Project Spiral FAQ & Announcement: Functional Spiral Staircases

Surprise! Announcing Project Spiral, a base game compatible functional spiral staircase mod with animations that doesn't use elevators or other teleportation systems to work. It is currently in alpha testing since some features are still being investigated and worked on, and because it is a new system that needs extra testers to identify bugs we may have missed.

Early access until October 17th!

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This is a project we started back in November and had immediate success with, but delayed announcing or hinting as we wanted to see what else could be done with the system and how close we could get to EA's stair/ladder system. Unfortunately, it's fairly hardcoded, but we're quite happy with what we've done so far to replicate the system!

How does it work?

Though these spiral stairs are objects, they have a floor cutout that auto-applies upon placing down and will move with the stairs wherever you move it (or in case you accidentally move the cutout), making it work similarly to EA's ladders/stairs. After placing the stairs down in build mode you are done, and sims can now use it automatically when needing to travel between floors. No need to click the stairs or do anything else, it functions like EA's system.

The only thing we could not replicate so far was the auto height adjustment ladders/stairs do when walls are set to a different height, though sims can still route to the upper floors without issue if a taller wall is used, but will have animation weirdness when doing so. Our current plan is to make different height versions that can be placed down instead.

Another thing we are working on is auto-removal of the cutout after deleting the stairs. Right now it must be manually deleted as well if you delete the stairs.

You can also place stairs directly above each other on each floor and sims will route with them continuously when going to higher floors!

Will it break anything while testing or when removing?

It shouldn't since this is just a regular object. We do recommend removing the staircases from your saves first before uninstalling as a precaution, but there really shouldn't be any issues to worry about and from our testing so far.

How do I find the stairs?

They are under the Appliances > Misc category, or you can search using keywords like "spiral", "staircase", or our names.

How many can I place down?

As many as you want, like with regular stairs or ladders.

The stairs don't adjust to the wall heights?

This was mentioned in "How Does it Work?", but basically there was no way for us to add or replicate this auto-height adjustment system. We tried all kinds of experiments and nothing worked so far, so our current plan is to make different height versions that can be placed down instead. Even though the staircase itself doesn't auto-adjust with the walls, sims can still travel to the next floor at any height without issue, with only some animation weirdness to be aware of.

Why can't my pets use them and why do toddlers teleport?

For the first version of this release we only focused on fixing the bugs we could find and converting and adjusting the child to elder animations. Toddlers will have animations added at a later date, and pets will soon get teleporting as well in case a house only has spiral stairs placed, then animations (hopefully) further down the line. Pets are more difficult and we're not sure if we may encounter any issues with them.

My spiral staircases going into the basement show a white void instead of the room below?

This is unfortunately an EA bug and not something we can solve on our own. The same thing happens with EA's glass dance floor, which is how we realized it wasn't solvable or something we were doing wrong.

Does it conflict with anything?

None, this is a fully custom mod and should not conflict with anything.

I have a bug to report or need help, where can I go?

To our Discord server! It's easier to troubleshoot and pass information.

CC Creators: How do I make custom spiral staircases? 

Simplest thing to do is clone one of our spiral stairs, then import your meshes and textures as normal, keeping the general shape of the entrance/exit in line with the rig and cutout that we made. If for some reason you are not wanting to clone, we use a custom tag (2152713197), custom object tuning (thepancake1:SpiralStaircases_Regular_ObjectTuning, 9692635854077882247) and you'll need to add the rig as well.

CC Creators: Can I make a custom cutout?

Not at the moment due to the way we made the script, but we are looking into solutions so that creators can get creative with their designs.

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This section is included in the download page as well and is just a summary of the issues.

Summarized Current Notes & Issues

• Currently only the shortest wall height is supported visually, but sims can still travel to the next floor just fine even when using the tallest wall height. We are investigating additional stairs for the other heights.
• Child to Elder have animations but Toddlers do not, and will currently teleport instead unless carried, though animations are coming later.
• Pets do not have any animations and do not teleport. Teleporting will come soon in an update, and then replaced with animations at a later date like toddlers.
• There's some very minor "snapping" on the legs of the animations when entering/exiting the stairs. We will be improving this as well.
• Deleting the spiral staircase leaves behind the cutout and the cutout needs to be deleted manually. We will be investigating a way to remove it automatically.
• EA bug (due to floor cutouts): Spiral staircases leading into basements will not show the basement in the floor cutout and instead show a white void. The glass dance floors do this too, not something that can be fixed on our end.
• EA bug (due to floor cutouts): The floor cutout may behave strangely around floors near rounded walls.
• CC Creators: Custom cutouts are currently not possible due to the way the script is made, but we are investigating solutions.