This is really interesting! And something I've thought about a lot too, does replacing lots with gallery/own lots cause corruption? Does the game mess up when you introduce too many new lots/sims into it?
Also that this started even BEFORE for Rent came out, but FR just made it that much worse by adding new type of lots and complexity of existing ones.
Hi DarkSimzzz !
Replacing lots with ones from the Gallery—or even your own creations—doesn’t corrupt the save file, even if the uploaded lot originally came from a corrupted save.
Lots from the Gallery might carry glitches or bugs, but never a “virus” that spreads through the save.
Still, there’s an interesting relationship between lots and corruption that I forgot to mention…
- Let’s say you decide to build a new house for the Goth family in Ophelia Villa, making a beautiful 30x20 Victorian home.
- A week later, you replace it with an Haunted House you found on the Gallery.
- Two weeks after that, you move the Goths to Ravenwood and turn Ophelia Villa into a cemetery.
Here’s the catch: all this information—from one version of the lot to the next—is stored in the save file and never really disappears. The new lot (the cemetery) is there, but the previous versions still exist in the background, just hidden.
That’s why in many cases of save corruption, lots tend to revert back to a previous version—or even to the original base game version—while the infamous orange “!” marks show up on the map. The problem is that we still don’t know what exactly triggers this kind of corruption.
Now about the Sims...
I’ve never found any direct connection between Sims and save corruption. However, Sims with heavy customization can make your save file larger and more fragile. My advice: avoid Sims overloaded with tattoos, fairies with custom wings, or werewolves with custom fur. Stick to the ones from the base game as much as possible to reduce the strain on your saves.
