Tutorials:Building an Apartment

Overview

This tutorial will show you the basic concepts of building an apartment in the Apartment Life expansion.

Building Apartments

Start with an empty residential lot. You can use any size you like. Enter the lot in build mode to begin building.

Apartment Doors

You MUST use the apartment door (called "Unique Separator") as the entrance to your apartment. This door makes the apartment recognized as such. You may only have ONE of these doors per apartment.

You must make sure the door is facing the right way, with the mat on the outside.

Other Exterior Doors

You may only have one main accessible door to the outside - the apartment door. That is, you cannot have a back door that opens onto the main lot.

You may only have other exterior doors if:

• 
  They open onto a completely enclosed back yard - fully fenced or walled in, with no doors or gates leading out of the back yard.
  

• 
  They open onto a completely enclosed back patio that is on a single level. That is, if your lot is on a foundation, your back patio must also be on the foundation with no stairs leading to the ground.
  

• 
  They open onto a fully isolated balcony, with no way off onto the main lot.
  

Edging Fence

Do NOT use the tiny stepover edge fencing from Pets, meant to divide a carpeted area from a tile area (called "The Great Divide by Divisive Divicrats"). These fences will make any area enclosed by them considered "common area" and not part of your apartment!

Split Stairs

Stairs created using the interior foundation or stage tool may cause areas upstairs to be considered common area similar to the edging fence (items will not disappear when you move sims in). However, as long as these areas are inaccessible to other sims, this doesn't appear to be a problem.

Arches

Some users report issues changing zoning if using pre-Apartment Life custom arches in apartments. To prevent this issue, use only Maxis, non-custom arches in your apartment interiors.

Furnishing

You should always fully furnish your apartments. Your playable sims can rent them furnished (using a cheat - see below) and if the other units are inhabited by townies/non-playable sims, they will need to have furnishings!

Mailbox and Trash Can

Do not delete the mailbox or trash can. They will be needed when the lot is an apartment. You can move them to another area of the lot - just make sure they're in a common area and accessible by your sims!

Changing to Apartment

When you have finished building your apartment, save and exit to the neighborhood. Package your lot to a file so you have a backup just in case there are any issues, or if you want to change things later.

Then, re-enter the lot and enter the following cheat:

• changeLotZoning apartmentbase

If all goes well, you should get no errors. Save and exit to the neighborhood and you should see that your lot now shows up as apartments, and shows the right number of units... If you get an error or you have the wrong number of units...

Zoning Errors

If the game errors when you try to change the lot zoning, that means you have some sort of invalid architecture. The easiest way to identify what is the problem is to begin removing apartment doors one by one, and trying the cheat again after each one. When you are able to get it to change, you know you've found the problem apartment, and can narrow it down from there.

Remember: Just because the game doesn't error when you try to change lot zoning doesn't mean everything is okay! You need to...

Test Your Apartment

Move a sim family into your apartments and make sure everything works properly. The residential mailbox should have switched to the apartment mailbox.

When your sims go to check out apartments, they should look empty except for basic furnishings such as plumbing, appliances, counters, and wall/ceiling lights. If other items are showing up in private apartments, it may mean there's a problem with the way you've built the lot.

Renting Furnished

It's REALLY annoying to fully furnish an apartment, then go to move your sims in and discover everything has disappeared! However, there is a cheat for it.

Before you rent the apartment:

• CTRL-SHIFT-C to bring up the cheat box.
• Enter the following cheat: boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true
• Walk your sim to the front door of the apartment that you want to rent. They need to be standing right in front of the door.
• Clear any actions from your sim's queue - including other sims trying to talk to them.
• SHIFT-click on the door of the apartment you wish to rent and choose "Rent Furnished."
• If the action falls out of your queue, your sim probably needs to be closer to the door.
• Once the apartment is rented, bring up the cheat box again.
• Enter: boolProp testingCheatsEnabled false to turn the cheat off again.