k6ka's post in the current neighborhoods thread got me thinking on the subject of car parks (parking lots) in community lots. When I build a community lot I don't even think about a car park. I don't have a car myself and I invariably travel by bus; a few of my Sims have bicycles, but mostly they take taxis. So it just doesn't occur to me to include car parking spaces.

Actually my very first community lot, the Swim Centre in Veronaville, does include a grey tarmac area that I intended for car parking, but, when I built it, the only community lots I had seen were the base game lots in Veronaville, and most of them have ample parking space. (I think Veronaville Market just has un-tarmacked waste ground.) So I included a car park at my swimming pool, because I kind of thought you had to. (Actually I put it on the road at the side of the lot, rather than the one at the front, so I don't think a Sim could possibly drive into it, even with MogHughson's park in the car park mod -- I was a total newbie at the time!) It's still there, and I might one day use Mog's other mod to park random cars there, as, at the moment it's just bit of grey ground at the side of the lot that everyone ignores. Or I might redevelop the area as something more useful.

A little later I added a Downtown, and I don't think any of the lots there have parking spaces, so after that I never thought of adding them to my own lots either. Maxis seem to have thought car parks were necessary when they did base game, but not in Downtown, which is odd considering that Nightlife is the EP that added driveable vehicles.

So, when (if) you build your own community lots, do you include parking spaces? And, of so, do you use MogHughson's mod so your Sims can actually park there? And why?

I don't, no. Since they can't be used, I see no point adding them. Sure, it'd look more like what I'm used to, but I rather use that space for something that has a function in game.

I have a few lots I've DLed with them. I usually use Mog's mod to park random cars there. I don't use the one for your own car. It's too complicated to set up when they can just park on the road (I'm lazy).

I often make a little car parking area if the lot is the type that needs one, but usually for decoration purposes or storytelling purposes. I use residential lots for pretty much everything, so unless I can squeeze in a real parking space (usually invisible) I don't bother making them usable. The cars I use are deco ones.

I did put Sunni's car park beside a hospital I made, but for deco purposes.

I do sometimes.



They can be used with MogHughson's park in the car park mod, as Andrew said above. Sure other sims won't use them at the same time, but your active sim can drive and park.

I use car parks on some lots - especially public ones and more recent community lot builds (the older ones were made before I got the car parking mod). The health centre in Little Carping has a car park and with Moghughson's mods, cars park in it. It works pretty well and I like the added sense of an active place. I also use a traffic spawning fire hydrant (which I've been meaning to mod further for ages). When I've finished Polgannon, that's a job I must get on to. I have a car park lot too which is functional (has a petrol station with a cafe) in Sirencester. I don't really play it though, I made it to add to Sirencester's scenery. Sirencester is meant to be a downtown area and needed a multistory car park just as it needed a fire and police station (and metro station and schools and hospital and and and - there are quite a few decorative lots in Sirencester).

Most of the time my sims use the 'walk to lot' option, because I usually play small neighbourhoods without sub-hoods and it seems silly for them to get a taxi/car just to go a few streets away. However I do like having car parks in my community lots, and there is a mod which makes them usable here on modthesims which is handy. I also use deco cars to fill out the car parks in build mode. My reasoning is that even if my playable sims walk to the lot, some townies will probably be driving from other parts of SimNation!

Car parks make shopping centres, grocery stores, bowling alleys, etc. look a LOT more realistic in-game, but I suppose it depends on the vibe you're going for. It might not make much sense or look so great in a very rural hood, for example.

I take it that's a mod you've made yourself? It could be very useful. I find it a little absurd that there's lots of passing traffic in neighbourhood view, but none at all when I actually play the lot. On the other hand, in view of my Sims' love of kissing and making out in the middle of the road, maybe I'm better to leave things alone!

I wish I could use that too. Unfortunately it comes with one of the later EP's that would probably fry the graphics chip in my netbook. It's ridiculous when my Sims order a taxi to go to the lot next door, ... or just across the road. And I reckon all the lots in my tiny island hood (New Desconia) must be within five minutes walk of each other. (OK maybe 10 minutes to walk up the hill to the park, if you walk really slowly!)

I never build parking lots. They are ugly (in real life and in sims), awkward, wastes of time and space that take forever to walk across and since I only download mods that add desirable utility I don't have the parking mod. Why? My sims do fine without it. They take the bus most places, though I will buy cars for people who roll wants.

Drama Acres has excellent public transportation, though; and even Strangetown and Widespot have good bus service between the subhoods. Which reminds me, I need to add some of my neighborhood deco bus stops to their maps. The one in Widespot is in front of the water tower, but I wonder where I should put the one in Strangetown? The expanses of asphalt at 88 Road to Nowhere are now serving useful purposes with the addition of a roller rink and basketball court.

Ah I see. I played the base game for years on an old laptop and had oodles of fun and never felt I was missing out, but then when you hear about certain features like walking to lots you do sort of wonder 'why do my sims take cabs everywhere?'. Luckily real-world questions don't have to apply to the Sims Universe, maybe it's just completely normal for Sims to take taxis to go down the road? Perhaps the threat of alien abduction/zombies/vampire bites, or grouchy neighbours with the SimVac just aren't worth the risk of walking exposed?

Yeah, I guess they included them with the base game because they intended to make them useful later, and then when they couldn't, they didn't bother making them any more.

I have the mod which makes deco cars appear but not the one which makes them park in it.

I like to build small community lots for the most part, and typically have no use for a parking lot.

Guess it's sort of a product of my real life environment. My suburban town has a shopping district/main street sort of thing going, that's designed more for those who enjoy walking, bicycling, or just dropping in to shop or grab a bite to eat, while out and about. So, parking is more centralized (which I love), as opposed to every shop or restaurant having their own separate parking.

Parking, schmarking. My real-life town has hitching posts and a corral where you can leave your horse if you're in town for a longer period of time. Old West, you know. I live 7.5 miles out of town and I usually ride my horse ina few times a week to pick up mail, grab groceries, etc. He runs on a bottle or two of beer, which is cheaper than a gallon of gas. He was also way less expensive to buy than a car.

Anyway, no I don't bother with car parks in my neighborhoods. I used to, for realism and such, but...I don't know. I guess it got old. Even with Mog's mod. The only places that have them now are lots that I don't really play, like the clinic, fire station, and police station. Those get "parking spaces" with appropriate deco cars/motorcycles in them so that they look nice in neighborhood view and so that I can look at the neighborhood view and go, "Oh yeah, that's where I put the police station.". Other than that, I just can't be bothered.

I would like that fire hydrant, though. I've heard about it before, but I never think to have a look for it....

No, there are at least two versions of the mod. The one I use is ancient and is by Shaklin. The reason I've not replaced it is because it works for me and I've never had a reason to replace it*. Shaklin left the sims community years ago. I think the hydrant is available at the Graveyard though. What it will do is spawn extra NPC drivers for you because the game needs one for every instance of a car driving past the lot. I accepted that (despite my mania for preventing extra spawning in my game) because I wanted the mod. I think there are 4 or 5 drivers now in Little Carping. It's not usually an issue on small lots because you don't usually get more than 2 cars passing by but I have some very large ones. And if you have a bus dropping kids off or a taxi or a car pool on the lot at the same time, the game will make extra drivers for passing cars. The modification I was going to make to it involved having different intensity of traffic for different types of road and different times.

*the other reason I like it is because the mesh of the object fits perfectly underneath a lampost base (moveobjects on) which, if you don't want to see the object on every single lot (like the blasted phone booth on community lots), you can hide it.

If and when you do get around to tweaking that mod, I also hope you will post it, as it sounds interesting.

On topic, I like using Mog's car park mods (both the one that spawns cars and the one that lets you park the car), but I often forget to add parking lots. Sometimes, it doesn't seem appropriate, like if the lot is too small. Other times, I forget to leave space for it. I mostly use it for my Sims' businesses, or sometimes as a little nook for my car-owning Sims who would rather woohoo in a car than in bed. I also like adding them to hotels, although I haven't tweaked any of the three traditional vacation spots yet.

I never build parking lots, except in suburban lots, which I rarely do, judging by my apparent dislike of suburbia. However, I've seen some people build parking garages into their lots, and it looks pretty neat indeed.

Yes please ^ :D

You know, I've never tried the car park mod in a medieval hood with the default replaced vehicles . . . I should do that. iCad reminded me of the hitching posts outside our favorite restaurant (there were actually four) in one of the little towns we used to live in. Sometimes we'd pull in and it'd look like there was an open parking spot and then we'd see there was a horse parked there. Darn cowboys, taking up a whole parking spot with one little horse! It's a similar feeling to when you think you see a parking spot and then discover a motorcycle parked there.
Anyway, yes, if it suits the neighborhood, I put in a car park. Downtown would mostly be parking garages, which are big, concrete, boring buildings as seen from the neighborhood, so several neighborhood deco objects serve well enough. Pleasantview, on the other hand, strikes me as being one of those developments planned for automobiles, not walkers. The more rural neighborhoods have parking lots because sims are driving in from outlying areas, but the sims who live there may not bother.

Most downtown areas in most cities don't have parking lots attached to stores and shops so it makes sense that they didn't use parking lots with night life. In every city that I have lived in or visited people either use street parking or parking garages. Some shops will be designed in little strips of four shops with six to eight parking spaces but none of the sprawling yards of parking you see in malls or shopping centers.

In short big parking lots that can hold 20 or 30 cars attached to stores and the like are surburban and downtown is the opposite of surburbia.



I never do.I don't have a car and grew up in a major metropolitan area, all my sims walk or bus it. Most of my community lots have decorative bus stops with multiple shops on one lot so a car is unnecessary. One of these days I'm going to add the neighborhood deco that for a train system. I wish it was an 'L.

I normally don't but I did build a mall in my custom neighborhood and for some reason thought it was right to include a parking lot. The mall stands on a 3x5 lot (and it only takes about half the lot, the rest is open space thanks to the parking lot). And I'm actually proud of it!

That's interesting that you mention they stopped with the parking lots after base game/university. I never gave it much thought and now I wonder if it was a feature that was cut.

In the large city I live near/in parking in a lot downtown is a business in itself. Usually $10 which is pricey-pricey. As for in the Sims, no parking for me. I've gone as far as using the Lot Adjuster to get rid of the ones in Pleasantview, and one in La Fiesta Tech. I prefer smaller lots where I can keep an eye on everything that's happening.

@Sunbee: Rude cowboys! Taking up parking spots when there're hitching posts! Booooo! Of course, in my town, out-of-towners who have no clue what a hitching post is will park in front of the posts, even though there's clear signage about it. Which pisses off us horse-riding locals. Such cars usually have California plates on them. Imagine that! Such cars also tend to "mysteriously" get horse poo on them, especially the shiny high-end BMWs and Ferraris and such. *snicker*

*ahem*

Anyway, I posted because the talk about pixels getting around by bus (Which aside from walking I agree makes far more sense for urban 'hoods/downtowns) has made me think that it'd be cool to have a default replacement of the taxi with a bus. Like, the athletic career one, not a school bus, obviously. I mean, people do travel by taxi in citiies, sure, but they're very expensive, so most people will opt for a bus for everyday use. I certainly did, when I lived in NYC. That and the subway, of course.

@A.G.Doren, , you can snag the makings of an 'L' train here http://simscave.mustbedestroyed.org...hp?topic=6303.0 , I have that and trains running all over my hood , built three new lots tonight and one of them is right by it, so I took pics of that one ( in the spoiler) for you to check out. If you're going to add them to an existing hood there really isn't any option in order, but if you are starting a new hood I'd definitely suggest putting in trains and the EL. first , much easier

I love building community lots , still need to build thirteen more for this hood ( to get to fifty ). All of the households I play purchase businesses , sometimes multiple ones. I probably build parking lots for about a third of them and always use Mog's mod if I do. I built a convenience store , a hoops court and a Bar/Pool hall tonight.( last night I guess). Pics of the pool hall/bar in the spoiler.

@iCad oh it wasn't that they were rude--the hitching posts were situated at the front of the parking spaces--very much a park your horse or your truck sort of parking lot. Just that it was frustrating then and amusing now: that "I see a parking spot, oh, crud, there's a little tiny horse in it." Not like they were Clydesdales or Belgians or something you could see over the pickups and SUVs, you know, just your average cow horse.

My sims never own cars but for versimiitude I use a couple of MogHughson's decorative parking spots on many of the lots. I love the decorative parking spots. It's really the only way I like to interact with the cars. What I need to do is to look up her instriuctions for adding custom cars to the mod, because I do have a raft of nice custom cars and I never use them for anything.