If you put houses down the default game will eventually and erratically move some sims in, or you can move some in yourself instead or in addition. You can use a combination of Nraas mods (at http://nraas.wikispaces.com/) to have more control without having to create each inactive sim by hand.

I also poached other neighborhoods by saving copies of my favorite sims to the library and placing them in my current world. Only I oopsed and placed one family wice. I used Master Controller to change the looks and names of one of the families...

Two questions- is there any way to change the in-game field of vision without having to go into tab mode?

Also, do resorts staff themselves when you load up a new world, or do we have to manually go into buy mode and hire people ourselves?

Not really sure I understand what you're referring to regarding field of view, but resorts staff themselves at whatever level is appropriate to their base star rating. So a five star resort will have full staff on just about all shifts, while a one star will have the bare minimum. No need to address that unless you buy the resort and want to make changes yourself, or if you want to make a resort "nicer" without owning it.

It's a bit strange because I built a resort and placed what was necessary, but there have been no workers generating at all, unless I go back into Build mode and manually hire people.

Resort staff are part of the Service NPC pool and should spawn automatically when you start a fresh game, although it may take a while because there are quite many of them (I think more than a dozen). They are created even if you don't have any resorts in a world. You can use MasterController to check if they are already in the service pool. If not then you may have a mod that controls NPC spawning and prevents them from being created, like Register, for example.
In addition, from my vague memory, resort staff will only appear when you visit a resort lot with an active Sim. Even if you own the resort but don't visit it for a while the staff will simply not leave their limbo.

I'm assuming that you mean the camera angle, since that is what tab affects. You can use the +, -, <, and> buttons on the circle at the bottom left of the interface to play with it as well, although I've found it easier to play with tab to get a decent camera angle. You can also use the " , " and " . " buttons on your keyboard to rotate the view.

Ah ... perfect place for these.

The cheapie Steam downloads are really tempting. My goodness ... Seasons for under 7 dollars? Even I could afford that!

But I prefer physical disks, and have for the last several years. Reasons. Just let it go at that.

I might take a chance, but I do have some really stupid questions. Please snicker only a little:

1. I read somewhere years ago that Securom v. 7 was on digital downloads. But I haven't read much more after a number of years. Securom v. 7 sends shivers down my spine. I did not have a great experience with it. So ... what sort of DRM is on these things? I should add that since I'm a new player, I do have a closer relationship with Origin than I would have liked. But EA still seems reluctant to remove Securom from its games, though admittedly, the Sims 2 UC Securom is not a harmful variant. We already know that because Steam or Origin offers a game, that doesn't mean the DRM is gone or muted.

2. Will the game do auto-updates if I do a digital download? I'm at 1.67 right now, and haven't read of many good things with 1.69

Here's a question for you; how did you purchase your exisitng TS3 games? As far as I know, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you cannot mix and match Steam versions with Origin versions and disk versions. It has to either be ALL Steam or a mixture of Origin and disks.

Good thing I checked first. Thank you!

In one of my families, the son whines about the shower whenever I send him there. Every. Single. Time. It's an extremely cheapo shower that came at the grand price of three simoleons. The boy is a hydrophobic alien. What is his issue? Does he want a more advanced shower? Or is it simply that he hates water? He does not complain about the All-in-one.

I think it's because he's hydrophobic, and that they forgot to program in this for the all-in-one shower.

Is it possible to delete pets (horses, cats, dogs) from the adoption pool and not have them respawn? Like not have adoptable pets at all in the game. I have strays disabled with Nraas Register, but it doesn't work with adoptable pets. Usually if I want my sims to have pets I make them myself in CAS.

AFAIK sole existence of Pets generates them. I've read than by deleting the stable (or whatever it's called) allows to exterminate... I mean "farewell" the horses pool.

Anyway - the pool itself is harmless and does not burden the game in any way if you do not use it, nor allow to use by any sim in the town. It's just a couple of ingame references, not actual "sim". Until actually spawned by action like adoption they simple does not really exists. With Nraas you can disallow adoption in the whole town (so they won't be generated) and delete any existing pet in every home.

Is there a way to edit neighborhood families so they're not EA default?

What I mean is, how do you keep your edits of a neighborhood so that if you ever start a new save in that neighborhood, the sims and lots aren't back to EA's defaults and have a custom look?

You'll need to edit the sims in CAW and then re-export the world. A easier alternative would be to do an initial edit when you load up a new world, and then save that savegame for future games.

What exactly causes the floating ceiling tile bug?

- It only happens when you start color ceiling tiles.
- It can happen several times, usually after you save and load, start the game or just edit the lot.
- It happens to only some lots- some lots with colored ceiling tiles are unaffected.

From my recent experience, anything that disturbs the location of a floor/painted ceiling tile - deleting a basement, demolishing a foundation underneath existing walls, the use of CFE, use of terrain tools. It shifts the coloured ceiling horizontally. Placing a lot from the bin is also bound to move a building up or down a bit (related to the importedterrainoffset) and can lead to floating tiles.
I noticed that when I sledgehammer a floating ceiling tile it often produces a hole, visible from below, in the ceiling where the tile used to be. From above I see the floor tile, from below I can see the sky.

I also think that there's a connection to a similar phenomenon: trees going underground once a lot has a basement/pool/fountain and would say that it's an engine problem. The x-axis of TS3 space is simply not very stable, is my uneducated guess and impression.

And then there's the problem of your sim getting planted up to their knees in the ground when dismounting from the trampoline. But I always thought that was because all the towns were built over old landfills.

So like, you know when you're planting something, there's an option to "Plant many"? Let's say I have 5 apple seeds, but only wanna plant 3. How do I unselect the plant thing after I'm done? The only way I've found is to open Build/Buy mode but that's annoying. This is so stupid, but I suppose that's what the thread is for.

I don't think there's a good way. I repeat "plant" if I don't want to plant all.

Yup, and the problem is solved by rebuilding the floors, deleting tiles, bulldozing the lot and placing it down until it no longer appears. It's almost like fighting an infestation.

Hence I always try to avoid coloring ceiling tiles. On the other hand, I think that if you remove all colored ceiling tiles, bulldoze the lot and place it down again, the ceiling reverts to an undisturbed phase? Can anyone confirm?

Try esc or del. Alternatively, store the ones you don't want to plant in the fridge or something.

Is there a way to access this function in CAS when you edit a sim using testingcheats?

How do you hang paintings and shelves at different heights? I keep seeing pictures of walls of shelving, but every time I try to recreate it I fail.

Hit the esc key after you're done with the amount you wanted to plant. This will cancel it.

Not with the cheat, but it is a function of MasterController ( plus the MC Cheats module)

The painting or shelf has to be enabled to be shiftable. Most paintings by EA are, though. You grab it in Buy Mode and move it up or down the wall. The cursor will also change to an arrow that points either up or down.