Career Moron

[croiduire]

WARNING: I am ranting here (or perhaps, more accurately, whimpering and throwing a major pity party) .

I want to alter the existing careers and as well as make new ones in my game. The two objectives are inextricably linked. They are also bloody impossible because apparently I am a complete, clueless idiot. I can't even get the plug-in to work. I've searched and searched the SimPE forums, and it seems other people have had trouble, but the only solution suggested (redownloading the base careers) didn't help at all.

To give an example, I want to change (split) the current military career into three: enlisted ( no college required, and should overwrite the current career), commissioned (degree required), and aerospace (including astronaut as the ninth career level, space agency spokesman at tenth, with chance cards that eventually will spin the sim into politics as a lobbyist).

Anyway, there are so many things I want to do. I can't do any of it. I can't even figure out the basic tools. I am pathetic. Can anyone please tell me where I can get some help?

[BlueSoup]

Step 1 is admitting it.

Step 2 is checking out the obvious sources for tutorials - SimPE forum itself, MTS2, here.  Don't just look at general tutorials and figure that will tell you everything you need to know, but look for specifics to what you want to do.

That being said, I don't know how to make careers, but perhaps PM'ing someone like JadeEliott who I think makes her own careers, or SaraMK who does the same thing.  Or perhaps they'll see this thread and reply.

[SaraMK]

What exactly is going wrong when you use the plugin?

I haven't used it in some time, so I don't know if this changed, but it used to be that you had to open one of the base careers before starting the plugin. The plugin itself does not have any career data or even a place to load career data, so you need to have a career already open in SimPE before you can use the plugin.

Without knowing what specifically isn't working, I can't really help. Take me through your steps up to the point that whatever "isn't working" is not working, and then I might be able to tell you what's going on.

[travellersside]

If you visit MTS2, get in touch with Superfly. He's good at careers, and is willing to help people who have problems making new ones.

[croiduire]

I've made some progress since my initial post. Once I found a place to put the Maxis careers (downloaded, not extracted) so that SimPE could see them I was able to make changes. (I think that program has the software equivalent of hyperopia--a file in My Documents works fine, but there is no place inside its own folder where it can find them.)

However, I'm still having problems figuring out how to do what I want, especially insofar as chance cards are concerned. I'm trying to approximate a more realistic career system. Some are relatively easy (plumber, mechanic, factory worker, etc)  but I'd like certain levels (one entire career too, actually) to be unreachable except through chance card promotion.

Here's an example: I've split the Military career into three components. Enlisted (the default adult career), Officer (degree required) and Astronaut. I'd like Astronaut to be achievable only through chance cards in the Military Officer or Science (degree required) tracks.

My current Officer career levels (straight US army) are:

Second Lieutenant
First Lieutenant
Captain    
Major    
Lieutenant Colonel
Colonel
Brigadier General    
Major General    
Lieutenant General
General

When an officer reaches career level 4-6 the chance card might come up to allow them to switch to the Astronaut career. This was easy to do in Sims 1, but I can't figure out how to do it in Sims 2 yet.

The next aspect is regular promotion. Again, using military officers as an example, based on the most up-to-date figures I can find, real world, total active duty complement is 1,385,849 soldiers (all branches, and not including activated reservists) commanded by 202,605 officers of which only 875 are of flag rank (O-7 and above).

As near as I can figure out a way to translate that in game terms, once a sim reaches career level 6 (Colonel) the only way he can promote further is via chance card with about a 5% chance of occurrence and a 75% chance that the outcome is negative: the sim retires. Which leads to a different problem...I'd like them to get a custom memory (I realize, a whole different problem, but it's now next on my "learn how to do" list) that says, basically, "I've been retired. Guess I just don't have what it takes" (or something similar--a red memory, but ideally not one as traumatic as being fired).

Anyway, that's where I am currently. Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

[stormygsa]

You really need to get in touch with Superfly at MTS2.  He has a great tutorial and is very helpful with answers to questions.

Good luck

[J. M. Pescado]

As near as I can figure out a way to translate that in game terms, once a sim reaches career level 6 (Colonel) the only way he can promote further is via chance card with about a 5% chance of occurrence and a 75% chance that the outcome is negative: the sim retires.

Well, you can't set chance card occurrences, and setting a 75% chance card means that there is a "right" option that usually works and a "wrong" option that usually doesn't. Presumably, the benefit to this is a promotion, since you'd set the lower-level postings to have simply impossible requirements.

Which leads to a different problem...I'd like them to get a custom memory (I realize, a whole different problem, but it's now next on my "learn how to do" list) that says, basically, "I've been retired. Guess I just don't have what it takes" (or something similar--a red memory, but ideally not one as traumatic as being fired).

Can't happen. Would require a total low-level rewrite of the career.

[croiduire]

Well, you can't set chance card occurrences, and setting a 75% chance card means that there is a "right" option that usually works and a "wrong" option that usually doesn't. Presumably, the benefit to this is a promotion, since you'd set the lower-level postings to have simply impossible requirements.

In the career editor it's possible to set the chance of the card showing up to whatever value is desired. I would set that one at 5% occurrence, and then, if I can't figure out a more elegant solution, make 3 wrong answers to the question, so that promotion is limited to 25% of 5%, which would be about right.  My problem is making it so that they can't promote any other way...not sure how to do that.

Can't happen. Would require a total low-level rewrite of the career.

Actually, that's what I'm doing...by the time I'm finished I'll have completely rewritten all the careers. Perhaps I'll have managed some meaningful recoding as well.

[J. M. Pescado]

In the career editor it's possible to set the chance of the card showing up to whatever value is desired. I would set that one at 5% occurrence, and then, if I can't figure out a more elegant solution, make 3 wrong answers to the question, so that promotion is limited to 25% of 5%, which would be about right.  My problem is making it so that they can't promote any other way...not sure how to do that.

I think doing that would make the B option correct 95% of the time. Of course, you could make the "good" option a mere small benefit of some kind, so that if you play it "safe" and choose that option, you will never be promoted. To make it so they can't be promoted any other way, set the requirements for promotion to be impossible, like requiring 30000 friends or 11 skillpoints of something.

Actually, that's what I'm doing...by the time I'm finished I'll have completely rewritten all the careers. Perhaps I'll have managed some meaningful recoding as well.

I highly doubt that. It doesn't seem very Croiduire.

[croiduire]

I shouldn't ask..."very croiduire"?