NRAAS mods

[skipsmooth]

Hello.

Several times on this site, I have seen NRAAS mods mentioned.  I have gone to the site and there are so many to choose from.  I'm assuming that some are better or more essential than others.  In general, which ones would be best to download to improve game performance?  The game version I have is 1.69.43.024017.  BTW - I now have SV2020 installed thanks to Jaga. 

[Trip]

So my controversial opinion is that NRaas mods won't improve the performance of every game. Overwatch and ErrorTrap have their place but unless the world I'm in is widely known for errors or accumulated objects (or I want to beat small annoying bugs that Overwatch solves, i.e. werewolves not changing out of their wolf form, toddlers not being able to chat, etc) I think the net gain is minimal. But I do think they're important for custom worlds. I trust Jaga as a world builder but running ErrorTrap when you first load a new save in a custom world catches a lot of errors. Even from good builders.

Also I'm moving this to the Mods board.

[skipsmooth]

Thanks again Trip.  So does that mean that I should download the ErrorTrap mod with the SV2020 saves?  Sorry I seem like such a knucklehead, but I am assuming that the SV2020 games are full of custom content.

[Trip]

There's no CC in the SV2020 world. As for ErrorTrap, just download the latest version from the NRaas site (here) and if necessary, learn how to set up a Mods folder here. And nothing's wrong with keeping it in if you think it improves game performance.

[Jaga Telesin]

Follow Trip's advice, for sure.  ErrorTrap won't improve performance on the world, but it can help keep it clean over the long run, which *will* keep the game performing well the longer you play a world, and help avoid crashes or other fatal errors.     NRaas Overwatch and Traffic do similar things.

There's a recommended mods post in the SV2020 topic, many of the NRaas mods are good to have with any TS3 game:  ErrorTrap, MasterController, Overwatch, Traffic, Retuner, etc.

NRaas Retuner in particular can help with game performance, especially when playing a map with resort lots (like SV2020 has).  We put tips on what to configure in Retuner and how to do it, in the SV2020 FAQ.  Just look for the tip on how to help performance on resort lots in the FAQ.

I also personally recommend installing NRaas Relativity, and using it to slow down time to either 50% speed (a setting of 19) or 30% (a setting of around 13).  That spreads out sim actions and sims looking to perform actions across a longer real-time period, which in turn makes it easier on the game's engine dealing with AI, routing, etc.

And to verify Trip's statement - there is no CC (Custom Content) in SV2020 whatsoever, but it does use a large number of the game's Expansion Packs, so keeping them installed/on while playing it is recommended.

Thank you for helping Trip!

[skipsmooth]

Much thanks to both of you!!

[Cheezey]

About a week late to the party here, but as a fan of NRaas story progression, I'd like to chime in on that because I know it's a popular one.

If your play style is such that you enjoy seeing updates about sims in town outside the active household, and you like to have the game generate new sims from existing townies (with them having families on their own for your sim kids to interact with, rather than just them aging and dying off and being replaced with vanilla sims the game moves in) then it's a great mod to have.  I also like that it will push sims to pursue skills and careers even if they're not in the active household.  This is nice in legacy style play because your spares that move out will move on with their lives, rather than stagnating and aging and dying off just as they were when you moved them out, since EA's story progression doesn't really do any of that.

But if you always place your own sims in town for your sims to marry/have kids with/befriend, and you don't bother with sims outside the house much, it's probably not something you need.  I wouldn't put it in if you didn't really want the features because it can bog your game down and tax the memory, especially if you have all the notifications on.

I also find the Tagger mod very useful, because it can tell you at a glance in map view a lot about a sim, and help you find them if you want to meet up with them or see if they're stuck and need a reset.

[skipsmooth]

Good advice, Cheezey, thanks!

[Jaga Telesin]

I like NRaas Story Progression more than any other (even the older one that comes with Awesome Mod).  If you disable all notifications for it, and then set it to either Slow or Snail mode, I think it's arguably the best SP out there, and vanilla TS3 story progression can't even hold a candle to it.