Ever since the game came out I found those 2 empty tiles so annoying... I love the idea of rowhouses.
I was trying to make my own using the Lot Adjuster but I can't build the perpendicular walls right to the edge of the lot like you did for some reason (or the roof either for that matter), maybe I need a newer version of the program, but I couldn't find any...
anyways I downloaded your lot and tested it and I'm sure that with some imagination I can make a whole variety of townhouses!

Thanks!

QUESTION Not that I'm expecting game corruption, but should it occur, would it affect the lot or the entire neighborhood or all neighborhoods? If I test, it would be in a neighborhood I don't play and I don't mind if it gets borked.

This is a neat research area, I'm glad you all are working on this. Hate that 2 square gap, so annoying. Now if only someone could get raise/lower terrain to work on the edge of a lot too, I would love them forever.

plasticbox, you are what I would call a mesiah! I was so sick of the suburbs. In fact, I've been intending to build big cities like New York and Paris and those bloody two tiles destroy the esence. THANKS! You have come up with what everybody has been craving for.

You would need v1.0.0.13 for the perpendicular walls, but that's not publically available at the moment. See the OP, and the research thread for details -- maybe the perpendicular-walls-shrinking can be published, maybe not, that's what we're trying to find out with this test.


Well, we don't know what kind of corruption might occur with this, since we haven't yet seen any =) but *in case* it's like the first time around (the infamous "7PM crash" symptom), it can affect everything the game has in memory if I remember correctly. To be completely on the safe side, you can temporarily move your "real" neighbourhood to the desktop (or anywhere outside the TS2 folder) while you test, then the game has no way to mess with it. (Or, of course, make a backup .. but moving the folder is probably faster)


Oh, hey, but this is not my achievement -- in fact I did embarassingly little testing and such in the last time .. it was mostly aelflaed and Mootilda who did all the hard work, from what I've seen. See the credits in the OP, there's *a lot* of people involved who have done much more than I did -- I'm only the PR department =)

And a very nice PR Dept., too! Hopefully Mootilda will be releasing this version soon, then you can all play with the perpendicular walls feature.

I saw a new dl with your name and I had to check it out. Here you go again. Showing me stuff I want. All of you master modders just keep putting out stuff that's "must have" and I can't resist. You put up a link to frillen's stuff, now my dl folder has grown again. Darn, more picking and choosing to reduce, again. I had to buy a new TV today, geez, $800 I wanted to spend on other things, like a new laptop, more EPs/stuff packs. Well, I did get my money's worth on the old TV, 20+ yrs old.

Wish I could help you out with the test, but I better get off the computer right NOW. Huge thunderstorm pounding my house! Tornado watch, too.

Thank you ALL for all your hard work and great contributions.

Yeah, I think they should have included rowhouses in the game. Ah well. With any luck, we can maybe get them in Sims 3.

Thanks, I'll keep testing and let you know if anything wrong happens... it seems everything is OK for the moment.

As for now I'm using your lot, some as they are, and some refurbished and modernized.

WOW! Brilliant idea, I hate the way every single house in my neighbourhood is stand alone... this will look so much better thank you!!!!!!

Actually, depending on what exactly you want to do, this is already implemented in the public version -- try playing around with the "Keep lot edges" feature in the Advanced options. I'm not familiar with it since all I do is flat lots, maybe there's some additional info in the LA thread on how it works; see also this thread.

Wauw, it sounds ...fantastic... I love it, I love it, I love it! I will test it asap. Shame the idea everyone has since '04 gets materialized in the last year of The Sims 2. I can say it again, again and again, it is amazing!
Mootilda, aelflaed, Inge Jones, MaryLou, niol, Mutantbunny, Rascal, Simsample, KariMinger/Zazazu, DocDoofus, behold_the_muse, baratron, dizzy, ladykatsim, JMP, ebonyspiral, MadameMim, ikbod, mildlydisguised, Emma, Quinctia, and of course plasticbox;
THANK YOU

Seven new CAS sims in 4 different neighbourhoods - including 2 brand new ones and not one single crash at 7pm or by switching day/night in build mode. Yeahah!

Yo, thanks Rascal =) I meant to PM you, but you were faster!

I am so glad you're back with your visionary ideas PBox. In fact my whole neighbourhood is such a shrine to your work that Im going to rename it Plasticbox-ville...if I could only figure out how...

I'll grab this one, though I'm not sure when I'll have time to test. ...though I don't expect any problems!

I wish I had the patience you do in terms of using the Lot Expander to build things.

OK, so I've tested it in a new neighborhood:
I tested with two new families in two different houses that I've been extensively rebuilding and redecorating, as con be seen here and here, and nothing bad happened. I played during several sim-days, went and came back from community lots, went to work, etc...
The only unusual thing is that the first time that a Sim changed to have a bath or go to bed the game paused for about a (scary) minute. In one case the bathtub was 1 tile away from the edge of the lot, but the bed head was 2 tiles away, so I don't know if it can have something to do with lot shrinking.
I also tested the lot as downloaded with one of the families that came with the game (the Ramaswamis), and my game crashed when I had one of them "change "appearance" in the large mirror in the hallway... but again it might not have anything to do with the lot.
Hope this helps!

alexpilgrim, this almost sounds like you're having a problem with Bodyshop CC (since both your crash and the game hanging happened when changing), but thanks for reporting it. Personally I have no idea whether it can have anything to do with the shrinking or not (I only know there were funny/misplaced animations with previous versions of the LA test version, but I haven't seen any reports of crashes).

Does anyone else have this kind of issue?

It probably has more to do with the gazillions of hair, clothing and make-up in my folders!

I'll keep testing and report if anything else happens, in one of the houses I moved the staircase to the center of the lot, but in the other two I din't see anything strange.

plasticbox Maybe you could ask people to test without CC, just to eliminate that variable.

Was the lot shrunk with furniture in place? This version should move objects off the edge, or abort the shrink, to prevent corrupted object animations.

Um, dumb question, but where is the lot supposed to get installed? I double clicked the sims2pack, and it said it installed it, but its not in Downloads, its not in LotCatalog, where is it? I want to be able to remove it after I'm done testing it. Am I supposed to get a *.package file, or is it supposed to stay a *.sims2pack? I don't usually install lots, I don't know.

With some of it. I was actually concerned about the stairs rather than Buy mode objects. The unshrunk version is still in the private forum in case Mootilda needs to look at it -- but the dresser thing above, unless it also happens without CC and in an unmodified house, sounds like a CC problem to me so I wouldn't bother her with it.


It goes in Teleport first (all components -- the lot itself, and any CC that's included), and after you run the game it's in Lots/Lot Catalogue (depending on whether or not it's in the hood or only in the bin). To remove it, just delete it from the lot bin in-game. You can delete the sims2pack too of course, if you're done testing.

I..I Don't know what to say, this is the best idea ever. Thanks ALOT for the idea with these rowhouses! Must go play now O.O

Good question. Theoretically, anything which the game changes during a play session would be at risk. Since the game updates every neighborhood every time that you play, all of your neighborhoods could be at risk. I would recommend that you move your real neighborhoods somewhere else while testing.

Note that we have done a lot of work in isolating which parts of the shrinking feature are risky, and in restricting shrinking to those things which have no problems. I honestly believe that this version should be safe.

The game has some pretty strong rules about what's allowed on the edge - get it wrong and you'll get a "disconnect" between the neighborhood and lot terrains. Usually, these disconnects show up as a blue "tear" at the edge of the lot.

The new (as yet unreleased) version of the LotAdjuster will have some additional features for lot edges, including the ability to flatten the edge and the ability to take the form of the neighborhood terrain. However, moving individual grid points up or down isn't really feasible, because of the disconnect problem.

If you have other ideas for lot edges, please post your suggestions in the LotAdjuster thread. I'll be happy to consider them.

I wouldn't recommend using the (soon to be removed) "keep lot edges" feature. It keeps your existing lot terrain intact while shrinking, which sounds like what you want. However, it is prone to the "disconnect" problem discussed above.