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.
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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
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* 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.
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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-------------------------------------------------
Viewing Deck
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* 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-------------------------------------------------
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.
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Kitchen
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* 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-------------------------------------------------
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".
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