How do I stop inactive sims from gathering in one spot doing nothing but complain that they can't pass via narrow passages?

Does this happen to you?, I always encounter sims staying in one place where my sim is at.

For example, my sim uses the ice cream maker, they stay there as if there is something important to watch, like when a sim is playing a guitar. But when my sim stopped making Ice Cream, just to give way to them, they didn't make Ice Cream. They just stood there looking stupid. Errrrrr.....

They always do that especially when the passageway is very narrow (1-5 tiles of space.)
Why can't the game tell that it's a narrow space, so pull over?

Do I need to reset all sims involved? ( I hope not.) reset lot? what cheat should I type?

I really wish some help could come because it's so tiresome typing the moveobjects on cheat and remove them one by one from that spot every time they do it.

Thank You Very Much.

They do it when going to University Classes too. Usually they sort it out themselves after a few Sim hours. But if you want to reset them type resetsim <insert name here>

Your use of a period in the title of your thread, rather than a question mark, had me enthusiastically clicking on this thread to learn your secret of how to get better routing of inactive sims through narrow passages. That behavior has annoyed me for over 4 years. And I thought you were bringing the solution.

If you had used a question mark, I would have known you were just facing the same problem the rest of us do day in and day out. While moveojects is one invasive way to bust up the crowd, and resetsim is another, perhaps less physically intrusive solution (well, beaming them back home might be considered more intrusive to some, than simply being picked up like a mannequin and place somewhere else), the best solution I've discovered is to simply rebuild areas with narrow passages into wide passages, wherever possible, of course. Otherwise, you're in the same boat as the rest of us.

See? Punctuation matters.

[QUOTE=eskie227]Your use of a period in the title of your thread, rather than a question mark, had me enthusiastically clicking on this thread to learn your secret of how to get better routing of inactive sims through narrow passages. That behavior has annoyed me for over 4 years. And I thought you were bringing the solution.

I am sorry, for not noticing that I had put a period, rather than a question mark. But, thanks for pointing that out, I'd be more careful next time. :D

I changed now the period to question mark, so nobody gets fooled again.

Do I need 6 tiles or more space just to place a 1 tiled Ice cream maker on top of a 1 tiled counter? Geeezzzz...., if this is the solution, then we are bullied by inactive sims into adjusting our own building layout for them, rather than they adjust their bad behavior for us. In that case, we can't build small shops that need maximization of business space.

If you put an ice cream maker in a public space, it will attract sims like flies to leftover food. It's just the coding of the ice cream maker that makes it so attractive to sims, hungry or stuffed. And if you put a fryer next to it, all they'll eat is deep fried ice cream, which can't be good for their weight. So I would advice, if you are going to tempt your sims with an ice cream maker on a public lot, place 2.

As for the shops, fortunately commercial real estate is dirt cheap in Simland. Build your small shops bigger. It might not be to the satisfaction of the aesthetic sense of a small, crowded novelty shop you were going for, but it will prevent sim clusters from developing. So yes, we are governed by the inherent limitations of sim routing in our build decisions, not the other way around. They're just not smart enough to get out of each others way. Supposedly, 4 is being coded with far better routing. We'll see.

Thanks Eskie for the useful info about the Ice cream maker, I think we really have to deal with the lack of Artificial Intelligence in TS3. Too bad I really have to re size my shops/boutiques. I feel so sorry for my mall, they really look good with lots of small shops in one lot, but as you explained, a little sacrifice of aesthetics is the way to solve the problem. I gotta deal with it.

Thanks. This is what I do every time a sim is stuck. I hope we don't have to do this to all stuck sims. I hope that there is a cheat to reset all stuck sims without typing their names one by one.

Invisible fences. The connoisseurs choice.

yes there is....

resetsim *

Oh My, Oh My!!! I never thought that I could reset all stuck sims altogether! Thank You! Thank You! :lovestruc

Remember, that will reset ALL the sims in your world, including your actives. So if things are hopelessly bogged down, it can be a lifesaver, but for a few sims stuck in one aisle of one store, individual resets are probably a better option.

Thank You for pointing that out, I would have done it, because I thought that cheat only reset stuck sims, not all sims in the world.

If you just want to reset one particular sim, use "resetsim [firstname] [lastname]." Without the brackets.

Thanks, but I want to reset several sims who are stuck in one spot simultaneously, but not reset all of the sims in the world. My problem is, when I type the cheat reset * , I reset all sims in the world, including sims who are not stuck, therefore, cancelling their current activities which I don't like to happen.

One other option is to change the Dynamic Avoidance fields under [Config] in the sims3.ini to something like 0.05. Sims clip through each other a bit if you do, but they don't get stuck in narrow hallways as easily.

Just make a copy of the unmodified .ini if you do change it.

Thanks. What do you mean by sims clipping through each other? Do you mean, they intersect each other?

Where is the sims3.ini?

/Game/Bin, where the ts3w.exe is

Yes, whenever they try to walk around another sim, they'll pass through each other a bit.

Thanks for your reply. It's ok that they pass through each other, that's not new to me. I sometimes see that even without adjusting the .ini file.

my good friend Jean Claude Van Damme once told me just to kick them all out of the way, it didn't go well for me.

Oh wow, why have I never heard this science before?

It's deep in the NRaas wikispaces site, like way in the back where you need a lantern to see and something to brush away the dust and cobwebs covering the ancient miscellaneous FAQs.

That's why this board always follows the advice of Chuck Norris instead. Far more effective than Jean Claude, and without the accent.

Watch out if you reset your Sim while they're at University. I did that once and his performance meter dropped way down...where before it had been all the way up. The bad part--this was a Sim day or so before finals.

Now if it's one I'm not playing I couldn't care less. Serves 'em right for creating a bottleneck.

I also tend to send my Sims to their classroom buildings way early so as to beat the rush...same for graduation, have them there in front of the doors before 1 pm.