More Awesome Than You!

I always knew smart milk was good for the toddlers, but I found this very interesting.  One of my YAs (totally raised on smart milk) and his townie roommate (of course, not raised on smart milk) are doing their term paper.  The townie starts his term paper before my YA does, buy my YA finishes first.  Same thing with the college assignments.  The townie starts his assignment first, buy my YA still finish his assignment before the townie does.  I did this experiment throughout their college years and it's always the same result.  Also, when the YA studies to gain a skill point, he studies at a faster rate than the townie does.

Is this something everyone already knows about and I'm just an idiot?  I've never paid attention to smart milk beyond the toddler years.  This event just happened to catch my attention.

Does the townie have a memory "learned to study"?

Try raising a non-townie and never teach tnm to study.

That's a more likely explanation than smart milk, I think. Especially if they cloned assignments off of homework. Don't know quite what the explanation for the skilling is, but perhaps something related to commskilling?

I guess it's that bug or maybe you can call it a "feature" since it's still there in NL. I think JM said something about it before, that there's a chance that the smart milk effect stays with the sim their whole lives.

The "stuck smart milk bug" is probably what is responsible for this.  You're lucky that your YA was able to keep it this long.   I had never heard of smart milk helping out in college, but I guess it's possible.  Sims with the stuck smart milk will learn at a faster rate until they are reset by an error or by use of the thinking cap.  This is what JM says, and I have observed it on my own.  The baby controller has an option to test IQ, and normally a sim will have 100 IQ.  When under the influence of Smart milk, they have 300.  A sim wearing a thinking cap has 200.  Various career reward objects have advanced learning rates as well.  I've had sims who were able to retain their "smartness" through the teen years after maxing out all their skills.  I didn't pay any attention to it after that because I figured it didn't matter any more.  Sims are usually reset after installing an EP anyway, and Maxoid Tom said this was going to be "fixed" in the patch (as well as the bug with being able to teach potty training by canceling the parent's teach icon at the right moment.)  This is one bug I wish they wouldn't fix!  But I guess it made it too easy anyway.  WIth diligent use of the Skillinator, it is still possible to max out a sim's skills before they are halfway through teens even without the smart milk bug.

mmm, in that case every single one of my sims in the history of ever must have had stuck smart milk. Which can't be since they all take to the thinking cap as teens which would have unstuck it before uni.

I've replicated this situation time and time again.  If I direct one of my born-in-game sims to start an assignment at the same time as a townie, the sim I raised will always, always finish first. If I have large groups that are a mixture of my sims & townies doing assignments in unison (which happens often), all my born-in-games finish first.

I'm sure it's the learn to study thing.

As for the skill learning, playful/serious comes into play too, so who knows.

I've noticed the speed at which born in game sims complete assignments and term papers is different to the CAS young adults, and townies - I always put it down to being taught to study...

although, I think the smart milk is still sticking with nightlife - I had one teen who qualified for every single skill scholarship by the time he had been a teen for three days!  he didn't have the max all skills LTW, so I ended up leaving him at 8 in each and sending him to uni early...  didn't notice anything with the speed of completing assignments and such there, I had him by himself.

Ness

Apparently if they learn to study, they will complete assignments quicker.  I haven't had a Sim yet whose IQ tested at more than 100 once they reached teens, even when they had smart milk.  They do all study faster than the dormies, though. 

I could be wrong, but I think I remember reading once J.M. saying smart milk gets unstuck by moving out. So it wouldn't still be in effect in uni anyway.

Maybe it is the learn to study thing then.  I remember when I first got Uni, I had one of my sims help the cheerleader with her assignment for simoleans, and she had the Learn to study books over her head when they finished.  I looked in her memories with the mind control mirror, and sure enough, she had the memory of being taught to study by my sim.

I have to try that, montier a dormie doing an assignment then tutor them and then see if they do their assignments faster after that.

I was playing Beau Broke and remembering how fast he learned and wishing they hadn't fixed that bug but he still learns really quick.  He is at scholarship level in every subject and he is one day from being a teen.  Either the bug isn't fixed or he has a learning personality.

If you installed Nightlife, it probably isn't the smart milk bug since sims get reset when installing an EP.  To know for sure, you can download Pescado's baby controller, click on it with him selected, and click Test IQ.  If it says 100, then he's normal with no smart milk effect.  I suspect he is.  Other than that, sims all learn at basically the same rate, other than personality having an effect on learning certain skills faster.

I didn't expect such a wide variety of opinions when I posted this, just an answer, but I do appreciate all of your responses, I really do.  I must admit I am a bit more confused now than when I posted because of the differing responses I got - I have the smart milk bug, I don't have the smart bug, learn-to-study and comskilling are playing a part in YA's ability to progress through college, personality plays a part in their ability to study.  These all sound very valid to me, but no mention of the smart milk carrying over beyond the toddler years, other than it being a bug, which I was a little disappointed to hear about.

  I started over fresh when I installed NL--Beau was already dead in my old game.  The info about the baby controller was interesting--I didn't know it had the ability to test IQ's.  Installing now.  That should be interesting.  Is there an IQ for a really stupid sim.  I have a couple of them.  But it probably only tests babys.

It's able to tell you the IQ of any Sim, it wouldn't really matter with babies because they can't drink smart milk yet. I think the lowest IQ is 100, which is without stuck smart milk and without a thinking cap. 200 is a normal Sim with a thinking cap on and 300 are those genius Sims with stuck smart milk. Most Sims act like their IQ is about 30, but 100 is the lowest they can go.

It's not just playfulness/seriousness that affects skill gaining. They only affect creativity and logic, respectively, while neat sims learn cleaning skill faster, active sims learn body skill faster and outgoing ones learn charisma points at a faster rate. Personality points have nothing to do with learning mechanical or cooking, though.

I initially thought it was because of personality differences, until I had clone twins in my Legacy family and one kid very obviously learned faster than the other one.  As toddlers, both had smart milk (unknown if they had equal amounts), and had transistioned to kids without the smart milk glow.  Then I suspected (don't laugh) being read to by parents.  My Prosperity CAS toddlers have all been read to, but only one kid could afford smart milk.  Yes, she's WAY faster in everything, even as a teen (with the thinking cap).  I will test her in college with her CAS/toddler peers.  It should be interesting to see the results.  I should probably also mention that I have Nightlife.

Oh, my goodness! There I was in my email challenge, thinking, "am I crazy or is it taking them forever to rack up the cleaning points with the scanner." After they had been so quick to get body and charisma points. Of course it did, they are all 0 neat and 10 outgoing.

I had the same experience.  My Legacy founder had twins, and one had the fast learning skill, the other didn't.  They both got smart milk, but only one had been read to, so I suspected reading to a child might make a difference (it does in real life :) ).

Now that we can test their IQs we might be able to compile some more useful data.

Hook

The Smart Milk stickiness appears to take effect the moment a toddler drinks a smart milk, consistently. It remains in effect until one of the following happens:

1. The sim is reinstanced due to transport to a community lot(temporary), moving in, or being deleted.
2. The toddler is bathed.
3. You install a patch or expansion pack which causes a large-scale reset.

So, does this mean that bathing reduces your IQ down to 1/3?   :o

It resets the sim's IQ to its baseline, which is 100.  Smart milk and the the thinking cap only boost your sims IQ or rate of learning temporarily, except that when your sim gets stuck on smart milk, they continue learning faster until one of the things happens that JM mentioned above.  Then they are normal again.

I'm a bit confused by the "temporary" part in #1, "The sim is reinstanced due to transport to a community lot(temporary)...". The temporary here refers to temporarily losing the smartmilk stickiness or losing it for good just because they were on a community lot temporarily?

Check out this thread:  "Maxing out sims skills" http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=75.msg1008#msg1008

The whole thread is good, but this part applies to your question:

Right, thanks! I remembered most of everything else except visiting the community lots part, and letting the macro take care of skills building eventually dulled memories of some of those informations I read :P.

Yeah, I had forgotten about the community lots thing too.  I think I must have decided that didn't apply to me at the moment because I never visited community lots at the time.

I gave a tot smart milk 30 min before aging--she aged in glow.  I tested her after she aged and she still tested at 300.  It stuck so far.  I'm going to go back in a while and continue testing.  In my experience they tend to lose it if you don't play them for too long.  Probably due to what was discused earlier(they probably are going to community lots).  It is always full of kids.  I only play downtown now and I never see kids.  So hopfully that will help.

Yeah, I understood that, I was only joking  :P

Sorry, I didn't recognize that. :)

I was trying to see if I could teach a former townie teen to study now he's in college, but I wasn't getting the option to ask for help with assignment.  The Prima guide said this would be available through an interaction with the assignment book.  I was trying to do it with two sims who lived in the same household.  The guide says that assisting another student with their assignment would enable them to complete assignments in half the time (they usually take about an hour).  But it seemed to imply this was only available to a playable sim to an unplayable sim.  So I went to the sorority house where his girlfriend lives and had her invite him over.  I made him selectable long enough to have him spawn an assignment and cancel the action to do it.  Then I clicked on his assignment book, and my sim had the option to do the assignment, help with, or tutor for simoleans.  I chose help with.  I had to repeat this a second time, and half way through it, they both got the books over their head and a memory of teaching to study/being taught to study.  But as long as he was selectable, the option wasn't there.  I had to make him unselectable for it to work.  I don't know why it works this way though.  It seems to be the opposite of the way homework works for teens.  Teens can only be taught to study by someone in the same household.  Anyway, I thought this might help someone understand how this works.

I remember reading in a post (sorry - don't remember where) but that the "tutoring" is how you train the college student. It's just like helping a child with their homework with the added benefit that the one that is giving the help also gets paid for it. I can't say whether this is accurate or not because I've just let the townies stay ignorant and my sims play instruments if they need cash.  :-\

I had a sim teach a former dormie to study when they were living together in a greek house.

The teaching sim has to have a better GPA then the sim being taught.

Mine all have 4.0 GPAs.  Unless it includes the current semester, but my sim was a sophomore, and even the junior or seniors couldn't teach him.  :-\

A little update on smart milk:

I used Pescado's baby controller to test IQ on a toddler I was playing.  The mother was made in CAS after Nightlife was installed, but before the patch.  Father was a townie.  Baby was born normally in-game.

Toddler showed an IQ of 300 after being fed smart milk.  Bathing the toddler did not change the IQ back to 100 as Pescdado mentioned earlier.  Child still had the 300 IQ, 400 if being taught on a career reward object.  Teen had a 500 IQ while being trained on the fingerprint scanner while wearing a thinking cap, IQ returned to 300 after removing the cap.

Teen's IQ went back to 100 after installing the patch, as expected, as all Sims are reset at this time.

I doubt if it matters, but the toddler was never fed anything but smart milk.  I figure if I go through almost two complete smart milk aspiration rewards, I've paid for my Sim's high IQ.

Hook

Pre-NL, it just took one bottle of smart milk to stick, if it became unstuck for some reason, feed them another one, and if the child transitioned with an IQ of 300, then it would keep it until an error made him reset or I installed an EP, a patch, InTeen, or something like that.  Pescado said that the baby controller would detect when your toddler's IQ falls and direct an older sim to feed him smart milk if available.  Otherwise, he gets plain old milk (or Inge's bottomless bottle).

Haven't tried this since NL or the patch.

I'd never had the IQ tester when raising Sim kids before, but I knew smart milk was the key.  And somehow it could get unstuck, we just didn't know how.  I got into the habit of feeding all toddlers nothing but smart milk, just in case.

What's odd is to get a set of twins and have one with the fast learning skill and one without.  And to the best of my ability they were both treated the same.  At least next set of twins I'll be able to test what's going on.

Hook

I once raised 7 toddlers to teens (with a little help during the toddler years, heheh), but they all grew up "smart."  Only two were able to keep theirs all the way through to maxing out all skills.  They were almost able to do it before becoming teens.  A few lost theirs early, but even the one who lost his soon after becoming a child was able to max his skills before he was halfway through his teens.  I felt so sorry for him lagging behind his brothers and sisters.  I used the Skillinator and only skill rewards their parents earned, and they acted as instructors when they had time, which wasn't often.  With some I knew when they lost their Smart bit, others I didn't know.  Usually I'd get an error since I have debug mode on, and when I had to reset them, they would be back to 100.