#alien downtown

Neighborhood Info:

The Main Hood/Downtown versions do require all EPs/SPs though, since I wanted to include apartment lots. I miiight do an alternative version without AL one day, so that TS2 Super Collection users can also use it. The University version is still Uni+NL+OFB EP only regardless.

No camera mod is needed, yet, still recommended for easier gameplay, especially since some lots were built on skyscrapers and can be hard to view with just the vanilla camera.

Number of Sims: 90 (10 playable sims in 4 playable families, 31 townies, 44 NPCs, 5 dead sims) -> 130 now! (including alien pets and other bonus NPCs!)

Number of Lots: 35 (7 residential lots, 2 Greek houses, 5 dorms, 1 secret society, 20 community lots, where 8 of which are owned businesses) -> + 2 bonus lots! (A mysterious Nebula Brick Road lot and Alien Parrrtey!, a lot inspired by the alien party lot in TS4 when you visit Sixam, lol.)

Gameplay Info:

Speaking of lots, I made lecture halls for every major, which you could use with beestew's Active Classes mod! These are community lots, featuring skill-building equipment and study spaces, with NPC professors (as lot owners) available for tutoring whenever your sims visit. The Main Hood/Downtown version still includes these lecture halls, so if you ever wanted to try out the university-in-main-hood mods, this is the perfect neighborhood to try Squinge's Mega College Pack mods out.

I also made an optional custom skybox and custom lighting file for Sixam that will make it always nighttime (Yes, you heard right! The sun never shines here on Sixam!) with subtle seasonal color changes - reddish in Autumn, bluish in Winter, and greenish in Spring.

The inhabited version requires the 3 alien skintones (blue/turquoise/violet) from my [4t2] aliens set to keep the TS4 alien characters like Aileen Rauvu authentic. As giving all these colorful aliens the default green skin instead felt as bad as white-washing, say, giving black characters like Olive Specter a lighter skintone for me. An alternative CC-free version with no CC skintones is also available for players who prefer to not have any CC skintones in their games, though.

I also recreated some characters from TS4, especially all the characters from the The Sims 4 Get to Work: Sul Sul trailer. Every character comes with a complete set of ancestors (at least parents) and customized memories, even townies and NPCs! Some also come with interesting lore! Even though, they're just... townies! Oh, and everyone has genetic infant faces! Yayy! XD

Speaking of characters, scripted events don't work in subhoods, but I wrote a text in each family description that somewhat mimic the scripted event notifications anyway. I think this is a brilliant and fun way of introducing new characters, even in university subhoods. All households should also have a complete set of family album pictures that show their lore a bit. The main hood version does however include scripted events. ^^

Recommended Mods:

All notownieregen/antiredudancy/nodormiespawn/nossrespawn mods. All university townies/NPCs in Sixam are aliens.. or at least have a very good reason why they're there, but this can easily be ruined if you don't have these mods installed, lol.

bloodredtoe's Mannequin babies can be born mod. To have more variety, I used the mannequin skintone for some of the alien sims. While this mod isn't required, it's recommended to prevent crashes, especially when these aliens have offspring, as there's a chance they could inherit the mannequin skintone.

Squinge's No Townie Memory Loss. Again, townies and NPCs in this neighborhood are highly customized and I recommend getting no townie amnesia mods to prevent their lore from getting wiped out! As there are a few clues in the bios of some of the townies... including long lost twins!

lingeringwillx's Restore Default Names for Sims in Subneighbohoods . This is especially helpful, not only because the townies/NPCs are related to the playable sims, but also, it will help to maintain the alien atmosphere of Sixam with names like Pollination Technicians, Colony Drones or Birth Queens, etc. instead of having EA's default townie/NPC names.

Install Instructions:

This download consists of 3 parts:

Neighborhood itself:

Main Hood: Place the NSXM folder into your DOCUMENTS/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods folder

Note: If you have TS2 UC, it's DOCUMENTS/EA Games/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/Neighborhoods Note: If you have TS2 Legacy, it's DOCUMENTS/EA Games/The Sims 2 Legacy/Neighborhoods

University: Place the USXM folder into your PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 University/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate folder

Note: If you have TS2 UC, it's PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/University Life/EP1/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate Note: If you have TS2 Legacy, it's PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Legacy/EP1/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate

Downtown: Place the DSXM folder into your PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Nightlife/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate folder

Note: If you have TS2 UC, it's PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/Double Deluxe/EP2/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate Note: If you have TS2 Legacy, it's PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Legacy/EP2/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate

2. 4t2 Sixam Fauna & Flora Set (+ 3 new custom alien skintones):

Download and extract the complete set of the 4t2 Sixam Plants (+ skybox & ocean floor) here.

You should have extracted 4 folders now, go into each one and decide which version of the plants you'd like to keep. Move these folders into the Sixam CC folder of this download. This way, you should have 1 main folder and 4 sub-folders (+ 3 custom alien skins).

Place the Sixam CC folder into your DOCUMENTS/EA Games/The Sims 2/Downloads folder

Note: If you have TS2 UC, it's DOCUMENTS/EA Games/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/Downloads Note: If you have TS2 Legacy, it's DOCUMENTS/EA Games/The Sims 2 Legacy/Downloads

3. OPTIONAL: Custom lighting (for enabling 24/7 nights):

Place the sixam_lot.txt file into your PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff/TSData/Res/Lights folder

Note: If you have TS2 UC, it's PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/Fun with Pets/SP9/TSData/Res/Lights Note: If you have TS2 Legacy, it's PROGRAM FILES/EA Games/The Sims 2 Legacy/EP9/TSData/Res/Lights

Credits:

To EA for creating Sixam in the first place, even though it was originally created for the wrong game ;)

Makers of SimPE (especially with the newest version, allowing creation of customized NPCs!)

Mootilda for all her amazing tools, especially LotCompressor, LotAdjustor, HoodChecker, and her tutorial on how to create a custom subhood template.

Numenor for his AnyGameStarter, allowing for the creation of a Uni/NL/OFB only environment.

@lowedeus for his original skybox, which I recolored and modified to make the skybox season-friendly, as well as @criquette-was-here for the tutorial on how to make nhood objects glow at night.

Gwenke for the original ocean surface nhood deco, which I also recolored and modified to make it glow at night.

@catherinetcjd for all her inspring builds and also for being such an amazing friend. I recommend her Isosceles Apartments, Experiment 4.2, The Colony as well as her Pyramid Commune No. 9 Live, specifically as optional additional lots for this neighborhood. I learned a lot from you in the past few years of neighborhood and lot building!

Creusa Sims for her support and love while I was creating this neighborhood. It was fun discussing some of the lore in this neighborhood with you. XD

@lordcrumps for also being such an amazing friend! It was you who kept pushing me to actually redo the skybox when I wasn't happy with the draft version, lol! And also for your helpful inputs very early on. ^^

@lamare-sims for being such a talented modder and her amazing mods that make living in university subhoods possible in the first place! This concept wouldn't have otherwise made sense.