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Good Lifespan?
HorseLoverXO
Posts: 145
Hey simmers!
So, my custom lifespan isn't too far off from normal, (101 sim days. ) But I'm finding it too short to skill up my sims, complete their LTW, and still have a family in that amount of time. Epic lifespan is way too long for me. So, what custom settings do you recommend and what is yours set at?
So, my custom lifespan isn't too far off from normal, (101 sim days. ) But I'm finding it too short to skill up my sims, complete their LTW, and still have a family in that amount of time. Epic lifespan is way too long for me. So, what custom settings do you recommend and what is yours set at?
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Infants at 60 days
Toddlers at 60 days
Children at 120
Teens at 110
Young Adults at 200
Adults at 200
and Elders at 110
Still kinda tweaking the older sims from child and up...but I have the infants and toddlers at 60 days so they see a full year before they age up since I have seasons set to 15 days a piece.
babys 2 days
toddlers 7 days
child 8 days
teens 14 days
young adults 30 days
adults 42 days
elders 17 days
120 sim days.
For the various life stages, I use:
baby - 2 days - to age 1 year
toddler - 10 days - to age 6 years
child - 14 days - to age 13 years
teen - 12 days - to age 19 years
young adult - 42 days - to age 40 years
adult - 52 days - to age 66 years, the current age for full retirement benefits in the US
elder - 24 days - to age 78 years
This gives my sims enough time to master several skills, and achieve the skill challenges for at least some of them, depending on the skills.
In my current household, my original female sim has mastered athletic, and met the first 2 skill challenges, will make the third before she retires, in 8 sim days. She's mastered piano, and made the master pianist challenge, but probably won't get any of the others, as she has done nothing toward them. She's at level 8 in charisma, and has met the first 3 challenges, and might make the everybody's best friend one once she retires. She's mastered logic and is working on the chess master challenge, and has finished the master chemist challenge, but has only discovered 2 celestial bodies, and has very little toward any of the others. She's mastered handiness and has the electrician challenge. She's had very few plumbing breaks, so it doesn't look like she's going to get that one, but she's started to do various upgrades, so might make that one. All this while working as an international super spy, and getting called in to work at so many unexpected times, and having a very late in life baby. She is managing to make time most days for her husband and child, in large part because her husband is a 5-star chef, and is home a lot more than she is, so he does more of the housework than she does, and their child-age daughter has chores too. She will retire soon, and then will try to pick up more of those challenges.
The husband has mastered more skills than she has, thanks to his much less demanding job. I find that this lifespan allows time to achieve goals, and still have time for family interactions, but it isn't too long for the game to remain interesting right up to my sims' death of old age. Just like in real life, I'm often hoping daily for just a little more time, once they get up to that last expected day and beyond.
infant-2 days
toddler-4 days
child- 10 days
teen- 14 days
Young Adult- 30 days
Adult- 25 days
Elder-15 days
babies-2
toddler-5
child-8
teen-15
YA-26
Adult-32
elder-12
Then I use the Relativity mod to slow down the day time hours to about %70 the normal speed so the day doesn't pass so quickly.
I usually have enough time to get everything done that I want to with these settings and I am a lazy player. :P
Babies 4 days
Toddlers 18 days
Children 52
Teens 72
Young Adults 251
Adults 185
Elder 120
I set the ages so high because I wanted to see how many skills my Sims could master, play with a large family and achieve as many lifetime goals as possible. I've been playing them for over a week and haven't gotten bored yet. I'm sure I'll do some tweaking as the game goes on; but so far, so good.
baby 2 days
toddler 6 days
child 14 days
teen 31 days
Babies- 1 day
Toddlers- 4 days
Children- 10 days
Teens- 15 days
Young Adults- 20
Adults- 20
Elders- 15
My sims lives are fairly short.
Baby- 2 days, and I usually age them up after the first day anyway.
Toddler - 7 days. First you work on walking, talking and potty training. If you have time max out peg box and xylophone. You can also read them books. I generally try to have them age up on a friday so they'll have a free weekend as a child before they have to go to school.
Child - 14 days. Take an after-school activity. Either Scouting or Ballet, doesn't really matter. Going to school sucks fun, doing homework sucks fun. Doing your homework at school doesn't suck any extra fun, so I hardly ever do homework at home. When your kids aren't doing homework, have them Meet new Friends or Talk to Friends at school. When your kids are at home, have them call 2 or 3 friends and talk to them on the phone. This is when I usually pick out who will be the future spouse, and try to build up a good friendship while they are still children. You can invite them over on the weekends to work on the relationship intensively. Again, age up to teenager on a friday. Invite the "special friend" over for the birthday party and use a cheat to age them up too. Then your base relationship should already be high enough to get a romantic relationship with them right away.
Teen - 14 days. One of the first things you should do is learn the charisma skill. After you get the first point, it naturally increases at a pretty good rate just by talking to other sims. Learn a couple of points of cooking. If you maxed out peg-box and xylophone your logic will be at least 3, and all musical instruments should be at 3 too. I usually do an after-school activity, but not a part-time job. Follow the same homework strategy as in grade school. This is when you can start going steady with your main squeeze, or play the field, as your fancy dictates. By now you should have a good idea what your sim is going to do when they grow up so they can start working on any necessary skills. After school, call up and talk to 3 or 4 sims on the phone to build relationships. Once again age up on a friday, along with using the cheats to age up your prospective spouse. You should be at least going steady, or be engaged to your main squeeze by the end of the birthday party. Otherwise story progression might see them hooked up with somebody else in just a day or two.
YA - 28 days. Pre-University I would have them get a job and start on Monday. Then they get married sometime in the first week, and have children after about 2 weeks. Now they should have enough skills to get max credits in 2 or 3 different majors so I send them to University for a single 2 week term to get a degree. If they don't already have a future spouse lined up, I'll pick one of the University students and work on them. They'll get married after they get back from University. Young Adults have kids, work on careers, and raise needed skills.
Adults - 28 days. Should be almost at the top of their career by now with all necessary skills maxed out. Their offspring will be nearing teenage years. I'm usually bored with them by now and leave them to their own devices to concentrate on the children. By the end of the Adult span, their kids will be having their own children.
Elder - 12 days. Retire, help take care of the grandchildren. Even with lifespan set to 105 total, I very rarely have anybody die before 110 days, and they frequently hit 120 days or even more. If I get too many sims in the household, I move out the grandparents to a "retirement home".
One thing that really helps for learning misc skills is the multi-tab from the store. Using that you can listen and learn several skills while you're doing other things.
http://store.thesims3.com/productDetail.html?productId=OFB-SIM3:50554&categoryId=13177
Thanks for this tip, I've been away a few years and wasn't aware of this device. Just bought one.
As for the OP's question can you still age with a birthday cake? I always used ambrosia and cakes to control my sims age.
Yes, you can
Baby - 1 day, but I cheat them up when they are born.
Toddler- 5 days so I have time to learn everything. The walker and playpen from Aurora Skies make it so much easier!
Child and teen are set to around 14 days(?)
Young adult, adult and elder around 30 days.
Yes, but only for sims in your household. If you want to age up one of the neighbor kids, you need to use a cheat. And if you have more than one sim having a birthday at the same party it gets really messy with more than one cake.
I play my legacies on short life span of 31 days. 10 Generations can get tedious otherwise.
The original OP gets all credit. My idea is based on hers. If I find the post I'll edit and link it. As I remember her total lifespan was longer then the below though, maybe around 400 days.
You could tweak this according to your preference as to age cut off points. For some perhaps Elder may begin at age 60 rather than retirement age of 65, etc.
Right now this is what I'm using for Epic play in my sandbox:
3 Simdays = 9mos RL pregnancy. Therefore 1 Simday roughly equals 3mos in RL. So, 4 Simdays = 12mos or 1yr RL.
Baby: Birth to 9mos=3 Simdays
Toddler: 10mos to 4yrs=16 Simdays
Child: 5yrs to 12yrs=28 Simdays
Teen: 13yrs to 19yrs=24 Simdays
YA: 20yrs to 30yrs=40 Simdays
Adult: 31yrs to 64yrs=132 Simdays
Elder: 65yrs to 85yrs=80 Simdays
Total is 323 Simsdays to roughly equal RL from infant to age 85
MissCee
I might use that to adjust my life span, except the elders. I usually make their life span shorter cause mine always outlive the sim days.
I don't feel too rushed with this (a little bit is good, it is a game after all), and I don't have so much time that my sims can do everything in the game; after all I want them to excell in their strengths not fill out/explore everything available and leave nothing for me to do with the next generation. I only want them to play out their story, not every story. I have never failed a life-time wish yet ^_^ ... except on that one guy who died early cause he crushed himself with a vending machine while trying to get a free soda at University. O_O but that doesn't count!
Mine are:
baby (0-2 years old) - 3 days (a lot of ppl shorten this one... but I just love babies)
toddler (2-5 years old) - 7 days
child (5-12 years old) - 11 days
teen (12-19 years old) - 15 days
young adult (19 - 30 years old) - 21 days
adult ( 30 - 60 years old) - 45 days
elder (60 - 80+ years old) - 17 days
equals 119 days
baby 2 days
toddler 10 days
child 20 days
teen 30 days
ya 80 days
adult 80 days
elder 28 days
so the parents can master complicated careers even with the amount of maternity leave it takes to raise a large family, and so the children and teens have enough time in school to get on the honour roll, join after school activities, learn to drive, and find romance at the prom.
Others are a more realistic
baby 2 days - up to 1 year
toddler 8 days - 1 to 5 years
child 16 days - 5 to 13 years
teen 14 days - 13 to 20 years
ya 40 days - 20 to 40 years
adult 40 days - 40 to 60 years
elder 30 days - 60 to 75 years
which I use more for historical games, with easier, self employed or no careers, where academic performance is not important.
It's much harder for teens to do well in school with a shorter lifespan, with a maximum of 10 school days, losing 2 to seasonal holidays, if they're teens during winter and get several snow days, they'll still be stupid as anything when they graduate.