Lot Sync Timer: how do YOU use it?

[AuKestrel]

This isn't a question about how to install it; rather, it's a question about game play. I found two interesting threads (here and here) on how people planned to use the LST and how to get one's neighbourhood back in sync but... I still feel like I'm missing something, because all I seem to use it for is to keep track of how much time has passed on a lot, and to grow up babies. Don't get me wrong: if all it did was grow up babies, it would still be worth its pixellated weight in gold.

So. If you use the LST, how do you use it? When you add a new family to the neighbourhood (if a child grew up and moved out) what do you set the LST on? Why? Do you set the LST to match the original family timer (that the adult child came from) or do you reset the original family timer to match the new household? Or do you do something else entirely? This is an open-ended, information-gathering question!

[J. M. Pescado]

The LST is intended to keep ages synchronized in non-immortal families so people retain their correct relative ages. If a child moves out of the lot, you should set his timer to be the same as the originating family's timer, obviously. Anything else is Doing It Wrong.

[pamysue]

I play all houses for 4 days each in rotation.  The LST is what keeps me on track with that.  If I start a new family and everyone is playing to 24 days, I would start their timer at 20 days and then play them for 4. 

[Kyna]

I play on a 3 day rotation.  When a sim goes off to college, I return them to the main hood 4 days after they left.  I have paperwork to tell me which day they are due to return on.  I send my sims off to college at 6 days to adulthood, rather than send them off a batch of sims at once, so in my college lot I might have 4 sims, one in their first year, two in their second year and one in their last year.

Most of my families only have one child per family, and I like to play multi-generational lots rather than setting up new households.  In those few families where there are more than one offspring, when the non-heir returns from college I set them up in their own lot on the day they would have returned to their parents' lot.

I also use the "skip day" function for those lots where nothing is happening - e.g. maxed out elders waiting to die or maxed out almost-elders waiting for their offspring to return from college.  In those cases, I'll skip two of the three days in my rotation, rather than watch my sims power idle for 3 days.

[Simergy]

I also use the "skip day" function for those lots where nothing is happening - e.g. maxed out elders waiting to die or maxed out almost-elders waiting for their offspring to return from college.  In those cases, I'll skip two of the three days in my rotation, rather than watch my sims power idle for 3 days.

Brilliant!  I've got lots I avoid because they're just waiting to die and it's booooooring.

Thanx, I'm going to use it today.

[MaryH]

I'm such a micro-manager, I use it every single day of every single family..ok, so I'm a anal retentive, too. I can't let my families get away from aging for one whole day. Of course that doesn't mean that I don't wish the "day" wouldn't end soon enough. Bleh, when there's nothing really great going on.
If I changed my rotation, I'd go nuts. But then again, maybe I am...

[Kyna]

Simergy, in case you can't find the "skip day" function, you need to have debug mode on and then shift-click on the lot debugger.

[AuKestrel]

The LST is intended to keep ages synchronized in non-immortal families so people retain their correct relative ages. If a child moves out of the lot, you should set his timer to be the same as the originating family's timer, obviously. Anything else is Doing It Wrong.

I play all houses for 4 days each in rotation.  The LST is what keeps me on track with that.  If I start a new family and everyone is playing to 24 days, I would start their timer at 20 days and then play them for 4. 

I am clearly a nonlinear thinker... I had been thinking about this in the exact opposite way and, well, getting nowhere. So I spent last night setting up my three households to Do It Right, based on guesstimates of how far apart the first two siblings were. (The third sibling was an "oops" born just a day or two before his mom transitioned to elder, so I knew he was already a good 20 days behind his siblings.)

[AuKestrel]

Most of my families only have one child per family, and I like to play multi-generational lots rather than setting up new households.  In those few families where there are more than one offspring, when the non-heir returns from college I set them up in their own lot on the day they would have returned to their parents' lot.

I started a new neighbourhood because I had been playing a legacy neighbourhood but moving out the 2nd children and playing them (in a subneighbourhood). I noticed that I was enjoying playing the 2nd kids as much as the legacy lots and the neighbourhoods were evolving two very distinct characters. So. I started with a CAS-created Sim and put her on a lot, found a townie she got along with, and played them "from scratch." Because she rolled Romance and he was Fortune, I left their LizzLove bed on autonomous so she could WooHoo whenever she wanted. I thought I was safe when they only had two kids, but lo and behold one of them had a midlife crisis and they had a very late in life third kid (so late in life they both died while he was still a teen).

I moved each sibling out to form his/her own household after college, and I haven't quite decided if I am going to play them on multigenerational lots yet. In some ways I like playing a legacy-type lot, but in other ways part of what I was enjoying about the 2nd children was the challenge of building a house and moving up after graduating from college without the benefits of the legacy lot (no grandparents, few or no career rewards, depending on how ambitious their parents were, etc.).

So what I really wanted to say was, WOW. How do you limit the families to 1 child each? I feel so sorry for the little pixels when they want to graduate three kids from college or have another baby! I do institute strict no-LizzLove rules on lots with Family Sims and limit them to 2-3 kids (depending on that damn 3 kids from college LTW), but if they're not Family Sims I usually don't worry much about how many kids they have. Also, what if 1 child is REALLY REALLY MEAN? In my original 'hood I sent those kids to a Downtown neighbourhood after college (or after teen if I really couldn't stand them), figuring that the Downtown would turn into a fun little evil Lord of the Flies type place with roving gangs eventually, and I rarely play them.

BTW, I have had my first two sets of twins in a row ever in the new 'hood. I was letting her have one more baby after her first set of twins because, hey, twins are random, right? And they don't eat autonomously or make cheesecake so I wasn't worried about that... and out she pops with a second set of twins. She'll get to graduate 4 kids from college now...

[Kyna]

So what I really wanted to say was, WOW. How do you limit the families to 1 child each?

I play with free will off, and my sims are on power idle.  No chance they'll go off and woohoo if I don't give them the opportunity to act autonomously.

I use ACR to decide when they'll get pregnant - I send them to autowoo with ACR every day (if they're on similar work schedules/not busy) until they fall pregnant.  Once they've reproduced, my sims don't get any more woohoo action, unless they happen to get some down at a community lot when they're out of my control.

The families with more than one offspring tend to occur via twins or alien abduction, or are a challenge based family (e.g. legacy or apocalypse).

Sims who roll up descendant-based LTWs get a reroll of their LTW to something else.

[Karen]

I have been using the Lot Sync Timer since the first version was released (I'm currently on day 184 on most of my lots, 183 on the rest).  I play all my lots in rotation, roughly 24 to 30 hours each.  I stop playing each lot either just after 6pm, or after some significant event that I'm waiting for, like a death or age transition, is completed in the evening.  The synctimer really helps to keep track of which lots in the rotation haven't been played yet (especially handy since I always play them in random order).

I have all my lots synchronized to the same day of the week as well.  On the rotation I'm currently playing, for example, all my lots start out on Tuesday evening and I play them through Wednesday evening.  If I create a new family, I always sync them to the same day of the week as the rest of my lots.

Like a lot of the other Pescado hacks, the synctimer is absolutely essential to my gameplay.  I can't imagine playing without it.

Karen

[madamejeanie]

So what I really wanted to say was, WOW. How do you limit the families to 1 child each?

I use ACR to decide when they'll get pregnant - I send them to autowoo with ACR every day (if they're on similar work schedules/not busy) until they fall pregnant.  Once they've reproduced, my sims don't get any more woohoo action, unless they happen to get some down at a community lot when they're out of my control.

LOL!  Your poor sims! 

I use ACR and just let the little buggers go for it when they feel like it.  Family sims "try for baby" more often, but the rest of the babies in my 'hood are "oopsie!" babies.

[Ryslin]

I was never able to get the hang of the sync timer. I have a very hard time remembering things. I really should learn to use it.
As it is I play in 1 week rotations on double speed. Thus the boring isn't THAT boring. I number each house in their "about this family" box in the neighborhood view thus if I am on 12 -goth I know that either Goth hasn't hit monday yet, or (which happens sometimes) I load find they ARE on monday, and then can go load whoever is going to be 13. Game sims who start out mid week get no break. Everyone is saved 5am Monday morning ready for the week.

College get sent in batches because college makes my brain bleed. I ram rod them through as fast as possible, get them back into the sim bin and add them to rotation after a full neighborhood rotation. That provides the "they were gone" time.

[Jelenedra]

Seasons helps alot. I play each household for an entire season then move on. That way, from neighborhood view I can see who is behind by what season they're at.

[Gamblor]

Seasons helps alot. I play each household for an entire season then move on. That way, from neighborhood view I can see who is behind by what season they're at.

Thats a good idea to play each lot that way.

[trillkey]

Seasons helps alot. I play each household for an entire season then move on. That way, from neighborhood view I can see who is behind by what season they're at.

This is exactly how I play too.

Keeping everyone in rotation is easy, but my problem is university. The advantage of playing every family for one season is that it's easier to have children of different ages throughout the hood (kids, teens, etc.), but then I think, when do I send them to college? How long do they stay here? I use the college adjuster so I can speed them through, but then I'm not sure when to bring them back to their families. Currently I'm just sort of waiting until each child has reached teen, and then sending them in batches, and I'm kind of thinking that I'll play the households back in the main hood for a season and then bring the kids back. What does everyone else do?

(And sorry for the hijacking!)

[Sivany]

I play using the season to keep up my rotation as well, before that I didn't really have a system. With the whole going to college thing I only let them go the day they are due to become an adult because I don't actually mind the teen stage. What I then do is I figure it out at one college year for every sim day, so if I have two teens go to college on the first day of the season they would be in fourth year by the end of the rotation, whereas a teen that went on the final day of the rotation would have just finished first year at the end of the rotation.

I don't keep really accurate notes of this though and I don't use the lot sync timer, so probably some of them end up on the wrong schedule depending on what I decide. I use the college adjuster to speed them through college and they only take the end of year exams, never the halfway exams, to prevent memory spam with the Deans list thing (although I don't allow them all to get full marks every term).

The kids return in the next season so if they leave in autumn it will be winter when they return to the main 'hood, although sometimes that means they've left university in the spring depending on how long I've spent playing them on the university lots!

[Zazazu]

Keeping everyone in rotation is easy, but my problem is university. The advantage of playing every family for one season is that it's easier to have children of different ages throughout the hood (kids, teens, etc.), but then I think, when do I send them to college? How long do they stay here? I use the college adjuster so I can speed them through, but then I'm not sure when to bring them back to their families.

To start, I do the seasonal rotation.

My college kids don't go in batches. They go when they are at the appropriate age. I'm kind of anal about everyone being the exact span of days they should be from each other throughout their lives. My teens get seven days as teens/YAs total. That means that a teen who doesn't go to college gets to be a teenager for seven days. The last three days, I usually keep them home. I switch them via Inge's school hacks to the flexischool, meaning that they don't get queued for the bus. They take that time to jump-start into a career and study needed skill points for later, or are useless bums and spend the time on community lots partying.

Those teens who do go to college spend four days in a true-teen state. After four days, they leave for Uni. I usually play 1 semester a year and fast-forward via the college adjuster. Sometimes I just play the first and the last semester. Depends on how interesting the individual sim is, and if I have other playables currently going through college. (Right now, that's a no. I'm about to welcome the first 5th-generation spawn, but the 4th generation only had three kids, two of whom have gone to college and one whom I haven't rolled the decision for yet. The three are pretty far apart in age.) At home, that time is played as three days, so they are coming back at the same time they would normally have aged up.  If that homecoming happens at a time overlapping a rotation, I just make a note in the family information, like "Daphne, back Day 2". I don't use the lot timer as I don't see much of a reason when you are actively playing all lots. I do use the Season adjuster (looks like a vase) from Paladin's SimWardrobe to keep all the houses on the same time, as often kids will move out mid-rotation.

[jsalemi]

Boy, I feel old-fashioned.   I play each lot through one full day, usually saving it during the night in case of a reset, and then move on to the next.  The only time I go beyond that is when a birth is imminent, then I'll wait until the baby is born and named and then save.

I pretty much just use the lot timer to check where families are in relation to each other in how long they've been in the hood.

[Jelenedra]

It tells you all that?  I usually don't play my neighborhoods long enough to worry about sending kids to college. =p

[Karen]

Boy, I feel old-fashioned.   I play each lot through one full day, usually saving it during the night in case of a reset, and then move on to the next.  The only time I go beyond that is when a birth is imminent, then I'll wait until the baby is born and named and then save.

Hey, you're not the only one!   I have been playing like that for ages.  I play one day per lot, or two semesters on my Uni lot, then move on.  I have 30+ families in my hood, so a single-day rotation through the entire hood can take a week or more to play through, particularly if any of them go on vacation.  (I only let them go to the vacation lots if somebody actually rolls a want for it.)

Karen

[Zazazu]

I have 30+ families in my hood

That screams "Time for a culling!"

The furthest I've gotten generation-wise was 11, but I was playing only the heirs. Fifth generation is actually the furthest I've gotten playing prosperity-style and I owe it mostly to the tight ruleset of my current neighborhood controlling who gets married. I didn't have a "natural" birth until the fourth generation spawned. My playables hadn't wanted to get married until then, and didn't have a three-bolter available. Hence, probe. Fourth gen, the eldest is currently expecting his first and most likely only (Fortune-Fortune household). The middle-born looks like she'll either be childless or have a date with the probe. Someone has to have a date with the probe. The youngest I really haven't decided about yet. It all comes down to his aspiration and potential chemistry, and he's still a child. Plus, the great "Yes/No" roll for whether he's going to be made happy or not. So fifth gen will be either two children (three households running) or three-five, most likely.

[Karen]

Well, I have been playing like that for a LONG time.  In the days before ACR, I used to have a pretty stable population of 135-145 playables, and that number had been very consistent for a long time.  Now that I let ACR decide when my Sims will spawn, the total is a bit higher (I have 166 playables at the moment), but as I said, it's spread out over 30+ families and some of those families are pretty small.  I also happen to have a relatively high proportion of elders at the moment (and will have 8 more in the next day's rotation).

Talk about "culling", though:  I had that "realistic sickness" mod in my game a few months ago and it did wonders for culling the excess population   I might have to try that again at some point.  In the meantime, I mostly don't cull the population deliberately.  On the other hand, I had a bizarre death in one of my families yesterday:  It's fall on that lot, so there were leaf piles everywhere.  A tree got struck by lightning.  By the time I noticed it, the rain had stopped, but the tree was still on fire.  There was a fire alarm in the house but naturally it didn't summon the fire dept for an outside fire.  I decided to just let it happen.  After a few minutes the fire spread to the leaf piles under the tree.  One of the elders got too close, and burned to death.

Karen

[speedreader]

I use the lot sync timer mostly to keep age spans correct.  I hate it when Sally is dying of old age and her sister Marie has just had her first child with her husband who is Sally's grandson's best friend.  Just hate it!  I generally play 2-3 days on a lot, one or two lots per session.  As for college, I send the kids when they are 18 (6-7 days into teen).  They generally only experience one semester per year at college.  I play the college lot until I have some seniors, return to the main hood and when I reach the (lot sync timer) day they should return from college I move those who have graduated back (4 days after they left).  When I move a new family into the hood they start out on the same day everyone else is on, and I adjust the season accordingly.

Before the lot sync timer I used an elaborate family tree method of playing and kept everyone's ages written on a chart so I would avoid the example above! 

[ingeli]

I also play each family a full season, or 5 days. Then I play Uni sub hood 2x3 days = 1 study year. This of course leads to very long study period for the students, they are gone a full seasonal year from the original hood, which is a long time even if they enroll at 10 days into teen-hood. I am contemplating speeding it up and do 2 study years in one rotation..  I use the LST to keep track of the total amount of days played.