12th Birthday Party - BABY BOOM CHALLENGE (TS2/3/4)

[Nevermore]

If I have some bad apples, is it okay for me to switch to them as a toddler just long enough to give them a makeover? I won't do anything else with them, just that.

From child and older I plan to have someone else give them a makeover at the makeover station. I don't use the testingcheats edit them in CAS option.

[Livvielove]

I've always seen it as you can't control the bad apple to fix their needs or gain any skills, wardrobe is not included in that, and sometimes we don't have a choice and *have* to select the bad apple.

I had a case with mine who consistently perferred her werewolf form, which for any TS3 baby boomers might know, prevents normal aging, so I HAD to control her to at least tell her to come out of it to age up. I say being able to select them to change their wardrobe should be completely fine.

[Teresa]

ok, my introduction has been posted. I will post the week 1 update as soon as I put the groceries away... I started the story three in TS4 Other Challenges, but here is the direct link to my blog.

Introduction

[Livvielove]

Your founders look great, Teresa! I can't wait to see all the babies they have!

[Teresa]

you won't have to wait long. I told my boss my plans for this weekend is to sit in my recliner so long that my butt hurts and my fitbit gets dusty

[Teresa]

Week 1 has been posted.

[somebodysangel]

It's been a while since I've played/posted, but it's cold and rainy in Sydney this weekend, so I have plenty of time. Hopefully we'll be able to complete this challenge with a few more chapters.

Veintiocho

[Teresa]

Week 2 has been posted.

[Seera]

Question: If I take the mini-challenge of No LTR's can I assume that I can't claim "Never Learned to Share" or do I automatically get that mini-challenge as well?

[Livvielove]

Huh you know, I would say that in order to qualify for the "Never learned to share" you would need to HAVE a LTR to worry about sharing... if that makes sense? Like part of that challenge is keeping others from using the rewards that you earned. I'm not the final verdict on that though, so I'd wait to hear from Thai or Julie

[Thaitanic]

Yeah, I'm afraid those two mini-challenges are mutually exclusive. Sorry about that. You can choose one or the other and still claim points though!

[Thaitanic]

Also yes! You're welcome to control your Bad Apple to change appearance and wardrobe. I don't know if this is possible in TS3 or TS4, but in TS2 you must minimise the aspiration and skill windows before controlling them. If you can't do that in TS3 or TS4, that's chil. Just change appearance and wardrobe and don't look at the windows as best you can.

[Livvielove]

@Thai, while I got you here I have a question regarding a ruling you made on the rules previously. I can't find the quote exactly, but is it true that one parent must ALWAYS work outside the house?

[Teresa]

My laptop just crashed as baby #5 was being born. Actually the screen just went black. I am about to load the game back up and see when I saved last.

I am struggling - I love this family but I definitely didn't do any playtesting and I keep wanting to start over but I this family. I have done so many things wrong that I should have done differently but I really this family. I am probably going to stop worrying about points, or at least minimize the ones I am working on, and just , have some , and let them run wild.

I will have week 3 posted tonight, then weeks 4 and 5 and maybe 6 tomorrow, most likely.

[Livvielove]

Definitely, Teresa! I just finished my first toddler in my Sims 4 legacy and he barely made level 3 in everything and that was WITH the lot traits being set to "kids learn faster" and unadulterated time with dad 100% of the time... it's HARD to get those points with just ONE so I can't imagine many! The whole part of this adventure though is to have fun, so long as you're doing that, then points-shmoints.

[Thaitanic]

@Thai, while I got you here I have a question regarding a ruling you made on the rules previously. I can't find the quote exactly, but is it true that one parent must ALWAYS work outside the house?

I think it's a bit arbitrary to say one parent must ALWAYS work outside the house, but one parent must always be in a salaried career. Self-employment and hobbies are a little different, but one parent has to have a career path like Criminal, Medical, etc. I hope that makes sense?

Also I have some free time tomorrow evening so I'm going to try and rewrite the TS4 rules then. Teresa, if you want, you can play to your suggested rules until I edit them in officially! I haven't played enough TS4 to make any changes so I trust you that the rules are suitable tbh

[Seera]

@Thai, while I got you here I have a question regarding a ruling you made on the rules previously. I can't find the quote exactly, but is it true that one parent must ALWAYS work outside the house?

I think it's a bit arbitrary to say one parent must ALWAYS work outside the house, but one parent must always be in a salaried career. Self-employment and hobbies are a little different, but one parent has to have a career path like Criminal, Medical, etc. I hope that makes sense?

Also I have some free time tomorrow evening so I'm going to try and rewrite the TS4 rules then. Teresa, if you want, you can play to your suggested rules until I edit them in officially! I haven't played enough TS4 to make any changes so I trust you that the rules are suitable tbh

But the rule states this:

" Only one of the future parents can go out to work, the other must stay at home to look after the legions of children they’ll be producing. You can also shift this around – for example, Sim A can work for the first five children whilst Sim B is at home, and then Sim B decides to go to work, so Sim A must leave work and look after the children. But you can only have any one parent working in a salaried job at any one time. "

The bold and underline are my addition. I would read this as only one parent can have a salaried job, not as one parent must have a salaried job. And that it would be fine if neither parent took a salaried job.

With Sims 3, the forced maternity leave means that if the intent of the rule is to have one parent in the house at all times, then this means that ONLY the father can take the salaried career. Sims 2 has Walk to Work for players who have Bon Voyage or Drive to Work for those who have Nightlife. Sims 4 has no maternity leave. Given that Sims 2 and Sims 4 either have ways around maternity leave or no maternity leave, can players with the appropriate mods remove/prevent the forced maternity leave?

Here's an example of the situation that can happen that happened to me: I had a couple who topped their careers before having kids. It's in my EPIC challenge and I was doing the Criminal generation. I was waiting for Criminal to be topped so that I could have all of the kids be close in age. The wife, Ryanne, topped military. Astronauts work only 1 day a week. Maternity leave works based on days worked for Sims 3. She got 27 days until she had to work again when she gave birth to her first kid. That went up to 54 days when she had her second kid. And then up to 71 days when she had her third kid. Sims on average live 90 days on Normal, which is the length I play on. Granted, her husband was a vampire and I was using life extending items on Ryanne. But her kids would have grown up before she went back to work. I can't imagine what 20-24 kids would do to the days until they go back to work for an Astronaut. I ended up using the Master Controller to remove a good portion of those days, if not all.

Edit to add: The only salaried careers in Sims 3 are the rabbit hole careers, which maternity leave affects.

[Livvielove]

I would also argue that I misconstrued the word "can" to mean "IF you want them to work, then only ONE parent can work outside the household."

As such, my baby boom would be invalid because of this, as Liam worked, but it was mostly self-employment or Ambitions careers, same with Adilyn. If that is what we're saying, then I would suggest a formal rule adjustment to say "must," but then in the Sims 3 example, for those who don't like using mods or hacks, that would force the female Sim (or whoever carried the child) to always be stuck at home without any chance of employment outside the house as we have no game way to override maternity leave, which stacks.

[Thaitanic]

Oooooh you guys are totally right. I think this mess up is on me.

In the original rules, Julie wrote:

Only one of the parents can gain employment and go out to work. The other parent however can earn money by any means available to them without being employed - writing / painting / gardening ect

& this agrees with what I wrote in the updated rules too:

Only one of the future parents can go out to work, the other must stay at home to look after the legions of children they’ll be producing [...] you can only have any one parent working in a salaried job at any one time.

What this says to me is that there is the option for both sims to stay home, but only one of them can work a salaried career at any time. Apart from that, any way they can earn money without being officially employed (which I define as having a boss/having a salary) is valid. So Livvie, your Baby Boom remains valid. Seera, you were correct in what you said.

Please ignore any implication that there MUST be one parent working in a salaried job The only MUST is that one cannot work a salaried career and must look after the kids. This is on me guys!! Sorry!

[Livvielove]

Phew! I'm relieved! I thought I had messed up big time in my Boom! I'm super glad that it still works that way! Thanks for the clarification, Thai!