Upcoming Changes to Keep Sims in Home Regions

While I have a few assorted updates to my mods ready to go, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point publishing anything just yet with an expansion pack and giant patch on the horizon that’s threatening to break everything. So I’ll keep my cards in my hand for right now, and just let you know about what’s been going on with the “Keep Sims in Home Regions” mod and the details of the update it will be getting soon.

I want to start off by saying the vast majority of the work on this update has been done by LeRoiDeTout, who has taken an enormous amount of initiative and poured an untold number of hours into this. What started as me idly talking about making a new script for just one of the upcoming features turned into him completely re-writing the script for the mod. The whole mod runs faster now, and it’s easier than ever to add compatibility for new worlds. None of these new additions would be possible without Leroi’s help, and he deserves a lot of credit. Be sure to show him some love (and give him a Patreon sub if you’re able ;) ).

Assign Townies to Worlds

It’s now possible to designate homeless townies as locals in any world you want them to show up in. This can be a Sim you’ve made and evicted, or a Sim randomly generated by the game that you like and want to see around. There are two ways to do it. First, with testingcheats on, shift-click on the Sim you want to move. You will see a “Move Townie To…” menu. Click that, and you’ll see a menu full of all the different worlds you have available based on your installed packs. Select any of those worlds, and the townie you clicked on and their entire household will “move” to that world. You’ll start seeing them as walkbys, customers, and vendors there immediately.

The other method, which is useful for Sims who aren’t present on the lot and for moving many Sims at once, is to shift-click the ground. It can be any empty space on the ground or on the floor in your home. Similar to before, you’ll see a “Move Townies To…” menu. Click that and then the world you want to move Sims to, and you’ll see a pop up menu that allows you to select multiple Sims.

The menu contains all valid townies in your save file. It won’t show any townies who already live in that world, any Sims who live in a house, or special Sims who shouldn’t live anywhere (e.g. the Grim Reaper). Pick as many Sims as you want on this menu, and hit the checkmark. Then, all the Sims you selected and their household members will “move” to that world. You’ll start seeing them as walkbys, customers, and vendors there immediately.

Regional Filters

Many people play with headcanons about where the different worlds are located and which ones are close to each other. In order to support that, it is now possible to create regional filters so that Sims from other worlds can still visit the world you’re playing in. For example, right now only Sims from Oasis Springs will show up in Oasis Springs, but with a regional filter, you can allow Sims from Strangerville, Del Sol Valley, or even Windenburg to show up there, too. It’s all up to you!

To allow more Sims in a world, with testingcheats on, shift-click the ground and select the “Home Regions Settings…” and then select “Allowed Worlds…”. This will bring up a list of worlds you have available based on your installed packs; click the one you want to open up to other worlds. Then, select all of the worlds you want Sims to travel from in order to show up in the selected world.

Note: This setting only applies one way! If you want Sims to travel back and forth between the two worlds, you will need to enable both worlds in each other’s “Allowed Worlds…” menu. If you only enable it for one world, then you can create a sort of “hub world” where Sims can congregate from other worlds. For example, by default Magnolia Promenade will allow Sims from Willow Creek and Newcrest to show up there, but Sims from Magnolia Promenade will not show up in either Willow Creek or Newcrest. Further, Sims in Willow Creek will not show up in Newcrest just because they share Magnolia Promenade as a hub world.

If you would like to undo a regional filter, shift-click the ground just like before and choose “Disallowed Worlds…” instead. There you can remove access from other worlds.

Soft Filters

Some people aren’t crazy about spawning a bunch of random townies, and just because someone doesn’t want to see Eliza Pancakes on every community lot doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to see the rest of their save file’s characters mingling. With that in mind, it’s now possible to toggle “soft filters” for their worlds. What this means is that that mod will still prefer local Sims when selecting which Sim is going to show up on the lot, but when the mod can’t find any eligible locals then it will try using existing Sims from other worlds before it starts spawning new townies. This is great for when you want areas of the game to have a more cosmopolitan feel, but can be enabled on a per-world basis so you can still keep some areas with a more isolated feel.

To enable a soft filter, with testingcheats on, shift-click the ground and select the “Home Regions Settings…” and then select “Soft Filter Toggle…”. Then select the world you want to change the setting for. On the pop-up menu that appears, select “Enabled” or “Disabled” to change the setting or click the X in the corner to cancel.

Note: By default, Magnolia Promenade and San Myshuno have a soft filter enabled.

General Considerations

All of these new functions use the testingcheats feature so that the menu interactions don’t clutter the pie menus. If find yourself using them often and you get tired of entering the cheat for each game session, consider downloading the AlwaysTesting mod by TwistedMexi or use the MCCC option to keep it on.

After any of your Home Regions settings are changed, you will need to restart the game before they will take effect. You will get a reminder notification in game about this fact whenever you do make a change. 

All of these settings are kept in a file called “[Kuttoe] HomeRegions_Settings.cfg” which can be found in your “Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves\Kuttoe” folder. If you ever want to revert back to default settings, delete this file and the mod will generate a new, fresh copy the next time you run the game.

Home Regions settings apply to your entire game, not just one save. You don't need to redo your settings for every new save file.

I'm excited to share this with you soon, and I hope you like all the new features. Thanks once again to LeRoi for his massive help on this.

Happy Simming and good luck during weathering the patch!