Can you change life stage durations?

[Simbiiznas]

I am really only interested in shortening the "Teen" life stage to around 6 or 7 days.  Why you ask?  Maxis uses a rather uniform way of defining life stage durations.  Before the Uni ep it translated as follows:

Cycle-RL Years/Sim Days
Infant-2/3
Toddler-4/5
Child-7/8
Teen-12/15
Adult-30/29
Elder-25/25

Before I continue let me explain how I arrived at these RL numbers.  I classify the "Child" stage to be the grades K-6 in American schools.  I classify the "Adult" stage as begining at the age insurance companies consider you an adult, 25, and I classify the "Elder" stage as  begining at the age of 55 because that is when you qualify for most senior discounts (AARP is 50 but that just sounds low for me and SSA retirement is 67 but that sounds too high).  "Infants" are ages 0 and 1, while "Toddlers" are the 2-5 gap between infants and children.  This leaves "Teens" to cover the ages of 13-24.  Here is the Uni breakdown:

Cycle-RL Years/Sim Days
Infant-2/3
Toddler-4/5
Child-7/8
Teen-6/15
YA-6/na
Adult-30/29
Elder-25/25

The teen stage is split into 13-18 being teen and 19-24 being YA.  The resulting RL age breakdown is as follows:
Infant:0-1
Toddler:2-5
Child:6-12
Teen:13-18
YA:19-24
Adult:25-54
Elder:55-79

Back to my point, after the Uni expansion the teen cycle is about twice as long as it should be.  I realize that you can send you teen to Uni anytime but I would have a more realistic scenario that forces you to choose weather or not you want to go to college on or before the 9 day.  If you choose to go then you leave by day 9 otherwise it is like you opted to not go to college and cannot get into Uni.  Appropriate warnings leading up to day 9 would be nice.  I realize this isn't really that big of a deal but I think Maxis should have programmed it this way to begin with just to keep time continuity.

[J. M. Pescado]

There is no continuity. I did a mathematical breakdown of this fact awhile back.The lengths are basically arbitrary based on what Maxis perceives to be more "interesting" to the audience, while retaining sufficient length to actually be noticeable.

Hence why pregnancy drags on for a seemingly elephantine 3 days, completely out of scale with everything else, and why the teen stage is so interminably long in comparison: It's supposed to cater towards the game's core market audience and the ratings tag.

[gali]

You can do it with the SimPe - no need of hack for that.

[Simbiiznas]

Aside from the YA college stage there appears to be continuity as I just demonstated.  Can you point me to the post where you proved otherwise?  Yes Prenancy is streched out but that is for similar reasons as YA being "unique".  You can't have 1/2 day semesters or 1 day pregnancies.

You can change it globally with SimPE?

[gali]

with the SimPe - not globally, only personally. But it takes few minutes to do that, without adding more redundant hacks to the game.

[RainbowTigress]

You could try Inge's Age Group Tweak here: 

http://www.simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2patches.htm

It's at the bottom of the page.  Be sure to read the directions.  Inge labels this as HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL.

This package contains the BCON that deals with how long each age stage lasts.  You can edit it with SimPe to make boring ages last less time, or keep adults fertile longer etc.

[Ancient Sim]

I've been using Inge's agecons for a while now and it works flawlessly in my game.  I use it to give 10 extra years to adults (and 10 less to elders), but I altered all the age-groups when I first used it.  My teens always go to Uni when they've 11 days left, mainly because those extra 4 days increases the age-gap between themselves and their parents and that makes no sense.

[maxon]

I've been using Inge's agecons for a while now and it works flawlessly in my game.  I use it to give 10 extra years to adults (and 10 less to elders), but I altered all the age-groups when I first used it.  My teens always go to Uni when they've 11 days left, mainly because those extra 4 days increases the age-gap between themselves and their parents and that makes no sense.

Yes, I'd second that - I use it too.  I am interested in stories and I like the sims to stick around longer than their 'normal' lifespans, especially the adult life stage which is just too short.

[mistymage]

I don't mess with SimPe.. I use Inga's grow up cake.. it even works on infants! That weay I control how long they are in the various stages... I use other less awesome hacks to de-age sims (mainly elder townies).

http://www.simlogical.com/ under her sims 2 downloads.

~misty