Saturday, April 17, 2010

Mirabello Livable Bookstore

This is a residential lot with a bookstore on the first floor. It is functional in the following ways:

-Your sims can use it as a rabbit hole
-Your sims can work there
-Your sims can be partners, making it seem like the store is functioning and indeed theirs!
-Your sims from other households can get jobs here and shop here and partner here.

It is NOT functional in the following ways:
-Neighbors will not autonomously shop here
-Neighbors cannot autonomously come inside
-Neighbors will not become workers here

In other words, to use the rabbit hole, sims must be directed. It's still a fun place to live and a fun idea to have the store beneath your house. :D


See that glow? That's the disappearing plumbob of a controlled sim NOT from the household, being directed to shop there. I don't believe the mailbox is still in that position, I have no idea how it got there...


Used books galore! Stick around and read or grab a coffee.


Lot size is 16x18 since I built it where the Bistro is by default. It'll fit on pretty much any lot, therefore. It costs just around 30,000 simoleons to buy, a good price for a semi-furnished home with a store beneath it.

Requires World Adventures and these mini rabbit holes.

Wanna put rabbit holes on your own residential lots? Download Awesomemod and use the debug command NeverRemoveOnLotTypeChange to make sure that community objects stay on lots when made residential and vice versa.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Hilly Heights Private School

Best name ever

I made this lot a long time ago but only just now am getting around to uploading it.


It's a school, but prettier and fancier.


Not much to say. The simulated pirate cove environment in the kids area is supposed to make public school kids jealous. The groundskeeper shed is not decorated, but it has a garage door on the side. The pond in the corner is a learning tool for an advanced high school class. It has frog spawners.

Requires NO CC. Requires World Adventures if only for the frog spawners(If you install without WA, that's all you'll be missing, I believe).

60x60 lot.

Sims CAN use this as well as the other school. But to do so is a bit complicated. Awesomemod can allow sims to be FORCED to pick a school, allowing you to enroll your kids in whichever you want. Twallan's mods can do something similar.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Requested: No LTH needed for "Normal" Tombstone

This makes it so you need 0 LTH to get the normal tombstone, and 100,000 to get the "Wealthy" tombstone. This way, all non-played sims (neighbors and such) will, by default, get the standing traditional one instead of the lame little plaque.

Airship: Ephemeral Rose


Floating high above the sky,
The shape of a ship of sorts I see.
It must be Ephemeral Rose.

Ephemeral Rose is an airship, named for a beautiful rose its captain happened upon which, within a day of being plucked, not only wilted but disappeared entirely, no petals left to be found. She searches on across the world to find another, around which she will settle her crew as a village. The ship itself is rather...cheap. It's much smaller and lower-class than some of the better known airships out there.


The ship houses a crew of 10, captain (and any company she wishes to take) included. It has three decks.


The top deck begins above the Captain's chambers with an on-ship garden, which also happens to contain the ship's water supply- stored within the enormous trunk of the palm tree which sprouts from the fountain. Water pours through drilled holes and is quickly sucked back up by the tree.


Then are the sails, which are raised by way of foot power, running on strips of leather around gears which lift the sails into the air.


At the far end is a lookout, which is rather romantic as well as functional.


The bottom deck houses the dining area, which has plenty of Juice to drink as well as a buffet.

The middle deck houses nothing, but it does lead into the recreation chamber and Captain's chambers.


The captain lives in this bright and regal room surrounded by gathered information and artifacts.


She has a large case for displaying her treasures and various collected maps and relics.



Directly across is a simple room meant to entertain the crew. A shard of glass discovered in a more modern land displays images from around the world. A statue at the center embodies the crew's love of drink and being lazy, a joke from the Captain who hates and loves them for it.


Below are the crew's quarters- male and female, separated.



And across from that is the kitchen, just next to the dining area.


The kitchen has plenty of food, and enough space for four chefs at once. With a crew of 10, this is simply because the crew cooks their own food and is too impatient to take turns and too picky to accept food cooked by others!


Cloth hung above the stoves allows the smells (and smoke) to pour out the windows, instead of filling the room.


Behind the kitchen is a storage room, and around it are two small brigs, just in case.


At the base of the airship is...a shadow. Despite nothing to cause it. Naturally...


The stairs are hidden away when the ship is "parked" and nobody is home. Note that the "hide" switch does not function, because the "unhide" switch is on constantly once you use it. The hide switch is there for "realism" reasons- if you unhide there's gotta be a way to hide, right?


Similar switches are at the top, too.



Ephemeral Rose is situated on a 64x64 lot. It costs just under 190,000 simoleons, pretty good for a magical floating ship. You may have noticed the ground beneath it is totally plain. This is so that you can build it to suit your world you place it in. I'm using it in the desert- but if I added a bunch of palm trees it would be stupid when you went and placed it in Sunset Valley or some woods place. This way, you simply add a ton of trees or whatever you want.

Custom Content Required:
None! :D

Custom Content Used:
Chest from Store
Phonograph from Store
There are also maps, papyrus rolls, and a smaller chest from the store, but for the life of me I absolutely cannot find them on the site. For all I know they are special WA pre-order stuff, or something. :\

WA is obviously required.

NOTES: Don't try editing the floor! Or...adding more floor to the base! You can't do it. Because of hte way I built this it would be near impossible for you to get all the proper requirements to add more. As it is, there are no grids to add more floor tiles because there's nothing below supporting them. Similarly if you delete floor tiles, you can NOT add them back.

You may have camera issues. If the camera is situated "over" the air, it might fall down and screw up your view. So try and keep the camera facing the front or back of the ship, so that the floor can "support" it.

Enjoy :D

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Tweaky Tweaks

More minor tweaks.

Play With Mirror: Interaction is now 10 minutes long, instead of 25. Conflicts with any mods changing this same value, meaning likely nothing you've got. :p

Working Out on the Bench: Sims will now change positions every 30 minutes instead of every 10 minutes. Conflicts with anything that changes the speed/effectiveness/etc of working out! Note that with this mod, a sim will also sit around panting for longer, and they DO get skill points while panting, as they're still technically working out.

Tombstones: Reduced "Wealthy" requirement from 150000 to 25000 and "Poor" from 75000 to 5000. This means that when a sim dies with 25000 or more Happiness points, they get the special wealthy tombstone, and if it's more than 5,000 but less than 25,000, they get the normal tombstone, and if it is less than 5,000, they get the special poor tombstone. The requirements by default are waaaay too high. Sims just plain don't have that much happiness when they die. Mine don't, at least.



I have NEVER had a sim who didn't end up with the low, flat headstone. Now sims are more likely to get the standing one, and it's much easier to get this tall, fancy one.

Sims will be able to mourn a tombstone from a distance of "150". normally this is "8". I made it 100 so that sims will be crying for a loved one while puttering around near the stone, it makes it sadder. Sims will still route TO the stone when directed to mourn, if not in the same room/off the lot, but if in the same room, they no longer have to be close to it to get sad.



Conflicts with anything that also changes the "Urnstone" XML.

Stir Crazy: When a sim gets the Stir Crazy buff from being inside too long, they must go outside for FIVE hours for it to go away. Default is ONE. Conflicts with anything that also changes this same value.

Scooter: Scooter will now go half as fast, to allow for more scenery viewing while driving around in France. Conflicts with anything that also changes this same value. Applies to owned scooters as well as the ones you ride around on for free in france.

Faster Visa: Normally, rewards for Visa Points are 10, 15, 20, 35, and 50. I have changed this to 15, 25, 35, 55, 75. This allows you to still earn a visa, but at a much more reasonable rate. Conflicts with any mod that changes these or the amount of coins earned from adventures.

Mummy Snacks: Mummy snacks will now give 100 hunger to a mummy instead of 25. This means residential mummies- as in, yours- can, if you please, subsist entirely on mummy snacks very easily. Mummy snacks give a good meal buff- which means that opting to feed yours snacks instead of regular food can be a quick way to get their mood up before work or something :D Conflicts with any one of the hundreds of mods altering mummy snacks.

All files are in this one zip, delete those you don't want to use!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Ultimate Toilet and Bed Recajigging Mods

AKA "Toilet and Bed Fixes"

Short version:

Toilets-
-Seat put down 50% of the time instead of 90%
-Flushing 100% unless slob
-Up to 10 minutes to use instead of 5
-Sims sit down when Has To Pee moodlet has 60 minutes or less left instead of 45
-Sims wash hands 75% of the time instead of 0, making sinks worth buying

Beds-
-Can't sleep if energy is over 50
-Spooning less often and for longer for less hectic sleeping
-Exhausted sims will try harder to autonomously go to bed


Long version:

TOILETS:

Seat Down: Normally, a sim will put the seat down 90% of the time. I changed this to 50. It is still 100 for neat sims and 0 for slobs.


Flushing: From 95 to 100 for non-slobs and non-neats. I dunno why they would opt not to flush the toilet. Slobs now do it 25% of the time instead of 50.

Max Length of Use: Sims usually won't take over 5 sim minutes to use the toilet, which I thought was odd because it seems they'd take longer the more they have to go. Well, now they do. But only a bit longer: The maximum is now 10 sim minutes. Seems like nothing, but it becomes a small time penalty for waiting too long to use the toilet.

HasToPee: If the Has To Pee moodlet has less than 45 minutes left, sims will definitely sit when they get to the toilet. This basically means that a low bladder score means...well, they've got a low...colon...score, too, since it's been a long time since they used the toilet. Minor change: It is now 60 minutes and under.

Washing hands: Non-slob/non-neat sims have a 0% chance of washing their hands. I changed this to 75%. (It's 100 for neat and 0 for slobs). Now your sinks in your bathrooms actually serve a purpose!

BEDS:

Sims 2 Style Napping: By default, sims can Sleep as long as they have a bit of their energy bar gone. I remember in The Sims 2 they could only nap if it was too high. So now, if your sim's energy is above 50 , your sim can only nap. Here's a shot of what 50 looks like, so you know:


Whenever the bar is above that, you cannot sleep, only nap. No more quickly boosting your energy before work and after breakfast, cheater!

Spooning:  Sims will normally only spoon from 45 to 120 minutes. If I was in bed and moving around and being grabbed and grabbing that often I'd go crazy. So now they'll do it from 120 minutes at the least to 240 minutes at the most.  Less rolling around in bed, dammit! 30 100 The default amount of time BETWEEN spooning is 30 minutes to 100 minutes. I changed this to 90-240. That way sims spend longer spooning when they do, but won't start as soon as they stop. It just makes sleeping look more comfortable and less hectic, is all.

Exhaustion: When sims are exhausted, they will now be 50% more likely to try and sleep than normal. Meaning if a sim has low energy, he might try to go sleep, and won't protest much when you tell him to do something else...but if he's exhausted and has low energy, yeah, he's going to go to the bed and repeatedly try to. He's TIRED.

All of these have been tested and all of them do function. :D There are noticable changes, particularly with washing hands, being more calm during sleep when cuddling, and much slower toilet usage the more full the bladder. Hooray! Tiny realistic tweaks.

Note: The bed mod will conflict with my 2x Sleeping Speed mod. As well, they will not work with other mods which alter basic toilet/bed functionality. Interaction changes are compatible, though.


Paradise DIY Version

This is the folder and files for editing a world with CAW. It should have the custom icon and name and description, all you have to do is open it in CAW and alter as you please.


Puh-lease do not distribute without credit. If you alter it, go ahead and share it on your own page or whatever, I don't care(not on MTS though), but credit me for making the thing :p


Instructions:
  1. Extract the files and folder
  2. Place EVERYTHING in Documents/ElectronicArts/TheSims3CreateAWorld/Usertooldata/Worlds
  3. Open with CAW, alter as desired, save
  4. File -> Choose World to Export -> Pick the world
  5. Install
Recommended:

If you add more lots, REMOVE the existing ones, then use the smooth tool where your lot edges will be. If you don't, you'll get those weird broken edges. 

If you want to change the ocean, the terrain paint used underwater is Martine's.

You will need the latest CAW and this is only the World Adventures version. I do not have the base game CAW files.

Do not designate any lots as Parks. For some reason, probably since there are no roads, NPCs will spawn at parks, run away from them, and disappear. If you don't want a constant stream of NPCs running across your island, don't make any lots Parks. :p Use Library or Gym or Beach or whatever.

Meshing can die in a fire.

Blender gives me an error when I try to impmort things and I can find nothing to help this error. Hooray.

Meanwhile milkshape yells at me to register. So I do. Then I try to do anything and it yells at me to register. FAN FREAKING TASTIC.

uuuuuuuuugh D:<