Little Robot Shack

So you finally got 40,000 Lifetime Happiness Points. Your accomplishments added up and you sent in your Happy Stickers to the Happy Magazine Shopping Catalog and ordered...My Best Friend.

But your best friend came with some pretty crappy traits and you made no connection with him. He was a toy that got old the minute you got it home. And, having no connection, you threw him out with the trash.

What happened to him?

He ended up at the junk yard. Where he gathered scraps of metal and wood...

And piled them onto one another to make a home.

The ground is wet and flooded and he doesn't have a thing that isn't second-hand.

He doesn't even have two rooms.

He found a junky computer, and some random knick-knacks. He put an old TV back together.

He found some fabric and an old cot.

And uses a discarded bathroom stall for waste, and spends his time hoping to get good enough at building to make a companion.

And maybe when he does, they can move back into town, and show you what you're missing out on.

Don't throw away your simbots.

10x10 lot, costs just under 10k. Requires Ambitions and WA (for the windows only, you can still use it without WA, you just wont have the windows)

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Unlocked Caveman Hair (Male and Female)

Your sim can get this hair when they go back and time, I think. I unlocked it and now it is available in CAS! Teen-Adult only.

If you put it in the documents mods folder, it will have both an ambitions logo and a custom content logo on it.

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Shuttle Station Diner

When Twinbrook's railroads started to die, something had to be done. Trains just weren't coming through the town anymore. So what use was there for the railroads? In a misguided attempt to bolster town interest and tourism Twinbrook wanted to become the first town in all of SimNation with a shuttle system. It might not be ultra-modern, but it would match the feel of the community and provide a fun new way to get around town, instead of driving on the bumpy roads or trekking through the swamp.

But...once the shuttle was purchased, it came to light that the railroads were in such disrepair that the town couldn't afford to get them up to code. They had gone unused too long. Not to mention the shuttle was too wide for the tracks. And so the shuttle sits inside its custom-built station, being used as a diner. The railroad continued to fall apart but the station stays clean-ish and is a hangout for the locals.

Note that the layout is a bit different than in the diner shots, you can see it in the overhead. I had to remove a set of stairs so sims would stop whining about route failure even when none existed.

This was just a fun way to play with some of the new stuff from Ambitions. I used column-pattern wallpaper to make a fun pseudo-column effect that I think a poor town would use in place of real columns, I made some train tracks, and I used Friezes below the roof. 

Size is 30x20 and it is meant to fit where the diner is in Twinbrook (this way it lines up with the tracks that go next to the bridge). Requires both WA and Ambitions!

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Emergency Exit Sign

First ambitions upload! The default exit sign has a sim running to a door, but I wanted a more american-style EXIT sign instead.

 Two colorable channels like the original.

Costs 10 simoleons and can be found in Wall Deco. Requires Ambitions!

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More Ambitions Pictures

Ok, any of you have ANY idea what's up with this?

I don't really know where to ask, so I'll just ask here. Can't ask on MTS .

I am consistently getting clients who tell me they "Cannot live in this squalor" when I renovate their homes. I do not have any idea what this means, and I can't seem to rectify it when it happens. A google search...brings up Fuzzy Logic Dishwasher as the first result. :p

Anybody know?

MYSTERY SOLVED! How to add foundations onto other floors, like all the premade houses!

PlaceFriezes on/off is a new cheat.

It lets you put foundations on top of any floor, including themselves! :D As long as the cieling is low enough.

Impressions Part 2: More Architecture and Inventing (Still updating)

Selphie won this award for completing 5 renovations. It's huge!

Architecture is pretty fun. I like how there's a constant stream of things to do, and you get to do what you want for the most part.

Sims will like your renovation if you add extra things. Sometimes they like it if you're way under budget, sometimes they hate it. Sometimes they get excited when a trait is catered to (I had a bookworm freak out because I added a book shelf when he didn't ask).

When you meet a sim, any sim, you can show htem your portfolio (once at level 3). The portfolio is a digital photo tablet! Your pictures display on it as the sim looks at it. THen you might be able to offer them a remodeling job.

I've yet to get a great review...I'm not entirely sure what manages how well you've done. I did meet a cute guy though, time to woo him on the weekend off. Maybe he can be used to show off another skill.

He moved in, and is a Handy Artistic sim, so he will invent!

Sims basically dig around until they have all the scrap from a pile.

I found a TV! I "salvaged" it, which really means I took it. It's basically in "burnt" state and I can replace it for 300 simoleons. I imagine that salvaging is pretty lame until you can explode stuff or have a simbot to break it into scrap.

First invention?

A drinky Llama! It's not animated, though. :(

I also made a Newton's Cradle and a mini-mailbox dog.

Stupidly, the newton's cradle doesn't move. :(

I have two renovation jobs telling me that "They cannot live in this squalor!" and I must give them enough to live with before they let me be finished. I don't understand in the least what I am doing wrong.

Game feels much more optimized

I can go at 3x speed across town without a bit of lag. The game no longer seems to try and load lots until you've stopped for a second, or at least when moving around town. Awesome!  The lighting, as I've said, is much better as well.

FALSE ALARM! Inventions get better as you get better. My drinky llama? I just made a new one that drinks! Ocassionally. I can only assume that at a higher level he will drink constantly. Awesome!

One thing I've noticed, though this may be a lack of awesomemod, is the skills are raising very fast. I am also getting entire skill points from opportunities (one was to raise my inventing skill, then go discuss it at the science lab. I got a skill point as a reward, meaning I got two skill points in maybe 4 minutes.), but I think that's base game functionality that Awesomemod prevents. Similarly my Architect is already level 5 of the architect profession but hasn't gotten even one point towards her lifetime wish (100 top scores for renovations).

 When you remove mods and load the game, it warns you that some things couldn't be loaded and were replaced!

Base Game Loading Screen for Ambitions

Put this package in your mods folder and you'll get the base game loading screen when running ambitions. ONLY USE if your latest installed expansion is ambitions! They changed the Logo for ambitions- it is now centered based on the test (The Sims 3) instead of the plumbob, and the plumbob is OFF CENTER! Really frustrating.

Want a different load screen for a different expansion? Check the post below for a tutorial on how to make one!

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HOW TO: Making a custom package to pick a loading screen.

Since this will have to be done for every expansion, it is easier for me to tell you the simple process so you can make your own package that works with your installation.

WHAT THIS DOES:
This will tell you how to make it so that when you load the game, you see a loading screen other than the latest game you have installed. 

What you need:
S3PE

How to do it:

1. Open S3PE
2. File -> Open
3. Find your latest install directory and go to Game/Bin/UI and open the UI file.
4. Which load screen do you want to SEE? Find AppLoadingScreen. If you want EP1, choose EP1. If EP2, choose EP2, etc.
5. Click "Notepad" int he lower right corner (Might be "Edit")
6. COPY the contents of this file and close it.
7. Click the load screen for your latest installed EP (If ambitions, EP2. If WA, EP1. If HELS, SP1.)
8. Resource -> Export -> To File
9. Export it to the desktop
10. File -> New, don't save any changes
11. Resource -> Import, import the file you saved.
12. Click it and choose Notepad or Edit again.
14. Select everything and PASTE OVER IT.
15. File -> Save As -> Save as a package.

What this does is it tells the game to load YOUR package of the loading screen data instead of the game's package. Since your package contains the data for an earlier EP or SP, that is what shows up when you load the game!

If you copied the EP1 data into the EP2 file, you'll see the WA load screen when playing Ambitions. If you copied the AppLoadingScreen data into the SP2 data, you'll see the Base Game loading screen when paying with HELS.

The music when starting up Twinbrook is gorgeous. (Impressions article!)

It's a very gentle theme as the camera pans across the hood. I love it.

Hairstyles seem to have a sheen on them that I don't recall them having before. It looks nice.

The game automatically sets your sim to an underwear state when putting on tattoos, which is a very nice alternative to having to manually switch to it to use accessory tattoos!

Not sure if intentional, but individual tattoo layers cannot have separate opacities. This is odd.

Tattoo positioning is a bit odd, as the chest options are only "Chest" and "Belly Button" and you cannot move things left/right/up/down. So nothing goes on the pecs, jsut the center of the chest. Tramp stamps are not low enough to be trampy ;-; A tattoo situated on the left/right would have to be made to specifically do so.

Literally all the new male adult clothes...are aprons, hahaha.

I gave my sim the eccentric trait. After a second of calculations, he said "EURONKA!". D'aww.

The icons in Edit Town view are different. They're smoother and shinier.

The very first time I EVER get a challenge when moving into a house. How crazy is that?

The house I moved into has a thin, foundation height floor on top. When deleted with the sledgehammer, it leaves holes, like with a foundation, but I see no tool to create such a thing. 

My game settings appear to be on all low, even when they are not. :( I fixed this.


CASTing floor edges and cielings? Badass!


Things like the Neighborhood Grill-a-Thon seem to be CONSTANTLY visible when happening. Their icon appears on the edge of the screen, I mean. Not sure if this is supposed to happen.


Dramatic sims can fake passing out on demand :D


The lake is GORGEOUS. Something about the water seems different. It is not the texture beneath it, as beneath this water is a huge gap, with grassy/mossy ground at the bottom.

Getting a makeover gives you a random new outfit- which stays saved in your sim's outfits! You can switch between it and your original at will. I am not a fan of the limp-wristed animations for the stylist, but the animations in general are cute.

Some cute townies and decoration:

Some of the fog emmiters in the world are poorly placed- they float way up high and are basically thin sheets, yo u can only see them from above. Most are GORGEOUS, though.

There are lots of cool things in BuyDebug which imply that you can get lots of cute decorative rewards! Which is awesome, since you never did get rewarded much for accomplishments. I won't spoil what's in there, though. 

Lighting seems enhanced all over the place. Even just being outside is gorgeous, this is probably what was different about the water.

The Music is very nice. There's lots of really sweet sounding buy/build music, sounds a bit...not sure how to describe it. It's nice.

I am going to try and put my non-hack mods back in. I'm going to make a sim to actually PLAY instead of just look at cool stuff. :p 

 MODS: Using the mods folder in the documents folder, you get a compatability warning when the game loads. Convenient! You can ignore it. CONVENIENT AS HELL! 

Custom Content loaded from this folder has an icon on it! It's the folder icon, which is a bit annoying, but the existence of an icon is nice.This applies to CAS too, which is also very convenient. :D

My SavedSims are still intact, faces, too, even without slider mods. I am going to use Selphie Porter:

But first, a makeover!

 She rolled an Architect want, and as such, I will try that out. I haven't seen anyone giving architect impressions yet.

Selphie movied into a blank lot on...on...on a street! A REAL STREET! With grass between the sidewalk and the road!

 Selphie wants to be an architect, but will her self-built house push clients away? I actually love this house and think it fits the town, so far.

It's cute. :D

Her career is off to a FANTASTIC start as she overblows her budget and can't afford a living room, dining table, bedroom, or drafting table, instead opting to make some cash by sculpting.

Selphie's First sculpture is a random statue from the game, except low detail and made of clay. She sells it for a whopping 33 dollars. Now that she has the sculpting skill, she can register as a self-employed sculptor. But she is not going to do this.

She instead buys a drafting table! Sims can PAINT, Study architectural design, and fiddle with fashion with this. Painting! That's weird!

Instead, she "researches architectural design"...by...drawing very detailed pictures of buildings? Ok, sure.

Selphie finishes...and...gets...a painting skill point. Well, that was unexpected. I have no idea how to become an architect! Apparently you use the paper. Selphie is now an architect,b ut there are currently no jobs :(

Speaking of jobs, sims can take unpaid time off using their phone!

When a sim gets a job, they get a popup with all the information. The speaking sim has a portrait displayed and a text bubble, it's cute!

ARCHITECT JOB

 I was summoned to make an art studio. REQUIREMENTS: Easel, Dining Chair, Desk, Painting, Rug.

Before:

After:

I took some liberties. I used the dining chair as a chair for posing a sim, I added walls, and I changed the wall/floor of the room in general. The sim liked what I did!

PORTFOLIO PICTURES can only be taken with your camera. Meaning if you only have a cell phone, your pictures will be tiny. If you have a low photography skill, they may be blurry! Photography is integrated into architectural design, even though it isn't required.

I started another job. "It is my dream to one day write witty text for a video game! But first I need a writing room.". The humor is there, and it is still great.

INTERMISSION: Random screenshots