Disabling Seasions But Keeping its Stuff - Want to disable weather or make plants in season year-round? You can do so with my new Seasons Tuner Mod
Improving Sims 4: The past month, I've spent every day tinkering The Sims 4, making quality of life improvements, gameplay changes, and new difficulty settings for the game. If you'd like to learn more about my project, visit the post on Patreon where you can download it now.
A Ghost
Ghosts are a feature of the Sims 4 Base Game. They are the result of Sims who've passed away, and their behavior and abilities vary based upon the cause of death. We have a separate guide to individual ways Sims can die, and preventing death. This guide to Ghosts will teach you about their attributes, means of getting rid of ghosts, having ghosts join your household, and how to bring a ghost back from the dead.
Ghost Visits & Basics
While there is some variation in what ghosts can do and how they behave, they also share the same qualities. Ghosts will visit in the middle of the night (after 10) and depart in the morning (around 6am). The presence of their urn (indoors) or tombstone (outdoors) is what determines the lot they will spawn on. Ghosts tend to behave erratically, but also in ways tied to the type of death they experienced. Having a haunting can be predictably chaotic, given the damage they could cause overnight, but they're mostly a minor nuisance that sometimes leads to funny moments and overall has a negligible impact on gameplay.
Ghosts get a few unique socials, namely 'Scare' and 'Pass Through'
Ghosts may cause a Tense +2 Moodlet on Sims whenever they possess a nearby object, and possess the spook and pass through socials in order to scare Sims. Often, their arrival is nothing special to a group of Sims unless they possess a nearby object, and you're able to easily socialize with them and even befriend them over time. The color of a ghost shifts based on their emotions, not on their death type. You can easily tell if a ghost is happy if they're green. Flirty if pink, red is angry, blue sad, and so on.
Explore My Mods! Color Picker for Builders, Seasons Tuner, Dine Out Reloaded and a Gameplay Overhaul! Like other modders, I've been working to make The Sims 4 a better game. Check out my many mods here!
Befriending ghosts lets you ask them to move in.
Given the odds are somewhat low for a visit from an individual ghost each night, the more urns on your lot the more likely you are to experience paranormal activity. Players of multi-generational families who keep their previous Sims around may have 2-3 ghosts running around at night, messing with the house. I'd say a ghost appears on average 1-2 nights a week, sometimes more, and you may experience long dry spells with no activity.
-->The following cheats add or remove a specific type of death trait that is responsible for making a Sim into a ghost in the first place. Turning one of these on will immediately turn them into a ghost of the appropriate type. Equip the trait with traits.equip_trait X to turn them into a ghost or remove it with traits.remove_trait X to return the Sim back into a normal, living Sim. For this second part, you must use the exact type of death cheat to reverse it. Use the simology panel (hotkey Y) if you're unsure.
Ghosts can be removed from the game by sending them to the netherworld. Afterward, the tombstone or urn they belonged to can be destroyed.
Return/Send to Netherworld
This is how you get rid of a ghost, forever. Do not use this option unless you are sure that you never want to see a ghost again and that you'll never want to play them. Click the ghost's urn or tombstone and you can release their spirit, permanently. Family tree aside, it will be as though that Sim never existed as far as the game is concerned and they cannot be recovered. Ghosts can decide to 'move on' this way, even once controlled by the player. Simply have the ghost select their own remains and return to netherworld.
Sims who complete the Bestselling Author Aspiration can earn the Poetic Reward Trait, which allows them to write the Book of Life. This book, which cannot be bound to the author, allows a Sim to be restored to life when they are a Ghost. If you want to protect the Author, you'll need to have another Sim do this Aspiration. Once it's written, simply bind the book to a Sim while still living, and then have them read the book themselves. You can make one for every member of your household. The Ghost must use the Restore feature to resurrect themselves. Any other Sim who reads it can only summon the Ghost.
A group of ghosts gathers around, as the Reaper prepares to make another of the poor test family join their ranks.
If you did not get the Poetic Trait, then you need to make Ambrosia to bring the Ghost back to life. This requires a Death Flower, Potion of Youth, and Angelfish, along with mastery of both Cooking and Gourmet Cooking. Click to learn about Ambrosia and how you can get all its requirements in an efficient way. Ambrosia is one of the more challenging things to create in The Sims 4.
Ghosts can sometimes take shortcuts to get from A to B faster. This is great, even better is that they're immortal and have all the time in the world.
Playable Ghosts
Even if a ghost was your Sim's husband, relationship will decay at the normal rate and thus levels may fall. In order to play as a ghost, you can simply befriend one each time it visits and then ask it to join your household. If you don't mind cheating, you can easily use testingcheats on and shift-click the ghost when it visits, click add to family. If you wait it out, you should be able to befriend them within 2-3 visits and get them to rejoin the family.
Ghosts are immortal as they have already died, and you can play as a single ghost without any living Sims in the household without issue. Sims can Woohoo with ghosts, but may not produce the ever-coveted Ghost Baby. Ghosts do not have any special abilities when it comes to need decay, their needs are exactly the same as those of living Sims.
They can, however, walk through walls (when you've clicked and automatic pathing decides it's a good idea) and get a few unique socials related to scaring Sims. Ghosts can do the 'Ghostly Repair' on certain objects (mainly plumbing, but not electronics), fixing them and saving Sims time. They'll actually gain handiness skill in the process. Other behaviors relate to how they died:
Sims' death type determines their abilities as a ghost. In this case, she was eaten by a cow plant and can now decay plants when angry - hence the red.
Ghost Behavior by Death Type
Here are the behaviors ghosts exhibit, based upon the type of death. Many of these effects are situational or only existent whenever the ghost is a non-player character:
We now have a Youtube Channel with over 50 guides in video format to go along with the huge site I've already created. Check it out and consider subscribing if you like my style.
The Sims 4 Seasons expansion now has options! Want to disable weather or make plants in season year-round? You can do so with my new Seasons Tuner Mod
The past month, I've spent every day tinkering The Sims 4, making quality of life improvements, gameplay changes, and new difficulty settings for the game. If you'd like to learn more about my project, visit the post on Patreon where you can download it now.
Cottage Living Guide! Here is my guide to new features in the Sims 4 Cottage Living Expansion
You can also find handy Cottage Living Cheats
I have much more to come, since you can actually write a few guides about this pack!
Blender has been incredibly useful in video production, so I made my own Physics and Simulation Improvement Addon that lumps a ton of unique tools into one compact interface.
Snowy Escape Cheats
Lifestyles in Snowy Escape
Climb Mt. Komorebi
Sentiments in Snowy Escape
Rock Climbing
Skiing Skill
Snowboarding Skill
I've released a guide to Sentiments in The Sims 4 & Snowy Escape.
There is a new platform tool in The Sims 4. There's also a new Sentiments system, but it'll take some time to create a guide to that. Players can also use rental lots in any world now by changing lot types of builds in manage worlds.
I've created a massive List of The Best Mods in The Sims 4 that should be very helpful to new players and those who have not yet explored modding and how much it can do for your gameplay.
New - Secrets I have a new guide to secrets in the game. If you prefer, you can also watch a video about secrets in Sims 4.
Nifty Knitting is now available. Learn all about the stuff pack on my guide page here.
NEW - Nifty Knitting CheatsNew features in the Sims 4 June 2020
The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle Guide
Eco Footprint: How it Works
Neighborhood Action Plans
How to Cheat in Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle
Civil Designer Career
Insect Farms & Bio Fuel
Fabrication Skill in Eco Lifestyle
Juice Fizzing NEW
Traits and Aspirations in DLC
Gameplay Ideas for Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle
Updated
Trait Cheats Updated
Traits List Updated
Aspirations List Updated
Readers who use adblock or those who'd like to thank me for my efforts can now pledge $1/$5 monthly via Patreon. This helps a lot with server costs and provides some stability for my business.
This is inspired by a new series in which I start at toddler and gradually take on the major bonuses. Here's a link to the full playlist!
I now have a guide page to Tiny Living Stuff where you can learn about Murphy Beds, the new death, as well as the lot bonuses you'll receive if you manage to keep the size of your lot down with this new pack's Tiny Home Lot Type.
New I now have a guide to Making Super Sims in The Sims 4. Look for a text version within the next 72h. It won't have THAT much more info but it will help out as a checklist.
This was inspired by a series, "Let's Play a Super Sim" in which I start at toddler and gradually take on the major bonuses. Here's a link to each part for people who are interested. You can also see the Let's Play as a Playlist on Youtube.
The Sims 4 Discover University has been announced for November 15 for PC/Mac and December 17 for Xbox and Playstation 4 consoles. Click to learn more about the pack, see my summary of the livestream or read our FAQs below.
Other Guides to Discover University:
New Lot Traits: Study Spot and University Student Hang Out
New: Discover University FAQ: Gameplay Features
New Video The Sims 4 Discover University Gameplay Tips Video
More videos coming soon!
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Comments (119)
So I had a baby with a coworker (scientist career) he was an elder sim (Eduardo Foust- don't know if that'll help). Not in my household. In order to make the child grow up fast I put the life span on "short." When I wanted to invite her dad over to meet, he was a ghost in my relationship file. How do I get him alive again if I don't have a tombstone/urn don't know where he used to live, and he's just in my relationship file. I know it's the sims, but I want the kid to at least meet her dad lol!
Guide to Immortality
Guide to Moving Sims
If you need more help, post in the Misc Help section of the forum and we can give you some more info.
Misc Help Forum
Once you write it, you can pay to copy the book for 23$. Only copy The Book of Life when its blank. Copying it after you've captured someone's life in it will make a copy of that instead,
Ghost Cheats
If you ever need to cheat any sim into your household again, just turn on 'testingcheats on' then shift click the target sim and choose 'add to household'. Works for all sims : ghosts, aliens and normal sims.
My reaction in order:
Moving household members
traits.remove_trait laugh
To use a cheat to add a sim or ghost sim back into the household enable testingcheats on and then shift-click the ghost/sim and choose 'add to household'. If you do not want to use cheats then read the guide on ambrosia
Ambrosia Guide
The other option is for a sim that has completed the Best Selling Author Aspiration and who knew the ghost while it was alive. They can write a Book Of Life from the Poetic Reward Trait.
Best Selling Author