Tutorial: How to Remove Stealth Hoods (Secret Subhoods) from a Neighborhood
 

Have you ever accidentally added the nasty secret subhoods (aka stealth hoods) to your neighborhood(s) and then later regretted it? Because you couldn't change the neighorhood type anymore? Or do you simply just want to clean a neighborhood for upload and don't want the unnecessary stealth hoods to blow up your neighborhood file size? Well, then this tutorial is for you!

Note: You can also use a slight adaption of this tutorial to actually make-over the hobby and witch lots/neighborhoods! Bear in mind that the hobby/witch lots have to be visited at least once with a sim, though. Otherwise, the Maven NPC and other fellow hobby enthusiast townies may not show up. More info on that in simsample's post. Thanks so much for sharing this, @simsample

Update!: Apparently, you do NOT need to visit the hobby lots, etc. in order to make them work, as stated in the original tutorial. You can just edit them as usual and then, once you're done, you can use Chris Hatch's LotCleaner globe to fix the hobby/witch lots. All the hobby and witch NPCs will show up without any problems! More info on that in Sunrader's post. Thanks so much for sharing this, @Sunrader!


You're probably stuck with this... you've accidentally had the stealth hoods enabled when loading your neighobrhood... and then, this happened!



And if you have a look into the neighborhood folder, you'll see that the game clogged your neighborhood with this trash.



Don't panic! This tutorial is going to teach you how to remove the secret subhoods. We're going to use SimPE during the tutorial, but trust me! It's a very simple and quick procedure!

Step 1: Disabling the Stealth Hoods

To prevent ANY additional stealth hood drama in your neighborhood, make sure to disable your stealth hoods NOW!
To do this, go to your install location of each expansion pack listed below.

Once in that folder, search for a folder named NeighborhoodTemplate. Rename that folder to NeighborhoodTemplate_disabled and you're done! Repeat this step for all the five stealth hoods. Be careful with the Bon Voyage one though, as the stealth hood is in the same folder as the vacation subhoods. You may have to create a new NeighborhoodTemplate folder and put your vacation subhoods in there! Just do NOT put V001 in there.

By default, the install instructions are...

Pets Stealth Hood (Pets)
Go to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res
If you have The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection: C:\Program Files\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\EP4\TSData\Res

Seasons Stealth Hood (Weather)
Go to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res
If you have The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection: C:\Program Files\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Seasons\TSData\Res

Bon Voyage Stealth Hood (Exotic Destinations)
Go to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSData\Res
If you have The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection: C:\Program Files\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Bon Voyage\TSData\Res

Free Time Stealth Hood (Hobbies)
Go to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Free Time\TSData\Res
If you have The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection: C:\Program Files\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Free Time\TSData\Res

Apartment Life Stealth Hood (Magic)
Go to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Apartment Life\TSData\Res
If you have The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection: C:\Program Files\Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Apartment Life\TSData\Res

Step 2: Changing the Stealth Hoods to Downtowns

Alright, they shouldn't cause any trouble in your neighborhoods anymore... good! Now, let's move to the next step.

Unfortunately, we cannot access the secret subhoods ingame. If you'd try to delete them in-game under shopping districts... you wouldn't find any subhoods there. That's why, we're going to do this workaround to make the subhoods show up in the game.

Open up the stealth hood package in SimPE. In the Resource Tree (on the left side), find ID Number (IDNO). Click on it and it'll filter the files according to that file type. Now click on ID Number in the Resource List (on the right side). Click on the Neighborhood Type drop down menu, and change Suburb to Downtown. Click on Commit and repeat this procedure with all the other stealth hoods. You may close SimPE now and launch the game. I told you it's going to be a quick, didn't I?



Now, comes the fun part. Ingame, you'll see that the secret subhoods actually show up now under Downtown subhoods!


And if you click on them, you'll... oh, there's a Delete button!


Now, have fun deleting these stealth hoods! It should be really quick, and you'll end up with this! :D


You may close the game now and have a look into the neighborhood's folder. And yayy! You should no longer see the stealth subhood files in there. Only the neighborhood file, as desired!



Note: You may also want to check the Lots folder (before and after deleting the stealth hoods!). If you've done everything correctly, the number of lots should have decreased by 12. (10 hobby lots + 2 witch lots). My neighborhood had 70 lots to start with... and well, after removing the stealth hoods, it only had 58 lots! Which is... a sign of success!

Brilliant, thanks @Jawusa! I will be trying this for sure.

Edit: It worked! Just as the tutorial said. Lacuna Delta is now 12 lots lighter, too! Thank you!

Yayy, I'm glad to hear that it worked for you! @simsample :lovestruc

Also, I forgot to mention that if suddenly the neighborhood disappears after using SimPE, it might be possible that the main neighborhood has been changed into a Downtown instead, and not the stealth hoods. In that case, I'd just restore from backup and make sure that you only convert the _Suburb###. packages (as marked above) to Downtowns.

I wanted to add that I used this method also to give the hobby neighbourhood a makeover instead of deleting it. I changed it to Downtown and set the lots to community with U0 of 0X00002123, then changed them to my liking, and adjusted the hood decor too. Then I changed the lots back to Hobbyhidden with the following U0:
Sue's (Secret) Kitchen, My Muse II - Art Studio, Peerless Park & Dreamy Fields       U0=0x00000133
Platinum Gym, Desirable Discourse, Will's Garage, Aspirational Laboratories, Games of Glory & My Muse - Music & Dance Studio    U0=0x00000132
Change the hood type back to Suburb and all is done!
Note: For this method to work you need to make sure the Hobby Lots have been visited at least once by a member sim before editing, or else the Maven and other members don't seem to show up.

@simsample
That's actually very helpful, lol! I've just linked to your post in the main post. Thanks so much for sharing that!
I guess, you could also change the neighborhood terrain to a desert, etc. and make more themed hobby lots?

(And yeah... those hobby lots could definitely benefit from a make-over... especially the science lab, lol!)

Yes in theory you could make a completely custom world, but I'm not sure how to tell the game the lot has been visited- do you have any ideas at that? I've not tried changing the lot names either, although this tutorial indicates it might be possible.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible? But I'll do some experiments...

I've noticed that the games saves the Hobby lot on each visit... meaning, it's not like a community lot that remains unchanged if visited. So, I suspect that the game runs special controllers, etc. when visited as a secret hobby lot and they seem to get corrupted if the lot has been saved as a community lot.

This is bad... especially if you intend to upload a made-over Hobbies subhood (or a set of renovated Hobby lots).

So, here's a workaround on how to achieve that:

- Create an empty throwaway neighborhood with no sims and let the game attach the Hobbies stealth hood to it.
- Create a sim who has all hobbies maxed out and has memberships to all hobby lots. (You can use Batbox's option to give the sim the memberships if they have at least 5? points in each hobby)
- Visit each Hobby lot with the sim... and as they travel, more and more hobby instructors/mavens are being generated. You should have at least 10 of them in the end. If you check the "Last Modified Date" of each lot file, you'll notice that they have all been changed... this is a good sign, don't worry!
- Change the secret subhood to a Downtown and unhide all the Hobby lots using your method described above and also change them to community lots.
- Renovate/tear down all the Hobby lots to create your own (and modify the neighborhood) as desired. You may also use Mootilda's LotAdjustor to enlarge/shrink the lot as needed. Change neighborhood terrain, etc. Much like as you'd create a normal custom neighborhood. When done, save the lot one more time and use the cheat "changeLotZoning secrethobbylot". (I've tested it, it still works... and actually, you do not necessarily have to hide the secret Hobby lots. They may stay visible. The only difference is that you'll see all the neighborhood decoration and other lots when visiting that Hobby lot.)
- In SimPE, change the Hobbies stealth hood from "Downtown" to "Suburb". You may still hide your lots if you want to using the method described above.
- Use Chris Hatch's LotCompressor to remove sim references and to compress the lots in general.
- Now, disable the stealth hoods and create a new empty neighborhood. Rename the neighborhood's prefix to F002. (Ie change the neighborhood's folder name and the package file inside)
- Use Mootilda's HoodReplace to copy neighborhood terrain, decorations, roads over to your new neighborhood.
- Extract all LotDescription files and the corresponding text string files from your old neighborhood's subhood package and import them into your new neighborhood.
- Also copy all the hobby lot packages and change the prefix from N### to F002.
- Open up the original stealth hood template in the NeighborhoodTemplate folder, extract its ID number and catalog description, open up your new neighborhood you've just created, delete its current ID number and catalog description, and add the extracted ones. (This will convert your neighorhood into a secret Hobbies subhood.)

Now, you should have a fully renovated and customized Hobbies stealth hood template which has no sims in it at all. Since the Hobby lots were initiated as such, they should also spawn hobby instructors and townies as usual.

I know this method has been used for editing the hobby lots for a long time, first described by Maty and then by Eulalia, but I think it can be done without all the pre-visiting steps, because LotCleaner can reset those controllers.

I tested my idea in a completely empty game environment and it worked fine. Test details under the spoiler.

@Sunrader
That's a very interesting alternative way to edit hobby lots and it sounds much safer than the original method. In that way, you can be 100% sure that there are no sim references! Thanks! I'll test it out as soon as possible!

As for the Downtown conversion step... I think there's a specific code in the neighborhood's ID number (as viewed in hex editor) that makes the subhood hidden (much like hiding lots by adding an extra number in the Lot Instance). And apparently, it only works for subhoods that are also flagged as a "Suburb" subhood). And changing it into a "Downtown" will temporarily disable that code, so you can access and edit the neighborhood. That's also why it's hidden again if changed back to a Suburb.

In theory, you could add that code to any other custom subhoods as well, which would hide those subhoods, but that'd also make them a stealth hood, so the game would attach that subhood to any neighborhood that's missing your newly made custom stealth hood.

@jawusa @sunrader for UC users: if one wants to delete an existing Hobby subhood in a Neighborhood, which "suburb" number file should they relocate to Downtown in the Neighborhood folder of choice?

I think you are asking how to identify which is the hobby hood? I don't remember right now and don't have my game to check, but you can just open the subhoods in simpe and identify the hobby hood by its lots, etc.

@Sunrader yes correct, but I eventually found it through opening each "Suburb00X" file

Yeah, I think the first time I looked at the png to identify it, but don't remember for sure.

I disabled the stealth hoods but now the EA App says my game files are damanged and need fixing.
How do you solve this?

@DinaMarBoobs Does your neighbourhood load? Did you make a backup? Is the EA app indicating that your userdata is damaged or the game install?

It's the game files, not my save data.
In fact, it asks me if I want to repair the installation and if I do it, the game starts.
I also checked the game files after repair.
The DISABLED_NeighborhoodTemplate folder is still there, but after repair a new NeighborhoodTemplate is also created.

Thanks for the tutorial Jawusa!

I'm going to attempt with the next version of Plot of Land to reduce bloat.

Ah, okay, that's good because it's the empty stealth hoods that are being detected, not that something is wrong with your neighbourhood!
So if you want to play the game without the Maxis stealth hoods being put back, you'll need to remove those newly created folders before you play. I don't know of any way to get around this when playing with the EA App, as the first thing that program does is to check that your gamedata files are identical to the ones on their server. You'd either have to play without the EA App (if that's possible), ignore the pop-up (if you are able to) or else delete those files before you play each time. You could always put a different copy of the UC on to your computer (one that doesn't require the EA App to launch).

In the end I've solved this way:

Instead of changing the NeighborhoodTemplate name folder, I've just deleted the stealth hood inside the folder.
Also, for good measure, I've deleted the groups.cache and acessory.cache in the save files folder.

The game now starts.

Oh good solution, I'm glad that works!

I'm playing three different hoods at the moment and two of them include the stealth hood townies in some way, since I didn't know how to get rid of them, I just decided to roll with it. I used sim surgery to replace the appearance of most of them in one of my custom hoods and killed off the rest.

Now, I want to do this for my veronaville hood but somehow leave the other two hoods untouched. If I do this and simply rename the NeighborhoodTemplate_disabled folder to NeighborhoodTemplate every time I wanted to play my custom hoods which include the stealth hood townies, would that work or affect the hoods in some way or the other?

I'm unsure if my question makes sense but I tried to be as clear as I could be. TL;DR: I play 3 different hoods, two of which have welcomed the stealth hood townies in some way, and the third (veronaville) which hasn't. Will doing this affect the first two custom hoods, even if I replace my NeighborhoodTemplate folder every time I want to play them?

You don't need to re-enable the stealth hoods when you play. The disabled folders will not affect the hoods that already have townies or other stealth Sims. You can safely disable them and only turn them on if you create or load a hood where you want them. Iow, if you turn on the folder, the stealth hoods will attach to any main hood you load that does not already have them, so disable and leave it off if you don't want them. Your old hoods with them will not be affected.

What is the function of a "stealth hood"? What is lost if they are removed?

The stealth hoods are those secret sub-neighborhoods that get attached to your neighborhoods whenever you load it for the first time. Remember those additional "Create Pets/Weather/Exotic Destinations/Hobbies/Magic" loading screens? These are exactly the stealth hoods.

EA created those such that every neighborhood has the strays, garden club members, tourists, hobby instructors and those social class townies, witches, etc. The Hobbies and Magic stealth hoods also contain the hidden lots the sims can visit if they are a witch or have a hobby membership card. That's... pretty much the only use they have.

But the game can also function just fine without them, so they're not really needed, especially not if you never plan to go to those lots in the first place. One downside of having the stealth hoods attached is that you can no longer change the neighborhood type using the cheat "changeNeighborhoodType [university | downtown | suburb | asia | tropics | mountains]". Hence this tutorial, so you can convert any main neighborhood (even with stealth hoods attached) into a subhood.

Aren't the "strays, garden club members, tourists, hobby instructors" transferred to and contained within the main neighborhood? This (the main neighborhood) is what we open to browse them in sim pe? The hobby neighborhood is a real place with houses. But there isn't a garden neighborhood or a pets neighborhood.