I made custom apartment buildings when I first installed LN but I ran into a problem where my NPC bartenders wouldn't tend bar. I googled the problem and discovered that custom apartments don't work unless there is an EA built apartment in the world first. Since the point of creating an apartment building is NOT using the ugly apts provided by EA, I'd like to know if anything has been done to fix this.

So, is there a mod out there that will allow us to use custom apartment buildings WITHOUT having to install an EA apartment building? I'm installed through Seasons - have Uni and IP but NOT installed, in case that matters!

Thank you.

I have apartments in my world coming out soon, they worked last time I checked. I guess your apartment lot is zoned as residential, or do you expect them to tend to it like a regular bar in a night club or something? I'm not really a player, but I expect if it's zoned as residential townies will live in the apartments and they can call a mixologist to tend the bar during partys or something. I don't expect a proff bar would ever attract a townie to work there if it's residential.

I've made apartments and they seem to work as apartments. The problem I've run into has been with NPCs living in the apartments. Googling it I found out that, if there is NO EA made apartment building in the world, there is a problem with getting the NPCs to work. For example:

I had a fairly small world I was running and didn't want one of those EA apts that only really fit in a Bridgeport type world so I modified a modern style home to accommodate 1 Sim family and 2 NPCs. It worked as an apartment just fine. I then made a custom bar ON ANOTHER LOT (Commercial) with the correct bar for an NPC to work at but they never showed up. Instead, I found the NPCs hanging around at the gate when they were supposed to be working. That is when I Googled it and found out that custom apts have this problem if there isn't an EA-made apt already in the game. I've even used custom apts I've downloaded with the same results.

Because I don't like the way apts work in TS3, as opposed to TS2, I sort of let it go. I just started playing Monte Vista, which is fairly small, and wanted to make sure I could add some NPC housing and wanted to build my own apt again....or download yours! The game has changed a lot since I first tried the custom apts so was curious as to whether or not this issue had been resolved. I've got University, but I've not installed it....I mention that because I think Uni added a new dimension to the game. So....

Have you used your apts in game WITHOUT having an EA made apartment building? If so, did you have any issues with the NPCs standing at the mailbox and NOT going to work elsewhere?

I guess I'll need to build a bar and see if the NPCs come. I might also have to hang out at the apt and see if any NPCs show up. I did make one in the game with 1 Sim apt and 5 NPC apts to try it out and a Sim did move into the building. Haven't checked it any further yet..... just thought that since you've some experience with them, you might know if this issue had been resolved.

Custom apartments have never worked for me correctly either. Different reasons though.
I can build an apartment with four or five NPC rooms yet when clicking on the call box it can show as having over 30 different, unrelated, Sims living in the building! Also most, if not all, NPCs in the world will arrive on the lot at the end of a day, walk into the main public area or to the bottom of a lift shaft, and then vanish. None of the other NPC doors ever get labelled as having anyone living in them.
This also happens in reverse in a morning with an almost never ending stream of NPCs spawning at the bottom of a lift shaft and then all getting taxis or Big Lemons off lot.

There is still the EP9 Apartment lot, you can assign an apartment to a NPC (assignation by door , patch 1.50)

The problems are :

- the NPC use the roommate system, they are hidden members of the household. If your family move they follow them.
- It's limited to 8 sims on the lot (including the playable sims)

I never have enough patience to keep testing this, but it's getting very complicated. I have been working on my world for 2 years soon and I have apartment buildings in my world with twallans many mastercontroller and storyprogession and so on. Some of them was made with the hidden and public marker balls made without Buzzler's NPC door fix, those markers are original. I haven't touched them for ages.

I now have made my family the Tornedal living in such an old lot, I had to test and found they can reach the apartments fine and the other apartments are black. I don't really play long usually, but when I click on those doors now I don't get a menu related to the people living there. I get the "make this the front door" menu.I haven't really seen if anyone comes out of the doors, but there has been other people on the lot. The markers there are the original NL markers.

In the concrete apartments I have had issues related to my sims not being able to reach it. I did some changes with the buzzler NPC door mod, removed the extra fences I didn't need, and moved the outside lot boundry fence one tile away from the street. I have also I hope replaced all the markers with those new one's for basegame. I now make Lucas Ronden my active sim, and when I click on those doors to other apartments I get the option to "ring", probably translated to call on the nabour or something. I select to call on the nabour and it rings, and the nabour comes out.

Conclusions seems to be the last solution with Buzzler's NPC door mod, new basegame markers, without indoor extra fences, the outdoor street fence away from the lot boundaries. It works.

They are both residential, and I have not tested any bars.

It's been a lot of back and forth with apartment building. What I will do here is to explain the works of one perticular apartment building in my world Stranda. I have been working on this world for 2 years and things have changed in that time. This is patch 1,63 and how I made this working apartment. I hope this works for you as well. I have several of nraas Twallan's mods installed while playing this, I don't know if it is relevant. My tutorial on my blog here .

I have MTS's Buzzler's mod MakeNPCDoorFix installed to do this. Download here on mts as a pack of good builders mods. To use this mod you have to set up your game for mods, tutorial on the wiki above on how to install package files. Testingcheats and buydebug from Buzzler has been a bit strange lately, you could try treeag instead here and here .

Here are the cheats needed:

1. Testingcheatsenabled true/false or Buzzlers "BuildBuyRestrictionChoker", in the same mod package as the Make NPC door fix above. Treeag also has a mod to help on this.
2. Buydebug on/off or the same mod as above or again from treeag.
3. Restrictbuildbuyinbuildings false/true from the moment you have placed a ball or when you can't see any, despite the fact that they are there.

If you're not using any mod press ctrl+shift+C on your keyboard when you're on the lot you want to build on. You should have a blue line at the top of your screen. Write on the line the first cheat on the list above and then the second. You should now have an extra catalogue in your buy catalogue like this:


PublicRoomMarker by Volvenom, on Flickr

I will first start with the very nitpicky process of getting the balls right.

Above you can see I have highlighted one of the balls you will need to use in the last section of the extra catalogue. The public room marker and the hidden room marker are the one's you need to use now. This public room marker has two versions, a Basegame version and an Ambitions version. You will be using the Basegame versions for this. EA made with a patch an extra set of these markers, and they may have broken the old one's at the same time.


Dark Concrete apartment by Volvenom, on Flickr

Above is the ground floor. The silver balls you see are the public room markers. They mark all the rooms for public use, even the balconies belonging to apartments. This house only has one entrance through the main door at the front. Each apartment only have one front door, and balconies at the back is on ground floor or the same floor as the apartment, and they are fenced in.


Dark Concrete apartment by Volvenom, on Flickr

One the new floor the landing has a public room marker. In this picture you can see my active sim Lucas Ronden knocking on the door of a nabour, the nabour comes out to talk.

The balcony on the left side belongs to an apartment above and I have used a hidden room marker there, as well as in all the other apartments, and all the rooms inside each apartment.


Dark Concrete apartment by Volvenom, on Flickr

The black room on the left side looks like this because this house has been in play and I have a hidden room marker there. The balcony below on the previous picture marked with a hidden room marker belongs to this apartment.

The balcony on the right side does not belong to any apartment, but is for public use. I have a public room marker there, and clicking on the door in the game with an active sim shows only nraas menu.


Dark Concrete apartment by Volvenom, on Flickr

Above I have the active sims apartment on the right side. It has no markers in any of the rooms. The apartment is very small, but still cozy and consists of a bedroom and bathroom as well as the main room.

On the left side of the hallway is again a public room for the tenants. I have a public room marker there.


Dark Concrete apartment by Volvenom, on Flickr

Above is the entrance to the roof terrace for all the tenants on the right side. I have a public room marker there and on the roof terrace itself. The door has only the nraas menu.

After placing all those balls right you should be able to ctrl+shift click on the doors of a tenant and choose "Make NPC Door". The apartment with no balls inside should not give you that option.

In the same catalogue as the hidden and public markers there is also a skip floorlevel marker. That is a very handy ball if you make a building with useless empty floors in it. Just put a ball on each floor and they should be skipped in game play.

Another thing to remember is that the game sets the apartments price according to what's on the lot. If you furnish the NPC apartments it's going to affect the price of your active sims apartment.

I was wondering that when making rooms for the NPCs did we need to take into account their needs and provide them with the objects to fulfill them, or could I basically just make a small empty room to save space?

Empty room and small space are enough when you use the Hidden Room Marker + Make NPC Door .

That's really mean! Equal rights for NPCs!!!

I loved the tutorial, the only question I have is: will the NPC's apartment be enterable? I mean, if someone lives there and I want to be invited in, will that work? Thanks.

Late Night apartment : No, a playable sim can't enter in a room with the Hidden Room Marker.

University Life apartment : Yes, the neighbors are like roommates, the whole lot is visitable.

But it doesn't work like The Sims 2 Apartment Life, there is no interaction for this task (No "NPC invite your sim" interaction).

I really, really need help regarding aparmtnet building. First off, I have buit one before successfully.
Now, I downloaded Hannes16's "Modern Ledgend (legend??).
I put it on a larger lot, and I reduced the lobby area.
I still put a Public Room Marker in the lobby on the ground floor and the newly covered hallway on the top floor.
Then I marked unused area with the Hidden Room Marker.
And I cut the livable space into half to allow NPC neighbours. I then set another door on the top floor to "Make NPC Door".
Now, when my Sim moves there, he can't go through the ground floor lobby door unless I delete the doors and leave a tile of wall open for entry.
Deleting the door and replacing it doesn't work, nor resetting the lot with NRaas MC.

I'm so frastruated. I've spent days making changes to the apartment and NOW! IT DOESN'T WORK!??

Help please and thanks so much!

Have you done this the EA way I can't help you, but if it's with the Buzzler' NPC fix door mod. Have you made the entrance door downstairs into the entrance door? Apartments not working is nothing new, actually it can be a real pain in the ass. Do you have some pictures?

No, I don't have Buzzler's NPC Door Fix.
I don't really get your question.


I have two entrance doors, each on a side.
I have tried using Island Paradise Public Room Marker but it got things worse that the owned apartment area is no longer recognized
Now I try to revert to previous lot backups to see what's the culprit.

EDIT: I had to reverse to a lot backup before. Though I had to furnish the flat again.
My advice is that you place all the markers before you start to furnish so that you can turn off rbbb and this really reduces the chance of glitches. DON'T USE CC TOO!

I just uploaded 4 apartment buildings, all with CC. I don't know how your building is made, but this is my tutorial thread: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=518823

EA's way of doing it is more complicated, but I haven't done that in years and I know they did some changes in a patch or something. You don't need furniture in the NPC apartment, and I do all house finished and then set the markers. Also from the start I have always had only one entrance to an apartment building, with Buzzler's mod it doesn't seem to be that important.

Well, just from what I've done, I find that EA's shell apartments are generally easier to be manipulated. This is probably due to the fact that I once accidentally deleted a CFE raised custom highrise wall that I've no idea how to recover it. But, anyway, I suggest making lot backups from time to time. This really helps you as your lot may become glitched at times and reverting to a backup could be the life-saver. I find that with rbbb on and then off sometimes the game is confused about your apartment livable area. Though it may only be my problem. Thanks anyway, Volvenom, at least your reply is a light for me in the dark, when I struggled between using the backup while having to refurnish, or trying to deal with the corruption that is unlikely to be fixed.

A question, has this problem been situated? I made an 4 apartment complex, the last apartment is liveable by a sim........the other 3 are set as NPC sims to live in. When my sim moved into his apartment within 1 hour there were 4 sims that moved in with him, I do/did not want this, this is why there are 3 other apartments. I have the markers all set, npc doors are marked, mailbox up, call box up. The only way to keep other sims (NPC's) out of his apartment is to specify who will enter the apartment. This was not like this before. Is there a fix for this? The NPC's I don't care how many of them live in the other apartments, but the apartment I created for my sim, is for that sim not for the whole town to come in and make themselves at home.

This is my problem exactly.

Another question, tangent to this: Is there any difference between NPC sims living in the dark rooms with 'normal' townies that live in houses?

The NPCs moving into your active sim's apartment sounds like the lot is set to "Residential / Apartment" in Edit Town.... or, hearing about bugs like this, there is another residential lot in your town that is set to Residential /Apartment. Is it so? Because either you have a Late Night-type apartment (with buydebug markers and set to Residential /Regular) or a University-type apartment (no markers, set to Residential /Apartment, only assigned doors for roommates). If you mix the two, meaning, you put the hidden room and public room markers into the building and at the same time, setting the lot a Residential/Apartment, it may cause glitches, and annoyances. - If that is not the case, I apologize, I can't know for sure if you already knew this.

Your second question I have only a guess, but I think, NPCs living in the darkened apartments are different game-data type than townies living in actual houses. The apartment NPCs are all service sims (in my game): bartenders, baristas, bouncers, social workers - if there are no bars or lounges in my town, the game generates new sims for me to move someone into the apartment, but any other townie sim who moves around the actual houses, never moves into a darkenened apartment.

I'm not sure all the tutorials talking about NPC's really know if it's NPC's or townies moving into these apartments. I made a world and a guy I thought I had made a townie, meaning he wasn't assigned to a specific job you call for on the phone, he moved into the hostel where I had one room for a poor sim. I didn't really bother to check it out for sure though.

After I finished making my people it looked like the game kept generating more people, so what's what I don't know.

... and Flora thanks for the information on the zoning of uni type apartments. Some people have been asking for these, but I wasn't sure what the difference was.

Edit: hm, I populated my world 2 years ago, and suddenly I'm not sure I remember anything right anymore. I have to read the tutorial on populating before I say anything more, but I remember there was something there that puzzled me ... If you really wonder about this, reading tutorials on populating on this site might be a good idea. I think perhaps I give the NPC's a job with nraas porter and they vanish from the lot I initially placed them on. The Townies I think I placed myself, and the apartment lots was one of those free lots I could place them in ... but it needs to be confirmed.

In my game the balls are black not silver , is a problem?

I try to build my own apartment, I follow all the steps, place the balls and put the mailbox, but when I go back to edit town to save it, my game get stuck "loading"

They should be basegame compatible and silver. I do have one black one in my game, but it's a different ball. If they are labeled hidden and public it may just be a little something with your game. Perhaps you have some mods or something? Unless you run into a problem, I wouldn't worry too much about it though.




without a picture of your house it's a bit difficult knowing what's wrong.

i want to make an apparent my self but how many sims can live in there ???? im not sure becuase it means making rooms i dont want ot make too many just in case they arnt used and waste my time