03-11. Part 2 of Saving my Sims

I restarted my game, went back to Mountain Lake and made the Clue House family my active household. I saw that they too had messed up relationship panels. I quickly made all of them acquaintances. I couldn't remember who was closest to whom, but at least they all knew each other again. Their smart phone functions seemed to be working ok.

Boddy had been made a bartender. BTW, this was the first time I noticed the feathers floating around his ghost. He was killed by the Murphy Bed (blunt force).

Josephine was on the floor of a club wrapped snugly in a sleeping bag! Everyone finally made it back home.

The big task here was to resurrect the ghosts. This process was going to be part of my story, but I decided to just get it done. I could have used NRaas cheats to instantly do that, but I compromised. I used DebugEnabler to have the ghost sims each prepare ambrosia for themselves.

Next I had to spawn the two unplayable ghosts and have them also eat ambrosia. One of the active sims made two plates of it and left them out.

John Green was the last ghost. He didn't go after the ambrosia at first. Then I remembered I already had a full house, and he couldn't join unless I split off Carie the Mascot. So I did that.

John finally took up the ambrosia.

After everyone was ready, I evicted the household and saved them to the library bin. I then saved their home separately. After I quit the game, I took the old Mountain Lake saves out of my Sims game folder and put them in a back up folder elsewhere. Then I started up the game again. (During all these restarts, I also cleared cache files each time.)

In the new Mountain Lake world, I installed the Boddy Mansion again and placed the Clue House family. All their stats looked good.

One of the other things I did was save Cexavu and Carie from the old world and place them in the new one. Later I realized there might be another Cexavu in this world, so I need to check on that, change a name if needed. I don't want two Cexavus running around!

Carie is in the house I originally chose for Uncle Allen. I repaired the roof and gave her a fixer-upper car too. Not sure what I'll do with these two, if anything, but they're in the new Mountain Lake for now.

Sims love to work on this car. And Carie is just begging for a makeover!

Cexavu's car is close to being finished.

03-10. Part 1 of Saving my Sims

I've made some progress in trying to salvage my Clue House and Dream Catcher game. I spent several hours yesterday dealing with it. I started with the Dream Catcher household.

First I had to fix the broken relationships. I used NRaas to do that. Luckily, the family trees were still in place. Unfortunately, the marriage and romance weren't. Next, I gathered up anything I wanted from the slope house and got everyone ready. I decided to move them all over to the Stalker Manor for the larger move out of town.

I did save my slope house build to the library bin, but I doubt it can be used any place else besides this particular lot. I'll try a new version of the Mountain Lake world, but not with Charlie's household.

I wasn't quite ready for the family to move to the Manor, story-wise, but that's all changed now.

I took Inspector Gray with Charlie since I'd made him the guardian and a close friend of the Stalkers.

I added Charlie's evil uncle to the household for the move. Not sure what I'll do once everyone is settled into their new world--or how the story will morph.

Uncle Allen enthused about garlic. He has the Supernatural Skeptic trait. Charlie was not impressed!
Charlie: No, Uncle, I will NOT put garlic in Hamish's baby food!

I double checked on the ghosts. They'll need to go along on the move, of course. At this point, I evicted the family, saved the household to the bin, and deleted them from the world. I made a new save and quit the game.

While I was waiting for Mayra to get off work (she was about to get a promotion), I sent Gran and Erle over to clean up the fire mess on the pier. They did some work, but I brought them back home and just used NRaas to finish cleaning the lot. I saved this small beach to the library too, just in case I wanted it later.

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I installed Rflong7's Legacy Island III custom world. I thought about several different worlds, but decided this was a well rounded neighborhood. There was a Mystic Legacy lot that would be perfect for the Stalkers.

I had saved the household with the home (lot size 64x64), but once I got to Legacy, I realized I needed a smaller lot for the location I wanted (60x60). So I had to quit the game again, go back to a save when the Stalker family were fixed and together and save the household without the home. I already had a version of the Polstuart build on the correct size lot in my library, 60x60.

The Dream Catcher family's new world: Legacy Island III.

I had to do some quick renovations to the new Polstuart home I installed in Legacy, things I had already done with the previous lot in Mountain Lake: switch out chimney pieces, replace a few trees with smaller versions, put flagstone down in the front, add Mendel's and Prisella's graves. The house will eventually need to be brightened up inside. It's too dark for Charlie's family, but that can be part of the story--renovating the family home.

Everyone made it safely to Legacy and their stats looked good. Phones are working now, as are the relationship panels. Their relationships held, except for the ghosts. I had to redo those, but that's probably because they aren't playable ghosts, they're just haunting ghosts right now.

The Dream Catchers looked good. I saved and quit the game. I'm not going to do anything else with any world until I review my NRaas Story Progression settings. It will be time consuming, but I should do it now rather than later. I exported my current savings in a few other worlds, so I will also have to switch all those out with my new settings file once it's done.

But first, I had to go back to Mountain Lake to get the Clue House family. I needed to make sure all was well with them and pull them out of that world. My plan was to put them back into a new version of Mountain Lake. I didn't want to risk leaving them in the old version.

03-09. Game Trouble

Background on the Issues

For some reason, this particular world I'm currently playing is borked. Not that it's unplayable, but something is always getting messed up with my main household. It didn't happen when I was playing the Clue House--not that I remember. It started when I split Charlie off and set him up as the main household.

The ongoing issues have been with the household sims themselves. First, if you remember, Charlie's and Mayra's needs got stuck on static. I fixed that. But there was something else wrong. It wasn't critical so I just ignored it. My household sims, all of them, never had any options to text, call, etc. sims in their relationship panels. Sims were pictured there, but no interactions were available. I think the only thing listed was "send a love letter." And when I tried to use their phones to invite a sim over, it said they didn't know anyone well enough to do that. Which was ridiculous because their relationship panel showed otherwise. The panels listed all their friends, co-workers, etc.

Then the other day, I went into my game and found that most of the sims had been removed from my household's relationship panels. It only shows that they're acquainted with each other. And Gran's panel is completely empty. The family trees are intact, but the panels don't show any correct relationships. Charlie and Mayra aren't married. Hamish is no one's son. There is no romantic interest between Gran and Erle. They have no friends outside the home. Nothing.

I've tried loading older saves, and it doesn't make a difference. In the little save picture, it shows Charlie and Mayra holding each other, but when the save gets loaded, the panels are messed up again and the marriage doesn't exist. They barely know each other. So I think the old saves are somehow getting changed at load time.

BTW, when I was doing my last updates and changed Charlie's age, I did not keep that game play. Nothing odd I did was kept and should not have affected current game play. This glitch started after all that, and is not related to any of it. I think it has to do with the early problem which caused issues with the relationship panel and phone options. Something is wrong with my sims' place in the world. It's like they're there, but not. I've done several online searches, without finding a good solution.

I think something got messed up early on and just keeps causing more issues. Since going back to another save doesn't solve the problem, I'll try fixing the relationships between the family members using NRaas, packing them up together, and getting them out of that world. They'll have to start over somewhere else, and my story line will need to morph. I don't want to just band-aid this problem because I think there is something wrong with the household's underlying coding.

03-08. Hamish Toddler Pictures

Here are more screenshots of Hamish soon after he aged to toddler.

These first three pics were taken right after he blew out his candle.

Hamish still nurses, but he's starting to eat solid foods too. 

He finished learning to talk while in the playpen. Now he'll work on his Charisma and Logic skills in there.

And he's almost potty trained. 

Hamish has also learned how to walk.

Hamish loves the xylophone. He chooses it over the peg board. (Mayra is sitting half-way into the wall!) 

He enjoys his bath time much more as a toddler than he did as an infant. 

03-07. Outtakes and Behind the Scenes

I checked on Cexavu. He was working on his fixer-upper car again. He'll have that finished soon. And he's no longer a Tragic Clown.

Gran and Erle socializing and building logic.

So many things to upgrade!

Upper body strength! I don't make any of my sims work out for long--not unless they're athletic and like to do it. I try to stay close to each sim's trait preferences in assigned activities.

Just a nice pattern I was trying out on Mayra's outfit.

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A little more about Gran trying to call off her romance with the Inspector ...

Gran is used to being the one in control. Right now, she's unsure of herself and confused about her feelings for Erle. She's also all too aware of the age difference between them. Erle, being Perceptive, sensed Granesa's insecurities. But he wasn't about to let her push him away and retreat into her comfort zone. Saying no to her request was his way of reassuring Gran that she had nothing to fear from their relationship!

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Behind the scenes:

I did the story fire scene in two stages. First, I had to create Charlie's parents and his uncle in CAS. I then added them to the household temporarily. Of course, the sad part was the parents (Mendel and Prisella Stalker) were destined to die in that fire. I didn't let them suffer though. 

Prisella caught fire right away, so I did an NRaas Force Kill on both her and Mendel. I didn't want to watch them in pain. They died instantly, and their tombstones are at the Stalker Mansion, which Charlie owns as a second property right now.

Mendel Stalker, Charlie's father

Prisella Stalker, Charlie's mother

Charlie's uncle, Allen Stalker, is still in the world and on his own right now, waiting for further updates.

For the second stage of the fire scene, I saved, then took YA Charlie into CAS to temporarily age him down to teen. He looked so cute at that age!

Teen Charlie featured in the last few fire screenshots. Afterwards, I quit the game without saving that second part.

But Charlie now has a family tree showing his deceased parents and his live uncle. BTW, I didn't use Charlie to make his family. I just tried to create a resemblance between them.
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After I took screenshots for the fire chapter of my story, I sent my current YA Charlie and his Uncle Allen over to the pier to put out the huge fire I'd started!

This was before I split Allen off from the household. And before I gave him his scruffy disguised look.

When on his own, Allen actually went right away to the laundromat. I have no idea why he wanted to wash his clothes! He doesn't have the Neat trait or anything like it! Maybe he used up all his clothes while he was traveling back to Mountain Lake!

Also, I'd given him a part time job at the Mausoleum, but I got a notice that Story Progression had made him quit that to become a writer. I'm sure that's because his LT Wish is to be a Professional Author.

As most burned ghosts do, Prisella and Mendel Stalker headed straight for the bath tubs when I spawned their ghosts to make sure they had ghost forms.

I think Mendel is my first vampire ghost.

I decided to make Hamish a vampire because I'd never had a child vampire before. My vampire couple in Midnight Hollow aren't exactly parent material right now! One of them has Commitment Issues. So that is one of the reasons I came up with the Stalker backstory--to explain Hamish's new occult status. In this story, he's a different sort of vampire though.