFS instead of my own site properly ;_; I'm so lazy. I don't even have the excuse of being cheap about image hosting - because I was too lazy to make one. I'll put it on the mods page someday! hopefully!

And, for future people: most of the pomelo strings were in the bg delta0 I think (definitely bg!), but the autosoil (as a catalogue item i guess?) was in the expected wa fullbuild. Fucking strings man but what can you do!! (SUCCEED)

Now I can maybe make a breakfast grapefruit recipe, maybe hijacking eggs machiavellian? Or, just have sims eat a raw plain grapefruit and pretend :)