Saving a sim to the library to 'purge' him?

[HelenMoriarty]

Okay, so I have been toying around with saving one of my sims to the library because of many small yet annoying glitches in my family.
I'm trying to figure out what information stays with the sim and what gets erased. So far I have:
- Wishes get deleted (obviously); sometimes the sim does not roll any new wishes when placed again and has to be moved out and back in
- LTW stays put, but may also glitch out (change/disappear)
- Career level stays, boss may change, indicated sometimes by the sim's wish to send a text to the new boss
- Skills and skill journal are not affected (yay!)
- Reputation *should* reset, right? It never fully does for me; I have noticed that the number of relationships (active and past) remains the same even when the partners are no longer around after placing the sim back, or that active relationships are at 0 but go up to 2 as soon as the sim hooks up with someone. This in particular is giving me headaches
- Family ties are not preserved when moving out the sim on his own. Conversely, the family tree IS preserved sometimes (seemingly randomly). Could this tie in with the "reputation" problem I am having?
- Moving gravestones of family members into the sim's inventory keeps the family tree intact and shows the ties to the dead members correctly.
- Items in the inventory should be fine, but sometimes glitch out HORRIBLY/disappear.

...so the problems in particular were freezing of this sim at times, need bars (such as energy bar) not going down, random Cheater reputation without travelling (he's had several partners, but never at the same time, and always did the "Ask to be just friends" interaction before moving on), etc. I do want to keep this sim, he's maxed a lot of skills, but even putting him in a fresh file only gives me a few sim days before the old problems start to crop up again. Might have to abandon him after all...

[ZMan]

Have you tried using Master Controller? You might not be able to fix everything permanently, but you might be able to use it to fix certain issues as they pop up. Another option would be to Master Controller to edit your sim in CAS, save him to bin then create a new sim, edit in CAS then load your original sim. It might take some tweaking, but you could essentially make a fresh clone if you wanted to.

[Pam]

Have you tried using Master Controller? You might not be able to fix everything permanently, but you might be able to use it to fix certain issues as they pop up. Another option would be to Master Controller to edit your sim in CAS, save him to bin then create a new sim, edit in CAS then load your original sim. It might take some tweaking, but you could essentially make a fresh clone if you wanted to.

I don't use mods and I can do this same thing.  With testing cheats enabled, I can edit a Sim in CAS and save him.  Then when I want to create a new game, he's there in CAS and I can edit him however I wish and use him however I want.  Is this the same thing you're talking about?

[ZMan]

I don't use mods and I can do this same thing.  With testing cheats enabled, I can edit a Sim in CAS and save him.  Then when I want to create a new game, he's there in CAS and I can edit him however I wish and use him however I want.  Is this the same thing you're talking about?

Yes. I just like the convenience of Master Controller and it makes it easy to reset individual sims, lots, or even the entire town if I wanted to. It's come in handy for fixing some weird problems I've run into, such as my sims constantly changing into their formal clothes.

[HelenMoriarty]

Have you tried using Master Controller? You might not be able to fix everything permanently, but you might be able to use it to fix certain issues as they pop up. Another option would be to Master Controller to edit your sim in CAS, save him to bin then create a new sim, edit in CAS then load your original sim. It might take some tweaking, but you could essentially make a fresh clone if you wanted to.

I don't use mods and I can do this same thing.  With testing cheats enabled, I can edit a Sim in CAS and save him.  Then when I want to create a new game, he's there in CAS and I can edit him however I wish and use him however I want.  Is this the same thing you're talking about?

Thanks to you both for the replies! Looks like there is no general fix, but at least this could help to put out some fires, so to speak. I'll look into Master Controller; so far, my game is mod-free but if it still does not cooperate (to the point of being unplayable) after trying Pam's suggestion, that'll have to change, I guess...
One question, does the saving to bin through CAS and loading the 'template' of my old sim affect skills/inventory? Because that would be frustrating to redo. I guess I could find a workaround for the inventory....
Thanks guys!

[Pam]

One question, does the saving to bin through CAS and loading the 'template' of my old sim affect skills/inventory? Because that would be frustrating to redo. I guess I could find a workaround for the inventory....
Thanks guys!

Using this method would mean there are no skills or inventory.  You can keep your Sim's appearance, traits, and Lifetime Wish.

[simaholic^]

I save my favorite townies the same way as Pam al the time. Also if my sims have a cute kid. I have a lot of toddlers saved to the bin

[HelenMoriarty]

Using this method would mean there are no skills or inventory.  You can keep your Sim's appearance, traits, and Lifetime Wish.

Ah, that is... disappointing. That sim has been fun to play with, but he has been afflicted by so many glitches it is probably time to let go. He is maxed out on quite a number of skills and starting from scratch again does not sound too exciting. Thanks though, it is definitely something to keep in mind for future saves Neat, I've been playing for such a long time but never knew you could do that.

[ZMan]

Ah, that is... disappointing. That sim has been fun to play with, but he has been afflicted by so many glitches it is probably time to let go. He is maxed out on quite a number of skills and starting from scratch again does not sound too exciting. Thanks though, it is definitely something to keep in mind for future saves Neat, I've been playing for such a long time but never knew you could do that.

You could also use Master Controller (with the Cheats module) to manually set your skill levels to what they were before if you wanted, although I think you might have to supermax them again. I mean you'll have to redo any skill journal challenges that you care about because I'm not sure if there's a way to set these with Master Controller.

[Pam]

Ah, that is... disappointing. That sim has been fun to play with, but he has been afflicted by so many glitches it is probably time to let go. He is maxed out on quite a number of skills and starting from scratch again does not sound too exciting. Thanks though, it is definitely something to keep in mind for future saves Neat, I've been playing for such a long time but never knew you could do that.

Have you tried using Edit Town to evict your Sim from the house and then put him back in from the clipboard?  This will sometimes help with glitches.

[HelenMoriarty]

ZMan, that does sound really tempting now I've been without mods the longest time and that would be a lot less hassle... Having to supermax the skills again is no biggie. Just one question (sorry, but I really want to pick your brains here before deciding to install mods ), are you aware of any glitches if skills are "forced" on the sim? Such as running the game without mods again and the skills going away, or things not displaying properly, etc. Thanks!

Pam, yes, I have tried that. It was pretty weird; the first try did not fix anything at all, and reputation was not reset after going through the bulldozing/replacing routine several times. Which is why I had to save that sim to the library, play with a different active household for a few seconds and then put my sim back in via Edit Town, which did help to reset most of his statistics until, well, I suddenly got notifications again that he was a cheater He might just be that bugged.

Thanks again for all of your help!

[MeestorMark]

What I recommend if you want to keep his stuff, is move him out through edit town. Save him to your library, and also save your lot with all the stuff to the library. That way if you do move him to a new town, you can place this lot again to load him up with the stuff again. The treasure chests that you can get through buydebug mode are great for storing a lot of stuff. I have tested and almost everything gets saved in the lot you save to the library. Depending on what EPs you are running and what patch level you are, there was a pretty long time where fish wouldn't save either in the sim's inventory or inside of a lot. But since some of the recent EPs/patches they have been saving as well for me. Custom paintings that sims have done have never saved for me though, but I have had tons of photographs sims have taken save with the lot.

I have found moving sims out and then placing them back into the same save file doesn't really reset much. Maybe only the wishes. I get all the wish chains starting up again whenever I do it, i.e. the nectar wishes to drink more expensive nectar, the sculpting wishes, etc.

Moving sims in the library to a new town though basically starts them over again with everything besides skills they have earned and the stuff in their inventory with the exceptions I noted above. Most of the skill challenges remain intact too with the exception of charisma, where all of them reset again with the new town. Not sure if all the bugs you are experiencing will reset though.

As far as mods go, I use "Overwatch" and have for quite sometime. I use it mainly to keep the abandoned cars from stacking up. But there are also a lot of sim errors that it catches on a nightly basis too. It is very useful, but unlike "Master Controler" it doesn't give me any real "cheating" options that I would be too tempted to use. Lol. But Overwatch, or just plain luck, has seemed to keep my long-term sim free of almost all the glitches you mention.

[ZMan]

are you aware of any glitches if skills are "forced" on the sim? Such as running the game without mods again and the skills going away, or things not displaying properly, etc.

I doubt there would be any problems like that. I only use Overwatch and Master Controller and I've never run into any problems that couldn't be fixed by clearing the cache or resetting sims/lots/towns with Master Controller.