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Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: February 12th, 2017, 7:24 pm
by Lorinsv
" This is intended to be a difficult, but not impossible, challenge, comparable to the first generation of an Apocalypse. Just like real-life homelessness is difficult but not impossible, your sims will have a hard time of it, but--barring horrible luck or deadly mistakes--they can come out of it safely... if you're good enough at managing them.

This challenge requires two mods:
• You need to install the Homeless career. This works just like any other custom career--stick the file in your Downloads folder and you're done. (To uninstall, remove the file.) ** LINK TO THE HOMELESS CAREER: http://simfileshare.net/filedetails/178983/ **
• You need to have a way to cheat sims into the career. I recommend the Sim Blender. (Installation is the same as any other CC; just download and stick the object into your Downloads folder. The Sim Blender itself can be found in the Miscellaneous section of the Miscellaneous tab; it looks like a potted plant.)
Create a single adult sim in CAS (or equivalent). If you want an easier challenge, you may put him through college first, but he must come back with nothing in his inventory and no money beyond what the game gives Uni graduates. Aspirations are random, though you may choose secondary aspirations if you have FreeTime. You choose everything else about the sim.

You may choose your neighborhood's seasons as you desire, but there must be at least 1 Winter and 1 Summer.

Move your sim into an empty 5x5 (large) lot, as you would if you were starting a legacy, and cheat him into the Homeless career. I recommend the Sim Blender for this purpose. (You could just wait for the career to show up in the paper, but this can take a week or more and your sim won't survive that long. If your sim is fired, you may cheat them into the career again.) This career is extremely demanding and earns very little money, and is designed more as an impediment than as a benefit. Beware!: How you spend your starting cash is very important. Your sim will start out at a salary of $10 per day, and it doesn't get much better. To aid you in planning, the Homeless career depends on Body, Charisma, and Creativity skill.

If you are posting a story out of your challenge, you may prepare your sim's lot by adding any Build mode items which sims cannot actively use (ex., you can place a wall or a tree, but not a fireplace or a pond). The sim must have the same starting money as if he were moving into an empty 5x5 lot, and you may not have any enclosed rooms or a roof/ceiling of any sort. (Go ahead and use the familyfunds cheat to get the money right.) The Environment boost is your reward for writing the story.

The goal of the challenge is to break the cycle of poverty by sending a teen sim to Uni.

CHALLENGE RULES:
• No sim on the lot may ever hold a career that is not in the Homeless career track. No teen on the lot may ever hold a job at all.
• You may not use any cheats or CC items that give you an advantage. Purely cosmetic cheats/CC, macros, annoyance-savers, bugfixes etc., are fine.
• You may, at any time, cheat to enter an Adult living on the lot into the Homeless career.
• All primary aspirations are to be rolled randomly.
• You may move in only Townies and service sims. If you move anyone out, they may not move back in.


Homelessness:
• The lot on which your sims live may not have any enclosed rooms or any roofs. (Fences are OK.)
• When an adult sim moves into or grows up on the lot, you must cheat him into the Homeless career. No one may quit the Homeless career, and you may not cancel "Go to Work" from a sim's queue, but Elders may still retire. Fired sims may remain unemployed or you may cheat to enter them into the Homeless career track.
• You may never ignore chance cards.
• Being without proper food preservation, your sims may never store food in their inventory or store leftovers in a refrigerator.
• Birth control is not available. "Try for Baby" must always be chosen if it is an option.
• Your sims' basic needs are their first priority. You must select all four Needs aspiration perks before selecting any other perks.
• No sim living on the lot may visit a community lot (any lot other than the home lot) more than once in any given week. After twelve hours on a community lot, the cops run your homeless sim(s) off, and your sim(s) must return home. (Your sim can leave the lot early and spend the remainder of the twelve hours on another lot, if desired, but must spend no more than twelve hours per week on community lots.)
• Your sims may never Plead with the Social Worker or with the Grim Reaper. The world simply doesn't give them a second chance. (If you have Witches, it is still permissible to resurrect or zombify deceased sims.)
Poverty:
• You may not have more than a certain number of items of the following types placed on the lot at any time: Buy mode items, aspiration rewards, career rewards, the Pool tab, and completed crafted items (from a workbench, easel, cauldron, etc.). All other items must be sold or in inventory at all times. Whatever cheat object you use to cheat sims into the Homeless career track doesn't count toward this limit. Bugfix, posebox, macro, or similar CC objects also don't count. (Yes, that means you're allowed to use cheats to change your sims' appearance to a more realistically scruffy look... though it may be to their advantage not to look homeless, of course!)
• The limit on items placed rises with the number of sims on the lot. With one sim on the lot, you may have three items. Each additional sim living on the lot allows one additional item, to a maximum of ten items with a full lot of eight sims.
• All other items do not count for this limit; for example, there is no limit on things like plates of food, newspapers, books from the bookcase, and Build mode items other than the Pool tab.
• If your sims are given items which exceed the limit, immediately put them into inventory.
• Every night at midnight, you may return items to your sim's inventory or sell them in Buy mode, opening slots to place other items during the next day (up to the limit).
• Humble's computer must be deleted unopened.
• Anything your sims buy from a sim-owned store must be priced at least "Cheap".
Other Limitations:
• To move someone onto the lot in any way other than being born on the lot, they must have a 100/100 relationship and be in Love with someone living on the lot. (Yes, this means no adoptions or Servos.)
• Your sims may eat fish they catch and crops they grow, but may not sell them.
• Your sims may create and use workbench, easel, cauldron, and other crafted items, but may not sell them.
• Your sims may not own a business or a vacation home.
• Your sims may not go on vacation.
• Your sims may not dig for treasure.
• You may have no more than one Snapdragon on the lot at any time.
• No sim living on the lot may go on more than one date or outing in any given week. Weeks start on Sunday at midnight.
• Witch Thrones may be used only by the witch that created them. (That includes the Thrones at the Evil/Good witches' castles; since your sim is not a Head Witch, they may not use them.)

Breaking the Cycle:
For your homeless family to send a Teen sim to college, the following requirements must be met:
• The Teen sim must have been born on the lot.
• The Teen sim must have at least ten scholarships. (For reference, scholarships include: Seven scholarships, one for each skill of 8 or higher; Scholar's grant for A- or better grades; Extraterrestrial Reparation for alien abduction, Undead Educational for zombie or vampire, Billiards Prize for high pool skill, Footwork Award for dancing skill, and Orphaned Sims Assistance Fund for sims with no living parents. The Young Entrepreneurs award is impossible because teen sims cannot get jobs in this challenge.) For a harder challenge, the teen sim must have at least twelve scholarships.
• Both of the Teen's parents must be at level 10 in the Homeless career, or have retired from level 10 of the Homeless career.


Tips:
• Items should be as useful as possible. A tent or double bed allows multiple sims to sleep and allows WooHoo; a single bed only sleeps one.
• Sims who are in a bad mood won't automatically go to work--useful if you want to get someone fired so they can stay home with a baby.
• Your sims will be constantly exposed to the elements. Remember that fireplaces are Build mode items and don't count toward the item limit, and that babies can be timed so that they will grow up during seasonable weather. Also, Making Out raises Sims' temperature.
• Items used from inventory don't count toward the limit. That includes things like cell phones and fish (and magic reagents, but of course the cauldron where you create them counts as a placed item.)
• Playing music or freestyling for tips is still allowed, but will only be profitable if you can gather the required musical instrument, creativity points, free time, and visitors to tip. "

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 5:49 am
by MichelleCYoung
OMG! I want to try this!

This looks short, but challenging.

I think I'll start with a college sim, but keep the college sim homeless, as well. Meaning, he buys the biggest lot he can afford, and can only visit college community lots and/or downtown community lots for up to 12 hours per semester, including any time spent at the Secret Society lot.

This means, his only income will be from grade grants, busking, hustling pool, and the like, since he'll have no career. However, he still leaves with nothing in his inventory, and only the $20,000 starting funds. He'll still have an advantage, though, because of all the practice of living homeless, the friends he's already made (possibly a chosen spouse), and the skills he's already earned. And because the primary aspiration is random, it will be VERY RARE (but possible) for him to be able to achieve his LTW in college (pretty much limited to Max all 7 Skills or Make 20 Best Friends or Have 20 Lovers). The ones for dating are right out, all the career ones are right out. Yep, definitely a challenge.

I'm not sure you'll be able to keep children through the summer, without some form of shade, though. No roofs at all? I wonder if tents help, in this regard. But they don't help babies or toddlers, sooooo... I just don't know if this will actually be doable, but it sure does look like it would be fun to try.

You know, the more I look into Sim temperatures, and the options for cooling/heating babies, toddlers, and children, the more I think that some sort of shelter will be required, just to get them old enough to use some basic means of temperature control, such as taking a shower, swimming in the (tiny) pool, or drinking juice.

Perhaps if you were to have your sims move into an old, abandoned park, instead of a blank lot. There's nothing there, except for the old public washroom, a mere 3x3 room, and the plumbing has long been ripped out. You are free to add plumbing, if you want to use your limited items on that. Or you could just stand around inside, holding the baby, and keeping it at a reasonable temperature, so the CPS don't come and take the kids away. Because adults, teens, even children can do things to raise or lower their temperature, but babies and toddlers just cannot do anything except seek shelter.

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 2:16 pm
by Lorinsv
I got a baby and toddler through Fall with no shelter (and no crib for the baby!). I playtested a kid in the Winter without shelter, and he survived. The family used the Shoddy Fireplace to keep warm. The rules don't forbid changing the seasons, as long as there is one winter and one summer in the year. The parents had already endured Summer and that's when mom got pregnant, and then I extended Fall to last twice as long. Winter will be next, but I know a child can survive winter.

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 2:18 pm
by MichelleCYoung
Fall is fine, and the fireplace warms them all, but what about heatstroke in the summer?

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 2:20 pm
by Lorinsv
The parents survived the summer. Don't know about the kid, but drinking water cools adults down, I assume it will for a kid too, if they have the option to drink.

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 2:54 pm
by MichelleCYoung
So, you give the babies lots of bottles? Do bottles cool them down?

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 3:45 pm
by Lorinsv
I haven't played a baby in the summer. Part of my strategy was to plan my seasons and mom's pregnancy so the baby and toddler stages took place in the fall. I set up a playtesting homeless family in a playtest hood to see how children did in the winter with no shelter. Perhaps you could do a similar test to see if a baby and/or toddler can survive the summer, if that's how you would want to play the challenge?

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 3:49 pm
by MichelleCYoung
Yeah, I definitely need to play test before I actually settle into a challenge like this.

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 4:34 pm
by Lorinsv
I would be very interested in your findings!

Re: Sims 2 Homeless Challenge by Callista

Posted: March 7th, 2017, 5:21 pm
by MichelleCYoung
Well, I had to get off the game, for a while, and switch to something a bit less painful, but when I get back on, next time, I'll try to remember to test that, and see what happens. I even have a "Testerville" neighborhood for testing stuff.