Pinstar's new Apocalypse challenge

[cyperangel]

oof, sorry.

Ill get it saved in a backwards compatible state as well and add that.

BTW, Zazazu... I read your Dark side of the moon thingy, and I gotta know. Any chance you know where you got that glass toilet from? Ive been searching high and low, and can't seem to locate it...

ok, compatible version up. It goes back to office 97 and 2003 versions... (according to the program.)

[Zazazu]

Shockingly, it's Peggy, and not pay.

Epilepsy warning! Site link

[witch]

Epilepsy warning!

Oddly, I heard that comment in the exact same accent as the hospital announcer voice in Theme Hospital. Weird.

[cyperangel]

Thank you very much. Like i wrote, I read your Dark Side of the Moon story, and am feeling quite inspired into playing the challenge. But I am also feeling quite inspired by your house, so I figured id best stock up on goodies before i start out. Thanks again.

*Wanders of to rest her eyes after the Peggy site... Sheesh*

[Zazazu]

Everyone likes that house, but I can't stand it. Mostly because I know where I want it to go, but because Politics & Law aren't unlocked, I can't build out. So instead I'm building up, and it's looking like a dumb glass tower. It's even more towerific now that it's a full 8-sim, 2-pet house. I should be updating by the end of the weekend.

[hedgekat]

Zazazu:  How in the world did you get your two pets?  My founder has been attempting to adopt a stray since his first day on his lot.  His eldest child is now an adult and he is well into elder stage and still no pet. Strays rarely show up and once befriended I never see them come back. 

I went to another lot where I just let the family live pretty much autonomously for a week while I watched the front yard.  In that week three strays showed up. The first one was befriended up to 30 daily points on the first day.  By the end of a week it had not returned.  In all the neighborhoods I have played since installing Pets I have never been able to adopt a stray. 

[Zazazu]

Because Jaden's so hot they can't resist him.

No, when Pets first came out I had the same problem. The trick is to catch them the moment they get on the lot and then razzle (or cat-comparable play). Cancel as soon as the interaction begins and repeat. You'll build relationship points super-quick that way and can then adopt them before the stray poops out. It really has to be the first visit...otherwise the buggers never come back.

[Buchignani]

Do you know if the really shiny glass john came in this set:

http://www.peggyzone.com/html/Item20201__.html

or if Peggy has moved anything slightly interested to pay while she was playing with the free files offline?

Any chance that one made it to PMBD?

BTW, I enjoyed your story.

[simsfreq]

Well.. I only just found the "official" seasons rules, and I've already made up my own. I was without Uni for a while, and don't have Pets, so was planning on playing the challenge with a CAS adult - and changed some of the pets/uni career unlocks to Seasons careers - so I still have all the restrictions and I just had to unlock them with different careers. I also added/changed a couple of restrictions.

To get around the fact that all jobs were available to all sims (ie, I didn't need to graduate them) I decided to make this MUCH harder for myself. I'm really not fussed about points or the challenge in itself, I've modified the rules so much for my own game that it seems irrelevant and anyway I only wanted to adopt it as a starting point for a new hood. So to get into a particular career, sims now have to have particular personality/interest levels. I'm still playtesting this as a lot of the restrictions are too strict and all my sims are starving but hopefully I'll iron them out soon.

Again because I'm not planning on playing for points as it were, I've changed my mind about the beginning - instead of starting with one CAS sim, I picked a random number, 9, so I have 9 "families" to play with. I'm keeping them in strict rotation and I randomised everything about them - even down to days left in age. I never use 5x5 lots, so I plonked 9 randomly sized lots onto my neighbourhood and randomised their money so each family was left with between about S3,000 and S6,000. This is about enough to buy foundation, walls, a toilet, bed, enough doors and a fridge, in some cases a bit more. I've played on each house for 2 days so far. It really is a challenge.

The biggest things I have noticed are that if you have a family with more than about 3 people in, it's almost impossible to keep them fed. The gelatin is the only doable option and they're all nearly starving by midnight. My biggest challenge at the moment is keeping the kids from the social worker and keeping at least one adult alive to take care of them. They can't meditate because nobody has enough logic yet. (Those newspaper crosswords are slow!) Hardly anybody has got a job yet because of the strict limits I put on them. To get around the food restriction at the moment I'm "cheating" a bit and saying any family with children or pregnant ladies is allowed extra rations (Once per 12 hours instead of 24) because the government are trying to preserve the next generation. One of my families is a little old lady on her own who I can't control because I've converted two of the pet restrictions into education, but I have changed the rules that I'm allowed to get elders to find a job. If they miss work I will still make them quit, though.

Another thing I found out is that decking is more flammable than I thought! And instant meals are useless. Any tips on getting around the food restriction in a non-cheaty feeling way?

[dorquemada]

I remember food wasn't as much as problem as annoyance, because I was doing burgers and they always burn if the cheap grill is inside. So, you send one to burn your burgers, there's much squealing and panicking but they eventually extinguish it anyway and then the family happily chomps on charred remains. Also, if you send a starving Sim to work/school, they stuff themselves full there and it really helps through the day.

[simsfreq]

That's true, but charred remains don't fill up the hunger bar as much as proper food. Also most of my sims can't get work because of the requirements I set on all the careers (like 8 interest in health for medical, and 6 nice points etc) so the ones at home are starving and the kids won't go to school at weekends.

[hedgekat]

simsfreq:  I hate to have to tell you but I think you will be waiting a long time for a doctor.  In my largest neighborhood (over 700 characters, descended from 14 CAS sims)  I had only one sim with an 8 interest in health and that was one of the CAS sims.  EVERY born-in-game sim had a 4 interest in health as an adult.  And EVERY one of them had an 8 in fashion, work and weather.  There was only tiny variations in the other interests also.  Children start out with a low number in most of the first 12 interests and high numbers in the last 6.  At either teen transition or adult transition they gain or lose 4 points in nearly all of those, and always the same ones.  I too wanted my sims to select careers according to their interests in that neighborhood.  I finally resorted to randomiziming their interests myself with dice then using either InSim or Simpe to make the changes.

Zazazu:  Thanks for the tip on how to adopt strays.  Since using that technique I have managed to adopt several in different houses in the neighborhood.  Then I had two of them gift a pet to the main family.

[daedreem]

I was playing this challenge, and had a really good start going long and long ago...
Stopped for several reasos..

one, I had used Gelatin, and found out I shouldn't have.. (but that seems allowed again?)
2 I messed up on some other rule... minor...

3, and most importantly, I got a new ep and couldn't figure out how to continue playing it around said EP...
By the time the rules came out I'd forgotten what I'd unlocked, and what my plans were...

So, I still really really want to do this challenge, (although I dread it now too, after reading about how bad pets rules are.. I may go the 'ignore everything pets' route.. I don't think much was added with pets that can't be ignored)

But I want to start with all the rules.

I have all the EPs including Free-time..
Does anyone have any idea if freetime rules are in testing yet?

Thanks!!

[gynarchy]

The legacy challenge website says the apocalypse rules are coming soon but that was dated March 2.

[Zazazu]

BV rules negate some of the nastiness of Pets rules. Check out BoolProp, as their apocalypse section is really active and they have the new mostly-official rules posted there.

[Bleached]

I know this is an old thread, but I was wondering if anyone here has the lots that Pinstar made for the secret societies (you know, the bomb shelter, witch house, etc.). I know they're available on the exchange, but I can't register there, due to not having a valid registration code. Does anyone have a link to another website that has the houses or something? I'd make my own versions, but the pictures on the page are small, and I'm a little blind.  Please and thanks.

[Aggie]

Does anyone have a link to another website that has the houses or something?

Sure; I can host them on my 4shared. Bomb Shelter, Shotgun Shack, and the Witch's Hut.

[simsfreq]

simsfreq:  I hate to have to tell you but I think you will be waiting a long time for a doctor.  In my largest neighborhood (over 700 characters, descended from 14 CAS sims)  I had only one sim with an 8 interest in health and that was one of the CAS sims.  EVERY born-in-game sim had a 4 interest in health as an adult.  And EVERY one of them had an 8 in fashion, work and weather.  There was only tiny variations in the other interests also.  Children start out with a low number in most of the first 12 interests and high numbers in the last 6.  At either teen transition or adult transition they gain or lose 4 points in nearly all of those, and always the same ones.  I too wanted my sims to select careers according to their interests in that neighborhood.  I finally resorted to randomiziming their interests myself with dice then using either InSim or Simpe to make the changes.

There are magazines to get round the interest problem But I had noticed that there didn't seem to be much variation so I may resort to the randomising and changing them manually method.

After having killed off almost the entire neighbourhood twice I decided to add a clause which says if there are any kids or pregnant women on the lot, they get to serve food twice a day. The killer is having that hack in which makes sickness actually deadly, since I have a few mean sims who kick the trashcan over and I don't notice until it is too late and they are screaming about the roaches. And then the low-energy beds slow down recovery, they can't take time off work and they keep getting woken up by the ghosts. And I never play with free will off anyway, but I don't think you could because as far as I know they can't sponge bathe without it. Anyway, it makes it harder, which is always more fun.

I always wondered what happened to the original houses since the links I had for them didn't work.

[witch]

My sims will autonomously have a sponge bath, if it's Inge's hack we are talking about.

[simsfreq]

I was talking about free will being on or off, in relation to the autonomous sponge bathing. I can't remember who made the real sickness hack but it might have been Inge.

[witch]

No, it's not one of Inge's, the sickness hack. I do run with free will on, always.

[Kyna]

I play with free will off, but when I want them to take a sponge bath I send them to the bathroom (which in the early stage of the challenge just has a toilet and sink), lock them in, and turn free will on until they've had sponge bathed themselves.

[Kchan]

I found that just having them wash their hands several times filled up the hygiene bar. Took a while, but then they didn't have much else to do in the early stages of the game.

[Bleached]

So is getting a car and using the radio to build up fun considered cheating? I'm not sure, cause normally to have the radio, and thus the music and fun points, I'd have to unlock the science career, right?

[rohina]

Pinstar made it pretty clear that any clever work-around of his rules was cheating because when he wrote the challenge, he changed the rules several times when people thought up ways to work around restrictions. So the question really is, do you want to play completely within the letter and spirit of the rules? Because in that case, your solution is not legal.