Story Progression

[B-ored]

I believe this is the right topic for posting questions related to this subject.

I was wondering wich type of story progression other Sims 3 players use for in the game. I do like the normal story progression mod, but when i have a Sim family who has reached uppon more then 2 generations, usually the original population dies without having been married or getting childeren. So then i tried NRaas story progression mod and initially it worked fine. (I disabled the pop up options tough.) Then my game started to freeze with every 10 seconds i played for over more then 5 seconds. (Even when i changed the graphics dramaticly.)

Finally the Awesomemod seemed like a good option, and i still use this one in the Sunset Valley 5.0 i downloaded from CSG. (Very, very nice revamp btw.) The family that lives there is 4 generations in lenght, with the youngest members being twins. Again the original population turned old and grey, and they had almost no kids. The father of the twins is married to the child of Cressidia Ursine, and his sister is in love with Cristopher Steel, but still they refuse to marry.

Is there maybe a mod that can help with this? Which story progression do you use to make sure the town keeps nicely populated? Thanks for reading.

B-ored. 
 

[TheTripWasInfraGreen]

When I'm not playing one of the challenges/dynasties on this site, I use Twallan's/NRaas' Story Progression. Awesomemod's progression is fine, but it populates based on if a household has a double bed and a crib in the house, which pretty much lets a town die off without some major work. Twallan's doesn't work that way, and I don't need to add cribs just to have my population reproduce.

Twallan's SP is very resource-intensive, though. It's been a long since I've used Awesomemod, so I have no word on how much of a burden it would be on the system, and I wouldn't ask at its official forums either.

[B-ored]

I agree Twallens Mod makes the most progression in the town by far.. I think i'm going to use that mod again.. Do you have any tips or recommandation about the settings of the mod? The game is most fun when it plays fluently without freezing all the time. 

[TheTripWasInfraGreen]

Unfortunately, I don't know how to make it less laggy, but I think that Twallan himself would be willing to give some tips. Either catch him here or on his own site; he's pretty amiable.

[Chuckles_82]

What parts of the game does story progression alter? I'm wondering if traits and LTWs have anything to do with a town's population dying out? I'm currently looking into the game files, but perhaps if family oriented is only available at a certain age, then there are less opportunities for a sim to develop that trait which might make them more likely to have children. Also, if the chance that they will develop that trait is not high enough that might be a cause. I'm designing the population for my own world, and wondering if having lots of family oriented and hopeless romantic sims would help story progression along?

Basically I want to do everything in my control to ensure that my population lasts for as many generations as possible (including making sure houses with enough beds and cots are available).

OK, so it's availabe from Child age onwards, so that's plenty of chances, now to check the random weight... The random weight is set at the highest compared with other traits, but I think when you add all that together and work out the percent chance that a sim will develop the family oriented trait, it would be rather small. That's assuming that family oriented affects the chance that sims will reproduce at all. I'm pretty sure it does though.

Any other information about what affects story progression would be great

[NonaMena]

If your game is freezing every 10 seconds it is most likely a routing issue. Some sim(s) is stuck somewhere and the game is trying to calculate the route over and over. This is indirectly related to StoryProgression, since StoryProgression does push sims to go do things. Then, on their way, they get stuck somewhere and start causing lag.

You can try to fix the lag by using the cheat "resetsim *" or you can use MasterController's Reset Everything. You can also install Overwatch, if you haven't already, which will try to detect stuck sims and reset them. You can read more about this kind of game lag at the NRaas FAQ: General Issues FAQ: Game Lag

If you want to try set up SP so that it causes less lag, I highly recommend you post at the NRaas Wiki.

[Katie123urgreat]

Whenever the game freezes every ten seconds in my game I go into edit town and place an empty lot anywhere in the town. This seems to stop it. And, I don't have story progression (or any mods for that matter) and it still happens to me. Hope this helps.

[Cedia]

I cannot play the game without Twallan's Story Progression.  It's just too boring without!

One reason you may be getting lag is due to all the other crap that the game accumulates:  cars, lost sims, strollers, etc.

In my opinion, Twallan's Overwatch and ErrorTrap are also required.  They keep your town running smoothly.

[MoMoll]

I love Twallan's SP and get some lag; but, it's livable. Keep the number of posts down by disabling some of the stories (like cat hunting, etc.).

[donatello]

Whenever the game freezes every ten seconds in my game I go into edit town and place an empty lot anywhere in the town. This seems to stop it. And, I don't have story progression (or any mods for that matter) and it still happens to me. Hope this helps.

I love simple solutions like this. It very effectively sidesteps the perceived need for mods.

[mmoblitz]

I cannot play the game without Twallan's Story Progression.  It's just too boring without!

One reason you may be getting lag is due to all the other crap that the game accumulates:  cars, lost sims, strollers, etc.

In my opinion, Twallan's Overwatch and ErrorTrap are also required.  They keep your town running smoothly.

Agreed and you won't need a town full of empty lots to keep playing. 

[AmeliaAnne]

Along with Overwatch and Errortrap, I also recommend Saver - it reminds you to save every 30 minutes (or however long you set it). My game seems to run better if I save more frequently.

I love Story Progression - I marry off my extra kids, set them up in a house, and then they actually have children on their own without me doing anything! And there are lots of other students at school, etc. Really fabulous.

[Chuckles_82]

Perhaps the game does some sort of routing rebuild every time a lot is placed? I like that very simple solution

[Gameactive]

Saver is quite literally a life saver (no pun intended) for my Simming time. The Sims 3, along with SimCity 4, occasonally crash and shut down with no apparent cause. Saver helps a lot, but there isn’t one for SimCity 4. 

Back on topic, I use Twallan’s story progression mod, with the added features of MasterController and its SP modual. It causes lag on occasion, but it’s bearable for the most part and only occurs on Ultra Speed. The one major annoyance is having to retune the stories option every time I start a new file.

[Turoskel]

You can export your settings then import them again once you start a new game, that's what I do, it saves a lot of hassle as i've changed quite a few settings for how I like story progression to run in my games. It's near the top of the menu, export settings then import settings, it saves them to the family bin.