More Awesome Than You!

Has anyone figured this out yet? 

I just moved 7 sims into a college dorm, all payables from my neighborhoods.  Most had not been played before FT, so they had not acquired any interests yet. 

I've let them loose in the dorm and a couple have found their one true hobby.  However there seems to be a disproportionate amount of sports lovers in the bunch.  So I'm really curious as to how the game picks their one true hobby.

Supposedly, it's a combination of personality and interest. This has not been tested though. If you dislike their current OTH, you might try the lot debugger and reselect a new one for them.

I have been playing upgraded pre-FT sims for the most part, so they already had skills and interests.  My impression is that the one-true-hobby is at least partly a function of skills.  If you read the hobby descriptions, they say something like: "sims with high logic skills will be more likely to enjoy X hobby" or some such.  I generally ignore this and check the OTH with lot-debugger.  I often change it (for example if there is a household of 4 sims and 3 of them have a Science OTH - just too boring to have everyone doing the same damn thing.)

Yes, I've been changing mine too.  Probably 75% of my pre-existing sims ended up liking fitness.  I haven't had many babies born since FT, but I'm hoping when the next generation comes along it's more random.

I've been assigning them at toddlerhood with Paladin's vase OTH adjuster. I wanted them to have specific hobbies, based on the plot I'm working on.

Why download another hack for something that is included in the lot debugger?

Especially since downloading a hack that duplicates functionality in another hack increases the chance of a hack conflict and game errors.

Simple adjusters don't usually conflict, it's like having two screwdrivers, you can use either for a job without the other one interfering.  They've usually only got private BHAVs and just work at the moment you tell them to, and do nothing the rest of the time.

cause I hardly ever use the lot debugger and didn't know the function was included. And the vase is purdy. lulz I haven't had any problems thus far, so I don't think it conflicts.

Not sure about how the game chooses the one hobby.  Monica Bratford in my game is active (7), moderately playful(5), and has low interest in Sports (1), yet her one hobby is sports.  I would have thought her interest or lack therof would have factored.

If I may hazard a guess without having looked at so much as a line of code for this...

I think personality overrides everything. I know Pescado's awesome recommendation is to always do active sims so they can run places, and people keep saying all their sims are into sports - perhaps high active makes their OTH sports or fitness?

I think, with the lot debugger installed, while "how" the hobby is chosen is interesting in a sort of academic way, it is less important (certainly to me) than the question of how happy you are with what OTH your sims are stuck with.  I find that a lot of my sims get science as their OTH.  This annoys me.  I change it.  Consequently, I gain variety of hobby interests with the debugger so I can have active sims who like cooking, and lazy sims who like sport, and grouchy sims who like dance/music.

How does one raise science, anyways?

If you hover over the hobby in he new panel, it gives you a list of things with which to start raising their hobby skills.

Bwah. Thanks. I didn't think of doing that.

Get the ant farm and observe ants (very slow), or stargaze, search for constellations, search for planets using the telescope (faster).  You can also use the surgery training machine (whatever that is really called), or the biotech station.

My science hobby allien YA stargazed until she got the pass to the science secret lot, and then used the surgery machine for a bit.  She did not gain much science hobby enthusiasm at the secret lot, but that's mostly because my sim decided to spend time throwing a football with the mad scientist in charge of the sekrit science lab.  :P

Watching weather channel on TV increases science enthusiasm.

So, science sims are sekrit danger lovers? Stargazing can lead to squashing and abduction.

Toddlers can also raise science on the logic toy.

You should post their personality, interests, and OTH here. Perhaps there is a connection between them, but we need some data.  ;) Or Pescado could work his magic and just figure it out.

Science sucks as a true hobby. For any other hobby, it's nearly impossible to *not* gain enthusiasm. Drinking espresso? Cuisine. Composting newspaper? Nature. Painting? Arts. Reading? Literature. Red hands? Games. But for Science, you just have at-night-only activities, or career rewards, or the antfarm which has extremely annoying animations and gets dropped when fun is maxed. Couldn't it have been a microscope? But noo - it had to be something with "funny" and "cute" interactions *gags*. And why doesn't playing chess raise the science enthusiasm, if the logic toy does?

I was amazed that skating didn't make them enthusiastic for sport!   I think sport and fitness should have been combined.

Once a hobby passes level 4, it's not important what the activities are: The computer Interweb is the universal hobby, there's a mode that covers every hobby: Browse Web About is as good or better than most interactions for a hobby for enthusiasm, and "Blog About" tends to beat everything, as most hobby actions are 150 ER, some insuperior ones (ant farm) are 100 ER, but Browse Web is 150 ER and Blog is 200.

The tinkering hobby is the most dangerous: Practically everything you can do is unsafe!

As for how the One Hobby is normally assigned, it is assigned sadorandomly, based on what you hate most.

Of course it's easy to gain enthusiasm for whatever hobby with the new web options, but where's the fun in that? I wanted some fun (fun for me, that is) activities for my science sims, too, not just systematically raise yet another couple of bars :(.

Well, obviously, not all One True Hobbies are enthralling to watch, and some of them are outright annoying under certain conditions. Science is not the most dull one out there, though. At least the Stargazing actions give cash prizes. If you want a REALLY boring hobby, Cuisine seems to be the dullest by far: Seriously, what is there to do? The only thing you can hope for is that the necessary grind for the cooking points your sim needs to SURVIVE will give him enough interest to unlock the Intertube actions, because other than that, what *IS* there? Gluttony does not exactly make an interesting hobby sideline. On the other hand, it's quiet, inobtrusive, and gives your sim an excuse to sit in front of the computer all day, just like you.

I got really worried when I saw the Makin'Magic creature delivering computers to every inhabitant. I'm not playing FT cause I have no time and simply cannot tolerate TS2 without mods. In my first play, I entered the house of a girl named Una and didn't like a thing I saw over there.
First, dressed as a gypsy and I don't like the gipsy at all so much that I nuked the creature from being created. Second, the girl was awake 4 AM, alone home and even so she lauched a tip jar to the ground before playing piano. Only the fact that you are awake 4 AM is already bad signal. You may be awake at 3AM or wake up at 5AM, but at 4AM you should be sleeping. :)
I didn't even pay attention of what kind of life achievements Sims are going to have. I like to cheat. Everybody cheat. If you don't cheat, you are cheated.
No matter how interesting EAxis or any of their defenders try to sound, the game without all mods and hacks sucks more than rolling thumbs on a prison solitary.

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/crapola/pancake_bunny.jpg)

True, but unlike me, my sims aren't allowed to use the computer except for writing novels and termpapers. No excuses for my sims.

I wouldn't mind the stargazing, it's the fact that, unlike other hobbies, science activities are restricted to certain times of day or to objects that require specific career paths. Or to an antfarm, which wouldn't be that bad, if it a) didn't have disgusting animations and b) weren't dropped after a few seconds. They should have made bug hunting a science activity - a tree hugger's supposed to weep at the mere idea of pinning butterflies on needles.

Try noadhd if your sims are having adhd issues.

I *do* have noadhd, of course. Unfortunately, that doesn't keep sims from stopping certain activities as soon as their fun is maxed. Doesn't matter anyway, as antfarms are banned from my houses after seing serious knowledge sims behave like retarded children. I guess I'll just stick to "pinning bugs on needles is science" and don't give a damn about which hobby bar is eventually raised.

It helps to hit Macro Concentrate after you order the activity. Also, Macro Hobbinate will handle this also.

Does it really matter if the sim pursues a more interesting (to watch) hobby than their one true hobby?  What are the benefits of the one true hobby that can't be gained by pursuing another hobby or hobbies?

I'll try that as soon as I come across another hobby activity with likewise problems. I'd rather let my sims blog than watch another antfarm again.


Actually, it doesn't matter, except that sims are supposed to gain enthusiasm faster for their one true hobby.

heh, Cuisine is a fun OTH for me - I almost maxed it out just by maxing cooking skill and serving/eating food, so I imagine if you caffinate often you'll max it easier, and when it's maxed, you get in the zone every time you serve or eat food. Not a bad perk, really.

Yes, this bothers me. Daphne rolls up lots of wants to catch bugs, and her getting chased by bees amuses me, but as Little Miss Nature (the only Nature sim in my entire 'hood excepting the instructor, apparently) it seems wrong for her to be planting flower beds and stocking ponds just to turn around and actively seek out new bugs to kill.

I'd think that Cuisine + Grilled Cheese would be the optimal combo.

If all else fails, you can always drink some nectar and juice, when Angelus aint working or cooking dinners or having woohoo with his wife, he is trying veronaville nectar.

The majority of my Sims are either Arts and Crafts, Tinkering, or Music and Dance.  Since Seasons is my favorite EP, all of my families have orchards, greenhouses, and/or fishing ponds on their lots.  So, they run up more "enthusiasm points" for the Nature Hobby, but then want to go tinker or paint all the time. 

I did buy one of my farmer-dads the junked car and have been letting him tinker on it.  His daughter is a teenager, and I thought it would be a nice present to her for college.  He's a family sim and he and the daughter are close.  Just a little realism for my game, I guess.  LOL

One of my sims (the first human marry-in) is now an elder and his one true is Tinkering. He lives in an extremely nice house and owns two level 10 businesses. He is not allowed the car, as his wife wouldn't let something that shoddy on their property. He wants to putz around on some rusty piece of junk, he can open a garage on the other side of the beach. Now that his first grandchild is also Tinkering, he probably will.

I have very few playables, but I currently have two Sports, two Tinkering, two Fitness, and one Nature.