Living expensive

[Warge]

One thing I'm disturbed of when it comes to the Sims is that all living expenses (food and bills) are too cheap. Generally speaking, when food and bills are paid for by general working Joe there isn't much left, and I would like this to be depicted in the sims if possible - the only things costing as it should are clothes and furniture IMO. I was thinking something like this:


1. A certain rent for the small lot size (a 2x2 is 20x20). I'd say the smallscale dimensions would be enough (20x20).

2. A rent of $3 for each floor tile inside (ie, not counting terraces and flat roofs).

3. Three times as expensive to fill the fridge. Food is a major factor when it comes to digging holes in people's wallets.


Example with the changes mentioned:
A substitute teacher (lvl 3 in the education career - not very high ranking thus) earns $452 a day which equals (5x452) = $2260 a week. If he lives with an unempoyed housewife and two kids, the fridge will need restocking once (since the kids and him are eating out every weekday). To restock an empty cheap fridge at the end of the week it will cost him (3x450) = $1350.
Living on a 2x2 sized lot, the lot rent amounts to (20x20) = $400.
The house has a total of 120 floortiles so the rent will go up to $360.
Added to this is the ridiculously low cost for the detoriating furniture and other things in the hoe - say $50.

That would leave our guy with about $100 bucks to get drunk with which in this case seems quite reasonable. Note, this is counted as a single guy working at a low-level job with kids and wife to support. Maxis throws money at the sims everywhere and the kids are bound to come home at least once with gratulation money, and I think it's quite seldom people let one adult sim be home alone all the time, so they will realistically have a lot more on their hands to buy clothes, pizza and other things for.

Came to think of it: I would like to raise the floor tile rent to $5 or so to really put some pressure on the economy and also double the normal bills amount. To make this easier to handle, I'd say the mailman should only come around once a week too, but that could be changed.

So, Lords of the Hacks, what do you say? could this be made? I would really appreciate it.

[J. M. Pescado]

3. Three times as expensive to fill the fridge. Food is a major factor when it comes to digging holes in people's wallets.

Wouldn't really help, since the replacement cost of the fridge never exceeds the fridge itself, or it's cheaper to just buy a new fridge, unless we start making them "food sold seperately". It's also true that most people also eat too damn much, I've never budgeted money for food, it's a ripoff and generally stale and nasty anyway when you buy it from stores. Life: nature's way of keeping food fresh.

[Warge]

Interesting. Would it be possible to make fridges like that? I remember from my last time playing a couple of years ago, I couldn't arse yself to call for delivery, so I simply sold the empty fridge and bought a new one. Seemed a little unrealistic, but that's maybe just me...

[notveryawesome]

Monique at MTS2 has a couple of different landlord/tenant type mods. I've been using her automatic payment mod to keep my sims poor (and Malcolm Landgraab rich). It allows you to set up an automatic payment between a specific payer and a specific payee, just like paying rent. Perhaps this is the sort of thing you were looking for?

ETA: There are also numerous hacks for auto-refilling of fridges, as well as one that allows you to buy groceries directly from the Buy catalogue. I believe these are also available from MTS2. Just do searches there for terms like 'fridge' (or check the game mods section).

[J. M. Pescado]

Interesting. Would it be possible to make fridges like that? I remember from my last time playing a couple of years ago, I couldn't arse yself to call for delivery, so I simply sold the empty fridge and bought a new one. Seemed a little unrealistic, but that's maybe just me...

I could, but it's rather a nuisance as it is, as fridges always wait until you actually need them before being empty, and the entire delivery thing is just a pain in the ass.

[pbox]

I could

Oh that would so rock! I've been wanting empty fridges forever. One of my subhoods is a out-in-the-sticks settlement, with everyone growing their own food etc, and while the one guy who has a phone can mailorder things (like fridges), it does not make any sense to me that they come with a 2-week supply of food ... kind of renders the whole farming thing absurd.

What would also rock, in terms of making the game economically harder, would be nuking those bizarre inheritances from nowhere ... but I'm afraid there must be a good reason that there's no hack for that yet? And getting employee payments to work in a logical fashion would also greatly improve things .. maybe it's just my game, but apparently everyone's getting paid twice?

[Warge]

Monique at MTS2 has a couple of different landlord/tenant type mods. I've been using her automatic payment mod to keep my sims poor (and Malcolm Landgraab rich). It allows you to set up an automatic payment between a specific payer and a specific payee, just like paying rent. Perhaps this is the sort of thing you were looking for?

Not really - I guess I could set up someone as a landlord and make him Government, but it doesn't feel right - especially since I try to keep the number of sims down. It might be a solution though.

ETA: There are also numerous hacks for auto-refilling of fridges, as well as one that allows you to buy groceries directly from the Buy catalogue. I believe these are also available from MTS2. Just do searches there for terms like 'fridge' (or check the game mods section).
[/quote]

It's not the refilling of the fridge I'm out to get, it's the price of filling it that I want changed.

[pbox]

Server has eaten my edit? 

What I wanted to say -- Warge: I do rents with the abovementioned AutoPayment mod; weekly rent is always 5% of the total lot value on the day they move in. This has worked very well so far, and it's flexible: sims can rent furnished, unfurnished, or even just an empty plot of land + build their own house.

Be careful with the AutoPayment thing though: NEVER take it out of your downloads folder! If you do that + then run the game (doesn't matter whether you open the neighbourhood at all), all your payment data will be lost. This is not documented very well in Monique's thread I think ...

I guess I could set up someone as a landlord and make him Government

Or you just use a random townie that you don't care about? The mailman? The papergirl? Before AutoPayment and No20K, I always had my sims donate to the mailman ...

[Morague]

I've updated my increased dorm billing mod to include increased bills if anyone is intereseted, you can find it at http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8312.0.html

It increases the overall billing times 3 or 5 as well as actual bills at the dorms.

[Warge]

Thanks Morague - that might settle the headache I have with university and economy. Would it be possible to make something similar for the rest of the hoods (or along my guidelines in the OP)?

[Morague]

This is a global mod - so it should affect everything It just takes whatever the game normally calculates for the bills & multiplies it by either 3 or 5, although it does significantly change how the dorm billing works. I was finding that afte a generation in the same dorm, there wouldn;t be any bills because the furniture was depreciated & how the game calculates the dorm billing. It is based on the lot value being nothing (a dorm lot), plus the value (depreciated) of the objects divided by the number of Myne doors on the lot! What I did was change it so it counts playable sims & just bills them each $300 - seems more realistic to me.

The rest of it just lets the game calculate the normal bills, then multiplies that amount by 3 or 5 - or you can change it - however - it is global, so it will affect all lots - even the rental & frat lots.

I'll look into the fridge & see about that. The other stuff - probably not so easy

[professorbutters]

Unless you have a lot of Sims in your hood with the same last name, wouldn't it be easier and faster to calculate whatever you think the living expenses ought to be, subtract the amount that the Sims are actually paying, and familyfunds away the difference?  That's what people do when they play an apocalypse challenge, so they don't have ghosts getting pissed off about missing beds.  Or is that just too easy and obvious?

PB

[Warge]

This is a global mod - so it should affect everything It just takes whatever the game normally calculates for the bills & multiplies it by either 3 or 5, although it does significantly change how the dorm billing works. I was finding that afte a generation in the same dorm, there wouldn;t be any bills because the furniture was depreciated & how the game calculates the dorm billing. It is based on the lot value being nothing (a dorm lot), plus the value (depreciated) of the objects divided by the number of Myne doors on the lot! What I did was change it so it counts playable sims & just bills them each $300 - seems more realistic to me.

The rest of it just lets the game calculate the normal bills, then multiplies that amount by 3 or 5 - or you can change it - however - it is global, so it will affect all lots - even the rental & frat lots.

I'll look into the fridge & see about that. The other stuff - probably not so easy

I agree it's a more realistic sum but a little blunt if Poor Sim is living on a 2x2 lot pays 300 just as his neighbour Rich Sim on a 5x5 lot. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

[Strangel]

This is a global mod - so it should affect everything It just takes whatever the game normally calculates for the bills & multiplies it by either 3 or 5, although it does significantly change how the dorm billing works. I was finding that afte a generation in the same dorm, there wouldn;t be any bills because the furniture was depreciated & how the game calculates the dorm billing. It is based on the lot value being nothing (a dorm lot), plus the value (depreciated) of the objects divided by the number of Myne doors on the lot! What I did was change it so it counts playable sims & just bills them each $300 - seems more realistic to me.

The rest of it just lets the game calculate the normal bills, then multiplies that amount by 3 or 5 - or you can change it - however - it is global, so it will affect all lots - even the rental & frat lots.

I'll look into the fridge & see about that. The other stuff - probably not so easy

I agree it's a more realistic sum but a little blunt if Poor Sim is living on a 2x2 lot pays 300 just as his neighbour Rich Sim on a 5x5 lot. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

Yup.

She (he?) is saying the DORMERS pay 300, all other lots pay the normal bills x 3 or 5.

[Hecubus]

jfade's got two good items that help make cost of living more realistic - Driving Costs Money and Cat Litter Isn't Free.

[syberspunk]

The rest of it just lets the game calculate the normal bills, then multiplies that amount by 3 or 5 - or you can change it - however - it is global, so it will affect all lots - even the rental & frat lots.

Neat idea.  What decides whether you multiple by 3 or 5?  How about it depend on the number of sims in the household?  It sorta stands to reason that, the more sims you got living in the same household, the more resources you may end up using.

And then maybe throw a bit of randomization in there, like +/- 1 to your multiplier, so ultimately your multiplier would be N +/- 1.  Or whatever you think would be reasonable.


Also... regarding dorm billing, does your hack already include whatever "fix" is part of the dormbillfix?  I don't even remember what the dormbillfix is supposed to do.  I just figured, it has fix in the name, so I better use it.

If the fix isn't necessary, I assume then that we can safely use your hack in lieu of the dormbillfix (if they conflict, which I vaguely recall reading something to that effect?).


ETA:  I just looked at your thread now and see you made separate versions.  Duh me.  heh.  So nevermind that part, but I still stick with my suggestion of having it random and/or depend on # of sims in household.  If you wanna get even more complex, you can possibly ignore babies, count toddlers and children as 1/2 a person, and teens, adults, and elders as 1 each.

So your formula could be something like:

new bills = [[ ( #of babies * 0) + (( #of toddlers + #of children) * 1/2) + ( #of teens ) + ( #of adults ) + ( #of elders)] + random(+/-1) ] * regular bills

Ste

[Warge]

jfade's got two good items that help make cost of living more realistic - Driving Costs Money and Cat Litter Isn't Free.

Thank you sir! That's a what I'm looking for and I guess I'll keep on looking for more hacks like those. I agree especially with the car hack - cars are terribly expensive to own (and I guess I'm going to tweak the hack too to at least double the charge for using a car).

[Morague]

Ste,

I'll look into this & see what I can come up with. My mod does fix the dorm "divide by zero" problem that Pescado's fix does, it just does it in a different way The original dorm billing gets the price then divides it by the number of myne doors on the lot, but, if you built a custom dorm & didn't put in Myne doors, then you'd get the divide by zero error. JM fixed that, my mod just eliminates counting the doors & substitutes counting playable sims - but - they do conflict because they mod the same BHAV. You only need one of them.

Warge - I think you are misunderstanding. The dorm billing only affects dorms. It bills every playable sim $300 for living in the dorm. The alternative mods I posted also bill for the dorms, but they also increase overall billing on all of the other lots. If a sim is poor & has a 2 x 2 lot, they will be billed appropriately for that 2 x 2 lot - then the bill is simply multiplied by 3 or 5 or whatever you decide. The rich sim on a large lot is still billed according to the size of the lot 7 how much stuff they have, then taht bill is multiplied by 3 or 5 - so everyone gets billed more, but it's proportional to how big the lot is & how much stuff they have.

[Li'l Brudder]

I could

Oh that would so rock! I've been wanting empty fridges forever.

Am I the only one who notices Pbox's tunnel vision?

[Warge]

Warge - I think you are misunderstanding. The dorm billing only affects dorms. It bills every playable sim $300 for living in the dorm. The alternative mods I posted also bill for the dorms, but they also increase overall billing on all of the other lots. If a sim is poor & has a 2 x 2 lot, they will be billed appropriately for that 2 x 2 lot - then the bill is simply multiplied by 3 or 5 or whatever you decide. The rich sim on a large lot is still billed according to the size of the lot 7 how much stuff they have, then taht bill is multiplied by 3 or 5 - so everyone gets billed more, but it's proportional to how big the lot is & how much stuff they have.

Roger that. Thanks for the clarification.

[jsalemi]

Am I the only one who notices Pbox's tunnel vision?

No -- I chuckled at that myself.