What are the differences between zombies and normal sims?

[blackbrick]

I mean other than the obvious (looks etc), of course. I want to make one of my sim a zombie but I want to know first if there's something I should know in advance, like whether or not he'll be able get married and have children, and if he'll pass down his zombie genetics (I hope not!). This is a sim that I like so I want to keep playing him the way I play my other sims.

Also, same question for aliens. I haven't had an alien before and plan on having one. I do know they marry and breed and pass down genetics, but other than that is there anything I should watch out for?

Back to the zombie -- I read on another thread that the amount of money you spend will affect how the zombie turns out. So if I want the zombie to be as similar as possible to original sim, I have to pay the grim reaper 9999 simoleons -- is that correct?

[Lion]

Yeah, max the payment out, and the sim will look exactly the same. I don't know much, but I do know that they can die.

[blackbrick]

Thanks! I don't want them them to look the same actually. I just want them to retain original personality, aspiration, interests, and skills. And maybe existing relationships.

[Kyna]

If you max out the payment it won't be a zombie, it will simply be a resurrected sim and no different to what it was before it's death. 

You need to spend between §988 and §4,125 on a resurrection to create a zombie.  If you want to minimise personality point loss, then go for the higher end of that range.

[SnootCB]

From the Prima Guide*:

$1-$987: Resurrection fails, money is lost.
$988-$4127: Sim returns as zombie.  -20 daily/-15 lifetime relationship with caller.  Lose most skills and get "zombie personality".
$4128-$8512: Sim returns alive but with all skills reduced by 3 and all personality facotrs reversed. +10/+5 relationship with caller.
$8513-$10,000: Sim returns exactly the same as before death. +35/+25 relationship with caller.

Children can only come back perfectly or not at all.  Offering above $1,000 gives perfect children (no zombie kids).

All zombies come back with special skintone and animations (ex: zombie shuffle and thoughts of brains).

Zombies can WooHoo but cannot Try for Baby.  The only way a zombie can have a baby is if they were pregnant when they died.

Zombies don't age.  The only exception is teens that are sent to college and young adults that graduate college.  Zombies can die from accidents like fire or electrocution.

There is a special Uni scholarship for zombie teens.

All zombies return with the same personality. Mean, Outgoing, Sloppy, Playful, Active (in other words, they stink and like to kick over garbage cans).

Aliens are just like regular Sims but with green skin.

Hope that answered your question.

*The Prima Guide can be wrong, so don't blame me if this is all L&P.

[blackbrick]

Arrgh. I'll still be able to cheat with the personality points. The no breeding part is the problem. Thanks guys anyway!

[Gwill]

Zombies are horrible.  The walk is so slow and no amount of personality tweaking will make them run.
They don't age, they don't breed, they have lousy personalities and lose all their skills in the resurection process.  They're what the nazis would have called useless eaters.
They're fun for about five minutes, but since they last practically forever, the whole thing gets boring pretty fast.

I suggest you zombify a townie to get the feel of it.  Don't experiment with a sim you like.

[J. M. Pescado]

Zombies are not appreciably worse than other lazy sims with shit personalities, but personalities can be remalleated using an inversion resurrection or encouragement. The movement rate will remain atrocious, and getting the ninja teleport is a must if they are to remain playable. For the most part, this same applies to all other non-running sims.

You need to spend between §988 and §4,125 on a resurrection to create a zombie.  If you want to minimise personality point loss, then go for the higher end of that range.

This is a not-trueity. The point-loss results are the same regardless of how much you spend. Spending greater amounts of money will give you either the flawed "reverse personality with minor loss of skills" resurrection, or the perfect resurrection.

[blackbrick]

OK, I've decided to make one. All my lot sizes except the community lots are 3x3 so I should be able to handle the slow walking by strategic placements of stuff. I've experimented with one of my available sims (didn't save it) and it didn't look too bad -- in fact, the mug shot looks kind of cool. I'll create a new family for this and leave my existing sims alone. I do want this (and one alien too next time) because my current neighborhood is too sickeningly wholesome. Thanks for all the helps!

Off-topic question -- is there a non-cheat trick to get a higher probability of alien abduction? I saw that some houses in Strangetown have 5 level towers to put their telescopes on which makes me wonder if that's the way to get the aliens.

[stephbass]

Off-topic question -- is there a non-cheat trick to get a higher probability of alien abduction? I saw that some houses in Strangetown have 5 level towers to put their telescopes on which makes me wonder if that's the way to get the aliens.

Not that I'm aware of. If you have FreeTime there's a lifetime aspiration bonus thing that makes alien abductions more likely, but other than that non-cheat abductions are rare. I think it's like a 5% or 2% chance, but don't quote me. I just had one not long ago after months of gameplay. There's no special way to get them, they just happen.

[Kyna]

No, the elevation of the telescope makes no difference.  There is a scripted abduction at the Curious brothers' house in Strangetown, as part of the scenario when you first play the lot - the reports you've heard of abductions happening at the Curious house are due to the scripted scenario and not due to the height of the telescope.

MYTH: Alien abduction is more likely if your sim has high interests in something, gazes from an elevated platform, or at certain specific hours at night.
STATUS: FALSE. Alien abduction occurs with a straight 0.05% (NOT 5%) chance per cycle of stargazing. For practical purposes, this is somewhat worse than your odds of becoming a road waffle if you dash across the street without looking. If you're still alive to read this, you're probably not gonna see an abduction anytime soon unless you cheat, install a hack, or play the Curious brothers.

If you have Free Time, you no longer need a hack for easy abduction, as it's much easier to get your sim abducted now.  Before I had Free Time, I was using TwoJeff's hack for more frequent abductions.

If you want to cheat for an instant abduction, turn on debug mode, then shift-click on the telescope.  There's a debug option for abduction and your sim will be abducted immediately if you use it.  When he returns a few hours later, he will be pregnant.

I use a replacement Pollination Tech (the other parent of alien babies), as I find the offspring of the original don't breed well.  There are quite a few replacement PTs at MTS2, however the one I use is from Laverwinkle Sims.

[unregister]

The only times that my sims have gotten abducted, was when using the more expensive telescope, and each one was on ground level when it happened, doing just regular stargazing.

[Ellatrue]

The telescope does not make a difference, although there are hacks for the expensive telescope that can make it more likely. The multi-PT hack on MTS2 includes cloned red and blue expensive telescopes with higher abduction odds.

[seelindarun]

The telescope does matter in an un-modded game.  Only the expensive telescope allows abduction.
I don't cheat to get abductions, but I've had something like 15 abductions since the base game.  None were off the cheap telescope.  I pretty much skill all logic points off telescopes, which is how I get some, but not too many aliens into my game.

[Menaceman]

Going back to the bit about zombies, I heard (but have not tested) that influencing them does not use up influence points.

[Ellatrue]

How often do you have your sims use the cheap telescope? Unless you know this with certainty from conducting a controlled experiment, you shouldn't throw stuff like that out. 15 expensive telescope abductions is a correlation. It does not indicate cause and effect, or tell you anything about the cheap one. How do you know this isn't limited to your game, or the result of sado-randomness?

[notovny]

Been done. Three years ago, in fact.

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=&threadID=566428f752bcf91a1b2928a82c9640c3&directoryID=25&startRow=1#b02bfecb39c8bd80bdb459500d00dfa5

[jsalemi]

Yea, I've always known (not sure how) that unhacked, a sim will pretty much never get abducted from the cheap scope.  I purposely put them on lots where I don't want any chance of an abduction to happen.

[Ellatrue]

Shiny!

[floopyboo]

Been done. Three years ago, in fact.

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=&threadID=566428f752bcf91a1b2928a82c9640c3&directoryID=25&startRow=1#b02bfecb39c8bd80bdb459500d00dfa5

Back before I found out about the wonderful world of hacks, I had an alien abduction in the middle of the day - my first actually.

So if they were wrong about the abduction times....

I can't say I've ever had an abduction from the cheap telescope either, but then until I hacked my game silly I only ever had that one midday abduction.

[blackbrick]

Aren't you only able to look through and instead of stargaze during midday?

[Argon]

The telescope does not make a difference, although there are hacks for the expensive telescope that can make it more likely.

Actually you can never get an abduction from the cheap telescope because the abduction code specifically checks for the expensive telescope's guid and will not run otherwise, unless of course they changed the code in FT to accommodate the knowledge aspiration reward thing.

[jolrei]

Aren't you only able to look through and instead of stargaze during midday?

You can't start stargazing during the day, but if your sim starts stargazing at night, and the action is not cancelled, in my experience the game will not change the action to "look through" but will retain the stargazing action until cancelled automatically or by the player.  In my game, it is therefore possible (provided that something like filling the fun bar, need for terlet, etc. does not kick him off) for a sim to still be stargazing after the sun is up.

[Gwill]

You can't start stargazing during the day, but if your sim starts stargazing at night, and the action is not cancelled, in my experience the game will not change the action to "look through" but will retain the stargazing action until cancelled automatically or by the player.  In my game, it is therefore possible (provided that something like filling the fun bar, need for terlet, etc. does not kick him off) for a sim to still be stargazing after the sun is up.

I think that's been changed with FT.  Sims now seem to stop automatically at 6AM.

[jolrei]

I think that's been changed with FT.  Sims now seem to stop automatically at 6AM.

Hmm.  Had not noticed this, but then usually my sims are either abducted (TJs higher odds hack) or have to sleep or use terlet before sunrise, so I have not seen this transition since I loaded FT.  I will have to check it for my own edification.  Cheers, Gwill.