I am once again working on the custom world I started in 2017, and have run into a conundrum.

I am not sure if I should coat the ocean floor with un-routable paint. I found an old post on the official forums, and it was suggested that the ocean needs no route paint because the water itself is always un-routable--but sims can still swim, yes? It was a very old post--long before Island Paradise introduced us to dive lots--so I am rather confused and conflicted.

Another point that adds to my confusion is that I have had other test worlds with extremely deep oceans--ideal kraken territory--and sims still spawn under the water.

For instance, I was testing one of my dive lots in-game, and spotted--far from the lot's confines, further off into the ocean--a paparazzo. She was stuck on the ocean floor, blinking aimlessly as she shifted about trying to move. Again, this was the bottom of the frickin' ocean. Everything was flat and on level! How the heck did she even get there?


Any clarification on this would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Edit--Oops! Hit "Reply" by mistake. Sorry about that.


Enclosed is a screenshot of three other sims who spawned deep within the ocean on a totally different test world. Since I had yet to add any dive lots to that particular world, this picture was taken while my test subjects were boating. Those definitely aren't fish down there.

It couldn't hurt unless you're painting over houseboats or right up to the shore, and you've found sims on the bottom of the ocean. I say "go for it".

There is no need to paint the ocean floor with non-routable paint. It won't change anything as it is unroutable by default.

About the spawned sims - did you start the world from scratch or did you edit a populated world?

Can you elaborate on why? I'd like to learn.
Edit: Doubly so now, because you were the one that made Northeney. I love that world.

Well, water is unroutable for the land-based routing types by game default. If you activate the non-routable paint tool, you can see that it appears red, which means not routable (steep slopes or underwater). Also, if you activate the routing grid, you can see that the grid doesn't continue over bodies of water.
This doesn't mean that there cannot be bugs - there are plenty reports of sims "walking over water", for both above sea level water planes as well as the ocean plane. I haven't figured out when/why that is happening, if the ocean is too deep or not deep enough or just some other bug related to route calculation.

Sims that seem to spawn in one corner of the map or somewhere bundled on the ocean floor are often remains of a once populated world that hasn't been thoroughly cleaned (i.e. emptying the Global Layer which removes all sims among other stuff).