I've been thinking a lot about what would constitute an AwesomeSpec house in the Sims 4. I think there are a few key features that any house should have, and after that the needs of a house tend to extend from what activities/aspirations your sims will lean toward.

These are some of the things I think any house should have:

• Furnishings should have the highest stats your sim can afford
• Emotional support items should focus certain rooms on certain emotions
• Bathrooms should be numerous enough for the size of the household and the distance to be traveled from one part of the house to another.
• Most daily activities should take place on the main floor. Sleeping, skillination, laundry/utility, and spa activities are good choices for things to put on other floors.
• Guests should be restricted to the main floor.
• Toddlers should be restricted to one floor.
• There should be enough support for per-sim emotion moodlets so there doesn't always have to be an emotional support item nearby
  • Shower
  • Tub
  • Tea Infuser
  • Yoga Mat
• Utility room/attic items should include, at minimum
  • Fire suppression sprinkler
  • Thermostat
  • Attic Stack Decoration Box

I haven't bought Star Wars, despite being a completist with regard to packs. I don't intend to buy it, as it looks bad. Opinions?

To me, it looks so bad, it makes me think maybe they're running out of ideas. As of this writing, it looks like there are 9 expansion packs, 9 game packs, and 17 stuff packs -- for a total of 35. Could it be that Sims 5 is not far beyond the horizon?

Formed by raising and then razing the bed of the toxic, highly mineral-dense ocean, this island is the perfect place to torture your sims.

Featuring 59 lots of varying sizes, some flat and some sculpted, to suit your taste and building style.

The ocean and sky are tinted an eerie purple, and the surrounding terrain is dotted with luminescent crystals.

Requires Into the Future.

Terrains by varpunen, VampireSim, and EA.

I made a blatant error when describing the rules; I should have said that the worlds must be AwesomeSpec, and not that they must be AwesomeMod compatible. 

There is nothing about AwesomeMod that makes Kewian-based substitutes any less efficient than they are in the base game.

I appreciate the heads-up; fixed.

The Challenge
Given a realistic and expansive landscape on which to build, what can you make?  Take the included files and use them to build a world; the challenge is to make your world available to MATYzens in this thread.



Rules
The rules are very basic, but if you break them you will be disqualified.

• If it's not AwesomeMod compatible, you lose. This means cribs in houses where people should reproduce, and the avoidance of unacceptable Kewian-based substitutes.
• Any custom content you use must be packaged and credited. No one wants to hunt down a bunch of CC just to evaluate your world.
• You must present at least one screenshot; PICS or GTFO.
• Change whatever you want, CAW files are available if you want to change more than Edit Town allows.

The Prize
Accolades and a firm, but virtual, pat on the back.

Credits

• Terrain sculpted based on a height map by Honeybear of Bear Mtn Creations.
• Snow terrain paint by Martine of MTS

Files

• Build a World Challenge (Sims3Pack)
• CAW Files

Edit: Fixed image, fixed error regarding source of height map.

It looks very attractive and appears quite playable, but I might have gone with bigger windows in the dormers.

There's literally no way that you searched *literally* everywhere.

This may belong in the Large Intestines of Trogdor, since I'm willing to do the work myself, but how difficult is it to add new behaviors to Supreme Commander? There are a number of these that I would be interested in, as they would help make EPs more playable.

It seems consistent across starting worlds: The problem occurs when travelling to any destination world, including the future, and goes away when I uninstall AwesomeMod.  Incidentally, the game did crash on one such non-Awesome load, and never crashed during an Awesome load, though with AM it doesn't bring up the Sim, as I described. Without AM, when it does load the destination world, it loads fully.

When working with the latest test version, I cannot travel to Uni or WA worlds, or to the future.  No sims load.

That's good to know.  Some bugs or oddities I might be willing to work with, but not that!

Expecting is the wrong approach to take. Hope, and wait. Pescado is currently working on the test version, and it sounds like he's working really hard on it, so I'd bug less and lurk more.

Double posting is For The Lose.

Yes, people make mistakes.  Still... it's not a race, so slow down.

Wrong thread, doofus.

So succinct, you'd almost think Jezzer had something useful to say.  Alas, he does not.

I've found it difficult to make use of many Sims 3 Challenges. They tend to be impossibly complex, or they are too gameable, too susceptible to loopholes, or simply too easy.

I've come up with a playstyle that suits my need for "challenge" within the game, without placing a lot of complex restrictions on how I play the game.

Here's how it goes.

• Use AwesomeMod.
• The object is to build an entire town, in-game, that is Awesome in some way.
• Start with a blank world, free of inhabitants or lots.
• Start with one founder, no money cheats.
• Populate your world from WA or Uni using whatever methods are available in-game.
• Before you can place a lot, you must have someone to own it (if possible) and someone to run it.
• Use the mechanics of the game to your advantage; for instance, you need not randomize personalities if you are able to age your sims well.
• Your town must not contain any townies that you did not earn via in-game methods, so do not allow derelict residential buildings.
• You have until your game explodes in a big fiery ball of death.
• Your score, to the extent that there is one, is the number of perfect deaths; i.e. any Sim who accomplishes their LTW and dies of old age.  Keep track by storing perfect gravestones in the graveyard, and imperfect ones in the mausoleum.

I'd love to hear about it if anyone finds this playstyle useful, so post your results here.

Thou hast shown to me the light, yea, and it is shiny!

Thank you!

Using the mod from SimWardrobe, and the farm field location marker, you mean?  Or just using "Plant Many"?

Very good point.  I will adjust the text accordingly.

I agree with you about both sprinklers and ladybugs.  I'm not a big fan of either one.  However, they do kinda sorta function.  A little.  For starter houses, maybe.

I will update The One Desk info to incorporate your notes about multiple spawn.  Very good point.

Also, what is this coffee bush and where can I find it? 

Edit:  Nevermind, I found it.

Here you go:  http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2606.0;wap2.  I will also add the link to the body of the spec.


I was trying to be cute.  I will fix the wording.  I should have said, "Sprinklers should be placed with attention to their watering radius.  Do not just plop a bunch of sprinklers down with no regard for their radius, and hope its enough.  Sprinklers are helpful but cause lag, so they should not be overused."


My issue, and I'm not quite sure how to word this, is that on other sites, often I see greenhouses whose available gardening space consists of strange numbers of plots.  I don't have any use for a 7-farmable-tile-greenhouse.  There are 6 types of plants, so I want multiples of 6. 

It's somewhere between aesthetics and function, I guess.  Perhaps I should remove it from the spec, as I have seen no one else complaining about this.

Disclaimer:  The following is a bit off topic as it refers to spiffy and yet non-MATY mods.

In big, commercial type greenhouses especially, I personally prefer clearly defined areas suitable for using SimWardrobe's employee gardening controllers.  When using those controllers, it *is* about function.  For those, the easiest type of greenhouse to run is one that consists of 4x4 squares missing a single interior plot (for a total of 15).  The planting sign goes in the middle.  Each 4x4 square contains one type of crop, and there are six such squares present, each of which must be separated from all other 4x4 squares by at least one tile and preferably more than one.  The reason for 4x4 minus 1 is that SimWardrobe's planting controller operates in multiples of five.  15 was the first number that was a multiple of 5 and also a square minus 1 that I could think of.

Here's kinda what I'm talking about, though I almost always mix it up somehow by rearranging the six 4x4 squares into various shapes, or including fishing ponds/orchard trees.

I'd prefer slightly larger crops to optimize manpower, but I can't think of a good way to do it using the hacks available.

P: Plant
O: Plant type controller sign
=: Walkway


====================
==PPPP==PPPP==PPPP==
==PPOP==PPOP==PPOP==
==PPPP==PPPP==PPPP==
==PPPP==PPPP==PPPP==
====================
====================
==PPPP==PPPP==PPPP==
==PPOP==PPOP==PPOP==
==PPPP==PPPP==PPPP==
==PPPP==PPPP==PPPP==
====================

Edit:  I'm a doofus, evidently.  6x6, 9x9, and 11x11 would also work just fine.

Alright then... here's what I've got so far, based on AwesomeSpec 5.0 and all the previous versions I could find, plus the house reviews in the Building Contest of Awesomeness sub-forum. A few of my own opinions are thrown in.  However, for the most part I am regurgitating what has been said by others.

Comments and constructive criticism are welcome. 

=======================================================

Awesomespec: adj.  1)  playable 2) having high usability 3) meeting the very high standards of one J. M. Pescado

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But what does that mean?
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* An awesomespec house is built to be easily playable using moreawesomethanyou hacks, with minimal micro-management. Particularly important hacks:
-- Bathroom uses you
-- Macrotastics
-- Sleep Clock
-- Baby Controller
-- Authorized Personnel Only

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Basic Building Parameters
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Here are some things that can keep you from killing awesomespec in your house from the start.

* Awesomespec houses have LEVEL EDGES.  Pescado makes a big deal of it if a lot does not have level edges.  It clearly irritates the crap out of him.  Non-level edges screw up the terrain on anything they touch.  Makes people cranky.
* Should be neither too close to the road, nor very far from it.
* Awesome houses are not big boxes filled with sub boxes.  Use a little imagination.
* Moving the trash can a short distance away from the mailbox appears to be ok.  Moving the mailbox is NOT ok.
* Things that represent a fire hazard should have emergency sprinklers placed overhead.  If you don't have Uni, at least put in a smoke detector.

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Staircases
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* Stealth stairs are not ok.
* Staircases should be high-bandwidth.  If you're going to use landings, be double damn sure that they allow 2 sims to pass each other; landings are notorious for causing cloggage!
* Must be locked to visitors. 

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Exterior Construction
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* Should have a garage, or room for one (if you lack Nightlife).  Attached is a plus.  Not terribly popular:  long driveways, sideways driveways, sloped driveways. (The first is just irritating, the last two mess up animations.)
* Houses should look right in the neighborhood view.  Anything that messes this up is non-awesome.  A classic example is placing a wall-bearing roof (e.g. gable or shed roof) in such a way that one of its fake-roof-type-walls is right up against a real, regular wall.
* Should be expandable, so that the next addition to the family or the next spiffy expansion pack toy has somewhere to go.

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Rooms
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* Should be big enough, but not huge.
* Should be well lit and have sane window placement.  No picture windows hiding behind wall-height bookcases!
* Single purpose zones can be combined to create a multi-purpose room, so long as the function of both zones is retained.  For example, living areas and skilling areas can be separate or combined. 

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Miscellaneous
-------------------------------------------------
* A storage area for hacks is a nice touch.  Good places are under foundations, below roofs, or in little nooks that aren't useful otherwise.
* Hot tubs, if provided, should be covered and access controlled to prevent death by weather.

-------------------------------------------------
Landscaping
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* Should have a theft-proof kicking zone for flamingos, gnomes, or for true awesomeness, kick-the-cheats.  See homestarrunner.com for a non-explanation.
* Trees bring a house to life but are high-poly count.  Use them, but use them sparingly.
* Place compost barrels near trees so leaves can be composted quickly.
* Wolves should not be able to dig on your lot.  Do what you will to prevent this, but wolf digging is not allowed.  Telling Pescado to use someone else's hack to fix this is not going to work.  Either block off the entire front with gated fences, or pave/interrupt the front area so that there are no 2x2 squares available for wolves to dig.  Do not put any flower beds in the unprotected area. And by the way... if a sim can walk over a fence, so can wolves.  You have to use *real* fences. 
* Ponds are good.  Need to be deep enough to fish, and not too deep to fish.  Indoors is a plus, but not a requirement -- ponds freeze in winter no matter what.
* Greenhouses are good, but expensive.  Ladybug nests work too.  Or, with sunlamps, you can figure out a way to do your gardening indoors.
* Sprinklers should be placed with attention to their watering radius.  Do not just plop a bunch of sprinklers down with no regard for their radius, and hope it's enough.  Sprinklers are helpful but cause lag, so they should not be overused.
* There are three kinds of trees and six kinds of plants.  For small family gardens, this doesn't matter too much.  However, for large commercial type farms, you should plan your gardening areas accordingly.  Pescado's "gpsign" mod in the "test" folder of your latest EP does a great job of this, using room dividers to separate crop areas.
* Landscaping-type trees do not need maintenance.  Shrubs and flowers do.  Plan their placement accordingly. See: http://website.lineone.net/~andrewhdknock/GardeningTutorial.htm

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Viewing Deck
-------------------------------------------------
* Awesomespec houses are built so that interesting things take place primarily on one floor -- the "Viewing Deck". Boring things like sleeping take place elsewhere. 
* An ideal viewing deck is visible at a glance without a bunch of mouse fidgeting. 
* Sprogs, aka infants and toddlers, require attention.  Therefore, nurseries should be placed on the viewing deck.  See "Nurseries", below.
* Visitors are stupid annoying pests who utterly lack self control.  However, they are necessary for certain aspects of gameplay, such as parties.  This means that they must be confined to the viewing deck, where you can keep an eye on them.  Staircases MUST be locked up tight so that visitors can never get off the viewing deck and out of your sight.
* The viewing deck should also contain:
-- Vomitorium (Foyer)
-- Dining Room
-- Living Room
-- Idling Area
-- The One Desk
-- Kitchen

See below for descriptions of these areas. 

See the existing Awesomespec thread for a diagram of their relative positions.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7263.0.html

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Barracks
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* Best placed on a separate floor, to reduce the size of the viewing deck.  Sleeping sims are boring.
* Needs to have enough bathrooms.  Not necessarily one per resident, but enough.
* Don't put interesting stuff here.  This deck is for boring things only.
* Can someone confirm that a single sleep clock can reliably control the sleep habits of only two sims?  If so, that means kids' rooms should contain at most two single beds.  One sleep clock will work for two sims sharing a bed.
* Any decent house has at least one parent-type bedroom, and the right number of kid-type bedrooms.  A mansion should probably be able to sleep 8 sims, otherwise why's it so damn big?  Not all houses need to sleep 8, as long as there's room to expand.
* For a truly flexible barracks layout, one good approach would be to build bedrooms such that rooms can be converted between parent-type and kid-type rooms easily -- like knocking down a wall to convert two kid rooms to a parent room.
* Allowing room for easels in the bedrooms is a nice touch.

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Nurseries
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An awesome nursery is one that:
* is located on the viewing deck
* is blocked from visitors
* offers easy access to a bathroom containing a toilet, sink, a bathtub, and the "bathroom uses you" hack's controller (to prevent playing in the toilet)
* has seperate pods for multiple babies to sleep, so that if they cry they do not wake each other up.
* has easy access to a fridge for bottles
* provides enough room for all infant/toddler support items: toddler skill toys, changing table, trash can, and somewhere to put smart milk. (Can someone confirm/disprove the rumor that smart milk's potency is increased when the maker wears a thinking cap?)

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Vomitorium
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* No, not a roman style vomitorium.  This is just the MATY term for "foyer".  It's an overgrown foyer, but it's still a foyer.
* Should have enough bathroom capacity for visitors.
* Should be free of items that visitors can use to be a nuisance.
* Should be spacious enough to allow high traffic. 
* Since it contains the front door, should contain a crapdrop table for bills.

-------------------------------------------------
Kitchen
-------------------------------------------------
* Only one kitchen should be present in your house.  Otherwise sims will try to cook using both kitchens.  Not fun.
* If you are going to have an indoor eating zone and an outdoor eating zone, make sure that the kitchen is closer to the dining room than it is to the patio table, and that the grill is closer to the patio table than it is to the dining room.
* The kitchen should be in an enclosed room that is only a kitchen.  It should be lockable, and have real doors (not arches).  This prevents visitors from raiding your fridge for chips and cookies, getting fat and wasting your residents' grocery budget.  It also prevents visitors from setting your house on fire, and prevents massive tragedy if a fire does occur.
* The ideal kitchen contains counters that cost over $500, and no food processor.  The food processor reduces the quality of food prepared on such good counters.  For details, see:  http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,2606.0/wap2.html

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Dining Room
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* Should be available to visitors.
* Should have plenty of room to move around -- two tile walkways is a good rule of thumb. 
* Some people have reported problems with the 1x3 tables, as sims have trouble getting in/out of some of the seats.

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Idling Area
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* Located near the garage, front door, and usually containing The One Desk.  Where people sit while waiting.

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The One Desk
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* Kids will pick a desk in your house as the spot to deliver homework to.  Plan ahead for this by:
   a)  Making there be only ONE desk, and putting it in a convenient spot.
   b)  Making there be only ONE room with desks in it, and putting it in a convenient spot.
   c)  Having NO desks in the house at all.
  Basically, don't stick desks all over the place.
* Ideally, The One Desk should be placed in such a way that parents can teach their kids to do homework.
* If you have multiple kids, it is better that the one desk have a computer on it, or no chair, and sufficient floor space for as many spawn as will be bringing in homework.

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 Caffienation Station
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* Located on the viewing deck, this provides high-throughput caffienation via Macrotastics.  Should contain an espresso machine (or better yet, a coffee bush) and be near a seating area and a bathroom.  Ideally near a coffee table and/or dishwasher (if you use the coffee cups hack)

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Skillination Zone
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* Located on or at least convenient to the viewing deck, this has all the skill building items you could ever need.  Should be nice and big, to accomodate all skill items and career rewards.
* There should be only one reading area, and it should have a high capacity.

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Bathrooms
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* Should be optimized for the "Bathroom Uses You" hack.
* Should be of even quality throughout the house.
* Half baths appear to be unpopular, even for visitor bathrooms.
* Tubs should be used where needed, and not used where not needed.  Toddlers and pets need tubs.  No one else does.

Edit:  Added link to food processor post, and fixed wording on garden sprinklers.
Edit:  Added information about multiple spawn and The One Desk, as well as coffee bushes.
Edit: Adjusted the text on seasons garden layout
Edit:  Removed reference to the rather less than awesome SW hack for employee gardening, and changed it to refer to the fully awesome "gpsign".

I am tired of not knowing what Awesomespec is, and tired of seeing everyone redirected to the same incomplete post in the war room.  (Please do not direct me to that post, I have read it, analyzed it, peered at the photos, etc)

I am going through the analyses (analysisses?  analysii?  analyzements?) of the building contest of awesomeness in an attempt to condense all of the criticisms into one mega list of criteria for awesomeness.

My questions are as follows:

• How far back should I go? I have read back to July of 2007.  Are there house critiques further back than that that I should read as well, or is it all going to be prepeats of what has been said since July 07?
• Are there any other resources that I should refer to in compiling my list?
• I have seen multiple references to firebreak kitchen-ness.  For adequate firebreakage, is it necessary to separate the fire producing items from adjacent counters, etc so fires will not jump, as would be the case in a true firebreak in real life?  Or is it simply necessary to keep the entire household from freaking out and dying in a screaming writhing agonizing mass suicide just because someone burned their poptarts?
• Is the nanny supposed to be locked out of the kitchen?  Yay or nay?  If yes, how does she retrieve bottles for sproglings?  If no, how do you keep her from burning down the house?

Edit:  Changed the title to indicate the presence of a draft