Hello! Here are few questions I cannot find anwers for. Already been at Sims 3 tutorial hub and searched through the forum here, but some aspects of compressing and merging *.package files still are not clear to me. Can somebody help me, please?

1. Should I compress individual packages first and then merge them? Or should I make a merged package first and then run it through Compressorizer? Does it even matter, what to do first?

2. Very often creators do not mention if their files are compressed or not. What if the file(s), I downloaded, was already compressed? Will it become borked, if I run it through Compressorizer again?

3. Is Compressorizer Redux 1.0 still actual? There are not any newer versions?

4. Tutorial about merging files, whis I was able to find, dates back to 2010. There is stated, that files should be added to merged package by importing them in S3PE as dbc. Is this an actual information? DBC? Not from file or package, which are two other Import options?

Thanks in advance! Sorry, if my questions sound obvious or dumb, but I never did any of this before and some info appears to be outdated or be gone copmletely these days.

I wish I had asked a few questions before merging. There are things I learned since that could make life easier now.

First, group your CC, either by category or creator. Example, make up in one merge, hair in another, or all by JoshQ in one package, and Shushilda in another. You can have CC by category, BUT, special merged packages by certain creators. As long as you label the packages properly.

1 + 2. Most packages are already compressed, but there are some that the creator did not. Not a problem. Once you merge a group of packages, compress the new package. It won't "bork" anything.

3. I use S3PE to view, merge and compress packages.

4. Sims 3 package format has not changed, so even older tutorials are most likely accurate. TS3 packages are in DBPF format. I forget, but I believe that store content is packaged differently, and must be run thru another program to make it compatible with the basic format. If you open one in s3pe, the "preview" will be empty. So, you can import as package, and S3PE will figure things out for you.

Chain Reaction at NRAAS forum explains that .dbc and .package refer to the same general type of file, and yes, you should use .dbc when importing packages to a merged file. It worked okay when I tried it though its effect on catalog lag in CAS was small compared to the effect of using Master Controller to compact the catalog views. I haven't done build-buy objects yet so I can't say how effective that is (catalog lag in build-buy has never been as bad as CAS, even though I am a fanatic hoarder of windows, doors, and deco architectural bits, and I am much less enthusiastic in CAS collecting)

Thank you both for answering my questions, LadySmoks and lucykemnitzer! You helped a lot!