Lazy Duchess
patreon
[TS3] Lot Population Mod
🕑 Added 2023-06-14 11:20:05 +0000 UTCUpdate 2: Fixed yet another problem that made the tuning XML not take effect.
Update 1: Fixed problems with the tuning XML, Sims will no longer hang out outside if they have to go to work/school soon (Tunable feature).
Hi lovely patrons :) Here's a mod release I'm very excited about.
Overview
This mod is an experiment that's been in my head for a while now - That is, teleporting Sims into community lots as you send your Sims to them, or focus the camera on the lot, etc. Making the town feel more alive, and making it so that community lots are always populated. This makes it work more like a traditional open world game, in which characters are spawned based on camera distance and such.
Not only that, it also adds walkbys, much like TS2 or TS4. These are Sims that every once in a while spawn on a sidewalk, out of view, and walk across the screen.
Now community lots will be filled with people, especially hot spots!
Hope you enjoy :)
Installation
2 flavors are available:
- "ld_LotPopulation.package" - Default tuning, should make worlds very populated.
- "ld_LotPopulation_Reduced.package" - Reduced tuning, should make worlds more lightly populated.
Simply drop the package of your choosing into your "Documents/Sims 3/Mods/Packages" folder.
All tunable values are documented in the XML. There are quite a few of them, but the most important one is probably the "kDemographicsMultiply" value.
More Technical Overview
In case you're curious about how it works more in depth, community lots have a population quota now. This quota depends on a ton of factors, such as time of day, weather, day of the week, demographics, etc. And is different across different lot types. For example, beaches will be booming during hot summer weekends, not so much if it's winter and snowing.
The amount of Sims that are teleported into lots tries to fill this quota. On top of that, Sims will also get pushed to visit lots to fill the quota, so if for example the camera is permanently facing a lot in a way that doesn't allow for Sims to subtly teleport to it without it being super obvious, the mod will push Sims to visit instead.
Sims are also chosen depending on a range of factors such as personality, age, occult status, etc. And they're placed on a "low priority" list for a while upon teleport. This way you won't see the same Sims everywhere.
Teleported and visiting Sims will also get appropriate outfits, needs and will immediately pick something to do, in order to make it more believable.
Walkbys use lot corners as reference when looking for sidewalks. So this feature is most effective with a decent amount of lots on the world.
There might be some lag every once in a while unfortunately. This is kind of necessary, as it tries to find spots that are actually routable to teleport Sims to, so that they're not stuck. If you find it particularly bad, you can try the reduced tuning version.
Screenshots
A hotspot:
At the gym:
Walkbys:
People hanging out at the park:
![[TS3] Lot Population Mod](https://img5.leaqio.com/storage/7/op/ak/9e04c0-019e8305-14eb-777e-9735-170ce3e723ce.jpg)
Comments
Lazy Duchess
Thank you! <3
Sonny Dulin
I've never followed anyone on Patreon but you deserve it so much. I often check on your tumblr to see if you released anything new because it's THAT exciting to see the game being updated thanks to you! Thanks for this new mod, excited to try it :D
Lazy Duchess
Hi! Thanks for the feedback, yeah it's likely this mod used them.
Rsanda
Thanks for everything you do for this game! Just wanted to provide some quick feedback. I use NRaas Selector to quickly switch between households (using right click) so that I can sometimes recover from unfortunate situations. In my latest game, my Sims going together to prom got bugged, so I just quickly switched to their partners family to control them to make them go to prom. When I returned to my own family, my teen Sims were all around the town, like bars and stuff. I think they may be used by this mod to populate lots and stuff. I don't have proof, but I am just suspecting about it and I wanted to report it. In any case, the mod is awesome, and has improved the gameplay dramatically for me, even with me using the reduced version. Thank you so much <3
Jenny
sorry for my late response! @SimMattically has explained it pretty well or even in ts4 whereby in-laws would come over once you've had a newborn :-)
SimMattically
TS2 has those scenarios for walkbys when someone for example runs by your lot jogging and stretching and then goes away. There are many, but most of them are context related - enemies will kick your trash bin or steal your newspaper, etc.
SimMattically
Thank you so much for this. It's an instant must-have.
Lazy Duchess
<3 Thank you! Could you elaborate on what you mean by walkbys scenarios? Always open to ideas for features.
Jenny
ur amazing, thanks! it would be cool to add some walk-by scenarios like in ts2 but not sure how that would work<3
Lazy Duchess
I wasn't aware of that particular feature of Go Here, but this mod has been in testing for numerous months and I've used Go Here the whole time, so I can confirm it works perfectly with it!
Lazy Duchess
Nope, not at all.
Lazy Duchess
Hi! It will not conflict, I've been using both mods together for a while now :)
Viktoria S.
NRAAS Go Here prevents some lots (like festival lots for example) from being populated. Does this mod work ok with Go Here?
Mayne Doe
Awesome. I have a question, does this conflict with Nraas mods like story progression?
Anime_Boom
Looks amazing can't wait to try it out! I am Curious if this will conflict with Simler90's Core mod. Simler90's mod fixes the game not pushing npc sims to leave their lots or the interaction "go to yard". Will test to see! Thank you for another amazing mod! :D
Around the Sims
MY GOODNESS! Each of your Sims 3 mods is a so precious treasure!!! That's another gold one!! I used to "invite over", but my town being huge, it could take ages for the Sims to arrive in place! (I remember a soccer match where some Sims supposed to be supporters arrived at the stadium once the game was over! :D) Thank you so much again! <3
Miva
You are the best! Thank you!
