Possible to move entire family with children into retail lot?

LatinaBunny

One of the biggest disappointments I have with this EP besides lack of eat-in bakeries are the lack of home businesses. In sims2 and a modded sims3, I always do home businesses.
(I do like what I'm playing so far, barring the bugs.)

However, I think I heard there was a way for your sims to "live" at the retail businesses. If that's true, can someone please explain to me how to do that? And, can child-age and teen-age sims "live" there, too? (I'm a family player)

maplehollie

It's not actually living there, unfortunately. It's just never leaving the retail lot and pretending that it's your sims' home, maybe building a little apartment above it or something. They still have to have an actual home lot which you will have to pay bills for.

LatinaBunny

maplehollie wrote: »

It's not actually living there, unfortunately. It's just never leaving the retail lot and pretending that it's your sims' home, maybe building a little apartment above it or something. They still have to have an actual home lot which you will have to pay bills for.

I think I can work with that.

I have a home lot right next door to the business. Is there a way for the rest of the family to come and "stay" at the retail shop?

Also, Do I leave the shop open to do this?

Dannydanbo

Open/close the shop any time just like normal. You can click thumbnails of sims and "bring them here" (I think that's what it's called). However, I'm guessing that kids will return to the "home" lot after school every day. Also, you will have to pay bills by phone.

Cinebar

bunny-🐸🐸🐸🐸 wrote: »

One of the biggest disappointments I have with this EP besides lack of eat-in bakeries are the lack of home businesses. In sims2 and a modded sims3, I always do home businesses.
(I do like what I'm playing so far, barring the bugs.)

However, I think I heard there was a way for your sims to "live" at the retail businesses. If that's true, can someone please explain to me how to do that? And, can child-age and teen-age sims "live" there, too? (I'm a family player)

Yes, you could technically have kids at your store, think of it as a second place for you to go and stay many days (however long you wish) but I have not tried this with babies or when Sim is pregnant. You do not need to stay open but close your business anytime you see fit (YAY) just like in the old OFB. I'm happy the game doesn't dictate hours to us like it did in TS3. (Sandbox!)

Like any other community lot in this game you can queue up the Sims at home to come to your store and they will go upstairs or wherever you build it to sleep, eat, bathroom, fun if you aren't controlling them to work in your store. When my Sims were sleepy they went upstairs to sleep. The only thing I can point out that may be annoying is if you go back home they may forget which bed was their bed at home. But this was easily fixed by reminding them to use their own. It seems this gets them confused.

Not sure about babies because I assume the game would send that crib back to home lot. Or in family inventory since they are actually objects like in the TS1. I may test this with babies later.

One thing to remember is if you have other family in the store lot who need to go to work and or school they may return home to their real home after they get off work or out of school. Easily fixed by just clicking their avi to bring them to the store lot. It's instant, as soon as you click to bring them back.

Let's say you are staying at your store for weeks at a time if you go to a community lot or out etc. your Sim may go to the real home lot 'if' you click on them to 'go home' because the residential lot is their real home. It's just a few little things you have to work around but it's been a lot of fun.

I even stayed on a lot and went with two Sims (different days) in the new careers and if they returned home after work I may have let them do something on real home lot while I (myself) switched back to the store owner.

The great thing about this (please don't change it, EA) is it allows me to stay at either place as long as I like. With my other Sims in household.

I have yet (knock on wood) had a customer enter their private dwellings I built on the lots. I have two stores and no customers entered the areas I was using for 'home life'. Just an employee may go read a book or whatever, if they are low on fun or whatever. It helps to actually click on employee Sims to see how they feel about things or let them go home if they have worked too long.

So, it works out for me as the family runs the business, and it's very useful (don't have to pay them, lol) and they can all be together. You can open and close your shops at anytime (yay) like it should be.


ETA: To make it clear, if you are all at your store and you close it for the day, you can go into your private quarters and stay there forever technically. You pay your home bills by phone.

LatinaBunny

Thank you, @Cinebar! I can definitely work with that. As long as the family can stay on the retail lot (whenever they're not busy at school/work/etc), I'm fine with that arrangement.

I always turn off aging, so I'm not concerned about time passing by, aging, etc.

Quick question: So, the active careers sims go back to their real home, and I can just have them "travel" to the store once they get to their "real" residential homes? (I'm still figuring out how to "travel", lol.)

zensluv

FYI - My Sim is a writer, and he cannot "send to publisher" the books he wrote while on the retail lot, even though I put a mailbox there for him to use. Kind of a bummer he has to travel to his home lot and stick his manuscripts in the mailbox there.

Lonestar

I've not found a way to move babies to the retail lot. Once they are toddler age or older, they can be brought to the lot as suggested above. If you've established a living area for the sims inside the retail lot, (beds bathroom etc.) then you can have each sim claim their particular bed and they will sleep there instead of returning home in most cases. Regarding returning from school or work, the sim will always return back to the "home" lot but it's quick to just bring them to the store lot after they return home.

On an upside, if you have a baby at the "home" lot and you decide to spend some time at the retail lot, it's automatically sent to daycare for the duration of your stay at the retail lot and there is no simolian charge associated with it. Anytime you return back to the home lot, the baby will be returned from daycare. Generally sims are only baby's for apx 3 days, so some back and forth movement between lots is easy enough, then once they reach toddler age, they can be moved to the retail lot and live there with you.

BlueSeaWaves

Lonestar wrote: »

I've not found a way to move babies to the retail lot. Once they are toddler age or older, they can be brought to the lot as suggested above. If you've established a living area for the sims inside the retail lot, (beds bathroom etc.) then you can have each sim claim their particular bed and they will sleep there instead of returning home in most cases. Regarding returning from school or work, the sim will always return back to the "home" lot but it's quick to just bring them to the store lot after they return home.

On an upside, if you have a baby at the "home" lot and you decide to spend some time at the retail lot, it's automatically sent to daycare for the duration of your stay at the retail lot and there is no simolian charge associated with it. Anytime you return back to the home lot, the baby will be returned from daycare. Generally sims are only baby's for apx 3 days, so some back and forth movement between lots is easy enough, then once they reach toddler age, they can be moved to the retail lot and live there with you.

...this is thread from 3 year agos

Lonestar

LOL, well at least what I posted still applies. :D

EA_Leeloo

Hey folks, as was pointed out above, this thread was revived after a long time, and as the info posted before still seems to apply, I'm closing this thread. Cheers!