Convert an NPC home with attached tomb into a vacation home?

[babele44]

My vampire Sim's greedy eyes fell on a house in Egypt that has a quest tomb in the basement. It's the one were the Ameens currently live with the "downtown" lovenest of Queen Hatshepsut downstairs (from the "In Search of Love" quest line).
I know how to convert an NPC home into a vacation home via Edit Town but I've never done this with a quest place. Does anyone have any experience with this? Will this break the foreign neighbourhood or are there any disadvantages from living in such a place? (I know, for example, that if I do not seal the Dutiel's basement (the ones in France with the haunted basement) every time I leave it they will always end up there checking their adventure notes and doing nothing else.)

[Clandestine004]

Since it's a quest tomb, I guess you might break something and cause a glitch of some sort by causing a programming error. Don't risk it.

[Nekowolf]

I have to ask, why that specific house? You could always make your own little tomb for your family, if that's what you want. I did it once with a house I was building.

I constructed an actual mausoleum. Made a small shed-thing, put in a fancy door. Made two-spaced foundations and put skeletons in them. Then I had a secret lever that went underneath it, where I had a bunch of those stone "racks" with skeletons on them, and piles of sand colored like dirt.

Otherwise, I'm not sure of other consequences, but I would imagine if you ever did that particular quest with another sim in the same neighborhood. I haven't bought any vacation homes yet, but, I'm assuming they work in that an owned property doesn't change between sim families of the same neighborhood. So you get the quest, and need to get in there, but can't; unless you cheat to get down in there, or have a mod to force the place open. Though, I'm just speculating on that.

[babele44]

There's no specific reason. I just like that lot and its location. It's a tiny house with enough space around it for a garden and a pool and I could imagine expanding the tomb to finally have somewhere to put this grotto hottub that my Sim was gifted as a celebrity. I'm not a huge fan of those vacation homes that are far out in the countryside and so I've often converted NPC homes near the Market into vacation homes. And to be honest I hate building because I'm a horrible builder and decorator. And to build basements into pre-made houses has become nearly impossible since Ambitions, short of rebuilding the whole place.
But if I really run the risk of breaking something within the game itself, I should probably reconsider my plans. I'm not very concerned about breaking that quest line for future families as my neighbourhoods usually become FUBAR before I can even think about playing another family in the same hood.
But I guess it should be possible to export that lot into the bin and place a copy somewhere else in Egypt after I've stripped it off of anything that marks it as a tomb. At least it's not a locked tomb so editing it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Or maybe just go for it and try it nevertheless? Ah, decisions...
But thanks to both of you for your advice. And as I also had the plan to convert Abu Simbel into a lounge and the Temple of Hatshepsut into a danceclub, I guess this would be an even worse idea, wouldn't it?

[Nekowolf]

A bin copy would be the best bet, yes. As for those other two, depending how you do it, those might actually work out, as they would still be community lots. I'm not entirely sure. The biggest issue then would be changing the community lot type; I don't have Late Night yet, so I can't experiment with it, but changing the lot type my mess those quests up. On the other hand, they might not as they would still be accessible. I would back up your game before trying it, though.

[babele44]

Ok, so this time my cowardly self just bought a regular NPC home as vacation home and I added a basement by myself. Of course I had to delete almost half of the house again until I was finally allowed to place some stairs near the foundations. Of course it was impossible to place them in the foundations, but it's ok.
And the next time I might try the conversion of tombs into public hangouts - as soon as my household has finished all the adventures.
But my initial question remains open still. Because now my Sim's greedy eye fell upon the Ancient Library in Egypt :faceslap:

[Nekowolf]

There are ways around that. Uh, I'm going by memory so it might be a bit off.

What you do is have "constrainfloorelevation off" and take out a section of the foundation. I forget how much exactly, so let's say 6x3 or something like that. Now it won't be truly connected, but, what you can do is put a set of stairs down on the foundation, like you would with a patio. Then, in front of it (might need "moveojbects on"), put down a complete set of stairs into the basement. You'll have a one-space gap, but it works. Just rebuild the rest of the foundation up next to the stairs.

If you want it right up against the wall, don't delete the wall, just the foundation. Do all the same stuff. But at the end, when the new foundation is set, go down to ground level, take the wall tool, and build it right along the very bottom, and it'll fill up the empty space. If the upper wall goes all funky, go to the above floors, and use the level ground tool (or whatever it was called; the one where you click and drag, with the green grid, and it levels the ground to the first selected square) and it'll flatten out those upper walls. When you're done, "constrainfloorelevation on"

Once you know what you're doing, it's not that hard at all.

[babele44]

Thank you, Nekowolf. And yes, I think that I've seen the tutorial for this somewhere and I will finally give this a try next time. In this particular case, however, I wanted to place the stairs outside right next to the foundations. Game wouldn't allow it *sigh*. But as I said, it's ok. At least this home (formerly belonging to Diab) has the added advantage of the Beautiful Vista moodlet and is in direct vicinity to the Market and the two households where my two single males had fathered some children. Well, I think that after one year I am finally addicted to the WA EP ;)