Factoids and Statistics on Skill Gaining

[dizzy]

Uni is hardly any challenge at all now if you do like I do and have 2 autumn seasons a year. If you start the year with autumn, they'll start first year with autumn and have that same season again just before their last year (assuming you don't mess with the clock much).

Combine autumn + the golden books + thinking cap and you should be able to easily max their skills in no time. 

[J. M. Pescado]

I've found it makes an enormous difference in Uni.  With the autumn boost, one term paper and 2 assignments or one class fill up the grade meter completely.  I've been able to send sims to finals with almost 60 hours left in the semester.  With this boost I can get a student through a year of uni in less than an hour playing time without using 'rampage' at all.

Not sure why using or not using "Rampage" makes any difference, since rampage isn't doing anything you can't do manually, you just don't have to manually queue anything.

Uni is hardly any challenge at all now if you do like I do and have 2 autumn seasons a year. If you start the year with autumn, they'll start first year with autumn and have that same season again just before their last year (assuming you don't mess with the clock much).

Well, sure, if you want to make it easy, you can do perma-autumn. But no one said life had to be easy. Besides, when was Uni ever hard? The idea of making it harder is currently being pursued.

Combine autumn + the golden books + thinking cap and you should be able to easily max their skills in no time. 

Strictly speaking, you can't actually have the Gold Book until it's way too late anyway. You'd need to actually do the Edumacation career, unless you cheat for it, and therefore you'd likely max out well before you were even allowed to try.

[jsalemi]

I've found it makes an enormous difference in Uni.  With the autumn boost, one term paper and 2 assignments or one class fill up the grade meter completely.  I've been able to send sims to finals with almost 60 hours left in the semester.  With this boost I can get a student through a year of uni in less than an hour playing time without using 'rampage' at all.

Not sure why using or not using "Rampage" makes any difference, since rampage isn't doing anything you can't do manually, you just don't have to manually queue anything.

It only makes a difference in that they keep going until their bar is full with rampage.  I was just commenting that I wasn't using it since it was still early in the semester, which is why I was surprised to see their bar more than 1/2 full after they did their term paper, without going to class or doing an assignment.

Not to mention that it takes less time to do the term paper and assignments in autumn too.

[dizzy]

Strictly speaking, you can't actually have the Gold Book until it's way too late anyway. You'd need to actually do the Edumacation career, unless you cheat for it, and therefore you'd likely max out well before you were even allowed to try.

A parent could do that career and earn the bookcase, in which case the children could carry it to Uni in their inventory. No cheat required. 

[J. M. Pescado]

Strictly speaking, you can't actually have the Gold Book until it's way too late anyway. You'd need to actually do the Edumacation career, unless you cheat for it, and therefore you'd likely max out well before you were even allowed to try.

A parent could do that career and earn the bookcase, in which case the children could carry it to Uni in their inventory. No cheat required. 

See: "You'd need to actually do the career". If you've done the career, you are either A: Not in Uni, or B: Not Gen0. In either case, this makes it much too late to be hauling things to Uni for skillpoints! I suppose in a truly sadistic case you could have a child who doesn't need it haul it to Uni and leave it there as a donation, but that's just convoluted.

[Kyna]

Sometimes my sims fall for dormies, and I move them in to skill them up.  They would benefit from the reward.

As soon as this bookcase has been added to a buyable rewards collection I will be putting it in my custom secret society lot.  Next time I start a hood with a CAS YA, he or she could use it at the secret society.  Maxis secret society lots have career rewards, so I don't see it as cheating to put one in my custom secret society lot.

Keep in mind that not everyone maxes out their kid skills.  Some players like their kids to do other things besides non-stop skilling, so sims who aren't gen0 could still benefit from the bookcase at Uni.

[J. M. Pescado]

Keep in mind that not everyone maxes out their kid skills.  Some players like their kids to do other things besides non-stop skilling, so sims who aren't gen0 could still benefit from the bookcase at Uni.

Yes, well, some people are also stupid and suck. If they're not in a hurry, what difference does it make anyway? Besides, kids can do plenty of things other than non-stop skilling. I'm churning out C-7s, which means that kids have 7 days and have maxed out everything. Snowman assault is clearly the order of the day. I wonder what a child snowman assault looks like. The "Knock Over Snowman" animations are great. I should see how well they adapt to regular fighting.

[RainbowTigress]

I usually leave one skill point for when they turn teens and I can make them knowledge sims and they can get the Max 7 Skills LTW.

[J. M. Pescado]

I usually leave one skill point for when they turn teens and I can make them knowledge sims and they can get the Max 7 Skills LTW.

That's what I do also, but the point is that you're functionally maxed. I recommend using the "cleaning" skill for this, as none of the private school cards are known to grant it and will therefore not unexpectedly be gained.

[RainbowTigress]

Ah, thanks for the tip.  I'll keep that in mind.

[jsalemi]

FYI, I discovered last night that pets get the 'autumn boost' too -- they learn commands faster.

[Dark Trepie]

It applies to toddler training too.

I wonder if it works for badge skilling as well.  Or even dance and pool skilling.

[jsalemi]

Don't know about dance and pool, but it's supposed to apply to badge skilling as well, and I'm pretty sure I saw the autumn leaves swirling around when one of my sims was working on the robotics station.

[J. M. Pescado]

The swirling-around-the-progress-bar is likely a canned graphical effect affecting all progress bars, but this can be looked into.

[Flamingo]

The swirling-around-the-progress-bar is likely a canned graphical effect affecting all progress bars, but this can be looked into.

I've seen this exhibited on the progress bar that shows up while writing a novel. I don't particularly think that there are any skills to be gained from that.

[jsalemi]

I've seen this exhibited on the progress bar that shows up while writing a novel. I don't particularly think that there are any skills to be gained from that.

Creativity, if the sim isn't maxed out.

[Flamingo]

Well, he was maxed out in this case. Haha, I had no idea. I've always thought that they never gained anything by writing novels, except the profit at the end.

[Faizah]

Does the autumn leaves effect around progress bars - for building robots and writing novels with maxed creativity - perhaps indicate that the progress is faster than in other seasons? Just a theory...

[J. M. Pescado]

No, in most cases the autumn leaves effect is purely a canned graphical addon that afflicts all progress bars, regardless of whether or not they benefit from any associated bonus.

[sara_dippity]

Note the rates listed below can be modified by personality affinity, and a sim receives +100% learning rate while wearing a thinking cap, and +200% while under the influence of smart milk. Smart milk can normally only affect toddlers, but the attribute can become "stuck" randomly and result in children learning at accelerated rates. This tends to go away when you wear a TC, which also affects the attribute and thus clears the stuckage.

Does Fall clear the stuckage? I like the stuckage, resembles theories of learning during early childhood increasing the ability to learn later. If I never ever put a sim with stuckage in a thinking cap, should it stay even in fall or with teaching on a career reward? Resetting a sim will remove it, so that would include patches and hacks that affect globlas, right? In other words, what all exactly can clear the stuckage? Is there a list?

Strictly speaking, you can't actually have the Gold Book until it's way too late anyway. You'd need to actually do the Edumacation career, unless you cheat for it, and therefore you'd likely max out well before you were even allowed to try.

A parent could do that career and earn the bookcase, in which case the children could carry it to Uni in their inventory. No cheat required. 

See: "You'd need to actually do the career". If you've done the career, you are either A: Not in Uni, or B: Not Gen0. In either case, this makes it much too late to be hauling things to Uni for skillpoints! I suppose in a truly sadistic case you could have a child who doesn't need it haul it to Uni and leave it there as a donation, but that's just convoluted.

That's the whole theory behind my knowledge sim fraternity (co-ed, my only co-ed uni fraternity/sorority). Any sim is welcome, as long as they bring a career reward to donate to the household. In return, they receive training from the seniors maxed in the skill of their choice. If the career rewards in their parent's chosen field already exists at the fraternity, they are welcome if they are willing to provide training to others. Then again I have the warped idea that sim kids and teens should spend time playing and only require that they earn at least 5 in cooking and 2 in mechanical, with a little more occasionally. Maybe some charisma from the toddler bunny. Then when they go to Uni there is actually something for them to do rather than just throw waterbaloons and wait for the final.

[rohina]

YA sims have no time to skill - they are in the thrall of ACR.

[J. M. Pescado]

Does Fall clear the stuckage? I like the stuckage, resembles theories of learning during early childhood increasing the ability to learn later. If I never ever put a sim with stuckage in a thinking cap, should it stay even in fall or with teaching on a career reward? Resetting a sim will remove it, so that would include patches and hacks that affect globlas, right? In other words, what all exactly can clear the stuckage? Is there a list?

Fall will not remove the stuckage as it occurs as a global effect and not a sim-specific one. Resetting a sim will reset it, but not all hacks cause sims to reset. Patches will, however. Get your children maxed out (except possibly for a single cleaning point) as you will not be able to re-supernuke them. Toddlers can just be renuked, so no major loss there, other than the hours you lose doing it killing your speedrun.

Then again I have the warped idea that sim kids and teens should spend time playing and only require that they earn at least 5 in cooking and 2 in mechanical, with a little more occasionally.

Eh, at this point I can turn out C-8 and C-7 everytime, so they have way too much time "playing"....not that there's really anything to play with. I mean, what exactly WOULD they do? The game doesn't have anything to play *WITH*. They can't shoot off automatic weapons, swing around heavy objects in a decidedly antisocial manner, or do any of the interesting things kids normally do...at least now we can put them to work as slave labor on the farm.

[sara_dippity]

Perhaps you could mod the bubbles they blow into the fire we were promised before the release of TS2, and then your children could be happy.

[Flamingo]

I'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers that. There's so much missing from that video they made it's not even funny.

[striker]

Had a smart kid skill with the bookcase in fall and it seems like by the time I clicked to close the window, a new window would appear announcing a new skill point.  It was the fastest I've ever seen a skill bar increase.  I give it 2 thumbs up.  I should have him at max skills in less than 3 Sim days.