More Awesome Than You!

So I bought Seasons, and as part of that I updated my mods.  For the first time I put in Fitness for All, and Sierra Zhang and Waylon Cho got fat the moment I ran the game with it installed.

I'm OK with Waylon being a lardball, but I'd kind of like to get Sierra fit again.  Except that I don't really see any easy way to do that.  I did go to the campus gym with a character and invited her over, but she spent all the time eating, watching TV, and doing homework.  I can't influence her to exercise, so it seems like she's doomed to fat.

 - Gus

If you invite dormies to community gym, they will not use exercise machines. But if you go there alone and she just happens to be there, she'll run on the treadmill until she stinks. Be sure to put a lot of treadmills on the gym. It seems that treadmills are far attractive than any other equipment, sims are attracted to them like moths to the fire.

Here's an idea.

Get the Pay Gym from simlogical.com or the autonomous training course and punching bag from Squinge over at InSim.

Place these in your dorm.

They are so extremely attractive that dormies will practically kill themselves from overusing them.

Or you could use Merola's Mind Control Mirror to make them selectable and then direct them to work out.

I've got Numenor's tanning bed in my dorm.  Dormies use that autonomously all the time.
I know there are a bunch of autonomous career rewards at MTS2.

You could put a stereo in the dorm and get the dormies to dance! (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,2383.0.html)

Or you could just resign yourself to this, let the sim live her pixelated life and move on  ;)

The autonomous career rewards are an idea, but if they're as attractive as Sara says, I don't want 'em.  I find the way Sims get hung up on instruments annoying enough, I don't need another flypaper object.

The problem is that we've got a common townie / dormie behavior - eating - which causes weight gain, but no corresponding common behavior that increases fitness.  With just Fitness For All installed, eventually all dormies and visitors will be fat.  NoEatCrap helps with this, but doesn't really solve the problem.  What we need is something moderately fun which increases fitness, but not something that is extremely fun, or something that townies / dormies will continue after their fun meters are full.

I was opposed to the idea of adding body skill to dancing, but you know, it pretty much fits the requirements I listed above exactly.  So I'll give it a try.

 - Gus

I tend to agree.  I have a NPC cook in my dorm who is extremely fat, and looks likely to stay that way forever.  It bothers me a little, but not enough to want to do anything about it.

Never trust a skinny cook.

I've had treadmills in dorms before and never saw a dormie autonomously use them. 

If you have a favorite community lot that you spend a lot of time at (yours obviously isn't the gym :D ) then put a single treadmill there.  It will almost always be in use, and having only one assures that it won't completely disrupt whatever else is supposed to happen on that community lot.

This was in the normal hood, not Uni, but I think it will work the same way on campus.  I had a Sim whose "job" was playing the single piano in a restaurant for tips.  The problem was, I had one of my playable Sims from another lot with a pathological attraction to the restaurant podium.  I watched him eat, get up, go to the podium, sit down, eat, repeating this over and over until he left the lot.  I put in a treadmill and invited him over.  I had to keep shooing other Sims away from the treadmill but eventually got him on the thing, and his fitness went way up in no time.

You might hasten the fitness process by putting a piano in the gym, and spending a lot of time there playing for tips.  The money is pretty good and eventually you'll have a lot of fit dormies.  Hint:  take out the damn TV.  You don't go to a gym to be a couch potato.  Hint 2:  after you've gotten a round of tips, cancel the perform action, collect the tips, then perform a different type of music.  This way the same Sims will tip you more than once.

Hook

This always gets me. Just use vanilla boolprop "testingcheatsenabled true". Shift-click on her, make her selectable, and direct her to exercise. When she's done, shift-click again and make her unselectable.

A completely non-cheaty way is to put a pool in the dorms. As I proved in my last dorm, all 16 of the dormies practically lived in their swimsuits, and I was thoroughly sick of the event cam popping up when they went fit. By my playable's Sophmore year, it was a fully buff dorm. I also have the community lot skilling hacks, which means that my dormies all have loads of body skill points as well!

My theory exactly :D

Dancing Sierra back to fit worked.

A pool is a pretty good solution too, but requires that I create a new dorm.  The one I've been playing is a brownstone modelled after the dorm I lived in at BU, and a pool is completely inappropriate for it.  Maybe next time.  Though I have to say, running a batch of students through Uni is boring me to tears, even with 8 playables supposedly competing for my attention.

So far Seasons is making only a small difference in my game, since I haven't returned to playing a regular neighborhood yet.  Mostly I've noticed that the seasonal bonuses are really significant, and that wants seem to have a seasonal weighting.  Getting into a Greek house is trivial in summer, and getting classwork done has been easy in fall.  It seems like even the complete sluggards (i.e. Pleasure Sims) are rolling "write term paper" during fall.

 - Gus

<cheer> I hope you enjoy it!

I've managed to about keep myself entertained with Uni. My way though, I wouldn't put a pool in the dorm - actually I took nearly everything out of the dorms.

There's no cafeteria - there are vending machines so they don't starve and, if they can afford it, they can buy a uni fridge and a microwave. There are no bookcases or skilling objects of any kind except chess sets. They can a tv and stereos in a common room. Pretty much anything else they hafta buy themselves and lock in their rooms (so everyone has to buy one of their own, they can't share). No pool table or swimming pools or exercise equipment or anything else.

Then I built a student center with a game room, bookstore and cafeteria, a library with a computer kiosk, office building (for the profs offices) with a faculty lounge/cafeteria, classroom building (with the more exotic skillbuilding items), and of course several community lot things (clothes store, restaurants, a couple of extra "student" cafeterias, clubs, etc.) Anything they want - skillbuilding, doing research together, swimming, exercise whatever - they *have* to go out to do. They're not allowed off-campus except for special occasions/events (winter break, family events, etc.)

And then I put the profs in their offices and started a bunch of clubs, each club has a prof associated so they can get to know them, and the profs also have office hours. One of my playables is on the swim team (I use the 'manage groups' to make up the clubs - some of them I insist all members come to and will teleport them in, other times it's ok if people don't show up), another belongs to a lit club and another is a science geek and one belongs to a wine/food/travel group (they run around and have dinners at all the restaurants - when they start buying their own houses instead of living in the dorms, they'll have people over for their dinners).

I'm playing the kids through one season, fall, and a short winter break (some at home), then playing home for the same period but setting the time back so the neighborhood lots don't get too old compared to the kids. That helps too that I'm not stuck on campus for so long. I'm having fun with it now.

Freeeow, sagana!  Clubs, groups, professors in offices.  Just thinking about the work involved in setting that up makes me tired.  No, wait...I'm tired because I never bother with sleep.  Seriously though, I have enough trouble finding time for Sims to skill, eat, socialize, woohoo three different other sims per day, etc. without making additional clubs for them to go to.  And I have yet to work up the energy required to build an entire custom uni.

A faculty lounge and offices for professors sound interesting.  Do the profs stay in their offices?  What do you use to set their schedule or is that part of the manage groups thing. (see, I show my complete ignorance).

I really like the idea of having to leave the dorm to study, skill, work out, etc.  I found it really annoying that you could pretty much go through an entire uni career and never leave the dorm (apart from the automatic-go-to-class-disappear-for-a-bit-and-return-a-better-person thing).

Making Uni interesting is definitely worthy topic drift.

Uni community lots are sort of like the influence system for me.  I liked the idea, but ended up not actually liking it in practice.  My problem with community lots is that if I send just one or two Sims, I end up bored very quickly.  Watching someone skillng / doing homework is not interesting, so I end up fast-forwarding until they're done.  Not to mention the time dislocation for Uni community lots.

I could of course make an all-in-one student center and send everyone there... but at that point, is that really that different from building all the facilities on to the dorm lot?

It's true that I'd prefer that my Sims leave the dorm for most things, for aesthetic reasons, but for the reasons I've listed above, it hasn't worked out very well in practice.  Maybe I should take a shot at making a mini-campus on a single lot, with seperate buildings for the dorm and the other facilities.  I'm not sure there's room to do this well, even on the largest lot.

I don't mind spending time building things, since that's fun in itself.  More fun than watching a bunch of Uni students, actually.

Profs with offices?  I can't imagine how you made that work.  Sounds sort of interesting, though.

I didn't know about the working vending machines.  A short search showed TSR has some for coke, beer, and snacks, but they're all extremely cheaty, with +50% energy or +100% hunger.

 - Gus

On the 6x6 lot, maybe. It all depends on how many floors you want to go up, how many different types of facilities, and how many dormies you want...plus how true to normal dorm design are you going? I generally make one or two suites for my playables (often the rooms are shared, just put two Myne doors in) and then a bunch of 1x2's or whatever depth works with the rest of the design for the dormies. Premiere Dorms (custom, yum) has 16 1x3 "rooms" for dormies, and the size of these rooms was the excuse I used to move my two playables in together.

On a 6x6, a quad with four sub-buildings is doable. You could basically have a 2x2's space for each building, plus the fluff in the middle for a lawn & garden with gazebo and circular path around it with paths going in the four cardinals....maybe some flower plots breaking up the large paths.....hmm. Now I may have to send another spawn off to college. Eve is a Knowledge sim, after all, and two of her possible intendeds are professors. Depending on her LTW and who she gets a jones for, she may go. I have strict building rules while I'm doing my alpha challenge. No buildy-poo in the Uni until another spawn goes.

Jolt Cola!  All the sugar and twice the caffeine!

Hook

It wasn't really all that hard to set up. I don't do a lot of building, unless I can't find something I like - so a lot of it was just refitting lots I'd downloaded, and I've been doing a bit as I went along. It's not spectacular (I'm not that great at the overall look stuff) but it's fun and it works.

As for the profs and their offices, I cheat. I have insim and I teleported them in, made them selectable, had them choose their office space/door, put their office hours in the little story section and unselected them and set the lot to community again - the same way I put dormies into the dorms. I dunno if they'll stay. I haven't really played the lot enough to find out, but if they don't, that's ok, I can always teleport them in if they should be there.

Not having enough time to skill, study, socialize and woohoo is a good part of the point. I'm tired of them *all* having 4.0 (or close) grades and graduating top of the class and everything. Even as it is, it's still too easy - they're all A students and they're hardly doing anything :p Anyway, I want some of them to be more interested in socializing than grades and maybe some will even flunk or drop out (without me quite so actively making them.)

The clubs are what's making the community lots work. There's 8 people (that's my computer limit for groups) so when they go to a community lot, there's always a bunch of them, plus the 'whoever shows up on lots' group so there's usually a lot going on. Also it gives me the opportunity to think of more interesting ways for them to skill - the swim team for body (the coach - the one that comes and yells at the sims to work out - is coach of the team and it turns out he's scared of the high-dive. I found it really funny to watch him, so I get that kind of new and interesting stuff), the wine/food club for cooking, the science geeks stargaze or play with microscopes or whatever I can think of to have them do.

And I've got the dorms gender-divided also, so they go to the community lots to date or have study dates or meet each other in the library. So it's not all just skilling. Though I still fast-forward through the fascinating "I'm reading a book now dood" I do that in dorms or at home too, but there's less of it. And if I'm bored with them skilling, I've got other things they can be doing. (Also I only send sims with wants to do straight skilling/research/write term papers and those are generally only the knowledge sims - everyone else tends to be more interested in other stuff too.)

I don't like "everything in one lot" community lots. I like different places with different atmospheres and for them to have to move around. Part of what I'm trying to do is pass the time and that takes up more of it. And yeah, I *hate* the time dislocation - but at least the semester still passes (that's why they're not allowed to go off-campus - I don't want to drag it out.) I can use the Uni clock to set the time back properly or sync them up if it gets too far off. And they aren't allowed to go to class twice or exams twice (hates that :p) I wish time worked correctly in this game, but dunno any way to really make it.

For the vending machines, I have the ones from MTS2 with the fixes that were put up in the "oops I broke it" section (most of the cheaty and broken stuff taken out) - great thread on how to fix stuff there also. They still overwrite each other, but that doesn't matter much. They look ok and they keep a sim from starving if they really need a boost. If I don't want them to caffeinate, I leave out the energy machine (it still gives a pretty good boost, but not much better than a regular espresso I think - it's a separate machine.) I also have a serious cheat-y one from the pc-mod board that I use in the cinema to make hamburgers and the like (as I can't *buy* a lot and run an OFB business on campus which seriously seriously ticks me off) and I only let playables get the not-so-cheaty stuff out of it. It's ok with me if dormies waste their non-existant money (I know they don't have any, I made them) on cheat-y types of food.

It would be much better if time made more sense and if OFB businesses were possible on the Uni lots, but it would also be much better if EA/Maxis fixed Uni so it was fun instead of boring. This way at least I'm not just dreading playing them through and tempted to just uninstall it after 2 semesters. I'm having fun - so far at least. I may get bored again, but if I manage to give the different sims that go to Uni enough personality, I'll have more unique things to do.

Just buy an EDS for your Dorm. Thats all I do and its always getting used by the dormies and only a couple of the really lazy ones are fat, but sometimes even they loose a bit of weight for a while. Visiting community lots with them helps keep your townies slim too.

Have you actually visited the professor lots since you've allocated the professors?  I'm guessing they won't be there, and a random selection of townies will be there instead.  Still, the idea is sound.  You can always do something like put Inge's teleport shrub on the lot if you don't want to use Insim (like me), and whenever a student visits you teleport the appropriate professor there.  It sounds more realistic feeling than bugging professors on the phone.  I'll have to try it to see if I like it.  Probably not, but who knows?

This reminds me of the feature I'd really like to see in an expansion - an option to visit other residential lots, with the active Sim or Group playable, and the residents not selectable.

I agree.  The way I deal with it is that if a student doesn't have a Want for a study-related activity like a term paper or assignment, they don't do it.  I've had Pleasure students graduate with a 2.0 average.  I've yet to have any flunk or drop out, since attending classes is enough to pass.  If only real college had been that easy.

That makes sense, I really need a passle of students to keep it interesting.  But my problem has been that I don't have 8 Sims who all want to do the limited stuff available on the Maxis EA lots.  Which is why I assumed you had an all-in-one community lot, so you could find something for each of your group members.

I fully intend to install Crammy Boy's Community Time Project when I'm bored enough to accept a possible Fireball, but even that solve the time problem in Uni

 - Gus

No, I haven't really been to the office tower except for very briefly and I wasn't actually paying attention then. You're probably right and they wont' be there, but as you said, it's easy enough to teleport them in with whatever mod or cheat works best for you.

I have the profs both with the office hours and as the university liason to the clubs/teams/whatever, so I have yet another option for the students to meet them (except to just call them up or go on dates.) And also  it means some of the students are meeting professors outside of their study area, which I kinda like (I looked through them all and chose the one with 'celebrity chef' as a LTW for the epicurian, and a 'mad scientist' for the geek club - in other words kinda randomly by interest and wants.

No all-in-one lots, but there is enough on each of them, I think. The student center (where people end up a lot) has the cafeteria, 2 tv rooms, a music room (with a keyboard), game room (pool table, cards and pinball), and an espresso bar. The Fine Arts building has a theater and a museum, stage area, pottery wheels, easels, photography equipment. The classroom building has medical training equipment, scientific equipment, telescopes, the astronomy tower (I didn't give it a separate building), another cafeteria-type area. The library (books, computers, chess tables) and office towers have the least.

Yeah crammy's mod is what we need, but it doesn't work for uni yet.

And agree agree on all the points about grades and everything.

Finally got around to testing the piano in the gym.  And noticed something different.

It used to be that people used the weight benches and the treadmill.  Now, they only use the treadmill.  Did Seasons bork the weight benches to get immolating dormies from overheating on the treadmills?  Is there any way to make people use the weight benches again?  I haven't dug into the code yet.  I know it worked ok in Uni.  I don't remember if it was broken after OFB, as my Sims didn't go to the gym that often.

One problem with the fitness for all hack is that a Sim will use a treadmill until they get the signal to leave the lot.  This doesn't leave them time to go through the fitness animation.  Not a problem with the hack directly, but it would be nice if there was a pause before a Sim left so they could get fit.  In order to make a Sim fit, you have to "shoo" them at some point before they're ready to leave the lot.

Hook

This is already easy enough to mock up with your favorite "make selectable/unslectable" cheat/hack.  Having done so has convinced me that I have no interest whatsoever in this feature until sims are significantly smarter.  Especially if the visitees have young children, which is a very likely situation if a "go visiting" feature were installed.

Yeah, I noticed that too.  I stopped using the community lots well before I installed Nightlife, and this is the first time I've been back.  So I have no idea which expansion borked the weight benches.

 - Gus

What! Everyone knows that fully coed dorms are the only way to go. Otherwise you don't get near the level of debauchery that makes Uni fun.

The problem with everything community lots is that you only need one. That means you end up going to the same lot, over and over and over. I have one all-in-one lot downtown. It's the only lot I have downtown. It only exists so that my sims have someplace to go when some random person calls them telling they've found "a new place downtown", which reaches new levels of hilarity when there's only one lot. All other community lots are focused and either in the neighborhood or, coming soon, in Uni (I'm thinking only a coffee shop and a bookstore/clothing store, as I'm dorm-centric). Saish (named after Saish Test, my sim first family in TS1 & TS2) is a restaurant/club (restaurant level is a loft equal to approximately 3 floors in height, yummy), but that's as much multitasking as lots can do.

I tend to have one type of lot for each purpose.  I have one date-lot, with everything they could possibly need to have a great time (including a restaurant, since dates always roll that stupid dine out want) and woohoo in every thinkable possition.  I have one lot for shopping, usually a very small lot; with absolutely everything a sim can buy.  Then last I try to build a "fun" lot for outings, but I never manage to get them right (neither the lots or the outings).

Well, I made a mini-campus lot with a dorm, student union, library, and gym as separate buildings.  In testing it, I rather liked the effect.  It felt more "real."  It's sort of deliberately inefficient, since the travel times to stuff like bookcases and computers are somewhat long, but that's not a huge drawback for students who have too much time anyway.

However, even though my computer has moderately beefy arms, it was a bit slow.  I turned on the frame rate monitor, and found I was getting 7-10 FPS, vs. the 17-20 FPS that's more common for my normal dorm.  I suppose I should have expected that, the Sims 2 has always been kind of slow compared to other games.

The real problem of course is when the game's really stressed.  On my normal lot 10 FPS isn't a big deal, but 2 FPS on the mini-campus is painful.  So I guess I'll stick to what I'm doing, though I kind of like the design of the dorm-section of the mini campus better than my current dorm.

 - Gus

Too bad, it sounds like fun. But yeah, that'd be my other reason for avoiding 'all in one' lots - my computer barely runs the game, really. I can tell when a lot in my bin is too big just by mousing over it - there's a distinct pause before it's willing to take a glance.

Gus, what lot size were you doing? I'm away from a computer with the Sims2 for another 12 or so hours, so all I've been able to do is sketch stuff out....but in my opinion a 6x6 is going to be overkill. I'm thinking a 4x4 should do it, with a 3x3 possible with a very small quad area (ditch a central gazebo) and smaller buildings.

Anyways, I really like the idea. I'll have to break my rules and build a new Uni lot early tomorrow. Eve may not be going to college now, as I've decided on a way to both invite some tradegy and bring Charisma the Freak back into the foreground.

The Mini Campus is on a 6x5 lot, which for some reason is labelled 5x6 in my game, even though it's 6 wide and 5 deep.  I don't have 6x6 as an option.

You're right that 6x5 is overkill.  The library is as big as the full-sized library, and the gym is only slightly smaller than the full sized gym, though most of it is given over to an indoor pool.  Only the dorm actually needed a 2nd story to hold what I wanted, though I built a 2nd story on to the library for appearance's sake.

A 4x4 seems doable.  3x3 would require that I build up far more vertically, since the current dorm layout occupies all of a 2x2 lot with no space left over for borders.  That's a challenge, though, and I like challenges, so it's back to construction for me.

 - Gus

Just did a 3x3 quad set-up (no landscaping):
(http://www.geocities.com/kariminger/QuadDorm.jpg)
The third story on the study/library and the second story on the gym are just loft space I added for looks. It looks good and makes sense to me, but the dorm is definitely smaller than my taste. You could probaby convert the space into 4 smallish bedrooms for playables. I did two small suites (one with attached bath) on the second floor and six mini-whatevers for myne door placement so I'd have NPC dormies.

And yes, that's a ninja in the fountain.

For Flamingo, lot available here: http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/lot_detail.php?asset_id=547614
Note that any custom content that says it's by me on that page isn't. Varagies of EA. I just place the walls.

Zazazu, would you be willing to share that lot? I'm impressed by your building skills, and am really quite tired of using the dorms that came with Uni.

Interesting to see another take on the idea.  I posted images of my 3x3 campus in another thread here.  Mine is far more crowded than yours, but I have more bedrooms (11 rooms, 12 beds), and I packed a lot more rec equipment into it.  The pool doesn't count because I put it in a basement.

The 12 Myne Doors are attached to 1x1 cells, with a single regular door to the entire area that can be locked.  The idea being that the dormies will be forced to use the regular facilities rather than hiding in those inviso-rooms.  I've tried stacking the Myne Doors before, but had enough troubles that I decided to separate them this time.  With NoUniProtect installed, it's important to force the dormies into real beds, because otherwise they tend to fall over and die when they come out of their rooms.

 - Gus