guide to apartment building

8/17/2019 Guide to Apartment Building

1/10

A Guide to Apartment BuildingBy Hatshepsut, 6 October 2008

Page - 1 -

A Guide to Apartment BuildingIntroduction

Ok, so you’ve excitedly rushed out and grabbed a copy of Apartment Life, taken a look aroundand gasped in awe at all the new features and items and now you want to build your ownapartments. However, this EP like many before it comes with its’ own set of new pit falls,challenges and opportunities. In this walkthrough I hope to guide you through some of the mostcommon mistakes, teach you how to deal with some of the strange quirks that this EP throws atyou and hopefully help you achieve your goal of building your dream multi-family residences!

Planning

An important part of any lot building and with apartments being semi-communal there’s a fewextra things to consider before plonking down your building!

First of all choose an appropriate sized plot for you apartment. Perhaps even sketch somethingout on some graph paper before you start building. There’s nothing more frustrating than gettinghalf way through building a row of houses and not having enough space left to place that last wall!Similarly it can be awkward to fill acres of empty space with a small building stuck in the middle!

It might also be tempting to build huge skyscrapers busting at the seams with apartments, butkeep in mind that only 4 playable families can move into any apartment lot. Although anyremaining unoccupied apartments would be taken by NPCs your game might well slow down to acrawl!

Any open area will be considered a communalarea. Once the lot is zoned and occupied youwill be unable to add or move any items in thisspace (without resorting to cheats) so planthese areas carefully and decide exactly howyou want them to be used.

Communal areas can be fun!


2/10


Page - 2 -

Some basics

To start building an apartment lot it is best to choose a residential zoned lot.

Don’t forget that the main door into the apartment needs to be the ‘UniqueSeparator’ apartment door with the door mat facing outwards.

To rezone a lot to an apartment, once it’s built to your satisfaction open upthe cheat menu (shift + ctrl + c) and enter the cheat changelotzoningapartmentbase. Save your lot and return to the neighbourhood screen.When you re-enter the lot it should have the apartment mailbox and most ofthe build tools will now be disabled.

Here are a few examples of enclosed and unenclosed areas and how they work.

This picture shows the ground floor of amulti storey apartment block. The blueindicates a main front entrance. Thiscan be any type of ordinary door, NOTthe ‘Unique Separator’ door.

The red indicates an apartment door.Notice there is no other entrance intothe apartment itself.

The communal area to the rear mayappear to be enclosed by fencing butthere is a gate causing a break in thefence leading to the street area so thiswould be considered by the game to bean open communal space.


3/10


Page - 3 -

This is the upper floor of the same apartmentblock. Again the red indicates the apartmentdoor. (Note the doormat always facesoutward) This time the apartments haveanother opening onto a balcony. This worksbecause the balcony is fully enclosed byfencing with no breaks or gates etc. and so isseen by the game as just another room to theapartment.

Beach Lots and Home Business’s Noooo!

Unfortunately beach apartments are a no no. Rezoning a beach lot to an apartment can causeserious corruption so DON’T DO IT!

Another limitation of apartment lots is that they’re not intended for business use. Building a row ofshops with apartments over might seem like a great idea but unfortunately won’t work. Bummer!

We’re back to the principle that the shop door would be treated as an unenclosed 2nd

entrance tothe apartment and therefore the shop treated as a communal area, not associated with theowner’s apartment.

While it’s not really possible for your sim to runtheir own business at home, it is possible tohave some community based items on anapartment lot in the communal areas and theywill work such as the diner. To do this youneed to rezone your lot to a community lot –changelotzoning community, add the items

you wish to use then rezone the lot back to anapartment – changelotzoningapartmentbase.

I did try to add a shop building with theintention of having it operated by a townie byinstalling the cash register but to my dismaythat didn’t work out. The townie failed to

appear behind the counter and I was left with an unattended shop!

Apartment lots cannot be placed into vacation hoods or a university campus. I guess dorms will

have to suffice!


4/10


Page - 4 -

On the Level

As we saw earlier one of the quirks with Apartment life is that there can only be one unencloseddoorway into each unit. Not usually a problem unless you also want a door that leads to a backyard. If your property is built without a foundation then all you need to do is enclose the back yardentirely with fencing or a half wall (no gates).

Things become a little more complicated if your property isbuilt on a foundation and you want a door into the backyard. Enclosing the yard with fencing will not work in thiscase as the game sees the fencing as being on a different

level to the doorway and thus the back door is seen as a 2

nd

unenclosed entrance into the building which is notacceptable and you may get this error when you try torezone the lot:

One work-around to this problem is toenclose the back yard with a section offoundation and add a 2nd enclosure offencing on top. While this method works ok,it can look rather bulky and unattractive andcause the back yard to be cast into

darkness.

Using the stage tool will allow in light but still

ooks rather unappealing:


5/10


Page - 5 -

We can take this method a step further though by removing the foundation from beneath thefencing on top and replace with another fence type to produce a more attractive combined fence.It is the upper section of fencing that is providing the necessary enclosure. Again don’t add anygates. *Note - If you have used the stage tool to enclose the backyard you will be unable toremove the stage from beneath the fence on top so it’s best to use the foundation for this method.

This game sure does have its little quirks and I’ve found that sometimes if you have several

detached houses in a row built on foundations only one of the houses needs to be fenced in thisway. The others can be fenced normally without causing any problems. However you may losethis setting if you decide to rezone the lot again after zoning it as an apartment.

Garages and car por ts

If you’re building a row of properties withgarages then the entrance to the apartmentneeds to be on the same level as the garageassociated with it and share a common wallwith that garage.


6/10


Page - 6 -

Annoyingly garages built underneathapartments whose doors are on the 2nd floorwill be treated as communal areas andrendered unusable. However, this also has awork-around. You can insert a stairway frominside the garage directly into the apartmentabove and the garage will be functional so longas there aren’t any other doors leading out of it.I’ve found this method to work quite well anddoesn’t appear to cause problems with visitingsims using the wrong entrance or strangers

wandering into the apartment from thestairway.

Garages on foundations also prove to beproblematic. The apartment door is seen asbeing on a different level to the garage door sowhen rezoning the lot it becomes invalid.

As car ports and open driveways are generallyunenclosed these will also be considered as

communal areas and so be unusable.


7/10


Page - 7 -

Eeek! Where did all my lovely furniture go?

I’m sure many of us have experienced this by now. You’ve built a lovely apartment block, got it allbeautifully decorated and landscaped and spent the last umpteen number of hours carefully andlovingly furnishing each and every apartment. You’re so excited when your 1st sim family movesin; you can’t wait to see them applauding all the neat things you’ve filled their new home withwhen shock horror – all you’re left with is a few measly kitchen counters and the odd light fitting!

While it is true that many apartments in real life are rented out fully furnished many are not and Apartment Life takes it upon itself to decide that unfurnished apartments are the way to go! Butdo not fear, all is not lost.

Once you’ve moved in your family open up thecheat box and enter boolproptestingcheatsenabled true. Hold down shiftand click on the door of the apartment youwant your sims to occupy and select ‘rentfurnished apartment’. Let your sim sign upwith the landlord then open up the cheat boxagain and enter boolproptestingcheatsenabled false to deactivate thecheat (very important to do this). What would

you know, all that lovely furniture has re-appeared! Yay!

Liv ing on the Ceiling and Up the Wall

Finally we have ceilings so for goodness sake use them! It’s very easy to forget when you’rebuilding lots with uneven walls that the bits that stick out will look a whole lot better from the insideif they have ceiling tiles applied and don’t forget the area directly underneath the roof too.


8/10


Page - 8 -

Another nice new feature is the ability to move objects up and down the walls, very handy forcreating interesting picture collages and multiple shelving. However, this ability does not apply toall wall based objects such as windows, mirrors, curtains and wall based TVs’.

To move an object up a wall 1st place itagainst the wall and use the ‘[‘ key to movethe object upwards or the ‘]’ key to move theobject downwards. To place more than oneobject on the same section of wall hold downthe Ctrl + Alt keys together and place theobject.

Odds and Ends

Just a couple more things to bear in mind before you run off to create your architecturalmasterpiece.

First of all be careful if you’re considering dividingrooms using the ‘Great Divide’ fence tool. A friend ofmine used it to separate her living room from herkitchen and accidentally turned the kitchen into acommunal area!


9/10


Page - 9 -

Also be careful of placing walk-in closets against external walls:

Looks fine on the inside... But looks silly on the outside!

Another thing I’ve seen asked about is whether the pipe work/air shafts are required to make theair conditioners/radiators & garbage shoots work. The simple answer is no, they are decorativeitems only.

Summary of useful cheats

AL Cheats

boolpropaptsublotspecifictoolsdisabledfalse/true

Enables full buy/build mode in occupiedapartments. (Use with caution as any changesyou make will only affect the family/apartmentyou are playing.)

boolpropaptbaselotspecifictoolsdisabled

false/ true

Enables full buy/build mode inunoccupied apartments.

Some other useful cheatschangelotzoning residential /community / apartmentbase / hotel /dorm / greek / secretsociety

Changes lot type

sethighestallowedlevel * Allows you build more than 5 stories high.* number of stories you wish to have.

moveobjects on/off Allows you place objects anywhere.

boolpropsnapobjectstogrid

true/false

Allows you to place objects without thegrid constraints. Very useful when used

in conjunction with the moveobjectscheat.


10/10


Page - 10

boolpropallow45degreeangleofrotationtrue/false

Allows objects to be turned at a 45degree angle.

boolpropshowcatalogepflagstrue/false

In build/buy mode shows which EP/SPitems come from.

boolpropconstrainfloorelevationtrue/false

Allows you to manipulate the ground leveleven underneath buildings.

roofslopeangle 15-75 Adjusts the angle of the entire roof.

individualroofslopeangle 15-75 Adjusts the angle of individual roof sections.Choose the degree of angle you wish and holddown ctrl + alt while clicking on the roof sectionyou wish to alter.

boolproptestingcheatsenabledtrue/false

Opens up a wide selection of options.Use only when necessary and withcaution and always deactivate the cheatwhen you’re finished using it.

Credits and stuf f

I hope this little bit of guidance has been some use to you in planning yourapartments/duplexes/condo’s etc and helped with a few of the ‘why doesn’t this work?’ momentsyou might have been experiencing. Of course I couldn’t have done it without a little help myselfand a huge plate load of cookies goes to estatica for pointing, no, shoving me in the rightdirection. Some jaffa cakes go to swmeek for the dresser tip and a bar of chocolate goes to swwfor not nagging me too much to get the job done!

Happy building!

guide to apartment building

Documents