We’re Learning a Lot

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My Sims, and I, that is.  We’re all learning together.

First, I’m learning how damn old a Sim can get.  Ardra is still alive and kicking at 104.  I allowed her to retire on her 101st birthday, because she had two days off coming up and I didn’t think she’d live long enough to return to work, so I wanted to cut my losses by getting her pension.  I was wrong.

Later, I read about a Sim who lived to be 126.  The person who wrote about that Sim seems to be a fairly reliable source.  Looks like we’re gonna find out.

Anyway, Ardra had been making $800 an hour at her job, plus about $1000 per shift on average in side jobs.  But, she can now make about four, mabye five large paintings per day, and hers are now selling for over $3000, so it’s not like the family is hurting.

I told you she made more money than I know what to do with.

Ardra

Remember last time, Ba’el was working on that opportunity to take 10 paintings to a local business?  Ardra pitched in and they got the 10 paintings done in a single day.  They were paid $35,000 for them.  That’s right.  I said $35,000.  And these were small paintings!  The kind that usually go for about $600 each.

I bought them four parking spaces, two Yamoshito Evasions, and a Vorn Stallion.  The extra parking space is for Perrin’s police car.  The Stallion is for Kivas, who needs a speedy car to drive when he’s out collecting rocks.  Today I’m going to build them a garage, because apparently cars on the yard attract burglars.

Ardra, Unknown Car Theif, Perrin, Kivas, and Sev

Luckily, Perrin beat the dog out of this chick.

In other news, Ba’el switched genres again, to Romance.  I read in a post by pbox on MTS (Is that Plasticbox of starter house fame, or someone else?) that Romance novels bring the most money.  He had the xml data out there to prove it, so looks like a plan to me.

Also, Ba’el got the Moodlet Manager reward, hereinafter known as “The Zapper”.

Ves and Ba’el

Some notes about the Zapper.

1.  If you use it to remove stink moodlets from a Sim on the treadmill,  he will get off the treadmill when zapped and ruin his chance of meeting his want to work out for eight hours straight.

2.  It is fully transferable, just like the Collection Helper.  (To transfer items between Sim inventories, just click on the item and drag it over the Sim’s icon in the column that goes up the left hand side of the screen.  I only learned that recently.)

3.  It’s really too much trouble to use to get rid of minor moodlets like “OMG I saw a dirty plate”  or whatever.  However, it is extremely helpful at getting rid of large, ongoing negative moodlets like the ones Sims get when a family member dies.

4.  It also has a feature to add moodlets to a Sim, but I have not yet tested that.

5.  Getting rid of the moodlet does not mean getting rid of the problem.  For example, if a Sim has the “exhausted” moodlet, the Zapper will get rid of that, but the Sim will still have a low energy motive.

Related to point #3 above, Dallas dropped dead while giving a speech at the Business Firm for an Opportunity.  His car and cookbook popped in to Ardra’s inventory.  No urn.  Maybe he’s in the public graveyard?  I haven’t taken the time to check.

Poor Dallas.  He might have been happier if he’d never wandered into the Juice Bar the day Ba’el turned YA.  And since Ba’el has the Zapper now, no one even grieved for him.  Oh, well.

Ves

Ves has now maxed his handy points and completed all the skill challenges.  One point for me.  Ves seems to be very pleased with his efforts, as am I.

Ves

I got a small Sim-crush on Ves for a second when I saw this.  You know, men in uniform and all that.

Perrin

Perrin has joined the special agent career branch, but is having trouble writing the reports she needs for her job.  It’s harder than it looks!

The first option is to have your Sim question someone.  Which sounds fine, except you don’t get the option to question them until you’re friends with them.  And Perrin started off with zero friends.  DeCasims do not make friends unless absolutely necessary.

The second option is to have your Sim dig in the suspect’s trash.  You have to be acquaintances with the Sim to do this, because you have to invite yourself to their house.  This option is also complicated.  You have to make sure the residents aren’t watching you, and you’re going to get dirty and end up walking around with trash in your inventory until you can put it on the ground and manually clean it up.  Also, it takes for ever.  I could not figure out what in the world Perrin was doing in that can so long.  Finally, though, you’ll get a popup to let you know your cop Sim has found what she needed. (I hear that sometimes they also find valuables, but Perrin hasn’t yet.)

After all this, the cop Sim still has to go home and use the computer to write a report.

AND I had totally forgotten this – but cop Sims get beepers like doctor Sims do.

With all this going on, I think Perrin will have to give up on her skill challenges.  I’m having quite enough to do getting her promotions.  We’ll see.

Kivas is still hard at work on his rock collection and fishing.

Sev became a teenager.

Sev

She added the trait Genius.  Then, I changed my plans for her LTW.  She is now going to be a Renaissance Sim, maxing out three different skills.   (I’m trying to have my heiresses avoid goals related to jobs, in order to avoid problems with maternity leave, like Ardra had.)

Sev has logic nearly done already.  She’s a virtuoso, so guitar won’t be a problem.  For the third skill, I think I shall choose cooking.  No one in this family has ever learned how to cook.  They only eat cereal. There’s a food replicator gathering dust in the kitchen.

I thought about having Sev learn painting so she can do portraits, but based on what I’m seeing with Ardra, I am expecting Ba’el to be around long enough to do portraits until one of Sev’s kids can take over.

I am Kivas of Borg.  Resistance is futile.

I got the family a couple of these VR headset things.  They give 10 fun, even more than the foosball table, so the DeCasims can quickly blast away their work/school stress and get back to skillin’.

The funny thing is, though, that you get little chance cards when your Sim is using these.  And they’re mostly questions about how to proceed in a fight or battle.  I was totally confused, because I had both Kivas and Sev doing VR programs while their soldier uncle and cop aunt were at work, and I thought I was seeing job-related chance cards.  The VR chance cards, by the way, don’t seem to actually do anything.

This concludes today’s exciting update on the lives of the DeCasim family.

Total score = 21.