Making Sense of Your CC?

There's no wrong or right way in my opinion... Whatever works for you.

This is a comment I made on your 'De-Plumifying My CC' thread. I still organize this way and it works for me.

"SimplyJen;c-16312240" wrote:
I made a folder that I call BASE MODS for all of my must-have mods + defaults with a small amount of CC that I use all the time. Each save file has it's own game folder so I can swap them out. I add the base mods folder and then only install extra content as I need it for that save.This means things load slightly faster and I don't get lost looking for things in the catalogs. My entire CC collection and store collection is archived with pictures separately on a storage drive to pull from if I need anything else.

The downside is this takes up drive space so I grabbed an external drive on sale for general backups, archived content, extra saves, and exported NRaas settings. The only sims3packs I install are store stuff, worlds, and sims. The rest gets converted to package file. The great thing about package files is you can merge them, unlike sims3pack. The launcher becomes funky when you install too much through it.

I'm still fine-tuning how I organize things... My CC/Mods are organized by Modify (Mods), Defaults, Patterns, Poses, Sliders, CC (Individual creators), and Maternity (Maternity enabled clothing). My store content is backed up & organized by Worlds, Sets, Venues, Premium Content, and Individual items.

Mine is organised almost the same as Jen's. I have a folders for build content, Mods, CAS content, Patterns, Poses, Sliders and a "Test" folder, which is where I put any CC I am thinking about keeping in my game, so I can check it's quality and see if it has issues or not. That way, if there is ever a problem, I know it's one of the files in that folder that is causing issues in my game.

Most of my stuff is merged, so I play with testing CC for a couple of weeks, and if I find myself using it a lot then it gets added to the corresponding merged package. If I find I haven't used it, or it is of poor quality, it gets deleted. So many people edit their CC preview pictures when showing it off, which I find terribly annoying. Sometimes you download something which looks terrific in their pics, but ends up looking dreadful in game, because their pictures were edited to hide the flaws.

I never install via launcher, unless it is Store Content & Worlds. Everything else is installed as package, and if it isn't offered in package format, I export any sims3packs to package, using Package Extractor.

Package files can be merged which will reduce the size and compact them. sims3packs cannot be merged... Too many sims3packs installed through the launcher will slow it down which can be annoying if you're not able to skip the launcher. I don't know about Pary but that's why I install most content in package form or convert it to package form. The only sims3packs I install are store stuff, worlds... occasionally sims and patterns too.

"SimplyJen;c-16420584" wrote:
Package files can be merged which will reduce the size and compact them. sims3packs cannot be merged... Too many sims3packs installed through the launcher will slow it down which can be annoying if you're not able to skip the launcher. I don't know about Pary but that's why I install most content in package form or convert it to package form. The only sims3packs I install are store stuff, worlds... occasionally sims and patterns too.

The launcher is horrible. I install as package rather than s3p not only for the reason's above, but because any time I have a problem file, it is simply a matter of deleting it from my mods folder and restarting my game.
If it were a problem sims3pack I would have to load that foul launcher, scroll through everything that was installed to locate the problem file, and go through the process of uninstalling.
Removing a package takes 3 seconds. Sometimes, the launcher deletion process runs in high minutes. It's useless and annoying.

My launcher takes especially long to load because I delete all the tmp files in DCCache - that are duplicated from the existing dbc files - because EA could never seem to solve the issue of disappearing Store content from the launcher when someone had a lot of it, and as such their solution was to simply duplicate every file to try to prevent it from happening I suppose.
When those duplicates are deleted, loading the launcher regenerates them all over again, so it takes ages for it to load and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Deleting is preferable to me than keeping around an extra 6+ gigs of duplicate content bloating out my sims folder.

@IreneSwift Answering for Pary, this is the best tutorial I've found on organizing cc. Step by step instructions on how to convert the package file and how to merge them

https://ohmysims.tumblr.com/post/24336581511

The other benefit of package files is that even if you uninstall a sims3pack through the launcher, it's still there. It just doesn't show up anymore. Take a package file out and it's gone for good.

@ZeeGee Thank you. I've bookmarked that page, and when I have time I'll try it out.

I didn't know content would still be in the game files if you uninstall it with the launcher. It certainly doesn't show up in the game.

@ZeeGee One more question - is that why, when I uninstalled some CC hairs that were looking wonky in my game, thinking I would be unable to use them, then reinstalled them when I learned that turning up my graphics settings would fix that, some of them did not show up in CAS, even though they turned up on sims in CAS while I was making new ones?

Oh, and one more question besides that one - does converting CC to package files eliminate potential corruption that might come with the sims3pack version?

"IreneSwift;c-16422805" wrote:
@ZeeGee One more question - is that why, when I uninstalled some CC hairs that were looking wonky in my game, thinking I would be unable to use them, then reinstalled them when I learned that turning up my graphics settings would fix that, some of them did not show up in CAS, even though they turned up on sims in CAS while I was making new ones?

Oh, and one more question besides that one - does converting CC to package files eliminate potential corruption that might come with the sims3pack version?

@IreneSwift When you install a sims3pack it does 2 things - it puts a package file in the dcbackup folder, and it adds the item to either the .ebc file if it's a store item, or the .dbc file if it's CC. Those files are in the dccache folder. When you uninstall the item, it does not erase it from the ebc or dbc file, it is still there. It just won't show up in your game. However, if you did not delete the package file from the dcbackup folder it is still there. I'm not sure about the potential for corruption in a sims3pack. Not sure if I've ever heard of that but I remember @Ciane mentioning something about that. She is the real expert. Let's page her and see what she has to say about your questions.

So, the easy explanation is to think of removing items from the launcher the same way a file is deleted on the computer. It simply changes that first character to a question mark to make normal retrieval impossible, but the data is still taking up space. Removing the item from the DCbackup simply keeps it from tagging along on an upload.

The easiest way to find stuff on your launcher that you want to keep from showing up in your game is to MOVE out all the .ebc files (which will be EA stuff) and all but the first .dbc file that ends with 0. (I say move out because you are going to put them back later.)

Also, if you keep stuff in your downloads folder that you've already installed, then move out the downloads folder to another location for now. You don't need the actual download files in your sims 3 folder once they are installed, but keeping them as backup is always a great idea (just not in the downloads folder in the sims 3 folder where you're loading them all the time with your game).

Now, the launcher won't see all the EA stuff or the download files you've already installed OR any of the stuff in the other .dbc files. You'll be looking at only the stuff in one file. It's much easier to find things you want to hide now. (No, your file won't get smaller in size, but you won't see that item in game any more.)

When you finish looking at the file, MOVE it out to join the others and move in the next .dbc file. You'll have to change the number of the file to end in 0 to look at what's in it and then CHANGE the number back to what it was before. MOVE it back out to join the others and repeat the process until you've looked at all the .dbc files.

You can do the same thing for the .ebc files as well.

When done, remember to renumber that last file back to what it was and add all the other files back in again. :smiley:

If a sims 3 pack is corrupt, you'll want to find and remove it from your launcher and then find the right file in your dcbackup folder to delete. Often you'll find bad cc dcbackup file numbers by googling. Other times you have to guess by date time and size of file.

Just a couple of corrections on that link @ZeeGee provided for organising - Worlds CAN be installed without the launcher, if the creator provides a .world file. These are put into the EA game install directory on C drive, in Sims 3\GameData\Shared\NonPackaged\Worlds
I have never extracted a world with PackageExtractor, so I can't speak for that, but I have playtested worlds, after being given a .world file to put into the directory listed above. You simply choose the world from the drop down menu in game as normal.

Secondly, to avoid any confusion when wanting to extract a package from a sims 3 pack, I find it more helpful to open the s3pack with Custard, untick the unwanted CC items, leaving only the single file I want, save the pack and then extract it with Packager Extractor. It's an extra step, but it saves you having to fiddle about in s3pe trying to identify which package was extracted from the pack.

Also, when extracting sims, I always simply rename the extension on the file from .package to .sim and drop it into my saved sims folder. In my previous experience, keeping extracted sims as a package and in the mods folder never worked as they never showed up in CAS. Perhaps something has changed, I don't know.
If the "sim" in question is in a household and you want to extract them, then leave them as package and drop them into the Library folder.

I never download patterns made with EA's pattern maker, and I never download lots or sims with CC either. I clean out every lot of sim I download first, even if I have the CC items included. That way, I can be absolutely certain that no CC I haven't chosen gets into my game. S3 can be very temperamental, and my game is at a stage when it runs beautifully, despite having a couple of gigs of CC, and is giving me no problems, so I like to keep it that way :)

S3PE
Custard
Sims 3 Pack Multi Extractor