The Sims 3 4x4 Dynasty

[KRae]

About the Young Again Potion, it is banned like any other life extending method for heirs until an heir has completed the try for baby requirements. Some of us have had bugs with it, but it has been allowed so an elder female heir can have children. I think if a moving heir qualifies to reproduce, but the family hasn't completed the moving requirements yet, life can be extended but no kids until you can move. The next child must be born in the next town.

[Tilia]

Just want to make sure my pregnancy question isn't missed.  Was really hoping to play on the challenge today ...

[Metropolis Man]

Can I use the door of life and death to impregnate a male non-heir?

Yes.

[Trip]

Please note that the "Genetic Merger" action that comes with the Door of Life and Death does not create a true genetic child of the sims selected. It creates a generic-faced sim that bears about no resemblance to whoever is involved.

Not that it affects the legality of the option, but keep it in mind.

[dontmindme]

Just to make sure my questions get answered.


1) Just to clarify, the founders can invite housemates to live with them but the housemates, including their children, aren't allowed to marry heirs, correct?

2) Are housemates allowed to be banned life states?

[Trip]

Sorry that I missed them!

1. Correct. Their housemates can fulfill any role except for marrying an heir. However, anyone born into the household can marry an heir. Or so nearly every 4x4 story posted is telling me.

2. Yes, as long as they aren't procreating with heirs. I'm pretty sure heirs have to cure their spouses before moving them in (and even if not, it doesn't hurt to because you'll have to do it anyways!).

[enderkay]

So I'm getting ready to build my house up, and there's this one spot that it won't let me build or place objects on. (MoveObjects on gets around the latter, but then my Sim can't use the object so it doesn't do me a whole lot of good right now.)

Here's a picture of the area:



It's a really odd shape. When I started this file I didn't have any problems, and even had Heir #1's bed next to it, until one day he started getting pathing issues. So considering the odd shape and the original placement of the bed, I'm thinking that his IF caused it somehow. I've since stuck the IF in his inventory to keep it from potentially mucking up other areas.

So my question is, is there anything I can do to fix it? I've tried bulldozing the area multiple times, but I'm about ready to give up and just build around it. I know that evicting the family and bulldozing could probably fix it, but I obviously don't want to try that without permission or trying whatever else I can first.

[hazelnut]

Enderkay, have you installed Seasons?  That looks like a spot intended for rain puddles (they are like almost-invisible oval mats).  It seems to be remarkably persistent: even though I've disabled Seasons in my 4x4 Dynasty, one of the mystery mats appeared in the second house's games room and I had to avoid that spot in Build/Buy modes.

Now for my problem: I've been having increasingly-severe problems in my Sims games for the last few weeks/months.  This came to a head about two weeks ago, when the computer started crashing to the blue screen of death at frequent intervals, even if I was only reading emails.  I took it into our local repairs place and, after a longish delay (which turned out to be because they were busy rather than anything inherently awful), they confirmed my suspicion that one of the RAM modules was faulty.  It's now been replaced but, on playing again, it appears that the game files have become corrupted: disappearing Sims (not just the usual invisibility - gone from everywhere: portrait panels as well as in-game); the entire family is unable to go to work; no-one can interact with the baby or most objects.  Do I have permission to go back as far as it takes (scary thought!) to get past the problem?  Resetting individual Sims or the whole town doesn't seem to be helping much.

[Trip]

Hazelnut, are you referring to the SocialJig mats? Those aren't related to Seasons, as far as I know. I got them before Seasons was released. They can be deleted via TestingCheats when they cause problems, but ask for permission first. I don't know if that will solve Enderkay's problem, but it might be worth asking for permission to try.

I can't say that I have a good answer for the second part of your post, though.

[Nutella]

@enderkay
Go ahead and try using testingcheats to delete that object.

[enderkay]

Enderkay, have you installed Seasons?  That looks like a spot intended for rain puddles (they are like almost-invisible oval mats).  It seems to be remarkably persistent: even though I've disabled Seasons in my 4x4 Dynasty, one of the mystery mats appeared in the second house's games room and I had to avoid that spot in Build/Buy modes.

Like Trip said, I'm pretty sure those are the SocialJig mats. Puddles just stay as puddles, I think. (I always have rain turned off though, so I'm not sure.)

@enderkay
Go ahead and try using testingcheats to delete that object.

Oops, I should have mentioned this before. The problem is, it's not an object. There is literally nothing there. No SocialJig mat, no nothing. Just...space. Impenetrable space. I've never had something like it in my game so I have no idea what's happening. That's why I wondered if it might be the IF, since it's right where the thing used to sit at night.

I've worked around it for now by building my house slightly to the side. There's just enough room for a decent house, which is good. I'll just have to put bushes around the spot or something. (Is MoveObjects considered a building cheat in this case? That way I can stick a bush on top of the space and not worry about it anymore.)

Since it's not really pressing anymore, I guess I can leave it. I'll just play around with a copy of the file and see what I can do to make it go away, just in case it happens again.

[hazelnut]

Hazelnut, are you referring to the SocialJig mats? Those aren't related to Seasons, as far as I know. I got them before Seasons was released. They can be deleted via TestingCheats when they cause problems, but ask for permission first. I don't know if that will solve Enderkay's problem, but it might be worth asking for permission to try.

Like Trip said, I'm pretty sure those are the SocialJig mats. Puddles just stay as puddles, I think. (I always have rain turned off though, so I'm not sure.)

I hadn't heard of SocialJig mats until I read this.  Mine were always outdoors before and seemed to be where puddles gathered.  Since the Monte Vista house had a lot of indoor-outdoor rooms (it'd probably be awful to play with rain and snow turned on), I thought the game had just got confused when one appeared in a fully-enclosed space.  I went back into an old save, with testing cheats and moveobjects on and yes, it is a SocialJig mat.  I can only conclude that my Sims have very odd social lives and like standing in puddles .

[hazelnut]

Sorry for the double post but this is about my problem rather than Enderkay’s and I thought an edit was likely to be overlooked.

I’ve been investigating my bugged game and it appears that most, possibly all, of the Barnacle Bay saves are affected, although saves from before the last move are fine.  Various routing problems seem to occur soon after starting to play:

• Sims can’t go home or to work, or visit lots
• the carpools don’t arrive or, most bizarrely,
• cars shoot up into the air when they reach the bridge.

I’ve tried moving the family to the clipboard and back again, which appears to fix the problem.  However, Ausette spotted that the intersection at the end of the road isn’t joined on properly, which might be causing some of the routing issues and would mean they were likely to recur.  I tried downloading Barnacle Bay again, into a new game folder, and the intersection was the same there, so it’s not a glitch that’s crept into the game.

I looked online to see if it was a recognised problem and found someone else who'd had severe routing problems with this particular house.  There were also a number of reports of Sims falling through the bridge while walking across it, suggesting that it may be faulty.

So,

• Could I backtrack to the last move and play from there again, either in a different house in Barnacle Bay or in a different town?  I don’t really want to do this because the ninth heir is close to finishing his requirements, so it woud be repeating quite a chunk of the game.
• Could I move the family to another town now?  In which case, would they be allowed to take anything along?  (They’ve already made a good start on two collections and acquired the materials for making a SimBot when the opportunity fires.)
• Or could they just move to another house in Barnacle Bay to escape from their bugged surroundings?

[Nutella]

@hazelnut

Move to another house in Barnacle Bay to escape from their bugged surroundings - will this for sure solve the problem?  You have permission to do it. 

[hazelnut]

Thank you so much .  The flying vehicles were about the funniest thing I've seen in Sims but otherwise it was thoroughly frustrating.  And to think I've had my eye on that house since I bought Barnacle Bay...

I can't be completely sure that it will fix the game - I've hardly played in BB before this - but it looks as though a quick trip to the clipboard and back to sort out the immediate problem, followed by a house move to avoid having to use that stretch of road again, ought to do it.