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Questions re: Meteor Strikes in Sims 3: Ambitions

LashinLashin Posts: 74 Member
Hello all,

So, I've had my eyes on Sims 3: Ambitions, for quite some time at this point. When I say for some time, I mean since 2012, when a cyclical redundancy check error meant that the copy of Ambitions I had back then (I no longer have it, unfortunately) refused to function on my dinosaur with the minimum specs: Shader 2 Video Card on a Pentium 4 fixer-upper running Windows XP.

But since I've got a much nicer computer now - make that two nicer computers - I can run every single EP at once, if I liked. In fact, Ambitions and Showtime are the only two I don't have yet.

However - and this may sound silly, but it's as close to a dealbreaker as it can get for any EP with that much sweet, sweet content - but my main concern is the meteor strikes.

I have a few questions about the meteors, because I'm that - and probably a bit overly - concerned about getting my family's home and possessions wrecked:

1. To my understanding, meteors strike community lots, rabbit holes, and out in the open. But do they strike the family home proper, or at least the clear land which is the yard?
2. IFF the meteors strike the family home proper, do they trash the walls and items in the home?
3. IFF the meteors trash the walls, would building the home in the form of several basements be enough to offset the potential damage?

See, I don't like having career rewards - like the MinusOne Kelvin Fridge - or lifetime rewards like the Philosopher's Stone destroyed. I also don't like the prospect of having to rebuild all my hard work.

Thank you in advance o/

P.S. This is my first post as a member, I'm not sure if it's allowed on this subforum, but I hope it doesn't hurt to ask...

Comments

  • MikezumiMikezumi Posts: 49,697 Member
    I have had Ambitions installed for a while and only just had my first meteor strike a couple of weeks ago. I was devastated because I was worried about losing members of my active family or any of the extended family that are filling the town. I was getting ready to quit without saving if I couldn't get my family out of the way fast enough. Most of my sims love the outdoors and a few of them are disciplined so were in the yard painting or training on the MA equipment when I got the message that it was coming.

    My sims were safely inside when it hit but some neighbours had rushed over to see what was happening. They are related so too valuable to lose to a meteor! and fortunately got nothing worse than being singed.

    50073710406_6a96722f5a_o.jpg

    I had to replace the MA equipment, a couple of easels, an exercise machine, a couple of doors and a gate. Surprisingly the hot tub didn't get damaged. My sims also spent hours mopping the tiles. The money my sims got from selling the large and several smaller meteors more than paid for the replacements.

    50073956057_626b730cd1_o.jpg

    I don't know what triggered it because my sims don't use the telescope or collect space rocks but I hope to never see another in my game! Some people have had Ambitions installed longer than I and never experience a meteor.

  • LashinLashin Posts: 74 Member
    edited July 2020
    @Mikezumi Holy moly macaroni - that is a nasty strike, and I sure am glad your Sims are OK!

    I find the Unlucky trait does amazing to mitigate accidental deaths, if anything.

    But to clarify - the Sims who were indoors were safe, right?

    Because my main concern is the house being trashed by meteors.

    However, would a smaller outdoor area mitigate the chances of a meteor strike causing damage?

    I mean, theoretically, there'd be not enough room for it to land, right?
  • MikezumiMikezumi Posts: 49,697 Member
    @Lashin Thanks I was relieved when no-one was hurt!
    There was no damage inside the house at all. Not even anything that needed mopping.
  • PaikallinenPaikallinen Posts: 15 Member
    edited July 2020
    I have had Ambitions since the day it launched and I have only had two meteor strikes (I am not counting Seasons + Ambitions alien meteor strikes, since you control those). The two meteor strikes oddly happened to me this past year. One of them hit a park, other one near the military base. I am pretty sure it wasn't even on any lot so to speak. Because of that really no items were damaged, and if I recall correctly tha ground will retain it's shape at some point. It is quite easy to get your sims away from the meteor though, so I would not be worried about it. All in all I would say that they are really rare. I know other players who have had Ambitions since the beginning and have only encountered one or no meteor strikes.

    I think meteor strikes are caused by having sims be in outdoors. Telescoping might increase the change and it also causes sims to be at the same spot for a long time, which I think is one of the factors for meteor strikes.
  • TurjanTurjan Posts: 1,713 Member
    Remember, as Mikezumi said, quitting the game without saving is always an option. And meteor strikes without provocation are extremely rare, anyway. I have seen one so far in my game (not counting those in the "bad" version of Oasis Landing), and I assume the use of a telescope outside triggered that one.

    I think the most tragic ones are those that hit the school, when pretty much a whole next generation of children and teens gets obliterated. I haven't experienced that myself, but some people have. I don't think I'd save in such a case.
  • MareahMareah Posts: 792 Member
    They seem to be pretty rare so dont worry about them, i had none and i had Ambitions installed for years!
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited July 2020
    Indeed, the odds of a random meteor strike are extremely low. I've had three since I ever began playing and two of them hit what were just about empty lots somewhere in town and didn't do anything but make my screen shake violently and scare me half to death. The third one...well, we won't talk about what that one might have done had I kept playing, but I quit without saving anyway.

    If not averse to using mods, the built-in very small percentage chance of a meteor strike can be changed to 0 by way of a tuning mod or by using NRaas Retuner.
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  • pinkrobinpinkrobin Posts: 110 Member
    I have had Ambitions for like 9 years and I've never had any meteor strikes. As others have said, the risk seems to be really low :)
    EA ID: Praktrosella
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    edited July 2020
    Then...there's me. :D
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    But then again, that's me... :D I enjoy triggering them with Debug Enabler and a certain individual's Disasters and Blessings mod. :mrgreen:
    Screenshot-106.jpg
    It keeps my sims terrified of their Watcher.

    Then again...@Lashin, you are given some time to move your sims out of the way. The meteor doesn't hit immediately. So anything that you have or need, it's best to get out of ground zero.
    Post edited by Nikkei_Simmer on
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • ParyPary Posts: 6,871 Member
    I had to put a mod in so I could see a meteor strike. Until I did, I never had one happen naturally in game, in all the years I've had AMB.
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  • BlackSandBlackSand Posts: 2,074 Member
    I find it far more likely to get struck by lightning than hit by a meteor ...
    But fishing in a thunderstorm will do that to you. :D

    .
    I eat pickles on my hamburgers ... MWWAHAHAHAHA
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    BlackSand wrote: »
    I find it far more likely to get struck by lightning than hit by a meteor ...
    But fishing in a thunderstorm will do that to you. :D

    I sent my simself out to milk a cow in a thunderstorm. Yeah... he got hit and I wasn't even the culprit that time.
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    Just curious, what kind of milk does an electrified cow produce? :)
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  • MikezumiMikezumi Posts: 49,697 Member
    igazor wrote: »
    Just curious, what kind of milk does an electrified cow produce? :)

    Curdled milk :D
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    edited July 2020
    I had a sim struck by lightning in a thunderstorm while gardening in a rooftop garden.

    I've had a few meteors hit.

    I remember 3.

    1. Before Seasons was released I had my 3 sims out back in their yard gardening. A dark shadow came. I had no idea what was happening or why there was a dark shadow. One of them died, the garden was a bit of a mess but on the bright side there was lots of bits of meteor to sell so they got really rich out of it in the end. And the one that died happened to have a death flower in her inventory and her ghost offered it to Grim and he took the flower and she came back as good as new. That's when I found out what death flowers were for.

    2. A few months after Seasons was released I had built a multi story house for my sims. In the middle I'd made a level the children could play in and it had no exterior walls - I built the upper levels and then removed the exterior walls and added a few columns so it sort of looked like it would stay standing. A child was playing in that level and her father was with her. Somehow, the meteor managed to hit that level only. Upper and lower levels were untouched. The child and her father died. The father had a death flower and survived. The child became a ghost with her tombstone outdoors. Her mother made ambrosia for the little ghost to eat but she ignored it. Someone else in the household ate it. Winter arrived. Mother needed another death fish to make more ambrosia. The fishing holes were all frozen over. Eventually I added a wishing well to a lower level of their home and mother could now fish indoors and eventually caught the death fish and made another plate of ambrosia. This time the little ghost ate it but in the meantime her siblings had continued to age and some were now teens and she was still a child. But at least she was part of the family again. As a result of my learnings from this episode, I now add an indoor wishing well to almost all of my houses.

    3. Much more recently I was playing a game to record for my Oscar's Childhood video. I was trying to get some of the sims out of the boarding school I'd built to travel to another world. As I gathered my young sims around the bottom of the front steps a meteor came out of the sky and hit the boarding school. I was wondering how many little ghosts I'd end up with. In the end everyone survived. One little sim got singed. But the boarding school building was a mess. There was a need to do a lot of cleaning so little sims were mopping floors on two levels for most of that sim day. And lots of furniture and decor items was destroyed. But they were able to sell the scrap and the bits of meteor and the simoleans gained pretty much paid for all the damage. I did consider reverting to an earlier save but decided, since nothing critical had been destroyed I would continue on with the game and include it in my story. If I'd lost one of those reward items or someone had died I'd have reverted to an earlier save. I do Save As with a new name regularly just in case something I really don't want to have happen does happen.


    On the other hand, I've been playing regularly since June 2009. In all that time I've only had 3, that I can recall, meteor strikes.

    For the purposes of the story, Oscar in my Oscar's Childhood videos, needed to lose his parents to a meteor strike. In order to get the meteor strike I made an evil alien in CAS (used a mod to add the alien DNA to a regular sim I made) and added that evil alien to the household and got her to call down several meteors around town, including one aimed directly at Oscar's parents. I also added lots of fog emitters to make it look like their house was burning and the dragon's breath from the dragon cave in Shang Simla gave a very realistic effect of smoke from the fire.

    This is the episode of Oscar's Childhood with the meteors - all of the meteors in this video were called down by an evil alien.

    https://youtu.be/9hn-qYAVaH0

    I think the worst part of the meteors is worrying about them. They are very rare - unless you have an alien in your household and you tell them to call down a meteor. They need to eat space rocks so you might want to do that. Also I think there is an adventure with the space car that lets you get your sim who is flying in the space car to throw down meteors. But I don't think any actual meteors occur with that one.

    In this episode of Oscar's Childhood you see them cleaning up the mess after the meteor the game produced hit the boarding school.

    https://youtu.be/UJA_tHibgHc
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    igazor wrote: »
    Just curious, what kind of milk does an electrified cow produce? :)

    Electrified Milkshake
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • LashinLashin Posts: 74 Member
    @Nikkei_Simmer Holy cow, those are some pretty epic meteor photos you have!

    @Karritz Was your rooftop garden inspired by Babylonia? Also, it's annoying when your ghosts refuse to eat the Ambrosia, but hey, she came back and that's great!

    This makes me glad I've built everything vital as basement levels.
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    All "user inflicted". :mrgreen: :thumbsup:
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • LashinLashin Posts: 74 Member
    Hey guys, so I took the plunge and bought Ambitions yesterday.

    From what I've gathered, basements - like actual bunkers - appear to be meteor-proof. I have yet to actually play Ambitions - because I'm still building - but from all your responses about how seldom they are, and also how cool meteor strikes are... I could not say no to the juicy, juicy features any longer!
  • HillyBethHillyBeth Posts: 3,505 Member
    Lashin wrote: »
    Hello all,

    So, I've had my eyes on Sims 3: Ambitions, for quite some time at this point. When I say for some time, I mean since 2012, when a cyclical redundancy check error meant that the copy of Ambitions I had back then (I no longer have it, unfortunately) refused to function on my dinosaur with the minimum specs: Shader 2 Video Card on a Pentium 4 fixer-upper running Windows XP.

    But since I've got a much nicer computer now - make that two nicer computers - I can run every single EP at once, if I liked. In fact, Ambitions and Showtime are the only two I don't have yet.

    However - and this may sound silly, but it's as close to a dealbreaker as it can get for any EP with that much sweet, sweet content - but my main concern is the meteor strikes.

    I have a few questions about the meteors, because I'm that - and probably a bit overly - concerned about getting my family's home and possessions wrecked:

    1. To my understanding, meteors strike community lots, rabbit holes, and out in the open. But do they strike the family home proper, or at least the clear land which is the yard?
    2. IFF the meteors strike the family home proper, do they trash the walls and items in the home?
    3. IFF the meteors trash the walls, would building the home in the form of several basements be enough to offset the potential damage?

    See, I don't like having career rewards - like the MinusOne Kelvin Fridge - or lifetime rewards like the Philosopher's Stone destroyed. I also don't like the prospect of having to rebuild all my hard work.

    Thank you in advance o/

    P.S. This is my first post as a member, I'm not sure if it's allowed on this subforum, but I hope it doesn't hurt to ask...
    I’ve had a few meteor strikes since installing the pack on my laptop. No strikes on my desktop yet
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  • SleepstarSleepstar Posts: 814 Member
    When I was playing on one Save a long while ago, I had a meteor strike. My family had recently moved from Bridgeport to Starlight Shores. One day, soon after aging up to teenager, I sent the daughter, Amelia, into the garden to harvest some plants. As Amelia was harvesting a grapevine, I received a notification about the sky going dark. I went into Map View and saw a meteor heading towards the house. As I attempted to get the family to a safe distance the meteor landed in their garden, taking out three sprinklers and a dozen plants. Ignoitus, my Genie, put out the fires. I hadn't had a meteor strike since then.
    Currently aiming to get all harvestable produce in The Sims 3 (One EP left)Will complete a Legacy one dayhttps://store.thesims3.com/myWishlist.html?persona=katcalls2k907 (My Wishlist)
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