More Awesome Than You!

I did a search on this.

Is there some sort of logic as to which sims leave date gifts, and which don't?  My sims don't get date gifts very often.  I assumed it was because my sims mostly don't 'hoo anyone they're not married to, and even then it's usually to procreate. 

I've gotten gifts from townies and playables.  Teens seem especially generous--we've had several hot tubs left at the legacy house over the generations.  The Diva also left us a Dance Sphere once, but heavy duty lesbian photobooth WooHoo was involved. On the other hand, Remington Harris left a wide screen TV that he couldn't possibly afford way back when, and he didn't get *anywhere* significant with my heiress (until, of course, he married her and they had ten kids, with no WooHoo in between.) Most of the time, though, we just get those bouquets.  At one of my college houses, they totally block the road.

I'd like to know if there are any theories on this or if anyone has made a study of it, because I sure would like to exploit this if I could.

PB

I think if they only have a "Great Date" instead of a "Dream Date" they're more likely to leave gifts. I never, ever get gifts from dates. I think I got a hot-tub once, but that's about it.

I just recently finished getting the "50 Dream Dates" and "Woo-Hoo With 20 Sims" LTWs, and I can confirm it's not a difference between "great date" and "dream date". Both sims hit "dream date" almost every time. Miss "50 Dream Dates" also didn't woo-hoo until right before she got engaged, but she got the dance sphere and two plasma TVs.

One pattern I noticed: sims seem to drop off gifts on the night after their date, not the same night (like with flowers.) If you date the same sim several nights in a row, that sim won't drop off gifts, because he's already on the lot.

I've noticed this pattern too, although my sims seem to get more gifts from outings rather than dates.

I once had a sim I'd just invited out to a community lot (not a scored outing) leave a gift.

I've found that some 'hoods are more giving than others, too. In Urban Paradise, it was near impossible to have a date without getting a gift. The father of all my Ghetto Fabulous sim's kids gave about six gifts before he was tapped out. Prospect Beach was so-so on the gifts, and there have been none to date received at Teardrop Isle (but honestly, I don't have them date all that much, just come over and hang out). I've always wished they'd pull something they bought at another lot out as a gift. I'd love it if someone dropped off a crate of cucumbers.

I read (don't remember where) that it could have something to do with leaving out the date flowers.  That is, you are more likely to get a gift if you refrain from selling at least one bunch of roses from a previous date.  This is total heresy, and probably total BS, of course.

Well. . .I don't think it can be the date flowers, because I rarely sell those.  At the Greek House, I did have an invisible date gift once that got stuck.  Trying to figure out where it was so I could nuke it was fun.  Eventually I noticed my sims stepping over something near the front door, dropped the stuck objects remover on it, and when it was burninated I found out what it was.

It was a bottle of champagne.

Cheapskates.

I've heard the theory (from Ephemeral Toast) that it's got something to do with how much the relationship score goes up during the course of the dates.  I'm wondering if it has something to do with how many of your *date's* wants are fulfilled.  I often stop at the point when I hit Dream Date, and if the date is rolling up dumb wants I can't fulfill, I don't sweat it. 

I have a lot of married couples dating at home and of course they never receive gifts, but I sure would like to see more at the Greek House.

I do have one playable who is maxed Nice, and he is a super generous date.  He dated a girl in high school and left a hot tub; dated a guy in college whom he eventually married and left a Bust of Tylopoda.  Now THAT'S a keeper.

PB

I love it when they marry in and bring crap like that. I had one marry-in who brought a poker table, two dance spheres, a DJ booth, and that $4,000 vase. Lately, my marry-ins have been big 'ol disappointments. Not the game's fault...I've just had almost everyone marrying college sweethearts and professors.

You can increase the odds of a marry-in having a boatload of stuff in their inventory with owned businesses, especially if you allow YAs to shop there with the customer selector.  Though I'm currently playing the new hood that came with FT (Desiderata, I think it's called?) with no owned businesses yet, and I had a playable marry her college love and the YA came into the house with over 50,000 simoleans worth of stuff...

Hunh. That's odd. None of my YA marry-ins have ever come with anything, in any 'hood. Though I am looking forward to all of the townies/YAs who start bringing cars from Vrooom! Autos in their inventory. So far, the only bought items I get are the crates of veggies and fish. Those are never from YAs as the current market is quite small and a residential business. If the mayor deems to build a farmer's market, Tobias Outlaw will set up shop there.

I was under the impression that it's only Mr.Big and Diva who marry in with several expensive items stuffed in their inventory. Apparently it's built in their NPC code. If you take out everything from their inventory, teleport them back out to the townie pool, then marry/move in them again, their inventory is magically filled with new expensive objects again.

That's of course when you're not taking OFB purchases into account. Like jsalemi, I have several old dormies/townies who have truckload of stuff in their inventory thanks to customer selector. I cannot imagine playing OFB businesses without it ever again. I was bored to death with the same small pool of customers (only playables and townies in the main hood) before I knew about it.

I married in a simself who had, among other things, not one but two cheap stoves in her inventory.  A few have had hot tubs; none have had a Dance Sphere.

PB

Mr. Big and the Diva DO move in with $70,000 and a crapload of expensive stuff in their inventories, but other Townies come pre-packaged with a bunch of goodies too.  The last one I married in came with a piano, two Dance Spheres, an expensive telescope, a karaoke machine, and some knickknacks--and this was BEFORE I had any owned community lots for them to shop at.

I don't often get date rewards either.  However, I did just get an Outing reward, except that the recipient has never been on an Outing, the gifter has never been on an Outing, and they do not, in fact, know each other at all.  But, hey, free piano!

I have no Downtown, and haven't for the last two 'hoods. I don't see the point of it. Plus, I hate those stupid move-in phone calls. So I have no Mr. Big and no Diva. That means I never get the money on top of the inventory items, but free money is free money.

I also only have the two lots where townies can purchase items: the founder's greenhouse home lot, and the newly run car lot. Cannot wait for a sim to marry in with a couple vans in tow!

DrNerd, it kind of sounds like what I had a generation or two ago. The two sims had hung out on a community lot together, but it wasn't an outing.

I have the worst flippin' luck this way.  I rarely do Outings, but sometimes I'll do them as an icebreaker for my college houses--"Let's all go out and buy cell phones!  Whee!"  This time the Outing was already running, so it was going to be successful, and when they ran into another Sim they knew slightly (a playable), my group invited him along.  Successful Outing!  Yes I can!  Then the invited Sim asked the first Sim along for a return Outing and brought. . . his mother, his father, his grandmother, his grandfather, his fiance, and his drama professor.  Yow, we could have had more fun scrubbing toilets (which my mean, neat Sims probably could.)  No more Outings for us.  Then later that evening the return invitee, Furious and much (unjustly) slapped, stopped by to leave an Outing Gift from the first Outing.

Gee, thanks for the, uh. . . .35 Simolean bud vase.  And the sad bit is that it is the ONLY Outing Gift I've ever gotten.

There isn't anywhere a sim could buy stoves and stuff, but most of my sims have now got flowers, snapdragons (helpful!)  several wedding cakes and birthday cakes, water wigglers, ice cream, and adorable stuffed bears in their inventories.  The Tiki crap is bound to start showing up soon.

PB

AFAIK, neither of them has been to a community lot at all.  I rarely go Downtown, unless I'm trolling community lots with someone from a main Legacy household, and I don't recall either of them being at the community lots my Sims own.  And I've checked their relationship panels, and they definitely don't know each other.  Since this was just after a neighborhood rebuild, the gift wasn't being left for a former resident either--the only person living on the lot was the only one who'd ever lived there.

Prof--apparently you just need to add Di's SimSelf to your neighborhood.  She randomly leaves free pianos, no slaptastic Outings necessary!

I had a child invite an adult man on an outing and afterwards the child dropped off a Mr. Bearlybutts chair.  I thought it was exactly the sort of thing a child would choose as a gift.  It was much appreciated, as it was the only chair on the lot.  (Until a wolf clawed it into oblivion.)  That's the only time I've had a child invite an adult out.  I don't know if it's supposed to happen. 

Things like that and bottles of champagne make a lot more sense than random Joe Townie being able to afford, and then drag to your place, a DJ booth or a dance sphere.

Since when was anything about the sims meant to make sense?

I don't know if this information is useful or awesome (and I should probably have tested my theory before sharing it) but I think my sims tend to get date gifts the same night as the date if the date ends early enough to have flowers delivered before/around midnight.  Dates will sometimes come back on the lot right after bringing flowers and drop off a gift (in the early am?).  I could be wrong about the exact timing, but that seems to make a difference.  When I time dates this way, they seem to get stuff more often than they do on the second night or later.

Oh, come on, everyone knows sims each have their own portable hole!

...and it seems to be attached to their butts.

 ::)
It's not a portable hole. Their right butt-cheek pocket is a portal to an alternate dimension.

I still find it alarmingly amusing to see them pull a fishing rod out of there that is taller than they are.

I'm alarmed by the butterfly/bug jar -- that thing is HUGE!

It's the rakes that worry me, actually.

PB

I have been trying to find some kind of logic or pattern to date gift giving since nightlife launched.   I can't find any at all.

I normally do not get anything besides roses, even for dream dates.  Scored outings though tend to result in some kind of gift ( 60% of the time ).

My sims date all kinds of townies and college kids as well as other playable sims.  It doesn't seem to make a difference at all.

I hope someone is able to figure out the coding and what prompts the gifts.  I have many poor sims who would love some goodies.  :D

Warning: The following post is more than a little bit off-topic.

Not to be mean, but: Your username is seriously "SNUGGLES"? Don't you think the all-caps is a bit unnecessary?
*Tsenatserix shields eyes
Not that my username is any better, but for the gods' collective sake, at least it's sentence case!

In my early generations, I got a Teen Townie as a Matchmaker drop.  Don't recall if it was a Dream Date or not, but my Sim definitely scored her First Kiss.  After the date was over, the Townie stuck around until midnight-ish raking leaves of his own volition, and then came back a couple of hours later with an expensive TV.  Apparently he REALLY likes doing yardwork.

For me, it's not so disturbing that they pull fishing rods, rakes, etc OUT of their pants, but that they put FISH in there and then EAT THEM.  Especially when the Sim in question is a Romance Sim with a Harem of Lovers LTW and those pants have BEEN PLACES.  Which is why I have a Fish Shop.

Edit: Tsenatserix--Love the sig!  "There's nothing more dangerous than a smart sheep!"

Rofl!  Well this coming from someone with a username that is barely pronounceable and doesn't make sense.   *winks

Well, at least SNUGGLES sounds like s/he can put a sentence together, has some sort of a sense of humour, and uses punctuation and caps properly in a sentence.

Because it's better when the fish is coming out of someone else's pants? I don't know about you, but I'd rather eat fish that came out of my own buttcrack rather than the guy down the street's.

The whole point is that they sell the fish to Townies (and unlucky SimSelves who happen to wander by), rather than allow them to be eaten in-house.  It's actually sort of a brilliant business plan, given that there is no overhead.  And if playables happen to buy them, too bad for them!  "Hey!  Come buy this catfish that has been in my Skanky Romance Sim father's pants!  It's a steal at Expensive!  Delay too long going to the register?  Buy more pants-fish!" *restocks the display cases for a grand total of $0*  Finn's Fins is a Level-10 business that is pure profit, baby!

I tend to get more gifts on outings rather than dates, the stuff I have gotten is DJ Booths, Exp Telescope, Exp TVs, Spas and even got an Expresso Machine and food processor.  This is on both outings and dates.

I dunno what's scarier - the idea of eating fish that came from anyone's asscrack, or that I understood your logic completely...LOL. I agree on the businesses though; I make an "NPC" (that is, once I set up the business and stock it with staff, no longer play that playable) business that is like a "walmart" style thing that sells just about everything in the game possible in different sections of the store and end up with an absolute ton of items on move-ins.

I got my first car from Rivka, a townie. It absolutely made up for the fact that she was secretly a romance sim and went nutsoid after the proposal.

You got a CAR?  How?  Did you just happen to have an empty driveway for her to put it on?

PB

   I'd like to add a pet-peeve of mine concerning date gifts.   For those sims who have decks where the front door is, if the deck isn't large enough to handle the gift, they'll put the roses on the deck with no problems, but when it comes to sneaking in with the gift, they'll get frustrated, turn around and leave without leaving the gift.   

Yeah-this is why I always try to leave at least a 3x4 space free as the size of the largest gift I have found is the karaoke.

If they sneak and ring the doorbell, just make space for them to drop the gift (I usually just pop the driveway and car temporarily in inventory) and force error on the gift-giver. They will sneak up to the doorway and then go drop the gift on the empty driveway space.

Huh. I once had a sim drop the dance sphere (which is pretty big) at a house with very little frontage, having only two squares of lawn between the house and the sidewalk.  The house had no foundation, though.

I seem to get the best gifts when the date ends sometime between 7 p.m. and midnight.

But that's what a portable hole is. Someone here needs to bone up on her AD&D rules. ;)


I know I'm a little late to reply here  - sorry, life (and a weekend away) comes first. :D

If a house is on a foundation then you need a large enough porch for the gift. They won't drop near doors or stairs so that means at least 3x4 of empty decking.

I'm trying to imagine a sim pulling a car out of their ass.  I must get sims out on moar dates.

Date gifts are actually transported in a Bag of Holding. Much like the burglar's sack that can easily stash away a sofa and the kitchen stove, the burlap Bag of Holding can easily accommodate gifts which would otherwise be unwieldy. And as an added feature, the bag simply evaporates in a puff of red smoke. The gift appears a la TaDa!, eliminating the need for a "pull this Dance Sphere out of a medium-sized sack" animation.

This is odd.  I do remember this was a consistent problem from NL through Seasons, but since BV the dormies have been dropping their gifts more or less by the pedestrian portal.  The porch on that particular uni residence is really more of a tiny stoop.  It's only 3x1 accomodating a door and the steps off the foundation.  ???  Maybe for once the Aspyr patch actually fixed something.


I think she meant that when the townie married in, she brought a car in her inventory, not a date gift.

Sorry, I was unclear. It was in her inventory upon move-in.

Someone isn't that much of a dork.
*I kid, I've played NWN.*

Hammerspace  ;D

Does that form a four-dimensional theoretical construct when combined with Hammertime?

Doesn't it make sense that gifts would result from outings more often than dates since outings involve more sims, so the odds of one of them dropping something off are higher?

Not applicable in my case, as apart from the initial unscored outing at 6-7pm on move-in to n/hood, my sims only go on outings with 1 sim. No groups. I have noticed though, if my sim becomes 'best friends' with the other sim while on the scored outing then the chance of a gift being left is very high.

I would imagine it to work much like when a burglar STEALS a car. Not to be constrained by SENSIBLE forms of auto-theft, like simply driving off with it, he puts it into his sack much like any other stealable item.

Which raises the question: does buying a car alarm do anything besides deduct money from the household, waste a little time, and add those all important "turn on/off car alarm" animations?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZhE84yvTamA

They seem to function as a standard burglar alarm.

So, what then?  The alarm goes off, the burglar still steals the car, but the police show up to watch him do it and then there's the standard fight, followed by the burglar running off into the night?

Wow.  The creepiest Sim story I have heard yet.

I have a challenge I might suggest to you all, one that I started playing on one of my lots.  Let's call it the Date Gift Challenge.  A married couple with your basic cooking/mechanical points move into a house and try to survive and raise a family on money they get SOLELY from dating and going on formal outings with townies.  No jobs, no performing for tips, no home businesses, none of that.   Use the NPC/Townie maker if you need more townie victims.

I get more gifts from the formal outings  than I get from the dates.  Time can pass a bit slowly because of all the time spent out on commercial lots on dates.

Because the burglarms inside only work for the room in which they're placed, an alarmless car outside can be yoinked without the police being summoned at all. The car alarm sounds while the burglar is still out in the yard, well before s/he has a chance to start plundering your sim's interior booty, so the cop arrives that much more quickly. Not that it makes the cop any more or less likely to win the fight, but I've never seen an 'alarmed' car get poofed into the Sack of Holding.

I never send sims on outings, but the game seems to regard same sex dates as outings, too. At least, that's what the message boxes say. And it's indeed always the men (i.e. "outing" partners) who drop the cool stuff. My current legacy founder had three dream dates recently, where Johnson Pai (townie) dropped a piano, Gilbert Jacquet a bust of whatshisname and Jill so-and-so (garden club) nothing at all.


That would explain it, as my dates never end without crush/love and several woohoos, so if they're really considered as outings, the gifts aren't surprising.

This is why you place the burglar alarm outside. Ye olde trick from Sims1 days.

No wai, you use trickery and sneakiness in your game? That's, that's cheating, that is!
/me is disillusioned and deeply saddened.

I'm sorry, Liz.

My burglars never seem to get anything with the alarm inside the house ('hood is actually about 50/50 on the houses that have alarms, and most lots don't have one at all). So I don't see any reason to put up with the slow motion and squealing alarm any longer than I have to.

I'll manage to get over it, somehow.  ;)

Yeah, in an alarmed house I've never actually had anything *stolen* from my sims. No, wait, I think it might have happened once or twice in the years I've been playing. So, not that huge a percentage. I'm also not getting burglars visiting my families who have pets (I'm sure none have come to the dog families, and I think the cat households have been exempt as well). To tell the truth I've also started skipping the car alarm lately just because by the time my sims can afford a car, they're at most a couple days away from being able to replace it if it's stolen. Poor financial strategy in real life, but those whomploads of § have to get spent somewhere, I guess.

Taxes. Tax those simmies into the ground. It's so funny looking at Tobias Outlaw, who has had to sell basically everything but his stove, fridge, a counter, couch, shower, and potty just to afford his bills + mortgage. Tax time is going to be grand, considering that his cousin/girlfriend is moving in and all her money is going to tuition. That, plus a pending mouth to feed and 3k taxes....delicious. The sins of the father blah de blah blah.

Ah, truer words were never spoken. Sage with the wisdom you are.

I actually like the idea of taxes. And moar random junk. Lately I've tried to be less iron fist-ey (which is not only monotonous, but also sounds menacingly pervy) and started letting my sims' own impulses & Wants dictate their actions a bit more. I'm not quite up to rolling for random whammys per household yet, but the taxes sounds like a good way to curb my hood's exploding nouveau riche population. How do you calculate your tax rate: salary, lot value, total worth?

10% of lot value each season. I'm thinking of making future mayoral programs require additional taxes. The current one gives a slight rebate, one time, upon stray adoption. There are only two strays left. I I do education next time, I'll have them pay an additional tax dogeared for the expansion of Teardrop Isle Community College. The facilities there are in a sad state.

Still, everyone's doing pretty well with the exception of Romello's descendants. One kid died of what appears to be suicide. His widow and three children are struggling, with one teen daughter now kicked out of school due to her horrible grades and bad attitude (and there's more drama llama coming). Other kid and husband just starting to dig themselves out of debt now that their kids are out of the house, with their children either struggling for money or involved in some sort of debauchery. Not that everyone else has a perfect life, but sheesh! Those sims get the short end of it.

FYI, jfade has a nice little hack over on DJS that silences the alarms, and just pops up a box telling you the alarm has gone off and the police/fire dept. has been called. 

see I was doing that too - I was taking $50 a day out of my sims' funds for a mortgage before I installed ikea stuff, but once I installed that I found that the familyfunds cheat stopped working so now I've gotta mess around with insim and I just can't be assed to do that all the time.

Well, in real life, car alarms don't consume immense amounts of time when used. They also won't prevent your car from being stolen at all. But a big black guy named Ben can (http://flash.f0rked.com/v=big%20black%20guy%20named%20Ben).

On most lots, I don't even use the burglar alarm anymore.  As soon as the burglar music starts, I smite them via the batbox. It's much more fun than the stupid fight with the wussy cop.

In my most recently established hood, taxes are half of the lot value per week. Families get the handout reduced to 5K before they even buy a lot, and EAxis careers are verboten.  They've got to come up with other ways to make their money.  Most of them are still living under roofs with no walls (except the lucky woman who married Mr. Big on Thursday.) 

Any family that reaches zero family funds must immediately move to a Poor House.  Money from the sale of their lot/house goes immediately to the mayor, because it's an awful, oppressive system. In the Poor House, they must work to pay off their debt (earn $1000 per family to merit release.) 

I've just started this as an experiment, and it's sim-Sunday night.  Sim-Monday morning is tax time, so today I find out who's going to the Poor House.

Edit to clarify, to my own satisfaction.

Oh, that is evil. I'm borrowing that idea!

Cool. I'll probably be raising the 'release merit' amount for sims that have more badges, otherwise some smartass who has a gold robot making badge could get his family out in a day and that wouldn't be any fun. I may end up charging bed-and-board for each family member against their Poor House earnings.

Half is probably going to be too much in the end (unless you want absolutely everyone but the mayor starving to death), but I like the way you are thinking.

You're probably right, but I'm so bored with easy money, I wanted to try something else.  This system requires that they build and shop with stringent economy at all times.  Part challenge, part experiment.

There are currently four families in the neighborhood; three of them are living under roofs on pillars--no walls, no floor tiles under their feet and not much of anything else.  It's mid-summer, everybody is gardening, but there's not a lot of cash around, which is what I wanted.  I'll be interested to see how it progresses. (Unfortunately, real life intervened and I didn't get to send anybody to the Poor House today. Maybe tomorrow. *sigh*)

Unless you meant based on the LOT value, I.E., the actual value of the lot, and not the equipment inside, half would make it pretty much pointless to buy anything as a even a level 10 CEO wouldn't be able to afford a house.

Oh, that wouldn't be much at all. Half of blank-lot value for a 2x2 is approximately 1k. Most of my sims are paying at least 2.5k/5 days. (Founder lot pays almost 8k/5 days)

Dumping 2.5K or more a week could represent a significant chunk of change for a family that isn't being played for optimal advancement. If you're not aggressively levelling and/or use dead-end OFB-jobs, 2.5K a week can easily become bank-breaking when your sim works minimum wage at $120 a day. Don't underestimate the craptacularity of a dead-end minimum wage job! All the TS2 advanceable careers are *WAAY* too generous. If you want suffering, give them a shitty OFB job! The hours are terrible and the pay is worse!

I know. Quite a few of my sims had their preordained career end up being level 1 or 2. Low income, 2k-ish taxes, and regular bills and possibly mortgage payments, and they typically end up taking their entire adulthood to get out of debt and buy decent furniture.

I have very few with top-level jobs. Julius Lowe is a General, Penelope Bleu of course is the mayor, and Connor Bleu is cult leader.

I know.  I have a sim who is working one of those, because I want him working for the "family business."  Even as the manager, even at "ridiculously overpaid," he still doesn't make very much money.  The irony is that he is permaplat from "earning 100,000 Simoleans," most of it from sitting around one of the family businesses as a teen and the rest earned at Uni.  So he did not bring a dime of that with him.  Even though he married a Uni  grad with 20,000 it was still tight, and then they had totally unauthorized twins. 

OFB jobs suck.  They don't have get the joy of promotions.  But since Aubrey is permaplat, that's the job he keeps.  I'm going to siphon away some of the Legacy family money by means of expensive "gifts" to him---evens things out since if it were possible to do so, he and my legacy spouse would be business partners.

PB