Dissappearing Sims/Culling

Yes, but not without mod usage.

The EA way: The sims all around your actively being played household exist for your sims' convenience, amusement, and sometimes to provide mating material. They are expendable and will rotate out (get culled) with new ones arriving periodically when EA's version of story progression is working as it should which, for many if not most players, it just doesn't after a while. Even the ones you don't want to have this happen to, even those previously played by the player or who are best friends or blood related are subject to such removal. It will happen with greater frequency in worlds that the game itself thinks are overpopulated or out of balance demographically, but after a generation or three the game gets confused and it happens rampantly to many players anyway.

The NRaas way: NRaas StoryProgression shuts down emigration (culling) totally by default. No one leaves town unless they die, are homeless NPCs who much more volatile, or the player removes them from the game. If the player wants some degree of automated emigration so that things continue to feel fresh around their actively being played households and the world doesn't end up stagnating with everyone related to each other after a few generations, that can be arranged for within the mod's settings and exemptions can be set for households that should not be touched by this process.

AwesomeMod, our "friendly competitor" for modded story progression, has different ways to manage immigration and emigration but with some work can provide similar effects.

NRaas is here, the link is also in my signature line: http://nraas.wikispaces.com
(Yes we know that Wikispaces is shutting down later this year, but we will have moved to our new site by then. For now, it's still business as usual over there so the warnings can be dismissed/ignored)

Getting started with NRaas mods in general: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Getting%20Started%20Using%20NRAAS%20Mods

StoryProgression is by far the most complicated of the mods to get a handle on using and not necessarily the best one to start out with. But with one or two possible exceptions, the default settings it comes with are fine for most players. If you already have a long-running game going, you might want to try SP out on a new test game to see how you like it. But either way, it's totally removable.

Here's what it does and how it works: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression%20FAQ
(skip past the 17 internal links to get to the readable part)

MasterController is arguably a better mod to start out with because other than load its menus on sims, lots, in-game computers, and City Hall, it sits back doing absolutely nothing on its own until the player selects a command to run. SP, with its progression activated, runs all the time, pushing inactive sims around and setting limits for all sims' behavior. That's the one that controls immigration/emigration (culling).

And then of course we have mods like Overwatch and ErrorTrap that don't require any user intervention (OW does have options if one wants to adjust them) but work to keep the game clear of behind the scenes clutter, fix glitches, and keep things running more smoothly.


Edit: Forgot to mention. TS3 mods are always package based content. One must have the Framework set up to work with package files, if you don't already have this.
http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Setup_and_Files

Thank you so much for everything @igazor
I'll try to download NRaas and make it work during next week. If I have problems with it I'll comment here and ask tips from you sensei :smile:

Don't forget that we also have message boards at NRaas, the main one is called Chatterbox. Experienced mod users, our main developer,and other assorted loonies (like me) are also on hand there to help players along with their games and mod usage. :)

If you install the SP base mod and activate its story progression, then there will be no emigration of resident sims. It is totally off by default. You get an offer to switch SP's progression on when the game starts up the first time a world "sees" the mod, but this can be checked at any time after startup or within gameplay.

On City Hall or an in-game computer, NRaas > SP > General Options > Enable Progression > (you want True)

If Enable Progression is on False, and you have story progression checked off on the built-in game options, then EA's story progression is in control. It doesn't matter which way the game option is set if SP's Enable Progression is True.

NRaas mods that are entirely or mostly designed to improve performance: Overwatch, ErrorTrap, Register, Traffic, to an extent GoHere. A MasterController Reset Everything, run from the Town menu on City Hall, is also advisable every few sim weeks or so for most worlds. MC Resets are intrusive to gameplay and can take a good 10-15 minutes to run depending on the size of the world, but they should never do any harm.

Maybe this page will help further?
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Tips%20For%20Better%20Game%20Performance

Thank you so much for fast reply @igazor you are totally the master of mods. I have dyslexia which makes it hard for me to understand things that I read sometimes. So I'm sorry if I ask stupid questions(also English is only my third language so yeah I'm not native in English)

I'll totally check that link out(once I have enough time for that, my new job is keeping me busy). My game is currently running well but it's good to keep your options open haha :smiley:

Thank you so much for your comment @igazor Can you link me the site where I can download NRaas mod and explain how does it work etc. The only mod that I have used is MCCC for TS4.
I would love to become a god and not just a watcher :naughty:

Hey @igazor I had a change to download Nraas Story Prgression mod(I even watched a tutorial to it so I kinda know now how it works). I do have few questions. How can I be sure that emigration(culling) is off now?
And is there a mod that would make the game run better? I heard about that on Youtube but I'm new with mods so I'm asking about it from you :wink: