why is the time so different like lets say my sim went to a communility lot at 7 simshour , saturday. the sims did whatever it wanted on the community lot, on the communility lot the time is now 4 am sundau when i went back home my time was still 7 am saturday it did not move at all. but when you are away on vacation it moves.

complicated to explain.

Don't shout, please, we can hear you.

There is a community time mod, which I don't use, but you can ask in the "WCIF" forum and somebody'll point you there. It will prevent a sim who leaves the lot from returning until the same amount of time has passed on the home lot as the sim spent out of it. This allows (for instance) the spouse of a business owner to carry on an affair at home during business hours, or the teen to be stuck at home babysitting till the folks get back, at which time it's too late to go out, that sort of thing. I don't know of anything that changes the vacation clock; but that's what WCIF is for.

However, this is not a bug, but a feature and I for one find it extremely useful. If you'll relax and make use of it you may find you like it, too, as it buys your sims extra time in their tiny little days. I can get a fantastic amount done in a single sim day (I play one-day rotations) simply by timing community lot outings, and having different sims go out to different places at different times. For instance, if a teen takes his younger siblings out immediately after the kids get home from school, they can meet people and get their fun up in the park, then come home, collapse into bed, rise again with their energy high to do homework and grab a bite to eat, then sleep some more and be awake in time for school. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad had a date while the kids were napping, and head out to work in the morning, platinum and well-rested.

There reason time moves on a community lot on vacation (and at University) is that time flows differently in those neighborhoods. Think of it this way - ordinary sim days are not days, but composites of many days, and much mundane stuff is handwaved. Every moment of vacation, however, is precious and alive with possibility. The point of going on vacation is to go see new sights and do new things without the mundane pressures of job and school; but you can only take off so much time before you have to return to those things, so - just as in real life - the clock is constantly ticking. Besides, you don't age on vacation (or in University) so the game had to do something to create time pressure.

I use the community lot time mod. I find it only works if I take a taxi and not on hobby lots. That's just how it works for me I've seen some say it always work for them no matter how they arrive on a lot and others say it works like how i have it. I don't mind though as I can now have it both ways except for hobby lots. If you download it, do not send pregnant sims to a community lot with it working. The needs should remain static while you play the home lot and they are away, but pregnant sims can be the acceptation to this.

Also it isn't complicated it's just the way the game works, no need to shout about it.

first of all i wasnt shouting anyway thank you very much for the help XD

I just always try to make sure I come back before 11PM, and use the setHour cheat. If I come back after 11, I just still set it to 11 to at least get me a bit closer.

@ Lolal: There's a long established convention in internet newsgroups and the like that typing all in capitals is considered to be shouting.

I like the way that the game handles time on a community lot. Early in my game, when my Sims Andrew and Julian were still just friends, they went to the local swimming pool in the afternoon. They got on well together, and eventually Andrew went home. Julian, my playable, tried to go home too, but I didn't yet know to cancel his autonomous actions. Over and over again as the night wore on, he phoned for a taxi. Then he went back to the espresso machine on the other side of the lot, and the taxi drove off without him. He (and I) got more and more desperate, especially when 7 a.m. came and it grew light again. As a conscientious young knowledge Sim, he wanted to go to school, but he knew he was far too tired. Eventually, after 9 o'clock, I got him to wait for the taxi, and he finally went home. Imagine his relief and mine, when it was still only 5 o'clock the day before, and he hadn't missed school after all! He collapsed into bed for a long, long sleep.

Ever since then I have loved the way time works on community lots! :lovestruc

Agree with jones, I often abuse the sethour cheat so my Sims have a tad bit more time in their days. It's not that bad. The community lot "time freezing" feature's been around since The Sims 1, but they removed the set_hour cheat in The Sims 1 since the first EP, which really sucks.

Also, shouting is TYPING IN ALL CAPS. You were SHOUTING at the end of your post. DON'T SHOUT PLEASE, WE CAN HEAR YOU JUST FINE.

There is a way to fix this:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...hp?topic=7462.0

It's not a complete fix. For example, you can't send a sim to a community lot, then send another sim to another community lot before the first sim arrives back home.

Well it's not TS3 where you can send 5 sims to 5 different places, but it does make game time feel more real. I hated having a sim live at his shop for 3 days only to have to replay those days at home. I love Community Lot time.

I agree 1000% with Jo; I won't play without Community Time. Or, at the very least, I'd never send Sims to community lots or have them own community-lot businesses without it, which means that my playstyle would be totally different than it is now. If nothing else, the having to live time over again thing totally screws up their motives and body clocks, although I suppose it's better if you use the set hour cheat. I just can't be bothered and prefer the game to do the work for me as much as possible. And I like to keep my Sims' body clocks realistic and appropriate for the Sim and their occupation, etc., so the extra time, although I acknowledge that it can have its advantages, is for me a bad thing, not a good or fun thing at all. But of course, that's just me; I'm not judging anyone else!

I just wish that it worked in Universities. Unfortunately, that was never fixed. It'd be nice if some genius modder would take a look at it and fix the few things that were never fixed. If they can be fixed, I guess.

I've thought about checking the mod out, but was unsure. I may have to give it a try. I'm always a little weary about game mods, since my PC is finicky as is, and I have had issues with it running sims in the past (and currently where 3 is concerned). So I don't like to push my luck, lol.

Well, just make a backup, install the mod, mess about with it a bit, and if you don't like it, remove the mod and restore the backup.

For me, I have all EPs/SPs and a ton and a half of other mods, and it works more or less flawlessly except that sometimes it just...doesn't work. As in, the Sim(s) will come back to the lot without the time passing, just as if the mod wasn't installed at all. But that's very rare. I also didn't have to mess around with load order or anything to get it to play nice with my other hacks. Just download it, put it in the hacks folder, good to go.

The Community Time mod is without a doubt the best mod that I use. Before I never liked playing with community lots but thanks to this mod I'm finally able to enjoy them. It allows your Sims to actually have normal days without screwing up their daily routines.

I've never experienced any problems with it either, it always did its job for me.

If you don't like mods, it's possible to correctly set the time manually each time sims return from community lot. I did it for a while when I didn't know about Community Lot Time hack, but I wouldn't recommend it. I think it can screw up stuff like mail carrier bringing bills or taking away paid bills at certain time at certain days. I had some mailbox glitches and attitubuted them to frequent manual time setting.

But if anyone wants to try, the command is set_hour, followed by whichever time. Using the mod sounds a lot safer to me.

I use SetHour a lot (in fact it's my favourite cheat!) but I've never had any trouble with it so far. That may be because I always use it to put time back so as to give my Sims more time. I don't think I've ever used it to put the clock forward. That way my Sims may get something twice, but they won't miss anything. I almost always use SetHour at night to give them a full night's sleep even though they've been up late. Like Peni, I like the way the game gives me extra time when my Sims go to a community lot.

okay. understood. thank you for your help.bye.

anyway i used the mod you guys told me about and i think that i should stick with the normal time i guess i was just missing the sims 3.........................

You didn't like it?

Done right, the CLT is a great addition to the game, but you have to keep in mind that if you send someone to a community lot, their real time doesn't pass normally either-they have to go to a job after? Get them to leave the CL before the car pool shows up at their home lot.

It is tricky to keep it from messing up the storyline, but I think it's worth the bother.

Yes, you do have to be careful, because if a Sim is off-lot and the work carpool (or the school bus) comes for them, they will miss school/work, and of course there are consequences for that. But you know, that's life. If you stay out partying at a club and you miss work because of it...there are consequences.

I understand the reason for the "relive the time" thing, in the sense that on the home lot time is compressed where a "day" might actually represent several months or what-have-you. Obviously, you don't spend months on a community lot. But on the other hand, motives aren't so "compressed." I mean, if they were, your Sim would be in the bathroom every other minute. So to me, as a person who doesn't use the game as a storytelling vehicle at all but rather just because I like to see how events and generations unfold, the motives and sleep schedules getting messed up is very aggravating. Thus, Community Time is essential for me if I'm using community lots. Like another poster, I didn't use them at all before I found that hack because reliving the time was too aggravating to me.

So really, whether or not you'll want to use the hack, I think, depends on your purpose in playing the game and on what personally aggravates you. That's going to differ for every player. So, like I said, if you're curious about the hack and think you might like it, back up your neighborhood, put the hack in, experiment a bit. If you like the hack's effect, keep it in. If you don't, take it out, restore the backup, no loss, no foul.

ETA: I do get that the reliving time thing gives you more time to "get to know" your Sims, and that's nice and all, but for me the aggravation outweighs that benefit. So...I use vacations if I want more time with a Sim/family. If you wanted a ton of extra time for whatever reason (and if you have BV, of course), you could send them on a seven-day vacation, let them come home and immediately send them on another seven-day vacation the next day. And you can do this without totally screwing up their motives and sleep schedules and what-have-you. Works especially well if the Sim/family has a vacation house because then they're not paying for lodging and food and, if you want, you can refund them their airfare, too.

Days pass too fast for me. I like the extra time of a community lot so my sims have time to do more than eat, sleep, skill and go to work.

i did like the mod i still have it

true. never thought of how helpful the sims time was.

I must say this is off topic yet not. The exclamation is not a shout button. It is to mean emphasis on a matter. As well as TYPING IN ALL CAPS is to mean I am to emphasis this. Sometimes you can bold instead of all cap but that is to say "stand out and look at me" more then "I emphasize these words." So is a mistake of internet meme people forever to always think it means shouting. Then you get the horrible mean, "I'm not listening to anything you say because I think you are shouting." When really, how can you shout there is no volume to type???

Maybe you should turn down the sound in your imagination.