Question about NRaas rotational play and college

Rhiannon58 · July 2020

So I've been loving being able to play rotationally with NRaas. In my first neighborhood like this, the first round of kids are the age to go to college. In TS2, I sent the kids off one at a time to the same college and when I had 8 kids all in the same dorm, played them all through together. I know TS3 is a bit different but is it possible to do that? Get them all in the same dorm? I do understand I'll have to check the university in and out of the rotation but will that work for me the way I'm thinking?

Turjan · July 2020

It's even easier than what you describe (note that I don't know any specifics about TS2 though). Use the Traveler mod and change the settings to allow taking friends etc. with you on travel. University uses the travel mechanics, which means you can select any friends of the sim that initiates the university stay with you in one group during the enrollment process, and they will form a temporary household at university. All share the initiating family's inventory. When your one or two weeks are up and you travel home, sims that aren't in your household will go home with you and then proceed further to their own homes from in front of your house by themselves.

You may want to have everyone who goes to university take their aptitude tests before they leave, mostly not because of the money (as an aside, all monetary expenses are paid by the initiating household!), but because you probably want those credits towards the degree. Those "expire" after two days (or was it three?), so you have to switch households around a few times within a short period to achieve that.

I have already done this many times. I haven't stayed at a dorm yet (a couple of times at the frat house though), but that's next, because my next group will be 8 people, though only from two households. This should mean that we have the whole dorm for ourselves - if it works.

Rhiannon58 · July 2020

Is the traveler mod separate from NRaas? You'll have to forgive me. I've been an anti-mod person for 30 years. I finally broke down and got NRaas so I could play rotationally and that's all I use it for.

Turjan · July 2020

Well, there are dozens of NRaas mods, and the Traveler mod is one of them. I wouldn't travel without it - the game is much too glitchy.

Rhiannon58 · July 2020

Thank you. I'll read up on it on how to use it. I have 6 families with 6 kids ready to go to college. I'm not sure they are all friends and can travel together but it shouldn't be hard to get them to be friends. I understand you haven't played TS2 university but I had it down to an art. 6-8 in college at the same time, power them through (because I didn't really like playing University) and off to new lives with extra wishes and career choices. Today will be my first time with TS3 to have kids in college. New adventures!

PS: thanks for the aptitude test tip. I had one kid take it and failed miserably. He's working on his skills now to retake and so all my kids are now working on skills. Didn't know I needed to do that.

Turjan · July 2020

Yes, they should have a few skills. Traits also help.

If it's really the first time you go to university, I'll just add to what I wrote about the money side of things. If you have a family that can afford to pay tuition for all students before they go, the stipends aren't really that important. You need 18 credits to get through university in a single visit (technically 12, but you won't get those on a first visit, so 18 gives you a free failed exam), so those are nice to have. However, as soon as you arrive at university, each of your students can apply for additional funding, and they will get 2500 simoleons each on the first day (that's 20,000 up front for a group of 8 on the day you arrive). You can apply for new funds every 25 hours (you have to wait 24 hours between asking for money, and the process takes about an hour), which won't always be feasible, but you can see that you can get tons of money at university, if you just ask for it. However, the amount isn't fixed, but depends on how your students perform. 2500 is the center point, and everything above that qualifies for funding, up to 5000 simoleons every time you ask with full grades, which should be achievable by the second week (well, nearly, as your performance will already decrease while you walk to the admin building, except on the weekend, where performance is frozen).

So, unlike in real life, going to university doesn't end in student debt, but already starts the road to riches by itself.

igazor · July 2020

I'm going to add a further suggestion here, if I may. If this is the first time you will have played TS3 Uni World, you may find it a bit overwhelming to get used to things like class schedules, practice sessions vs. lectures, and what your sims need to do to maintain a high grade point average through to final exams if you are playing a temporary Traveler household of 6-8 sims. That's actually quite a lot of plates to keep spinning in the air (so to speak) even for many of us who are used to it. It might be a bit boring by comparison, but for the first go round you may want to send only 1 or 2 sims for a one-week term so you can see what to expect and how to better plan for the larger crowd.

Although it should also be noted that the sims originating from the other households do not need to be controllable/actively played while at Uni World. I just wouldn't expect very high grades out of them if you choose to leave them as unselectable travel companions.

Rhiannon58 · July 2020

So play it as original or play the with Traveler mod? And great idea, BTW. Thank you!

igazor · July 2020

Oh, like @Turjan I would never even think of having my sims leave their homeworld without Traveler (together with ErrorTrap and Overwatch) in play. Even if you don't need any of the mod's adjustable features yet, far too many things can go wrong with the travel transitions without it.

With Traveler installed, there is no original way. Any travel transition to another world, so that includes the one that happens after the usual Uni registration procedure, is handled by the mod automatically.

Turjan · July 2020

Igazor makes some important points. Having Traveler+Overwatch+ErrorTrap in play is something I take for granted. I've seen how the game runs without those, and it isn't pretty.

My idea to take 8 sims to university at once is still something that's more of an experiment than anything else. I have a few competent witches in the team who can take care of repairs and cleaning in one fell swoop. I use Nonamena's super hampers in all houses of the university world with washing machines to have the world run smoothly. All my students who aren't witches get apples in their inventory as snacks and use the MultiTab 6000 to keep their fun meters up during the breaks. Oh, and you will see how much sims can get done when they get automatically woken at 6 am and have 8 am classes. Good luck with that. And thanks for shower woohoo, even for purely practical reasons. Still, my comfort zone ends around 4 sims, and that's the number I usually take to the house I usually rent.

Not sure whether it's even possible to keep up with a full schedule with relatively untrained sims. In the beginning, I used 2 classes per day to make this more managable (one class is, ironically, counterproductive, as classes are an easy way to keep performance up), which meant I had to go there for another week on a second trip. By the way, two weeks is usually easier than one, as you start the second week where you left off in the first, as far as performance is concerned. Then again, if your goal isn't good grades, you can probably enjoy the ensuing stream of misery if you just let everything run

. I still have to try once and find out where the line is between getting kicked out and do just enough to be able to have fun during that time, probably with a degree the sim doesn't really care for in the first place.

igazor · July 2020

@Turjan - You may be remembering my recent rant at NRaas about how Uni is not necessarily all about academic super-achievement and top performance, and the story I told about the extreme goofballs I have sent there on occasion who pretty much ignored anything seriously study or class related. I did take some liberties with that story as Uni students aren't really kicked out and sent home for failing, I believe that only happens if they cheat, are caught, and are unable to talk themselves out of it at the ensuing admin hearing. Otherwise the "I'm Failing!" moodlet may make them a bit uncomfortable but that's what things like kegs and juice pong are for.

But a grade report with all Fs doesn't convey any course credit. And Uni will always take them back for another term, they don't care how much time our students waste there and how many creative ways they find to annoy their professors and fellow students as long as they pay their tuition.

Turjan · July 2020

Ah, that's good to know

. My dream of a sim career as eternal student is getting closer to coming true

.

Nikkei_Simmer · July 2020

I really ought to take the gift from @CravenLestat (the Voodoo Doll) and create some havoc at University. :evil grin:

CravenLestat · July 2020

@Nikkei_Simmer

Yes,you should.I used to think you were a evil overlord plotting to destroy all mankind and eventually take over the universe.

But you have gotten soft lately

You turned into that super villain that hands out free toys and helps lil old ladies cross the street.

Get out there and be the cruel tyrant nasty evildoer you were meant to be

Did I mention you can make sims pee themselves with the voodoo doll

Nikkei_Simmer · July 2020

~evil grin~ I like that.

I need to read up on what that Voodoo Doll can do.

lisasc360 · July 2020

Nikkei_Simmer wrote: »

~evil grin~ I like that. I need to read up on what that Voodoo Doll can do.

@Nikkei_Simmer, I love using the voodoo doll on the sims in my game...

I once used the doll on Tammy Parker from the university pack right after I threw the werewolf potion on her. She went upstairs to the bathroom, so I had followed her up there as I already had it bind to her. I threw the curse on her that turned her into a zombie, then I noticed the transformation spell on the doll which isn't listed on the voodoo doll page, so I had used that on her because I had thrown the werewolf potion at her.

I would share those pictures of that but I am on my tablet, so if you want to check them out, just click on my Riverview link in my signature and go to page 2 and look at the spoiler on the 1st posting on that page...😀

Karritz · July 2020

If I wanted to take sims from different households to uni, or any other world, I would either use the Traveler mod options to take friends with me, or merge the sims I want to go to uni together into a single household before leaving for Uni. That way I could control all the the sims I sent to university. By the way this is something I've never done at university, but I do often play a house and rotate sims through it thereby playing a lot of sims in the same, or many worlds, at various times. I do this with my Boarding School. It allows me to make sure all the toddlers, children and others in various worlds get to know each other and learn their skills.

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Question about NRaas rotational play and college

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