Maxing out sims skills

[witch]

I'm interested to know how other people play the game in regard to skill points. I often see comments in threads about sims that are maxed out by the time they are teens or even children. My sims are struggling to get to the half way point by adulthood. Or if they are CAS sims, I'll give them about 1/2 skill points in simpe as a starter. That LTW of 'max out 7 skills' is quite a challenge for me.

So I'm asking for comments on game tactics. For the people that have sims with early maxed out skills, do you just hammer them at skilling day and night? I kind of picture it like sims online, I installed the demo recently to have a look, just rooms of sims skilling while people chatted. Dead boring.

Maybe I'm really asking, "just how do you manage it"? My sims do skilling in between the relationship and maintenance stuff, I run the sims in the game much the same as real human lives, you know the cliche, 'all work and no play' etc. I would also get bored just watching sims do nothing else but skilling, then of course there's nothing more to do once everything's maxed out. I enjoy a mix of sim activity when playing.

[J. M. Pescado]

My solution has become pretty straightforward: Macro->Skillinator->Gain X. Let 'er rip. I mean, sure, you could argue that skilling is boring and thus you want to stretch it out, but hey, haven't you ever heard of "Work Before Play"? The fact of the matter is, children have no social interaction choices worth spit. They are utterly incapable of holding a conversation with anyone but other children, and even then, this is kind of a stretch. Mostly, like real children, they simply annoy everyone. And since they can't really *MEET* very many other children, what with the inability to go anywhere or do anything, combined with the extreme shortness of the age stage, that leaves skilling. Socialization is left for the teen stage, when they actually have nearly the full range of interaction choices available to them. If a child is going to do any socialization, he's going to be doing it over a chess board or while watching the Yummy channel, or not at all.

Plus, children actually receive a significant advantage to skilling, in the form of the Stuck Smart Milk. If your child happens to be a prodigy as a result, with the 300% learn rate, you're pissing it away by not skilling, because they'll lose it when they move for college.

Lastly, dragging out boredom is not interesting! If skilling is equated to boredom, then it will be even more boring to procrastinate it. Why not get it done while your opportunity costs are low?

[vecki]

I've just started my own bastardised Legacy family (bastardised as in I'm not removing my coffeecuphack for nobody), and I've set my sims to doing a lot of skilling, teaching where career rewards exist, and practically living with that Thinking Cap on their heads (an absolute 1000% improvement to the appearance on the first child born, Adrian 'I'm a pointy-eared doofus who took 2 sim days to learn to walk' Le Gassey).  He's now maxed out the cleaning and logic skills at an abnormally fast rate, given that he started learning on his first day as a teen and by the second had maxed out both.

Next up, Creativity!

[Jaayar]

If tackled correctly, the max 7 skills, is one of the easiest LTWs to achieve. Knowledge sims gain asp points extremely quickly, much more than they will use in a lifetime. So if you want them to achieve that early, make use of those points.
Don't allow them to get a job. 20,000 is enough to keep them alive because they do not need most of the stuff they buy. Use your first lot of asp points to get an energiser and from then on they do not need a bed or a fridge because, if they keep skilling, they will always have enough points to keep it topped up and will never sleep or eat or socialise (unless you want them to of course). Neither do they need walls. They can now skill for almost 24 hours in every day.
The first time I tried this was for the email challenge and I think it took about 8 sim days to achieve that want. It could have been quicker, but I was wary of running out of money, so I didn't hire a maid or a gardener and the sim had to do all of that. I also took some time out to make a few friends because she was searching for a mate.
But, if you enjoy a mix of sim activity when playing then perhaps this is not the way for you.

[HRH Posie]

I have to agree, many of my sim children will have at least 8 skill points in each area when transitioning to teenagers.  I train my toddlers to walk, talk & potty as quickly as possible so they have more time to skill up.  With smart milk toddlers can easily make 6 points in all 3 skills, if not more.  If you are lucky enough to have the ‘fast learning skill' courteously of smart milk, your children should be able to max all skills before reaching their teenage years.  Another interesting glitch is described here.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, if you're after maximum speed (as well as all skills), you may not actually wish to train toddlers to walk. Training them to walk can actually be counterproductive, as it removes their ability to spin "in place" when someone tries to pick them up, or when they try to move to a nearby object: Instead they will stand up, turn around, and then immediately sit down again, somewhat of a waste of time.

I also don't personally exploit the "chain training" bug, because this is basically a deliberate exploit and trivializes the system entirely. Anyone who uses this has effectively invalidated the speed contest.

But other than that, children basically spend all their time gaining skills, because their choices for anything else are fundamentally crippled, and they're basically useless otherwise. Most actions are unavailable to them: Their only real choices in socials are Chat, Play, and Joke, and Hug: They can't really chat with non-children because they only talk about stupid stuff and thus cannot sustain a conversation without annoying everyone almost immediately. The play interactions are slow and not ideal for pure relationship building. Joke pays out badly on all counts, and is mostly useful only as a spacer. Hug requires way too much to be of any real use, since if this interaction is usable without rejection, you're already pretty high up.

There is one interaction that works reliably every time and never annoys the subject: Ask for a training. And so this is the dominant method by which children build relationships with adult family members.

[HRH Posie]

Well, if you're after maximum speed (as well as all skills), you may not actually wish to train toddlers to walk. Training them to walk can actually be counterproductive, as it removes their ability to spin "in place" when someone tries to pick them up, or when they try to move to a nearby object: Instead they will stand up, turn around, and then immediately sit down again, somewhat of a waste of time.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that.  Maybe I'll stop training just before completion and leave the teach to walk until day 4.  As for "chain training", I don't use it either for the reasons you describe but it worked perfectly well when it tested it at the weekend.  Children are forever spinning skill point wants and training them in one go wouldn't leave me with much.  I agree the play interactions for children take a long time to complete for minimal friendship gain.

[veilchen]

That's just about what I do. Starting with toddler, I try to get them as many creativity and charisma points as possible. As children, they can build the logic skill and at the same time gain some relationships by using the chess-table.

Thanks to the IQ tester in the baby-macro I can now find out whether the smart milk stuck, and nine out of ten times it does. I only feed them smart milk once or twice, but it seems to work better for me that way.

I ususally make sure I have the punching bag as a career reward, kids can use that without much trouble, and can be trained on it easily. Mechanical from the book, or, if I was quick enough with the adults career, from the medical reward with training, same with cooking. I don't use the toy oven much, but that's a personal choice; those muffins all over the place drive me batty.

They don't socialize much unless its trough the chess board or training, and its quite enough and much safer than the other socialize interactions. I usually just have them meet/greet visitors for use later on, in the teenage years. Then they have far less skilling to do and can up their relationships with those they have met via the phone or with the macro-socializer.

By the time they are teens, they have most if not all skills almost maxed, those still left can be easily obtained with the thinking cap that they can now use as well. That's why most of mine are knowledge sims; first, I like them best, second, they are easy to maintain, thirdly, I like them best.

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

Thanks to the IQ tester in the baby-macro I can now find out whether the smart milk stuck, and nine out of ten times it does. I only feed them smart milk once or twice, but it seems to work better for me that way.

If you're using the baby macro without turning on "Always Smart Milk", the baby controller automatically detects this condition and will not feed a baby more smart milk if "Always" is set to Off and the baby is already smarted.

I don't use the toy oven much, but that's a personal choice; those muffins all over the place drive me batty.

It's more than just a personal choice. The skill rate of the muffin oven is insuperior, so even if the muffins were not maddening, it would still be an insuperior, low-value choice.

By the time they are teens, they have most if not all skills almost maxed, those still left can be easily obtained with the thinking cap that they can now use as well. That's why most of mine are knowledge sims; first, I like them best, second, they are easy to maintain, thirdly, I like them best.

Actually, in the teen stage, you don't need the thinking cap ever if your smart milk stuck during toddlerhood. You will remain smarted even unto teen: In fact, it will last forever until you move out or delete your sim. Note that you will temporarily lose this ability if you go to a community lot (your sim is reinstanced there), but it will resume when your sim returns home. However, if you delete your sim at home and force him to respawn by the mailbox, he will lose it. The bottom line being that thinking caps are no longer necessary at all, and if you wear a thinking cap, you will not gain a cumulative bonus, you will simply lose your smart milk stuckiness and actually learn slower.

The Skillinator autodetects this and bypasses thinking cappage if it is unnecessary.

[DaveFlew]

Okay, this is my first venture out of lurkdom here, so hello to you all from chilly Cape Town.    Now for my personal experience of skill-building.

I've started getting into the habit of rating my Sims in terms of the skill in which they have the least number of skill points. Therefore any Sim with 6 skills maxed out but only 1 skill point in the 7th discipline would have a skill rating of 1. My normal playing style is utopian (as opposed to a sopa opera-style crisis-filled dystopia), so I like to keep those skill ratings high for all my Sims.

My initial goal for any new-born Sim is to get them through to University with all 7 skill-related scholarships, so skill-building is an important part of the Toddler, Child and Teen phase.

Starting with Toddlers - any new Toddler of mine will spend more time with the Wabbit than with its parents. I regard the Toddler phase as being the ideal time to get up to 8 Charisma skill points, since I don't depend on the Execuputter or the Teleprompter for fun Charisma skill-building. It normally takes two days to get up to 8 Charisma skill points, after which I switch them to building Logic or Creativity.

Child skill-building goes hand in hand with Fun, because Children are low in Fun once they return from school. If they bring a friend home from school, they head to the chessboard. This is good for Logic, Fun and Relationship score (and Comfort if you have a comfy chair). Another cure for low Fun is to gain Cooking skill by watching the Yummy Channel.

Teenage skill-building revolves around getting all skills up to 8 points, in order to earn skill-based scholarships. It's just normal studying, really - nothing unusual. If there's a need for the Teen Sim to have fun, they'll head off to the pool table. Enough trips to the pool table and your Sim will earn the pool scholarship.

I try not to rely on Career Reward Objects for skill-building. The exceptions: Logic (thanks to the Biotech station's glitch which escalates the rate of skill building), Mechanical (the Surgical Training Station just seems "nicer" than reading a book) and Cleaning (if you can find it, the Fingerprint Scanner sure beats studying from a book).

Weekends are serious skill-building time for my Child and Teen Sims. I send a Child/Teen Sim to bed on Friday night, and wake them up as soon as the Energy bar is full - even if it's at 2am or 3am. Then they spend time gaining skills until their Energy bar gets to about say 30% (maybe Saturday afternoon sometime) and send them off to bed again. They wake up on Saturday evening again, and study through the night until Sunday morning. Then they go to bed again, wake up at around noon on Sunday and stay awake studying until about midnight. Then they get a good night's sleep and wake up on Monday morning. This way they maximise studying time and minimise sleeping time - almost like getting three days of studying in a two-day weekend.

Once a Sim goes to University, I plan their skill-building so that it coincides with a career-related Lifetime Want. For example, a Sim whose Lifetime Want is to become a Mad Scientist will focus on maximising Logic and Cleaning, and getting the 9th Cooking point. By rights, any Young Adult Sim who enters University with at least 8 skill points across the board should be able to maximise all 7 skills while at University.

[SimsHost]

Wow!  I just learned something!  I didn't even know that there was a pool scholarship!

[J. M. Pescado]

Starting with Toddlers - any new Toddler of mine will spend more time with the Wabbit than with its parents. I regard the Toddler phase as being the ideal time to get up to 8 Charisma skill points, since I don't depend on the Execuputter or the Teleprompter for fun Charisma skill-building. It normally takes two days to get up to 8 Charisma skill points, after which I switch them to building Logic or Creativity.

Ah, but the wabbit *IS* time with its parents. A toddler using the wabbit can simultaneously interact with its parents, gaining easy, easy relationship boost without disrupting skill gaining at all. Well, okay, maybe not easy, easy. Actually, they mostly have a lot of bad conversations, because toddlers obviously cannot talk about anything interesting. It's kind of slow. But it's not like your parents have anything better to be doing, right?

Child skill-building goes hand in hand with Fun, because Children are low in Fun once they return from school. If they bring a friend home from school, they head to the chessboard. This is good for Logic, Fun and Relationship score (and Comfort if you have a comfy chair). Another cure for low Fun is to gain Cooking skill by watching the Yummy Channel.

The piano can be another source of fun, but if you just need Fun Refill, Flamingo Kicking is powerful enough that the fact that you gain no skills doing it is completely offset by the more powerful training you can get from the Lie Detector under an instructor.

Teenage skill-building revolves around getting all skills up to 8 points, in order to earn skill-based scholarships. It's just normal studying, really - nothing unusual. If there's a need for the Teen Sim to have fun, they'll head off to the pool table. Enough trips to the pool table and your Sim will earn the pool scholarship.

Teen skilling for me currently involves mop-up. Most of the work has already been done by childhood.

I try not to rely on Career Reward Objects for skill-building. The exceptions: Logic (thanks to the Biotech station's glitch which escalates the rate of skill building), Mechanical (the Surgical Training Station just seems "nicer" than reading a book) and Cleaning (if you can find it, the Fingerprint Scanner sure beats studying from a book).

I prefer to use career objects extensively, because otherwise, your parents and grandparents sit around pretty uselessly as an untapped resource.

Weekends are serious skill-building time for my Child and Teen Sims. I send a Child/Teen Sim to bed on Friday night, and wake them up as soon as the Energy bar is full - even if it's at 2am or 3am.

I generally clock-time my sims, so they don't really oversleep anyway. One nice thing about the Cooking and Mechanical rewards is that you can "overdrive" a sim well past their normal energy-quit mark, forcing them to continue until they're about ready to pass out rather than letting them stop to whine about it. By then, their calculated bedtime mark usually has arrived, and I can have them wake at a civilized hour alongside their parents for more training. Teens, on the other hand, have access to both caffeination and the Energizer. SLEEP IS FOR WUSSES! Not to mention if they're still not finished yet, they're behind schedule, and have already failed to break the speed record, and so must be driven harder!

Once a Sim goes to University, I plan their skill-building so that it coincides with a career-related Lifetime Want. For example, a Sim whose Lifetime Want is to become a Mad Scientist will focus on maximising Logic and Cleaning, and getting the 9th Cooking point. By rights, any Young Adult Sim who enters University with at least 8 skill points across the board should be able to maximise all 7 skills while at University.

I try not to wait that long for maximization, because Knowledge sims get majorly jacked in their skillpoint wants at Uni: They don't get ANY, and thus Knowledge is basically a dead aspiration in Uni. Have your lifetime platinum or suffer badly.

Wow!  I just learned something!  I didn't even know that there was a pool scholarship!

The pool scholarship takes *FOREVER* and doesn't pay all that well. I tried to get it once, but takes well over a day of continuous pool to get it that high, and there's no feedback like there is with the Dancing scholarship. And while the Dancing Scholarship is USEFUL, in the sense that getting there unlocked Bust-A-Move, one of the power-cycle socials that makes friend-building a snap, pool is useless, and your sims will likely never touch a pool table again for as long as they live. As a source of fun, it is vastly outclassed by flamingo-kicking, and provides no other useful collateral benefit that isn't similarly vastly outclassed. While it's possible to gain relationship points with other sims while playing pool, it's vastly outclassed in both fun and relationship boost to the point where you can kick a flamingo to max fun, then Bust-A-Move your way to 100 in far less time than it would take doing pool.

Suffice it to say, Pool, like every other new Maxian obsession, is completely worthless and not worth the bother to acquire or use. It has no practical application, unlike the Dancing scholarship. For a puny $1000 or so, it's not worth over a day of effort.

[vcline]

Child skill-building goes hand in hand with Fun, because Children are low in Fun once they return from school. If they bring a friend home from school, they head to the chessboard. This is good for Logic, Fun and Relationship score (and Comfort if you have a comfy chair).

Yes, I like this aspect too, and also use painting to gain enough fun to get their homework done.  Of course, sometimes they have to kick the flamingo when they get home to get enough fun so that they will agree to paint or play chess.

Vicki

[HRH Posie]

The pool scholarship takes *FOREVER* and doesn't pay all that well. I tried to get it once, but takes well over a day of continuous pool to get it that high, and there's no feedback like there is with the Dancing scholarship.

Suffice it to say, Pool, like every other new Maxian obsession, is completely worthless and not worth the bother to acquire or use. It has no practical application, unlike the Dancing scholarship. For a puny $1000 or so, it's not worth over a day of effort.

I manage to get the pool scholarship in around 11 hours.  Most of my sim children, as mentioned previously, will already qualify for the 7 skill scholarships when they transition into teens.  If like me you also want them to qualify for the teen job scholarship, you might as well build pool skill to fill in the time between transition and moving to University.  I totally agree about the dance scholarship.  Bust a move is such a great relationship builder and I'd be lost without it.  From my experience it takes just over an hour of dancing with a partner to unlock bust a move.  I studied pool skill building last month and you can find the results here.

[Oddysey]

Teens, on the other hand, have access to both caffeination and the Energizer. SLEEP IS FOR WUSSES!

Do you read the webcomic www.userfriendly.org? Because I think Pitr (a character with a bad Russian accent who wants to take over the world) is your soulmate. He once forced Pepsi and Coca Cola to merge under his leadership and created "Pitr Cola." Ingredients: Caffiene.

Quotes:
"Sleep, she is for the weak."
"If the Giger counter does not click, the coffee, she is just not thick."

And who could forget "alien blood coffee," the freakishly strong caffeinated substance that burned a hole all the way through the building and into the sewage mains below?

Seriously, you should check it out. A computer geek/hacker/generally pithy personage like yourself would greatly enjoy it.

[veilchen]

Posted by: J. M. Pescado
Actually, in the teen stage, you don't need the thinking cap ever if your smart milk stuck during toddlerhood. You will remain smarted even unto teen: In fact, it will last forever until you move out or delete your sim.

Thank you JM, I didn't know that. I thought the stuck smart milk effect wore off after transition into teenager. Now I can save my thinking cap recharge asperation points.

Posted by: J. M. Pescado
If you're using the baby macro without turning on "Always Smart Milk", the baby controller automatically detects this condition and will not feed a baby more smart milk if "Always" is set to Off and the baby is already smarted.

I'm glad I posted in this thread. I did not turn the "always" on anymore after reading your warning about it (in the other forum, which we will not name at present for obvious reasons ), but I did not know that it had an autodetect feature.

By the way, have you abandoned the project "elixir of life recharge"? I remember you were looking into that at one point. I guess I'm getting lazy, but I like your asp recharge fix very much.

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

Do you read the webcomic www.userfriendly.org? Because I think Pitr (a character with a bad Russian accent who wants to take over the world) is your soulmate. He once forced Pepsi and Coca Cola to merge under his leadership and created "Pitr Cola." Ingredients: Caffiene.

Quotes:
"Sleep, she is for the weak."
"If the Giger counter does not click, the coffee, she is just not thick."

No, I haven't read that comic, although the quotes you list remind me suspiciously of Boris. You know, complete with the bad Russian accent. He's the one who provides us with the inspiration for all the Soviet Russia jokes.

And who could forget "alien blood coffee," the freakishly strong caffeinated substance that burned a hole all the way through the building and into the sewage mains below?

Ah, alien blood coffee. That reference has made its way to my acquaintance even without the comic. As a user of purified caffeine myself, though, I can tell you that pure caffeine won't actually burn through things. You need to cut it with thermite for that.

It is admittedly an amusing thought anyway, and it'd be funny to actually *MAKE* Alien Blood Coffee for The Sims.

Because in Soviet Russia, you do not drink coffee, coffee drinks YOU!

[dizzy]

Suffice it to say, Pool, like every other new Maxian obsession, is completely worthless and not worth the bother to acquire or use. It has no practical application, unlike the Dancing scholarship. For a puny $1000 or so, it's not worth over a day of effort.

Superior pool skill lets you Hustle other pool players, actually.

[J. M. Pescado]

Hustling other pool players is neither a particularly profitable nor beneficial activity, since your victims aren't too fond of being hustled. As with anything else, there's only a weak correlation between skill level and actual victory.

[gali]

I do it as easy as I can:

Use the SimPe just before the child becomes a teen, and give him 992 points skills (out of 1000) in all skills.
Always choose Knowledge aspiration (I can change it in the college).
Then use the LTW (clock) of JM and change the LTW to "max 7 skills".
In one day my teen has a platinum mood, as he has to accomplish only 8 points (1 sim hour) in each skill.

As for the toddlers, I use the "magic potty" (downloaded from MTS2). When the baby becomes a toddler, I click 3 times on the potty - "potty train", "teach to talk", "teach to walk" - se tu: the toddler has the memory that he taught himself to potty train, walk and talk....

Now I can concentrate on more important issues, as make friends etc...

[witch]

If you're using the baby macro without turning on "Always Smart Milk", the baby controller automatically detects this condition and will not feed a baby more smart milk if "Always" is set to Off and the baby is already smarted.

This is the 'eye in the sky' baby controller? I have that but didn't realise it could be used for toddlers in extended ways, I'm assuming that's how I could find out IQ & smart milk stuck attributes. Otherwise is there another macro I'm missing?

My next comment belongs in the Retardo section...
I feel really mean making my little pixel people work all the time with no fun, no parties and no time out. As it is they only get a bonk about once a week, that's years in a simmie's life. :p

I wouldn't be keen to skill them with just using the energiser, I enjoy building the homes, in fact the no20khandout hack is brilliant for starting from scratch, but I think I'll try to be a bit more intensive early on. I mostly don't know what to do with the kids so that makes logical sense. There's no point in making kid friends either unless they are not Maxian sims, because the Maxian ones won't grow up anyway, then it all gets rather creepy.

I had no idea about chain skilling, that's news, I'll give it a try out of interest but suspect it would feel like cheating to do it all the time, though I'll take the smart milk shortcut if it presents.   So instructors make skilling faster also. I see I can be a lot more organised about this business instead of the almost random way I currently work it. I need a skillinator macro for ME!

On a side note, I sucessfully used 'update a pre uni sim' on my new CAS sims, though I don't know if the new careers open up as my sims cannot afford a computer yet and none of the new careers have turned up in the paper. These sims do not have a degree of course, just the six wants slots. I'm rapt with the upgrade, it seemed sad to let them live out their simmie lives as lesser beings.

[veilchen]

Posted by: witch
This is the 'eye in the sky' baby controller? I have that but didn't realise it could be used for toddlers in extended ways, I'm assuming that's how I could find out IQ & smart milk stuck attributes.

Yes, the eye in the sky is it. It does have the extended option for toddlers, its in the updated version of the baby-macro.
 

Posted by: witch
On a side note, I sucessfully used 'update a pre uni sim' on my new CAS sims, though I don't know if the new careers open up as my sims cannot afford a computer yet and none of the new careers have turned up in the paper.

They do in my game, they even get a memory of "went to college".

G.

[RainbowTigress]

JM, can you put Test IQ on the lot debugger so we don't have to keep the baby controller around to check this?  That would be great.  It was so fascinating once I found out what this does.  I was running an experiment with several toddlers and all of them grew up "smart" but one lost his for some reason.  He is way behind the others in his skills, of course.  I wondered if the "Toddler skill" memory token in SimPE had anything to do with this, but they all had them.  Funny that it was an invisible memory belonging to Mortimer Goth.  I tried copying the info from one of the other children who was still "smart" and put it in his token, but it didn't change anything and I put his original info back.  Do you know where this information is stored, and if there is a way to put it into a sim who has lost his smartness?  I was forced to reset another child, so she lost her smartness also.  It's such a drag to skill now that they are at 100 and the others are still at 300, and they rack up skill points like crazy.  I also thought it was interesting that when being taught to study, their IQ jumps to 400, but drops back to whatever it was before after the session is over.  I thought this might have been what caused one to lose their IQ, but it didn't happen on the others.

[Marvin Kosh]

I take a rather relaxed approach to skills.  Given that you can get through college and into a decent job by concentrating just on those skills you will need, I like to rack up aspiration points in between building skills.  One reason for this is that - with a little tweakage in SimPE - I have significantly increased the time it takes to reach the higher skill levels, and so if I want my Sims to ever maximise all skills, they're going to need some Elixirs.  That, and the inheritance payout when they finally succumb to old age is related to aspiration score; although it's not a lot of cash, it is one way for your next generation of Sims to not be perpetually stuck on the bottom rung of the property ladder.

The one thing in TS2 I love to build above all else, is families.  The family I'm glued to right now, I'm trying to decide whether to stop at baby number 3, so poor Trista can actually use her vacation days for something other than being pregnant and being driven insane by the two kids she already has, or press on to four maybe five kids.