Clean templates in...the rebuild begins!

Because I can be a bit of a moron, it took me a few days to get my clean templates installed properly. Pro tip: it really helps if you follow all the instructions!

I really didn't discover anything especially exciting during this process but just in the interest of keeping you all up to date, I'll share what I did find out along the way, through my own fiddling around and with the help of some of the people at N99 and on Twitter. I'm not going to go through the instructions here as they're quite simple. Any advice I give below assumes you've already read the instructions and have at least a vague idea of what you're doing.

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Barrier reef

Round 23: Summer 2017

Luc's last update/Rose's last update/Evan's last update

Luc's next update/Evan's next update/Rose's next update

Warning: nudity

Evan Moretti is 28, Luc Lane is 24 and Rose Draper is 22.
(Lucia is 25, Steve is 22, Ione is 21, Asha and Olivia are both 20)

Narrated by Rose Draper

Joanna doesn't get back until next summer so until then, it's only phone calls for us, plus a letter here and there. When she finally gets back, I'm going to tell her that she's never leaving again!

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Fleshing out and reorganising Exeter

I promised a little while ago that I would post pics of how Exeter looks now and I'm finally getting around to it! As always, click for a larger view. Here we go...

This is where Naomi's salon is situated. It's right next to Orchard (the restaurant surrounded by lots of greenery in the middle there) on one side and the thrift store Betsy and Kimberly went in their last update. Which is sort of strange, come to think of it. The building closest to us with the large flat roof is a supermarket.

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Overhauled Exeter and family housing

As always, these pics are thumbnails so click for the larger version if you would like a closer look.

We'll start with the family housing first. Disclaimer: I didn't build or decorate these.

Family housing is set a little way back from the rest of the university. All five houses are identical. You can see the house where Augustin and Hanna are currently living here. You can see from here that each house currently has a hot tub. I will probably pull those out - it's not realistic to me that the university would provide that! Augustin and Hanna's has complely different furniture now, as you would have seen in their update.

As you can see, the interior is very small but it's fully decorated. I tend to pull everything out of fully decorated houses and replace it with different stuff but it's nice to be able to leave it if I have to.

Upstairs, there's a small bedroom which just fits two cribs and a changing table. For one baby, it would be plenty of room but it's a tight squeeze for James and Naomi.

And there's an equally small bedroom for the students themselves too.

I also had a go at building a beach for Exeter yesterday. Everything is fully functional but it doesn't feel finished yet. I left it for now because man...beach lots are SO annoying! The weird stairs are an attempt to avoid the enormous stairs that you usually get on a beach lot, which I hate. I'm not completely happy with them but it's an improvement on the beach lot I had in my previous hood.

Arianna drove down here last night, so you can see it in action later when I post the Moretti update.


The beach from the hood screen, in the day and at night. The large building is the gym. The building right across the street from the beach is the Old Brick, as seen in this entry. The little building right next to that is Isaac's store. Then from top to bottom, there is the Ball & Biscuit (one of Pascal's pick-up joints), Be Real nightclub and a little diner that I haven't used or named yet.

This is an exclusively residential part of town that hasn't been touched much in the overhaul. Elias and Nathalie's new house is at the top of the screen.

Central Park is still the focal point but the view from the lot is now much more interesting, as it's bordered by skyscrapers on one side and an extra community lot on the other. Blue Velvet is a club I've used a few times (it's where Mina and Pascal met) and is on the left and right next to it is Sparks Sports Park, which is a Maxis lot and will probably get a name change. I haven't used it yet.
This is an area that has changed quite a bit. None of the original apartments I had here have remained, apart from Pascal's old building in the lower right. And the only reason that's still there is that I forgot to demolish it. His new building is the browny-red one right next to his old one, so he didn't move far. Nor did Floyd and Drusilla, who live in the white building across the road - their old place was just down the road a bit.

Exeter and more of the aquatic centre

I didn't play at all yesterday, so these are some pictures I forgot to post from a little while ago.

The overview of Exeter. The main section of downtown, with the skyscrapers, has barely changed since I first plopped everything down. Behind the skyscrapers is a gym, which I haven't used yet. Right now (not in the picture), I've placed Isaac's future shop across the road from it but I may move it closer to his side of town (on the far right).

A close up of Isaac's side of town. He and Petra live in the white house on the right, while Nathalie and Elias live in the other house. The apartment lot across the road on the left is where Galen now lives.

Here's Central Park, which should be familiar to anyone with AL. Those buildings at the top have been moved down a bit to make way for the wedding chapel, which is right across the road from Central Park.

An overview of Sullivan Aquatic Centre, where Simona, Arianna and Caterina visited last time. Sullivan Village Centre is right behind it.

The kiddie pool with the slide, the cafeteria building and hot tub area.

The grown-ups' pool, with vending machines to the side and the toilets and change rooms at the back.

Inside of the cafeteria. This is actual a better angle than if I zoomed in a bit.

I'm happy with it but not 100%. For one thing, the cafeteria is not spawning the NPC like it should. I put a sprinkler in a couple of days ago and I'm hoping that's what I was missing. I was also kind of annoying that I couldn't get the roof of the cafeteria to face the way I wanted but I think I like it better that way now anyway.

The continued expansion of Suffolk University

I've added a little bit more to Suffolk University. In the top left, there are 3 dorms. The one with the plumbob is where Galen is living right now (which you saw the inside of in the last college post).

Next to the dorm is the new fraternity house. I may make it a co-ed fraternity or it may just sit there looking pretty. It costs $72,000 to rent and I'm not sure any of my parents in Sullivan feel like giving their kids that much of a lump sum to found a frat house. But it's there if I want it.

Right in the centre near the water is the university chapel (which looks more like a cathedral) and across from it is the quad. All the new lots are from TSR.

Just in case someone hasn't figured it out, all pictures in this blog are thumbnails - click them to see slightly larger versions.

About this blog

Sullivan is my attempt a having a TS2 hood with some kind of cohesiveness. Previously, I enjoyed my hoods but once the kids moved out of home, they focused on their own families and there was hardly ever any contact made with siblings or parents. I frequently had those relationships drop to zero, just through neglect. That wasn't realistic to me: most people keep in contact with their siblings and parents. I wanted to change the way I played and I'm trying to do that with this neighbourhood.

The ease with which Sims make money and build immense amounts of wealth has also always bothered me. Free private school, free university tuition, no taxes - I wish real life was like that but I found it boring for my Sims. Inspired by some of the economic hoods around (which I've linked to in my sidebar), I decided to make up some rules for my game. My system is nowhere near as detailed as some I've seen but you have to make these things work for your gameplay style or else it will fall by the wayside.

So as in real life, some Sims in Sullivan have struggled quite a bit financially (the Lachances, for instance) and others have never had to give money a second thought (the Clarkes, for example).

I will probably write a post detailing some of the rules later on but I just wanted to give you an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish with Sullivan first.

All entries here before 25th November, 2008, were previously posted in N99's picture section. I've changed some of the text but the basics are the same. The entries will probably get a bit longer from here on in. At N99, I posted all the pictures for each rotation in one or two threads, so what I said about each family was quite short by necessity.

Suffolk University

The ever-growing campus of Suffolk University is pictured here. The 1x1 lots going all down the street in the middle are rental houses for the students. At the very end of that street is the gym and the library). The gym is the Cratus Gym from AL, modified a touch. The library is Archimedes Arcade from AL, heavily modified. And I mean heavily.

I've also got a dorm to the right of the lake. It's designed more like a boarding house than a dorm but is really beautiful. It's available at Seriously Amused Sims. All of these lots are downloaded or renovated Maxis.

Exeter

Sullivan's teeny, tiny downtown area. Most of these are apartment buildings, as you can see, but on the far left and far right, there are some community lots. There's a coffee shop, a diner, H&M, a grocery store and a restaurant. And there's the monorail going by in the background. The Clarkes live downtown, as do the Gottliebs, who I haven't shown you yet.

Sullivan grows some more!

Quite a bit too. The new lots are all either untouched downloaded lots or modified Maxis. There are two apartment blocks on the left (townhouses), a new park in the middle, a pet store and a several more houses.

Sullivan grows!

Just one picture this time to show you how Sullivan has grown.

More houses on the left and one extra on the far right. The far right was where the trailer park used to be. That is now in the middle. I have the fabulous Lost Generation teen hangout (from Seriously Amused Sims) right under it and to the left of the trailer park is the new playground.

The beginning of Sullivan

Here's an overview of what I have so far. There are two farmhouses on the far side of the road. Both houses have plots already laid down ready for crops and I think I put some orchard trees in too. They are also both Maxis houses that I have slightly modified (following a tutorial every step of the way, if that gives you an idea what an awful builder I am!). Anyway, the farmers that will live here will grow fresh fruit and vegetables to sell in the farmer's market.

The other side, without that enormous tree in the way. We have two more houses here on the left. They're also Maxis houses but are completely unmodified. The Sims who live here will be more like hobby farmers - much smaller output, which they will likely keep for themselves, and they will hold down day jobs too. In the middle is the farmer's market and on the right is Sullivan Creek, where the Sims of Sullivan can gather to fish.