Useless Camping Gear!

Okay, so Seasons (both weather & calendar) has made the game insanely fun to play like no other version IMO (I've played since Sims 1). AND, it's made going on vacations so much more fun, too (both the woods and the jungle)!!!

(FYI, I just took a big family on a camping trip and was thinking how beautiful the warm weather was, then BANG!, thunderstorm! Had to expand the Visitor's Center in Granite Falls with tons of indoor activities to keep the kiddos occupied during the rainy days. So fun! Only a "Cabin Fever" or Rainy Day Boredom" buff would've made it any better!)

HOWEVER, roughing it on these vacations has made it clear how inadequate the camping gear really is... (Tents, grills, fire pits, chairs, tables, showers, coolers, etc.) Why? ROUTING PROBLEMS! It never fails that when a sim performs "Place in World" on any of this gear it's placed in the most bizarre location and position possible, TYPICALLY in a place where they can't even access it!

(And this seems to happen no matter HOW CAREFUL you are trying to position your sim so that they WON'T place the camping gear in an awkward position--there seems to be no rhyme nor reason behind which direction they will place whatever object they're placing, sometimes they'll place the chair facing themselves, sometimes away from themselves, and there's no way to predict which way it'll go...)

I can't tell you how many times I've had sims I sent to eat or grill or sleep drop their actions and wave at me that they just can't do what I ask. Or, if I'm off with another sim after sending someone to sleep in the tent, I'll find them passed out in a bush because whatever "plum" sim set up the tent aimed the opening at a tree and they can't get in!!!

The WORST offender of course is the FIRE PIT!!! At first I thought it was some sort of bizarre bug or glitch that my sims couldn't roast any food over the fire pit...until I realized they needed a chair perfectly positioned right next to the fire pit. How did I realize that, you might ask? Well, because one sim accidentally perfectly placed a chair right next to a pit so that he COULD roast up a fish over the fire or toast some marshmallows.

HURRAY! I thought, all I need to do is have a sim place a chair near the fire and they'll be able to eat finally without having to lug a grill around!

WRONG!!! That sim who successfully placed their chair in a position to use the fire pit was a total FLUKE! I had another sim spend HOURS trying to place a second chair by that fire pit so he could eat too, but no such luck! He'd face it away from the fire pit, or too close to use. One time I thought I finally had it, it LOOKED perfectly positioned, but the angle was ever so slightly off, so he just stood there waving his frustration at me.

SO, isn't there SOMETHING THAT CAN BE DONE?!?! Isn't there a way to ensure that this doesn't happen in the future? That tents are placed so that their openings aren't blocked, and more importantly, that chairs being placed next to fire pits will "grab on" and place in the proper position so you can actually access the fire pit actions that you need to be seated in a chair for?

This is really a pain for jungle adventures because, unlike the camping lot in Outdoor Retreat, you can't just set up a tent camping site for guests to use in advance (before renting the tent camping lot). When you're out in the jungle, your sims often need to sleep in areas where there is no editable lot. Especially in those secret "off the path" locations.

I will admit, I wound up using the bb.enablefreebuild cheat on the Hidden Pools location to place a campfire and stools beside the pool... BUT it still wouldn't let me properly place the chairs my sims owned around the fire pit they'd placed off the lot. And that's what's so frustrating!

I get that this is a tricky situation, but it just seems like there's got to be a way that once a sim has placed these camping gear objects in the world (whether on an editable lot or not), that we should be able to grab them (the way we can grab dishes to wash for our sims at home) and change their orientation and placement within the neighborhood.

Otherwise, these objects are basically useless.

You either need to have your sim waste tons of in-game hours placing and replacing them until they're properly placed (which is IMPOSSIBLE with the chairs/fire pit situation), OR you need to skip camping outside of editable lots, OR you need to just use the needs cheats during jungle expeditions and not have them sleep/eat/pee at all... Which would really bite!

Also, I know I could, but I REALLY don't want to ruin the "realism" of the game by using the freebuild cheat to place a tent/fire pit/chairs/etc. on EVERY editable lot in the jungle, I want them to be able to set up their own camping gear!

SO, has anyone else experienced this camping gear problem? (If you've used the gear, I know you have!) And if you have, have any of you found a way around it? I've been searching the forums and other sites for help but haven't found any answers yet!

Thanks in advance if you actually have found a way to fix this! (And care to share...)

(It almost makes me wish that there were several "campsite set-up" options available to purchase along with the individual. Like a perfectly positioned tent, fire pit and chairs, grill, table and chairs, cooler, etc., so when you clicked on the gear or "backpack" the gear would automatically place itself in a neat, usable setup, in the nearest location with enough room to set up all the gear in the proper configuration. You could have a cheap, small, barebones setup for the solo camper; a medium, mid-range setup for a camping couple; and a setup for 4+ campers (because that big tent sleeps 4+ and it's reasonable that larger groups could take turns at the table and fire pit if you had four chairs around each... This would TOTALLY solve this frustrating problem!!!)

Edited for language. - EA_Cian