This tutorial will show you how to disable a custom food (or several) for all mealtimes, making it hidden in-game and preventing sims from preparing it.
Wait, why would I want to do that? Why can't I just delete the custom food from my downloads folder?
Deleting custom food may result in
hood corruption, since it "breaks want trees for Sims whose favourite food was the deleted food, and will corrupt the memories of sims who have a "Learned to make" memory for that food". In order to completely get rid of a custom food, you'd have to (in addition to changing the favorite food of the affected sims) delete all visible and hidden memories of those foods. This is a task that consumes both time and effort, especially for a well-played neighborhood. Additionally (considering what's mentioned in
this thread, removing all traces of a custom food might involve editing SWAF (Sim Wants And Fears) history for the sims who've eaten the food, and that's something I'd rather leave to the pros.
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Please note: this method is not from another tutorial. On my quest to find one I stumbled upon
this thread about modding custom food. It was from the tip on how to enable food that I tried my way to satisfying results. I am an amateur at this sort of thing. Before you start, back up your neighborhoods and custom food in case anything goes wrong.
Though your sims won't be able to prepare the food after using this method, you will still be required to have the .package file in your downloads folder in order to not cause corruption.
As stated in the title, this method requires SimPE. My version is 0.72; your interface may differ.
-> Open the .package file for the custom food you want to edit in SimPE (it may take a few minutes to load). Your screen should look something like this.
-> Go to the Resource Tree (it should be on the left side of the screen) and select "Behaviour Function (BHAV)".
Scroll down the Resource List until you find a line called "Function - Init - Menu" and click on it.
-> While in Plugin View, search for the following line (you may have to scroll a bit).
[prim 0x0002] Expression (My [semi] attribute 0x0007 Set Flag Const 0x2005:0x01)
If the custom food you've chosen is available for several mealtimes, there should be other lines identical to this one, with the exception of the last digits. 0x01 is for breakfast, 0x02 is for lunch and 0x03 is for dinner. In this case, I'm editing a food that's set to all three mealtimes, so as you can see I have three variations of this line.
Select/click the line (or one of them), then go to the right and click the "Pop-Up Wizard" button.
-> In the box that pops up, select the field that says "0x2005:0x01" (or 0x02 or 0x03) and change the 1 to a 0 (backspace the 1, type in a 0). Then click "Okay" to close the box, and don't forget to click the "Commit File" button when it becomes accessible!
-> Repeat the procedure for the other lines (remember to click "Commit File"), hit Save and you're done! The food of your choice will no longer show up when clicking on the fridge in-game.
I'm not sure of what the other lines in the "Function - Init - Menu" stand for, so touch them at your own risk.