Check their grades. Poor grades are the only thing which should keep Teenagers off the college list.

Their grades probably aren't good enough to qualify. Can you edit Teen grades in SimPE?

Lock them in the house.

The main purpose of the car during the early part of the challenge is allowing you to invite Best Friends. This means you can wait until after college to choose a spouse, which means you can change plans after you've had some actual experience with the restrictions. Without a car, you can only invite Loves (even Crushes don't qualify) until the Military restriction is lifted. That makes it essential to choose your future spouse and fall in Love before leaving college if you plan to start without a car. If you don't have a Love or a car, you'll have to take whoever walks by and hope to get lucky.

A car also makes it possible to go back to work after some promotions in order to get a second promotion the same day. This is possible whenever you have at least two hours left in the new job schedule.

Switching back and forth between a car and the obstacle course isn't something you can do very often but you can do it a few times. You need to lift the Athletic restrictions before you can put either a car or the obstacle course into your inventory. You need to lift the Business restrictions to sell them. Since you plan on lifting Business early, so you can probably start with a car and earn the obstacle course with your founder before she gets a job in NS or after she finishes the career. The founder's spouse could also earn the obstacle course after finishing Business. That would give you two obstacle courses to use for the second generation. Sell the car and put in one course. Train everyone you can. Sell the course and get another car. One of the Sims you trained should go on to finish the Military career and then the car won't be needed, so you can sell it and put in the other obstacle course. Keep in mind that anyone using the obstacle course before the Military restrictions are lifted has to have a Military job and if they don't stay in the Military, they can't come back to it later until the Slacker restrictions are lifted.

The driveway is 8x5. The obstacle course is 8x3. If you put them side-by-side, that's 8x8 which will completely fill the area you're allowed to use, leaving no room for stairs or elevators. You'll have to use teleportation to get in and out of the house. Sims aren't allowed to sleep outside. Babies and Toddlers will need to sleep, so your Sims will need to give birth inside the house. Children can't teleport, so they'll be stuck inside and miss school, leading to poor grades and a visit from the Social Worker.

It might be practical to use both the driveway and the obstacle course for a short period of time but you'll need to get rid of one or the other after a few days. Go for the punching bag, it's much more practical.

Seems a bit obvious, but have you checked whether you still have a price set and a stylist assigned? Or, for the restaurant, a menu, price, host, and chef? I know the ticket machine got turned off at one of my home businesses when I installed Pets.

I get the Outing meter for all my outings but I start them myself. I haven't accepted any invitations with Pets installed.

Make sure you have the right size collar. I'm pretty sure Cyd has a Small dog so the Large dog collars probably won't fit.

Looking through my config-log file, I noticed some new cheats.

uintProp   maxTotalSims 10
uintProp   maxTotalHumans 8
uintProp   maxTotalPets 6

Anyone tried changing these, yet?

Because collars are important if your pet runs away?

You don't have to put things on OFB shelves to sell them. You just have to mark things for sale, which means someone has to own the community lot. It doesn't make any difference whether objects are on display shelves or not, they just have to be marked for sale. As for the limited number of things you can buy from it as an unowned lot, that's similar to many other community lots. It's a place to take your dog for a bath instead of buying a bathtub when everyone else is using showers.

Skilling on business lots is limited to Cooking and Body skill, and I believe that Body skill is limited to 6. These two skills are used in restaurants to control Chef and Server performance, so they can be learned the same way that badges can, including the lack of a progress bar. Other skills can only be trained at business lots if you're using a hack.

It seems to me that it's alright to bring a 'too cute' cake from college, but the 'no food in inventory' restriction means you'd have to place it on the lot immediately, and it would probably spoil long before you were ready to use it. You'd risk food poisoning with every pregnancy, but if you meditate through pregnancies and start with high Comfort and Energy, the food poisoning should be cured by the time of birth. Keep the serving platter on the roof or behind a locked door to prevent the Sims from throwing it out after it spoils.

There's still no rule on the official site regarding businesses in college and Pinstar has updated the Apocalypse challenge at least twice since he made this comment. I'd say that pre-Apocalypse businesses are allowed.

I was assuming you'll have the Sims max Body skill as Children, since you'll have the Obstacle Course available, so Law Enforcement doesn't prevent them from leaving the lot as Teens.

You aren't the only one taking it slow, sagana. My founding generation (gen 0) has just died, the first two kids in the first generation have completed careers, along with the first generation spouse, making 5 careers completed (Show Business, Slacker, Military, Business, Science). The third kid from gen 1 is in college. I expect she'll complete her career a day or two after she comes home, since it's already on the computer. The heir's wife had her first baby a day ago, so the second generation has just begun. Currently at 8 weeks and 2 days (58 days).

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Are you ignoring Hopelessness? The earliest that can be lifted, that I can see, is on Wednesday, two days after move-in. You would have to start with a level 4 Natural Scientist on Monday, get two promotions in two days, then get lucky on a chance card. That means the founder can't marry until at least Wednesday afternoon, which adds at least two days.

There's no reason to spend a day as a Teen. Do Military as one of the first two careers. Apply for scholarships and send the Teens to college the same day they grow up if you're trying to minimize time. The other first career should obviously be Scientist, so that your Sims can start at level 9 and complete their careers in minimum time, then move out to make room for someone else. Of course, that means your founder can't be a Natural Scientist so you'll need more time for unlocking Hopelessness, probably at least 6 more days.

I only see 9 Sims in your calculations (founder, founder's wife, heir, heir's wife, 5 kids) and there are 14 careers. You'll need at least another four, even if there's a third spouse. There's also a household size limit of 8 Sims, so the extra 5 kids might require extra time.

There's no requirement to have three generations. It might be faster if the founder and spouse produce all the children, using Elixir or vampirism to remain Adults.

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Thought I'd point out a few of the restrictions which aren't quite as restrictive as they might first seem to be.
"Showers and bathtubs of all types may not be purchased or used at home or on a commmunity lot." Other places, such as the Secret Society headquarters, would be okay.
"Sims may not purchase robots, including Servos. Servos may not be moved in or activated." No restriction on using robots, other than Servos, if you already have them. (Maybe you'd want to bring a Munchiebot with you from college?)
"No items from the 'Wall Hanging', 'Sculpture' or 'Rugs' tabs may be bought." No restrictions on use if you obtain them by other methods, such as Date and Outing gifts.
"Sims may not purchase aspiration reward objects." No restriction on using them. Your founder might as well stock up the Secret Society headquarters before leaving college, since he's not likely to ever need those points afterwards.

I assume the wording of all these restrictions is deliberate. It would have been much easier to just use the same wording throughout, and always restrict both the purchase and use of things, but it's obvious that Pinstar put much thought and care into deciding exactly how severe each restriction should be and exactly where they should apply.

The TS2 screenshots remind me of a problem I had before I upgraded my video card. Is there an unactivated servo on that lot?

This seems to happen when the Sim looking for a job is a nongraduate and all three jobs in the paper are University. My Sims have always been able to find a job in the next paper.

Have to agree that Paranormal is almost meaningless. Most people unlock Military pretty early, which means the Sims can move out when they get close to death. There's no reason to even have ghosts if you don't want them, unless you have a surprise death. I like the idea of teleporting to the roof, though.

Unlocking Business was great. Got rid of all the things they can't use, including a burn-proof EDS that's been there since the founder married. Upgraded the car. I'm now allowing Outings with anyone instead of restricting them to family members. Also, the family is finally collecting the remote income from the founder's business, almost §300K the first two nights. They hired a maid to pick up the old newspapers and clean the toilet.

Turns out that the founder's business really wasn't much help. I only spent about §50K building the house and my founder had that much before he started the business. The remote income wasn't available after the founder moved, until he returned to the business, but the family has been gaining money without it. I expected huge losses from the 'protection money' and the chance cards but that never happened. I unlocked Slacker early (2nd) and they only had to play one chance card (lost 2 Charisma). I've also been very careful about buying anything over §100, so the 'protection money' has never been a problem either.

My founder brought a Smart Milk dispenser with him from college, so my kids are learning faster than normal. Thanks to the Smart Milk effect, my Toddlers have been managing 9 Logic and about 4 to 5 Charisma. The Children have added at least 3 Body, 7 Cooking, 7 Cleaning, and 7 Mechanical. Maxing the Body skill has taken about one day using Yoga, the Lie Finder took care of Creativity, and that just leaves a few skill points in each of the other skills. Logic has been the difficult one until now, but they just bought a chess table. I've been doing my best to keep the protection costs down but the businesswoman my heir married needs the Logic.

Teens can get a job without max Body skill as long as they don't actually go to work. The purpose of taking the job is learning the skill that goes with it, so I don't mind if my Teens have to skip work.
Any Sim can max skill pretty quickly with the Lie Finder or most other career rewards. Ask another Sim for a lesson. When the lesson starts, ask for another lesson without stopping the first one. Continue asking for more lessons until you are satisfied with the learning speed.

I believe Teens need 10 Body skill to leave the lot for any reason, including college, until the Law Enforcement restrictions are lifted.

Criminal career reward is at level 4. My founder majored in Literature, so he got the level 4 job from the paper, instant Lie Finder.

Why not? He had plenty of time and little else to do. He was going to be a Teen anyway until he grew up or his sister unlocked Military, which only happened the day before he would have grown up. I had planned on him unlocking Science, and he'll probably still do that. I only sent him to college because I chose Knowledge for him (mistake, should have stuck with Popularity) and he had a fear of growing up uneducated. Besides, all those skills will be very useful once Science is unlocked. He should easily pick up all the career rewards the family is missing. As for scoring, I'm more interested in doing things my own way and enjoying the game than in getting the best score.

My strategy seems to be working quite well. Promotions for the family have all been through permaplat, so far, but I haven't had any difficulty with training skills, doing homework, or getting A+ in school or college. Randy just finished college with a 4.0 in Mathematics and he doesn't have permaplat. It will be interesting to see whether he can get all his promotions without it. He moved in at 8am Monday and left about noon on Thursday, based on the bills he received (second one arrived while he was taking the last final). That's just over 3 days on his home lot. He finished with only 15 friends and §27K, both of which are extremely low by my experience, but I'm satisfied with him not needing a handout.

The official rules are the ones posted on Pinstar's official website. Anything he says here (or anywhere else) that's not in the official rules can be ignored until he actually changes them. He said so, himself.

Child hygiene can indeed be maintained without snapdragons. Lift the Show Business restrictions, so you can have Outings. Have one of your older Sims ask the Child to form a group for an outing. Raise the outing score by at least one level, then end the outing (anywhere from Fun to Rockin'). This will also take care of hunger, energy, comfort, bladder, fun, and social, and even give them an occasional skillpoint.

I've only been using the black grill. It's perfect for starting fires and my Sims haven't ever needed to actually cook anything.

I don't think objects left behind disappear from University lots. This is because you don't own the lot, you're only renting it, so the furnishings don't belong to you.

Creativity has been easy. My founder earned the Lie Finder while he was looking for his first job (honors bonuses), then switched to Show Business. The kids have all started their Teen careers as Criminals and one of the townies, a Cat Burglar, has been invited over to give them lessons. Took about 3 hours each to max Creativity. Everyone involved was in the Criminal career at the time of their involvement.

I'm currently putting my first student through college with only 4 restrictions lifted (Hopelessness, Show Business, Slacker, and Military). He maxed all his skills as a Teen and also earned scholarships for school, work, dancing, and billiards. I started him on a 1x3 lot, bought a coffee table and phone, then organized a group with his older sister (the General) and sent him off to earn some tips with Freestyle. I later bought him a table, chair, and computer. The computer is the only thing he's paying protection on. He's completed his sophomore year with a 4.0 average and has about §19K in cash. Thanks to the Outings with his sister he's been able to spend most of that time on community lots and hasn't needed to eat, sleep, or bathe. However, with all the restrictions, there's nothing really productive for him to do once his performance meter is full, other than earn a few hundred more by Freestyling. This is the first time I've ever been bored with Uni. I'm planning to lift the Business restrictions before the next student goes, which should make it much more interesting.

Don't the rules already cover this?
"This satellite must originate from the family's lot."
I don't see how you can twist that into "this satellite can be brought from somewhere else."

More service Sims:
Newspaper delivery, bartenders, store clerks, repairmen, cheerleaders, mascots, streakers, coaches, matchmakers, DJs, and reporters.

Basically, this Want counts any Sim who isn't a townie or a playable.

I wouldn't.

You haven't eliminated NS as the #1 priority, you've just made Business the #2 priority and moved the point where most people will start following different paths to the 2nd generation instead of the founding generation. The new 'perfect strategy' is to get Natural Scientist with your founder and find a high-level Business townie as the founder's spouse. If your goal is to have people following many different strategies you've just made things worse instead of better.

I thought about those before I posted. Natural Scientist unlocks telescopes, stargazing, and cloudwatching, but it doesn't unlock the Alien Technology by itself and there other ways of training Logic. You still have to lift another restriction, a particularly difficult one since it relies on low probablilty events, before you get access to the aspiration rewards. Likewise, Natural Scientist unlocks the Hydroponic Planter but doesn't give it to you. Someone has to take a job in Slacker, a different career, in order to earn the Planter. Even the cowplant doesn't really matter since you can use vampirism to extend your lifespan. In my opinion, the only thing Natural Scientist unlocks by itself that really matters is the snapdragon bouquet.

If you honestly believe the snapdragons are making it too easy, put them where they won't do you any good. The challenge can be as hard as you want it to be, since you can impose additional restrictions on yourself whenever the mood strikes you.

I think the rules should be left as they are even though I'm not following the Natural Scientist route myself. The NS restriction on using the Flower Arranging bench and its products is the only one that makes a really significant difference and I don't want to see any of the college careers become meaningless. Natural Scientist has two chance cards where either answer can get the founder fired, and make it impossible to follow the NS strategy, so this stragegy is already a gamble.

Making snapdragons is only practical for Sims who already have a gold badge in Flower Arranging, which limits it to the founder and possibly some spouses. Other Sims would produce large numbers of bouquets while earning the gold badge and have to do something with all of those bouquets. If the Business restrictions apply, they can't sell them. If the Athletic restrictions apply, they can't keep more than 3 of them in inventory. If the Politics restrictions apply, they can only use the 8x8 section of the lot for storage, so their house will become extremely cluttered. That already makes producing snapdragons, or any other crafted objects, impractical for most Sims until at least two restrictions have been lifted. I think that's sufficient.

What potential abuse? Businesses are standard gameplay for anyone who owns Open For Business. How can standard gameplay be considered abuse? I'm sorry if the advantages of OFB didn't occur to you but it's rather unsporting to change the rules in midgame just because somebody else is cleverer than you were, especially when the rule-change goes against the primary premise.

The rules already cover this quite clearly. "None of the restrictions applies to the founder in college, as the disaster has not occured yet." That means the Business restrictions on starting businesses and purchasing community lots don't apply to the founder in college. It also means that the Military restriction on traveling to community lots doesn't apply to the founder in college. There's no reason for these restrictions to apply since the disaster hasn't occured yet.

The Business restrictions (which don't apply while the founder is in college) say, "Your Sims may not start their own business or purchase community lots." The Business restrictions don't say your Sims can't own businesses, only that they can't start or purchase them. This is reasonable, because they might inherit a Business when a friend dies, so they could own one without starting or purchasing it. It's also reasonable because they might have started or purchased a business while the founder was at college, before the restrictions went into effect. Similar wording is found in all the other restrictions on purchasing things. None of them forbid ownership since you might come into ownership without a purchase or by bringing things home from college. In fact, the rules make it quite clear that you CAN bring things home from college that you will not be allowed to buy once you get there.

The game itself prevents on-lot businesses (home businesses) at Uni, so you are effectively saying that the founder in college can't have any businesses at all, and for the most part isn't allowed to use OFB at all. Under this new ruling, the founder in college, BEFORE the restrictions take effect, is even more restricted than the founder in the main neighborhood AFTER the restrictions take effect. That's entirely unreasonable.