More Awesome Than You!

Please tell me that I am not the only one who is obsessed with not wasting food.  I only let them serve food if there are at least 3 very hungry sims on the lot.  Usually it's just a chef salad.  Sometimes I let one sim make food, eat it halfway, and then let another sim eat the rest.  How sad is that.

I understand your pain :D

Mine get the buffet and that's it. They seldom cook at all. Except for the crazy nanny, she cooks even with the buffet at her disposal.

I'm not fanatical about it, but I also hate to waste food.  There's nothing worse than serving food when only two sims are hungry.

I also let sims eat off the others' plate.  I usually only do so when one sim gets full and I tell her to stop.  I'll try to find another sim who isn't very hungry, but could use being topped off and if they're not doing anything, they get to eat the leftovers.

I seem to be one of the few who don't really mind how long it takes for sims to eat meals now (I definitely see a difference, but it hasn't caused any problems with my sims) so I try to wait for everyone to get halfway hungry or for a couple of sims to get VERY hungry.

You're not the only one. I wish you could "serve dinner for 4" or something so you don't throw food and money down the drain.

There is a great hack by dizzy2 on VS for serving only as many sims that are actually hungry (therefore not wasting any food) . Here's the link: http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/showthread.php?t=2002
I use it in my game and think it's wonderful.

I use Dizzy's hack too and I agree, it's wonderful.  I wouldn't be without it now.  It's wonderful to be able to serve 2 meals or 12 meals at once, whatever you need.  Why Maxis couldn't have made it work like this is anyone's guess.  Too lazy or too tight with their cash, I suppose.

Thanks for the link, KellyQ!  I'll try that out.

I have often thought it would be cool to have a "leftovers" option, so that the sims could put the serving plate with the extra helpings into the fridge, and then they could eat it the next day. Much more realistic - I often cook enough dinner to last 2 nights.

But...it's not real food.

It still costs simoleans though. Besides, even if your sims are rich, or you're using the auto refill fridge mod, it still sucks to have uneaten food out to go stale and attract flies and food poisoning.

I found Monique's no spoiled food hack at MTS2.  She has one where food never spoils, one where it doesn't spoil for 12 hours, and one for 24 hours.  I use the 12 hour one because I think it's a nice compromise.  It's kind of like having leftovers.  I also use dizzy's smart serve hack and TJ's serve everyone hack.

Monique's hack is here:  http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=84926

The breakeven point of serving food is 4 servings. The "Serve" option consumes 4x the supply rating of a single meal, but produces 6 plates. So if you're serving 4 or more, you're not wasting anything. Less than that, and you should not serve.

I'm totally lazy and a real spendthrift. I don't care if there are plates left over, as long as none of the sims goes hungry. I usually run pretty full houses so there are rarely more than 2-3 plates left over. I don't use the auto-fill fridge hack either.

Edit: In sims2 they don't seem to need more than one main meal a day.

It's only with the expensive fridge and the expensive cooker plus high cooking skills that you can get away with only one meal a day!  (Except kids, best to let them snack, then they don't get fat!)

The No Eat Crap hack seems to work OK with NL, so if you have a problem with sims overeating, this helps, though it won't stop lazy sims eating too much and getting fat!

I like the 'fat' female sims, more shapely. Fat male sims get the potbelly shape which isn't so attractive.

But have you looked at your fat female sims from the rear? ;D

Ack, thank goodness MATY is back up.  I was starting to get jittery.  Thanks for the info, JM!
ZephyrZodiac, quit looking at their butts!  Sheesh!

I wish we could have a serve the kids option on the fridge, that way it only makes food for the kids on the lot and the maker would not eat it. that way the kids could eat something besides juice and chips seeing as how they can't cook themselves.

Is it just me but I swear that since NL my Sims are a little smarter than before about serving food. I have noticed that if a Sim is told to serve a meal, they only make enough meals for people who are on the lot.

This means if Dad starts making dinner before Mom gets home, only him and the 2 kids get plates of food. I've also noticed it when I have Uni students serving food - they don't count anybody who is at class.

So maybe Maxis is moving in the right direction but I definitely need to get one of the above hacks so I can pick the number of meals served - I mean if a Sim is going to be home soon, I'd rather have a meal waiting for them rather than have them then cook themselves.

Yes, I've noticed that too ... and I agree. I hate having to tell everyone to make their own meals. So much easier if one person just does it. I don't care about wasting food.

My big food pet peeve is the occasional fridge glitch I get that only lets my sims have instant meals. This happens to them no matter what their cooking skill levels are. I even had it happen to a celebrity chef once. Everyone else in the house can have whatever they want and this sim has to have instant meals unless someone else cooks for them. This has happened to me more than a few times. When I exit and come back in the glitch may, or may not, be gone. I had one sim who ate nothing but instant meals for what seemed like forever.

Is the game trying to keep my sims from getting fat?  ;)

Dizzy2 has a cool hack - the smart serve - and the kids can actually cook anything the adults can (provided they have the cooking skills).

The hack only counts the hungry sims actually on the lot; so if someone is at work, they won't have a hot meal sitting there waiting for them when they get home, they'll have to cook it themselves.

Just because it isn't served out onto the table doesn't mean it's not there. A sim which arrives late or is still hungry can always get seconds from the platter.

KellyQ, something tells me that YOU would love a hot steaming meal waiting when you come home from work.  Boy, I wish I could find a hack for THAT!

The things is that most of my sims aren't hungry when they get home from work, so feeding them is pointless.

Yeah, who the hell comes home from WORK to *EAT*? Don't you know that mooching free office snacks is cheaper?

Just become a vamp. You'll never have to eat again! My vamps have had a total of two meals in the last ten days of game play. I'm considering deleting my stove on that lot and just having the fridge around for emergencies ... though of course there's also the energizer machine for dire emergencies, like when they are forced to go out in the daytime.

But now that I've figured out a fun way around conventional jobs that doesn't involve a money tree, they may never see sunlight again ...

Do share!

So I was playing a Uni house last night and noticed several things when I told a Sim to "Serve Food":

1. Several Sims were over, bringing the total number of sims in the house at 12. The Sim told to serve food proceeded to set out 9 settings of chili con carne from 1 serve food command with nothing left over on the serving plate.

2. Later, only four of the five Sims that live in the house were present. The Sim told to serve food served 4 servings of omlettes, with nothing left over on the serving plate.

Now, I forgot to see if I have any hacks in regarding food (I don't think I do but I've been wrong before) so that could be why this is happening. I also haven't checked any other houses yet.

And just FYI, I have a patched NL game. This isn't something I necessarily am looking for a fix for, more of an observation since I got NL and patched because I know this wasn't happening before.

Well, I put the patch into NL before I replaced any of my hacks, and until I put dizzy's hack back in, sims just served 6 servings no matter what, and kids couldn't serve themselves breakfast.  Now I have the hack in, they can.  so I would suggest that you check your downloads, the hack may have slipped in with a house.

Well, it's a bit off topic, but I set up a music corner in Lucky's Card Shack, which I thought was too nice so I scuzzed it up a bit too. The bar, not the corner. I got rid of the Karaoke machine and now they have live music instead. It has a bass, guitar and piano. I thought about adding drums but I have two vamps and I was afraid that the odds of getting two GOOD musicians to join in were pretty minimal. So I took a chance that maybe one creative person might be hanging around ...

So now they can go to Lucky's and either play for tips, tend bar or play poker. Last night they did all three and took home around $500. (Joe Carr joined in on piano even though he hates them both on sight. He's pretty good.) I plan to post pictures on WorldSims, where I've got a storyline going about my new town ...

It may not be much moola, but they're vamps. They don't need food, just to pay the bills and buy a fun toy if they can afford it. Oh, and a cool car, eventually. And clothes. She's a bit of a clothes horse. Gotta look good when you're scaring the townies.  ;D They go on a LOT of dates but since they've stopped breathing they don't seem to need to eat so going out is, for the most part, free.

She does plan to attempt to seduce a few saps for some prezzies. Too many roses, not enough pianos, I say. But that's covered in another thread.

That is, however, money making method #4. Fleece the townies.  ;D

LOL!  Fleecing townies is my moneymaking method of choice!

I once did an experiment in a brand new neighborhood completely without hacks.  I sent a Sim to Uni with nothing but the clothes on her back and §500.  She made friends with professors and cheerleaders, and would spend all her time at a specially designed community lot that had 4 instruments.  These NPC's all had fairly high creativity, so they brought in good tips.

After 4 years of school, and selling the instruments I'd bought for the dorm, she graduated with exactly §110,000.  Just from managing a band and collecting their tips.  And she still got Summa Cum Laude and made a few best friends along the way. 

If you use JM's comm-skilling hack, you should graduate with at least §40K without even trying.  AND leave the piano in the dorm! :D

Hook

I quite often send my students down to the gym with a friend who's got high body skills.  the friend acts as a personal trainer while my sim works as a barista.  I've put computers there, so they can either write their term papers or influence someone to do it for them.  I won't say they've graduated with that kind of cash, but then I haven't pushed it to the limit!

I've seen Sims get up from the instruments and collect §1,200 from the tip jars.  But §400 to §900 is more likely.

Get everyone playing, then call to invite a friend.  After they've tipped everyone, call someone else.  Work as barista and let that guy tip everyone.  Go to class or finals and leave everyone playing.

The biggest problem is sometimes you can't Shoo some Sims off the instruments when you're ready to go home.  Putting soap in the fountain will usually get a couple of Sims off the instruments.  Admiring/Shooing/Talking will sometimes get others.  But especially if you've invited the Sim downtown from your home lot, then asked them to join you on the instruments, you can't get them off.  Luckily they can be made selectable and you can X out the perform function.  Currently you can make any visitor selectable with debug mode, not just the first invited Sim, for which I am eternally thankful.  (I don't like keeping the Mind Control Mirror on lots all the time, which is what I'd have to do on a downtown lot.)

Hook

The most money I made in college was in the email challenge with the popularity sim who was obsessed with painting masterpieces. She would get a friend over to do her term paper, have a chat to a professor on the phone and then spend the rest of her time painting until she needed the energiser. She was almost always platinum, and raking in the cash.

Stick a Gnomon's flamingo on the lot and she wouldn't need to waste precious painting time on the energiser!  And they work fine in NL.

I was playing email challenge, though, so no hacks that improve mood allowed. Flamingos are for kicking, that's it.

Well, in that case I suppose it has to be the energizer or nothing!  And so risky, if they drop out of gold at just the wrong moment!  I 've so far had two sims with the grilled cheese aspiration through trying to change their aspirations as the wrong time!  (One was deliberate, Lilith was being obnoxious, so I did it to her to teach her a lesson!)

So I went digging through my downloads folder and loo and behold I found twojeffs "serve everyone" hack in there.

So that explains my weird food servings. Just color me embarrassed!

Well, if you didn't know you had it, there's nothing to be embarrassed about!

Thanks Zephyr!  :)

I should have checked my downloads folder prior to posting about it....

...but I'm glad I know the reason now!

Well, when you have a new EP and a new patch, it's easy to think it's something in one of them that's not working right!