The Legacy Challenge for TS3

[crunk]

ETA: Zazazu, I like the way you've done your family tree, did you use a template or just do it all free hand?

I use the in-game ones as a template, but have to do heavy tweaking to get all the in-laws in, and of course add names and breeding relationship symbols.

The 1st gen spouse got his LTW, to be Emperor of Evil. Immediately after he got home, all three girls rolled the want to be Leader of the Free World. I had him quit before the harmony was further destroyed.

Stupid question that I suspect everyone but me knows the answer to: how do you get the pictures you use in your family tree diagram? Screenshot + cropping, or something easier?

[MasterDinadan]

How about this...
Marry whoever the hell you want and just use the AwesomeMod cheat to subtract all of the money that the newcomer brought in.

My first gen married Lisa Bunch.  I'm not sure whether she is rich or not but my sim didn't identify her as such. Her house was worth 90k when I married her, and she brought 5k (I think when she moved in).

In fact, I tried moving in the entire Bunch family.  Since they weren't rich I figured it was allowed and I could get all that money.  Turns out, even if I sold the bunch house and furniture and moved all of them into my family, I still only got 5k for it.

[ciane]

That might be a glitch that gets patched later. However, for now, it does seem that marriage/move-ins do not bring funds related to the cost of the house and land. Marriage to a single sim living in a 65K house by himself only brought 1.5K to the household funds and the option to bring any furniture with him was grayed out.

[Zazazu]

Stupid question that I suspect everyone but me knows the answer to: how do you get the pictures you use in your family tree diagram? Screenshot + cropping, or something easier?

Yeah, in short. I put the game in windowed mode to negate the crappy darkening effect. Screenshot with different sims selected on the trees so that I have a normally-sized portrait of all relations, which can take several shots. Paste them in layers on a blank document in Photoshop. Select and delete the game background and blue tree background. Move my layers about so that I can see all the thumbnails at once and merge those transparent layers. Then cut, paste, smoosh around. Fix any inconsistencies with the relation lines. Add name text. Add marriage/friend/etc. relationship icons that I cut from the relationship panels.

Updating portraits is a cinch, but adding in another family tree after a marriage is not.

Here are the three girls. It was nice to have my pick, since I decided to do a matriarchy. The girl on the left, Julia, is the heir. I almost picked Penny, center, but she's Mean-Spirited and after Adele I just don't think I can stand another sim stuck in a crabby expression the majority of the time. Nellie, right, is the eldest and was eliminated from late childhood due to her pissing me off and almost flunking out of school. I left her fishing while I was fixing a messy situation for three days.

[Pinstar]

Well, that's a nice rewrite of history. Because it only got horrifically complex after you posted it here and people pwnt you.

That's absolutely not true!
Some of them changed when I was pwnt on other boards too

In all seriousness, your points are well made. I've already revised the money legacy points to include house values AND cash on hand, and I'm currently playtesting a kelpto sim with the intent on abusing the trait just to see if it is as broken as it seems. There is a good chance that at least the klepto rule won't make it, especially as people discover more and more ways to churn money quickly.

[Zazazu]

Gardening: garlic, bell peppers, and money trees. That's probably the easiest and most consistent money well in the game.

Damn Raphael seems incapable of passing on a Y chromosome. He had two daughters he abandoned to join the gang. He and Adele had three girls, with one about to move out and 1 day left until elder for Adele when I decided to let them try for a baby. She ended up with twins. Girls. Again. No watermelon has been allowed.

Pinstar, have you seen the portraits chugged out in TS3? They are garish.

[J. M. Pescado]

In all seriousness, your points are well made. I've already revised the money legacy points to include house values AND cash on hand, and I'm currently playtesting a kelpto sim with the intent on abusing the trait just to see if it is as broken as it seems. There is a good chance that at least the klepto rule won't make it, especially as people discover more and more ways to churn money quickly.

Klepto is a minor moneymaker, but the game already heavily penalizes the value of stolen objects: A stolen item is reduced to a small fraction of its original value, so unless you are intentionally setting up lots populated with extremely expensive objects that exist solely for the purpose of being stolen, it's not a very big moneymaker.

[Pinstar]

In all seriousness, your points are well made. I've already revised the money legacy points to include house values AND cash on hand, and I'm currently playtesting a kelpto sim with the intent on abusing the trait just to see if it is as broken as it seems. There is a good chance that at least the klepto rule won't make it, especially as people discover more and more ways to churn money quickly.

Klepto is a minor moneymaker, but the game already heavily penalizes the value of stolen objects: A stolen item is reduced to a small fraction of its original value, so unless you are intentionally setting up lots populated with extremely expensive objects that exist solely for the purpose of being stolen, it's not a very big moneymaker.

Gardening: garlic, bell peppers, and money trees. That's probably the easiest and most consistent money well in the game.

Damn Raphael seems incapable of passing on a Y chromosome. He had two daughters he abandoned to join the gang. He and Adele had three girls, with one about to move out and 1 day left until elder for Adele when I decided to let them try for a baby. She ended up with twins. Girls. Again. No watermelon has been allowed.

Pinstar, have you seen the portraits chugged out in TS3? They are garish.

You know... I never realized that. Thank you for showing me the light!
Now I need to restrict bell peppers, money trees and garlic...(J/K) I'll probably take out the klepto bit pretty soon, especially in light of the value penalty that I didn't realize existed.


And yes Zazazu, I agree the portraits are not the snapshots of the TS2 days. Could someone mod in a 'not suck' option for the 'stylized still life'?
I've found more success with sims in a lot of artifical light. The best one I got to come out was of one of my test family's wife. She was in the cheap shower at the time and I took the picture through the distorted glass at her head and hair. The distortion of the shower glass combined with the natural distortion now ingrained in the portraits actually produced a decent portrait...unlike my founder's portrait which looks like it was painted using a bag of moldy Cheetos.

[awrevell]

Well, that's a nice rewrite of history. Because it only got horrifically complex after you posted it here and people pwnt you.

That's absolutely not true!
Some of them changed when I was pwnt on other boards too

In all seriousness, your points are well made. I've already revised the money legacy points to include house values AND cash on hand, and I'm currently playtesting a kelpto sim with the intent on abusing the trait just to see if it is as broken as it seems. There is a good chance that at least the klepto rule won't make it, especially as people discover more and more ways to churn money quickly.

Thank you for a great laugh Pinstar.  Most people emphatically deny being pwnt, much less admitting having been pwnt elsewhere when there are no witnesses on hand to prove otherwise.
Thanks for being a good sport.

[Nikki]

My founder and her husband had 5 children, a set of twins and triplets thanks to his wish to be surrounded by family. While the triplets were still toddlers, and he and my founder were barely sleeping in shifts with less than $1000 in the bank, he rolls a want for 10 children. He must have a hidden insane trait. He also has a tendency for hideous offspring. When the twins aged to teens I had to immediately rule out my initial pick as heiress as she looked too much like a bobble-head doll, every time she ran I was afraid she would topple over. The next one I had to give her a hairstyle to cover her face, she's actually very pretty but she has her dad's nose which makes me want to scream in fright.

I'm waiting till the triplets age up to finally choose an heiress (founder had all girls). At the moment they live in a 3 room house. The bathroom was built after several embarrassing moments and moodlets (with loss of relationship points) from the open bathroom and I had to add on a separate room after the triplets were born so they wouldn't keep waking everyone up.

Two questions: 1. Are identical twins possible? I doubt it, seeing that they don't tell you that you have two babies on the way,only a recurring naming box indicates this occurrence, but I wanted to be sure.
2. Has anyone else noticed that a crying or singing baby will awaken anyone aged child or older in the same room but other babies right next to them continue sleeping sometimes? It doesn't make sense. Sometimes the babies will get a rude awakening moodlet but other times they sleep like nothing has happened.

[caitlyn]

In all seriousness, your points are well made. I've already revised the money legacy points to include house values AND cash on hand, and I'm currently playtesting a kelpto sim with the intent on abusing the trait just to see if it is as broken as it seems. There is a good chance that at least the klepto rule won't make it, especially as people discover more and more ways to churn money quickly.

Have you looked at the "rich sim" part as well?  I have yet to move in a "rich" sim that actually brought very much more than a poor sim...if they were game spawned. 

Thanks for the revision on the house/money.  I was building a monstrosity of a house to make sure I spent every cent that I made.  Why have a gazillion simolians in the bank if it doesn't count? 

[ciane]

Would eating apples to get a boy be considered a cheat?

[Budgie]

Would eating apples to get a boy be considered a cheat?

I wouldn't think so, seeing as it's included in the vanilla game.

[GayJohnScarritt]

Regarding aging up sims early, you must wait for the "Birthday Message" the game gives you before you use the cake...

Just one more quick clarification.  Which "Birthday Message" must I wait for?  The one I get a couple days before, that say's it's almost their birthday, so start thinking about getting a cake (it's not like I have to call up a bakery, to pre-order a silly cake).  Or the one on their actual Birthday, when they have 0 days left of their current life stage?

I absolutely hate the way EAxis did TS3's Larvae/Sprog stages.  With TS2, having them at those ages was a joy.  And with 7 days as a Sprog (toddler), it just drags on and on.  With the 2-day pre-Birthday message, we're at least cutting it down to 5 days.  I still wait till the day-of for the Larvae's (no pre-message).  (I'd kiss the ground they walked on, if someone ever manages to bring the toddler-blanket forward)  

Edit"

Portraits: 1 point for creating a portrait of a family member and keeping it on display after their death. Like above, the sim must be part of the family tree and living in the legacy house to qualify for this point. You earn this point after the portrait is created, you do not have to wait for the sim in the portrait to actually die. Portraits are still worth their points even if the family member pictured is moved out of the house later on. The skill of the artist doing the portrait does not matter, as long as it features the sim in question it counts. Portraits may be of any size or style. Keep in mind that a sim must have a painting skill of at least 5 to get the option of painting a still life (needed to capture a sim's picture).

This confused me for a bit, for when my Founder's Spouse got to skill 5, she still couldn't paint a portrait (which actually comes at skill 7).  It finally hit me that you actually mean a 'painting' showing an eligible family member, not an actual 'portrait' (I was dreading having to waste the time of this generation's kids, getting to skill 7 in order to do one of the starting spouse, now I won't have to)..  Since a still life could be of anything, I could have several eligible family members in the same 'still life', would I still get 1 point for each eligible person in that painting? 

[Zazazu]

And yes Zazazu, I agree the portraits are not the snapshots of the TS2 days. Could someone mod in a 'not suck' option for the 'stylized still life'?

Okay, I've been delving into the code this morning after a search last night for anyone doing work on this gave me nothing. Adding an option on for a "Clear" style, or something of the sort is a VBT. If an option-adding mod is done on an object, it can't be removed without ruining the game code.

If anyone else wants to look at this and try fixing it, go for it. So far, I've been stabbing around but can't seem to get rid of the wavyness.

[ciane]

I always aged my babe's up as soon as I had met any urgent needs and the toddler's were aged as soon as they had learned all their skills. Waiting for their birthday messages will be a pain, especially for the infant. I guess at least their relationship scores with others will improve.

I do hope that painting code is fixed before I paint portraits.

Edit: My Sim married someone with the same LTW, so I got the perk to change LTWs. I didn't see any way to randomize how to select one of the five choices. Do we select based on a die roll? 1-5: pick from order listed from left to right. 6: roll again?

[GayJohnScarritt]

...I guess at least their relationship scores with others will improve.

With the lack of normal interactions while in the same house, and the rate their relationship scores plummet, those darn kids wil stilll be strangers to the rest of the family by the time they're teens. 

Edit: My Sim married someone with the same LTW, so I got the perk to change LTWs. I didn't see any way to randomize how to select one of the five choices. Do we select based on a die roll? 1-5: pick from order listed from left to right. 6: roll again?

Shhh, don't give him anymore ideas. 

[caitlyn]

Edit: My Sim married someone with the same LTW, so I got the perk to change LTWs. I didn't see any way to randomize how to select one of the five choices. Do we select based on a die roll? 1-5: pick from order listed from left to right. 6: roll again?

Since I'm going for the points on completing as many of these as I can, I pick one that I haven't already completed.  If you couldn't do that, getting all 32 would be an impossible thing.

[ciane]

I like the way you think! I just didn't want to "cheat" and have to restart.

[BastDawn]

And yes Zazazu, I agree the portraits are not the snapshots of the TS2 days. Could someone mod in a 'not suck' option for the 'stylized still life'?

Okay, I've been delving into the code this morning after a search last night for anyone doing work on this gave me nothing. Adding an option on for a "Clear" style, or something of the sort is a VBT. If an option-adding mod is done on an object, it can't be removed without ruining the game code.

If anyone else wants to look at this and try fixing it, go for it. So far, I've been stabbing around but can't seem to get rid of the wavyness.

Wouldn't it be easier to make a default replacement, rather than a new option?

[Zazazu]

Yeah. Well, I figure it's a filter being applied by default. I've looked at a lot of the XMLs involving painting, and there are instructions for applying certain styles (Somber, Insane, Genius) on a trait basis or forcing it based on moodlets. The string for forcing Insane was empty, so I almost wondered if we were all seeing the Insane look due to bad code. But when I tried just putting the surrounded by people one (can't remember the exact text at the moment) and the stir crazy one, then tested, I had no difference. Then I tried just eliminating the lines regarding forced or unlocked styles to make sure that the package was really loading. That eliminated style choice, but not the wavyness or color change.

There's another XML that might be doing it in the FullBuild0 package, as it seems like it has to do with paintings and manipulations, but it's so involved I just can't decode it. And I really, really suspect that's the one.

[spaceface]

Would eating apples to get a boy be considered a cheat?

I wouldn't think so, seeing as it's included in the vanilla game.

This would explain why my Legacy founder has given birth to 5 boys (she has the "surrounded by family" LTW). Apples are practically the only thing they ever eat, as they do not have a fridge or stove yet. Sigh.

[Pinstar]

I'm looking into a change to the rich sim rules, since that seems to be widely unpopular and annoying.

Here is my proposal, I would like everyone's opinions on it. It is not offical yet, I'm just looking for feedback.


"Your founder, and only your founder, cannot marry a rich sim. All future generations may marry any sim, rich or otherwise.

Money Legacy points capped at 20 total (2 million in net worth)


That opens up the rest of the neighborhood up for marriage, once all the townies have all made themselves rich in later generations. It also keeps Legacy point scores in line by capping the only score that technically was unlimited.


Please let me know what you all think about these two proposed changes.

[Zazazu]

Sounds good to me. There should be some non-rich sims in both neighborhoods as they default. Two million is achievable but not extremely easy to reach. For your standard BBS-type audience, that should be quite hard.

How about portraits? Are you thinking about capping those? I already have seven points from portraits and my 2nd gen heir hasn't become an adult yet (just one more day).

[caterpillar]

The thing with 'rich' Sims is that when you marry them, no matter how much money they have or how much their house is worth, they still only bring in 1-2k when you marry them. So the no marrying 'rich' Sims rule is pointless. The new rule is less onerous, but it's still pointless.