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Rebuilding Viper Valley and The Apocalypse Challenge

Comments

  • DaedreemDaedreem Posts: 48
    edited March 2011
    I also had another question I forgot about, although I'm sure I know the answer already.... :(

    My Sim working culinary was singed by a chance card, and has been walking around in his undies looking burnt with a -(40.. I misremembered.) mood for weeks. The only way to "unsinge" him is to take a shower...
    Do I still have to wait until medical is cleared? or can he visit a lot with a shower, spin to get in, and I cancel before he actually takes one?

    I'm guessing I have to wait... but boy is that moodlet and visual annoying...
    Post edited by Unknown User on
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited March 2011
    Daedream ...

    The persistent ghost - activate "testingcheatsenabled true" (without the quotation marks) in your cheat console and right click the ghost and delete him. He will come back later as a ghost, but should have at least a few haunting cycles where he isn't persistent.

    The singed sim - you have to live with it till you have medical cleared or he ages up. I'm sorry, I know how annoying it is. It happens in the science career too - getting singed.


    Sorry it is taking me longer to read through this page - I've been taking a break from sims lately, but slowly the urge is coming back to play :P

    God Bless,
    mik
  • DaedreemDaedreem Posts: 48
    edited March 2011
    mikitta47 wrote:
    Daedream ...

    The persistent ghost - activate "testingcheatsenabled true" (without the quotation marks) in your cheat console and right click the ghost and delete him. He will come back later as a ghost, but should have at least a few haunting cycles where he isn't persistent.
    Thanks. I hadn't tried that because I didn't want to delete him entirely.... Good to know he'll come back, And good to know all sims will get their 1 meal a day at least most days. :)
    mikitta47 wrote:
    The singed sim - you have to live with it till you have medical cleared or he ages up. I'm sorry, I know how annoying it is. It happens in the science career too - getting singed.
    Before asking, I'd already waited until he'd aged up from YA to A... It had no effect on his appearance or negative 40 moodlet... :(
    But last night his S-I-L hit top of Medical. :)
    So he's good-looking and Happy now. :)
    mikitta47 wrote:
    Sorry it is taking me longer to read through this page - I've been taking a break from sims lately, but slowly the urge is coming back to play :P
    That's quite alright. :) Everyone needs a break sometime. :)
  • NightRowanNightRowan Posts: 19 Member
    edited March 2011
    Is the dartboard allowed for fun or restricted by something? I read through the rules and didn't find it mentioned, but with the size of them, it's easy to overlook something by accident.

    I was also wondering if anyone is publishing their Apocalypse. I'd really enjoy seeing how other families are coping.
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited March 2011
    The cheapest dartboard is allowed from the get go - the one that is not electronic (though they both have the beedoopbedoop sound when a sim wins, go figure).

    I've had the persistent ghost problem before and it is annoying. They float through the floors and in general make a nuisance of themselves - not to mention they spawn TONS of cars in the neighborhood, which slows down game performance.

    The ghost scripting is tied to the tomb stone. As long as the stone is still in the world, it will spawn the ghost. Deleting the ghost just resets the script and clears the bug, but it won't keep it from happening again, unfortunately.

    As for the being singed - there are so many bugs in this game it's not even funny :/ I wish EA would fix them. As long as the singed state doesn't keep you from aging up properly, you have to live with it until medical is cleared. If the singed state bugs your sim so they can't age up, then you can bathe them to clear the bug. But only then and the shower has to be deleted immediately after you clear that state.

    God Bless,
    mik
  • NightRowanNightRowan Posts: 19 Member
    edited March 2011
    OK, 'nother question. My spouse is already an Elder and my founder is due to become an Elder in two days. There oldest child doesn't become a teen for another 4 days. Is the only way to get a group meal to have one of the children ask for food and keep cancelling until one of the Elders choses either hot dogs or hamburgers, or can I command one of them once a day to do it? I'm pretty sure of the answer, but am hoping that I'm wrong, lol. Thanks for the quick response on the last question, I'm really enjoying this!

    Edit: Oops, one more quick question. Was the existing library in Viper Valley deliberately built without a bookshelf with skill books, or can we fix that?
    Post edited by Unknown User on
  • rambleramble Posts: 70 New Member
    edited March 2011
    You are not allowed to just up and quit your job for no good reason. You have to either be fired outright, be late for work, have a pregnancy that puts you into maternity leave or age up into an elder with less than 10 skill points in body --

    If all my adult sims (with young children in the household) are employed outside of home and their working hours happen to coincide, shall I have one of them quit their job (the game won't allow the sim to leave the lot so they will be late for work in any case)?

    Also, if I don't play with the Ambitions expansion, aren't the Education, Fire Fighter, Ghost Hunter, Private Eye and Stylist "optional careers" restricted by Military? After all, the sims are supposed to get a job that (I assume) requires the sim to walk to the work place to get the job in the first place (such as the Mausoleum, Grocery Store or Bookstore careers), right? Or is there a way around this?
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited March 2011
    Night Rowan - Feed the kid first and foremost - if you haven't cleared comforting children, you can't direct elders to do anything except through another sim asking them. That includes cooking. If one of your sims who turns elder is a family oriented sim, they will automatically chose to make family serving meals rather than single servings.

    Ramble - thanks for pointing out some things that need to be tightened up a bit. I can't promise WHEN it will be on the Wiki, as I've been taking a break, but for now you can use these general rule amendments.

    1. If an alternate set of rules requires you to get a part time job (not available in the paper) - you are allowed to go straight to that venue to get the job and come straight home even if Military has not been cleared.

    2. If an alternate set of rules requires you to get to level 5 in one career and then switch, you may do so - and take a job in the next required career, even if Master Thief has not been cleared. (this is noted in each of the alternates listed on the wiki already.

    God Bless,
    mik
  • gamekittengamekitten Posts: 2,606 Member
    edited March 2011
    I responded to your other post about the Sims 3 Apocalypse and since then I found some of the answers with two of us reading it. I guess I've already lost the challenge since I gave my founder a better bed (have three mods on game and don't want to add another and the ugly mood was really messing up founder with her job), I added charges to the 1200.00 weekly fee for such bed. Also I placed broken and messed up objects on the lot outside of the 8 x 8..to appear more apocalypse.. the broken train, wrecked cars, messed up house, tires, barrels, crates, burned areas..XD I love the effect that it makes it more realistic. But onward I go. I got confused with the TV thing. Figured out the money each week. It is hard to keep track of the rules so I am having fiance put it in better order for me. I am changing anything with the exception of the better bed which I added more of a weekly fee and the destruction items on the back of the lot..fail or not I continue with a new sim founder. Thank you for the challenge. I also requested a friend add. If I can figure out how to put a picture here I will show you what I mean by the destruction look of the lot.

    Oh..Edited to say none of the objects give visual effect or can you interact with them. They are merely for looks to give the destruction more realism.
    Happy Simming.
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited March 2011
    Getting the better bed is an option - torques my britches EA won't fix the bug though LOL.

    Considering the game is bugged, you didn't fail for having to work around this.

    God Bless,
    mik
  • DaedreemDaedreem Posts: 48
    edited March 2011
    mikitta47 wrote:
    The cheapest dartboard is allowed from the get go - the one that is not electronic (though they both have the beedoopbedoop sound when a sim wins, go figure).
    God Bless,
    mik

    I had thought that dartboard was not allowed either, but I just looked it up in-game, and it costs 750 simoleons... I thought we couldn't buy anything over 500??

    -- Also....
    My first set of twins, when they got jobs different jobs were available in the paper....
    -I saved it before having the second get hers, figuring she'd get one the next day.... But as I was about to quit for the night I tested by getting a job for the second, and it was different.
    -Every other sim who's gotten a job on the same day has also gotten a different job...

    My second set of twins grew to young-adult yesterday, and both had identical news-papers... So ended up with the same job... (journalism)
    Barring an accidental lateness or low job performance losing one of them the job, is there any other way than waiting for journalism TOC for them to not be duplicating efforts?? It's doubly annoying as with only one computer (science isn't clear yet) only one of them can properly raise her writing skill....

    Also, I've cleared Military.... Is there a second restriction I'm not seeing preventing TOC Spares from moving out of the house? If they move out, their clearing of a restriction still sticks, right?

    Also, for science, my sim seems to only be able to take fishing class ONCE... (education cleared already) with no tv theres no fishing channel.. I assume he has to hit TOC with sadly lacking fishing skills?

    Thanks!
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited March 2011
    Dartboard and the 500 simoleon rule - I'm going to tighten up the wording a bit for that. The spirit of the rule is that you can't get furniture or appliances or decorative objects that are over 500 simoleons. BUT there are some things that you can't get for so little. Your choices are more expensive than that.

    SO - until I get it changed on the wiki, unless something is prohibited by another rule for some reason (like telescopes or hot tubs etc), you are restricted to 500 simoleons value OR the cheapest object available of that kind if they are all over 500 simoleons.

    The twins and their jobs. The first one to have gotten the job in journalism must keep it. The other one may drop journalism and get a different job. You aren't beholden to keep that job if another qualified sim is in the process of lifting the restriction. However, the sim you pull out of journalism may never go back to it again.

    If Military is cleared, you may move out spares. If they have already cleared a restriction - that restriction stays cleared. If they have NOT, they may not ever clear a restriction once you move them out. It behooves you to have spares clear restrictions before you move them out.

    Science - yep, it's a pain since you can't use the TV for anything but working out till it's cleared. There are no fishing skill books so you are stuck not working that up at all whilst progressing through science. This is why The Amazing Naturalist can't be cleared until Science is cleared. You can't even go fishing till you have mastered the skill through watching the TV.

    As for only being able to ever take one class - that's the way it is with ALL classes. You can only take one class in that thing with any of them. One skill level worth of instruction basically.

    God Bless,
    mik
  • perfectvelvetperfectvelvet Posts: 739 Member
    edited March 2011
    Great revamping of the rules, mik! It makes me want to try this insanely difficult challenge and see where I get!
  • zoeyredbird127zoeyredbird127 Posts: 100
    edited March 2011
    What is the link to Viper Valley?
  • perfectvelvetperfectvelvet Posts: 739 Member
    edited March 2011
    You can get it from the Wiki page, which is linked in the first post on this thread.
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited April 2011
    Hi all. Just a fast update on the State of the Challenge.

    1. I'm back to play testing each career to see how long it takes considering the bugs in place. With NRAAS Overwatch (to deal with the excess of cars and sims getting stuck in rabbit holes and such) and Story Progression to make things run a bit smoother over all, and with Buzzler's Moodlet Hotfix, I'm seeing an average of about 39 days from start of challenge to lifting Hopelessness. What this translates to is I will likely put in the rule that you can put your game on aging off until you have cleared level 5 of your career and then you must put your game on Normal aging. Otherwise, you will NEVER be able to complete the challenge because your sim will get too old too fast. Even starting with a male, there's no guarantee you won't age to elder before you have married and produced an heir.

    2. Concerning the Generations expansion - until and unless EA gets the game fixed VERY SOON, I won't be buying it. Or any more stuff packs. I'm tired of laying my money down for a broken game with poor coding (the over abundance of cars, sims getting stuck in elevators and rabbit holes, sims getting stuck at other community lots, the mood bug, not being able to excavate dig sites on vacation and many others). If EA doesn't care to fix it, I don't care to put my money down for their broken product.

    What this means is that if I end up not getting the next expansion, I won't be able to adjust the rules on my own and I will need one of you who understand the challenge to help me out and give me the low down of how it affects challenge play.

    Hopefully, though, EA will fix their broken game and I will be able to get Generations - because honestly... STROLLERS! LOL!

    God Bless,
    mik
  • juliekayejuliekaye Posts: 108 Member
    edited April 2011
    I'm looking to download the Viper Valley world but the link on the wiki page just takes me to a page that says "welcome to mediafire". No link anywhere I can see to download it... The viper valley save file link works correctly.

    Am I just blind? lol
  • Anghara130Anghara130 Posts: 233 New Member
    edited April 2011
    Hi Mikitta, just wanted to say thank you for updating this challenge, I was over half way through my S2 apocalypse (The Merrick's, I had it on my LJ) when S3 came out, and although I truly always meant to finish the S2 one, I have never gone back. I agree with the borked game status worries though, and have to tell you I am struggling to get anywhere near Gen2 with this one!

    First off though, some help! I have a small spreadsheet (crib sheet for me!) that I did off your rules, showing the LTR's (life Time Rewards), their cost in points, and which restrictions they are governed by. I will be happy to share that if you think anyone else might find it useful? I did manage to get Medical lifted with my founder on one attempt, but hadn't realised at the time that the 'off-site' work was not allowed. This still only gave him eight days before turning elder in which to marry, by which time all his friends and colleagues were elders... grrr, he wound up marrying one of his acquaintances who turned out to be a paper girl - I forgot to have him ask and check... so oops, double fail!

    We'll start again, but, I do not like to play with ageing on anything but normal, would it be possible to perhaps allow off site work on the grounds that your employer is sending you there, with armed guards if necessary, particularly if your off-site work is in another rabbit hole? Garrick had two goes at presenting health information to the criminal underworld, and that is NOT a hanging out and socialising type of community lot, so I was hoping that would be ok? Ditto City Hall? He flunked military without a hope, turned elder and was only level nine.....

    Any news on the new AC neighbourhood?

    Ang

    Edited to add: I have now built two variants on Apocalypse houses, fitted out with the required furniture, and even some candles (allowed under Science I believe), one with a basement, one without, and if anyone is interested I could upload those too?
    Post edited by Unknown User on
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited April 2011
    Anghara -

    1. YES YES YES I would love a copy of that spread sheet to put up on the Wikia :D Been meaning to do that for a long time now, but just never got to it.

    2. I have been working through each career to see how long it takes. Some things I've decided - the Film careers are NOT going to be among the ones available right away. I'm going to put at LEAST a restriction of Military on them because all their opportunities involve going out and about in the neighborhood.

    3. WITH NRAAS Story Progression and Master Controller AND Buzzler's moodlet hotfix installed, I have a pretty normal advancement. Even so, I'm seeing an average of 39 days to clear any given restriction. So I'm playing with the idea of a period of a certain amount of days you can play with aging off at the very beginning of the challenge, as that's the hardest hump to get over.

    4. If you are struggling with the moodlet bug and you absolutely do NOT want to install third party content to fix it, you are going to have to cheat and get the better beds. There is no other way to live with it and it makes doing this challenge well nigh impossible.

    Juliekay -

    1. The new 'hood - it's been on hold while I was testing things. I've been getting the urge to work on it more lately and hope to have it out before June. It will be compatible with all content currently released, but won't require the Generations expansion.

    2. http://www.mediafire.com/?ctukez8qitoft9m should take you directly to the Viper Valley download :)


    God Bless,
    mik
  • Anghara130Anghara130 Posts: 233 New Member
    edited April 2011
    Mikitta, I'll email you the spreadsheet, it's in Excel currently, any format you'd rather it come in? I did find a few rewards that weren't covered in your rules, and put them where I thought they would be the most appropriate... I can always list those separately for you though if you wanted?

    Also, I did edit the wikia pages a little for spellings and such, nothing massive. If you tell me how/where, I could post the spreadsheet straight there maybe (I am hopeless at HTML stuff though so would have to be really simple instructions!)

    I'm having another go with Garrick, and I think the problem with Culinary is the latter stages where you only work the last few days of the week? Birthdays come right about then, and of course the last working day he needed was also his birthday to elder. This time, we got a promotion on his second day at work (not done that before) so we're already ahead of the game! I'm so hoping he can make it this time, he seems to be doing so much better.

    He's living in a house I called "The Eyrie", I also have "The Holt", and "The Sett" which I could share, each has different advantages and what I see as disadvantages... The Holt is more expensive, the Sett is just one floor on a foundation, and the Eyrie is on pillars with no basement, but, each house has a very similar floor plan. I'm really enjoying myself even if I haven't made it to gen 2 yet!

    Ang
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited April 2011
    Anghara - Excell is fine. Open Office should be able to read it just fine. Getting things set up on a new page can be a little tricky to get everything to come out like it's supposed to, so I'll do that. I'm pretty comfortable with playing with it.

    Thanks for ferreting out the LTR I missed. I know there are several with Late Night that I hadn't even gotten to yet.

    Here's something I want to run past you guys. I'm thinking that I will allow 30 days on no aging throughout the challenge. That is you have 30 days of aging off to help you get over what ever humps are REALLY causing you to have problems. If you have to do that at the very beginning because Journalism takes you 54 days to clear - then you have a lot of it up. If you don't have to use any of it at all because Business only took you 27 days, then you can keep it in reserve for when you do need it.

    Once I have a scoring system in place, unused aging-free days will count toward bonus points.

    Final decision on the Film careers...
    Film-Director ... requirement - Late Night expansion and Military cleared.
    Film-Actor ... reqirement - Late Night expansion, Military and Film-Director cleared.


    I've decided on this because both of them are so heavily dependent on Celebrity status that it's hard to make meaningful progress in a reasonable amount of time. While you can't pursue celebrity status till Director is cleared, being able to go out and about in the town and interact with impunity allows you a better chance to get it "in the wild"as it were.

    Doing this also makes choosing your initial careers a little easier - it brings the total of starting careers to 12, so what ever you roll, you get to choose what ever career you think would be most advantageous.

    Anyway ... do you have my email, Ang?

    God Bless,
    mik
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited April 2011
    Fast update - significant change if you are clearing Education-The Renaissance Sim rather than the Education Rabbit-hole career...

    Master painting and paint 1 Brilliant painting

    Master writing and sell 3 best sellers in Non Fiction

    Master Athletics and complete the marathon, strength and cardio skill challenges (500 k running, 75 hours cardio and 60 hours strength training)

    Master Handiness, upgrade 10 items, repair 10 electrical items and 10 plumbing items.

    Reach level 3 in the Bookstore career.

    Changes are underlined. I realized that trying to also do Logic would make this category take WAYYY too long - greater than 60 days - if you didn't have Genius AND Handy AND Artistic as a trait. It took me a while to do anyway (54 days) and it was not easy since money was a real problem. I may make it so you can sell the paintings for this one as an exception if you do it before business. Maybe the roll play would be that the book store wants to buy the paintings to liven up their business. I'll do another test run of it playing with strict restriction rules(been a little lax as I'm just testing time through career) and see how it shakes out.

    I've got one more career to play test and then I'll be posting the results of how long it took me to complete each one, along with an average and a final decision on how many "free" days you get to make the beginning of the challenge much more do-able.

    There will be an incoming change to being restricted to your lot. With an open neighborhood, it doesn't always make the most sense and unless you have a popular venue right next door, you can't count on walk bys for socialization. You will be restricted to your own street (within 5 houses in direct line of sight to yours on either side or to the nearest cross walk, which ever is closest), can't go inside other people's homes unless you are friends with them and can only visit their lots between the hours of 7am and 5pm. If they have stuff outside (living in a tent with all their stuff on the lawn), you can interact with the stuff to do things like repair broken items or upgrade them, play chess, paint, even write a novel. But it all has to be done in the time restriction so you have to really watch the clock.

    A note - kids, teens and elders are still restricted to staying ONLY on the lot. The above amendment will apply only to young adults and adults.

    If there is a community lot within the above boundaries, you are allowed to visit it within the time restriction, though your actions there are still under challenge rules.

    God Bless,
    mik
  • Anghara130Anghara130 Posts: 233 New Member
    edited April 2011
    Hi mikitta,

    I don't have your email, and there's no sensible messaging system on here, which seems really daft! You can reach me at anghara13 on gmail.com though, and then I can always mail you back?

    Liking the new changes, particularly limiting the Film careers until other stuff is unlocked. Garrick is now eight days into the challenge, and two promotions in Culinary. He should get a third right fast as he got a dish-washing opportunity last night and cleaned five sets of dishes at home to take back to work today.... sims time that is! That's ok right? As he took the dishes from work to home and then back aagain?
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited April 2011
    yeah, he can wash the dishes :)

    God Bless,
    mik
  • mikitta47mikitta47 Posts: 2,250 New Member
    edited April 2011
    I did another test of the Alternate Education track rules tonight. I'm fairly comfortable with them, but I definitely will allow you to sell paintings in order to make your weekly 'rent' on on your stuff. You simply don't make enough with a part time career at the book store to earn it. BUT you can squeek by the first two weeks by writing books and selling paintings. Think of it like this - the publisher you are selling your memoirs to also contracted with you to illustrate your writing. That is what the paintings are and you are receiving payment for them at the same time as the book is published.

    I would PREFER to be able to include logic somehow, along with the tutoring skill challenges, but since Education is being included as a base game career (even though it wasn't added till Ambitions) that is available at the start of the challenge, it really wasn't something I wanted to bend the rules THAT much to change.

    I think that when I get the scoring system in place, you will be able to get bonuses for each skill challenge someone in your legacy is able to achieve. If you have a single sim that achieves EVERY challenge for a particular skill, you get double bonus points.

    I have one more base game career to test for how long it takes, and that is Criminal Mastermind. I should have it done tomorrow and then I'll post my data along with the general attribute set of the sims that went through it all. I used 3 or 4 different sims, but they all had similar set ups. There is one set up that is advantageous for nearly every career (Slob, Inappropriate, Schmoozer, Workaholic) but even when I made a sim specifically for one of the careers I was testing (made their attributes so they would supposedly have an advantage over the majority test sim), it didn't appreciably change the amount of time it took me to clear that career.

    I will give you this teaser - with the game running as it is SUPPOSED to run (unfortunately having to have mods installed to make it do that), it has taken an average of 39.53 sim days to clear a career to level 10 with beginning restrictions in place. The median time is 38 days so far, and I have little reason to think that the average and median times will change much with the last data point.

    Go figure, I hated math in school, and here I am playing with it like it's some sort of toy. Silly me!

    God Bless,
    mik
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