Ah, interesting observation. I have one sim who puts the dishes down every time I ask him to clean them. So I get his room mate to do it, and he could. So, that's one of my sims who will never learn. Can't say if it's about the furniture in my case, since it's in the same house.
I noticed that about the islands and chairs. The don't even seem to like to sit at the islands. So I just bought them a dining table.
These chairs all cause trouble. Only the neatest of the neatest will clean a table with these chairs. Even then, it can be challenging, particularly with the first and second ones:
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
When you say "islands", do you mean a fully separated kitchen island with barstools on all sides? Or just a counter with an overhang with stools on just one side (and maybe the ends)? I ask because I haven't had any problem with Sims sitting at the counter. Both the Budget and Experimental houses had counters (see pics earlier in thread) and every one of them was occupied at one point or another. As a side note, every one of the plac settings had a dirty garbage stinkin' dish on it toward week's end.
I don't think I've ever made a completely surrounded counter with seating on all sides. I'll give it a go in the next test.
The "next test" is the training test. It'll be a comfortable, mid-range home. I don't think there will be more than 4 Sims, because I don't think I could bear to train more than that .
Ahhh @Kremesch73, I've never used any of those chairs. I tend toward more contemporary homes and none of those chairs fit the decor. That's could be why I haven't encountered the issue to which you're referring.
When you say "islands", do you mean a fully separated kitchen island with barstools on all sides? Or just a counter with an overhang with stools on just one side (and maybe the ends)? I ask because I haven't had any problem with Sims sitting at the counter. Both the Budget and Experimental houses had counters (see pics earlier in thread) and every one of them was occupied at one point or another. As a side note, every one of the plac settings had a dirty garbage stinkin' dish on it toward week's end.
I don't think I've ever made a completely surrounded counter with seating on all sides. I'll give it a go in the next test.
The "next test" is the training test. It'll be a comfortable, mid-range home. I don't think there will be more than 4 Sims, because I don't think I could bear to train more than that .
Lol. I'm beginning to think I should just leave my game open for a while. I can't count the number of times I've opened it today for screenshots.
My most troublesome islands, chairs, and layout is this one (mind the mess. It's been a while since I played it):
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
Well, I've learned that, chances are, if left to their own devices, Sims probably won't die, even in a modest home. I even had fires in both homes, but I had sprinklers and alarms, so even though it made things ugly, no long-term harm came to the Sims themselves. That's good news.
For me, the biggest surprise was that several Sims autonomously picked up Logic. On their own initiative, they sat at the Chess table. My biggest disappointment was how many times they were Uncomfortable. It was even worse than I was anticipating. The Happy to Uncomfortable ration is way off, in my opinion. It makes ME uncomfortable and it's one of the main reasons I stay away from multi-Sim households.
I don't necessarily want them to be deliriously giddy all the time, but I wish they'd be more proactive in avoiding Uncomfortable. I also wish they could call a repair person -- it's not right that the only one who can do repairs is the active Sim.
Questions? Comments?
I think the reason why they were always uncomfortable is because there's 3 neat sims. I have one neat sim and he's always uncomfortable even if there's only one dirty dish laying around. Perhaps if the house had more decorations, they might get a happy moodlet that could push the uncomfortable moodlet aside.
Forgive the OT nature of this post but what were you laughing at DeKay? I love your reaction!
I am a perfectly decrepit withered old hag who enjoys self-mockery.
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Place the Autonomy Crew in a moderate house. Not quite as nice as the Experimental House, but not as bare-bones as the Budget House. Make sure a few of them have Cooking but do NOT have them stock the refrigerator. Place some Happiness decor around to, perhaps, counteract some of the Uncomfortable. I'll also make a stools-on-all-sides kitchen island, to see how they react to it. I'll still let them run pretty much on their own.
This will not be the training test. I don't want to use the whole Crew for training because, well, that's too many for me to micro-manage, and for me, training = micro-manage. So, the training test will be done at a different time.
Place the Autonomy Crew in a moderate house. Not quite as nice as the Experimental House, but not as bare-bones as the Budget House. Make sure a few of them have Cooking but do NOT have them stock the refrigerator. Place some Happiness decor around to, perhaps, counteract some of the Uncomfortable. I'll also make a stools-on-all-sides kitchen island, to see how they react to it. I'll still let them run pretty much on their own.
This will not be the training test. I don't want to use the whole Crew for training because, well, that's too many for me to micro-manage, and for me, training = micro-manage. So, the training test will be done at a different time.
Skip the decor. I want to see how they live without influence
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
Well, I've learned that, chances are, if left to their own devices, Sims probably won't die, even in a modest home. I even had fires in both homes, but I had sprinklers and alarms, so even though it made things ugly, no long-term harm came to the Sims themselves. That's good news.
For me, the biggest surprise was that several Sims autonomously picked up Logic. On their own initiative, they sat at the Chess table. My biggest disappointment was how many times they were Uncomfortable. It was even worse than I was anticipating. The Happy to Uncomfortable ration is way off, in my opinion. It makes ME uncomfortable and it's one of the main reasons I stay away from multi-Sim households.
I don't necessarily want them to be deliriously giddy all the time, but I wish they'd be more proactive in avoiding Uncomfortable. I also wish they could call a repair person -- it's not right that the only one who can do repairs is the active Sim.
Questions? Comments?
I think the reason why they were always uncomfortable is because there's 3 neat sims. I have one neat sim and he's always uncomfortable even if there's only one dirty dish laying around. Perhaps if the house had more decorations, they might get a happy moodlet that could push the uncomfortable moodlet aside.
Forgive the OT nature of this post but what were you laughing at DeKay? I love your reaction!
That's not me in the gif. He was laughing at his friend making a face off-camera, I think.
Ah, interesting observation. I have one sim who puts the dishes down every time I ask him to clean them. So I get his room mate to do it, and he could. So, that's one of my sims who will never learn. Can't say if it's about the furniture in my case, since it's in the same house.
I noticed that about the islands and chairs. The don't even seem to like to sit at the islands. So I just bought them a dining table.
These chairs all cause trouble. Only the neatest of the neatest will clean a table with these chairs. Even then, it can be challenging, particularly with the first and second ones:
Those chairs are such high quality that the sims must be thinking of themself as royal - now get the maid in!
> @kremesch73 said: > DeKay wrote: » > > I thought I was the only one who trains my sims hoping that it will work. XD Needless to say, some of them still never learn. LOL. > > > > > Lol. Yeah. This game has turned into a 'train-your-sims' game. There are things they won't do, but I've also noticed sometimes they don't do things because of certain types of furniture. For example, everyone will happily clean the dirty dishes from the table when cheap furniture is in place, but try placing expensive dining chairs at that table. Do you find they are more inclined to pick the plate up and put it back down? Or to completely ignore your command altogether?
Hmm, I've only really had the pick up the dirty dishes, put it down, stand up, ignore it issue since the June 11 patch... Seems to happen with all kinds of dining room chairs but only sometimes, even when you're ordering them to clean up. It's annoying though.
> @kremesch73 said:
> DeKay wrote: »
>
> I thought I was the only one who trains my sims hoping that it will work. XD Needless to say, some of them still never learn. LOL.
>
>
>
>
> Lol. Yeah. This game has turned into a 'train-your-sims' game. There are things they won't do, but I've also noticed sometimes they don't do things because of certain types of furniture. For example, everyone will happily clean the dirty dishes from the table when cheap furniture is in place, but try placing expensive dining chairs at that table. Do you find they are more inclined to pick the plate up and put it back down? Or to completely ignore your command altogether?
Hmm, I've only really had the pick up the dirty dishes, put it down, stand up, ignore it issue since the June 11 patch... Seems to happen with all kinds of dining room chairs but only sometimes, even when you're ordering them to clean up. It's annoying though.
Usually when that happens for all my sims, I just exit the game and come back and it seems to fix the issue.
Thank you for sharing, this was really interesting! To me it was surprising they wouldn't clean, because in my boarding school they clean about daily on their own iniative. But now that training and habits have been mentioned, I think it must be because of that. I'm amazed how well your test sims did at work!
Thanks! I was surprised by that, too, given that I don't think ANYONE was in the proper mood when they went off to work (I'm willing to bet, they were all Uncomfortable ). And no one ever did the Daily Requirements. Makes me wonder if those things really, truly matter.
Oh they matter a lot. I am surprised that they got any promotions at all, but still 3 and 6 out of 8 people getting a promotion in a week is not impressive at all. My sims created as young adults, who always go to work with the daily task, and most of the time do it in the correct emotion, will all get their first promotion (the easiest one to get) after 1 work day. After a week, they will on average have received 3 promotions. So that would be 24 promotions for 8 sims, versus your 6 and 3... trust me, daily task and emotion count for a lot.
Ah, interesting observation. I have one sim who puts the dishes down every time I ask him to clean them. So I get his room mate to do it, and he could. So, that's one of my sims who will never learn. Can't say if it's about the furniture in my case, since it's in the same house.
I noticed that about the islands and chairs. The don't even seem to like to sit at the islands. So I just bought them a dining table.
These chairs all cause trouble. Only the neatest of the neatest will clean a table with these chairs. Even then, it can be challenging, particularly with the first and second ones:
Since I play with autonomy off, I don't see as many issues as those who do I guess, but there are still a lot of things my sims try to do on their own. I never instruct them to clean plates, I always drag them, and cancel the action when they try to do it on their own, and still as elders, many of them keep trying to do it, and not just the neat ones. I wish they would learn NOT to do it
My biggest issue with chairs is that as soon as I add outdoor furniture (any of the base game ones), my kitchen and dining rooms are abandoned, and all food and homework is taken outside - and they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all. It would make sense if it was sims with the "loves outdoors" trait, but sadly it isn't. The outdoor furniture doesn't have a higher comfort level than the indoors either, so I have no idea what the reason may be.
Ah, interesting observation. I have one sim who puts the dishes down every time I ask him to clean them. So I get his room mate to do it, and he could. So, that's one of my sims who will never learn. Can't say if it's about the furniture in my case, since it's in the same house.
I noticed that about the islands and chairs. The don't even seem to like to sit at the islands. So I just bought them a dining table.
These chairs all cause trouble. Only the neatest of the neatest will clean a table with these chairs. Even then, it can be challenging, particularly with the first and second ones:
Since I play with autonomy off, I don't see as many issues as those who do I guess, but there are still a lot of things my sims try to do on their own. I never instruct them to clean plates, I always drag them, and cancel the action when they try to do it on their own, and still as elders, many of them keep trying to do it, and not just the neat ones. I wish they would learn NOT to do it
My biggest issue with chairs is that as soon as I add outdoor furniture (any of the base game ones), my kitchen and dining rooms are abandoned, and all food and homework is taken outside - and they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all. It would make sense if it was sims with the "loves outdoors" trait, but sadly it isn't. The outdoor furniture doesn't have a higher comfort level than the indoors either, so I have no idea what the reason may be.
1. It could be there are other sims outside that they want to talk to. My sim can go from the kitchen all the way to the bedroom just to talk to his room mate who just woke up. And now they can sit on beds too.
2. Could also be that the outdoor furniture is nearer to the fridge or stove (wherever they got their meal from).
Ah, interesting observation. I have one sim who puts the dishes down every time I ask him to clean them. So I get his room mate to do it, and he could. So, that's one of my sims who will never learn. Can't say if it's about the furniture in my case, since it's in the same house.
I noticed that about the islands and chairs. The don't even seem to like to sit at the islands. So I just bought them a dining table.
These chairs all cause trouble. Only the neatest of the neatest will clean a table with these chairs. Even then, it can be challenging, particularly with the first and second ones:
Since I play with autonomy off, I don't see as many issues as those who do I guess, but there are still a lot of things my sims try to do on their own. I never instruct them to clean plates, I always drag them, and cancel the action when they try to do it on their own, and still as elders, many of them keep trying to do it, and not just the neat ones. I wish they would learn NOT to do it
My biggest issue with chairs is that as soon as I add outdoor furniture (any of the base game ones), my kitchen and dining rooms are abandoned, and all food and homework is taken outside - and they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all. It would make sense if it was sims with the "loves outdoors" trait, but sadly it isn't. The outdoor furniture doesn't have a higher comfort level than the indoors either, so I have no idea what the reason may be.
1. It could be there are other sims outside that they want to talk to. My sim can go from the kitchen all the way to the bedroom just to talk to his room mate who just woke up. And now they can sit on beds too.
2. Could also be that the outdoor furniture is nearer to the fridge or stove (wherever they got their meal from).
1. Noone is home when the kids come home from school, and the first kid will always choose to go through the house and to the back garden to do homework. The rest going the same place, I realise might be to join the first one.
If it is because of people in the public areas, it still doesn't make sense, as the first thing I do when I switch households at 6 am, is to instruct the children to do their homework (again - the daily tasks get reset when you rotate). At 6 am, there are no people in public spaces when loading a new lot.
They always have a preferred spot to do homework, and as soon as I add outdoor furniture, that becomes the new preferred spot. Just realised, they might just prefer the most recent purchase, so I will have to try and see if buying new kitchen/dining room furniture will change it back.
2. No, I ramble, but when I said "they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all", I meant the outdoor chairs are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all, and they pick their food up in the kitchen.
Ah, interesting observation. I have one sim who puts the dishes down every time I ask him to clean them. So I get his room mate to do it, and he could. So, that's one of my sims who will never learn. Can't say if it's about the furniture in my case, since it's in the same house.
I noticed that about the islands and chairs. The don't even seem to like to sit at the islands. So I just bought them a dining table.
These chairs all cause trouble. Only the neatest of the neatest will clean a table with these chairs. Even then, it can be challenging, particularly with the first and second ones:
Since I play with autonomy off, I don't see as many issues as those who do I guess, but there are still a lot of things my sims try to do on their own. I never instruct them to clean plates, I always drag them, and cancel the action when they try to do it on their own, and still as elders, many of them keep trying to do it, and not just the neat ones. I wish they would learn NOT to do it
My biggest issue with chairs is that as soon as I add outdoor furniture (any of the base game ones), my kitchen and dining rooms are abandoned, and all food and homework is taken outside - and they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all. It would make sense if it was sims with the "loves outdoors" trait, but sadly it isn't. The outdoor furniture doesn't have a higher comfort level than the indoors either, so I have no idea what the reason may be.
1. It could be there are other sims outside that they want to talk to. My sim can go from the kitchen all the way to the bedroom just to talk to his room mate who just woke up. And now they can sit on beds too.
2. Could also be that the outdoor furniture is nearer to the fridge or stove (wherever they got their meal from).
1. Noone is home when the kids come home from school, and the first kid will always choose to go through the house and to the back garden to do homework. The rest going the same place, I realise might be to join the first one.
If it is because of people in the public areas, it still doesn't make sense, as the first thing I do when I switch households at 6 am, is to instruct the children to do their homework (again - the daily tasks get reset when you rotate). At 6 am, there are no people in public spaces when loading a new lot.
They always have a preferred spot to do homework, and as soon as I add outdoor furniture, that becomes the new preferred spot. Just realised, they might just prefer the most recent purchase, so I will have to try and see if buying new kitchen/dining room furniture will change it back.
2. No, I ramble, but when I said "they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all", I meant the outdoor chairs are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all, and they pick their food up in the kitchen.
Ah, I see then. Hmm, could be the date of the purchase, I guess. XD Hard for me to say about kids in this game cuz I don't play with them. All I know is sometimes they like to leave their homework in public places and there's no way for me to delete the books. LOL.
Great thread, the experiments are really insightful. Please post more details and stats. A theory I've heard is that traits don't matter at all when it comes to autonomy. Hopefully we will be able to get a better idea if this theory is true or not.
I had one who did nothing but run the the home bar and mix herself drinks. All. Day. Long. On the positive side, she max'd the Achievement for 100 Drinks in virtually no time .
I had another who spent virtually all her time in the home gym. The muscle-bound brute look didn't suit her at all.
I wish they would y'know, paint paintings or write bestsellers or fulfill their work/school requirements.
I have auto sims that do paint on their own, but you need at least 2 paint boards, and keep them cleared, I have kids that auto do school work. and yes I have some that spend way to much time in the gym, and if I keep the cupcake thing empty of cupcakes on the cupcake maker, they will auto make those as well. I had one sim auto cook full meals every time she got hungry, which kept others in the house with foods to eat. I have one that auto does the garden as well, which actually is pretty sweet. So they do things other than sit around all day and goof off. Sure its not a perfect system, but I think auto to do writing, would be cool or to take pictures of things others are doing. The one I hate the most is the sims that run off to visit the graves of deceased ones and are sad forever, now that part of auto doings I dislike the most.
They are not all that smart to start out with, but I found the more they know of all things the more they do on their own, making it easier to manage larger households.
Great thread, the experiments are really insightful. Please post more details and stats. A theory I've heard is that traits don't matter at all when it comes to autonomy. Hopefully we will be able to get a better idea if this theory is true or not.
Thanks, @azxcvbnm321! Glad you're finding it useful. I'm learning a lot. I'm working on setting up another test now. I haven't quite figured out how it will be structured, though. I've pretty much finished the house itself. Now I just need to figure out how I want to work with the Crew.
Those chairs are such high quality that the sims must be thinking of themself as royal - now get the maid in!
I was just waiting for someone to say that. *butterfly caught*
Sorry if I'm that obvious
One interesting autonomy/habits observation I did today:
I have this musician sim who I have taken to community lots few times and have her play her own guitar there. She has the guitar in her inventory. Today while playing another household on a community lot she was there too and I almost dropped my eyes as I saw her take out her own guitar and perform a song! I also have teenager who I got really into painting, he keeps starting painting on his own. The first sim has music lover trait and the second sim has creative trait btw.
I had one who did nothing but run the the home bar and mix herself drinks. All. Day. Long. On the positive side, she max'd the Achievement for 100 Drinks in virtually no time .
I had another who spent virtually all her time in the home gym. The muscle-bound brute look didn't suit her at all.
I wish they would y'know, paint paintings or write bestsellers or fulfill their work/school requirements.
I have auto sims that do paint on their own, but you need at least 2 paint boards, and keep them cleared, I have kids that auto do school work. and yes I have some that spend way to much time in the gym, and if I keep the cupcake thing empty of cupcakes on the cupcake maker, they will auto make those as well. I had one sim auto cook full meals every time she got hungry, which kept others in the house with foods to eat. I have one that auto does the garden as well, which actually is pretty sweet. So they do things other than sit around all day and goof off. Sure its not a perfect system, but I think auto to do writing, would be cool or to take pictures of things others are doing. The one I hate the most is the sims that run off to visit the graves of deceased ones and are sad forever, now that part of auto doings I dislike the most.
They are not all that smart to start out with, but I found the more they know of all things the more they do on their own, making it easier to manage larger households.
I'm another one who's coming to the conclusion that Sims MUST have some training in order to make good use of autonomy. My Sim who ran to the bar all day had level 10 in Mixology AND I had directed her to mix drinks a lot during her lifetime. Thing is, she had 19 other skills at level 10 as well (she was part of a Challenge that required intensive skilling). Why she chose Mixology to do on her own, I don't know. The one who did the gym all day was also very skilled -- I think she had at least 14-15 skills maxed (same Challenge). But apparently, her favorite was Fitness.
As for painting, the Experimental House had a total of 12 easels. They were all clear for the entire duration of the test because none of them was ever used. By the same token, none of the Autonomy Crew had painting over level 1 and they only got that because I directed a few of them to paint.
I haven't played many children or teens, but I can't recall having one who voluntarily did homework . Realism! .
As you said, "...They are not all that smart to start out with...". Ain't that the truth! I'm not too sure they're all that smart even with loads of training!
Those chairs are such high quality that the sims must be thinking of themself as royal - now get the maid in!
I was just waiting for someone to say that. *butterfly caught*
Sorry if I'm that obvious
One interesting autonomy/habits observation I did today:
I have this musician sim who I have taken to community lots few times and have her play her own guitar there. She has the guitar in her inventory. Today while playing another household on a community lot she was there too and I almost dropped my eyes as I saw her take out her own guitar and perform a song! I also have teenager who I just really got into painting, he keeps starting painting on his own. The first sim has music lover trait and the second sim has creative trait btw.
Those chairs are such high quality that the sims must be thinking of themself as royal - now get the maid in!
I was just waiting for someone to say that. *butterfly caught*
Sorry if I'm that obvious
One interesting autonomy/habits observation I did today:
I have this musician sim who I have taken to community lots few times and have her play her own guitar there. She has the guitar in her inventory. Today while playing another household on a community lot she was there too and I almost dropped my eyes as I saw her take out her own guitar and perform a song! I also have teenager who I got really into painting, he keeps starting painting on his own. The first sim has music lover trait and the second sim has creative trait btw.
the inspiration bufff traits help a lot to push sims to paint or to play instruments.
i also had some sims playing guitar as long i give then music love and creative traits and don't have many others type of creative objects.
@SimPoseyYum besides the bar another good object which make sims use like crazy is the clay, put a clay in the house and have a sim with "creative" trait or traits which lead to inspired and you see then play all the day which it.
for what i noticed some traits have effect over sim but that are the "emotions related" others non emotion traits are much less take in account for the autonomous, like evil or means or hate childs which are basically almost none influnce in the sims autonomous, also some others positives, the really important traits are the ones related to emotions and buff that traits are the ones which work best on sims personality and autonomous.
Comments
These chairs all cause trouble. Only the neatest of the neatest will clean a table with these chairs. Even then, it can be challenging, particularly with the first and second ones:
I don't think I've ever made a completely surrounded counter with seating on all sides. I'll give it a go in the next test.
The "next test" is the training test. It'll be a comfortable, mid-range home. I don't think there will be more than 4 Sims, because I don't think I could bear to train more than that
Lol. I'm beginning to think I should just leave my game open for a while. I can't count the number of times I've opened it today for screenshots.
My most troublesome islands, chairs, and layout is this one (mind the mess. It's been a while since I played it):
Forgive the OT nature of this post but what were you laughing at DeKay? I love your reaction!
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Place the Autonomy Crew in a moderate house. Not quite as nice as the Experimental House, but not as bare-bones as the Budget House. Make sure a few of them have Cooking but do NOT have them stock the refrigerator. Place some Happiness decor around to, perhaps, counteract some of the Uncomfortable. I'll also make a stools-on-all-sides kitchen island, to see how they react to it. I'll still let them run pretty much on their own.
This will not be the training test. I don't want to use the whole Crew for training because, well, that's too many for me to micro-manage, and for me, training = micro-manage. So, the training test will be done at a different time.
Skip the decor. I want to see how they live without influence
That's not me in the gif.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
I was just waiting for someone to say that. *butterfly caught*
> DeKay wrote: »
>
> I thought I was the only one who trains my sims hoping that it will work. XD Needless to say, some of them still never learn. LOL.
>
>
>
>
> Lol. Yeah. This game has turned into a 'train-your-sims' game. There are things they won't do, but I've also noticed sometimes they don't do things because of certain types of furniture. For example, everyone will happily clean the dirty dishes from the table when cheap furniture is in place, but try placing expensive dining chairs at that table. Do you find they are more inclined to pick the plate up and put it back down? Or to completely ignore your command altogether?
Hmm, I've only really had the pick up the dirty dishes, put it down, stand up, ignore it issue since the June 11 patch... Seems to happen with all kinds of dining room chairs but only sometimes, even when you're ordering them to clean up. It's annoying though.
Usually when that happens for all my sims, I just exit the game and come back and it seems to fix the issue.
Oh they matter a lot. I am surprised that they got any promotions at all, but still 3 and 6 out of 8 people getting a promotion in a week is not impressive at all. My sims created as young adults, who always go to work with the daily task, and most of the time do it in the correct emotion, will all get their first promotion (the easiest one to get) after 1 work day. After a week, they will on average have received 3 promotions. So that would be 24 promotions for 8 sims, versus your 6 and 3... trust me, daily task and emotion count for a lot.
Since I play with autonomy off, I don't see as many issues as those who do I guess, but there are still a lot of things my sims try to do on their own. I never instruct them to clean plates, I always drag them, and cancel the action when they try to do it on their own, and still as elders, many of them keep trying to do it, and not just the neat ones. I wish they would learn NOT to do it
My biggest issue with chairs is that as soon as I add outdoor furniture (any of the base game ones), my kitchen and dining rooms are abandoned, and all food and homework is taken outside - and they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all. It would make sense if it was sims with the "loves outdoors" trait, but sadly it isn't. The outdoor furniture doesn't have a higher comfort level than the indoors either, so I have no idea what the reason may be.
1. It could be there are other sims outside that they want to talk to. My sim can go from the kitchen all the way to the bedroom just to talk to his room mate who just woke up. And now they can sit on beds too.
2. Could also be that the outdoor furniture is nearer to the fridge or stove (wherever they got their meal from).
1. Noone is home when the kids come home from school, and the first kid will always choose to go through the house and to the back garden to do homework. The rest going the same place, I realise might be to join the first one.
If it is because of people in the public areas, it still doesn't make sense, as the first thing I do when I switch households at 6 am, is to instruct the children to do their homework (again - the daily tasks get reset when you rotate). At 6 am, there are no people in public spaces when loading a new lot.
They always have a preferred spot to do homework, and as soon as I add outdoor furniture, that becomes the new preferred spot. Just realised, they might just prefer the most recent purchase, so I will have to try and see if buying new kitchen/dining room furniture will change it back.
2. No, I ramble, but when I said "they are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all", I meant the outdoor chairs are rarely anywhere near the kitchen at all, and they pick their food up in the kitchen.
Ah, I see then. Hmm, could be the date of the purchase, I guess. XD Hard for me to say about kids in this game cuz I don't play with them. All I know is sometimes they like to leave their homework in public places and there's no way for me to delete the books. LOL.
I have auto sims that do paint on their own, but you need at least 2 paint boards, and keep them cleared, I have kids that auto do school work. and yes I have some that spend way to much time in the gym, and if I keep the cupcake thing empty of cupcakes on the cupcake maker, they will auto make those as well. I had one sim auto cook full meals every time she got hungry, which kept others in the house with foods to eat. I have one that auto does the garden as well, which actually is pretty sweet. So they do things other than sit around all day and goof off. Sure its not a perfect system, but I think auto to do writing, would be cool or to take pictures of things others are doing. The one I hate the most is the sims that run off to visit the graves of deceased ones and are sad forever, now that part of auto doings I dislike the most.
They are not all that smart to start out with, but I found the more they know of all things the more they do on their own, making it easier to manage larger households.
One interesting autonomy/habits observation I did today:
I have this musician sim who I have taken to community lots few times and have her play her own guitar there. She has the guitar in her inventory. Today while playing another household on a community lot she was there too and I almost dropped my eyes as I saw her take out her own guitar and perform a song! I also have teenager who I got really into painting, he keeps starting painting on his own. The first sim has music lover trait and the second sim has creative trait btw.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
As for painting, the Experimental House had a total of 12 easels. They were all clear for the entire duration of the test because none of them was ever used. By the same token, none of the Autonomy Crew had painting over level 1 and they only got that because I directed a few of them to paint.
I haven't played many children or teens, but I can't recall having one who voluntarily did homework
As you said, "...They are not all that smart to start out with...". Ain't that the truth! I'm not too sure they're all that smart even with loads of training!
i also had some sims playing guitar as long i give then music love and creative traits and don't have many others type of creative objects.
@SimPoseyYum besides the bar another good object which make sims use like crazy is the clay, put a clay in the house and have a sim with "creative" trait or traits which lead to inspired and you see then play all the day which it.
for what i noticed some traits have effect over sim but that are the "emotions related" others non emotion traits are much less take in account for the autonomous, like evil or means or hate childs which are basically almost none influnce in the sims autonomous, also some others positives, the really important traits are the ones related to emotions and buff that traits are the ones which work best on sims personality and autonomous.