The Population Control Panel -- does it work?

[MarianT]

I'm raising the question because even though I've disabled celebrities, werewolves, and fairies in my decadynasty file, my town, Riverview, has werewolves and fairies, and three of my family members have become celebrities.

My lunar cycle doesn't work either, resetting to waxing crescent every time I start up the game, so I wonder if the two are related.

[Ricalynn]

When was the last time you cleared out all of your caches and stuff?  Have you tried changing your settings and then putting them back? 

You don't have to make it permanent but if you do a factory reset folder (where you just move your original sims 3 folder or rename it to create a new one) do you have the same problems?

[simfulicious]

Marian, I am having a problem with the lunar cycle too.  I can't speak for the population control panel, because I have everything turned on.  I do however, have my family opted out of the celebrity system, and I am not receiving the annoying phone calls.
Do you also notice that zombies show up all day/night every day?  This is happening to me as well.
 

[Phoenix]

  I can't say about the population control thing either---because I play using mods, and I don't have that problem.

  However, I have read on the official forums, from people who did not have mods, that the Lunar Cycle is broken.  And if you save during a full moon, especially during the hours of 5 pm to 8 pm, there is an increased chance that you get the Zombie bug.  Where the zombies spawn night and day.  So it is recommended that people avoid saving during a full moon.

  As to the Lunar problem, if you are amiable to mods, the newest version of Twallan's Overwatch fixes the Lunar Cycle.  I have a No Zombie mod, because I don't like Zombies.

  Good Luck! 

[simfulicious]

I have no problem with mods, except that it is for my Life States Dynasty file, so they are no.  Thanks for your help, though.  I didn't know there was a zombie bug.

[MarianT]

I clear my caches every day, and I did a factory reset when I installed Supernatural. But the file where I notice it is my dynasty file, which was saved after the patch but before the install.

[Toni]

For me everything is working perfectly. Zombies only spawn on a full moon, the lunar cycle works, the population control works (or well the celebrity part of it does. Thats the only thing I have turned off) and saving on a full moon doesn't do any harm. I wonder why others aren't working?

[Ricalynn]

For me everything is working perfectly. Zombies only spawn on a full moon, the lunar cycle works, the population control works (or well the celebrity part of it does. Thats the only thing I have turned off) and saving on a full moon doesn't do any harm. I wonder why others aren't working?

Do you use mods?  And I think some bugs are hit & miss as this has always been the case.   I actually have issues with residents getting Pets even though I have it turned off. 

[MarianT]

No mods, but I discovered the problem -- apparently the options cover all the files, not just each saved game. This means that my Decadynasty file got the same settings as my Life States Dynasty file. So I'll probably have to do a factory reset and keep them separate.
As for the pets -- I don't have pets in any of my games, but the strays keep showing up. Maybe we have to wait for the original set of strays to die off?

[BellaClo]

The setting boxes for pets and horses are only controlling if the townies can adopt them or not at home. Un-ticking the boxes won't prevent the creation of stray pets and wild horses, because those are not part of Story Progression. The options settings are only for Story Progression control in fact. On the same idea, the neighbourhood adoption centre is also not controlled by SP, hence not affected by your choice in the option panel. This was confirmed some time ago by SimGuruGraham on twitter. So basically, the pets and horses options are a bit useless in my opinion :-(

[ratchie]

I unchecked(is that right?)the box for celebrity and as soon as my Sim reached level ten of her career she has five celeb stars, gets a limo and two paparazzi on the lawn. I thought that having no celebrities meant that there would be no celebrities.

Rachel

[Ricalynn]

Even if you unchecked celebrities but didn't check to opt out with current household, you could still get some stars.   The paparazzi apparently don't go away because you have LN but they won't darken your lawn if you don't have any stars.  The follow other random people around. 


I have unchecked both the pets and horses boxes and while I never see any townies own horses, I still get calls for neighborhood adoptions and the like. So I think there can be an occassional problem but yes the check boxes are for your entire game like with the graphics settings so in order to not have to change them for each game, the factory reset is the best call.

[Toni]

Do you use mods?

No

[Ricalynn]

No

Like I said it's hit or miss but I know there are a lot of mods out there that have corrected the issues so some people never experience them at all.