#mod tool

Well, it’s no secret that I really like using g0kur's Sims 3 Mod Organizer! 😄

When I initially read the description of this I thought 'Is this a replacement of Delphy's Dashboard?' I realised it was more than that when I saw it not only finds conflicts between cc and mods but merges them too. Merge mods?! 😲  I really wanted to try this for myself.

This is my tutorial on to how to use it. This guide is for people who are not familiar or experienced with this tool playing other games. If you are, feel free to correct me where I’m wrong or offer any tips and tricks in the comments!

I also talk about how I use S3MO with CCMagic near the end. (I still have a lot of content in CCM that are in collection files, so I can’t give it up yet 😉)

You can download S3MO from HERE.

Disclaimers:

Backup all your game files before you use this app. As g0kur says, S3MO is still in development, although it is very stable, but backup your files/cc anyway, especially ones you intend to merge with this tool. 

This is only a guide. I hold no responsibility on how this tool works for you. 

The zip file contains all the files needed. Extract the files to a folder where it will stay and won't be moved, and on a drive that has plenty of space. You'll be adding most - or all - of your content to it.

Run ‘s3mo.exe’ and enter the paths to the .exe you want S3MO to launch and the Documents>EA folder.  (Since 8th July S3MO has been updated to allow any executable to be selected to run instead of Sims 3 executables if you use other launchers)

In the window, click the gear icon for Settings

In Settings, you can change the executable of the game, location of the documents folder, set the size limit of the merged files of your content, change the priority of the merged files, edit the resource.cfg file from here (more on this later!) and check the boxes of the caches you want cleared when needed.

Close Settings back to the main window to start to add your cc and mods. You could click ‘Install’ to add single packages (browse to the packages you want to install)

If you have a lot of content and mods, then the best way to do it is to file your content in folders in the S3MO folder! Close the S3MO window and open the folder you unzipped. You’ll see 2 new folders, Mods and Profiles. Mods is where you add your packages. 

This is my old setup as an example (it’s been changed since)

Add your mods and cc to your folders.

(I would advise adding them in small batches because when you open S3MO, you might get an error dialog if it is trying to load them all at the same time on first load).

Open S3MO when you’re done, or after the first couple of batches to see your setup.

(Watch the log panel at the bottom as your folders load. Wait a few seconds until its finished. If you try doing anything else with S3MO while its loading you might get an error.)

The top panel will show your list of folders with your content/mods in them. Make sure you tick the boxes next to the folders to enable them. When you do, some flags will show up next to the folders with conflicted mods.  (G0kur and others helped me to understand what they mean)

(Don’t mind my simplified way of explaining this part! 😄)

 Thunder with + means this mod overwrites other mods on your setup.

Thunder - means other mods is overwriting this mod.

Thunder +- means this mod is partially overwritten by other mods and other parts of this mod are overwriting others.

The brown icon (not sure what that is) means there are mods in the same folder conflicting with each other. 

G0kur said ‘Just think bottom (high priority number) overwrites top (low priority number) and it will all make sense’. It does.😄

So, clicking on the folder ‘13′ which also highlights folders 11 and 9 (green folders), shows the mod (or mods) that will override mods in those other folders.  

The right panel shows mods that conflict with each other in the same folder.

When you double-click on a folder with a flag(s) next to it, or a mod on the right with a flag, another window shows which resources conflict with each other.

To resolve the conflicts, you could either:

Delete one mod and use the other.

Open the mods in S3pe and delete the resource in one mod, then you can use both mods

Open the mods in S3pe, export the conflicted resources, compare them in WinMerge, (or similar software), merge the differences, then import the merged file back into one of the mods, then you can use both.

The more you use it, the easier it will get! If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy clicking on the files and looking at the flags and seeing which XML or ITUN or whatever resource clash with each other. This is so much better than Dashboard in showing more detailed conflicts because it means you no longer have to chuck out a whole mod to use another one. 

When you have added all your cc and mods in your folders and resolved as many conflicts as you can (there may still be some, i.e from the same creator, they can be ignored), then you click Refresh and Build Merge to merge your content! 

(Any additions you make to your folders, you must click Refresh)

The merged files are in the ‘ModBuilds’ folder in the Documents folder 

Press Play to launch Sims 3! If successful, Sims 3 should run with all your cc and mods merged! And no crashes! 

You can set different profiles, e,g for testing, legacy games, whatever you want!

You can enable or disable any folder you want for each profile. 

Some of the icons on the toolbar:

Using S3MO with CCMagic

Until another tool supports collections (hint hint 😉) I’m still going to use CCMagic for some of my content. I use S3MO to merge content that are not tied to CCM or collections and so far, they’re working very well together. I made a request to g0kur to allow editing the resource.cfg file like CCM does. I edited CCM resource to load the collection folder to show my custom icons, but they wouldn’t load with S3MO. None of my CCM content loaded with S3MO either unless I edited the resource file every time I wanted to play. That was a a no-no. I got the annoying ‘Some objects could not be loaded...’ message when my game started 😄. Just, no.  G0kur kindly accepted my request! I edited the resource file to load everything I want in the settings, like so:

Scan "G:/My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods/Cache/Config/"

Priority 495 PackedFile "ModBuilds/*.package" PackedFile "ModBuilds/*/*.package" PackedFile "ModBuilds/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "ModBuilds/*/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "ModBuilds/*/*/*/*/*.package"

Priority 500 PackedFile ../Collections/User/*.package

Priority 500 PackedFile "Packages/*.package" PackedFile "Packages/*/*.package" PackedFile "Packages/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "Packages/*/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "Packages/*/*/*/*/*.package"

Priority 1000 PackedFile "Overrides/*.package" PackedFile "Overrides/*/*.package" PackedFile "Overrides/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "Overrides/*/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "Overrides/*/*/*/*/*.package"

As you can see, I added the line from CCM resource at the top to scan its config folder so all my CCMagic content will load. Or you could add these lines instead if you prefer:

Priority 500 PackedFile "Cache/*.package" PackedFile "Cache/*/*.package" PackedFile "Cache/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "Cache/*/*/*/*.package" PackedFile "Cache/*/*/*/*/*.package"

Either way works. 

Launch the game with S3MO and hopefully ALL your content will load. 🤞🏾🙏🏾

Added 14th July: To have both apps ‘see’ each others cc, you must make sure any resource edits you make are the same in both settings. Copy and paste your edits in these spaces (not directly in the resource.cfg file):

Added 18th July:

If you have any of the 5 large Store Updates (see screenshot below), do not add them to MO folders, you're essentially trying to merge already merged files! The sizes of them (over 1GB!) are larger than the default limit size (1000MB=1GB) of MO merged files, so they will cause a crash. Even if you increased the limit size to 2000MB (2GB), you are still trying to merge the files together and they'll still be larger. Keep them in Mods>Packages for them to work properly.

I really recommend this tool! Not only does it help to organize your content, especially if you’re not using CCM, it finds conflicts that Dashboard misses. 

It merges large amounts of cc very well. If you’re not too attached to CCM or collections, you could easily move all your content to S3MO!  I can honestly say, since I’ve been been using S3MO, my game has been running so smoothly. It wasn’t particularly laggy in the first place, but there were pauses with Sims autonomy. I sorted out conflicts with the social data and idles XMLs and it has helped a lot with my Sims interactions with each other. I do give credit to S3MO for this, because I didn’t see these conflicts in Dashboard.

Saving the game is quicker and exiting the game is quick too. Some have said their loading times are shorter too. I noticed that with one of my older, larger save games, it was a pleasant surprise!

Extra notes:

Mods can be merged and they work! (Well, they work for me lol. I’m sure they’ll work for you, but if they don’t then simply move them back to Mods>Packages)

Make sure when adding mods and cc to S3MO you remove any duplicates from Mods>Packages. 

I like to extract thumbnails from my packages and have them in the same folders so I know what they are. You can do this with your S3MO folders. They won’t affect your merged files :) 

When updating S3MO, just copy and paste the updated files from the zip file to your S3MO folder.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful. If anyone has any questions, new ways of using S3MO or if I missed anything, let me know in the comments!  

Updated 30th June 2022 -  Tashiketh mod notes:

Changelog * Added _IMG to conflict detection * Added dialog for specifying S3PE path * Added warning message when no S3PE path defined

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