Hi, I've been having this weird issue where my home businesses don't show up as options when I choose 'walk to lot'. I'm not sure why, as it shows another community lot that is owned by a sim family. I've included the closed/open sign, and one lot has a ticket machine that I added just to see if I that would change anything, and so far it hasn't. Has anyone got any suggestions? I don't have any other problem with the businesses, and do get walkbys, but I can't send playables over (which is annoying because one business is a doctors office.)

This is just the way the game is coded. The important work in "home business" is "home." You can't send your sims to walk to Joe Blow's house when there isn't a business on it, so you can't send them to walk to his house when there is a business on it either -- it's still coded as a house.

I agree that it's frustrating, though.

I do know there's a mod by Chris Hatch on Back Alley Sims that allows you to visit residential lots. I don't have it because it fatally conflicts with Inteen, which I value more. so I don't really know how it works, but I know people have it and that it works. I don't know that it would allow you to visit and use a home business the way you do a community lot business, though.

But yeah, this is why I don't bother much with home businesses because I prefer to be able to send my playables to owned businesses rather than, say, buying things out of the buy catalog. So, I'd much rather have my Sims own small community-lot businesses, particularly since I have Community Time so that they don't have to relive the time they spend running their business.

There is a mod, I have it stored in a folder but haven't yet tried it.

If you simply ban townies with the Business Controller or VC then only your playables will visit your Dr's office.

That's true, Jo, but I think what the OP wants is to be able to send playables to the doctor's office when they're not playing the doctor's lot, which they can't do (without a mod) because the doctor's office is a home business, not a community-lot one. I don't know how that mod works or if it would let you send playables to home businesses and have them use the home business. If it doesn't, I recommend to the OP that they move the doctor's office to a small owned community-lot business. Then they'll be able to send playables to it just fine.

Yeah - that's why all my businesses are on owned community lots.

D'oh! I knew it was something like that! Ahhh that sucks a bit. I finally got the doctors apartment upstairs furnished the way I wanted it! It is a tad too big though, so will rebuild (as a community lot this time). Thank you all so much for your perfect responses! I'm still reasonably new to Sims 2 (I know, that is is shocking and ridiculous) so there's quite a lot about that game that I don't know, so I really appreciate everyone's help

Thanks again! (I was about to tear my cc folder apart looking for the 'rogue mod' - very VERY grateful that that isn't necessary!)

I play my health clinic on a home business lot. The sims arrive and see the DR or if they need to stay I transport them with Christianlov's mirror and they stay a few days. It does involve making sims selectable and non selectable.

I have been thinking about getting that mod; the idea is very cool.
But some people reported problems at MATY with the last EPs which I'm not sure if they were ever fixed, and I have no idea whether it will be compatible with UC.
Not to mention that I like to use BOOLPROP TestingCheatsEnabled as little as possible, but some people seems to to work without.

I guess one day I'll decide to blow this hood and do lots of testing I don't dare to do now :D

Works fine without Boolprop, and I am someone that avoids those cheats except for building. The only issue is do not combine it with Chris hatch's global time clock and don't take pregnant sims out or if you do be prepared to watch their motives while you wait for them to return. Once a pregnant sims motives drained away when they should have been stable and she died after getting out of the cab. Had to reload and use Max Motives. I saw it happen, but thought it was only graphical until she fell down dead. I think there is a pregnant sim warning on MATY.

@Amura

Community Time works fine in my game, which is all EPs/SPs plus a ton of other mods and CC. It also worked fine when I ran the game under Fun With Pets (which is basically what UC is, since it's just a conglomeration of the the collection packs plus the extra SPs that never made it onto a collection pack). And I've never had to be in debug mode to use it. (I use that only when needed, which for me isn't often because I prefer to use modded objects to get at the few debug-mode functions that I use. So, I pretty much only use debug mode to...Well, debug. )

That said, the mod does very occasionally "hiccup," but all that happens when it does is that the Sims return to their home lot at the same time as they left, as if the mod wasn't installed at all. This mostly seems to happen on lots in vacation neighborhoods (I suspect because time is calculated differently there, and I think sometimes the mod gets confused) or if I've sent the Sim/party to a half-dozen different community lots during their time away, which I just don't do often. In those cases, I either fall back on the sethour cheat if I've sent a whole household off-lot, or if I've only sent off some members, I'll freeze their motives (with one of those handy modded objects ) and make them sit somewhere or I'll make them meditate if they have the ability or whatever, just basically ignore them until such time as they should have returned. But in any case, it only happens very occasionally. Also, I've never had a problem with pregnant Sims' motives when off-lot. Something's different between mine and Jo's games in that way.

Of course, the mod doesn't work at all on Uni campuses and never has. I wish this had been fixed/updated, if it can be. I suspect that it can't be, though, given that time is calculated so differently on Uni campuses. But I'm not as fussed about reliving time on Uni campuses. I'm more fussed about it elsewhere, mostly because I hate that it screws up motives, gets them out of sync with work/school schedules. That's just not so much a problem at Uni, where "school" only lasts a couple of hours a day.

I don't use any of Chris Hatch's mods, mostly because I can never find anything on that damn site, so if you do and want to give Community Time a shot, heed Jo's warnings. But I think it's a great mod. In fact, it's one I wouldn't play without. Or at least, if I had to play without it, my playing style would be totally different in that Sims wouldn't own community-lot businesses and they'd rarely if ever visit community lots. Which is pretty much the opposite of how things are in my game with CT installed.

@terula8

Something you might want to think about, since you're rebuilding: It is possible, with mods, to have Sims basically live on a community lot that they own. There are mods to allow sleeping and skilling on community lots and since it's an owned lot, you'll be able to access build/buy mode and inventory without a mod. With sleeping and skilling mods in place, so long as you have things for them to fulfill their other motives, Sims can stay on a community lot pretty much full-time. You would need to move them into an empty throwaway residential lot first to have them buy the community lot, and then send them there and then pretty much never send them back to their "home" lot.

There are things that won't work, like having a job. But if the community lot generates income, that's not an issue. Also, you won't get bills and newspapers, but you can work around that, too. Pregnancies won't advance and births won't happen, but that might not be an issue, depending on the kind of Sim you're playing. Sims won't age, but you can do that manually with modded objects. You won't be able to move other Sims into the community lot, but you can if you send the Sim back to the "home" lot and move the new household member in from there and then send them all back to the community lot. And you'll definitely need to make use of the "Open/Closed" sign to keep visitors off the lot when you don't want them there. (I use a modded one, on which you can set open/close times, so you don't have to manually open and close the business.) Plus, you'll need to lock doors to keep visitors out of the "private" areas of the lot, just like you do with a home business.

So, it's kind of a pain, but if you don't want to constantly send your doctor back and forth from a community lot when playing him/her, it's doable.

Thank you very much for all the detailed information guys!!
I guess it's time for a backup and give it a try :D

I had it hiccup the other day when it returned a couple straight away and it was just a residential lot. That and that one pregnant sim are the only two in at least a year or more of using it extensively, as I have a lot of owned community lot businesses. Also make sure to feed any pets plenty before taking all your sims off the lot for more than a few hours because there will be no one there to feed them.