Teaching teens to drive

siminsc · May 2017

Has anyone figured out why one parent can teach a teen to drive but not the other one? Both the father and the mother has a car.

Kandy · May 2017

Does one have more of a relationship with the teen than the other? If they aren't at least good friends (though best friends would be best), the parent/teen will refuse the action. That's the only reason I've ever had parents reuse to teach a teen to drive, though. If that's not the case, it may be a glitch.

TreyNutz · May 2017

I always set the car to be the preferred vehicle for the teen before trying the interaction. I don't know if that's necessary though. Also, having either parent or teen set to use a hoverboard (from ITF) will prevent them from getting in the car to actually teach/learn how to drive. If that's the case you need to set them both to "not use [the hoverboard] instead of walking" then try the interaction again. I love the hoverboard but this trips me up from time to time.

The relationship is a factor too. I also think it must be good friends or better. If the relationship meets the threshold, any adult can teach a teen to drive. It doesn't have to be a parent.

Mazakeen · May 2017

I am a little off-track with my question. I just wonder, what is the benefits of teaching them to drive? -I always do, though. Just curious. -Is the alternative that they have to pay for classes, and 'nothing else'?

igazor · May 2017

Mazakeen wrote: »

I am a little off-track with my question. I just wonder, what is the benefits of teaching them to drive? -I always do, though. Just curious. -Is the alternative that they have to pay for classes, and 'nothing else'?

1 - It's a bonding experience for the sims and the parents involved.
2 - Both parent and child stand to gain a huge amount of LTR points if the wishes to learn how to drive/child learns how to drive are promised and fulfilled.
3 - If the teen doesn't learn how to drive, then they...uhm, can't drive at all while they are still teens. Even if they own a car. Not until they age up to YA, anyway. The driving class only offers one skill point (in my experience), a total of three are needed to get a driver's license.

It might have been more fun if teens who never learned how to drive aged up to YAs who can't drive either, but then I'm not sure how the inactives could be handled that way. But then I've also long thought that toddlers who never learned how to walk, talk, or go to the potty should be aging up into children, teens, and adults who can't do those things either.

TreyNutz · May 2017

Mazakeen wrote: »

I am a little off-track with my question. I just wonder, what is the benefits of teaching them to drive? -I always do, though. Just curious. -Is the alternative that they have to pay for classes, and 'nothing else'?

I do it for the points. I rarely give teens a car; they usually get a hoverboard, bicycle, or hover scooter. The points are nice and I tend to interpret high value wishes as things sims really want to do.

I have managed to get teens taught how to drive through the driving class alone. But I had to take them traveling to other worlds which had the correct rabbit hole. That requires NRaas Traveler. I think it took 4 classes total.

igazor · May 2017

Usually I find that sims who take a class in a (Traveler) foreign world that they have already taken back home see no impact on their skill levels and all that happens is that their wallets get lighter. But I haven't tried that for a very long time, maybe something changed there, and maybe driving classes are handled differently.

Mazakeen · May 2017

@TreyNutz & @igazor - And here, after so many years, this game still bewilders us. I love it.

TreyNutz · May 2017

igazor wrote: »

Usually I find that sims who take a class in a (Traveler) foreign world that they have already taken back home see no impact on their skill levels and all that happens is that their wallets get lighter. But I haven't tried that for a very long time, maybe something changed there, and maybe driving classes are handled differently.

In general, I think a class gives a sim a certain amount of experience in the skill. With no level in the skill a class is usually enough to get the first point in the skill. At higher levels of skill the experience a class provides is usually not enough to raise see an level increase, at least in my experience. Driving classes seemed to work the same for me. IIRC the teens got a point in driving with their first class, got their 2nd point in driving from the 3rd class, and learned the skill by the 4th (or maybe 5th) class. I don't remember exactly but I don't recall sending them to 5 home worlds. Although, I did move them twice.

igazor · May 2017

TreyNutz wrote: »

In general, I think a class gives a sim a certain amount of experience in the skill. With no level in the skill a class is usually enough to get the first point in the skill. At higher levels of skill the experience a class provides is usually not enough to raise see an level increase, at least in my experience. Driving classes seemed to work the same for me. IIRC the teens got a point in driving with their first class, got their 2nd point in driving from the 3rd class, and learned the skill by the 4th (or maybe 5th) class. I don't remember exactly but I don't recall sending them to 5 home worlds. Although, I did move them twice.

Yes, I realize that. But what I am remembering are sims who have, let's say Level 3 in science (or anything, not driving), are 20% of the way to Level 4, and have already taken the science class at home. If they take the science class again in a world that is foreign to them, they still have Level 3 at 20% of the way through. I would have at least expected them to be at Level 3 and 80% of the way through, or something like that.

But again, this was a very long time ago and maybe it wasn't really meant to work, or rather not work, the way I described.

KevinL5275 · May 2017

I had a teen sim NOT let me pick their 5th trait when they aged up to YA, because they did not learn to drive. I don't know if that was the cause, but they had good grades and no driver's license was the only thing I could think of that would cause that.

Mazakeen · May 2017

@KevinL5275 - Aaaah. -There we go, its propably a hidden extra trait. Awesome pancakes for You!

TreyNutz · May 2017

igazor wrote: »

TreyNutz wrote: »

In general, I think a class gives a sim a certain amount of experience in the skill. With no level in the skill a class is usually enough to get the first point in the skill. At higher levels of skill the experience a class provides is usually not enough to raise see an level increase, at least in my experience. Driving classes seemed to work the same for me. IIRC the teens got a point in driving with their first class, got their 2nd point in driving from the 3rd class, and learned the skill by the 4th (or maybe 5th) class. I don't remember exactly but I don't recall sending them to 5 home worlds. Although, I did move them twice.

Yes, I realize that. But what I am remembering are sims who have, let's say Level 3 in science (or anything, not driving), are 20% of the way to Level 4, and have already taken the science class at home. If they take the science class again in a world that is foreign to them, they still have Level 3 at 20% of the way through. I would have at least expected them to be at Level 3 and 80% of the way through, or something like that.

But again, this was a very long time ago and maybe it wasn't really meant to work, or rather not work, the way I described.

Isn't the driving class from NRaas Careers? Maybe it works differently because it's a modded class? I don't usually send sims to classes in foreign worlds and haven't really checked to see if they got any skill experience from other classes.

I reread my older thread about the driving class on Chatterbox, and while the teens did learn how to drive by the 3rd class, the wish to learn how to drive wasn't fulfilled. I had to add the points manually.

siminsc · May 2017

I wondered what class you were talking about. I had never heard of it before. Thank you for your replies. It must be the friendship level causing it.

Faerie197 · May 2017

igazor wrote: »

Mazakeen wrote: »

I am a little off-track with my question. I just wonder, what is the benefits of teaching them to drive? -I always do, though. Just curious. -Is the alternative that they have to pay for classes, and 'nothing else'?

1 - It's a bonding experience for the sims and the parents involved.
2 - Both parent and child stand to gain a huge amount of LTR points if the wishes to learn how to drive/child learns how to drive are promised and fulfilled.
3 - If the teen doesn't learn how to drive, then they...uhm, can't drive at all while they are still teens. Even if they own a car. Not until they age up to YA, anyway. The driving class only offers one skill point (in my experience), a total of three are needed to get a driver's license.

It might have been more fun if teens who never learned how to drive aged up to YAs who can't drive either, but then I'm not sure how the inactives could be handled that way. But then I've also long thought that toddlers who never learned how to walk, talk, or go to the potty should be aging up into children, teens, and adults who can't do those things either.

They sort of do? If you don't teach the toddler to walk, talk, and go to the potty then when they age up they're very likely to have a bad trait like insane, unstable, or inappropriate. Heaven help you if you neglect the kid enough that they end up with all 3 traits.

KevinL5275 · May 2017

TreyNutz wrote: »

I reread my older thread about the driving class on Chatterbox, and while the teens did learn how to drive by the 3rd class, the wish to learn how to drive wasn't fulfilled. I had to add the points manually.

I saw that happen too in one of my games, where even though the teen could drive and got their license in the mail, they still had the wish to learn to drive and/or the parent still had the wish to teach the teen how to drive.

I've also had wishes to sign the child up for an afterschool program, but the wish is still there even after doing so. I just shrugged it off and removed the wish both times.

igazor · May 2017

Faerie197 wrote: »

igazor wrote: »

Mazakeen wrote: »

I am a little off-track with my question. I just wonder, what is the benefits of teaching them to drive? -I always do, though. Just curious. -Is the alternative that they have to pay for classes, and 'nothing else'?

1 - It's a bonding experience for the sims and the parents involved.
2 - Both parent and child stand to gain a huge amount of LTR points if the wishes to learn how to drive/child learns how to drive are promised and fulfilled.
3 - If the teen doesn't learn how to drive, then they...uhm, can't drive at all while they are still teens. Even if they own a car. Not until they age up to YA, anyway. The driving class only offers one skill point (in my experience), a total of three are needed to get a driver's license.

It might have been more fun if teens who never learned how to drive aged up to YAs who can't drive either, but then I'm not sure how the inactives could be handled that way. But then I've also long thought that toddlers who never learned how to walk, talk, or go to the potty should be aging up into children, teens, and adults who can't do those things either.

They sort of do? If you don't teach the toddler to walk, talk, and go to the potty then when they age up they're very likely to have a bad trait like insane, unstable, or inappropriate. Heaven help you if you neglect the kid enough that they end up with all 3 traits.

Yes, that's true and I understand that the three toddler skills are meant to be representative of toddler development, not meant to produce a generation of mute teens with poor bathroom habits who have to crawl everywhere if they are neglected. Sometimes some of us forget that not everyone uses mods to manage sims' traits as they grow older, so the benefit of something that can be reached with a couple of clicks through MasterController can easily get lost in the noise surrounding birthdays.

JoAnne65 · May 2017

Changing traits without mods is as easy as pie too (testingcheats)

Faerie197 · May 2017

From my experience, if you don't teach a toddler to go potty, then later on they don't do so without you ordering it very often. Had a kid who was wetting their pants up through adult hood before cause a single parent didn't have time for such things like teaching the kid to use a toilet, and the baby sitter was neglectful.

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Teaching teens to drive

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