How does the game choose the "one hobby"

[angelyne]

Has anyone figured this out yet? 

I just moved 7 sims into a college dorm, all payables from my neighborhoods.  Most had not been played before FT, so they had not acquired any interests yet. 

I've let them loose in the dorm and a couple have found their one true hobby.  However there seems to be a disproportionate amount of sports lovers in the bunch.  So I'm really curious as to how the game picks their one true hobby.

[Jelenedra]

Supposedly, it's a combination of personality and interest. This has not been tested though. If you dislike their current OTH, you might try the lot debugger and reselect a new one for them.

[jolrei]

I have been playing upgraded pre-FT sims for the most part, so they already had skills and interests.  My impression is that the one-true-hobby is at least partly a function of skills.  If you read the hobby descriptions, they say something like: "sims with high logic skills will be more likely to enjoy X hobby" or some such.  I generally ignore this and check the OTH with lot-debugger.  I often change it (for example if there is a household of 4 sims and 3 of them have a Science OTH - just too boring to have everyone doing the same damn thing.)

[pixiejuice]

Yes, I've been changing mine too.  Probably 75% of my pre-existing sims ended up liking fitness.  I haven't had many babies born since FT, but I'm hoping when the next generation comes along it's more random.

[nekonoai]

I've been assigning them at toddlerhood with Paladin's vase OTH adjuster. I wanted them to have specific hobbies, based on the plot I'm working on.

[Jelenedra]

Why download another hack for something that is included in the lot debugger?

[jolrei]

Why download another hack for something that is included in the lot debugger?

Especially since downloading a hack that duplicates functionality in another hack increases the chance of a hack conflict and game errors.

[Inge]

Simple adjusters don't usually conflict, it's like having two screwdrivers, you can use either for a job without the other one interfering.  They've usually only got private BHAVs and just work at the moment you tell them to, and do nothing the rest of the time.

[nekonoai]

cause I hardly ever use the lot debugger and didn't know the function was included. And the vase is purdy. lulz I haven't had any problems thus far, so I don't think it conflicts.

[marjchaos]

Not sure about how the game chooses the one hobby.  Monica Bratford in my game is active (7), moderately playful(5), and has low interest in Sports (1), yet her one hobby is sports.  I would have thought her interest or lack therof would have factored.

[kuronue]

If I may hazard a guess without having looked at so much as a line of code for this...

I think personality overrides everything. I know Pescado's awesome recommendation is to always do active sims so they can run places, and people keep saying all their sims are into sports - perhaps high active makes their OTH sports or fitness?

[jolrei]

I think, with the lot debugger installed, while "how" the hobby is chosen is interesting in a sort of academic way, it is less important (certainly to me) than the question of how happy you are with what OTH your sims are stuck with.  I find that a lot of my sims get science as their OTH.  This annoys me.  I change it.  Consequently, I gain variety of hobby interests with the debugger so I can have active sims who like cooking, and lazy sims who like sport, and grouchy sims who like dance/music.

[Jelenedra]

How does one raise science, anyways?

[witch]

If you hover over the hobby in he new panel, it gives you a list of things with which to start raising their hobby skills.

[Jelenedra]

Bwah. Thanks. I didn't think of doing that.

[jolrei]

How does one raise science, anyways?

Get the ant farm and observe ants (very slow), or stargaze, search for constellations, search for planets using the telescope (faster).  You can also use the surgery training machine (whatever that is really called), or the biotech station.

My science hobby allien YA stargazed until she got the pass to the science secret lot, and then used the surgery machine for a bit.  She did not gain much science hobby enthusiasm at the secret lot, but that's mostly because my sim decided to spend time throwing a football with the mad scientist in charge of the sekrit science lab.  

[Lord Darcy]

Watching weather channel on TV increases science enthusiasm.

[rohina]

My science hobby allien YA stargazed until she got the pass to the science secret lot, and then used the surgery machine for a bit.  She did not gain much science hobby enthusiasm at the secret lot, but that's mostly because my sim decided to spend time throwing a football with the mad scientist in charge of the sekrit science lab. 

So, science sims are sekrit danger lovers? Stargazing can lead to squashing and abduction.

[Faizah]

Toddlers can also raise science on the logic toy.

[Shake]

You should post their personality, interests, and OTH here. Perhaps there is a connection between them, but we need some data.  Or Pescado could work his magic and just figure it out.

[sloppyhousewife]

Science sucks as a true hobby. For any other hobby, it's nearly impossible to *not* gain enthusiasm. Drinking espresso? Cuisine. Composting newspaper? Nature. Painting? Arts. Reading? Literature. Red hands? Games. But for Science, you just have at-night-only activities, or career rewards, or the antfarm which has extremely annoying animations and gets dropped when fun is maxed. Couldn't it have been a microscope? But noo - it had to be something with "funny" and "cute" interactions *gags*. And why doesn't playing chess raise the science enthusiasm, if the logic toy does?

[Inge]

I was amazed that skating didn't make them enthusiastic for sport!   I think sport and fitness should have been combined.

[J. M. Pescado]

Once a hobby passes level 4, it's not important what the activities are: The computer Interweb is the universal hobby, there's a mode that covers every hobby: Browse Web About is as good or better than most interactions for a hobby for enthusiasm, and "Blog About" tends to beat everything, as most hobby actions are 150 ER, some insuperior ones (ant farm) are 100 ER, but Browse Web is 150 ER and Blog is 200.

So, science sims are sekrit danger lovers? Stargazing can lead to squashing and abduction.

The tinkering hobby is the most dangerous: Practically everything you can do is unsafe!

As for how the One Hobby is normally assigned, it is assigned sadorandomly, based on what you hate most.

[sloppyhousewife]

Of course it's easy to gain enthusiasm for whatever hobby with the new web options, but where's the fun in that? I wanted some fun (fun for me, that is) activities for my science sims, too, not just systematically raise yet another couple of bars .

[J. M. Pescado]

Of course it's easy to gain enthusiasm for whatever hobby with the new web options, but where's the fun in that? I wanted some fun (fun for me, that is) activities for my science sims, too, not just systematically raise yet another couple of bars .

Well, obviously, not all One True Hobbies are enthralling to watch, and some of them are outright annoying under certain conditions. Science is not the most dull one out there, though. At least the Stargazing actions give cash prizes. If you want a REALLY boring hobby, Cuisine seems to be the dullest by far: Seriously, what is there to do? The only thing you can hope for is that the necessary grind for the cooking points your sim needs to SURVIVE will give him enough interest to unlock the Intertube actions, because other than that, what *IS* there? Gluttony does not exactly make an interesting hobby sideline. On the other hand, it's quiet, inobtrusive, and gives your sim an excuse to sit in front of the computer all day, just like you.