Inactive Sims Gaining Skill

AnakinCrywalker731

So I like to earn skills for my sims as I'M playing. I don't like how inactive families will get random skills while I'm playing on someone else. It makes me feel a little cheaty, like I didn't have to do some of the work cause the game just randomly decided to do it for me. Does anyone know of a way around this?

igazor

If not averse to using mods, NRaas StoryProgression can be leveraged to control elements of progression including skill building on the subset of the town you are playing rotationally, or all of it if you are playing every household in the world, when they are not actively controlled.
http://www.nraas.net/community/Story-Progression-Rotational-Caste-Settings

AwesomeMod has different ways to control what inactives are allowed to do and progress through, though it's not as customizable and I'm not sure how effective it is on skill gaining.

I don't think there is any other way to control what happens or cannot happen to inactives while they are not being played even if EA's built-in story progression is switched off, but without mods that would really be the only action to try. It should be noted that if career progression is allowed one way or another, in some cases sims will have to gain career-related skills whether actively or passively along with the job promotions or else they will not meet the requirements for the new job levels.

mw1525

@igazor - Please tell me if I'm I understanding this correctly. Are you saying with SP the inactive Sims can be kept from learning? If so, what happens if one is in the park playing chess? Does the logic skill not register as building? If this is so, how is the town, as a whole, expected to advance?

Goulsquash

mw1525 wrote: »

@igazor - Please tell me if I'm I understanding this correctly. Are you saying with SP the inactive Sims can be kept from learning? If so, what happens if one is in the park playing chess? Does the logic skill not register as building? If this is so, how is the town, as a whole, expected to advance?

Only if you turn the option off. This is more for people who play rotationally, so their town progresses as a whole regardless because they're playing every family.

I only play one family per save, so I have the option on for non-active skilling. Everyone gains skills, chess or no chess.

igazor

The SP setting to disallow skill gains same as career level gains so many other things can be set by the player at the individual sim level, on households, castes (such as Not Active or a player's custom Rotational protection caste), or on the entire town as the player wishes. What happens when a sim who has skill gains disallowed plays chess, for example, and is currently let's say at Level 4 for both the Logic and the hidden Chess skill, is that they will advance through Level 4 to its top but the mod will not allow them to reach Level 5.

The point of this, in the context of the OP, is that I might only want Susie Sim to get to Level 5 in a skill if I am the one playing her so that she (and I) have to earn that kind of advancement with active gameplay. We can make an exception for Gardening again through the mod options so that sims's gardens do not totally fall apart and crops get harvested while we are off playing another household if we wish, but that's a special case because many of us regard tending the garden or farm as a required routine activity, not one strictly meant for skill building.

I agree that I wouldn't want to disallow skilling on the entire town while they were aging unless it was my intent to play all of its sims at some point so they do get a chance to progress one way or another.

mw1525

@Goulsquash & @igazor - Thank you for the explanations.