Builder's Blues

Ok, so let me preface this by saying I'm still very much a novice at building good lots in Sims 3. I can redecorate/recolor already made lots really well - making them look much nicer, or with better room layouts. I do understand the basics of how walls, foundations and even that maddening roof tool work. I also understand terrain  - mostly. The issue I'm having right now is with terrain elevation. A serious issue that may cost me hours of work on two lots I am redecorating / renovating for rflong's Moon Base Charlie World.

You can find the thread about Moon Base Charlie here, if you're interested in her cool moon world:

http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/306091.page

So rf's world is very nice looking and she's added some very simplistic futuristic looking cube style buildings and houses, and some houses in domes too. Me, being the perfectionist, decided I wanted to modify a few of her houses to make them suit my idea of what living on a low-atmospheric condition world would be like. Obviously this moon has to have breathable air on it because Sims 3 has outdoor roads that must be used to access service sims, schoolbuses, etc... so unless you want a barren world where those venues won't be used (it can work on a tropical island, I've done it) - then you need roads. If you use roads, then Sims have to go outside. Sooo... my theory, with Moon Base Charlie - is that its a world that has terraforming started, and has an atmosphere now, but isn't very hospitable - so most sims will stay indoors or under domes unless traveling to / from another location. I decided I wanted 'airlocks' on those houses not under domes. Hence began my remodel project of one of her housing lots.

Well to make things easier, I decided to use a world called "Builder's Island DIY" from armiel on ModtheSims. It's just a simple island world with one road, and space on either end for up to a 60x60 lot and a 30x30 lot. This is where I put the 30x30 lot from rflong's moonbase to build it out. When I was finished, I saved it to the bin and went back to Moon Base Charlie to reinstall it on the same lot.

Well this is what I got:

You can see the original, unaltered house on another lot to the left of my now 'tricked out' moon colony house.

Ok, so I went in build/buy mode and I used 'flatten lot' to see if that would fix this wonkiness.

This is what I got:

SIGH - this is not what I wanted!

So apparently either the moving of lots back and forth, or some elevation issue unknown to me on either of the worlds (I am not going to blame one or the other and hopefully talk to each of their creators) has created this bunkus. The worst part is because of those column foundations, I can't fix this problem. Deleting anything like steps and foundation does not lower your house :(

I'm scouring the net trying to find a fix for this issue. I have tried flattening the lot on builder's island as well as moon base world - neither looks elevated to me, they are both right next to the road and seem flat. Why is this happening? Arrrgh,

Like I said at the beginning of my blog post - I'm a novice at building - so I am hoping this is just something I don't understand about how terrain works. If its a bug due to player-made CAW tool stuff, then I'm probably screwed and will have to redo this whole lot. That makes me sad. I really put a lot of work into the machinery of the airlock entrance... metalic textures, panels, windows, etc. 

I'm off to look for help from the savvy (and friendly) TS3 builder community!

EDIT (1/23/2011) Found a fix that works - sortof. (It works for some lot bugs, not others) go here:

http://www.flyingacres.com/NeighborlySims3/showthread.php?tid=1763&pid=30124

This helpful simmer found a way to use the elevation cheatcode to bring the house foundation back to normal height. This trick worked for my moon colony house all but one block up - that still would not go away. I moved every piece of furniture, windows/doors and decor back down where it should be, but could not delete the stairs no matter what I did. I gave up in frustration. I may try it again later with more research. For now, I'm not doing a lot of building and am renovating / remodeling some old lots I had stored to try avoiding the bug that came after Ambitions with lot placement. I'm also about to release my newest batch of simbots and simdroids - yay!