For those that have University...create a sim. Have that sim achieve all 6 degrees and reach the top of a career in each of those degrees. For example: Once your sim has obtained, say the Fine Arts degree, have them reach the top of the Culinary or Music career. Then go on to another degree, and have them reach the top of a career in that degree...and so on. I have been working on this for a long time, trying to figure out which one is the best one to achieve first. I definitely would go with the following three first: fine arts, technology and science. These degrees give you a good base of skills that open up many careers. But, it is up to you how you wish to achieve this lofty goal. At the end of the challenge, not only does your sim have a lot of skills, but you've earned yourself a badge on the Sims 3 game.
Is there a support group for Simming Addiction? I think I need it...
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My two sims are married now. Jesse's first career was Science, and then he was a self-employed gardener, then self-employed nectar maker, then he reached the top of the Astronomer career, then he reached the top of the Education career (which the Business major benefits), and now he's a self-employed sculptor. I have plans for him to join the Law Enforcement career eventually. His husband, Colton, started off in the Culinary career, then was also a self-employed nectar maker, then an Astronomer as well, then he reached the top of the Business career, and now is also a self-employed sculptor. I was going to have him join the Law Enforcement Career as well and have each sim take a different branch. I haven't thought much beyond that though.
The LE careers will have to wait though as they have 22 sims in the household: 2 alien abduction toddlers, 2 children from TFB (used a mod), 1 baby from TFB, 2 teens from traveling in the past in the time machine (originally came through the time machine as children), 2 YAs from TFB in the past (one originally came through as a teen but has since aged up), 1 elder from TFB in the future who I aged down to YA with an elixir, 1 elder also from TFB in the future who I left as an elder, the ex-maid who is now married to one of the YAs, and one YA alien who's married to the elder. Oh, and 7 grandchildren, all currently infants. Once some of those move out (3 are enrolled in a homeworld university and will stay until they earn a degree), I'll start planning for Jesse and Colton to switch to the LE career.
So, I love your idea! I'll plan to have Jesse and Colton reach the top of a career for every major.
So, question: for your challenge does the sim actually have to work through the career? Colton was at the top of the Business career when one of his trips to the past in the time machine changed his career to Mad Scientist, the top of the Science career (his husband Jesse has been a Mad Scientist, but not Colton). Does this count for Colton as a career for the Science & Medicine major, or do I have to send him into the Medical career? I'll probably do Medical anyways, since a time machine adjustment to Colton's career seems a bit cheaty, lol. But I thought I'd ask whether sims can short-circuit your challenge's goals by using the time machine?
I don't think the Athletic trait itself gives a life extension benefit. AFAIK, the Marathon Runner skill challenge from the Athletic skill gives that benefit which any sim can complete.
I see you added restrictions about using life fruit, elixirs, potions, and I'd assume lifetime happiness rewards to lengthen lifespan. Do you have a particular life span setting in mind? I would think on epic you could finish this challenge without needing to extend life, unless you used a mode like NRaas StoryProgression which can adjust promotion difficulty to your lifespan settings (I usually disable this). Then there's occult lifespans to consider.
Another tip to anyone playing this challenge: wonderpetal gives a 10% boost to activities which increase academic performance. One strategy might be to grow some perfect quality wonderpetal early. Eating one of those raw has a low chance of the nausea moodlet (from being perfect quality) and gives a 20 hr duration moodlet when successful. I used to do that a lot when I first started sending sims to university. Also, the brain machine 2.0's Genius IQ interaction will give your sims a 12 hr moodlet which helps them study faster. Sims with high Advanced Technology skill will have an academics dream option on the dream pod which is helpful.
Also, with mods you could start as a teen and even send them off to university. Well, now, that I think about it though, starting off as a teen wouldn't be an advantage. I think you can get a degree in one day since there's no cool down on returning to university. So, I guess it's just a matter of reaching the top of 6 careers.
edit: I suppose you could do this challenge with 2 sims in the household? I'd probably want to do it with a couple.
edit: you should give your challenge a name! Maybe Pisceschick75's University & Career Challenge?
Oh, that's terrible to hear! I hope your second attempt goes better.
I'm also not sure whether you are allowing players to adjust age spans within the Normal setting. I'm guessing not. But if you did max out the YA, adult, and elder age spans within Normal then the sim would have an extra 118 days before reaching the end of elder, which I think is too much.
I tried to find out exactly how much the Vegetarian trait extends life, but did not find anything specific. I poked around in the game's XML files and discovered that completing the Marathon Runner skill challenge reduces the sim's chance of dying from old age as an elder by 25%. At the normal life span the usual chance of death per day is 14%, I think that's after they complete the elder age life span setting, but I'm not sure. I guess with the Marathon Runner challenge completed that would give an elder 14% x 75% = 10.5% chance of dying once they start rolling the death dice so to speak.
One idea I had was to allow players to keep a single death flower in inventory. This would give the sim an extra elder life span if they need it to complete the careers.
Something completely different: traits. As I was pondering which 5 traits I would use in CAS for my challenge sim, I realized I wasn't thinking about any skill based traits (traits which help a sim learn a skill faster). Then I thought about using the graduation and social group trait slots for that type of trait. I like this idea because it means every graduation I can change my sim's trait to something that will benefit them in their next career or degree. It would also make the first degree and perhaps first career a little harder. I also think it makes sense to imagine that one thing your sim 'learns' at university is a skill based trait. And it makes the challenge at little bit more strategic as you decide which skill based trait to give your sim each graduation.
So I suggest that a rule: in CAS you cannot use any skill based traits. Those are reserved for the graduation and social group trait slots only. You can change the trait at each graduation and each time your sim reaches the appropriate level of a social group, but you must stick with skill based traits for those trait slots. You can use in-game methods to change the 5 traits you pick in CAS, but you cannot use skill based traits for those slots.
Finally, playing the challenge with more than one sim. I think this should be allowed, but the rule should be that each sim needs to reach the top of a different career for each degree, whenever possible. The exception would be the Physical Education degree for 2 sims. I'm not sure I'd play with 2 sims. I see some advantages, but it would be more difficult too.
If the life span is too short, perhaps you should allow players to use Ambrosia. The requirements to make Ambrosia are fairly high. You could limit players to 1 use of Ambrosia only at the player's choice of age span (YA, adult, or elder). Or, if another 17-21 days isn't enough then allow one use of the Ambrosia once for each age span. Sims can catch deathfish at university. There's a fishing spot off one of the corners on the Woodland Park which spawns deathfish at midnight; I remember it not showing up with the Collection Helper for some reason (or I'm remembering wrong). I'd probably allow 1 death flower too.
I made him a Lucky sim to help with the Criminal career. I also gave him Ambitious and Workaholic to help with his career performance. Ambitious sims also gain academic progress quicker. His other traits are Vegetarian for a longer life span, and Slob so he doesn't have to clean. When he's rich he'll hire a maid, lol.
I only had him take one class for his first two week term. I gave him a Multi-Tab 6000 to help with fun and a hover board to start developing the Advanced Technology skill. I also bought him a Brain Enhancing Machine 2.0 for 6500 simoleons. The Genius IQ option gives a 12 hr moodlet which improves academic performance by 50% (according to a website I found). That did seem to help but it backfired once giving him a 'brain dead' moodlet (on first week finals!) and really increased his Nerd level. The Nerd level was an issue because I had focused him on Jock influence and eventually got him high enough to get his social group trait (I chose Angler to get a head start on the fishing skill for the science career). His Nerd level was so high by the end of the semester I'm concerned he'll have to choose a trait again and it's too early for that. So I may sell the brain machine and avoid Nerd interactions and probably avoid socializing with Nerds until his Nerd influence level goes down. I was planning to push Nerd influence during his 3rd degree, after he mastered fishing. In retrospect I should not have pushed Jock influence and instead focused on Nerd influence for his first social group trait choice. Nerd influence seems difficult to control compared to the other two.
[edit: he also might have gained Nerd level from using the skeleton object, which increases the Science skill. I'm not sure though. I think I'll pull that out of his inventory so he can't use it at class activity. I bought him a soccer ball and sims will also use that or the kicky bag at the Phys Ed class activity. He'll have something to do and it will only affect his Jock level.]
The rest of the semester he focused on day jobs. The Organ Donation pays 3500 simoleons, takes 2 hrs at the Science building, and you can pick it up at least once a day if you check all the job boards. I had him stay at Malan Hall which is close to Henry Hall so it wasn't too bad to check both job boards, and occasionally hover board over to De Anda Hall too. I also had him apply for extra funds once each week. He left university with ~75k simoleons, and a lot fewer organs.
He also got cooking up to level 3 or 4, and can now cook his favorite food, Ratatouille. He only got up to level 4 or so of the Athletic skill, but that's fine, I think he'll go for another 2 or 3 terms before graduating. I customized the gym and added some martial arts equipment; he can train that skill for academic progress if he masters Athletic too quickly. He also is up to level 5 of the Advanced Technology skill. He can now dream about career, which I hope will improve job performance. I think he can also dream about academics, which I know does help with academic progress. Plus, the dream pod, AFAIK, has the highest energy multiplier in the game aside from the Super Sleeper, so it's a very good bed. I first bought him a Super Sleeper which was great, but I think I'll switch to the dream pod for the dream moodlets and save the Super Sleeper for emergencies.
Once home, I bought him a food synthesizer and had him program all the recipes he knows. That helps the Advanced Technology level. I'll put it in his inventory and take it to university. Traveling with a food synthesizer in family inventory just so happens to reset the recipes, so he'll be able to program them again and further increase his AT level (he has a wish to reach level 6). After that I'm not really concerned about the AT skill since he can dream about careers and academics, although dreams might be useful for select skills. I'll have to look into that.
For his 2nd term at university I want to focus on jogging and earning lifetime points. For the points I am planing on having him learn sculpting. That skill seems to generate a lot of lifetime wishes, and fairly large ones at that. Hopefully he'll have enough sculpting time to keep up with them. It's about 2pm the first day in Barnacle Bay. He's going right back to university. I'll have him buy an actual house once he has his degree. I may send him to China first though. The incense from China improves skill learning by 10%. That will be useful. Unfortunately the cool down from traveling to WA worlds prevents going to university too even though there is no cool down on returning from university. So I'll have to wait until he graduates to go to China.
During his 2nd term I was going to focus on sculpting but got distracted by Advanced Technology. I looked up dream pod dreams on the wiki and the 'dream about academics' is available at level 9! He had a wish to reach level 6, then level 8, and finally to master the skill. He also had a wish to earn 16 credits towards his Physical Education major, a wish to earn a degree, and soon after a wish to pass an exam. Without any slots left to work with, I concentrated on Advanced Technology. After dreaming about AT each morning he'd program recipes into a new food synthesizer and I'd sell it when he was done. Expensive, but nothing a few more organ donations couldn't pay for. By the end of the week he had passed an exam and mastered AT. The rest of the term was spent on sculpting.
His 3rd term was mostly spent sculpting as well. I saved a wish to earn 32 credits towards the PE major so only had 2 slots to work with (the 4th saved wish was still the one to earn a degree). I was able to save and achieve most of the high level sculpting wishes, but a few I had to let go because he didn't have the slots. I had been thinking about making him a Savvy Sculptor with his Jock influence trait slot, but decided against it because Savvy Sculptor sims in my experience tend to level up too fast triggering wishes to sculpt in different materials before they are done with current wishes. I think that decision paid off, he was able to finish a sculpture in one material before wishing to sculpt in the next. Then he started with the wishes to make a certain amount of money from sculpting. I had put a consignment shop in the university world which helped with those wishes as consigned sculptures sell for more and that all counts towards those wishes. By the end of the term he had mastered the skill and made at least 20k in sculpting (the highest 'earn X simoleons from sculptures' wish I've seen). But more importantly he had earned enough lifetime happiness points to buy Entrepreneurial Mindset, Multi-Tasker, and Office Hero and still had another 40k points or so left over. Those were the important LTRs I wanted him to purchase before starting a career. I'd already gotten him Steel Bladder.
During his 4th and final term I finally concentrated on Athletic skill. He mastered it late his first week, and did the 'workout for X hours' chain of wishes all on the treadmill. He finished the 10 hr and 12 hr workouts over the weekend. Combined with some jogging in the previous semesters that was more than enough to complete the Marathon Runner skill challenge. In the mean time I focused on fishing. He had already reached level 4 or 5 in fishing in previous terms but I hadn't really focused on the skill. He was an Angler from his Jock influence trait and I had added a bunch of fish spawners in Champion Lake so there was fishing close by. He leveled up fairly quickly without using bait at all (luckily it was summer/fall and not winter). He completed his last exam (8am class) with fishing fairly close to level 10 and a bunch of anglefish in his inventory. He took an afternoon nap and spent the night fishing for death fish. He caught 6 and mastered the skill! That was much faster than I expected.
So now he's just returned home, about to purchase his first real house. I set aside 6 of them. I thought he'd move into a new house each level 10 promotion. He's got 155k in funds, 95k in lifetime happiness points (and additional LTRs: Observant, Legendary Host, Fast Learner, Inappropriate in a Good Way, Simmunity, Dirt Defiant, Attractive). Actually, now that I think of it Fast Learner probably explains why he leveled fishing up so fast, lol. He uploaded his resume and is now in the Professional Sports career; he starts work in 18 hrs. It's ~9pm in the homeworld, still the first Sunday.
Oh, and for his graduation trait I gave him Charismatic. His next degree will be in Business, and the Charisma trait benefits academic performance in that major. He hasn't learned the skill yet. I think I'll hold off until he's enrolled. For his Business major I think I'll have him stay at the fraternity and throw parties every night. He has the Legendary Host LTR and one of the strategies I've seen on Pete Complete's videos is to use parties to raise friendship levels. Hopefully the parties will help him reach the relationship requirements for the Charisma skill and provide him with sims to interact with to practice the skill and make the necessary friends (which the Attractive LTR will help with as well). Also, I've always wanted to play a sim at university who parties every night.
But first he's got to reach level 10 in Professional Sports and I'd like him to get the wish to earn a 2nd degree before going back. And he needs to buy a car. A fast car so he can get to work quickly. Barnacle Bay is a bit spread out. I haven't decided how much to spend on the car. Maybe I should have picked a world which was a bit more compact. I also think I'll work on his Nerd influence. I was going to save changing his social group slot until his 3rd degree, but since he's mastered Angler there's no point in waiting. Once he can choose his social group trait slot again I'm going to give him Natural Cook, so he can make faster progress in that skill as he cooks meals for himself. He'll need it for the Culinary career eventually. I placed a comic shop, rebel hangout, and jock hangout in Barnacle Bay. I could have him hang out at the comic shop, but I've found the 'study brain' interaction on the brain machines to be a pretty fast way to raise Nerd influence level so I'll probably use that.
I didn't mean to write a book, lol.
You can't reset the sim? Or go back to an older save? That's terrible to lose progress like that.