For a while I've been a little concerned about my TES themed Sims world due to the fact that loading, saving, and exit times have become quite long (and this is even before a new generation has been born). If it's so slow and bogged down now, what will it be like later when children are born and more time has gone by?
Now for the record, I am not surprised by this having read the warnings and experiences of people who play with a lot of custom neighborhoods and large households, but I decided to proceed because I wanted to see what would happen. I am not going to delete that save and will still play it at times just to see how far it will go, but I knew I needed a more stable world for Aeronwen to write about in![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ascadian_rose. So I started doing some research on what I can do to keep a highly customized world going.
Time for a cut since this is a long entry:
A very useful bit of advice I found was to always use "Save As" rather than "Save" or "Save and Exit" even when you don't change the name of the save. For some reason the save doesn't acquire as much bloat if you always use Save As. I have been using this way of saving from the start of my "Grandpa's Trailer" game in Appaloosa Plains and the game loads, saves, and closes much faster than my older saves. Unfortunately this didn't do a whole lot to help my TES world so I knew that I needed to go back and start weeding out some households.
I loaded up my "Dragon Valley Emptied" save, which consists of the town and lots rearranged to my liking but before any households have been moved in. The TES households were then put on a list in order of importance (with importance being determined by how active they are in the roleplays). Minor characters, such as Fargoth, Arrille, Nona, Ra'Virr were not included this time. At least not as inactive households. To keep them in the world I waited for the service sims to spawn, then took each one into CAS and changed them into the minor characters that I had left out. For example, Fargoth (whom the NRaas Story Progression never did anything with) is now tending the bar at Fiddler's Green. Nona tends the bar at the coffee house. Ra'Virr is the consignment specialist. Traveling New Woman and Likes His Mead work at the nectary, while Arrille, Nalcarya, and Skink in Tree's Shade work at the Arcane Institute and Mages Guild. So in this way there are still lots of familiar names and faces around town.
Minor characters that were not cut from the town are:
1. The Black Claw and Ravenwatch households. They add too much drama to the world to not include them.
2. Rabinna along with Erandre and RiData, because RiData and Rabinna ending up together is too cute to cut.
3. Eldafire and her two children plus Tauryon and his son. I like the story of these two single parents who had lost their spouses ending up together. Plus without this family the world is completely childless except for Constance (who is friends with Eldafire's teenage son).
4. Yanna, because she adds a lot of drama and the world needs its not-so-nice characters.
5. Morgana and her ghost grandfather, for the same reason that Yanna is included.
6. Helseth and Barenziah, because there are a lot of story possibilities there plus Aeronwen already mentioned them inascadian_rose.
7. Anaril, Vallisara, and Sifina are still included with Constance having moved in with Sifina.
New minor characters include the "Three Merry Widows" which consist of an Altmer, a Dunmer, and a Bosmer. They live in a lovely house on the north side of town called Merry Widow Manor. They all have the Friendly, Good Sense of Humor, and Social Butterfly traits, so they behave in much the same way that they do in the roleplays.
Incidentally, any characters or pets who are not included at this time are in the Saved Sims/Household bins and can be added at a later time. Larana and Meldor are not included but might come in later after Larena's brothers have their children (providing the world is still loading and saving quickly at that time).
Endus, Odros, and Tureynul have been omitted for now. For this world's set up, Gilvoth and Neloth have their own place which I call The Grouch House. The top floor has two big bedrooms and a bathroom, the middle floor has a library, bathroom and an alchemy laboratory, and the ground floor has a kitchen, dining room, sitting/tv room, and a laundry room. I also gave them a tea table in the little fenced in area at the front of the house which they use quite a bit. The Grouch cache system I set up for them has worked well. Not only are they not fighting, but they are the best of friends.
Lastly I made some changes to two of the major households to make them more manageable. With the Jackle-Thorn household I left out the adult cat and dog (both of which had the Proud and Independent traits which caused them to have little to no interest in their own family). So the family now consists of Sarasvati, Thorinor, their two buckskin colored horses, and the kittens Peaches and Cream. This leaves room for the couple to have their two children and for their horses to produce a pretty buckskin foal.
And here I have to include a screenshot of Thorinor carrying Peaches. The kitten has a smug look on her face as though she's thinking, I have this guy right where I want him.
Finally...the active household needed pruned. I knew I had overloaded it with animals but I'm the sort who likes to push the envelope. When remaking the Gold Willow household I included Aeronwen, Neldor, their two horses, Oliver the donkey, the Samoyed Casper (as a puppy) and the Ragdoll cat Ivy (as a kitten). As Aeronwen will mention inascadian_rose, the fox Rey, now an adult, met a vixen and returned to the wild. She and Neldor miss him quite a bit, but were cheered up when baby Casper and Ivy joined the family. Oliver the donkey immediately befriended the little white furballs.
I've had this more lightweight version of the world running for the past few weeks and have reached the point where it's the beginning of autumn. It continues to load, save, and exit MUCH faster than the other version of the world and NRaas Story Progression is still very entertaining and apparently still has enough characters to work with.
So in closing I absolutely recommend always using Save As when saving the game, even when preparing to end a game session (Save As, then Exit). It really does speed up the save and prevents some bloating which improves performance. As I mentioned earlier in the entry, I will still load up the other save occasionally, but I'll use this newer and more light-weight world forascadian_rose.
The last thing I wanted to mention; uh, Aeronwen...Acacia...sorry to tell you this, but Helseth has been messing around with Yanna and one of the female werewolves, so...you two will likely need more brain bleach. Plus Yanna thinks she's going to become your stepmother, so you might have to knock her down. I mean...literally knock her down on the pavement.
Now for the record, I am not surprised by this having read the warnings and experiences of people who play with a lot of custom neighborhoods and large households, but I decided to proceed because I wanted to see what would happen. I am not going to delete that save and will still play it at times just to see how far it will go, but I knew I needed a more stable world for Aeronwen to write about in
ascadian_rose. So I started doing some research on what I can do to keep a highly customized world going.Time for a cut since this is a long entry:
A very useful bit of advice I found was to always use "Save As" rather than "Save" or "Save and Exit" even when you don't change the name of the save. For some reason the save doesn't acquire as much bloat if you always use Save As. I have been using this way of saving from the start of my "Grandpa's Trailer" game in Appaloosa Plains and the game loads, saves, and closes much faster than my older saves. Unfortunately this didn't do a whole lot to help my TES world so I knew that I needed to go back and start weeding out some households.
I loaded up my "Dragon Valley Emptied" save, which consists of the town and lots rearranged to my liking but before any households have been moved in. The TES households were then put on a list in order of importance (with importance being determined by how active they are in the roleplays). Minor characters, such as Fargoth, Arrille, Nona, Ra'Virr were not included this time. At least not as inactive households. To keep them in the world I waited for the service sims to spawn, then took each one into CAS and changed them into the minor characters that I had left out. For example, Fargoth (whom the NRaas Story Progression never did anything with) is now tending the bar at Fiddler's Green. Nona tends the bar at the coffee house. Ra'Virr is the consignment specialist. Traveling New Woman and Likes His Mead work at the nectary, while Arrille, Nalcarya, and Skink in Tree's Shade work at the Arcane Institute and Mages Guild. So in this way there are still lots of familiar names and faces around town.
Minor characters that were not cut from the town are:
1. The Black Claw and Ravenwatch households. They add too much drama to the world to not include them.
2. Rabinna along with Erandre and RiData, because RiData and Rabinna ending up together is too cute to cut.
3. Eldafire and her two children plus Tauryon and his son. I like the story of these two single parents who had lost their spouses ending up together. Plus without this family the world is completely childless except for Constance (who is friends with Eldafire's teenage son).
4. Yanna, because she adds a lot of drama and the world needs its not-so-nice characters.
5. Morgana and her ghost grandfather, for the same reason that Yanna is included.
6. Helseth and Barenziah, because there are a lot of story possibilities there plus Aeronwen already mentioned them in
ascadian_rose.7. Anaril, Vallisara, and Sifina are still included with Constance having moved in with Sifina.
New minor characters include the "Three Merry Widows" which consist of an Altmer, a Dunmer, and a Bosmer. They live in a lovely house on the north side of town called Merry Widow Manor. They all have the Friendly, Good Sense of Humor, and Social Butterfly traits, so they behave in much the same way that they do in the roleplays.
Incidentally, any characters or pets who are not included at this time are in the Saved Sims/Household bins and can be added at a later time. Larana and Meldor are not included but might come in later after Larena's brothers have their children (providing the world is still loading and saving quickly at that time).
Endus, Odros, and Tureynul have been omitted for now. For this world's set up, Gilvoth and Neloth have their own place which I call The Grouch House. The top floor has two big bedrooms and a bathroom, the middle floor has a library, bathroom and an alchemy laboratory, and the ground floor has a kitchen, dining room, sitting/tv room, and a laundry room. I also gave them a tea table in the little fenced in area at the front of the house which they use quite a bit. The Grouch cache system I set up for them has worked well. Not only are they not fighting, but they are the best of friends.
Lastly I made some changes to two of the major households to make them more manageable. With the Jackle-Thorn household I left out the adult cat and dog (both of which had the Proud and Independent traits which caused them to have little to no interest in their own family). So the family now consists of Sarasvati, Thorinor, their two buckskin colored horses, and the kittens Peaches and Cream. This leaves room for the couple to have their two children and for their horses to produce a pretty buckskin foal.
And here I have to include a screenshot of Thorinor carrying Peaches. The kitten has a smug look on her face as though she's thinking, I have this guy right where I want him.
Finally...the active household needed pruned. I knew I had overloaded it with animals but I'm the sort who likes to push the envelope. When remaking the Gold Willow household I included Aeronwen, Neldor, their two horses, Oliver the donkey, the Samoyed Casper (as a puppy) and the Ragdoll cat Ivy (as a kitten). As Aeronwen will mention in
ascadian_rose, the fox Rey, now an adult, met a vixen and returned to the wild. She and Neldor miss him quite a bit, but were cheered up when baby Casper and Ivy joined the family. Oliver the donkey immediately befriended the little white furballs.I've had this more lightweight version of the world running for the past few weeks and have reached the point where it's the beginning of autumn. It continues to load, save, and exit MUCH faster than the other version of the world and NRaas Story Progression is still very entertaining and apparently still has enough characters to work with.
So in closing I absolutely recommend always using Save As when saving the game, even when preparing to end a game session (Save As, then Exit). It really does speed up the save and prevents some bloating which improves performance. As I mentioned earlier in the entry, I will still load up the other save occasionally, but I'll use this newer and more light-weight world for
ascadian_rose.The last thing I wanted to mention; uh, Aeronwen...Acacia...sorry to tell you this, but Helseth has been messing around with Yanna and one of the female werewolves, so...you two will likely need more brain bleach. Plus Yanna thinks she's going to become your stepmother, so you might have to knock her down. I mean...literally knock her down on the pavement.
