Nightlife Outings for Fun and Profit

No doubt there's more information in the official Prima guide, but here's what I've deduced from actual play.

Outings and Dates are very similar. In both cases, you get small bonuses every time you get Relationship adds, and a much larger bonus for fulfilling a Want. On Dates, though, you can always see your partner's Wants, even if you don't control them. More significantly, going on a Date skews both partners to roll Wants that are date-related, like "Dine Out," "Slow Dance," and the like. With Outings, you're stuck with what you'd get normally, which means if your Sim currently wants stuff like skill increases or promotions you're not going to make much progress. You also can't see other Sim's Wants unless you control them directly, though you can Ask if your relationship is high enough. Frrequently the response isn't useful, i.e. "Eve goes to college!", which masks minor fulfillable Wants like "Play with Joe."

Thus, despite what you might think, the way to raise your score isn't to do "fun" things, but rather just to talk and fulfill any visible Wants. The only reason to worry about Fun is if you're concerned a Sim may leave due to his Fun meter getting too low. Like Parties, you need to make sure food is available, and that you give other Sims time to eat and hit the bathroom. Dining out is frequently a bad idea because it's slow and doesn't raise relationship scores very quickly compared to simple Chatting.

Over time, you get small decays in the score. This isn't a large effect, but it does appear that if the Outing goes on for a very long time, you can get a sudden big decay. I've only seen this once so far.

Just like Dates, every time the Outing score goes up a category, everyone gets a slight boost to all their Needs, and more time gets added to the Outing clock.

The more Sims are in the Outing, the harder it is to get a high score. I've had a 3-Sim Outing's score jump dramatically when one Sim left.

The easiest way to learn how to play Outings is to make a 2-Sim outing where you control both Sims, particularly if one is a Family / Popularity / Romance Sim that is currently on a "enterain target" jag. I.e. they're looping between "Tell Joke," "Appeciate," and "Play with" the other Sim.

So why go on Outings?

If you're going out anyway, it's less tiring that "just for fun" because you get an Energy boost every time you raise the score category, and you get another overall boost at the end of the outing if the score was reasonably high.

The clock is effectively stopped, so if your Sim needs a lot of friends in a hurry, i.e. for a promotion for tomorrow, you can leave the house and make friends. You can run several outings in one session without returning home. As each one ends, just start a new one, particularly if you have a cell phone and can invite Sims over. Just use "Manage Group" to create a group with your Sim and your target, and then "Invite Group For An Outing." If you're doing well, your Sim won't get tired because of the repeated Energy boosts from the outings.

If your Sim is very Friend oriented for some reason, i.e. Popularity or Family, you get boost their aspiration meter into the white on an Outing pretty easily, and again the clock is stopped. Fulfilling at 3500 point Want like "Be Friends" is enough to lift an Outing from mid "so-so" to "super."

Popularity Sims can use Outings to make several friends in one day without advancing the clock. This is handy when you're trying for a lot of Best Friends, since maintaining friendship relationship levels can be a big timesuck. It's still a timesuck of course, it's just that your sim doesn't run out of energy while doing it, and things like needing to don't get in the way with all the energy boosts you get.

Finally, Outings are useful for college students who want to increase relationships or fulfill Friend wants and have limited time to do it.

- Gus