updated
Using Cheat Codes
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WARNING: Creating your own venue from scratch requires the use of cheat codes as indicated and might cause some damage to your save files. Before attempting this, you may want to backup your saves to a different folder.
We're going to making heavy use of cheat codes here, so let's once again go over how to use them. First, you hold CTRL and SHIFT, then press the C key. This makes the console appear at the top of the screen, and you'll type specific phrases here. When you press Enter, the cheat will go through. If it worked, the entire console will simply disappear. If the code was rejected (for example, if you misspelled something), you'll get an error message and the console will remain open. You can force the console closed by again pressing CTRL, SHIFT, and C.
The codes are not case-sensitive, so all three of these codes would work the same way:
TESTINGcheatsENABLED on
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testingcheatsenabled on
teSTingCheATsENAbleD on
To make it easier to read, we'll intercapitalize the words, but know you don't have to. Also, for the off/on arguments, you can do them in three ways: off/on, false/true, or 0/1. So all three of these codes would work the same way:
testingCheatsEnabled on
testingCheatsEnabled true
testingCheatsEnabled 1
We'll be going with off/on for simplicity, but you can use any of the argument pairs that you wish.
All codes and arguments are typed without quotes in the console.
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Converting Lot Types
After saving and backing up our files, we load up our town's save file. Once loaded, before doing anything else, we first enter these two codes:
testingCheatsEnabled on
buyDebug
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Note that the "buyDebug" is a toggle, and therefore doesn't have the usual off/on argument. These two codes must be used in this order for both to activate. If you tried using the "buyDebug" cheat before turning on testing cheats, it would simply fail and report to you that "buyDebug" isn't an actual code.
Okay, now to select a site. We need a lot that has a fairly large size, but know that it doesn't necessarily have to be a public lot. This is because we can convert the lot type to match what exactly we want to build. The Flying V's Coffeehouse in Starlight Shores that ships with Showtime proves you can have a fairly small lot and still build a venue, so choose what you think will be best. As you can see in the screenshot, there's a nice prime piece of real estate across the street from the criminal warehouse. It doesn't have a name and its lot type is "No Visitors Allowed," but it's large enough to give us a great place to set up a venue.
The first thing we have to decide is what type of venue we want. Remember that performers don't care about the specific venue they visit, they only care about the lot type. Even if you're Hosting a Sim, the visitor only cares whether a venue of his or her desired type exists somewhere in the neighborhood. In Starlight Shores, there's only one Coffeehouse venue by default, so let's make a second one. How about a combination of an Internet café and a stage, like a Starbucks with live entertainment?
With our ideal lot in mind, now we need to convert it to a coffeehouse venue. While still in Edit Town, click the empty lot, then press the "Change Lot Type" button (which looks like half a house and half a park bench). This brings up a pop-up box that let's us select which type of lot we'd like to build. The "Commercial" radio button is already activated, so we just need to select the proper venue type from the drop down box. "Coffeehouse" is near the bottom.
That's all it takes. In Edit Town, the map tag will be unchanged because all it tells you are whether the lots are residential (a little icon of a house) or commercial (a little icon of a park bench). We kept the lot commercial either way, so our tag didn't update. If you really want to make sure the lot is flagged correctly, you can enter Live Mode with your active family, then view the map without going into Edit Town by pressing the M key. We should (and do) have a map tag of a coffeehouse venue as a result.
