according to the base game Prima Guide, the position of fallen asleep sims depends on the amount of space around them.

Rod and the Gypsy show up too soon, often before my sim arrives in the move in taxi. I wish there were a time set for them to show up a bit later. If a porch is too small, one will always get in the way of the other causing a traffic jam.

That's interesting. Rod always arrives after the paper carrier in my game, and the gypsy often doesn't arrive at all. I wonder what one of us has that the other doesn't?
Because you clearly need it, or need to get rid of it...

Gypsy is banned by Visitor Controller by default. It may be reason why you don't see her.
Sometimes Rod arrives together with my sim and sometimes a much later. I think it is something to do with lot.

I don't have the Visitor Controller, so that is definitely not it. Also, she does come sometimes, just not always. Ditto the garden club, now I think of it.

You're right. They CAN'T!!! They can have as high a class performance as you want, but the Exam is *MANDATORY*. Not doing the exam means that nobody will be able to test how much of the subject you have picked up. They'll assume that you'd have failed.

It's like driving under the influence: if you refuse to do the alcohol test, they'll assume that it is to hide the exorbitant amount you have been consuming. Therefor, you must be drunk, and cannot be allowed to drive.
Or like being interrogated about a crime: if you have a verifyable alibi, then you might very well be innocent. But if you refuse to give an alibi, or if they can poke big holes through whatever you try to make them believe, then they'll assume that your guilt is more likely than your innocence.



Actually, if she were to do an exam, she would pass with flying colours. See that little white line near the bottom of the bar? THAT is the minimum they need to pass. When they've passed that line, they will no longer fail the exam for that semester, but they still have to attend the exam, ofcourse.

In real life, yes, the final exam may be mandatory depending on the class. In Sims, no. If you look at the message warning you about the exam, it says "Not attending the final exam will hurt X's grade for this semester". It does not say they will fail, all it says is that it will cause a drop in grades. I assumed that if they meant "you will fail regardless of your pre-exam grade", it would have said "not attending the final exam will result in failing this semester". It says grade drop because that's what happen. If you have a sufficiently high grade, you will pass even if you skip it. You won't get a good grade, but you will pass.

To make sure I'm not talking out of my ass saying it's vanilla when it's not, I tested it in AGS without mods, and it acts the same way. It's definitely just a penalty, not an automatic fail. If you keep your Sim occupied right as the final exam ends, it can't switch semester (it's an active interaction that it pushes when the exam ends), so you can see what their grade meter is before the new semester starts and measure how big of a drop it is.

You're welcome to test it yourself if you don't believe me.



Yes, and the moment after returning from the exam with her A+, she'd die. I already said she's too sick from her pregnancy to take the exam. Her hunger drops so quickly that it barely increases when she eats. Once she's gulped down enough to be at 1/4 of the bar, she's about to pass out from exhaustion. She sleeps until she's too hungry to sleep, then repeats the same process.

And yes, I am well aware that I could cheat her motives to keep her alive, but getting her A+ is not my goal. I enjoy variety, and for this Sim I am willing to help her out enough for her to pass without going, but that's it. In real life, you have to lower your ambition if your health gets in the way.

------------

While testing this it's clear that I put my threshold at least one pixel higher than it actually is. I doubt anyone but me is nerdy enough to really care, but I like being able to tell exactly what will happen. Once I am done figuring out the missed exam penalty, I'm going to measure how much of a bonus you get from attending. I have a couple of popularity/pleasure Sims that would be more than happy to not study a single drop more than necessary

I've had a couple of sims who couldn't attend final exams but still managed to pass the semester. As I recall, one was similar to your sim in that she was pregnant and struggling to keep her motives up, and the other one had to stay at home with her baby because there was nobody else available to look after him, so she couldn't go to her exam.

It is okay to beat up the bride at her wedding. Reputations go up!

Well, then I stand corrected.

But wait, you talking again about that poor pregnant girl that you were torturing, having her live in a noisy single-room apartment? You cruel monster, you?
I would never, ever do such evil things to my sims. So that's why I didn't know, obviously.

My sim was closer to max then that and failed. Maybe it depends also on aspiration or personality or just chance, I don't know. But I've been careful ever since to get sims to final exam.

discovered a number of days ago:: married sims cry if their spouse moves out through at least computer.

I found out that Sims can't try for baby on a community lot bed. Yes, they're in the same household. Yes, I know they can't sleep on community lot beds. Just WooHoo was available. Weird.

My Uni sims spend the first day or two doing assignments, term paper and, if needed, the required skills to fill the meter bar. They never go to classes but always go to finals. If the meter bar is all the way up and they skip finals, would this drop their meter bar level some?

Yes, lots. As I said my sim failed. Gummi has had other results with sims just passing.

I think you are perhaps confusing her with my street performer who lives in a large one-room loft. It's only noisy because she insists on turning on the stereo before going to bed, and that's hardly my fault I'm rarely evil to my Sims, I'm even nice enough to code mods for them to stop them from their own masochist behavior

I would imagine the fact that you did not know has more to do with a dislike of pleasure/popularity Sims, than it does not being evil to your Sims. I love pleasure/popularity, and I have tons of Sims who go to University to party and meet people, rather than study. I enjoy finding ways for my Sims to achieve what they need without having to study endlessly and without cheats, whether it be skills or school-studying. Just like real people, some of my Sims are quite happy to never learn how to cook anything more advanced than mac n cheese, and spend that time hanging out with friends instead. If all else fails, there's always pizza delivery



Yes, it would not surprise me if there are other factors that affect it. I've only tested with Knowledge Sims, not sure about personality differences. And who knows, maybe this is another case where my game has a predictable set-in-stone pattern and yours for some reason is random, like the time to write novel situation.



Yes, skipping the final will decrease their grade meter. If you look at my post on the previous page, #195, you can see how much it decreased from max in my game. Can't guarantee your results will match mine, but might give you an idea at least

Sims gain social when jamming together in a band Nice little touch

I don't cheat when it comes to studying skills, or performing properly in school or college. If they can't get there without cheats, I don't even *want* them there.

Why do I not like Popularity and Pleasure sims? Because they are all about either throwing parties (which I suck at... I never seem to get the party score anywhere beyond "Mehhhhh") or stupid wants like play game, meet new guy, play game, dance a little, play game, eat shit, drop dead, get lost, sing a song of love and hate... ad nauseam! And on top of all that non-productive clutter, they want to BUY BUY BUY stuff that they never EARNED EARNED EARNED the MONEY MONEY MONEY for...

The most frustrating time I had recently, was with a *Fortune* sim who, once in college, rolled not a single skilling or college want - only clutter -, and never ever did anything to advance his grades except arriving in time for every class and every exam, and actually made graduation! It was just a long-winded, boring process with him continuously staring in the gaping maws of desperation because after two days of doing the same crud, I just lost interest in fulfilling any of his wants anymore. He didn't autonomously paint, make music, dance... just talk to guys, get into poking and shoving bouts, and not accomplish anything.
He was just fortunate that what few skill points he had, were in the skills which he needed for his Major (psychology). Except that he missed two points in Charisma. You should know, that I have a mod (by AncientHighway, I believe) that allows sims to autonomously gain charisma skill at any mirror. All my sims make a habit of doing that till it sickens me. And this sim had used that power a few times before he went to college. But if you thought that he made any effort when he finally *was* in college, you are sadly mistaken. He just coasted through those two semesters where charisma was important, at the minimum level.

As I said, most frustrating.

Now, I'm not saying that a sim who learns little can't have an interesting life. But they must make it interesting for *me* as well. I'm certainly not going to try to make them do stuff that they roll no wants for. Nor am I going to muddle through college with them again, if their heart isn't in it.
And study doesn't have to be bad, boring or endless. But if they want to achieve their career goals, they'll have to get there without making *me* jump through too many hoops. It's *their* life, after all

Understand, if someone else has fun doing that, power to them. But it's just not my cup of ginger tea with mint and honey.

What you find frustrating I find interesting, I enjoy having a diverse lot at college, some might study, some might do nothing but socialize and perhaps some might hack grades and sleep with professors for grades. Sims like that I watch half in amusement half in trepidation to see if they will pass or fail. Why do they need to roll college wants? Writing a term paper is hardly a riveting thing. Of course I also only have college for 8 days since 24 is too long for any sim for me.

Boiling Oil, getting a good party score is easy. Invite people who are already friends. Don't have the stereo on or you risk a smustle outbreak. At college you may have to interrupt attempts to turn it into a study session. If you serve a meal rather than a buffet and call the guests to eat it, start a hangout session, or run a woohoo date simultaneously there's no way you won't have a good party. If they're all good enough friends you may not even have to do any of that.

My Sims throw parties ALL the time - no matter what their aspirations! Every promotion is either celebrated by a party or a group outing to a community lot. Sundays are for family reunions.
Dinner parties always work - that is why my Sims all have to have a LOT of cooking points. (And also why I like to put a huge table in the kitchen). And the host toasts the guests around him/her.
Games work - even if they go out for a group water balloon fight or a huge snowball fight.
Of course, if Mr NoNicePoints is invited, he will probably beat up one of the guests and make a new enemy - and the party guests can watch the fight and cheer their hearts out!
No bar - some guests will hang around there and then find the party boring Serve those bubbly bottles fermented juice to the guests.
Bring in the stereo late - out of the host's inventory - and, if qualified, teach the guests the hula or the slap dance (until the police arrives)
and that should give a full party score.

I would love to see a picture of this!!!!

Because I'm not going to make them toil and slave for hours on something that they get no aspiration points for. The aspiration meter goes down all by itself, but they need to accomplish stuff to get it back up. That means fulfill wants. And it doesn't need to be the want to write a term paper... But they could at least occasionally roll the want to go to class, or to do group research with someone. That way, they would show me that I didn't send them to college just for shit. If their aspiration level goes down, they start looking up at *me*, as if it's *my* fault. And on the other hand, I'm not going to fill a million wants in the 250-500 points range in a row either, because that makes *me* unhappy. Seeing a sim roll the same sequence of "appreciate johnny, tell joke to Johnny, play with Johnny" over and over again, gets old in a hurry!

As said before, I don't mind if they are like that, but I don't want to spend sim day after sim day dragging them through the Dorm hallways against their will. But I'll be damned if I let them go make a failure of themselves and get expelled. Because then, not only they, but also their family members are in distress, and *I* have to fix it all again!

So, if they wanna be like that, I'd rather know it during their Teen days, so I can have them simply grow up to adults in the end, and then the fun can begin.

For example, I find it very gratifying to play Don Lothario until he dies of natural causes, without him ever gaining another skill point. If he rolls the *want* for one, I will oblige. But not otherwise. And he is good fun to play that way, too.

You don't have to fix it. Nobody's forcing you to do that - you choose to do that because you like to keep your sims fulfilled and happy. If a sim is frustrating you, try something different. You could go out of your way to satisfy their worst fears. Or if one of them really bugs you, SMITE HIM!

In one of my early versions of Pleasantview, I went out of my way to fix broken marriages, make friends out of enemies, etc. I ended up with a near-Utopia full of happy fulfilled sims who all got along with each other and fulfilled all their lifelong dreams and only ever died of old age when I became bored with them and took away their supply of Elixir. I stopped playing this neighborhood around the time the Pleasant twins had toddlers of their own because it had become THE SINGLE MOST BORING NEIGHBORHOOD IN MY GAME!

This time around, I'm going to make it fun! Maybe I'll satisfy a few fears. I will STOP going out of my way to prevent accidental deaths (lightning, disease, etc). University is way too easy, so I'm going to make a determined effort to get somebody to flunk out. Mickey Dosser of La Fiesta Tech seems a good candidate for that. I have Cyjon's Bigger Bills mod too. Maybe an excellent student will be forced to drop out because he/she can't afford to stay in school.

I'm not saying your style of play is "wrong" or anything. Just consider trying something different once in awhile. Especially if the way you're playing it now is making you frustrated and angry.

@RoxEllen1965: Hahahahaha, yes, you're right. Because I cannot live with my sims being unhappy, I have a sickly need to fix it if they are in distress. That's how I play my game. But if the entire family is in distress, because one stupid SoB drops out, it's not their fault! Something NEEDS to be done about it.

And I've done the "smite him, because he pisses me off" thing as well as the "make his worst fears come true" thing. At the moment of punishment, it is EXTREMELY rewarding and fulfilling. But eventually, that wears off. And even if it didn't wear off, it didn't fix the family's moods either.
This one guy, one of the children of Ginger Newson, will never be able to stand in the shadow of his older sisters Zoraya and Yoranda, but he could still be an enjoyable sim to play, if only he makes up his mind about what he wants to do. But if he just keeps stumbling around by the seat of his pants, then he may end up a townie.

I'm not saying anyone should play like me, either. I'm simply amazed to hear about all the different approaches, and want to share mine as well. Actually, my first ever YA has screwed me up for good! She was a CAS-made YA, for whom I started with the default Scorpio personality, and dragged around the sliders just enough to make her more like a Virgo, but without her Sign actually changing. And then I jammed a Knowledge Aspiration on her. And this girl really spoiled me rotten!!! At that time I had not yet heard of mods, so my game was vanilla. She made full use of the entire 24 days, maxed all skills, rolled wants to do Assignments, write Term Papers, go to Class, do Group Research, the works. She also gained max enthusiasm in both Arts & Crafts and Music & Dance, and was running around the dorm all day, autonomously cleaning shit up. She would go ballistic over a puddle! She wasn't very pleasant, socially. You'd sooner get her fist across your jaw than a kiss on your cheek. But she was FUN to play for 24 jam-packed days of action. With that sim, there was never a dull moment, she was always busy! The only times that she was not active, was when she slept. In the second half of her Junior year, she finally realised that one of her female fans (whom I later discovered to be one of the premade SS members) was very interesting indeed. And she did everything she could, to let that girl know how she felt about it. I didn't have to help her much.

Now, *that* has become a kind of standard that I measure my sims by. If they want to go to college, I want them to show at least 5% of that kind of passion! Maybe that explains a little of why I play the way I do.
Anyway, the way I'm playing is not the cause of my frustration. As a result of my slection method, most sims that end up in college, do well enough not to tick me off. It was just this one sim... Who is probably going to pay for it, for the rest of his linteresting life.

Have started another uberhood again and was playing the Caliente sisters. Nina called Don and was talking on phone. Directed Dina to call Mortimer and when she picked up phone it was Don asking her if she wanted to join the conversation. She said yes and the three of them talked on the phone. Had not had that happen before, usually they all have cell phones but not doing that this game unless they want one.

Sims don't have to do term paper, assignments and research to pass. They could fill their meter by sitting and doing nothing but research, or any combination of the three. They do need the required skills done for the meter to pass a certain point though. Long ago I had a glitch with the bookcases and just had them doing assignments, then tried out just doing research at another point when the glitchy books were fixed. Just the other day I had a sim do his term paper and then research with no assignments and he filled his meter, he also didn't go to any classes, did his final exam and got the highest grade. I'm more apt to keep sims starting as YA from classes since they have no skills whatsoever to start with. He was actually the only sim at Uni since this was a test hood. Those coming from an established hood have nothing better to do.

Ofcourse they don't. You're absolutely right. Just going to class every time is enough, too.

But if they roll the want for doing a Term Paper, and roll that fairly soon after the start of a semester, I'll have them do that, and then they need very little more effort to completely stuff their performance meter.
And if that's full they can have the rest of the time off to do lots of fun things. I've had sims fill that time woohooing their brains out, while others made tons of money performing on whatever instrument they had asked to buy, and yet again others made and sold dozens of masterpieces. And having rolled the want for that Term Paper means that they also boost their aspirationmeter for a while again. So that's an extra bonus for them and me.

What I discovered while playing the Sims 2 today is that its FREAKING ADORABLE.

I've been sort of fiddling around with hacks (finding the manual for every hack in the MATY directors cut is *hard*) and finding default replacements (I tracked down a remified or poppet maxis match hair for almost every hair in the game... like 200 defaulted hairs or something, and put them in and then decided that I kinda just wanted to play retro-sims-style with actual maxis hairs. Weird right? The skin, makeup and eyes I'm using are *very* matchy, so even MM hairs look a bit weird/out of place)

Anyway, tonight I loaded up Belladonna Cove to test some things, in particular a baby outfit mesh, so I went to the Patil family and god, I forgot how detailed this game is. Like, all the food prep animations! My sims were actually putting little bits of cheese on their grilled cheese before cooking it and stuff! And then the adorableness that was Ramir letting Ana sit on his lap on the couch while they smooched. Oh my heart! Such cute!

Also the game is way harder. Poor Ana passed out, and got very upset. I haven't had a sim pass out or die by accident for ages, but I could totally see it happening in TS2 if I wasn't wary. Ramir was *definitely* not in a good mood when he left for work.

The baby was born, and is very cute, but its totally white, which is weird cos the Patil family is *not white*. Is that cos there's only one baby 'outfit'? ie the skin is part of the outfit? Cos thats kinda awkward.

No, the baby should not be white! Each baby should have its skin, eyes, and hair (via the eyebrows) properly expressed.

Did you do anything with skintones? Because the most common reason for that is an improperly geneticized skintone; but even that should only be a problem if the parents have two different skintone ranges. I'd troubleshoot that - it's very weird indeed and could have repercussions.

@Kidhedera which Sims game did you play in between?

The outfit doesn't have anything to do with the baby's skin color in the 4 Maxis skins. Babies should have the same skin as their parent, but it can happen that a skin you downloaded made this happen. Are you sure the mother didn't cheat?

I'm only using a default set of skins (Dragon Tea and Tree Pots by Mayberries), so that shouldn't be whats wrong. Just by looking at them, I'm guessing that the parents are S2 and S3, but the baby is definitely S1. I don't think the mother cheated, I checked the family tree. This is a brand new fresh game using meetme2theriver's fixed Belladonna Cove hood, and the wiki says its Ramir's kid. I looked in the skin packages, and the baby face is there and the same colour as the other faces in the respective packages. So either the baby inherited the wrong skin somehow, or the lighting properties are set wrong in the custom mesh I'm using and its making the baby look paler than they are. (I've seen that in other games)

I'll play the family for a bit longer and see what happens when Amira (thats the baby - "Ramir" + "Ana" = "Amira"... geddit?) ages up.

I've played Sims 3 for years... like, I honestly don't remember when I last played Sims 2 other than a quick game when the Ultimate Collection was first released. But after ITF was released and Twallan quit modding I gave up for a while. I played a bit of The Sims 4 Get To Work, then I tried again when Get Together came out, but honestly, even though the build tools are great and I really enjoy Create-A-Sim, the gameplay felt kinda thin and I just couldn't seem to get into it. So I started up a TS3 game, but found that origin had auto-installed an update that forced the launcher, which of course meant I couldn't use fps_limiter with it. I didn't think that was a big deal cos, hey, I was pretty sure the bug where vsync didn't work properly was fixed anyway right?

Yeah, no. My very expensive video card started overheating and causing all manner of graphical glitches, so I had to uninstall the Sims 3 so I could reinstall it to patch it to the right level (and make sure origins auto installer is turned off).

While I was considering whether the trouble was worth it, I thought "Why not give TS2 a go?" and here I am.

Thats probably a way longer explanation than anyone wanted or needed, but eh. :D

Ramir and Ana are S3 and S4 - S3 is the palest skin the baby should have.

I didn't mind the long explanation, I like reading why people like TS2 Thanks.

As for the skin, I can't help you with that, I'm sorry. But I hope for you it will adjust when Amira grows up.

BEHOLD! Mystery pale baby! I'm pretty sure she's S1. I should have taken the picture in the same room, cos the lighting in the second pic is yellower/darker.

Amira aged to toddler and she's still pale, so I am going to start a new belladonna cove and see if Ana and Ramir have another pale baby. At least I'm pretty sure its not the skin I'm using or the baby outfit cos I rather like both of them. You can see the skin I'm using here, and I'm using the darker variation on the two 'options' (so S1(Pale), S2(DarkerMid), S3(DarkerTan) and S4(Dark)). But Amira looks at the darkest to be S2, she's definitely fairer than her dad, who is in turn fairer than his wife. And she has his unfortunate facial structure, so she's definitely his kid. lol.

Its a bit of a puzzle!

Anyway, after nearly killing Ana with the Noodlesoother (cos I'm a moron who didn't read the warning label on the thing), I ended up hiring a maid and a nanny so she could cope with what was swiftly turning into an epic case of post-partum depression. She's recovered by throwing herself into her career, and getting a promotion. Ramir is happy is a pig in mud on the political career track. He comes home with more needs in the green than he leaves with. o.O
AND I'M ALREADY ATTACHED. It was only meant to be a testing game, but I'm ATTACHED.

Darn it Sims 2!

The most parsimonious explanation is a poorly-geneticized skinset. If the creator is still available I'd talk to them about it. It's possible it's happened before and there's some weird and illogical but simple fix for it. (You'd be amazed how often that happens. Computers are like that.)

If it persists and you can't get hold of the creator, this is worth creating a Help thread for.

I thought default replacement skins didn't/couldn't alter the default genetic values? I know the skin has 6 thumbnails there, but its actually only 4. You have to choose between 2 options for S2, and 2 options for S3.

At any rate, I'll do some breeding experiments :D

You can also look at the actual genetic values in SimPE. That may help you figure out what's going on.

Keesa Patal (Ramir's mom) is S2 (his dad is S3 and Ana's parents are S4 & S3 according to my notes).

Ramir's mom shouldn't matter, though. The skintone range is determined by the parents of the child in question. The parents provide the extreme ends of the range, and the kids can be anywhere in between.

Have you tried removing the defaults from your game to see what she looks like then?
Also you can type the cheat simdna amira while on their lot to have a popup tell you more about Amira's genetics.
She's cute

No, they can. The default replacement part is caused by the resources having the same names as the originals, but as shown by the fact that they look different, they can contain different things in those resources.

I offer genetically altered default replacements on my eye set upload, for those who want all eyes to be equally possible for offspring. I want proper variety in my hood, I don't want to have to think about genetics to avoid it being overrun by the dominant traits, so I made hair and eyes be equally dominant. Skin genetics aren't recessive/dominant, but fact holds, you can change the genetic values of default replacements.

a long ago discovery:: if WooHoo is done with a NPC (while he/she is a NPC) and again when he/she is made playable, the sim would get 2 memories from those.

I've found that when a pixel on a community beach lot, having swum in the ocean, thinks that it's a 'vacation'. This is in a regular neighborhood..Very odd.

@kidhedera On the baby clothes, those have moved on a LOT in recent years, clothes are no longer part of the skin but can be bought and changed. There is also hair and accessories like shoes and rattles. MoonlightDragon is the place to go. http://moonlightdragon.freeforums.org/index.php if you like baby clothes its worth registering.

If you use something like SimBlender to make one sim pregnant by another sim she never met, they will suddenly appear in each other's relationship panels at the beginning of the second trimester. Odd.

Thanks to everyone for their helpful responses. When I got home this evening I fired up the Sims 2 and started a new Belladonna Cove. I also swapped in a different default skin that I decided I liked better (Paperdolls by Summerdream). Anyway, this time Ana and Ramir had another baby girl, who looks to be Ramirs skintone - it'll be easier to tell when she's older. I might try looking in SimPE at her genetics later.

But I'm posting cos Ramir took the baby to work with him! I had no idea they could do that. He was so excited about the baby when it was born, it was really cute, and I kept telling him to put it in the crib, but I didn't notice he'd *gone back and got the baby again* until he was almost in the car to go to work.

Photographic evidence attached.

Meanwhile its probably a good thing. I'm terrible at taking care of sims so Ana is in * a state *. I hired a butler before Ramir left for work cos I'm worried that she might die if there isn't someone there to look after her. The baby would probably be taken by social services if left alone with her.

Are you using the Freetime lifetime aspiration benefits? Motive decay was increased with Freetime, so if you don't have the benefits that decrease them, motives will drop faster than they used to. You'll find the benefits in the same tab that has aspiration rewards, the button right under the aspiration point count.

You gain points by filling the lifetime aspiration meter, but since Ana and Ramir are adults, they should have at least four points, which is enough to get the four options in the needs-column.

Butlers have always sounded like more trouble than they were worth, to me. I don't know what you're having trouble managing, precisely, but when a sim's in motive crisis the first thing to do, as in real life, is to drop your standards. The house doesn't need to be as clean as all that, she can eat leftovers, and now is not the time to focus on skilling. It can sometimes be hard to keep them fed in the beginning because their cooking points are low and the foods they make aren't as nutritious and filling. Sticking her in front of the tube to watch the cooking channel will raise her fun, comfort, and cooking skill all at once. And it's worth crowding the budget a bit to get her a comfortable bed with a good energy rating. You'll find that managing her needs gets easier as time goes on. I came from Sims1, where motives always dropped like rocks, and find that if I reduce the Freetime need-droppage they get too easy to play!

Anyway, what I discovered: I don't normally play vampires because I don't really see the appeal. They live such restricted lives! But I wanted a vampire with a lot of connections to the ghosts in the graveyard in Bigg City, so Lionel Trane - who was friends with the founder, Max Bigg - befriended Count Douglas Tang and got himself bit as an elder. I moved him into a house with room for a coffin and he walked in smoking, so I sent him upstairs to to sleep in his coffin, the first time I have ever done so. The special effects of getting in and out of the coffin are pretty funny in a brightly-lit room with wainscot and pink-flowered wallpaper, centering on an old guy in windowpane check PJs who's covering up his vampiric pallor with makeup! I need to decide whether to keep him playable or turn him into a townie for the final release version. If he's a playable there's not so much challenge in resurrecting the ghosts, but if he's a townie nobody'll get to see how he tricked out his house...Lionel is a Professional Party guest and a Romance sim, so he's furnished for entertaining. I'm finding the whole thing hilarious.

Butlers - banned in my game!

I like butlers. I have the Butler's don't cook mod, so that helps. I would love to have a mod that made them never go home.

I have butlers, but they're modded so that they're actually useful. The only problem I'm currently having with them is that they think they need to serve food if anybody in the family is even the slightest bit hungry, so they always use up all the food in my fridge. I end up turning the fridge around to face the wall unless somebody actually is very hungry. Otherwise, they're great - I've seen butlers repair broken computers and appliances, greet the welcoming committee when the playable family members are busy or too far away to do it, and call the exterminator when a feuding enemy or stray dog keeps kicking over the trash can and spawning roaches. (I'd look up which butler mods I have, but Windows Search isn't cooperating at the moment - I guess I'll have to set aside some time to index my Downloads folder.) The all-in-one NPC approach does cause problems though - if there's too much for the butler to do, he'll try to do everything and end up failing to accomplish anything, so on a large lot like the Goth mansion or Capp Manor I ignore his protests and hire a maid and a gardener (and sometimes a nanny) to assist him.

I did have one butler in an old copy of Belladonna Cove who was a little odd. A townie woman kicked over Geoff Rutherford's trash can, so the butler promptly went out and greeted her and invited her in. She headed straight for the bar and spent several sim hours just drinking until Geoff and Connor got home from work and asked her to leave.

@BoilingOil - Speaking of punishing annoying sims - one thing that really used to irritate me was when sim children would go and jump on the bed to raise their fun. Since I run with the testing cheats on, I would open their needs panel and manually drag Bladder all the way down. They had to stop jumping on the bed to wet themselves. Unfortunately sims aren't smart enough to learn from experiences like that. I haven't seen any kids do this in my game lately, so perhaps a mod is blocking that behavior.

Children should jump on beds - and on sofas - and on chairs, tables and the roof of the house (if they could) in Sims - they cannot climb the trees. Especially when they are supposed to grow up in one of those tiny houses - jump all you want! Kids have energy that needs to be used.

My biggest problem with the butler is that he keeps inviting randoms in. I wish he'd only greet NPC's that have at least 1 positive relationship point with the resident sims. Other than that he's been a great help.

I haven't been trying to skill with either of them. I usually have her and Ramir socialise for a bit, then have him cook a big meal, and then while I'm trying to get her to eat (cos she needs 2-3 servings) I'll notice she's really tired, so I'll try to get her to go to bed or if she's *really* tired to nap on the couch, and that's usually when she passes out. Its a bit of an adjustment getting used to TS2 after years of playing TS3+4, pregnant sims have motives that decay alarmingly fast, and I haven't played any other sims yet. Ramir is fine and usually the day after the baby is born and she's recovered a bit so is she, so I reckon I just need to play a family that *isn't* pregnant until I learn all the things again.

Before I got Ultimate Collection I only owned the base game and Seasons, so a lot of the features are completely unfamiliar to me, and its been a decade so even the ones that look vaguely familiar have changed or I remember incorrectly or vaguely.

Thanks for the advice about freetime perk things. They are going to be a great help keeping sims alive. I had no idea they existed. I did read a tutorial on tumblr for how to 'upgrade' sims using the batbox, which was handy, and how to use Simblender so I could use that to age up Amira and check her skin (Amira2.0 has S3, correct skin, so yay).

Anyway, I'm now satisfied that all my chosen defaults are working, all my hacks seem to be functioning as expected, and its *time* to start a real game. I'm thinking a rotation of Pleasant view, old school style. :D

I had to download the 'Butler is no nanny' mod so they would stop dealing with the babies/toddlers. SO annoying.

I agree! Butlers are just filthy perverts, when it comes to households with babies/toddlers. They will ignore their duties to become even more annoying than the kid's parents. With the mod in place, they suddenly become useful employees, especially if the family also has a greenhouse. The butler will be worth his weight in Platinum, once he's gained the Gold Gardening Talent Badge.

If you click on the butler you should have the option to tell him how to deal with visitors. By default he will greet everyone (which is why there are suddenly random Sims hanging out in your living room...) but you also have the option to let him send everyone away or simply ignore all visitors and let you deal with them.

Ok, I'll agree that a pregnant sim's motives decay faster than others. But not *that* ridiculous, as far as I remember? And certainly, my females don't eat three servings per meal! Also, "if she's *really* tired to nap on the couch"??? What? Napping on the couch isn't gonna help! The more tired she is, the more important it is that she gets into the BED!!

Exactly how many of her motives are in the red? And how far in the red? I think that you've let her hunger and energy run way too deep in the red before you started doing something about it. They are both near desperation, right? And maybe some other motives as well? Because that's the only way for it to be near impossible to get her to eat or sleep.

And another thing... "usually"??? You say that as if this has happened to her a few times already... How many pregnancies has this poor girl been through in this condition? Are you *trying* to effing kill her? Really, especially with pregnant sims, as soon as any single motive comes close to turning yellow, you should already be doing something about it. You must be much more careful with your pregnant sims; they're fragile!
And once she's given birth, at least give her a chance to get ALL her motives well into the green before knocking her up again!

My sims kids always jump on beds.
Cassius Granville-Carver is the first one to jump on a couch since I'm playing the game.

Not all the pregnant Sims react the same to pregnancy - some really have a hard time! Most of them eat for two (or three, as I have realised with my twin plague). Snacking between meals help a lot for the eternal hungry ones - and some of them seem to need more sleep than others. Some Sims seems to be a lot more uncomfortable than others. Once in a while, a Sim floats through pregnancy with almost no symptoms too. (One of my Sims slept all the time, while ultra-neat hubby cleaned the house, stack the fridge with meals and make fruit juice so that there were always some ready. Lucky lazy girl!).

Exactly. Some never throw up, others barely leave the bathroom. It varies, just like it does for real women. I'm not familiar with this pre-made family, but if they have low cooking skills they'd be limited to shittier dishes that don't fill much. That would make any hungry Sim need two servings to fill up if properly hungry, and a pregnant Sim that's got the hunger bug... not easy. I'm impressed you are managing to keep this Sim alive, kidhedera, considering that you haven't played Sims 2 in a long time. One of my pregnant ladies in the same situation, and she's constantly either about to pass out, or about to starve. She eats plate after plate until she's too tired to continue, by which she'll have at best 1/3 of the hunger bar filled. Sleeps til she's too starved to sleep, then repeat. Her energy decay during nights/mornings is ridiculous, I imagine there's some coding tied to the morning sickness time frame. She'll go to bed at the same time as her boyfriend, both at similar energy levels, and by the time he's fully rested, she's at 1/3 of the bar full. I have extended life spans and pregnancies in my game, so she's been like this for a week now. But once she hits third trimester I'm going to pretend her doctors decided it's not safe to let the pregnancy continue, and deliver the baby early by using InSim. The baby will need some medical care (also CC-induced, courtesy of simmer22/Theraven) but it'll be alright, and the mother can start to recover from this ordeal.

I'm sorry BO, but I'm going to say it. You are getting on my nerves. You keep preaching that everyone plays differently, but if you catch someone that does not have the same happy-go lucky perfect world hood as you do, you act as if though they are sadists who sit around torturing Sims for fun. You are making statements about how things are ("the only way for it to be near impossible" and so on), when really, you appear to play the same way all the time and therefore have no idea about many of these features that are built into the game. Perhaps you've never had a pregnant Sim without tons of cooking points with the massive motive decay, but that does not mean that any Simmer that does have that situation is cruel to their Sims. Maybe you could chill a bit with the judgment of other peoples playing? You dislike being called Boiling Oil, I dislike being told I'm evil just because I enjoy the game differently than you do.

@gummilutt: you know nothing of my game. Nor have you a clue of what I'm saying, it appears. I never said that kidhedera were evil, OR that they were torturing their sims; merely that they let it go too far before they responded. There is a big difference between these things.
And if this is the result of some mods that they have installed, then maybe they should have waited with making it so hard on themselves. But whatever you say!! Goodbye!

@Justpetro: yeah, some sims *do* have a harder time than others. I'll agree to that. But so bad that you can't even get them to eat OR sleep? That's not bad, that's TERRIBLE. And I've never seen that happen, even with totally untrained sims who were pregnant while living all alone! Yeah, that's right: they had nobody to take care of them at all, and no help. No butler, no maid, no nanny; just no help! They had to do it all by themselves. Three full days of bleh. But usually, by the time they get into their second pregnancy, things are a lot better because they'll at least have learned some skills, cooked some meals in advance, and generally have prepared for the possibility that they'll be extremely sick for a while. They're certainly not going to be as miserable as the first time, even if they have to do it all by themselves.


And to anyone else who thinks I'm getting on their nerves: mine is just a single voice among many. And this is a forum about a *game*, for crying out loud. Nobody should take anyone so seriously. And *me* least of all. I'm not *that* important!

BO, kidhedera is a new player so it's going to take her awhile to learn how to manage sims 2. Pregnant sims can be hard.

I agree napping on a couch is NOT what a pregnant sim should be doing though. You want to buy a good bed (either cc or an expensive Maxis bed) not one with an energy gain of 3, so check her bed. So good bed, plenty of leftovers in the fridge and bubble baths. The thing to watch for is the energy-hunger loop, never allow the motives to drop too far before doing something about it.So a regular sim is about half way or less let them go but a pregnant sim start doing something before they even make it half way down. For a few sims that will mostly be sleep, eat and bubble bath. The bath helps comfort if they are gagging or vomiting or just uncomfortable. Again a good bed helps a lot with comfort. The only thing they can die of is hunger, so if needs are low deal with hunger before anything else. They can eat and sleep stinking if need be. In a pinch remove every seating surface and tell them to get left overs. They will eat standing up and connot fall face first into the plate which must be on a table or eating bench for that to happen.

Hey guys,
I only make poor Ana nap on the couch when she is literally too tired to walk to the bedroom. I figure its better than passing out on the floor right? I dunno, maybe I should have moved the bed to the lounge room so it was only a few paces from her fridge. o.O
Also, The reason Ana's been pregnant a couple of times is because I needed to check something out with the default baby stuff I was using, and my default skins, so I was just using that same family cos she's in her 3rd trimester when you load up the game. Everything seems to be functioning correctly now, so I don't have to torture poor Ana anymore.

There's no need for folk to get huffy (either at me, or at each other on my behalf). Jumping straight into looking after a 3rd trimester pregnant sim when you haven't played the game in *years* is trick. In the Sims 3 and 4 I play without looking at the motive tab at all ever, and I'm still in that habit. Obviously that isn't an appropriate play style for me with TS2, so I gotta break the habit. Honestly now that bit of testing of baby stuff is done I'll be playing some of the other game features so I can get the hang of looking after sims again. Things like knowing about the free time perks that can reduce motive decay has already been a great help.

See? Now THAT makes sense to me! Thank you for explaining.



Yeah, I got that At least... maybe not entirely new, but at least returning after a LOOOONG absense from TS2. Or so I get the impression from what they wrote.



THAT would be my point indeed. Make sure their motives are taken care of *before* they sink too deep. And with pregnant sims you must start sooner than with others, *because* they decay faster.

And the comfort bar - some of them really cannot stand up for two Sim seconds. (Ah, BoilingOil, this particular Sim probably would not have survived a pregnancy without her husband - she is as lazy as they come, but she surely picked her husband well )

I recommend Kidhedera to get self preservation mod according to their playstyle.

Don't worry about it. It's not about you, something BO said to me days ago has been bothering me since, and this discussion made me realize I should speak my mind. BO tells me when I do things that pisses him off, I figured I should do the same thing instead of sitting here silently grumpy. So far we've gotten through our differences, hopefully we will this time too.

BO, I did some research on the global that the breastfeeding mod uses, to see if it's the one causing them to put the baby on the ground and then pick it up again. It might be, but I don't think so, based on my tests. I think the key problem is that the game can't transition from holding baby to the new interaction of breastfeeding baby without clearing queue, and the only way for it to do that is to stop holding the baby. If the breastfeeding interaction was made a sub-interaction of holding baby, that might fix it. I'll try to figure out how that's done, but I thought I'd tell you about the finds, since I know it bugs you too.

Apparently Bigfoot cannot ask another sim on an outing - at least with non-friends. Guess there will be no outing rewards for him!

Im sure you did know about this but I have never seen this before...

It seems like pregnant sims can not use the hot tub. For some unknown reason. I had a pregnant sim who woke up at night so I thought she could hit the hot tub to relax. But she did not have the "jump in" action avalible. Her husband (who at the time was sleeping) did have it.

I've used butlers in the past (not often) but enough to have thought I'd seen everything. Nope. I was totally surprised to see the butler run outside and bow to a guest. I thought it was some weird anomaly the first time, but it happened again. Pic under spoiler.

It's been awhile since I sent a pregnant sim on vacation, but I think there are some other things they can't do - get massages maybe? I've decided that it's because the resort is concerned about liability issues.

Pregnant sims cannot dive off the diving board, though they can get in the water sedately. I remember what a relief that was, at the hippopotamus stage, to find the weight suddenly supported by water instead of by my groaning self. Out of sympathy, I float all my pregnant sims.

At first, I thought windows and other wall objects strictly contradict each other, and that, if placed on the same wall, always result in window becoming dysfunctional like this:



Fortunately, that isn't the case. It's only important to place the window first, make sure to make it static, and than decorate around it. So if windows are placed on the wall before other objects, and never touched again, they'll look just fine:



This is a small discovery, but the one I found extremely useful.

If your sim spins up a want to kiss somebody, she can give her sister a "family kiss" and it will count.

Yup, wonder if that also works for my Social - Kiss Cheek mod.

Sims who are in vacation at Takemizu are showing up in my main hood.

Vacationers will also turn up in the list of teenagers you can send to college. If you send to college a selection of faces you recognise from Takemizu, Twikkii and Three Lakes, they can teach your other students tai chi, the hula and the slapdance. These will be fun resources for your sims for the rest of their lives.

Teddy Bears - they age. This was after 3 kids, 2 of whom were once toddlers and could 'playfully' beat the llama out of it.

As long as you have the CEP installed.

A little heads up about this discovery. You say "never touch it again"; and that's quite true. Touching it includes moving it to bin and placing it again, or packaging it. It won't always result in a window/door being swallowed by a wall, but it might, and if you plan to share it's something one should be aware of. I've downloaded more than one apartment lot with windows and walls eaten. Once, the apartment door itself was gone I double check all lots before using them so it's not a huge deal, but it requires re-zoning to it to fix it, and not everyone will check their lots before moving Sims in.

Holy smokes simsample. I think you just solved the problem I've been having with the teddy. I've been trying to mod the aging process for ages. It takes 11 days to get worn, and in an age extended game where Sims are babies for 8 days, that gets ridiculous real fast. But for some reason it's been resilient, refusing to acknowledge the modified code, and now I see why. The cep extra folder loads after downloads, and it contains the code. Thanks a ton, I will have to try editing that instead and see if it works :D

Pong Grundstrom taught all my Sims to Tai Chi after I sent him to college

That teens can torment other teens - never seen that before, only with children.

Well done!

I don't know what that was about ^ but yesterday my orphan who was adopted out came and rang the doorbell on the orphanage so the other little orphan went to greet him and then I thought I would try the kiss cheek.

Unless this is another mod at work... it was rather amusing.
Does your mod give that reaction @BoilingOil? I may have also added that childhood kiss mod and forgotten about it.

If that's the 'use entire sleeve to wipe mouth' action, then I believe that's just normal Maxis behavior. I've seen kids do that before.

I had in mind personal use.. But even when packaging and saving lot for a personal use, I always do extensive testing (not only playtesting, but also placing a copy in different neighborhoods, and placing a copy in a new freshly generated Sims folder). And I didn't encounter any issues, the windows always stayed functional in my game. Are you sure your problems weren't caused by you accidentally touching it? Or the uploader packaging before fixing it? I don't know, maybe something does change when lot is used in different people's games, but I, like I said, I really didn't have any issues. If someone wants to exchange lots with used decorating cheat so we can test out how it acts in each other's games, I'll be willing to participate. I agree with you though, that uploaders should indicate if they use a lot of cheats and out-of-ordinary building tricks, so that people who download are aware that some objects might become dysfunctional/inaccessible if moved or touched.

No, I did not touch them. It was apartment lots, and you can't touch windows in those unless you re-zone I asked the creator, and it wasn't inside the wall in their game, so it seems to be something about the transfer process. But either way, I just thought I'd mention that it's important to keep in mind if you intend to shift it around. It's not worse than having to re-do it after, but if one intends to share it may be good to keep in mind Not everyone will know how to fix it, and if it's an apartment lot you have to re-zone and that could glitch it up.

I don't usually place things by windows and doors, so I don't have any lots to offer for testing, but if you do look into it I'd be very interested to hear the results.

But should they be doing it with your kiss cheek mod? They both pulled faces and he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

Gummilutt, For windows that have lost their glass and just show the frames simply reload the lot.and save. Unless it was something more?

I think kids wipe their mouths on their sleeves after any "kiss" interaction. Which should just be the greeting and Family Kiss.

about pregnant sims being able to get into pool, I noticed that long ago. I think on the Specter lot with either Ophelia (she was aged up by then) or an aged-down Olive.

some recent discoveries::
-if 2 or more of Adult or older gets into Aspiration failure, each of them would get their own Sim Shrink (or Therapist); like the Social Bunny for Social Need. though unlike the Bunny, each Therapist would be un-see-able by the others; Social Bunnies would appear transparent to the others in Social failure.
-(sort of a rediscovery) 3 base game death types leave behind a object besides the urn/tombstone: fire & flies, Ashes; satellite, Accessory - Satellite. at least this difference between those 2 types of ashes: fire's is bigger.

I had a YA on a neighborhood community lot away from college and got curious about what they could do while away. I found he could do a term paper on the community lot, but no research, didn't try assignments. I might build a library and test it out with a group to see how much they can accomplish.

I saw Cyjon's fragile permaplat mod in action.
Bellatrix was LTW platinum. She lost her permaplat status when she lost her lover.

Saving early Apocalypse Challenge Romance sims from the therapist since forever!

@Essa, does something have to happen for your sims to lose perma plat? My sims are always losing perma plat, when nothing has happened. I will get a pop up saying 'due to recent tragedies X has lost perma plat staus" Umm, X just had a grandchild and is happily watering her garden, or X just passed their uni exam. No tragedies have happened. it's like the mod rolled a dice and randomly pointed a finger.

@Duine There is a mod that allows for all uni activities on non uni lots.

@Peni Griffin, It's probably because it's been so long since I made a child kiss anyone (I tend to tell them to hug) that I had forgotten the sleeve wipe.

A Sim can actually be sunburned and freezing at the same time. Unless some mod I have is messing stuff up.

Garden sprinklers can break and can be repaired! I didn't even realize it until the handyman I'd hired for another repair walked to the garden and started screwing it with a wrench. I then looked closely and saw it was barely sputtering water.

Also when fixing the high end dishwashers that come with AL (I believe?), sims will remove the bottom panel before they start to repair. I'd never seen that before and thought it was a really nice realistic detail.

I swear my sprinklers always get stuck, then I can't move them anywhere or even delete them.

Put the stuck object remover over them.

I learned that parents teach their toddler street smarts, obeying the laws about crossing streets and not to jaywalk