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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 1st May 2015 at 12:19 PM
Creating NPC families for custom world / Rabbit Hole questions
Okay, so I'm in the planning stages of my first serious world-build project. Bramble Wood is to be a hidden-gem type country town that has surprisingly a lot to do for a town off the main highways. I'm gonna be loosely basing it off of a chunk of Tennessee where I grew up, minus the rather crazy elevation changes that come with foothills and karst/cavern-and-sinkhole territory. (I may try to make a version of a true Tennessee secret gem town once I get a handle on terrain sculpting, cause Flynn's Lick comet crater is just too cool. The lunar astronauts trained there for moonwalks cause it was barren till like 40 years ago. Now you'd never guess that cause it's so thickly overgrown.)

-cough- Pardon. I'm good at loosing track of original topic via interesting tangents. Where was I? Oh yes! NPC Families!
One of the things that is obvious to me from the start is that the town will need NPC families that fit the niche. Does the game automatically create families to move into houses? And what tools can I use to set up who does what in town? Some NPC families have already been written on paper as to what role they play whether it's competing in the extra large multi-lot horse complex, or running the town's luxury hotel, or working out of this rabbit hole or that one.

Speaking of Rabbit Holes, is it okay to have multiples? Like the diner, the bookstore, the spa, the theatre, etc. I've got room in my downtown to ensure that there is enough lots for competition businesses and variance of venues to choose from when dining and shopping and such. I just want to make sure, BEFORE I get to the build phase, that having multiples while using rabbit hole rugs won't break anything.
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 1st May 2015 at 1:07 PM
Hey. It´s always nice top have more worldbuilders

You have 2 possibilities to populate your world.
1. Make a savegame and let your costumers download it seperately.
2. You populate via EIG and mastercontroller. Here is a tutorial

And I think you could place more than 1 rabbithole per type. Maybe you should rename it or use the rabbitholes from different eps.

Im not a native speaker
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 1st May 2015 at 2:21 PM
Well, I'm not really focusing much on the sharing side of it just yet. I'm making Bramble Wood to fill a gap for equestrian stuff. Appaloosa Plains is beautiful but far too limiting for my wild imagination. So the town will have to be populated by myself.

As for the rabbit holes, each one will be different. The only one that I don't know how to solve is the supper club bistro attached to the Secretariat Hotel I've been building. I may just have to use the basement trick. But I don't even have the Ambitions EP yet so there are a lot of unknowns to chew on right now. I'll just take my time and make sure I do it right.

Someone said you play with CC trees and stuff. Can I PM you some questions on that? I don't want bug you with flat out requests and be a bother. I just wanna toss up some ideas and let you choose whether or not to toy with them. If you're cool with that, that is.
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 1st May 2015 at 2:48 PM
Yes of course, I´m open to suggestions - send me a pm and I´ll see what I can do.

Im not a native speaker
dodgy builder
#5 Old 1st May 2015 at 5:21 PM Last edited by Volvenom : 1st May 2015 at 5:38 PM.
Making a world is a long process and having the time to think through it might be a good idea. There is lots of tutorials and discussions here on mts and other places. You should just google for them. Sometimes it's the forest that will lead you to the good solutions.

The populating tutorial by antielynds is perhaps more recent than the one here on mts, but I found the old one by kiwi-tea very useful: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...ting_CAW_Worlds

The thing about world tutorials is they are sometimes quite dated, as the tools are quite dated, and for a big world it's a good thing to read many different ways to do it. The little tips you pick up could prove useful. I populated my world with 209 characters and had some troubles when I chose the wrong skin for them, but I was prepared for the higher demands on quality here on mts for characters. For that reason I got them accepted, but I couldn't be sure about it. The point just being, don't exclude yourself to only one source of information, even though it might be a very useful one, read many different sources.

When it comes to rabbitholes, the theories are as many as the possibilities. Just let the possibilities guide you and if you have an idea of what you want to achieve, stick to that for both the population and the rabbitholes you do. The reason for that being the amount of work and decitions you might end up with, to limit your chose might end up being very useful when you would like to find the creative solutions.

Just a little tip on populating a world, the job is big before you even start, treat it like a big job and start reading up on the subject quite early. The tools you use might be a surprice the way the game handles it, and you still have different ways of doing it. If you only plan to make a few people that fine, and a smaller job, but you're talking about NPC's and townies as well, that's what I did. Don't underestimate the job you need to do.

I populated the game and not a save, and I had some troubles with finding the right command. it may look like auntielynds had the same problem in her tutorial. The command kiwi-tea uses is wrongly spelled. I don't remember the right words, but it's only to do with a spacing in the wrong place. It's never been corrected in the tutorial by kiwi-tea, and looking at the tutorial by auntielynds it looks like the way it's organize it`s maybe based on the same one.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#6 Old 1st May 2015 at 7:17 PM
Thanks for the advice, Volvenom. As far as populating goes, a town is as defined by its people as it is by it's buildings. The way it is put together, for me to get any enjoyment out of it, is that it must be able to tell it's own stories. The people that live there are part of that. They are also the last pieces to go into the town's construction process so they get plenty of time to grow out of the features of the town and create their own little dramas without my help. Small country towns can some times be the best at writing entertaining soap operas out of real life. Especially in the southern US where the church on the other side of town might secretly be led by the Devil. Thankfully Bramble Wood will be able to leave the religious squabble out of the gossip-mungering, though perhaps not what might be happening at the secret society castle tucked away in the woods (intended to include a nod to Garth's Brightwood Tower castle in Fable 2).
dodgy builder
#7 Old 2nd May 2015 at 9:23 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Akatala
Thanks for the advice, Volvenom. As far as populating goes, a town is as defined by its people as it is by it's buildings. The way it is put together, for me to get any enjoyment out of it, is that it must be able to tell it's own stories. The people that live there are part of that. They are also the last pieces to go into the town's construction process so they get plenty of time to grow out of the features of the town and create their own little dramas without my help. Small country towns can some times be the best at writing entertaining soap operas out of real life. Especially in the southern US where the church on the other side of town might secretly be led by the Devil. Thankfully Bramble Wood will be able to leave the religious squabble out of the gossip-mungering, though perhaps not what might be happening at the secret society castle tucked away in the woods (intended to include a nod to Garth's Brightwood Tower castle in Fable 2).


Oh yes, have fun with it and it will be fun for the players as well. Lots of people out there loves a good story. If you start early it has time to develop.
Scholar
#8 Old 2nd May 2015 at 6:44 PM
The only warning I've read about multiple rabbit holes is that more than one city hall may cause a problem. Sometimes, multiple rabbit holes can create lag. Such as two schools or two business centers. The game will not automatically send children to the closest school, for example. I think more than one school bus might be created, too. Sending the sim to a farther away rabbit hole can take extra time. I'm not sure how many problems this may cause, though. Good luck with your project!
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 2nd May 2015 at 7:16 PM
I have information on that - I don´t know if this is the same for school, but when the work-rabbithole is too far away my sim just get in the car and beams directly to the rabbithole. A pretty nice solution for the problem in my opinion.

And I heard that only 1 school can cause problems when there are too many pupils. They get stuck in front of the building.

Im not a native speaker
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