I know some of you have created apartments for upload at MTS and may be able to answer questions. As I understand it there are 2 different types of apartment(Late Nite/University). The Late Nite apartments use the Late Nite hidden/public room markers and are placed on a regular residential lot which your sims purchase. The university apartment type uses the room markers from university expansion and is placed on an apartment type lot which your sims rent. I understand there can be problems that occur when mixing elements of these two types together and that the Late Nite type of apartment is preferred.

Question I have:

I see several apartments in the download section that have just one apartment description but is it not possible to upload a lot with several apartments(only one active) that can be chosen by moving hidden markers around so that uploaders can choose from by providing info on cheats used to move hidden room markers or is this seen as too complex?

Yes, the Late Night apartment uses the regular, basegame residental lot type and makes use of public and hidden room markers to provide the apartment function. For these, there is only one playable unit, all others will be blacked out.

The university apartment doesn't come with specific room markers. Instead, it uses the "Apartment" lot type that came with the Uni EP: this will turn an existing building into a dorm type apartment. Other residents move in until 8 sims live on this lot, but those cannot be controlled by you. All units should be furnished as they all are accessible and visible.

If you mix these elements, your residental zoned as apartment (Uni) with hidden rooms for NPCs will have roommates, but they will live in YOUR unit, not the NPC units.

Of course you can make (and offer) a LN apartment, furnish everything and decide into which unit your household should move and black the rest out with hidden room markers. Though for performance's sake it's recommended not to furnish/detail the NPC units.The guide would need to be elaborate, not all downloaders are builders and might not have a concept of how LN apartments work or what pitfalls come with room markers.

I have read some years ago, that some mod exists that adds to Sims 3 that feature to make apartments like it was in Sims 2. But I can't already give you axactly no link, nor author.

Thanks for your responses.

@Norn-I was thinking about creating a LN type apartment with multiple units but was curious why I couldn't really find any in download section. I suppose it is easier just to furnish one apartment and not confuse downloaders with moving markers around.

@Victor_tor-Thanks for info I may look for that mod to try out for my game.

It's also possible to make an apartment with most units hidden, and a few that are owned by your active sim. One apartment can be for whichever sim the downloader is actively playing, and then for the others, they can either use the phone option to get a/some roommate(s) or use the other units for other members of their active household. Of course, if they do add roommates with the cellphone option (which also allows you to select how many roommates), the downloader can lock the door to their active sim/household(s) apartment, allowing only members of the household to pass through, and therefore sort of... giving the roommates free reign over the unlocked apartments.

idk how much sense this makes but i tried to be as clear as possible eheh.

I think you mean Ani's Apartment mod now hosted over at NRAAS Industries
https://www.nraas.net/community/Apartment-Mod

I have to make some food for the next few days, but here is a tutorial. I think I used Buzzlers mods when I did this. It says in the description.



Youtube has done changes again, took me some time to figure out.

The uni apartment zoning has some bugs. If you change your mind about the zoning, you can't really delete it. At least that was my experience.

Another important thing is many people think the price of each unit is important. More furniture in user apartments, means a higher rent for the unit.

Thanks for your reponses-Kylaaab,310175,Volvenom

I think I will just stick with LN type of apartments if I decide to make one as they seem less complicated for downloaders.

These are early WiP pics for a mid century modern type apartment I am working on. Do you see any issues so far that may be a problems or doesn't match theme?

Being a European I really don't care about parking, but I seem to remember some issues there. Are you going to use a mod?

@Volvenom-I was not planning on using a mod or any cc. Do you remember what issues you had with parking? I saw you had some apartments with parking spaces for Sims 3(those look like they may have been uploaded some time ago and you may have moved on to Sims4) but it never hurts to ask. I suppose if during playtesting there are issues with parking it would be easy enough to create a fake parking bumper or even convert that space to something else.

I don't see any problem so far. The liveable units look very small though, they are smaller than the hallways. Is this by design? Public toilets on each floor in combination with the small units remind me of an apartment hotel, not apartments for permanent residence. The balconies are a nice, realistic touch.

@Norn-Thank you for response. I was going to make one large apartment out of two sections above parking area and have 2 hidden NPC apartment rooms on other side.

They wasn't my issues really. I'm a builder and don't really worry about cars, but it had something to do with ownership to the cars. I seem to remember my active family had cars, but parking for NPC apartments just doesn't work. I think you can search for other people's experiences in the build forum.

There is no point furnishing the NPC apartment, they don't use it and the price of the units might be affected.

I build worlds in ts3 these days, so I still need the knowledge.

Maybe need to made a house based on duplex scheme? In my scratch living 1 - is one apartment. Living 2 - is hidden room fer NPC. Doors can open to public 3. Public 5 turns more decorative.
Another way - add Public2 to living1 zone. It can become two story apartment with great space.
I made such zoning because I think rooms now are very narrow.

Thanks for responses.
@Volvenom-. I will playtest and see what I have to do and changes i would need to make, but it should be easy enough to change.
@Victor_tor- That public/ private layout was generally what I had planned with the combined living 2 space as the apartment and the living 1 space as NPC rooms. However, I may make adjustments to this structure if issues come up in playtesting.

So I can have a dorm type situation lot in a non-university world?

It depends on what you mean by a dorm.

@ZenGarden If you have the University EP, yes!

ZenGarden- you are welcome to ask questions here either way, but you are also more than welcome to join our group.