Has anyone bothered to create any huge lots, as in bigger than 5x6? I've seen some tiny lots (1x1) here, so I'm wondering if whatever modification allowed the lots to be made that small could work in reverse. Could a lot be made bigger than 5x6, and if so, how? Is there a mod that I could download that would allow me to do that?

I want to make as exact a replica of the US White House as I can make as close to base game as I can make it. I've seen some great replica's so far, and some that look perfect on the outside but no where CLOSE to accurate on the inside. But nearly all of them require nearly every EP out there. The White House is big and elaborate, but it's not that complicated (and I have very few EPs to play with).

So, I tried to make my own, but I ran into a problem. A scale White House more than fills up a 5x6 lot! For the sake of accuracy, scale, and outdoor space, I need a lot that's closer to 7x7!! So, again, anyone know how I can modify a lot to get to that size?

You can always try Mootilda's Lot Adjuster, from what I understand it'll go all the way up to 60x60, so if you ever run into any problems like running out of space you can just open that up and make your lot a little bigger. Good luck xx

It’s impossible to make lots bigger than 6x6. (This includes the 10 tiles taken up by the street and sidewalk.) Apparently, this limit is coded into the game and can’t be altered.

However, there is a way to fake larger lots. You can break a building up into sections and build each section on separate lot. You then place the sections next to each other, so they look like one building. You would also need to use the program listed in sierrakusterbeck’s post to build on the edges of the lots.

Of course, each section would still play as its own lot and the other sections would look blurry in lot view.

Here’s an example: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=323140

So a 60x60 lot that already includes the sidewalk and road, isn't that that 50x60 lot already available in-game? So I can't really get any bigger than that and would have to use Mootilda's mod just to expand out over the road.to make up for the lack of additional space. Right? Oh well, it was a nice idea. Thanks for the help.

Yes, 60x60 is the maximum possible and you cannot expand a 50x60 lot any further, even over the road because the 50x60 includes the extra 10 spaces AS the road. The maximum possible build space is 50x60 whether it's over the road or not (always assuming you don't build on the road which, really, you shouldn't).

as I understand the explanation for lot adjuster that 60X60 is just the number when you go for both street sides (moving the lot over the road that is)
in which case you can build above the street to connect the 2 sides of the lot (but I think you still need to cheat a bit for it to work)
so max building size would become 60X60 on levels above the ground floor

I guess my Off-White House upload gave you some ideas huh. Here's some stuff about what happened when building the lot and how it came to be. Aaaannnd, here come the flying tomatoes and watermelons for that shameless plug, ahhh!!!! lol.
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Once upon a time, years ago, I built myself a White House look-a-like lot, featuring President George Bush Jr. and White House staffers, including a chef, a maid, the First Lady, 3 secret service agents, and somebody else. The lot was good (primitive by my standards now). Then the president died from old age, one of my secret agents turned into a PlantSim, and eventually the lot started crashing everytime I entered it. The lot was deleted, and it was history. Didn't feel like making a new White House.

Recently, I was interested in building something for my neighborhood, and decided to see how feasible building a new White House was. After finding out that I can do a parapet like what I have on the roof's lining using the CFE cheat (with walls and the fences acting as balustrades), I though "hey why not try my hand at the house again?". There began my week-&-a-half journey into creating the house.

I was more interested in making the 'shell' of the house look good, rather than scaling it inches-to-tiles from the inside. I figured that if I have no room for certain things (like the rooms near the offices), just cut out some rooms, or make other adjustments to the designs (e.g. smaller rooms).

Other White House designs have only the skinny Lafenetre (white) windows rather than the pediment and classical windows (large grey ones). The skinny windows make the mansion look huge for its scale, whereas the pediments have a better fit to them. So even though the large windows are grey instead of white, I felt it was a good design choice for the extrior walls.

The house was rotated by 180 degrees, leaving the south portico to act as the entrance, and the north portico to set in the backyard. Another design choice, as I thought the south portico looked more appealing.

The north portico's roof...that was something I couldn't get right. The roof forms a triangluar prism on top, but with 'flaps' on the sides. I didn't drag the roof from one side to the other because the roof would overhang on the sides, instead of making the top look like a triangular prism. I added a wall hanging to make the front not look plain. So the choice became a rectangle on top.

You'll notice there aren't any fireplaces. That was a design choice, as I thought the fireplaces take up too much space, and potentially intercept rooms on the fourth floor. Those 8 chimneys on top are fakes.

At first, the house had no half-columns on the outside, it was just plain walls. The half-columns came later on while decorating the landscape outside. I wish EA included two-floor half-columns, but that never happened.

As I mentioned in my upload, it was only after seeing the rooms on an old White House government website that I realized, "shoot I switched the floors around". I was building the mansion based on some floorplans, but the plans obviously didn't help to determine how the floors were planned. Also, because I've never been to the White House, I wasn't able to verify how it was supposed to look like. Most of the home was made, so I wasn't going to redo it. It's an "Off-"White House anyway, lol. Not just the colour, it seems.

The rooms were furnished, like, two or three rooms per day depending on how interested I was in continuing with its construction. I wasn't thrilled about having a DJ Booth in the ballroom, but that could be deleted afterwards.

The landscaping...forget it. It's plain and I hate landscaping. It eats up too much computer resources, lol. But since folks are nuts for trees & flowers I had to add it. Anyway, folks can strip away the decorations to cut down on using computer resources.
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Speaking of resources, another thing about huge lots heavily furnished & decorated is that the game takes longer to process the textures and meshes. Even though I joked about enjoying the lag time in people's games, it could potentially happen. Thankfully it's moving just fine for me at 1x speed with 8 people living it it, & the game's shadows, reflections, and lighting details low.

Another thing to take into account is the wall limit of ~2000 pieces. Some of the ground floor's walls are foundation walls, used to consevre the amount of wall tiles available. The downside is you can't add wall lighting or doors or windows, etc. to it. Just wall paper.

So, if you have questions about the Off White House, feel free to ask away.

Anyway, the White House would also need its West and East wings, plus a lengthy backyard with a huge water fountain at the end with a ground area about the size of the house itself! Just like what happened during the construction of the real mansion...the overall size of the mansion was scaled down due to lack of materials. It was originally supposed to be much larger in size that what it looks like today.

Last edited by d_dgjdhh : 18th May 2012 at 01:39 AM.

Yes, your White House did inspire me to try and make my own, although there have been others in the past. Again, my problem is that I have only a few EPs, and everyone's White House I've seen here is LOADED with EPs! So I can't even download it and make what modifications I see fit. It's a gripe I have about many homes and stuff offered here, really. "Does that simple-looking house REALLY need all of those EPs? Do I really NEED Pets and Bon Voyage and OFB, and all of those stuff packs just to play this simple house?"

Now, this is NOT a simple house, by a long shot, I grant you. However, I don't see anything in the White House that would require that many EPs. Apartment Life is needed for the elevators and the spiral staircases, but that seems to be about it (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and missed something else important). The rest can be done with Base Game stuff and/or a few CCs.

I see a nice house or something I would want in my neighborhood and then see the huge list of EPs needed to download it and either have to resign myself to not getting it, or having to try and build it myself with what I have. I have a few favorite builders on here that build really lovely stuff with little to no EPs needed, allowing me to use what EPs I have to make whatever modifications I want. (Triciamanly makes great Base Game houses that have space for driveways/garages, for example, but doesn't put them in, instead allowing those who don't have that EP to still get the house, and those of us, like me, who do, to insert the driveway in after we get it.) I really wish others would follow her, and others' like her, example there.

SO, as I can't download yours, d_dgjdhh, nor any of the other replicas out there, I decided to make my own... which brings me to the point of this thread, which was to see if there was a way to make a lot bigger than 5x6. I suppose I COULD try and get Mootilda's mod and hang the North Portico out over the street, but then there's the problem of the Ground floor below the North Entrance, to say nothing of the basement(s) below that! The single lane bowling alley that actually exists in the WH is under the North Entrance, and would thus be UNDER the street if I were to expand it such... and I don't think that mod would allow that to happen. Ah well. *shrug*

You...made a really good point. I think I shall try base game building from now on if I want to upload more things here...

Night Racer, I (and I'm sure others like me) would greatly appreciate that if you did.

Would objects revert to a base game equivalent if you installed a lot without having the eps required?

I mainly use the largest lots and I want to shrink some of them. My bowling alley and clothing store work fine with 25 sims but the grocery store and botanical gardens (with all those trees and plants) have trouble with 10 sims. The White House would fall into that category, but if your computer can handle it go for it.

I think not

if you have a lot with items from an EP these probably don't even have a base game equivalent at all

in the best case scenario it would remove the items for being 'not present'
in the worst case scenario it would result in 'access violation' and game crash

OFB uses elevators, AL uses spiral stairs.
But it's not so much that the lot needs those EPs for stuff, it's that it was built in a game using those EPs and may have objects in it that had interactions added for later EPs. Even if you use base game stuff, you will probably still need the EPs the original creator used. Sometimes you can get away with installing it, no problems and other times, it will crash your game because, say, the creator included a base game bed and has Pets, which updated beds to include pet interactions. The only way creators can offer basegame compatible lots when they own more SPs and EPs is to build in AnyGame.

Huge lots, those that are even bigger than the game's limit, would be perfect for farms and growing crops, I did mention this before as an idea for a new EP in a previous thread.

The single most important thing about a lot is the game engine. Lots are never backwards compatible. So, if you had Pets installed when you built a lot, the lot will require a game engine which is compatible with Pets.

If your game engine is compatible, then most objects from missing EPs or SPs will either disappear or revert to another object. However, some objects will crash the game if the EP or SP doesn't exist, even if the game engine is OK.

To get a base game compatible lot, you must have just the base game installed, or else University without any of the University objects (because University still used the base game engine). The AnyGameStarter is the simplest way to create a base game compatible lot when you have more EPs and SPs installed.

I have AL and not OFB, and I have both elevators and spiral staircases. They included elevators in both EPs.