Mod The Sims - Apocalypse Challenge - Realistic/Tiered Variant (Ruleset Mods Available!)

jjdcoach

28th Nov 2011, 01:22 AM

I wasn't seeing many zombies - after I had made one (Rob Zombie) I gave it a push.

I made the original zombie active for a few days with some ground rules to get the virus spreading....

I put him in a flop house and waited for passersby - he greeted and if the person did not shy away - he was attempted dinner. That got one more as the body was zero.

I then decided to have him go around town - figured that zombies can go to different areas and with the same rules - one fight mano to zombie.... not much happened but interestingly I had a phone in this guy's hut and some crazed townie thought he was the bomb....mwah ha ha - sure come on by --- voila zombie 3.

I thought three is nice but let's do it a day or two more....(I figure this is early phase before the full melt down occurred). I had noted that when Rob showed up his buddies seemed to come along - well I brought the gang to a confined public area and just decided to see what would happen - and a lot did.

Now there are about 8 to 10 zombies - including good ole Goopy - wandering Apocalypse Land. I took the taxi to get a job for one of my adult sims and when I got there about three zombies were present. I will tell you I got her the job and got out of dodge.

The strategy for making family friends was to linger outside and hail passersby and talk - not let them in the home but try to get them to friend by blabbing their ears off....well....having a few of the "Dead Walkers" puts quite the spin on this strategy. The kids are getting good at zipping into the locked gate and hiding upstairs. So far the zombies have just shambled by - but at some point we'll see if anything happens.

I suppose the only way to get more zombies would be to either play others at areas or go to these areas for prolonged time periods - which of course puts the legends at risk.

Here's a question - the other day I didn't micromanage as I had to leave the room for a minor household situation and left the game on its own on slow speed for about five minutes. What would I do with a teen or child who had their brains gobbled or is this not allowed by the game engine? I can't throw them out of the house - and it is possible if the population grows - that one child or teen might become a zombie.

Has that happened to anyone? Also, what level are weapons allowed or are they allowed at the start? Lord knows they could be used at the moment.

jjdcoach

28th Nov 2011, 01:33 AM

Well no general yet and my Legend is dribbling oatmeal as an astronaut.
Also have a huge housing issue. The only way to keep the married couple happy was the old fashioned way - and the radiation didn't impact their reproductive capacity. I have four children so the real challenge will be which one gets to marry and have a child. The others are condemned to sterilization - I'll have then hang out too much in the front yard meeting people!
With two teens in the house momma took a job for the $$$ and to clear congestion. Also still have to get a security pet to the top - so that means seven ---- thus far I estimate nearly 80 years have passed since the disaster. It took Chef Robert about 30 to 35 years to lift culinary and Robert II is close to capping military but is 55. I think Marie Curie would have done well in Med - she was at rank 5 or 6 when she died at a mere 28 to 30 years old. It will be up to Clara Barton who is a few days away from adulthood.
JJD

Phaenoh

28th Nov 2011, 01:45 AM

jjdcoach, please do not double post. That's what the 'Edit' button is for. ;) I'm glad you are having fun with this though! I'm not entirely sure that kids can become zombies, teens maybe. I'm not very well versed in the supernaturals myself either. You would have to find a way of 'shunning' the child. Locking it up in a shed out back or have one of your townie zombies befriend it and have him move in with them instead. It's about story telling, as long as you don't break the spirit of the rules, have fun with it!

jjdcoach

28th Nov 2011, 03:06 AM

juliejaz

30th Nov 2011, 07:51 PM

Founder lifted Culinary. Spouse lifted Medical and oldest daughter just lifted Military. Yay!!! Onto tier two and I think Law and Architecture are going to be the next careers to be done by the other child (who is an adult) and his wife. They need more room to spread out. 6 Sims and a dog, it is getting very crowded!

Phaenoh

30th Nov 2011, 08:49 PM

Congratulations! Bronze Apox Survivor!

jjdcoach

1st Dec 2011, 06:23 AM

got the first pet taken care off and capped. Hopefully can get medical done.

juliejaz

1st Dec 2011, 06:42 PM

I didn't watch close enough, one child went to school. With 4 adults, 2 elders (who are sick with roach flu), one child and a dog - the kid slipped past and got on the dang bus. *sigh*

Edit:
:) Yay!!! Oldest daughter got married (finally found someone) and he was level 9 in Law and after several days, almost a week he reached the top. Thank you Trent! They've been married almost a week and haven't slept in a bed together or consummated their marriage. The founders son, Kyle is currently at level 5 in Intelligence, his wife Maddie is level 6 in Education. My founder is still alive and so is her husband. I didn't have him quit before he became unplayable, so he goes to work and passes out by the mailbox each day - the founders don't sleep in beds anymore. They sleep in chairs or pass out - I can't believe they are still alive. Oh and the only grandchild, the child of Kyle and Maddie is a teen (Chloe). I want her to chase after Architecture when she ages.

Sunbee

2nd Dec 2011, 05:36 PM

Adult start founder John Doe, Knowledge, 10/0/10/0/5, lifted Medical at six days to elder. I screwed up--didn't reread the rules and let him answer the phone. I think two of his nine friends were made that way. Now he can buy a bathtub, which has clogged a want slot all his life, and marry either Sharla Ottomas or Mary Gavigan (I made the bin sims all into townies). I'm leaning towards Sharla because Sharla's knowledge and I've played her enough times to know her one true hobby is fitness, which would be nice for lifting military. Mary will always want more babies as a family sim, so best to leave her for a later generation. I think John may have to quit to provide childcare.

Edit: Sharla married in at slacker level 10. Argh. Such a waste of a top level job. Maybe she'll do culinary instead since she's got all those creativity points.

jjdcoach

3rd Dec 2011, 07:56 AM

got the first pet taken care off and capped. Hopefully can get medical done.

Clara Barton Pike caps Medical! (Gen 3)
Tiffany the Mutt caps security (Pet Gen 2)
Robert E. Lee Pike caps military (Gen 1)
Robert Irvine Pike caps Culinary (Founder)

juliejaz

3rd Dec 2011, 12:07 PM

Clara Barton Pike caps Medical! (Gen 3)
Tiffany the Mutt caps security (Pet Gen 2)
Robert E. Lee Pike caps military (Gen 1)
Robert Irvine Pike caps Culinary (Founder)

No more foggy thinking elders for you :rofl: Mine are driving me insane right now.

jjdcoach

3rd Dec 2011, 01:39 PM

No more foggy thinking elders for you :rofl: Mine are driving me insane right now.

Isn't that service dog? I actually like the foggy elders as comic relief- I just picture them with bits of oatmeal dribbled around their chin etc. What I am thrilled about is clean children! At some points patricide was a consideration!

juliejaz

3rd Dec 2011, 11:30 PM

Isn't that service dog? I actually like the foggy elders as comic relief- I just picture them with bits of oatmeal dribbled around their chin etc. What I am thrilled about is clean children! At some points patricide was a consideration!

Oh, I was thinking you had lifted the service dog. I don't like foggy elders. My founders husband passes out after work by the mailbox after work and he lays there until he's near frozen. Neither elder will sleep in a bed anymore or get food for themselves - they seem lost. I have to leave food sitting out for them. The only thing they seem to do well is fall asleep in their plate :lol: My service dog is on the second level, but he is a doofus and not catching on real quick to his training. Once medical was lifted, life got a lot easier. Dirty Sim kids are very exasperating! Law was lifted so my family split in half and I have to say that it's gotten boring with two adults and one teenager...maybe those elders really are comic relief.

Sunbee

4th Dec 2011, 01:26 AM

Sharla's almost lifted Culinary, but I wondered (since she had twins, of course, I always get twins in the apocalypse), does military have to be lifted before someone can take a job from tier two? What about Security Pet?

jjdcoach

4th Dec 2011, 06:06 AM

Clara Barton Pike caps Medical! (Gen 3)
Tiffany the Mutt caps security (Pet Gen 2)
Robert E. Lee Pike caps military (Gen 1)
Robert Irvine Pike caps Culinary (Founder)

George A. Custer Pike (he was backup for military) caps Law Enforcement (then got fired on his first day as Captain Hero - too bad I liked the vehicle ride!)

George's wife is a CEO and has a good amount of time to cap Business.
J. Edgar Pike (was going to be law enforcement) dropped out of medical to Natural Science when Clara hit the top -but he won't cap the new career.

Capped business with George's Wife - Brooke Pike.
Poor George lost another job and will be a minor leaguer for the rest of his life. So much for Captain Fantastic.

Younger brother J. Edgar Hoover is a wreck - Family Aspiration and he's going nowhere.
Have Amelia's hubby up to clam digger - we'll see how that goes.
Baby hit toddler.
House is crowded with seven and I will need to decide if I want George to try for a kid - George hits elder in one day - or go with Amelia for the 2nd open slot for G4.

Sunbee

4th Dec 2011, 04:37 PM

Well, Sharla aged to elder one day too soon to lift culinary. I screwed up in several ways--had one of the twins adopt a dog, and accidentally clicked try for baby instead of woohoo. (I was trying to guess at something to get my Founder's aspiration up. Didn't work.) Stupid dog wouldn't take care of his other needs because he was hungry, then refused to go to work because he was in a bad mood. At least the pet cop came and got rid of him--but several hamburgers were wasted on the mutt (Tucker) which could've gone to Sharla and kept her skilling instead of whining that she was hungry.
So. Of course, because four sims without culinary lifted is too few, Sharla had twins. Founder died that evening, in front of the fridge--I was too slow to get one of the older kids to call him outside. At least I could move the fridge over a square.
For those keeping track at home, Sharla is an elder doing what elders do (writing in her diary, mostly). The older twins are adults now, Richard and Timothy, Pleasure/Family and Romance/Family, with the ltws of Mayor and Golden Anniversary, respectively, and in Military and Culinary respectively. The younger twins, Hannah and Rachel, are children now (birthdays were the same day), and working on their seventh logic points. Founder John has not yet haunted--hopefully when he does Sharla will want to see a ghost and get some aspiration points--but I suspect her want panel is just as family education oriented as it was as an adult. Also, both sets of twins are ridiculously cute for being half Ottomas.
It's really frustrating me to not be able to see the want panels and life length of my elders. I don't mind not being able to control them, but not knowing how close they are to death or what to do to get them to stop worrying about their aspirations in the way is a pain.
No one gets to get married until Culinary is lifted, unless their dad goes on a rampage and kills most of them. Richard has a thing with Tina Traveler but better chemistry with Priya who hasn't been by for a while, and with Georgia Newson, but Timothy is head-over-heels in love with Georgia so Richard isn't getting together with her. I'll see who the girls are interested in when they grow up.

jjdcoach

6th Dec 2011, 05:25 AM

I added the pack Seasons - so let it snow!
Also can now go for a few more career options.

The family is getting long in the tooth:
Clara Elder (AKA Oatmeal dribbler)
George A. Custer Elder (AKA Bathroom hog)
J. Edgar Hoover Elder is three days (won't cap)
Brooke - Elder in about a week - capped business still working
Amelia - Stay at Home Mom till 2nd Baby is born - will go into Education or Law (RED as a $$ Aspirant)
AMelia's Hubby (AKA Generation Guarantor) Level 4 Natural Science but is young
Susan B. Anthony just hit kid range - goal is Politics
Baby on the way in a day or two

So, the problem is that there will be a lot of Oatmeal running from faces and bathroom accidents soon with 8 in the shack.

Phaenoh

6th Dec 2011, 03:40 PM

I'd top off Law real soon if I were you, sounds like you need more space. :)

I'm enjoying reading about all your misadventures and the progress you are making. Keep going!

juliejaz

6th Dec 2011, 04:13 PM

I finally ended up with my founders husband getting fired - he was trapped in the bathroom with 5 other sims. I got the pop up that said he was fired...hundreds of times. It wouldn't stop and crashed my game. I tried leaving the lot, deleting the cache files, using the bat box to fix error in and off world and nuking the issue that came up and then I finally had to move them out and that fixed the repeating of Zeeshan got fired. My daughter was playing last night and someone in her family got fired and she had the very same thing happen. My daughter was playing on a different account. Is anyone else having the this problem when someone is fired?

Peni Griffin

6th Dec 2011, 05:05 PM

When was the last time you dumped your caches?

jjdcoach

7th Dec 2011, 05:17 AM

I'd top off Law real soon if I were you, sounds like you need more space. :)

I'm enjoying reading about all your misadventures and the progress you are making. Keep going!

Not sure this was for me - but ----

Sadly, the adventure may have come to an end as I can't enter the lot for some odd reason. I noted today that the game was acting sluggish and oddly (baby behind the back when held and visitors were not moving properly) - I saved and now when I try to enter the lot it crashes.
I did add Seasons but had run for a day with no problem.
I uninstalled Apartment (last ep) and game ran okay on stock stuff
I reinstalled and game was fine
I put back neighborhood in and lot crashed
I reloaded tried other houses and a family or two that were around game was fine
I removed all Download of custom content - still crashed (though I may have some files around somewhere (maybe it reads from the desktop as the CC was showing in the menu)
Dumped all caches

So, I'm not sure what to do other than clear out all sims2 files from HD and put the DLS on a flash
Reinstall from scratch
Add the neighborhood back - hopefully with no CC showing - and try again.

UPDATE:
I kept playing around and tried to package - crashed BUT I was able to move them out of the lot - and I had noted a lot of oddities with the lot - I'm going to keep playing them and make a new house....will be similar of course - so hopefully the quest will go on. I'm probably going to bulldoze their house. I possibly had CC without the right meshes - as there had been quirky stuff with the lot for awhile...

Will see how it works out.

Phaenoh

7th Dec 2011, 07:28 AM

Rayea

7th Dec 2011, 07:38 PM

also dont forget to nuke the Groups.cache file just incase that helps.
i know it wasnt the same kind of crash i was getting, but these days...that file is considered public (sim) enemy number ONE by me lol
(i was constantly reinstalling windows to fix it becasue the Groups.cache file was left behind even with a total uninstall. *hugs the thread that pointed me at that evil little <chicken hugger>*

jjdcoach

7th Dec 2011, 09:23 PM

Reinstalling the game is generally a waste of time. Try running Mootilda's Hood Checker on it instead. It was a good idea to move them out of that bugged lot and into a new one. That's not breaking the rules since you couldn't help the bugging. Were you able to grab your dead's tombstones? Are they still there? If they are, I'd leave the buggy lot in the hood and just never load it again; you want to keep those gravestones in your game.

Yes, they were on the front yard laid out by generation. I don't know how to retrieve them but will see if that program works.

Thank you.

I did the hood application and it found some conflicts and I know what I did. When I loaded up the apocalypse neighborhood it crashed and couldn't read the file.

Bad juju!

jjdcoach

9th Dec 2011, 07:12 PM

Ongoing Progress of the Pike Clan
The new house is filled with eight Sims:
Clara Barton (capped medicine) age 70 was fired so she stays home and stands around
George A. Custer Pike (capped Law Enforcement) is 65 and working as an athlete
J. Edgar Hoover Pike is 61 was fired as a Natural Scientist and has no job
Brooke Pike capped Business is 57 and goes to work - then she comes home and stands around
Amelia Pike finally gets to go to work with all the oatmeal eaters and is an elementary teacher with six days left to hit elder
Waylon Pike was fired as a Natural Scientist and is a paralegal (LAW) with 11 days to elderhood
Susan B Anthony Pike just hit teen and is very much "In the red"
Meriweather Lewis Pike just hit child

Family funds are toasted. Clara Barton was fined about 30 or 40K and that was not too long after the move from the bugged lot to the new lot took about 28K from the family pocketbook. They are digging out of debt.

UPDATE
General George A. Custer of the Sim Army perished at Age 70. He will be remembered for curbing the zombie apocalypse.
Dr. Clara Barton - founder of the Sim Medical Family Center died at Age 80. She will be remembered every time a shower is taken.
Professor Amelia Pike is making a bid to start the Sim Center of Education Research. Her law, No Sim Left Behind promises to restart education.
Domino the Doofus Dalmation was given away as a present to an unsuspecting sim of her Doofiness.... The French Poodle, Pierre Gustave Beauregard is doing wonders in serving victims of mental evaporation at the Sim Medical Family Center
Waylon "I get cash for clients" Pike is now an elder and has branched into Family Law
Brooke "Only little Sims pay taxes" was demoted as the CEO of Landgrab Institute - to President - but has since climbed back atop the heap in the Business world.

Four elders - makes decision making easy - fast speed for much of the day....
Two teens (both miserable) make me yearn for them to grow up...
A dog - who is also a doofus and still pees on the floor

"If you think your life is bad --- take it out on a Sim"

Further UPDATE
The pack is thinning
J. Edgar Hoover Pike passed away - which is a good thing as he and a potential move in spouse fought all the time.
Amelia and Waylon are getting close - Waylon is short of LAW by two accounts friends and one cleaning point
Susan B Anthony Pike married right away - got lucky and both have bolts --- and is soon to be swollen with child
Hubby promptly quit business for a life of politics
Since college was unlocked I sent Meriweather off - he had a miserable term as I only had 1250 to build a place for him - but he made it and now it is not as horrible - however he took a lot of friends with him - which hurts Waylon - so it's about Waylon staying alive and getting a cleaning point when ML moves back in
Pierre Beauregard the French Poodle is close to capping service pet which will help get that point of cleaning.

DARN!!!
House keeps crashing on load - and with that program saying that the neighborhood can't even be loaded I think this project is over (at least in this neighborhood). I may send the hood to someone who knows.

I think the combo of: Deleting "Zombie" graves and possibly using a cheat so the school bus didn't come fried the hood.

FINAL EDIT -
Too many bugs and I can't fix them. It is certainly a case of user error. I'm going to start the whole game from scratch - but I have a break in work coming so I hope to restart this.

Rayea

11th Dec 2011, 08:00 PM

if the school buss turning up is causing errors, what about the old symlogical home school hack?
maybe i should build a prefab with a graveyard in the basement and see if those are of any use?
(that is, place for urns to be stored, so they dont get kicked by visitors ect? is that allowed by the rules, i cant remember hehe)

jjdcoach

12th Dec 2011, 09:56 PM

Not sure if this was addressed to me. I used the Spawn Object to stop the school requirement. It was the only way to avoid them getting taken away.

The good news is I have a clean install on a clean neighborhood with a new challenger (Robinson Crusoe) who is in his senior year and has capped creativity and nearly capped cooking and logic. He has a few BFF and red hearts over two (with two or three more potentials) so he won't be lonely.

Rayea

13th Dec 2011, 12:27 PM

juliejaz

13th Dec 2011, 03:32 PM

I lost my neighborhood. It finally ground down to a screeching halt. I kept getting errors, all the messages (pop ups) would repeat over and over, until it crashed and finally it wouldn't even open - just crash.

jjdcoach

14th Dec 2011, 01:46 AM

yes, the sugestion of the old simlogical home school hack (and its use of get lost schoolbuss items) was aimed to you, but also was asking Phae if that was allowed / could work alongside the current zombie hacks.

glad your fixed, allthough its allways a shame to loose a lot of hard work when a install goes BFBVFS :(
*hugs*

I did install a no school for teens mod and also one for children. We'll see if that works. I also am leery of making zombies with any of the spawn things - but I did enjoy having them in the game. I know I was deleting their tombs also - as I had about 10 killed zombies. What I'm thinking of is killing the zombies and putting them at the FEMA to represent the lost souls of the game. Then again the zombies seem more for flair as they really don't pause too much of a threat if you have a locked gate.

Version 2 capped Culinary pretty easily. I prepped him well through college and he married his cheerleader sweetie from college Brenda (oddly the cow is a good friend as he came by every night - get him out of that bad environment and he's not horrid). They have a child already "Joan of Arc" Crusoe who will obviously be a military hero or a mom of one! Kid #2 is planned soon as Joan is done with toddler.

EDIT:
Culinary capped as reported
Dog didn't go to work - gave away - everyone bottomed so...adopted her back....
Wife of Founder has 13 days to elder - and is about 1/2 way through military
Founder hits elder tonight - stay at home dribbling parent.
Daughter hits teen in 1 day sons just hit child (and is miserable and dirty)
Made a zombie family - let a few die of exposure - went cheap on grim reaper - took them to the community lot - voila many zombies now
I play them on hyper speed 2 days for every seven and if a fool stops by and accepts their greeting ---- oh well..
I confess I cheat with the zombies...it is so much fun for them to romantically interact :)

EDIT:
Robinson is enjoying dribbling oatmeal
His wife, Brenda, is at Astronaut - with the skill and friends needed to cap military and four days till she hits elder
Joan of Arc Crusoe is about ready to transition to adult. The family has a lot of friends - male and female - so I'm hoping she can find Mr. Your DNA will do...
Ulysess S. Grant Crusoe is happy to be a sponge bathing teen!
Looks like I cap military before the heirs will need to do it.
Scout is just there - they don't want to play with him so much so maybe time to unload for a new stray.
Zombie horde is growing - by my last count 32 although only one of the original five are alive - they had a stove in their trailer and tried to cook :)
The original zombie isn't so miserable as she made a friend and they moved in - I figure zombies can break the rules. She almost died due to low levels as I now make them eat travelling McNuggets who are silly enough to stay in their roach infested and fly infested trailer - you think they would take a hint!
My family has 19 confirmed kills of zombies - with the trusty AK 47 - I put the tombs at the FEMA center - figured it would be body disposal - and have nowhere to put all the graves anyhow.
I'll take out the Fight Club either after military is capped or maybe after law enforcement.
A couple of close calls with the zombies when sims were socializing in the yard - and there was that lull or I was looking at another - one actually got into the compound - must have greeted inadvertently - not good.

lorinsv60

14th Dec 2011, 06:01 AM

Phae, if you don't already know, after Dec 15, the original boolprop.com will be gone, and has moved to http://boolprop.prophpbb.com/, and the Apoca-Borg's Apocalypse website you have linked to has also moved: http://apocalypsechallenge.kaleiope.com/

Sunbee

16th Dec 2011, 04:13 PM

Got Military lifted, and the sim in Culinary is one-half creativity point and two days of vacation from the top. One of the younger twins has made friends with several strays, but once she's friends with them they stop coming round. Does the Security Pet career have to be lifted before anyone can take a level 2 career? (Security pet is, in my opinion, the most useless career. It's not like the beds can be replaced anyway.) Teaching a command is a good way to befriend a pet--if Sarah, Porthos, or Moonshine would just come back.
Tina Traveler is the new spouse, probably a mistake as there's nothing for her to do yet. She's mostly skilling Charisma to be ready, while the teen twins are raising their niece. I'm hoping to put her in Law, and the younger twins in science and education. Since Military is lifted, if I understand correctly, I can leave some sims at home as long as I take at least two out.
My 10-neat-point founder's ghost has haunted a couple times. He passed on his neat points so there's nothing for him to do but cheer for his bed and scare. Sharla died outside like a good spouse and hasn't haunted yet. Rereading, I guess she couldn't have lifted culinary anyway because she was at the top of Slacker? Tina also came in Slacker, but only level 5. Silly game.

Phaenoh

16th Dec 2011, 05:55 PM

If you've got my mods installed, the Security Pet career isn't so useless. You can use any bed you like, and the security pet mod yanks its sleep rating back down to 3, so when you lift it, the beds go back to being whatever the catalog says. Sharla could have lifted Culinary because you can't lift Slacker yet. If you had gotten to that tier before she died then it would be auto-lifted as long as she never took another job.

Sunbee

16th Dec 2011, 06:22 PM

Oh, well, I didn't get that. I used the standard 3/3 beds. Too used to Borg rules, I didn't realize the mod changed that.

jjdcoach

16th Dec 2011, 11:09 PM

Brenda Crusoe (Founder's Spouse) capped military and the zombie horde is being crushed - slowly. I'll be taking out the zombie mod and the fight club mod to reflect this development.

Post found on FEMA Central:
To All Simizens -
As of now there are 24 graves at the FEMA Central Site for the most notorious of these wandering walking dead that were gunned down by our brave Strike Force - The Red Devils. While the streets are not yet safe - and we advise that you all Simizens stay away from the Southern Portion of GRID B - as there are believed to be noxious hovels filled with the undead - we suspect that with our finding their base and our revised military capacity that the streets and our attempts to rebuild SImland will be successful.
Signed - Brenda Crusoe, Commander Local Militia Commander "Red Devils"

Another public post found at the FEMA Central Site:
We regret to inform the residents of Comeback Town (Things are "Lookin' Up) that Culinary Genius and Pioneer, Robinson Crusoe succumbed the GR last night at the age of approximately 75. In other news a wedding - a boon doggle of one - is announced as Ash Tyr (local Surgeon - talk about hitting paydirt) married Ms Joan of Arc Crusoe. The war against the zombies continues and we encourage all to put the remains of such kills at the FEMA Medical hut to make sure of sanitary disposal and to keep the spread of disease to a minimum.
Singed (For the Commander Brenda Crusoe who is "indisposed at the moment do probably to age/radiation effects")
US Grant Crusoe (Adjutant)

Yet Another Update found at the FEMA Center:
We regret to inform the residents of Comeback Town (Things are Lookin' Up) that the Commander of the Red Devils, Brenda (Carr) Crusoe perished recently due to semi-natural causes. She was approximately 70 years of age. This does put a gap in the leadership of the military and we advise all citizens to be aware of any potential growth in the zombie horde. Our last sweep netted a few more kills and we hope that the horde is under control. In other news - two new citizens have been born with Milton Friedman Crusoe born of Dr. Ash and Ms Joan of Arc Crusoe. Another birth of a strapping young boy, O.J. Simpson Crusoe was born by Ms Lisa (Desperet) Crusoe and U.S Grant (Attorney at Law). Rumors abound that Ms Joan of Arc Crusoe is expecting another child. With a new pooch - Pepper recently lifting the Security restriction, things are indeed "Lookin' Up" in Comeback Town. However, until a suitable replacement is found it is believed that the Zombie horde reduced by 34 confirmed kills - may increase (Fight club and Zombie Mod back in until someone caps law - just for more fun).
Good Night and Good Luck (Edgar Murrow disinterested reporter)

A "Clean" Update
Ahhhh, Thank you Ash (Tyr) Crusoe for unlocking Medical. With three pre-teens in the house the YaVoSha for the hygiene need was about to drive me insane. So, having capped Medical and the other three I'm feeling pretty good.
Joan of Arc is nine days from elderhood (AKA oatmeal dribbling) and since she was the caregiver in chief to the three boys I just plan on her staying home and inviting friends over to keep that level high.
Ash as mentioned is capped on Medical and will stay there for the Simoleans! He has 12 days till elder status.
U.S. Grant is an international lawyer - and has 15 days till elderhood which makes capping law a real possibility.
Linda is an executive with 16 days left in adult span - so capping is also a possibility.
Milton Friedman Crusoe hits teens in three days - he's the Business backup plan OR Natural Scientist if Linda is looking good to cap
OJ Simpson Crusoe has five days for teen days - and he'll be first attempt at Athlete - Natural Science - or Law Enforcement
Frank Lloyd Wright Crusoe if all goes to plan will be slated for Architect - NS - LE in that order
Dog didn't make it - so we'll have to work on a likely candidate for service.
Putting things in perspective this is a pretty rugged challenge. I figure that the founder was about 15 to 20 years into the challenge when he was married - and his eldest is 45 which means that it's taken me so far 60 years to life the four restrictions.

Update: There's What's Right - There's What's Wrong and There's "The Law"
US Grant has become "The Law". The question is whether or not to split the household, and their friends, in order to have a bit more space and to optimize the ability to unlock new areas. The other problem is that I have three teens - who are about worthless once they cap logic they mostly play darts - and each have over ten days to hit adulthood which is sort of stupid. Combine that with the addition of four soon to be elders and you have a rather boring household that isn't doing too much towards reaching goals.
Joan of Arc will hit elder without capping anything - put her in athlete to give it a shot - but she only had six days to get to the top. At least as an MVP she is bringing in good dough.
Ash has to cap out on body quickly to keep earning money, same with Ulysses. Linda is a company President - so business is a real possibility.
Milton will not likely go into business as Linda will cap. I'm thinking law enforcement - as we almost lost a few due to a fire.
OJ will go for athletics.
Frank Lloyd Wright probably architecture.
Time to get another pooch or cat -but the strays require a lot of work and it's more a question of getting lucky.

The Crowded Bathroom is Breaking Up that Legacy Family of Mine
With four elders and three teens and a very high level of consciousness towards keeping friends intact which meant frequent visitors once military was lifted - the bathrooms were a bit crowded - so US Grant - Lisa and son who had just hit adulthood OJ left the flop to a new nearly identical starting flat next door. Things will be tight for the family money and space wise but since there is a very good income and a starter income we should be okay. Lisa missed work due to oatmeal dribbling syndrome so she is a stay at home oatmeal dribbler. Interestingly, a sim that OJ had his eye on since childhood walked by - OJ greeted and then she took the words out of his mouth (the chat, joke, admire sequence) by kissing him. They were married on the spot and she is with child.
In the other household - the love man (eldest son Milton Friedman) has found three potential mates but now wants five. Given that younger brother Frank Lloyd is also a love machine and turns to adult status soon that could make for some interesting issues. A new dog, Domino we bought one once business was lifted by Lisa shortly before hitting oatmeal dribbling stage - was purchased from Smitty's General Store. Some changes in plans also as the family was almost nuked by two fires when we had a lot of people in the homestead. Weston played fetch for the last time with Mr. Reaper after being sacked by a chance card.

Lot 1:
Joan of Arc - still working probably has a week to go until she goes to the other side and joins Weston and her parents.
Ash still working has about 15 to 18 years to go since he hit platinum by aspiration to Chief of Staff
Milton is working in Athletic since that was his aspiration - the memos tween him and O J were crossed
Frank Lloyd is not hitting over the trash can as he obviously got happy with something - made a best friend if I can recall. I've changed plans and he will try for Law Enforcement

Lot 2
US Grant is the LAW and will do so till he dies or misses the car ride - probably about 10 years
Lisa is an oatmeal dribbler but will dribble for awhile as she just hit elder status and then got fired due to missing the chopper. She hit elder with lifetime aspiration of capping business - so she'll be a happy oatmeal dribbler.
OJ is married and in an odd move will go for education. I find kids/teens more annoying in this game than their real life counterparts - so off to school with you!
Lily (Do) Crusoe is going to quit her level one job and is already with child.

Much more manageable with two homes.

Domino the Wonder Dog ... and Doctor Ash is Dead
The good news is that my elders are now functional via the help of Domino the wonder dog who capped the service career. I'm putting a twist and maybe it's a rule - but there are a lot - but I'm making the benefit of the service dog only if someone has a pet.
Dr. Ash didn't get to enjoy his sudden viability very long - he woke up - snuggled a grandchild and went to join the great majority. In other news (we'll summarize by house)
Lot 1
Milton Friedman just lost 2 charisma points due to a bad chance card and is at MVP - but he is youngish with 16 days till elder.
Frank Lloyd Wright is leading the SWAT Team that is putting the final crunch on the zombie horde. A few are around but things are looking up for the possibility of not having the Walking Dead take over the town. FLW has 20 days to hit elder.
The wives are starting on careers - but one will likely have to quit at some point as there are two toddlers in the house.
Amy is a Test Subject - and was fired in an attempt in politics due to a chance card - she didn't last long. With 19 days till elder status - it seems that science will have to wait.
Brenda is an algae hunger with 22 days till elder land.
The two toddlers (Charles Darwin and Robert Moses) transition to children in a day
LOT #2
In order to enjoy the non dribbling of oatmeal a dog was purchased thanks to business being established with Smitty's General Store opening up. Dog's name is Underdog and he's going to try to get a job in security.
US Grant is still the LAW and doesn't have as many oatmeal stains on his robes thanks to Underdog licking the dribbles clean and walking him out to the car.
Lisa is staying home with the two youngsters - and Underdog wakes her out of her catharsis to take care of the kids - not that she needs any help as she suffers from the over doting common of most sims to infants and toddlers.
OJ is doing well in education and is a visiting professor with about 20 days to hit adult status.
Lillie Do Crusoe was fired due to a chance card in the Science career and is going to embark on a TBD career when I resume their house.
The two younguns are a a toddler (Aristotle) and an infant (Socrates). If science and natural science don't work out I expect they'll try to go that route.
My estimate is that I'm about 90 years since the flush incident caused the meltdown.
BTW - the official motto of Comeback Town was changed to "Stuff's Getting Better" .

Athletes Go On STRIKE
Seems I didn't read the order correctly - I didn't have all the packs (have one on order and only two left) so I must have substituted Athletics mistakenly - but really a general strike was held as too many calcium depleted bones were destroyed. Luckily Frank Lloyd Wright escaped without harm and will be swapping careers as a natural scientist. OOPS :)

jjdcoach

29th Dec 2011, 06:09 PM

A few more deaths and an accomplishment.

US Grant "THE LAW" passed away at the age of approximately 75
Domino the Wonder Dog passed away after unlocking Service pet.
As posted I had misplayed and was almost capped on Athlete - but had to quit and restart.
Frank Lloyd Wright capped Law Enforcement

Founder Robinson Crusoe capped Culinary G 1
Brenda "Carr" Crusoe (the cheerleader) capped Military G1
Ash (Tyr) Crusoe capped medical G2
Weston capped Security Pet G2
Lisa (Desperet) Crusoe capped Business (US Grant's Wife) G2
US Grant capped The Law G2
Frank Lloyd Wright Capped Law Enforcement G3
Domino capped Service Pet G3

Milton Friedman is fairly high up in Natural Scientist (Rogue Naturalist)
OJ Simpson is a high school principal
Frank's Wife is mid-level in Natural Science
OJ's wife missed work and has been fired two times!
Milton's wife watches the two kids.

I had bought Free Time - but it was missing a disc so some careers and goodies are not available to me.

JJD

GEGNER

2nd Jan 2012, 06:09 AM

ohai!

I've just started this challenge today after building up my hood, kinda. I kinda broke some rules for my safe houses, but they're just my favorite sims really and don't affect restrictions. It's just nice to have them around.

So far Lorrette, my founder, has already lifted culinary and moved in her spouse. I thought the beginning would be the hardest but it actually wasn't, lol. I was kinda surprised. The husband's lifting medical.

Most recently tho I had a sad moment when Lorrette died of electrocution. I didn't want to completely give up hope so I really just resurrected her in one of the safe houses and stuck her back in. I don't think I broke any restriction per say, but it is my first AC ever so I guess I'll try to ignore it. AND, I never get burglars on all of the rich lots I have, but a burglar just has to come and steal her stuff. Only happens when you're in the poorhouse, right?

Also it's kind of sad that because of Athletic the lower floor is kind of useless right now on account of oversized objects.. And we can't sell anything back because of business.

Oh, and question: I downloaded the zombie apocalypse hack and resurrected around three chicks (just some leftovers from moving around people) and they're living in the neighborhood. I manually made one attack a walkby and after a few fights she won but nothing happened. Does the transformation only happen when you don't instigate the fight? I have noticed sims being more aggressive sooo...

Whew, kinda longwinded, but nice for my first post!

Phaenoh

2nd Jan 2012, 06:39 AM

I'm not entirely sure how the zombie mod works, it's not something I made and I don't play very often with it. Good luck with the challenge, keep us posted!

GEGNER

2nd Jan 2012, 06:53 AM

Phaenoh

2nd Jan 2012, 05:59 PM

Well, the beds really shouldn't be used, but the career rewards (as long as they for the community career lot) should be usable. If they aren't, look for mods here at MTS to make them work. And your sister is exactly right to be really afraid, this challenge is all about story telling and a lot of it needs to be in your head, including unnatural fear ;)

GEGNER

2nd Jan 2012, 06:11 PM

She won't even let her sims get the mail, even if there are no walkbys. She's too paranoid.

Update:

Annoyingly enough medical seems like the career to unlock, on account of the couple and child stage being much harder than the single founder stage. Scott, Lorrette's husband, has to be one of the most annoying sims I've ever had. Lorrette worked so well and got her restrictions lifted rather quickly, while Scott was in level 1 medical for a week. Then he missed a day, so now I'm looking into military. Frustrating, seeing as military is just what I DON'T need.

Lorrette also had a son before becoming a senile elder: Tengo. He's a child now and swiftly declining. Another major problem is fun. Fun fun fun, can't clean myself, can't eat, can't sleep, gotta have more fun. Television would be the easiest thing right now but I can't have that for a while. I really don't know what to do for fun: playing with the couch doesn't seem to work, and they don't like anythign to do with the bookcase. Everyone's always in a bad mood so they can't play chess. They could dance, but every room has a bed (I don't have freetime, nor will be getting).

Sink self cleaning is also horrible to play the game with. Anyone have any suggestions for fun and hygiene?

Phaenoh

2nd Jan 2012, 06:53 PM

Dancing is still restricted until you get to level three whether you have FT or not. Did you pick up a sponge bathing hack?

GEGNER

3rd Jan 2012, 01:54 AM

Dancing is still restricted until you get to level three whether you have FT or not. Did you pick up a sponge bathing hack?

Guh. I thought if you didn't have the expansions then it didn't really apply. Oh well. I don't know whether to retroactively add them or just ignore it.

No but I'm working around it. Tengo just squeezed by to be a teen so there's that. Gotta get him up for medical.

Sunbee

3rd Jan 2012, 05:42 AM

jjdcoach

3rd Jan 2012, 05:52 AM

Thanks! I just kinda wanted the stakes to be higher. My sister watches me play and she doesn't want her sims to even go outside because she's so afraid of losing them to zombies. So far I haven't seen any attacks but.. :u

I'll keep posted. Oh, and another question: Many of the community lots posted have beds and career rewards in them, would they have to first be residential and then changed via a cheat or am I missing something?

The zombie mod is rugged. I have over 60 sims that have been killed who were turned into zombies - then again I did give them a jump start.

The thing about zombies is you have to watch the pack when you go to the community lots. They will approach/attack if you're not watching or if you get distracted.

I've not had many problems with them on my lot - as they don't attack as a passerby unless you interact with them. My interaction is with an assault rifle once I had military unlocked!

GEGNER

3rd Jan 2012, 01:29 PM

Red hands for fun. Four games of red hands will fill a completely empty meter.
Adults and elders can admire-->groom each other which does wonders for hygiene compared to repetitive hand washing. Kids have to suffer. IIRC, teens can groom each other but not other ages.

Thank you! Yes, red hands is amazing.

The thing is is that I don't have the "Kids don't go to school mod" because I have my other hood to take care of :u

Tho my one current child is going to grow into a teen soon. Looking up.

GEGNER

3rd Jan 2012, 01:31 PM

The zombie mod is rugged. I have over 60 sims that have been killed who were turned into zombies - then again I did give them a jump start.

The thing about zombies is you have to watch the pack when you go to the community lots. They will approach/attack if you're not watching or if you get distracted.

I've not had many problems with them on my lot - as they don't attack as a passerby unless you interact with them. My interaction is with an assault rifle once I had military unlocked!

I knoooow. I put some of the zombies for a test run at my soup kitchen. They got my simself, one of my friends, and one of my favorite sims. I'm contemplating a zombie cure.

It's exciting to try and avoid them tho.

Phaenoh

3rd Jan 2012, 04:42 PM

You really ought to put all my mods in when you are playing the apox hood, just keep them all in a special folder in your downloads folder that you can easily remove when you want to play your regular hoods. The mods are really helpful.

GEGNER

3rd Jan 2012, 07:41 PM

I'll look into separating them.

Knowing me I'll find a way eventually.

Darby

4th Jan 2012, 12:13 AM

Make a set of game files that is only for your challenge 'hood.

Easy directions:
1. Go into My Documents\EA GAMES

2. Cut/paste (or drag/drop) The Sims 2 to your desktop.

3. Load the game.

4. The game will create a brand new set of game files.

5. Go into the Neighborhoods folder of the new files and delete all the newly-generated default neighborhoods. (You won't need them, and everything will load faster.)

6. Go into the Neighborhoods folder of the files pulled to your desktop and cut/paste your challenge 'hood into the new Neighborhoods folder.

7. Delete the neighborhoodmanager.package files in the Neighborhoods folders of BOTH sets of files. (You want to delete that file any time you change your neighborhood configuration by adding or deleting a neighborhood. It'll regenerate.)

8. Created a Downloads folder for the new The Sims 2 folder, and put whatever CC/mods you want for the challenge there.

Now you have two sets of game files; two The Sims 2 folders. One will have your "normal" game, with whatever mods/CC you like for regular play but that may not work for your AC. The other will have your Apocalypse neighborhood, along with CC/mods you want/need only for this challenge. Decide which The Sims 2 folder you want to play, and swap those two sets of files as needed. (Just be sure to do any swapping before you load the game. Don't switch files around while the game is loaded!)

An alternative to cut/pasting, drag/dropping swapping files would be to let both sets of files live in EA GAMES, with one renamed. For instance, if you're playing your Apocalypse, rename the other folder to The Sims 2 Regular, and the game will ignore it. To play that one again, rename it back to The Sims 2 and rename the other to The Sims 2 Apocalypse.

GEGNER

4th Jan 2012, 12:42 AM

Phaenoh

4th Jan 2012, 01:04 AM

Or, you know, just make a copy of your downloads folder, no need to have two separate copies of the entire neighborhood screen. As long as your apox challenge is happening in its own hood (which according to the instructions, it should be) then you just add in a folder labeled 'Apox Mods' into your downloads folder and take it out when you want to play your regular hood.

Or, download and install Numenor's AnyGameStarter. This lets you pretty much the same thing that Darby said but on a permanent basis. It lets your apox hood have its own icon on the desktop.

I updated my mods to include a base game one. It doesn't include the object hiders, but it does take care of things like no school and no social workers and automatic firing.

Darby

4th Jan 2012, 01:46 AM

Or, you know, just make a copy of your downloads folder, no need to have two separate copies of the entire neighborhood screen. As long as your apox challenge is happening in its own hood (which according to the instructions, it should be) then you just add in a folder labeled 'Apox Mods' into your downloads folder and take it out when you want to play your regular hood.

Or, download and install Numenor's AnyGameStarter. This lets you pretty much the same thing that Darby said but on a permanent basis. It lets your apox hood have its own icon on the desktop.

Yes, that works too. The reason I like entirely separate sets of game files, personally, is that I've got separate and incompatible default replacement things I use in different 'hoods. I don't know that switching defaults in and out would affect the neighborhood not being played, but wouldn't want to risk it. But your way does make more sense otherwise.

Yes, AGS! I tend to forget about that option, but it's a great one.

Phaenoh

4th Jan 2012, 03:05 AM

As long as you switch the defaults back in again before you load your normal neighborhood, everything is fine. You might need to keep the conflicting DR files in an easy place to find so you pull out the set you don't want to use at the time. Its pretty much the same thing, you are just doing it at a higher level. AGS is an awesome option, I use it for my medieval hoods and I don't play with all my EPs and SPs in it.

Darby

4th Jan 2012, 03:33 AM

As long as you switch the defaults back in again before you load your normal neighborhood, everything is fine.

Good to know - thank you. :)

GEGNER

4th Jan 2012, 07:05 AM

Thank you both! I'll do that when I start playing again this weekend.

shamengoddess

9th Jan 2012, 09:18 PM

Wow, very cool to see people still playing Sims 2 and this challenge, thought I was wayyyyy late:)
I am going to do a Uni start, mods are installed, for a house I am going to use my "Tara", BUT as it is the start of the apocalypse (and not many would be able to build a special home) I will have my founder sequestered on a very demolished second floor, with a ladder and hole for entry etc.

SamanthaSSJ

13th Jan 2012, 08:08 PM

Did I miss something? Entirely possible since this thread is getting so long, but I'm trying to figure out how to get started within the rules. I have a founder currently at university, where he is doing the usual things. Including making friends, flirting, etc. When he moves back to the empty neighborhood how does he meet people? How/where does he meet Mrs. Founder if people aren't supposed to be walking around the neighborhood until the law restriction is lifted? In my mind he is pretty much a lone survivor in this neighborhood, so there wouldn't be a bunch of potential partners around anywhere.

Phaenoh

13th Jan 2012, 08:18 PM

Usually, you find and fall in love with someone from Uni, cuz True Love knows no bounds, and is generally uneffected by our ristrictions.

SamanthaSSJ

13th Jan 2012, 09:05 PM

Usually, you find and fall in love with someone from Uni, cuz True Love knows no bounds, and is generally uneffected by our ristrictions.

Thanks, that makes sense.

FranH

15th Jan 2012, 11:20 PM

I do have some questions about the 'Uni' Start and the adult start:

My game has empty templates, which means that any neighborhood I create will only have just the very basic sims in them. There are no extra sims in any hood-they're blank, and have no sims in them.

That also means that if I get an adult, they're not going to Uni, and they're starting out alone. There is no "YA" age in CAS, and you have to create a Uni neighborhood just to do it for the "Uni" start if you make just one sim and age him down in the neighborhood-with the mentioned problem of no other sims in the neighborhood.

How to work around that problem is my biggest one. I'm not going to eliminate my clean templates, but getting an adult to actually survive this challenge is something that has been bothering me since I first read this thread.

Is it possible to start this with an alternative of 8 adults as a household, not related to one another? That might increase the odds of survival for those with the 'clean templates' fix.

Of course one would have to reduce funds, and follow the other rules in this challenge to actually be within the ruleset, but other challenges (such as the ISBI) have this type of start.

Phaenoh

16th Jan 2012, 03:31 AM

I'd say that is probably allowable, as long as you aren't getting an unfair advantage out of it somehow. :)

sweetbaby160

31st Jan 2012, 03:20 PM

After spending weeks debating (In RL I actually have a silly fear of Zombies, honestly I do!! LOL everwhere I go I map out escape routes, best place to set up defense etc) whether I wanted to give this a go, I finally couldn't resist & have begun the first stage, which is my founder in uni. She just finished the sophmore year, not having much luck finding a mate thou. She was crushing on one guy, but after he 'moved in' I discovered he had 3 bolts with someone else & only one with Alison, & everytime she went to class he was cheating on her.

Phaenoh

31st Jan 2012, 04:32 PM

Aw, yeah, I'd throw that one back and try to hook another. You can play this without zombies, but you have to pretend that there is some reason why it's not safe to go out. Good luck with your challenge, and keep us posted!

sweetbaby160

1st Feb 2012, 01:21 AM

oh no, I'm all revved after the weeks of internal debate lol there will be Zombies bahahaha, I'm chalking it up to a prememptive simulation of what could happen *manical laugh*

sweetbaby160

3rd Feb 2012, 07:46 AM

The music has started playing it's last song....Alison has graduated with honours from SimState. She's enjoying the last few hours of ignorant bliss, thinking she is heading towards a bountiful life working towards her LTW of being a City Planner. Little does she know that in the local Asylum the last living inmate has finally achieved what everyone called him crazy for, the reason why he was locked away in the first place...he has built a phone that will call directly to the Reaper! Finally, he can bring back his fellow inmates & relieve his guilt over giving them all food poisioning...Of course, he's got his fingers crossed that Grim will be willing to bargain, there wasn't much money left in the Asylum's petty cash box after the Warden ran off with his secretary...

backpedal

3rd Feb 2012, 02:38 PM

If people walk onto my lot am I allowed to talk to them? I can't figure out how I'm supposed to make friends :/

lorinsv60

3rd Feb 2012, 02:44 PM

Yes, you can talk to them outside, and once they become friends they can come inside.

backpedal

3rd Feb 2012, 02:48 PM

(Sorry for the dumb questions)

Are the items I take from university immune to restrictions? I picked up an easel to take with me, but now I'm on my lot I realise that I'm not allowed to use it.

And as well, with the 50% from Criminal thing, how am I supposed to pay that? My first bills came and were 10,000. I don't have anywhere near that. Is the repoman going to take away ALL of my stuff?

Phaenoh

3rd Feb 2012, 03:49 PM

backpedal

4th Feb 2012, 02:01 PM

Sounds like your bills have been adjusted with my mods. If you are just starting out, why don't you have that much?

Yes the 3 objects you bring back from UNI are immune, if you graduated, one of your three needs to be your diploma though.

Yes, I'm just starting out. I had 25k, I bought a 5x5 lot that cost 18.5k (or something like that), and then spent a little bit building a small shelter. How else was I supposed to have done it?

Phaenoh

4th Feb 2012, 04:01 PM

Sunbee

4th Feb 2012, 04:36 PM

Repo won't take your stuff if your bills are more than your stuff is worth, he'll come and chew you out for being a lazy slacker and tell you to get a job--at least, that's what he does to my sims.

backpedal

4th Feb 2012, 05:44 PM

I think I removed the 5x5 rule. I can't find any mention of it, and none of the housing suggestions I gave meets it, thats prolly why you are so broke, either stuff everything you own into your inventory, move out, buy a smaller lot and put everything back *right where it was*, or use the Lot Adjuster (risker and not necessary here) and kaching yourself back some cash.

I was following this which is in the OP:

The family lot must be on a desert or dirt tile set. You may not place the home family lot on a beach lot. When your founder returns to the neighborhood, move him or her into an empty 5X5 lot (smaller is allowed only if your computer can’t handle it, but 3x3 is the minimum).

One more question: How am I supposed to get food if I can't call for groceries and can't grow my own food?

I feel like I am really missing something with this challenge :/

lorinsv60

4th Feb 2012, 07:27 PM

You can buy more refrigerators as needed, but with these rules I'm not sure there is any way to get rid of empty ones without lifting Business or Intelligence (gift giving) first. In Pinstar's original Life of Crimes rules, protection was paid by replacing all buy-mode objects including refrigerators each week (at I believe a cost of 40% due to depreciation).

tigger89

5th Feb 2012, 12:59 AM

I've played(didn't win) the apocalypse challenge for sims 3. I tried to play it in sims 2, and it was much harder! I like the more structured approach that this version takes, however, so I decided to give this a shot, and so far I've gotten further in it than any of my several tries at the vanilla challenge. I'm playing with all expansions except for apartment life, however the mods don't work for my game unfortunately. The game just hangs when I try to load my lot with them in. So I took them out, and I'm doing my best to keep track of all the rules myself. I almost gave up because I had the same problem that backpedal did, with the weekly bills, for the same reason. But luckily I checked the thread first, and moved her to a smaller lot. Now my protection has gone from roughly 9k/week to 2.5k/week, which is much more managable.

My starting sim, Jen Abu, had just graduated university(summa cum laude with a degree in philosophy) when the disaster struck. I was intending for a mid-university start, but the dice weren't with me on that. I started her off as a pleasure sim, in the hopes of landing the culinary ltw, but it didn't roll. So I switched her to popularity(another which has a chance of rolling that), and unfortunately my luck wasn't any better there, as she wanted to be a lawyer. However, she has perma-plat, due to the genie lamp that was delivered during college. Since the restrictions aren't in place(as the disaster hasn't struck yet) when they're in college the very first time, I used it. There's really no way of taking it back now if that's not the case, but it gave me a definite advantage starting out, as she's been able to get all of her promotions very quickly, barring silly chance cards setting her back. She's now at level 8 of the culinary track, due to level 10 within the next couple of days, at which point she'll invite her college boyfriend(already engaged!) over to make it official and get with the next generation making. My plan is to direct him to the medical track, and see if I can get him to the top. It'll be rough going, though, as I'm sure he'll come with level 10 in the Useless skill and not much else. :p

EDIT: Culinary lifted, university lover wedded, and it turns out he wasn't so bad after all. The skills were in the right places, not too high but he had 4-5 points in each of the necessary skills for the medical career. Generation 2 is in the oven, with 12 days left to age for the girl and all of adulthood for the guy. I've got nearly $100k between an awesome chance card and what the husband brought to the family when he moved in, so I'm not too worried about bills...for a while, at least.

EDIT2: Oh no, it was twins. :( So one'll go into military, and I'll designate the other for odd jobs/pet maintenance/around the home stuff. And it turns out that I accidentally cheated. I was searching for "motive perk" when trying to figure out if I could spend the perk points, and nothing came up, so I went ahead and spent them. But it turns out that I can't do that until the guy lifts medicine(he's at level 5, plenty of time left). Luckily it only affected him(the starter sim's points had been spent in uni), and he'd still managed to have a gold aspiration bar from the birth of the twins, so I just bought the re-nu-yu-senso orb thing and had him use it to alter the perk points, then deleted it afterwards.

GEGNER

8th Feb 2012, 10:12 PM

Can teens get jobs?

By the way I restarted my challenge in Pleastantview after I found out that moving my favorite sims corrupted my neighborhood. Oops. But Pleasantview is fun. All of the premade familes have to try and survive with the challenge family lifting things. So far Cassandra and Don have had kids, Dustin married Angela, Lilith is living with her senile parents, waiting to marry what's his face dreamer, the Caliente Sisters are zombies, the Oldies run an orphanage and the Lucy is the only Burb left (both her parents died in fire).

Anyway I'm at that point where I've lifted Medical and Culinary with my two founders and I have a teen and a baby for second gen. Can my teen get a military job? I don't remember reading anything in the rules but I'd like to check.

sweetbaby160

10th Feb 2012, 12:38 PM

oh this is getting interesting....Alison has graduated with honors from SimState, with two very promising love interests (oddly one of which keeps flipping back & forth from a 2bolter to a 3, the other one is a romance sim with potentially good genes), storyline: Alison is currently "backpacking across Europe" (sitting in the SimBin) while Jason (the last surviving member of the Asylum) trys desperately hard to tame his Zombie-love Nancy. That really isn't going too well. Jason had such high hopes that his plea for his love's return would soften the cold heart of the Grim Reaper, to no avail. Grim is eternal, cold, hard cash can make immorality much more interesting than Jason's sob story of true love & bad fish (food poisoning killed everyone in the asylum). Well Nancy came back missing more just some personality points (Jason's constantly finding fingers in the couch cushins, only 3 to go) she also came back with a powerful need of fresh human brains. She was just disgusted when Jason offered bovine brains as an alternative. Figuring that maybe Nancy just needed to have her best friend Janet back (& Jason wanting the extra help) Jason called on the Reaper once again, offering every last cent he could find amongst the mattresses, couch cushins & body parts. Still, was not enough, Janet returned angry at him for disturbing her rest & very HUNGRY. Shortly after her return, Janet & Nancy were able to corner Jason & he too became an undead ghoul. Funnily enough, after getting their revenge & ripping him from limb to limb, the girls are still po'd with Jason, even though he has discovered he is far happier as a walking maggot buffet. Together the three of them have 'greeted' every person that walks by the asylum, so far 12 more sims have joined their ranks. Jason thought (as far as a zombie can think) that taking the girls out on the town would be a nice change from the same grounds they have been confined to for years. Heading to Gothier Green they met a few more 'recruits' & had something of a picnic.

Here's the question: while out & about, I wasn't paying too close attention (figured they'd have more fun without me directing them entirely) & there is now a Zombie-Vampire wandering around my neighborhood. Janet attacked the Countess while I was watching Jason get his butt handed to him by the elder Christa Hu. Has anyone else had this happen? will this be borking my game the way if Crumblebottom gets vamped would? (I've been very very cautious with not allowing anyone to zombify her)

:turtle:

GEGNER

10th Feb 2012, 08:18 PM

sweetbaby: A zombie/vampire crossbreed isn't exactly game damaging. In some challenges you get extra points of you cross supernaturals. I'm not sure how bad it is to have a townie be a mix tho.

And of course the danger of becoming a vampire or zombie.

sweetbaby160

10th Feb 2012, 08:58 PM

thank you Gegner :) glad to know, thought it was funny but was a little worried about the after effects. I'm almost tempted to befriend the Countess, let her bite someone & see what happens, if she can pass on the zombie infection as well as the vamp in one shot ;) not likely, but heh...other than in one neighborhood, I tend to avoid allowing random vamping, just because how quickly they can turn so many (least it seemed that way to me), but then I don't spend much time in community lots...

sweetbaby160

13th Feb 2012, 07:21 AM

so far I am having a bit too much fun just playing the ZombieHouse (formerly the Amisaneyet Asylum). Between the three zombies, I do believe that about 25 townies have developed a taste for human flesh. Sadly my game has started acting up quite a bit, so will have to take a break to sort it out, Alison is due home soon from her trip, hope she built up many good memories ;) I'm sure seeing her neighborhood invested with walking dead will be tramatic....

:sheep:

juliejaz

29th Feb 2012, 09:43 PM

I'm starting this challenge again and I'm hoping that it doesn't end with glitches again:)

sweetbaby160

2nd Mar 2012, 02:41 AM

I've had to restart my neighborhood, pretty sure it's borked (trying to figure out why but unrelated to this thread)...I do have an agin mod that lengthens the lifestages, would it be better to remove this while doing this challenge?

Arathe1

2nd Mar 2012, 05:05 AM

Hey there! This is my first challenge and I'm super excited, but I'm a little uncertain about something in the rules (and didn't catch it in the thread if someone already asked).
You may only go out once a week
Does this mean you can only visit one community lot per week, or is it possible to visit all three lots in one go? I'm assuming it's the latter, but it'd make a pretty big difference if I'm wrong and I'd like to be sure.

Thanks! :D

ETA: Also, do you mind me asking what you used to get the career rewards on the community lots? Haven't been able to find anything that'll do the trick.

Phaenoh

2nd Mar 2012, 09:00 AM

I don't see why you can't visit them all in one go, as long as you follow the rules for going out (safety in numbers and bodyskill and such). There are various recat mods about the site, some do career rewards for comm lots. Have a look in Game Mods > Config Mods. Good luck!

sweetbaby160

2nd Mar 2012, 12:31 PM

Oceanography
Poseidon unleashes his wrath upon the region, cursing the minds of the people. No one knows what they want or fear anymore...Poseidon restores their minds with the wave of his trident.

noticed this as I was reading thru again...once this restriction is lifted, are we able to lock wants again? Just curious as to how this is meant...thank you

:beer:

Phaenoh

2nd Mar 2012, 07:44 PM

GEGNER

2nd Mar 2012, 11:41 PM

Sorry if you missed my question, Phaenoh, so I'll ask again: Can teens get jobs? Just wondering so I can get a head start on restrictions. I don't remember reading anything against it, but just to be sure.

sweetbaby160

3rd Mar 2012, 03:51 AM

Yeah, that's just left over flavor text I missed when I was editing. The restrictions are in the bullet points. Why would having icky water have anything to do with wanting to Eat a Grilled Cheese or Woohoo in a Closet? It made no sense, ignore that.

:lol: I was kinda picturing that the water had all been polluted by more than just radioactive ACID rain ;) which led to no one being to focus long enough to know what they wanted/feared, but works just as well to ignore it, which I shall do :) thank you!

Phaenoh

3rd Mar 2012, 08:36 AM

GEGNER, I don't really see why not, but they are going to need to be able to go out by themselves. I think that means you need to have a high body skill and or a few restrictions lifted, but check on that.

GEGNER

4th Mar 2012, 05:52 AM

Got it. I have the first three restrictions lifted, so that's not a problem. Getting to 7 body may be a pain tho.

Modder

29th Apr 2012, 09:11 PM

Hey! Just to let you know, I've just finished Restriction Level 2 and am on my way to finishing the challenge! I'm so happy, this is the first time I've ever gotten more than halfway done with an Apox challenge!

Phaenoh

29th Apr 2012, 09:26 PM

Congratulations! I was just wondering if anyone was still working on this. Lifting all of Restriction Level 2 makes you a Silver Apox Survivor. Yay! I think you might be the first person who has reported in on finishing level 2.

sweetbaby160

30th Apr 2012, 06:00 AM

I'm stil trying to get thru this lol...actually on to the 3rd gen, cleared culinary, military, & medicine. Just waiting for the dog to get promoted again, then restriction 1 is lifted in my hood (WOOHOO) however, downside would be that once again (& totally thru my own fault) my current hood is corrupted, so it is only a matter of time before I'll be starting all over again :( which, really is alright, getting as far as I have has taught me a few things (like another way to avoid corruption)...
:sheep:

Phaenoh

30th Apr 2012, 03:24 PM

Sorry to hear that, what did you do to corrupt your hood? I've been playing the same set of hoods for almost 10 years now and only one case of 'missing face' that I was able to fix.

Modder

1st May 2012, 01:09 AM

Just a quick question, but the Oceanography rules state that once that restriction has been unlocked, Spring may be added up to two times to the rotation, but Music also states that the weather must be changed to Winter/Winter/Winter. I'm a little confused on if we're allowed to add Spring regardless of the Music restrictions. I've gone ahead and added Spring once and am planning on adding it twice after I'm halfway done with Restriction Level 3 (or whenever I unlock Music, whichever is first). I feel like it makes it more realistic, since the weather would gradually change back to normal instead of all at once. Of course, I'm basing my interpretation off the fact that the original ruleset had exceptions to rules written in. Should this be allowed?

sweetbaby160

1st May 2012, 01:48 AM

Sorry to hear that, what did you do to corrupt your hood? I've been playing the same set of hoods for almost 10 years now and only one case of 'missing face' that I was able to fix.

yeah it sucks LMAO but I am sooo glad that if I have to deal with corruption it has only been in a hood that I just started. I would be devastated if it had happened in my one long-term hood.
In answer to your question: I had thought that the House of Fallen Leaves looked significantly creepy enough (& with a little renovation) to work well in a apox hood, even as just hood deco. Problem turned out that I did not take a really good look at that lot before moving it into the lotbin :faceslap: I was unaware that there were tombstones already there. I had moved it to the lot bin & placed it back into the downtown (which was part of my asylum set-up). I didn't know that to do so was going to almost instantly kill the Downtown & bleed over to the main hood. It was within Simdays that the first signs of doom appeared....my CorruptionAvoidance list has turned into a book.
:rofl:

Phaenoh

1st May 2012, 05:48 AM

I'm a little confused on if we're allowed to add Spring regardless of the Music restrictions. … Should this be allowed?

You are correct. You may add Spring in twice regardless of Music. This is to make the seasons slowly return to normal. I find it more realistic to put them back to back so it goes winter winter spring spring, but you can do either.

sweetbaby160

1st May 2012, 10:36 AM

Peni Griffin

1st May 2012, 01:29 PM

I can answer that one, sort of. I'm not playing this challenge, don't have any of the mods, and sometimes the chance card says "Fired" and the actual result is "demoted." I haven't found a consistent reason for it - it may be tied to the particular career level that a chance card occurs at, or the randomization process may have more than two results depending on "how badly" you fail or "how well" you succeed based on the computer's die roll.

Like critical hit and fumble tables, if you ever played D&D old school.

lorinsv60

1st May 2012, 03:05 PM

Just from curiousity: my one sim has been fired twice from two different careers thru a chance card (oh joy) however for some reason he doesn't seem to actually get fired, just demoted all the way back to lvl1 in whichever field he's in (which was really irriating when he was at lvl9), my question would be: is this likely a conflict of your fab mods & my current corruption, or just the corruption itself?
I played a classic/modless Apocalypse, and I know for sure one of the chance cards in the Music career will do that. I figured if it didn't boot him out of the career entirely and say he was unemployed, he wasn't really "fired."

Sunbee

1st May 2012, 06:55 PM

Education, level nine, I had that same thing happen. (I remember this because I wanted sooo badly to send teens to college, and the education sim was racing their aging to adult her second trip up.) I think there was some speculation over on old Boolprop that it might have had to do with changes made with Freetime.

sweetbaby160

2nd May 2012, 02:52 AM

Thank you so much!! I was fretting a bit that it was a curroption related fluke, 'nice' to know it's not that ;) just thought it was really weird that it has been just the one sim this has happened to. His sister's husband was pulled a bad chance card & was unemployed very quickly. (he's something of a lay-about anyways)
Peni: I am sorry to say that the closest I've been to understanding D&D was seeing the movie as a teenager, but when I read your response to my husband, it inspired him to get out his old game in an attempt to teach me 'old-school'. :luff:

Modder

4th May 2012, 12:58 AM

My god, I finally unlocked Music and am literally screaming with delight that I can use seasons now. I hate winter with a freaking passion now! Snow, snow, snow, constant stream of townies freezing on my sidewalk, snow and more snow... ugh it seemed like it never ended! Summer, here I come!

Phaenoh

4th May 2012, 02:00 AM

Modder, you should have been able to have 2 Springs after you unlocked Oceanography back in R2. Its not supposed to always be snow, cuz yeah, it really does suck. :(

Amalia81

5th May 2012, 07:41 PM

This looks like fun! I've been playing for five years and decided to try this for the first time. Thought it'd be a good way to get out of my "perfect families with perfect lives" funk. I'm currently playing my founder and his girlfriend (a former dormie) though college. Upon graduation (or when the disaster happens, whichever comes first), is my founder allowed to move in his girlfriend with him, as long as they don't marry until he tops his career? He's slated for culinary and I'm grooming his girl for the medical career.

Also, a couple more questions. If I'm reading the rules right, the initial setup of seasons post-disaster is all winter, right? And prior to lifting Natural Science, how do you get food once your fridge is empty? Buy a new one from the catalog?

lorinsv60

5th May 2012, 08:04 PM

Your founder's girlfriend cannot move in until he lifts Hopelessness by topping his career. And yes to buying a new fridge for food. The classic rules had you exchange the fridge once a week when you paid protection to the mob (an exception to the "no selling in buy mode" Business restriction). I'm not sure if you can still do that exchange with these rules.

Phaenoh

5th May 2012, 08:36 PM

You have to toss your old fridge out onto the lawn. Buy a new one.

Your girlfriend can't move in and you actually can't use her. However, since that answer sucks, make sure she has a cell phone and when the disaster hits, move them both out of college. Put him into your Apox lot and her into the bin. You may not play her at all. Familyfunds cheat her down to $3,000. She may not have anything else in her inventory. After you've married her and moved her in, delete her phone.

Amalia81

5th May 2012, 11:25 PM

Good to know, Phae. And the initial setup of seasons post-disaster is all winter, correct?

Phaenoh

6th May 2012, 12:17 AM

Yes, all winter until you unlock Ocean, then you can add 2 springs, and then music when you can change it to whatever you like.

MOOKIEBLAYLOCK

6th May 2012, 02:33 AM

Contemplating giving this a go , thank you for all of your hard work on this and for monitoring it as well. I have two questions prior to starting out. In Post #6 you mention ARC , two other posters later ask about it , one is in post #214 , however it isn't addressed. What is ARC , and where might one find it? The other question deals with using killing implements ( from say Simwardrobe or Ja) , you state you have (use) an AK-47 to protect the family compound. I couldn't tell if that was a tongue in cheek response on your behalf or if it is actually permissible. And if so , when? Could one of the three items brought back from Uni be a weapon? Who is/isn't allowed to use it, assuming it's allowed at all?

Thanks for your skills , time and generous sharing in this , and all of your creations, much appreciated.

Edit: A few more questions . In post #49 you state that a shower can't be brought back and used (after Uni) due to restrictions , in post #325 you state that an easel brought back from Uni can be used and that all (2 +diploma) items brought back are immune to restrictions. Which ruling is correct?

Posts 251, 295 and others would seem to indicate that a mod allowing community lot skilling is permissible , or are the job reward items basically just placed on comm. lots for semantics and any minimal fun interactions they allow? Thanks again!

Phaenoh

6th May 2012, 07:47 PM

I can't actually remember what ARC stands for, but its a mod over at MATY that you could use. I think it changes the way fights and some other socials are handled. My family totally does have an AK-47 and only my dad (military) uses it. I'd say any sim who makes it high enough up in Military to earn the career reward may buy and use them. Mostly its just for show though, I don't actually use it much. This challenge - at least my version of it - is, at its heart, a story telling challenge, so if it feels like it should be part of your survival story, include it.

A shower may not be brought back. Just because you have a shower fixture doesn't mean the pipes are working, so where would the water come from? You may bring back an easel because most jobs require creativity skill points and drawing or painting is a bit simpler and easier to simulate in a post-apox world than say an electric guitar or a piano.

Comm lot job skilling mods are recommended. The community lots need to be built to follow the restrictions and that's what the other half of this challenge is about, its about creating a full community with all the different types of lots a real town would actually need. This is one place where TS3 actually has us beat. They have a much better town setup. They have places where their sims actually go to work. Ours just disappear at the end of the sidewalk. :(

MOOKIEBLAYLOCK

7th May 2012, 07:19 AM

Thanks so much for your helpful and clarifying answers! I played a tiny bit last evening , with the Uni ( no dice roll) start ( side note: the odds of double sixes are 1/36 , just multiply 6 by 6, I'd seen some comments on that) and want to make sure I'm comprehending/following the rules as much as possible prior to hitting the actual start. Definitely working on , as you advised, skilling and relationship building. Looking for a potential partner for down the road. It's funny , even at this semi pre challenge phase , my normal routine in gaming has changed dramatically. I almost always look for which of the 3 bolters my self sim knows that he finds ( or I do!) to be the hottest of the bunch as his best potential partner. Currently , he is using the "ask" option while he still can and finding what info he can about careers and skills from the females he's met. Now my attitude is , "Oooh , so you are a level 3 in Culinary , you're hot", lol. His eventual partner will be chosen by practicality , not pheromones for once.

I always play my self sim as a romance sim, with a hack that limits jealousy to going steady/engaged/married and he runs about like nobodies business , this time he's knowledge based. Can't fight that EA obsessive( insane?) jealousy coding. He , unfortunately did not draw the max all skills or tops in medicine want , and I won't change that , so no advantage(s) there.I'll spend as much time reading the rules and pondering strategies for this as I will playing it , and thank you very much, for that aspect as well. I;m currently debating having him fail/drop out of college at the last moment. His diploma will give him that extra want slot, but it will also take up 1/3 of his inventory as he leaves. Forced long term strategic thinking, I like it!

Off topic , but you brought it up :) I love the open world concept of Sims 3 , and when the job/career involves player controlled actions it is appealing as well. However, having a sim disappear into a building, uncontrollable , for work strikes me as no better than watching time race by on an empty lot in Sims 2 in the same scenario. And don't even get me started on comm. lots, particularly player owned. I run buku business's in my Sims 2 game. I run all types of ventures , but I mostly play a seedy/sleazy urban game. I have a Playboy club and within that I have a saleslady for the ticketron/bandatron thing , a restaurant with a chef, hostess and 3 waitresses , a bar with a bartender and two dancers , a lounge with a piano player and as "manager" a big goon with 10 body skill ( and hacks that include fight anyone and never lose to a weaker sim) whose sole purpose ( other than wearing a tuxedo) is to pummel any sims that bother, have a history with or merely offend by their presence, the owner, the owners family or friends. Not that Sims 3 ( and private modders) couldn't replicate that concise of a business feel in say ,another 34 expansions. But they seem way more interested in making chairs of strawberry shortcake and promoting this decades Debbie Gibson. Just my take ;)

GEGNER

8th May 2012, 01:30 AM

The small patch of lawn under your stilt house become fridge city. Srsly, I have like ten under there.

Aaaand that's a quote for the apox scrapbook.

In other news I'm playing the rounds of my legacy hood but I will go back to my apocalypse soon (after like 20 more house, but meh). I'll be starting at stage two, I finished stage one a while ago.

Phaenoh

8th May 2012, 03:29 AM

Useless fridges may be tossed out onto the lawn proper. I recommend using SilentLucidity's OMSPs (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=317716) if you do. Not the ones that make things useable, but the ones that put stuff on angles. You can (and should!) totally junk up your lawns. The small space under your stilt house is the only area where things may actually be used however, so make sure you've take care to disable any interactions with anything outside that area.

http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/2/1/3/4/6/3/0/MTS2_SilentLucidity_876625_SpecialSlotsScaled.jpg (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=317716)

Amalia81

11th May 2012, 05:37 AM

I've got another quick question... since tubs and showers are banned until Medical is lifted, are we allowed to use custom objects such as this bucket (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=458098) to bathe toddlers in? (Since they can't be bathed in the sink for some strange reason.)

Phaenoh

11th May 2012, 02:18 PM

You can't bathe, the water is toxic. Doesn't matter what might hold the water, its all toxic and will make you sick. Don't turn your toddler into a zombie plz ;)

Amalia81

11th May 2012, 08:54 PM

You can't bathe, the water is toxic. Doesn't matter what might hold the water, its all toxic and will make you sick. Don't turn your toddler into a zombie plz ;)

I thought so. Stinky toddlers it is. :lol:

Arathe1

11th May 2012, 09:34 PM

You can't bathe, the water is toxic. Doesn't matter what might hold the water, its all toxic and will make you sick. Don't turn your toddler into a zombie plz ;)
Does that go for everyone? Because under Medical you mentioned: You are suggested to download the Sponge Bathe for All mod. Except if the water is toxic, there's no point in having it since you can't bathe at all. ;) (I hope I misread that, because permanent red hygiene would make it damn near impossible to get promoted, no?)

Anyhow, in my game I've unlocked Medical and Culinary so far, but I'm seriously considering starting over because I've accidentally cheated a LOT.

Rules I broke:

- You may not invite over any Sims except Sims they are have red hearts with, or are engaged to. (For some reason I was thinking they just had to be friends)
-You may not sell buy mode items via the buy or build tab. (I sold off the cat supplies after the cat died, and the grill after I unlocked culinary. I also kept selling and rebuying the radio because elders kept turning it on while other sims were trying to sleep. >.>)
-Sims may not redeem Needs perks, except children may redeem any Needs perks available on their toddler-to-child birthday. (Assuming 'need' perks are the motive ones, I overlooked this rule entirely.)
-Teenage, Child, and Elder Sims that have less than a 7 Body may not leave the lot for any reason, including going to work or community lots. (I had a teenager working with less than 7 body. Whoops.)
- You may not use the Spray command on plants, trees, or roaches; the spray needs to be reinvented. (I used spray on roaches once)
- Sims may not use easel, crafting benches, sewing machine, or pottery wheels. (I used the easel, but maybe it isn't cheating since that was one of my items brought back from college?)
- Sims may not purchase any Aspiration Reward objects. (This is the only one I broke on purpose. My founder was going to hit elder before he broke the first restriction, and since elders can't be controlled, my chance for an heir was going to go out the window. Challenge would have ended before I started.)
- Sims may not redeem Work Perks. (For some reason I thought it was only the aspiration specific things that couldn't be redeemed)
- Children and teenagers may not build skill with objects that do not also raise fun. (Yeeeah. I broke this rule so hard it's not even funny.)

Now that I've gotten a feel for the challenge, I do have a few things I'd like cleared up.

Children and teenagers may not build skill with objects that do not also raise fun.
Teenage, Child, and Elder Sims that have less than a 7 Body may not leave the lot for any reason, including going to work or community lots.

These two rules in tandem mean that teenagers can't get jobs until you've lifted Law Enforcement, correct? Since as far as I've been able to tell there's no way to raise body skill AND fun unless you use the ElectroDance Sphere, and you can't get THAT until you unlock Athletic. And sticking to the spirit of the challenge, even if I brought one home from college, it wouldn't be 'functional' until power was restored via science.

Also, do you know if it's possible to move in and marry dormies and/or YA townies after your founder moves back to the neighborhood? Because it seems to me that the only practical way for your founder to obtain a spouse (unless you get lucky and they bring home a friend from work frequently that's the opposite sex) would be to get the requisite red hearts while still in college and then invite them over and move them in after the challenge starts.

Yeah, I think I'm going to give it another go. On top of all the rules I broke, my house wasn't really designed around the realization that I couldn't move large furniture, which turned out to be a giant pain in the ass. Hopefully I'll have better luck in round 2!

Phaenoh

11th May 2012, 10:11 PM

Sponge bathing is still allowed because otherwise our sims would mutiny. Yes I realize this is an inconsistency, but in the big scheme of things, you need to get promoted and to do that, you need to have some hygiene points, and babies can't be taken away from you, so we can neglect them. I pretend that the water from my pump (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=233792) (which I always keep outside) is drawing water from down at the region's water table, which hasn't been totally ruined yet.

I think you've actually found an issue I need to address. Teens should not be getting jobs until Level 2, it's just too dangerous in Level 1. Elders may go to work still as long as an adult is also employed in the family and should have roughly the same-ish schedule. Both go to work in the morning within a couple of hours of each other and both come home again withing a couple of hours would be fine. Its ok if they have different days off though. I'll rewrite those bits to reflect this change.

Edit: Kids just can't leave the lot without a 'protection party', and teen jobs are restricted to either military or whatever mom and dad are doing until Level 2. I've removed the bit about the body score entirely.

GEGNER

13th May 2012, 05:08 AM

Around 10 households until I can get back to my apox! o wo

By the by, in terms of decorating: I know we can't use "artistic" decorations, but are we allowed to use ruins and dirty objects and the like (such as, oh, broken dishes and odds and ends clutter) for atmosphere even if they're technically deco items? It's weird to have a sort of clean apocalypse.

Phaenoh

13th May 2012, 06:05 PM

Totally. Go for it, make it as grudge and depressing as possible.

GEGNER

14th May 2012, 02:23 AM

Thanks!

Amalia81

14th May 2012, 08:11 PM

My game is going well so far. My founder's wife became Chief of Staff last night (finally, running water again!) and they just adopted a stray cat named Kim who got a job in the Security career. Their son is 3 days from his teen birthday and he's slated for the Military career.

(Though I sincerely wish they'd stop pestering me to hire a butler...)

Arathe1

15th May 2012, 12:54 AM

I finished off the first tier last night when my heir hit the top of the military career! Time to start building/upgrading community lots and decide what I want to unlock next. :D

Phaenoh

15th May 2012, 03:23 AM

Congrats, Arathe1 Bronze Survivor!

Arathe1

15th May 2012, 11:56 PM

Hm, I capped out the service pet career, but my elders are still unselectable. Would it hurt anything to remove the service career file from the mods folder?

ETA: And thank you! I'm having a blast with this challenge. <3

Amalia81

16th May 2012, 06:47 AM

Hm, I capped out the service pet career, but my elders are still unselectable. Would it hurt anything to remove the service career file from the mods folder?

No, it won't hurt anything to remove the service pet career file, in fact, that's what you're supposed to do after topping each of the careers. Exit the game, remove any mods relating to careers you've topped, then restart your game. Your elders should be selectable again.

Phaenoh

16th May 2012, 07:19 AM

Arathe1, Amalia81 is correct. The mods are pretty dead simple, they are only hiders and disablers. They have no intelligent coding to check to see if anyone has ever reached the top of a particular career. You need to save, exit, remove the mod, and restart after topping each career.

Arathe1

16th May 2012, 08:20 PM

Oh! I hadn't even realized, probably because I haven't unlocked anything yet that the mods keep me from doing anything important (I have the version without the object hiders, since I'm missing a couple of stuff packs). Excellent, thanks guys. :)

frankokomando

20th May 2012, 03:04 AM

I think I might try this challenge. I've always wanted to do an apocalypse-type neighborhood. :)

Amalia81

22nd May 2012, 08:31 AM

I've almost finished off Tier 1 - my Apox heir is a Commander in the military career! Once I've topped that, I'll be adopting another stray to work on lifting Service Pet. It drove me nuts having uncontrollable elders. (It's all fine and well that my founder and his wife were 3-bolters, but they spent nearly every waking moment flirting with each other... all the while neglecting their other needs. I love how sim pets seem to be better at taking care of themselves than human sims.)

Aside from that, I'm having lots of fun with this challenge! :Pint:

Update 5/23: My Apox heir just became General! Woo-hoo!

Amalia81

28th May 2012, 11:34 AM

Sorry for the double post, but a quick update: I've finished off all of Tier 1 as of last week, and my second-generation heir's wife just became Education Minister, so their teenage daughter is now college-bound with a future in the Business career. I've also lifted Service Pet, so elderhood is no longer something to be dreaded. :up:

samoronic

30th May 2012, 12:31 AM

>.< I've never even finished this challenge, I will try now though.

Arathe1

30th May 2012, 12:39 AM

One of my heirs topped the Law Enforcement career, which finishes off the second tier for me! Only one to go. d(' 'd)

A few observations/tips:

- Don't bother with a computer unless you really want to be able to write novels. You'll be spending all your time canceling sims trying to get their game on.

- Between Military and Education, just take the whole family to your military community lot and use the obstacle course (assuming you have skill ups on community lots and purchasable career rewards. Also assuming you forgot to buy one for the family/didn't have anywhere to put it) to build body. WAY more efficient than the radio. It also raises fun, which means kids and teens can use it!

-Twins are a micromanagement nightmare before you can hire a nanny. Be wary of the twins family aspiration perk, especially if the social worker has already been re-enabled by Law.

- Don't choose the Romance aspiration unless you want a challenge keeping your sim happy. Popularity is probably not a good idea either.

On the subject of career order:

Aim to unlock Law and Politics early. Politics will save you a lot of grief in the career department by allowing you to ignore chance cards (and thus avoid getting fired), and Law will allow you to start moving heirs out and work on unlocking careers in tandem. Law also allows you to finally lock wants, which is nice because if your game is anything like mine, your sims will be in red aspiration more often than not. ;)

Education is another good one to get out of the way early. It allows you to redeem knowledge aspiration perks; Eureka in particular comes in handy. Not to mention that college is basically a free chunk of time to work on skill building so you can max out careers asap. I've also found the Bookshelf of Education invaluable for building body. Seriously, nuts to the radio. =P

Consider Intelligence as another early career. Being able to chat on the phone went MILES towards making friends more easily. It's also half of the requirement to hire service sims.

Which leads me to Business. Being able to own your own business is sort of useless, since you'll (presumably) be using all your adult sims to unlock a career, BUT being able to finally sell off all those refrigerators littering your lawn is priceless. It's also the second half of the service sim requirement.

Once you knock those out of the way, it's really a matter of preference.

The only real benefit of unlocking Journalism is being able to check all the day's job offerings instead of just the first. Something to consider if you're having a hard time finding the job you want.

Science is handy for the Spray command if your sims are always running outside to stomp roaches. It also allows you to purchase a few convenient appliances such as the dishwasher.

Law Enforcement isn't a biggie. The smoke alarm/sprinkler is nice to have, and the career reward is handy for raising kids' cleaning, but that's about it.

Architecture and Natural Science are both largely cosmetic and can be left until the end, unless the dreary environment is getting you down. Architecture *does* lift the 8x8 restriction, which is nice for any new houses you build after Law.

Oceanography restrictions aren't a big deal, but being able to add spring into your season rotation is nice after all that snow.

Life of Crime really ought to be last on your list, since by the second generation the criminal cut is peanuts. Unless you unlock Architecture early and pour a lot of money into fancying the house up the value won't increase much, if at all.

Anyhow! That's just my two cents, and it really all depends on your playstyle. On to tier three! :D

Phaenoh

30th May 2012, 03:12 AM

Congrats to both Amalia81 and Arathe1 as our latest Bronze Apox Survivor and our first Silver Apox Survivor. Thank you for that good run down, it's very helpful, not just to the others trying to 'survive', but me as well, to know where the hard parts are.

shamengoddess

30th May 2012, 12:40 PM

Okay I reinstalled my game, everything seems to be running proper again, so I am going to give this a go!

*Just notice been here seven years and this is the eighth post, about one a year, is there a Lifetime Lurker Award? rotflmao

GEGNER

30th May 2012, 02:24 PM

I'm back to my Apox!

I just finished lifting business. Our house is now much cleaner and all of the one square items look nicer. The beds are still terrible, though.

Out of the three adult sims I gave left one is an elder and the woman who lifted business is going to have children soon. Her townie husband is halfway through education.

Oh, and don't use Garden Club sims for this challenge. They come as a completely clean slate with no money, skills, badges, no nothing.

Amalia81

2nd Jun 2012, 10:19 AM

Thanks for those pointers, Arathe1! (Cool avatar pic, by the way.) Next up on my to-do list are Business and Politics. My Apox heiress just had a baby girl, so she'll be going into Business while grandpa looks after the little one, and her townie husband has almost unlocked Politics.

sweetbaby160

10th Jun 2012, 10:47 AM

I'm sorry, I might've missed something here: once we've cleared Education are we allowed (or should we) send teens to college? The grandson of my founder has successfully toped Education right before turning elder & his eldest daughter has rolled a want for an education at Poisonwood Valley's barebones uni. I'm tempted to let her stay at home but it would be nice to make old dad proud of at least one of his kids (middle child Carl has recently joined the furry sect of werewolves & had to leave home early)....Gotta say, I have never had so many graves on one lot before, even with my Black Widow (which admittedly didn't last long, basically using her as an excuse to clear out ugly townies). My founder's lot has 14 graves on it already, truthfully 3 of which are townies that were prospective mates that were caught in an unfortunate elder-cooking-with-no-skills fire & one of which was a townie who was beset upon by all 3 roaming & very po'd family ghosts, one right after another. I'm thinking once challenge is done I might have to move out last descendent & turn the founder's lot into community haunted house. Take too long to move them all to community graveyard appropriate to their distinction...

katalina522

13th Jun 2012, 06:02 AM

hey all... are toddler toys prohibited by any of the restrictions? I can't remember.

Amalia81

13th Jun 2012, 09:36 AM

hey all... are toddler toys prohibited by any of the restrictions? I can't remember.

As far as I can tell, none of the toddler toys (except the activity table, which is restricted by Art) are restricted, although Phaenoh might be better able to answer that question.

Update: My fourth-gen heiress is a sophomore in college and her boyfriend is studying architecture. It's fitting that she's slated for Intelligence, since she looks like a younger version of Scully from X-Files (with reddish-brown hair instead of red). :cool:
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb106/pallyeleana/Sims/Erika3.png
My founder Charlie can be seen in this thread (http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=19.msg633421#msg633421) at Garden of Shadows. Those cheekbones have really carried down through the generations!

sweetbaby160

14th Jun 2012, 01:41 AM

she's very pretty!

EDIT: fearful of the dreaded double post, I have a quick question I am really hoping someone can answer...I read & reread the restrictions, but I am unable to find out where the restriction on the telescopes will be lifted. For story purposes I love the idea of a lot with supernatural spares & an alien family that have to live with isolation & discrimination until Intelligence is lifted. I know I could likely cheat & just make someone preggers with alien spawn via the blender & it's ilk, but I really do enjoy the adbuction (sorry, bad spelling this early) scene & the effects it has on any family members witnessing it....

Proxian_girl

20th Jun 2012, 02:04 AM

Founder Vivian Fay dropped out during the first semester of her sophomore year due to the apocalypse and made it a little over halfway in the Military career before flubbing a chance card that got her fired. She was less than ten days from elderhood and senility at the time, so I used the Elixer of Life she brought back from college. Now she's a single promotion away from Celebrity Chef status (Culinary), and has adopted a stray dog she affectionately dubbed Rascal, who became a hero and ended the Security Pet restriction while Vivian was still working drivethru at the Mess Hall. And she's got about two weeks left on the clock.

The best part: Vivian still can't cook. Every time she touches the grill, she ends up setting the house on fire. She's living on the cooking hobby cheese trays and cafeteria food at the Mess Hall.

Phaenoh

20th Jun 2012, 02:58 AM

sweetbaby, Music is what lifts the ban on telescopes. Your supernatural spares can not band together, isolation means 1 per lot. I could see if you have multiples of one kind living together, like a family of all aliens, but if you end up having normal children from them, I think the main family would try to 'rescue' the kids and take them away from their monster parents. Still, if you are following the rules, you won't have any supernaturals.

Proxian, if you are grilling inside, you will set the house on fire 100% of the time, regardless of cooking skill.

Modder

20th Jun 2012, 03:51 AM

I'm just about finished with this challenge. I only have to unlock the Dance restriction and I'll be finished! So excited..

Proxian_girl

20th Jun 2012, 06:26 AM

Proxian, if you are grilling inside, you will set the house on fire 100% of the time, regardless of cooking skill.
Thaaaat explains it. Still, I kinda like the interpretation that Vivian is a master chef who just fails grilling forever.

Since the time I posted, Vivian did get her last promotion. Someone on the army base with a smartphone recorded Vivian cooking at the Mess Hall and she became a YouTube sensation (read: Celebrity Chef). This led to an advertising deal that got Vivian a home kitchen makeover (read: I replaced the worn-looking fridge with the cheap basegame fridge, and the grill with the cheap basegame stove, and added coordinating flooring and wall paint), as well as fixing up the Mess Hall and the supply and power lines.

Somehow after all this time she still has sufficient relationship points with her college sweetheart Tyler Rider that they're still in love (Vivi, have you been making booty calls when I wasn't looking? That's an Intel violation...), so I guess the next step is to invite him to move in, set up his career, and start making Gen 2!

sweetbaby160

20th Jun 2012, 12:31 PM

sweetbaby, Music is what lifts the ban on telescopes. Your supernatural spares can not band together, isolation means 1 per lot. I could see if you have multiples of one kind living together, like a family of all aliens, but if you end up having normal children from them, I think the main family would try to 'rescue' the kids and take them away from their monster parents. Still, if you are following the rules, you won't have any supernaturals.

I was thinking of a 'family' lot of aliens or a lot with a werewolf (one of my playables rolls that want every single day), but that's hunky dory ;) I can wait until "the skies are clear once again" (potential story idea from the family 'rescue' thank you!) ..Thank you for clarifying
:beer:

lauratje86

20th Jun 2012, 05:18 PM

I am giving this challenge a go. I am currently playing my founder in college - I am rolling dice each day to see if/when the disaster happens! He's just started his fourth semester, and no disaster yet!

I have a couple of questions:

1. Is yoga restricted at all?

2. Can my founder bring electrical equipment back from college with him as one of his three items? Stuff that runs off the mains? How about battery powered stuff (mp3 player, handheld games console)? Are there any restrictions on what he can bring back? I saw no showers/baths (because there are no water pipes) but are there any others?

Phaenoh

20th Jun 2012, 05:30 PM

Yoga is restricted by Athletics I believe, and only things that are battery powered can be brought back and when your founder dies, so do the batteries. Pretty sure those are both explained, but I know its a lot of reading. ;)

Are you dropping out of my scrapbooking contest for good then? :(

lauratje86

20th Jun 2012, 05:46 PM

I'm afraid so :-( Unfortunately illness and family stuff got in the way and I wasn't able to complete round 1 or 2... :-( Sorry! It looked like a lot of fun, and I would've liked to get some practice at digital scrapbooking.

Yoga doesn't seem to be restricted by Athletics, or anything else. I searched the rules page for the word yoga and nothing came up, hence why I asked :-) Didn't see the batteries thing - it is a ton of reading!

**EDIT** My founder, Marcus Buckland, is at level 8 of the Culinary career. Not much longer and he'll be able to move his college fiancée Eloise in and marry her. He keeps rolling wants for marriage and babies, so clearly he can't wait! :-) He has maxed cooking and logic, and is pretty good at creativity too. He adopted a cat, Moonshine, and he has reached the top of the pet Security career, which means that Marcus can now buy himself a better bed. Yay!

katalina522

20th Jun 2012, 10:18 PM

Yoga is restricted by Athletics I believe, and only things that are battery powered can be brought back and when your founder dies, so do the batteries. Pretty sure those are both explained, but I know its a lot of reading. ;)
So to clarify -- what *are* the ways you can earn body points before unlocking any restrictions? Or is this a trick question? ;)

lauratje86

20th Jun 2012, 10:27 PM

Marcus got to level 9 of the Culinary career, but then got fired after a chance card went against him. Time for him to get a job in Military and start again, I guess... :-(

**EDIT** Actually, he's too old to reach level 10 before he becomes an (uncontrollable) elder. So I failed :-( Bah!

SusannaG

21st Jun 2012, 12:41 AM

So to clarify -- what *are* the ways you can earn body points before unlocking any restrictions? Or is this a trick question? ;)

Working out to the cheap radio?

Proxian_girl

21st Jun 2012, 01:08 AM

^ Now you know why I included a keg of Elixer of Life in my three items!

Anyway, I finally got some pictures for you all of the Fay family.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_vivian_01.jpg

Our founder, Vivian Fay. Presently 11-12 days from elderhood, and starting to show signs of forgetfulness, bad hearing, and early symptoms of senility like randomly canceling assigned actions of her own volition. A Pleasure Sim born under Sagittarius, Vivian is active and playful, but a bit of a slob. However, she has a strong love of food, and spent some time studying Art nutrition at college before the meltdown happened, which enabled her to work at the army camp's Mess Hall. Recently, her playful antics in the Mess Hall kitchen ended up on YouTube and she became an internet sensation, inspiring the outside world to send food supplies to "that crazy cooking lady in the soup kitchen".

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tyler_01.jpg

Tyler Rider (Rider-Fay) was Vivian's boyfriend in college, but when she left to see the damage of the meltdown, he stayed at the safety of La Fiesta Tech. However, when he saw Vivian becoming famous on YouTube, he was filled with the desire to see her again, and braved the blasted wastelands to find her. A Romance Sim born under Taurus, Tyler has forsaken his dreams of eternal parties and beautiful women in favor of medical studies to assist the afflicted... oh and condoms. Those are important.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_rascal_01.jpg

Vivian was so desperate for interaction after so long in the desolate wastes, that she fed some of her meager rations to a random stray dog who'd been nosing around. Rascal has remained with Vivian ever since, and made such a powerful dent in the local crime scene that sims everywhere are sleeping easier just to know he's there.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_army_01.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_army_02.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_army_03.jpg

The Army Recon Base Camp where Vivian failed to get her Military on (botched Chance Card).

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_mess_01.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_mess_02.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_mess_03.jpg

The Mess Hall where Vivi got her Culinary on. Since the Culinary restrictions have been lifted, a sponsored diner has moved in, the grocery store now has better stock, and it is a much more pleasant place all-around.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_infirmary_01.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_infirmary_02.jpg

The Infirmary where Tyler WILL be getting his Medicine on, eventually (hopefully!). While doing a visit here to give Rascal a bath, Tyler found a dog he named Ariel. She growls a lot and chews the furniture, but he kept autonomously giving her doggy treats, so she's his dog now.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_shack_01.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_shack_02.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_shack_03.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_shack_04.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_shack_05.jpg

The... shack... where they're presently living (and a brief glimpse of Ariel).

Basement - contains reading area. Will later contain baby.

"Ground" floor - contains main living area.

First/second floor - contains dogs and some skilling items (the chess set and chair were later moved here).

Rooftop - contains whatever isn't presently in use and can be moved per Athletic restriction, plus awning as necessary.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_wedding_01.jpg

The wedding. That llama is a family friend who accompanied Tyler over.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_couchlol_01.jpg

What Vivian did after the wedding. Honestly, I kind of love that she's always spinning wants to jump on the couch and serve food. It makes it so much easier to keep her aspiration healthy.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ariel_01.jpg

Oh, look, I do have a picture of Ariel. She came knowing only one trick: "Stay". Since then, Vivian's taught her to Shake, Sit Up, and Come Here. It's unlikely that she'll live until Tier One is lifted, and Vivian will probably die mad, but maybe Tyler will have a Service Pet in his old age.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimberly_01.jpg

Aaaaand baby Kimberly, first Fay child of Gen 2. Since Vivian has a three-day work week, she managed to not lose her job after being pregnant. Tyler's going to hold off going into Medical so he can watch over little Kimber and skill-build for faster promotions.

lauratje86

21st Jun 2012, 08:42 PM

I almost gave up on this challenge for good after failing the first time round, but I decided not to be so silly and to give it another go :-)

Once again my founder is the son of my selfsim I started off him as a teen with two parents (my selfsim and a sim version of a friend of mine), for story purposes, but sent him to college straight away. He decided to study Psychology.

In his first year of college he was on the Dean's list for both semesters and he dated two of his dormies; Meghan & Inge. He and Meghan fell in love, but although he has two bolts and 100/100 relationship with Inge they didn't fall in love.

He started his second year of college, full of dreams for the future, but on the second day the apocalypse struck! (Because I rolled a double 6 :lol:)

He moved back to the main 'hood, where he collected his parents' graves and moved into his new home. He took three items with him - an easel, a vat of elixir of life and a nice bed. And now we shall see how he gets on! :-)

***EDIT*** How high are the bills meant to be, when using your mod, Phaenoh? My founder last time round was getting bills of about $3000-$4000, but my founder this time round just got bills of $22000 even though their houses are almost identical....

Phaenoh

21st Jun 2012, 10:57 PM

Ridiculously high, but they are based on lot value, so if you have a nice house, its going to be more pricey. Sorry to hear about the contest.

As for body building, take your entire family to the military base camp and skill there (just be sure to have a Comm Lot Skilling hack!)

Proxian, your sims look so clean and not at all like they are starving or surviving an apocalypse. The dog does though. The boy looks a hell of a lot like a vampire too....

Proxian_girl

22nd Jun 2012, 01:58 AM

Sorry, I didn't have enough grungy stuff downloaded! I'm trying to remedy that tonight, and then I'll give them some properly dirty furniture (and I guess I'll grunge up the clinic-- though you'd imagine the workers there would keep that clean and tidy as possible). I can't give them makeovers for obvious reasons, though.

Tyler isn't a vampire, he's a (former) Dormie; there are geneticized pale skins and funky eye colors in my Downloads bin and he spawned with an odd combo. My vampires are blue-ish right now, I've seen one lurking around when the Fays have been on their comm lot visits (Vivian checked him out and thought he was hot stuff). I'm still sorting out how I want my game to look, I guess. Glad to hear the dogs passed muster.

Phaenoh

22nd Jun 2012, 02:54 AM

You are allowed to give your sims apox makeovers to make them look grudgier, that doesn't count against any rules, you just can't make them pretty, and you shouldn't get to keep pretty sims. :)

Proxian_girl

22nd Jun 2012, 03:16 AM

Oh, really? I thought you weren't supposed to give them any makeovers (maybe from the original rules). I'll look for stuff to grunge them up, then.

Was trashing the lots a little and realized you might have also been objecting to the big flatscreen TV on the second floor. Vivian accidentally got that from a networking encounter on one of the first days, so as punishment I stuck it to that wall and walled it off further, so nobody can use it but it contributes to lot value/bills/chance of theft.

Modder

22nd Jun 2012, 08:43 AM

http://i45.tinypic.com/undec.png

Ladies and gentlepeople, may I present to you the sim that saved us all: Caryl Brown!

She alone discovered the simple joys of tapping along to the beat of music as a young child and continued to make more elaborate moves as she grew, eventually bringing back to life a long-lost art form called 'Dance'. Some sims thought she was mad, but once she graduated from uni she began spreading 'dance' around the region by hosting classes for young sims, creating a newfound trend. 'Dance' began to spread and soon enough, she had become a World-Class Ballet Dancer, unlocking the final restriction and completing the Apocalypse Challenge!

*pats self on back*
It's been a looong journey but I can finally say I've completed an apocalypse challenge. Thank you so much, Phaenoh, for this alternate ruleset and providing me with the hacks to help me stay consistent with this challenge. Without your creations, I probably wouldn't have dared try it. Now... I think I'll try a BaCC! (and this time I'll keep track of it with a story)

Amalia81

22nd Jun 2012, 12:16 PM

Congrats, Modder! :gjob:

My Apox challenge is still going strong. I've lifted Intelligence and Architecture, so my family lot got a decent makeover. Next up, Law Enforcement!

Phaenoh

22nd Jun 2012, 02:45 PM

Congrats Modder! You are (I think) my first Gold Apox Survivor. Congrats! If you wouldn't mind letting us know what parts you had trouble with, any places you had to cheat a little because the rules were messed up, stuff like that, so I can make this challenge better.

lauratje86

22nd Jun 2012, 05:37 PM

Congratulations Modder! :-) When did you start your Apocalypse Challenge? I can't believe someone managed to finish it, that's awesome :-) I have yet to even get past my founder.....

Modder

22nd Jun 2012, 08:01 PM

Thanks, everyone!
Phaenoh, I didn't encounter any particular problems along the way and I don't think I ever had to cheat. Your ruleset mods were very helpful in keeping me from accidentally breaking the rules.

Lauratje86, I believe I started somewhere around 15 February 2012 (if the dates on my earliest images are correct). That means my challenge had a duration of 128 days, or 4 months, seven days (1 week).

SusannaG

22nd Jun 2012, 08:01 PM

Congrats, Modder!

And good luck on your BACC; I'm doing one of those now, using Nepheris' ruleset. It's a lot of fun.

Proxian_girl

22nd Jun 2012, 10:04 PM

Phae, I just ran Clean Installer and your rule-enforcement mods for Adventurer, Architecture, and Business came up as empty packages instead of behavior-modding hacks. Please check those? In the meantime I'll redownload the entire suite and reinstall them.

ETA: Nope, still coming up empty. I have the no object hiders version since I don't have Happy Holidays or Mansions & Gardens SPs.

Kimberly grew to toddlerhood and will become a child in a little bit. Her sign is Capricorn and she was cursed with ten points of neatness and a couple of slob parents. Poor girl does not like being unable to have baths, and has made a habit of crapping herself just so she can get her diaper changed.

Tyler discovered a passion for gaming that he is living out by way of the chess board. He started actually rolling wants to gain logic skills and maximize gaming interest, so his aspiration went from midway down the red part to full platinum in a couple of days. On the other hand, trying to grunge him up with scuffy CC hair and five o'clock shadow took him from from "pristine and kinda funny looking" to "hot mess".

Sunbee

23rd Jun 2012, 05:02 PM

The combination of two days and community lot skilling for an adult start is very exploitable. About as good as a stint in uni--Bren maxed body, got a couple points in creativity and logic, got five or six crushes, one love, three big tvs, a dance sphere, a hot tub, a whole passel of bouquets, and still has an hour before eight Wednesday am on his clock. I can't say I was really even trying with him--it's probably possible to get any of those # LTWs except family in two days that way--but Bren wants to top Intelligence. He's got two smart milks and an elixir of life in his inventory and I'm wondering if it's legal to have him drink elixir in his last hour of normality.

Phaenoh

23rd Jun 2012, 09:39 PM

Prox, most of my mods were just object hiders, so its likely that they are empty packages. I just included them because it makes it easier to have them than have to remember why they don't exist. I'm put it back on my To-Do list to separate the object hiders so everyone can use them.

Sunbee, it's fine to drink your elixer, a normal uni start would have given you a full adulthood lifespan to work with, so taking back your two days is ok. All of those gifts are likely going to cost you later when you have to pay the mob. I don't think you are any better off than a mid uni start, so I think its fine.

Proxian_girl

24th Jun 2012, 10:18 PM

Time for another picdump from the Fay family:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_vivmakeover_01.jpg

Quit smiling, Vivian, it's the end of the world and you don't feel fine-

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_pleasuresims_01.jpg

Oh. Carry on, I guess.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_house_01.jpg

Ground floor madeover.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_dogs_01.jpg

I just realized I don't have any actual shots of the other floors, so here's the dogs on the upper floor (Rascal is an elder at this point)...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimbertot_01.jpg

... And Kimberly in the basement.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tymakeover_01.jpg

And Tyler, who went from "pristine and kinda gonk" to "scruffy and kinda hot". And kinda unhappy since his aspiration was in the dumps at this point.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_rascaldeath_01.jpg

Rascal headed out to the big kennel in the sky after one last day of work.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_vivianelder_01.jpg

And Vivian, in her final moments of lucidity, quit her job at the Mess Hall because she didn't trust herself in the kitchen any more.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_vivianelder_02.jpg

Yeah, this was just cute.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_infirmakeover.jpg

Kimberly transitioned into childhood, so everybody went out to the community lots together to give Ariel and Kimberly a proper wash for the first time in weeks, and Tyler (after a wash of his own) signed up at the infirmary.

They couldn't go more than once a week because of the dangers of zombies and crooks, which little Kimberly resolved to do something about so she could go take baths more often. But the army didn't want her to join until she was big enough to hold a gun and smart enough to know how to use it.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimberkiddo_01.jpg

Kimberly actually had a pretty well-adjusted childhood. She spent most of her time either playing with her parents and Ariel (which filled tons of wants, she actually spent the whole time in upper green and lower gold aspiration), or playing with blocks in the basement...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimberkiddo_02.jpg

Or, you know, repeatedly breaking the sink in a desperate attempt to wash off those green clouds. (Seriously, she broke the sink about six times in the course of her childhood, including twice in a row at one point.)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tylermed_01.jpg

Meanwhile, Tyler's skilling has had the expected result for his career at the infirmary. I think this is his promotion to Resident, which earned him the career reward. Did you know that thing builds Fun? Anyway, his Mechanical and Logic skills are maxed, so he just needs to finish up Cleaning and make more friends with walkbys since he can't make phone calls to the ones he's losing.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimberteen_01.jpg

And this was right while Kimberly was transitioning, so she needs scruffier pajamas or something. She's now a Fortune/Romance sim (randomly generated) with the LTW of having 20 lovers. Somehow I don't think that's happening. Her Mechanical skill is nearly maxed and her Charisma is halfway there so all she needs now is Body for a military career, and her Cleaning skill is also at 4. Did you know super-tidy sims can build Fun by cleaning?

Phaenoh

25th Jun 2012, 04:03 AM

Love it Prox, that looks much more like an apox challenge family. Keep going!

Sunbee

25th Jun 2012, 06:57 AM

Bren reached the top of Culinary, married a townified Isabel Baldwin, and they are expecting their first kid. Isabel just happens to be a Captain Hero, which is also her LTW. She has off the days Bren works, so that's nice, but unfortunately had a whole inventory of stuff. Oh Repo Man, where are you? More stuff than I could put where they can't get at it--she's still got a telescope in her inventory. She had a card playing table, a dance sphere, two fountains, two aquariums, and various art objects.

Proxian_girl

26th Jun 2012, 12:26 AM

God. Damn. That was close.

Tyler literally made Chief of Staff the day before he aged into senility. Vivian died the moment he got home with the good news. And she took all her social connections with her. If she had died any sooner, he would not have had enough family friends for that last promotion.

Have fun running the household, Kimberly. It's all up to you now. But hey, at least now you have a shower! Well, a bucket that you can dump on your head, anyway. But the water is clean! (Kimberly is still a teenager.)

ETA: Picdump!

House makeover pictures:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_house_ex.jpg

Exterior.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_house_basement.jpg

Basement.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_house_ground.jpg

"Ground" floor.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_house_upper.jpg

Upper floor. The roof is not presently in use.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimberly_cooking.jpg

As a fortune sim, Kimberly had wants to earn money, so I sent her to work on Vivian's unlocked candy machine. She proceeded to make it spill every time, apparently just for the thrill of mopping up chocolate puddles. She finally got it right after three or four Cooking skill points earned entirely by spilling chocolate (and almost as many Cleaning points earned entirely by mopping it up!).

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimberly_fix.jpg

She also still breaks the sink, though now that she's a teenager she can at least fix it herself instead of getting Tyler to do it.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tyler_02.jpg

Speaking of Tyler, I gave him darker wrinkles and beard to show his age, and a less glossy hairstyle.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimber_stalker.jpg

This is totally an appropriate way to greet a teenager. (But he was cute and had nice facial features so I made Kimberly greet him properly, and they got along fabulously, no negative interactions at all. He will probably be her husband, receding hairline or no.)

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_vivfail_1.jpg

Ariel grew old and Vivian went off the deep end altogether.

Ariel: EXCUSE ME WTF R U DOIN

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_vivfail_2.jpg

VIVIAN THE BATHROOM IS OPEN. PUT AWAY YOUR PARTY HAT AND GO WASH.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_genie_what.jpg

I missed the Gypsy lady, but we now have a lamp in case someone lifts the Paranormal restriction.

The skunk is such a frequent visitor that by all rights it should have been adopted by now.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tyler_success.jpg

SUCCESS. Especially considering that A) this was his last day as an adult, and B) he'd just failed three or four chance cards in a row, I kid you not.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_vivian_death.jpg

I also was not kidding when I said Vivian kicked the bucket the minute Tyler got home. I almost missed it completely because I was cheering over Tyler, but then his aspiration meter suddenly nosedived and I noticed Vivian wasn't in the family panel any more.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tyler_elder.jpg

Tyler got old...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_rascal_ghost.jpg

... and Rascal paid us a visit from the great kennel in the sky.

ETA (again, because double-posting is rude): I've made it to Bronze Apox Survivor status! Kimberly was employed as a teenager in the Military field and dragged Tyler off to base camp for workouts whenever it was legit to build her Body skill since working out to the radio wasn't fun enough, so when she aged to adult she got immediately promoted to Flight Officer (earning her the career reward)! She aged badly and went into aspiration failure since she didn't get to go to college (and also Ariel died), but thanks to Fortune's tendency to spin "go to work", "earn skill points toward promotion" and "get promoted" wants she recovered quickly and made it to General in about a week!

She celebrated by inviting the guy with the receding hairline over, popped her first kiss and married him on the spot. His name is Miles Preston (now Miles Preston-Fay), and he is a Family Sim with the lifetime want of improving education for sims everywhere as an Education Minister-- no wonder he got along well with Kimberly and her college regrets! They even have two sparks of chemistry for each other, even though neither one fills any of the other's turn-ons (?!?!?!?! Kimberly's got a bottle of ReNuYu Porta-Chug, so I might as well boost that to three sparks).

Current plan of action is that Kimberly will finish her work week as General, while Miles builds skills, and then quit so he can visit the schoolhouse and get a job and she can get pregnant. They will also look for stray pets to adopt for the Service Pet career, as Tyler's remaining notes from his medical career suggest animal companionship is the best therapy for the senility plaguing elders (like himself). This generation I want to try and have two kids so they can have spare households and lift more restrictions-- in particular I want that Architecture restriction gone so I can place the Military obstacle course and get rid of the radio!

Modder

2nd Jul 2012, 10:24 AM

Hey guys, just popping in to mention a little gem of a download I found over at GOS (http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=4135.0) .
It's a set of broken fridges, perfect for when you've got a buildup of empty ones lying around and want them to truly look 'broken'.

Phaenoh

2nd Jul 2012, 05:44 PM

Modder, thanks for the link to the broken fridges! I know there is a rule saying that you can't sell back stuff, but if you have empty fridges (or similar things) you may always sell *and replace* them with a broken grudge version instead for 'atmosphere'. (Just like allowing mirrors to make your sims dirty and haggard.)

Prox, congrats on your Bronze Apox Survivor status!

For everyone else working on this challenge, I've almost finished splitting up my object hider mods by EP so everyone can use them as well, regardless of which EPs you have. If you aren't using them yet, you should, and you will be quite surprised at how barren the catalog is with the mods. It's scary!

Sunbee

2nd Jul 2012, 07:39 PM

Ruling on a lot full of sims hack?
Cephas is a happy teen, knowledge/fortune, but he won't be happy soon because he's about to run out of cooking points to get and be fighting the rest of the family over wiping down the counters.
The cat Yangtze is very slow to get promotions in spite of all skills and a good mood.
Margaret, child, has maxed logic, taught her little sisters their nursery rhymes and has nothing to do but compete for counter wiping privileges for another day.
Twins Priscilla and Lydia, toddlers, still need to learn to walk. They have three days to get there. Pris got all the playful points and Lyd all the outgoing points. They will soon be competing for the fun of wiping counters.
Founder Bren, elder, works three days a week as a Celebrity Chef, usually wins the race for the counters, and burns lobster thermodore. He's permaplat off of LTA points.
Isabel, the only adult, got fired on a chance card from Captain Hero, so stays home putting out fires and is now pregnant with twins. She has a mere seven neat points, three fewer than the rest of the family, so leaves the housework to them. She wants ten kids, hence the question about the hack.
And, something is screwy, presumably in my downloads folder, as I'm getting an 'energy rebate' refund every Monday of a hair over $10,000 simoleans. Something related to all the junk Isabel had in her inventory--card table, decoratives, dance sphere, telescope. Cyjon's pizza box appraises the bills correctly, so I'm not sure what to think the cause of this is.

Proxian_girl

2nd Jul 2012, 11:48 PM

Pics eventually, update now:

Kimberly has a four-day work week as a General, so I had her get knocked up just before the "weekend", and the Fays circled the community lots before she started showing. I've adjusted the Tier 1 lots with slightly cleaner paint, carpeting, and furniture, while the old things naturally got "recycled" onto the new Tier 2 lots: a run-down library functioning as an ad-hoc schoolhouse where Miles got hired, a crude research laboratory with military-sponsored scientists trying to find ways to deal with the disaster, and a shack that's doing double-duty as a city hall and a news press.

While preggers, Kimberly found a stray cat on the Fay family lot, which promptly got assimilated adopted. Then I sent her to bed, but that was when her water broke, resulting in baby Janet Fay!

Kimber did not quit her job as I was planning in my previous post. Tyler's still kicking around, and I suspect the Reaper doesn't come knocking until 6 PM (three hours after Miles gets home and two hours after Kimberly does), so for now Tyler's on baby duty while the parents are at work. I'm hoping to get Dacoda on the Service Pet fast track so I can tell more accurately when Tyler's gonna kick the bucket (and get him to quit trying to shove more baby bottles into Janet's face when she isn't hungry).

Phaenoh

2nd Jul 2012, 11:49 PM

Sorry Sunbee, you can't have a hack that lets you up the number of sims on a lot. This is a strategizing issue for you. Part of this challenge is to figure out the correct 'breeding rate' to be able to pull it off the fastest. I am not opposed however, to have a LTWsanity hack/fix (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=230294) that brings 10 down to something more like 5.

Energy refunds come from solar panels and windmills, you sure you don't have one of those accidentally? They are strictly prohibited until like NatSci or Ocean or something like that. What is Cyjon's pizza box?

SusannaG

3rd Jul 2012, 12:20 AM

Cyjon's pizza box is a debugger. It's in the shape of a pizza box, and is found in miscellaneous/miscellaneous.

http://drupal.cyjon.net/node/148

Amalia81

3rd Jul 2012, 02:06 AM

Just a quick question: Is it ok to use custom lights in the form of candles (like these candles by Buggybooz (http://buggybooz.blogspot.com/2008/07/candid-by-candlelight.html)) prior to lifting the Science restriction?

SomethingLacking757

3rd Jul 2012, 02:25 AM

I can't wait till I get my Uni collection and pets collection in 15 days to Participate!

Phaenoh

3rd Jul 2012, 02:30 AM

Amalia, totally! Use candles, if you have my object hider mods, you'll notice that none of the candles are hidden.

SomethingLacking, can't wait to have you!

Sunbee

3rd Jul 2012, 03:04 AM

Yeah, I'm sure I don't have any solar panels or windmills. But I do have a custom windmill in my downloads folder (I think) in advance of the restriction being lifted because grungy wood looks better than shiny metal, right? I know I downloaded one, anyway. I suppose that could be affecting something.
The way the kids are spaced, by the time the oldest is old enough for a real job all the younger sibs will be at least old enough to be children--there's no way around that cause Isabel is 13 days from elder and he's more than that from adult. Her two pre-existing kids don't count for challenge purposes but they're out there being townies somewhere, and probably part of why she keeps rolling this one want.

Proxian_girl

3rd Jul 2012, 04:16 AM

Well, Tyler just stopped being a priority and Kimberly's gonna have to quit her job. Though, Miles got a timely promotion and bought her another work day (as a University Guest Lecturer he gets Tuesdays off).

Janet slept through the commotion in the basement/nursery. Something about people crying and some guy in a gray hoodie taking Grandpa away.

Dacoda has been promoted to a Seeing Eye Cat. He already knew how to roll over on command, so he should qualify pretty easily for Rescue Pet, which I think is top of the heap.

Phaenoh

3rd Jul 2012, 05:45 AM

I have a mod that lets you know what job level you are at (pets included). It's super helpful for this challenge in particular. Check it out here: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=436793

Proxian_girl

3rd Jul 2012, 05:56 AM

Thanks. I looked at it, but I think I like the tension of not knowing what's coming next.

Amalia81

3rd Jul 2012, 06:40 AM

Amalia, totally! Use candles, if you have my object hider mods, you'll notice that none of the candles are hidden.

Thanks Phaenoh, that's what I thought. I have the hider mods, so I was pretty sure those were ok, but I wanted to double check. :)

Update: I'm on Generation 5, and my heiress Brianne (who can be seen here (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=3893684#post3893684)) is a freshman in college studying law enforcement and her boyfriend will be lifting Law. Since that restriction will be lifted soon, I decided to do something as yet unprecedented in my challenge and let Brianne's parents have another child. Brianne now has a baby brother named Jackson, who's also the first boy to be born to this family since the second generation. :rofl: He'll be lifting either Science or Oceanography.

jacknewall

3rd Jul 2012, 04:24 PM

alot of effort well done

Proxian_girl

5th Jul 2012, 06:36 PM

I still don't think I have pics to post, but Miles Preston-Fay became the first Fay to achieve permaplat, and the Education (Miles) and Service Pet (Dacoda) restrictions are both lifted. Janet and Kimberly greeted and befriended every damn walkby they could to get those last few promotions. Also, Kimberly had a second child, Ryan Fay, who is still a baby.

Janet is a child, almost to teen state, and has made leaps and bounds in Creativity and Logic. Once she's a teen, she'll be working on her Mechanical stat, too. She's very tired of listening to Ryan scream (since they share the nursery), and wants to study architecture so she can expand the house and have her own bedroom some day.

ETA: Oh, hey, look, pics:

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_miles_01.jpg

Miles, post-makeover. I left him the receding hairline and gave him some face fuzz and wrinkles.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_gen2_clothes.jpg

Obviously his approach to apocalypse-wear was to forgo a shirt. This was actually his default indoors/warm weather outfit; I opted not to change it because it seems in-character for him to literally give up the shirt on his back, and maybe a little because I think he's attractive :x. Likewise, it made sense to me for finicky, fastidious, 10-points-tidy Kimberly to try to have clean clothes even in the ruins of Sim City, so I left her default outfit alone, too (it's the brown jacketed dress from this post (http://modthesims.info/download.php?p=2024397#post2024397)).

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_dacoda_01.jpg

This is Dacoda. Through rigorous training, he learned to perform basic household tasks for the elderly, inspiring them and saving their energy so they could keep their thoughts together. Dacoda's efforts encourage sims everywhere to train their animals to assist the elderly as well, helping to dispel the madness that had descended upon them.

Dacoda likes sitting on the furniture, but none of the Fays mind because he's so cute doing it and usually prefers empty counters to anything that needs to be used.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_janet_tot.jpg

Janet was sort of wall-eyed as a tyke, but I found the look oddly cute. She spent her toddlerhood (and some of her childhood) drawing on the kiddie table, pictures of the big house she wanted to live in someday and of what she thought grass and trees and birds and llamas would have looked like before the disaster took them all away.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_family_lol.jpg

Miles has been so easy to please with the aspirations. He keeps spinning wants to "play with relative/talk with relative/talk hobby with someone/play chess/boink Kimberly/have a baby", and naturally he rolled wants to potty train Janet and make sure she aged well.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_janet_kid.jpg

Janet's a little less wall-eyed as a kid. She took to the chess set like a duck to water and has spent many nights talking philosophy with her dad until she's ready to fall off the chair and still insisting she isn't tired at all.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ryan_baby.jpg

Part of this might be the distraction in the room she has to sleep in. This is Ryan. He tends to crap himself and start crying at 3 in the morning, which annoys Janet since she has to live in the nursery with him. She's starting to study pictures in books of houses the way they were built before the disaster happened, so she can try to figure out how to get her family a house big enough that she can have her own room.

In other news, I have decided that the first two Tier 3 restrictions I want to do away with are Athletic, for the ability to move furniture...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tyghost_01.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tyghost_02.jpg

... and Supernatural, because Tyler's ghost is kind of a dick.

Shebly

5th Jul 2012, 10:07 PM

Wow, this is totally not the apoc challenge I'm used to lol. I'll just have to give it a try though! I'll keep y'all posted on how everything turns out.

theinsaneeraser

6th Jul 2012, 01:05 AM

I plan to do a Sims 2 LP of my attempt at this, it will be a VLP, so if you would like updates, I can give you links, or I can just post pictures if that is easier.

I wont be starting for a little bit, as I am looking for some good mods to make my lot look all post-apocalyptic and I need to sort out my YT and BTV account, but I can't wait to start this!

SomethingLacking757

6th Jul 2012, 04:32 AM

Before I go into it in 12 days can't I just install all packages aside from BV?

Proxian_girl

6th Jul 2012, 07:20 PM

Quick question for Phae: Education restrictions were lifted courtesy of Miles, but Law is still restricted. This means the college is running, but my sims can't move there, right?

Shebly

7th Jul 2012, 05:34 AM

Two days into the challenge and I've already run into a dilema of sorts. :x I don't know who should be my founder's spouse! Basically, its came down to true love or the one in the career I need lifted. His true love, Hailey, has been his spouse in every apocalypse I've done with this sim. She is always his #1 in the twojeffs crystal ball and is the one he always has the most bolts for. The only downside to marrying her in the incarnation is the she is a Hall of Famer aka lvl 10 in the Athletic career. It will mean an instant lift further down the line, but that won't get me out of teir one.

The second girl, Tori, is a general practitioner in the Medical career. She has one bolt with Brett and getting them to be friends was like pulling teeth. She's also a fortune sim, which are impossible to deal with in apocs. That's about all there is to say about her. :x

I honestly don't know which way to go so some input would be appreciated. :D

Phaenoh

7th Jul 2012, 05:23 PM

SomethingLacking, I'm not sure which 'packages' you are talking about. Are you asking about my hider mods? If you don't have BV then you can't use the object mods. I'm working on a version that doesn't require all EPs, but I don't have it completely ready yet.

Prox, no, the college is running, and you can go, you just have to move back in with your parents after you graduate. I know something about that myself >.<

Shebly, there is nothing stopping you from marrying your sweetheart and then making her get a different job. You won't get the instant lift later, but it's not that great anyways ;) Marry the one your sim is in love with, it will make everything easier. Nothing is worse than surviving the end of the world only to be stuck with someone you truly hate. Seems like a recipe for sim-icide. XD

Shebly

8th Jul 2012, 04:55 PM

Thank you for your suggestion, Phaenoh, and for giving me the ok to get her another job.

Brett was easy to keep happy during the Hopelessness phase cuz all he did was roll wants for Hailey so inviting her over wasan easy way to get him platinum. :D Brett lifted Medical and Haily is working on Military; luckily her Athletic background gave her all the skills she'll need. She did get hit with a chance card that toook one of her body points tho, which SUCKED. Their son, Belgarion, or his spouse will be lifting Culinary; I may just get both the job and see who tops it first lol.

Phaenoh

8th Jul 2012, 05:05 PM

I'd suggest give it to the son and get the wife pregnant as soon as possible with a couple young ones. They'll grow up ready to start lifting level two and by the time dad lifts it, they might be close to teen/adulthood themselves.

Shebly

9th Jul 2012, 04:44 PM

I've been playing like a fiend lol. Belgarion grew up and married his intended, Camryn, who just so happened was a Hostess. I was going to take your suggestion, Phaenoh, but I decided to keep her in her career. She has been going to work pregnant using the family van. Belgarion is also in the Culinary career, but progress is slow. For Camryn cuz she has to skill and Bel, well, he's just an idiot. -_- He's a pleasure sim and never rolls any wants I can fulfill...luckily his lifetime aspiration bar is almost full.

Phaenoh

9th Jul 2012, 08:04 PM

Going to work pregnant? How does that work? That sounds like cheats to me ;)

SusannaG

9th Jul 2012, 08:21 PM

I thought pregnant sims were still able to "walk to work"?

Proxian_girl

9th Jul 2012, 08:28 PM

Well, Janet grew to a teenager. I used an online Aspiration generator to assign her aspiration: Romance/Knowledge (the generator kept repeating Romance). She's pretty from the front, but somewhat lacking in profile. However, her childhood interest in architecture seems to have faded in favor of the burning desire to learn everything she can about what's going on in the Sim City area, by becoming a Media Magnate.

Ryan has grown to be a child. I'm thinking he will become the Law, which will enable Janet to move out as a spare (hey, she wanted her own room!). He also has his father's nose, which pretty much sealed the deal; I like Miles's nose.

For now I have to figure out how to juggle a four-sim household with only three beds.

Sunbee

9th Jul 2012, 09:26 PM

Going to work pregnant? How does that work? That sounds like cheats to me ;)
Just click on the family car at the appropriate time of day and pick go to work, same as you would if your sim's new job level after a promotion was still within work hours. That's what Isabel had to do up until she lost her job to a chance card. (Seriously, she was Captain Hero and she never learned how to shut down the nuke plant?!)

Shebly

10th Jul 2012, 01:47 AM

No cheats I swear, even before I had CC I would send preggo sims to work in the car. Just wait til their carpool would normally arrive and click on the car and the option 'Drive to Work' will be there. Be warned tho, if a sim is within an hour or two of giving birth they will refuse to go. So plan pregnancies accordingly!

They can walk to work w/o cheats as well; but that is restricted under Military or LE or something. I may have Military lifted, but I'm not going to send a pregnant woman to work on foot even if she is just pixels. I have a few ounces of decency left afterall. lol

In other news, Belgarion became perma plat from the lifetime aspiration meter! The promotions rolled in and now he is at lvl 9 and Camryn is at lvl 8. Almost a bronze survivor; unless I epically screw the pooch on chance cards! (I don't have pets installed so those restriction aren't being applied tg)

Phaenoh

10th Jul 2012, 03:18 AM

Ok, I totally didn't know about that 'aspect' of the game, but actually, I'm all for it. I didn't like the fact that maternity leave was forced. In an apox world, maternity leave wouldn't exist, but I also don't think that it should be allowed 100% of the time.

Ruling: You may send your pregnant sim to work on their first 2 days of pregnancy, but the third day (the day they give birth) you may not send them, not even if their work is from 6am-1pm and you are set to give birth at 11pm at night. (Until whichever career limited maternity leave in the first place is lifted.) In a world where the world has gone to hell, pregnancies are more dangerous, and going to work instead of caring for yourself and the new baby would be a serious health risk.

Shebly, if you don't have Pets, the restrictions are still required, you just lift them automatically after you've lifted everything else in that tier.

Shebly

10th Jul 2012, 03:59 AM

Looks like I've automatically failed then in both senses. DX I've had teens and children studying, sims going to work in their 3rd trimester and I've been controlling elders....

Belgarion managed to lift Culinary but it doesn't matter since its back to square one for me DX

Phaenoh

10th Jul 2012, 06:33 AM

You can't fail from the pregger workers cuz that's a new ruling, but I'm pretty sure I explained the no pets thing in my original post. You don't have to completely start over though, just stop doing the illegal things.

EVERYONE: I've finished the object hider mods. They are now separated by EP so EVERYONE can use them. Please go download it (http://www.modthesims.info/d/453509) if you don't have my full version.

Shebly

10th Jul 2012, 03:43 PM

I've decided not to start over, though I may do another Apocalypse where I follow everything from the beginning. I've just become too attached to this first one to let it go...

I was thinking though, and this is just a suggestion, but what if I were to merge the pet restrictions with other careers? Like say, Pet Security-Medical; Pet Service-Intelligence; Pet Show Biz-Entertainment or Human Show Biz?

Thank you sooo much for the updated mods, now I can finally use them!

Darby

10th Jul 2012, 05:46 PM

Continuing a failed AC for practice is not a bad idea at all. It offers more learning opportunities that make it easier to succeed in the next attempt. I don't know any hard-core AC fans who haven't failed one or more attempts before finally succeeding, and even the successes may have a minor, inadvertent rule break here and there. It happens. :)

Phaenoh

10th Jul 2012, 05:56 PM

Shebly, that answer is acceptable as well. *I* haven't actually played through this yet myself >.<. I have a family that has lifted military and then I gave up on the regular AC and made this to make it easier, when I do have time to play it myself, I won't be starting over with a new family, I'm too attached too! (And it took me like 4 tries to get my founder to reach the top without becoming an elder first, so screw that idea!)

Darby, if you notice, in mine, its not failing if you mess up, you just have to catch your mistake and fix it. This is a really long challenge, and its pretty hard to remember all the rules, though my mods make it easier. I'm not going to tell anyone they have failed and need to start over - that would just suck. :)

Darby

10th Jul 2012, 06:15 PM

We ACers over at boolprop.com had that easy-going attitude as well. Good faith efforts are always worth hearing about!

The only players anyone ever got annoyed with over there were a rare few deliberately ignoring certain rules with an "I don't care what anyone thinks!" attitude. Which is fine. Their game and all. But no one particularly wanted to hear about it. ;)

Proxian_girl

10th Jul 2012, 08:05 PM

Object hider mods! Yippee! *waltzes off to go download*

I need to work on collecting more career reward items and unlocking careers so I can place 'em so I can get kids skilling. >_> GROW FASTER JANET AND RYAN.

ETA: Something's a little buggy, probably a conflict somewhere, but it's just causing jumps for now, so I'm not going to worry too hard.

Janet's dreams of media greatness just got dashed horribly. She failed a chance card and her boss told her not to come back tomorrow... or ever (permanently banned from Journalism). I'm gonna have her score one last Mechanical point so she can earn a scholarship, and then ship her out to college. Two semesters of college = one week at the main house, right? This will be easier when Ryan heads to college, since I can time him to leave on a Monday and then switch households whenever the mailman shows up.

Kimberly is now also permanently platinum, not because of any LTW, but because she consistently had good aspiration and maxed out her Lifetime Aspiration Meter. Hooray, platinum gravestones!

ETA x2: I think I've decided that Janet should study to lift the Intelligence restriction, since I... haven't exactly been faithful to it so far anyway.

sweetbaby160

11th Jul 2012, 01:00 AM

quick (& likely dumb question) I've cleared Education & now the eldest great-grandaughter of the founder has been sent to college. Is she allowed to bring home her 3-bolt boyfriend once graduated as her fiance? She's never shown the slightest interest in any of the townies that wander by her parents' home...

Proxian_girl

11th Jul 2012, 07:50 PM

I for one have generally treated Dormies as marriageable.

ETA: The first set of bills arrived for Janet's on-campus shack at the end of her freshman year. She's got $5000 in grants and scholarships and she still can't pay off the Mob. o_O

Fortunately, she also maxed all the skills she needs for the Intelligence career (which doesn't even require those skills to be maxed), so she'll just drop out after I play the main family for a week.

Sunbee

12th Jul 2012, 02:19 AM

So Cephas will be joining the military in nine days when he becomes an adult. (I am not going through the finicky process of messing with Inteen's installation files so he doesn't get to start as a teen, because Inteen would drop him in the adult career before he was actually an adult.) When he joins the military, obviously all the family goes along--his five little sisters and his by then elder parents. And I guess, the cat. Cephas can work out on the obstacle course on the military lot. What about his little sisters? Could they use the obstacle course? Two should be kids and the rest teens. Can he/they ask their elder parents, who both have maxed body, for help?

Phaenoh

12th Jul 2012, 04:34 AM

Prox, thanks for letting me know the Uni bills are too high, a few people have mentioned the regular ones are hard to pay too, I might look in to making it a bit lower. She shouldn't have to drop out because of money.

Sunbee, Inteen is illegal, it kills kittens - obviously. :P

Why on earth did you decide to let your founder have six children in your first round of the apox? How on earth can you feed them all? Without going to school, the kids won't get a school lunch and you can only serve 1 meal a day, for 8 people? Something doesn't sound right to me. Not to mention the severe influx of adults you are going to have when they grow up because you can't move them out and you don't have enough spaces for them to have any kids.

Yes, when everyone goes to the military lot, they can use anything that would normally be reserved or restricted by the military restrictions. The kids can use the course, they can ask the elders for help, but you can not direct the elders to help, they should still be foggy.

Shebly

12th Jul 2012, 05:17 AM

I would always store my leftover food on the covered, inaccessable patios my standard apoc house always has. But I still don't see how that could feed so many in the 1st Generation. D:

Edit: Camryn, the saint that she is, managed to get her last 2 promotions in Politics despite her senility! No more pesky chance cards!

Proxian_girl

12th Jul 2012, 05:46 PM

Thanks for looking into it, Phae.

I think the issue is that the Crime restriction is still half the total lot value, while rent in Uni is supposed to be calculated differently because YAs have much less money. I also really should figure out what's causing that jump bug. At any rate, I could always just have someone lift the Crime restriction (since it's also Tier 2), or remove the mods while I'm playing a Uni household. Besides, the only Tier 2 job that absolutely requires a degree is Natural Science, so it's not an immediate rush.

Ryan is a teenager. His aspiration is Family/Pleasure, and his LTW is Captain Hero... but he can't be a superhero without a legal system to uphold! Priorities, priorities! For now he's using the candy machine and the surgery station to build skills so he can earn some skill-based scholarships, and I think I'll have him nab a teen job in something other than Law so he can score the teen career scholarship. He keeps spinning wants to earn the Extraterrestrial Reparations Grant, and I have no clue how to tell him that just isn't going to happen.

ETA: I just realized that since Education is lifted I can have somebody coach Ryan on the machines. Duh!

Sunbee

12th Jul 2012, 07:29 PM

My first lift was Culinary, obviously, so I can feed everyone as much as they want--though with two toddlers still I really only use one meal a day anyway, except for pet food. I can't get hungry pets to go to work, so I had to lift Culinary before I could start with the pet lift, and I'll be amazed if the first pet lifts it. He's gotten demoted off of chance cards twice, and even though he knows all his skills, rarely gets promoted. I only play pets in careers in Apocalypses--the pet careers are beyond silly, so I'm not very good at it. (I raised a Guide Dog in 4-H, back when I was a kid.)
If I don't use any of Inteen's options, I figure it doesn't really matter. It's not like most of my other hacks, it involves adding things to the game files, so I can't just yank it in and out. I have the save the kittens flavor pack, so even if there were kittens, which there absolutely will not be (twin toddlers jam the stairs enough!) they'd be safe.
As far as logistics, Law Enforcement is prelifted because Isabel was Capt'n Hero when she married in. (Gripe at EA--if a townie is at the top of their LTW career, they should be permaplat.) If everything goes horribly wrong Bren and Isabel will die of old age, freeing up two spots, and there's always starving/freezing/burning someone to death, too, if I must. With any luck, though, all the kids but one will get to move out and give me many more lifters. I also have one can of elixir so I can age or de-age, and I still have four bottles of smartmilk for the next generation in the main house.
Another question--in the old rule-sets, toys were restricted variously, but I'm seeing the other toys--and I have the hiders. Did I screw something up or can I have them use those?

Phaenoh

12th Jul 2012, 10:15 PM

Law Enforcement isn't lifted until you get to Tier 2, but it will be lifted as soon as you get there, even if she dies before you get there. Thanks for the explanation about the Culinary, that seems like a good solution.

Until you lift Law, your kids can't move out. Law Enforcement and Law are different.

If you have my hiders, and can't find in restricted in my rule set (it should be grey if the hiders are supposed to hide it) then you can use it. If you are using the new separated hiders please double check the rules, it hasn't been thoroughly tested properly yet. :)

Sunbee

12th Jul 2012, 11:00 PM

Yeah--so for the six kids, military, medicine, law, and science or journalism, and I have two to spare in case someone gets fired. I thought about a different spouse choice--Bren knew women in Military and Medicine, but they weren't at the top of their careers and skilling up a townie who has no needs perks and is pregnant is a pain. So Isabel with a level ten career was my pick, even though it didn't move things along right away. The way the kids are spaced, there's a gap of eight days between the youngest of the older two and the oldest of the younger four, so the older two may have made their lifts or been fired before the two sets of twins are old enough to work.
I have the complete hiders even though I don't have all the stuff packs, they seem to work okay.

Shebly

13th Jul 2012, 02:12 AM

Adema and Adara have lifted Intelligence and Law respectively. Since I decided to merge Pet Service and Intelligence, I can control elders again! Yay! No more Lobster Thermidor fires and having to cancel illegal computer/bookcase actions. Now I just need Pong, Adema's husband, to life Education and I'll be set for this generation.

As a side note, Adema's daughter Charlemagne grew up into your baby doll hair Phaenoh! XD

Phaenoh

13th Jul 2012, 03:06 AM

Oh god, that hair is awful. It was my first hair mesh and I only made it because I needed it for my Shirley Temple hair. Congrats on your recent lifts.

Amalia81

13th Jul 2012, 10:12 AM

Brianne and her fiance Adrian have just returned home from college and will be lifting Law Enforcement and Law respectively. Her little brother Jackson just had his child birthday and I think he'll be lifting Oceanography since his favorite hobby is fitness just like his sister (blame it on that pesky firstborn effect).

I've been playing this challenge for just over two months now (about 100 years in sim time XD) and I'm still loving it! :cool:

Shebly

13th Jul 2012, 04:15 PM

Aww I like it! lol And thank you. :)

Pong lifted Education! I sent Corvus as soon as he got his grades back up, but now I wish I hadn't! Poor kid is going to have to live on community lots! I'm going to try and skill Charlemagne (who I keep wanting to call Shirley cuz of the hair lol) up more before I send her to join him. I still haven't really decided which child will be heir. I tend to favor first borns, but Charlemagne was the first child of the challenge to be born with red hair(as opposed to black) and first to have more than one nice point...

Phaenoh

13th Jul 2012, 04:35 PM

Shebly, in this challenge, we don't really have heirs. All your kids can be lifters, but only one of their spouses can lift as well. All of their kids can lift as well (all of the grandkids). The restriction is that you can only marry in one lifting townie per generation.

Sunbee

13th Jul 2012, 06:43 PM

The cat got demoted again! She? He? has been working for a week and is at all of level 2. The chance card said something about contraband ham, get supervisor or eat it, I chose get supervisor, and the cat got demoted for shredding kicky bags!?!
The sims are doing rather better: Cephas got into low aspiration, lost three days to the elixir, maxed cooking, and grew up platinum. Is there a prize for a knowledge sim not flipping out about not going to college? I've never seen one not roll the fear before, but he didn't. He joined the military, got five skill points on the obstacle course, and got promoted to level two. I cut his shaggy hair off because I figure the military would.
Really weird, the cat refused to get in the car and got left at home, and when they got to the lot the elder founder, Bren, was not in the picture list on the side. He was there, though, and behaved about as well as could be expected, went home properly, and all is back to normal.
Edit: The cat finally maxed her career and then decided she wasn't going to go to work anymore. So got fired, of course, but who cares? She gets old in two days. I aged Margaret up and she got a medical job, so now it's just lots of skilling and grilled cheese--I rolled six twos in a row--Margaret got the first as a secondary of knowledge, Pris and Lyd are both Knowledge/Cheese, and Anna will be a knowledge sim when she and Mary grow up in a day or so.
So, I've got Culinary and Pet Security lifted, and Military and Medicine in progress.

Proxian_girl

15th Jul 2012, 11:41 PM

Janet Fay was approached by a strange woman with a pure black face*. Startled, she did the only thing she could think to:

"Hello, there! How are you today?"

"... How many people answer that question honestly?" asked the woman. "How many people answer any questions honestly any more? When is your father's birthday, Janet?"

"Um," said Janet. "Uh."

Truth was, her father had never mentioned when his birthday was. She merely remembered that at some point his hair had gone from black to gray.

"And your mother's?"

"That's personal!" snapped Janet, indignant at her own ignorance. "Why would you care, anyway?"

"Because people should care about people. Birthdays used to be an occasion for celebration with friends and strangers, for the sharing of gifts," said the woman. "Now? There are no gifts that are given without thought for personal advancement, no questions that are asked without suspicion. People don't trust each other, and the less they trust, the less they can be trusted. You have done something very risky in talking to me, Janet... but sometimes, risk is needed for success to follow. Trust others, and teach them to trust you."

She gave Janet directions to a location, and instructions to arrive alone at a certain time.

That night, Janet asked her parents when their birthdays were. Kimberly and Miles exchanged alarmed looks between themselves and excused themselves from the conversation instead of answering.

They didn't trust their own daughter.

When Janet arrived at the run-down shack she'd been directed to, the woman with the pure black face was waiting. She did something with a device on her wrist, and suddenly Janet could see her clearly: an attractive older dark-skinned woman with curly blonde hair.

"Welcome, Janet. Here's your first assignment..."

- - - - -

Janet got her job in Intelligence and has been moving right along in that.
* The woman with the pure black face was actually a glitching Townie, but I liked the idea and threw it into the story of how Janet got her job.

Kimberly got a night job alongside Ryan in Law Enforcement, and died at 1 AM on a Thursday after arriving home. She had 5 skills maxed, and was well on her way with the other two.

Ryan has 8 points in Logic and Creativity from skilling with the drawing table as a child and the chess board as a teen, and he has 7 1/2 points in Mechanical and is at the apex of the teen Law Enforcement career, with good grades. When he goes to college, he's going to work from the bookshelf there for Cleaning (he can't do much now because he's a sloppy sim and doesn't gain fun from cleaning) and the mirror for Charisma until he's got the skills he needs for the career, and hopefully a cheerleader or Dormie walkby for love interests.

Janet's going to be chatting up walkbys as well (and maybe doing a little this-and-that... Romance sim, after all), since she also needs tons of friends for her career.

ETA: Ryan reached 8 points of Cooking skill on his last day of teenhood, filled out the last of his scholarship forms, and managed to catch the last bus out to La Fiesta Tech. He had the following scholarships:
- Scholar's Grant for outstanding grades
- Young Entreprenuer (sp?) Award for teen career
- Genius Grant for high Logic skill
- Arts Award for high Creativity skill
- Engineering Endowment for high Mechanical skill
- Foodie Funding for high Cooking skill

... he never did get that Extraterrestrial Reparations Grant. :p

Proxian_girl

18th Jul 2012, 09:12 PM

Sorry for the double-post, but picdump time!

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_janet_teen.jpg

I did take pictures of Janet as a teen/YA, but then I deleted them all for some unknown reason, so here she is with the same hair she had as a child. I ended up switching her to the Maxis asymmetrical bob cut.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimber_bday.jpg

Kimberly aging to elderhood. She was in green aspiration at this time, and not yet perma-platinum.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ryan_child.jpg

Only pic I have of Ryan as a child. Note the cake behind him.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ryan_teen.jpg

Ryan as a teen. He has his mother's curly hair texture and eyes, and his father's hair color and nose (all of his ancestors have had the tanned skin).

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_kimber_death.jpg

Kimberly's death. I was a little confused but then I remembered that since her shift starts at 7, she'd have left at 6, which is when the aging process would normally have caught up to her.

She bought herself an extra six hours just to spend them on her work. That's dedication.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ryan_college.jpg

And then Ryan went to college and I finally remembered to get rid of all those neighborhood-decor cacti and trees that La Fiesta Tech has. Since Ryan has curly hair I decided he'd grow it out for college, and he's starting to show signs of his dad's beard.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_college_lot.jpg

The college lot. Small, but serviceable.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ryan_subtle.jpg

Subtle, he ain't. Ryan's turn-ons are blonde hair and athleticism, and cheerleader Thea still somehow has negative chemistry with him.

I eventually hooked him up with a pale-skinned blonde girl named Alyson, so we'll see her later.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ryan_streaking.jpg

I sent him to go streaking to boost his fun meter, and he changed into outerwear at the door. Streaking: YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

... And then the clock changed and it was time for his final and he went to his final apparently nude under his trench coat. Oooookay...

Meanwhile, back at the main house...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_dacoda_ghost.jpg

I missed Dacoda's death completely, but he's easily the most docile of the ghosts on the lot. All he wants to do is play around with the tea lights. I can march three or four other sims past that desk in the dead of night, and that cat just does not give a flip.

The other ghosts are hostile, but generally seem to lurk in the basement.

SomethingLacking757

19th Jul 2012, 02:28 PM

Welp I finally have all EP's and SP's (Aside from the damn elusive Glamour stuff :rolleyes: ) Time to get into it! But . . . slowly :turtle:

Proxian_girl

20th Jul 2012, 02:16 AM

Well, uh, crap. First unplanned death in the Apox.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_janet_scia.jpg

Learning and teaching the sims of Oasis Valley to open up to each other had been a strange experience. Janet had, for her strange employers, delivered anonymous gifts and letters to those who needed them most, coaxed sims into sharing trivia with her and with each other until they were comfortable enough to share details, and had learned a lot about what it meant to trust and be trusted-- more than she could have imagined needed to be learning.

Finally, she had become one of those with the pure-black face, anonymous and all-knowing, recruiting those who showed promise and providing hope everywhere. Sims began learning from unknown sources who was truly trustworthy, and began developing social networks under the unseen supervision of the woman whose father had rebuilt the education system, whose mother had brought to heel the irradiated zombie hordes, whose grandfather had made clean living possible, and whose grandmother, at the start of it all, had ensured everybody would have enough to eat.

- - - - -

This certifies that Janet lifted the Intelligence restriction. I feel the need to prove it because the next thing she did was totally idiotic.

Remember how I mentioned last update that more aggressive ghosts tended to end up in the basement?

Yeah.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_janet_spook.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_janet_death.jpg

He's not shown here, but Rascal and Kimberly were taking turns and locking Janet into an infinite ghost loop while she was trying to go to bed. I have got to do something about those basement hauntings since that's where the nursery is.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_tombs.jpg

I moved Kimber and Janet to the rooftop and noticed that Vivian and Tyler's graves have inexplicably vanished. All three pet graves are still present.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_miles_lone.jpg

Miles, alone, at the end of his lifespan, and very much afraid, did the only thing he could think of...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i54/Yui_hime/Sims/fay_ryan_dropout.jpg

XxTylerxX52331

21st Jul 2012, 06:36 PM

this sounds fun :P

Sunbee

22nd Jul 2012, 03:23 PM

Just a quick little note to say I stayed up way, way too late last night, and Cephas lifted Military, two sim-hours later Margaret lifted Medical, and round one is done. Phew! Now everyone can stop rolling those buy a shower/bath wants.
Also, my founder, Bren, died. Seeing his ghost got Margaret platinum for her double-shift and lift.

Can I move my finished lifters to their LTW jobs? Both happen to be round two jobs, one, Law Enforcement, is prelifted thanks to Isabel and the other, architecture, is not.
My older twins, Lydia and Priscilla, got the better move to college or else warning, so will be growing up shortly, and going into journalism and law. One has the journalism LTW, so might as well kill two birds with one stone. They're in really good moods: Lyd wants to cook grilled cheese for Pris and vice versa every day. So much aspiration! If they succeed, the younger two can do Intel and Ed--Anna wants to be a Game Designer and Mary wants six grandkids.
Isabel, founder's spouse, was apparently fearing either Bren's death or generic death of a relative. Big negative red points. She's snuggling flour sack babies. Cephas got engaged to Mary Gavigan in hopes that she wants a relative to get engaged, but I didn't get up stairs from taking proposal pictures to see if there were any aspiration points flying--she didn't go plat. Probably rolling for grandbabies and resurrections.
Mary's the hardest of the kids to keep happy, being family/pleasure. She's a bad pleasure sim--only rolls pillow fight. She's plat at the moment, having scored a first kiss off of Tommy Ottomas. Margaret's first kiss and consistent "Want get engaged to" sim is David Ottomas. Family sims! The three knowledge primary girls aren't kissing anyone yet, though Pris's 'one sim' according to ACR is Peter Ottomas. Hah! No. ACR is off, so it's not doing anything, but I was curious since she was heart-farting him and they're best friends--he keeps walking by. Ceph has two bolts with Samantha and one with Dora, but they weren't as frequent of walkbys as Mary, and I was glad to have one family member not head-over-heals for an Ottomas. Oh, yes, Sharla and Anna are BFF. At least half my pictures of my Apocalypse family include an Ottomas.
Other than that, Bren doesn't scare enough. He only spooked two of the kids who wanted to see ghost/see Bren's ghost in the whole night of haunting. I am so pleased with that run of twos. Of his six kids, only one doesn't have a knowledge primary or secondary.
I need to build some lots now.

Phaenoh

22nd Jul 2012, 10:16 PM

You can move your lifters to different jobs in the level you are in now (or below it), but they can't lift the restriction. On that note, from a story telling point of view, you shouldn't let them get to the top.

Modder

24th Jul 2012, 07:01 PM

Hey, everyone! I'm back. I've been dwindling on the brink of boredom with my game ever since I completed my Apox challenge, and I was tempted to do the real thing but I could never remember all those rules! And it seems nearly impossible to do... I like this version much better. I'm back for round two, and this time hopefully the new object hiders will work properly. I was using the "no object hiding" one since I don't have two SP but now I can have full-out catalogue hell.
*cracks knuckles*
Maybe this time I'll be sure to learn from a few of my mistakes, heh heh. And now I know I can at least make over my sims to look Apocalypse-worthy.. before they were just fugly with mismatched clothes and a permanent ape-face thanks to the apparently super-evolved genetics of my founder's spouse. I think this time I might keep a blog on it. I took pictures last time but I didn't narrate it. My BaCC is on hold because I'm officially starting this up again! It's so fun hehe..

Proxian_girl

25th Jul 2012, 12:05 AM

Ryan Fay dropped out and returned to the main household after Janet died, because Miles is on his last few days and I didn't want all those aspiration rewards to go poof (er... get looted) because the house was unowned. He invited Alyson (I forgot her last name) over and has married her, and I'm looking for an opportunity to grunge them both up.

Ryan's moving along nicely in the Law path, and Alyson has a job above her skill set in Politics as a City Council member, which I am correcting via Miles's bookshelf since Ryan's podium isn't available until he finishes the Law career. She is pale and blonde, which will at least change up the tan-skin genetics the Fays have had since the beginning, but does make grunging her up kind of tricky. She also appears to be Face #1... eh.

ETA: Forgot to mention, Alyson's aspiration is Popularity and her secondary aspiration is Knowledge. So, skilling has given her great joy.

Alyson's making tremendous progress in the Politics career path. She's already coming across as a politician for the good of all of Sim City rather than one out for their own ends; as a State Assemblysim she passed an important bill to preserve the remaining habitats of the Sim Canary, and as a Judge she ruled that the Mayor's klepto nephew needed a good smack. This maximized her Logic and Charisma skills, so she only needs Creativity and friends to clear the restriction provided she doesn't fail any Chance Cards (and if that fails she can always go into Business or something). Too bad her LTW is Celebrity Chef, but Vivian already took care of that.

Ryan's powers of paper-pushing have become legendary. It's like he has become Law itself, the very nature of legality incarnated as a shaggy-haired, fuzzy-faced man, ready to back the truth (and his wife) in court at a moment's notice. (Ryan lifted the Law restriction.)

It's hard to believe I'm only on the third generation.

ttowntallyho

25th Jul 2012, 08:31 PM

My story:
I did a mid uni start, but changed it a little. For freshman year, I used a 1% change of getting the apocalypse each day, for sophmore year, 5%, and for junior year 10%. I made to the second day of my founder's junior year. (Originally, I rolled double sixes on THE SECOND DAY of freshman year, so that's why I changed the percentages.) While in college, I skilled up Founder's charisma and body, but I tried not to "overskill" him on anything else, and tried to get him to not make too many BFFs. So far, he is in level 6 of military and has all the necessary friend requirements and skills for level 10, so it's really just a waiting game. In the mean time, I (accidentally) cheated and Founder adopted a pet cat (didn't realize the move in rule applied to pets also). On the second day, the cat got a job in security and needed the command "stay" in order to get promoted. Founder taught kitty to "stay" all night, but I was so focused on kitty's needs, that I didn't realize Founder's hunger had gone into the red. I tried to get him to sleep it off, since he would be at work in a few hours, but he wasn't having any of it. As soon as he lay down to sleep, he'd get right back up and complain. I had no choice but to make him serve a meal. This was about 2:30am. He ate, and kitty ate the leftovers. Then Founder went to work (and ate again, how wasteful!). Meanwhile, kitty is home and her hunger is dipping and dipping and dipping. A 7:00pm, the carpool for kitty arrives. I haven't had a pet in a looooong time, so I can't remember if their hunger gets refilled at work? Anyway, about an hour and a half into work, kitty gets a Chance Card, I choose the wrong one, and she gets fired! On her FIRST DAY at work! She comes home early and her hunger is completely drained and the "pet social worker" warns Founder that he better feed kitty right away. Well, it's about 9:30pm and Founder can't feed kitty until 12:00am. So I hoped and prayed, but to no avail, within the hour they came and took kitty away. Founder ran up to the car and cried softly.

The total time between adopting kitty and her being taken by the social worker was less than 3 sim days, so I'll keep playing the challenge since this accidental cheat didn't help me at all (and now I have a bunch of useless cat items dumped in the back yard).

I also didn't realize that the seasons had to be all winter until just now reading through this thread, so I will change that next time I play. It's cool because I started in Fall, and it's Winter now, so I only had one season that wasn't winter yet.

I am having a blast playing this, but I was a little irritated that the lone zombie in the hood was able to walk so freely throughout the military facility. He didn't attack a single person, though. He just walked around admiring all the decor on the lot.

ETA: Do I have to play this zombie out? I created him for the sole purpose to have zombies in the hood and dumped him into an empty lot (called "Zombieland"). I don't have to play this household, do I?

Phaenoh

25th Jul 2012, 09:44 PM

ttwown, you might want to get Pescado's Zombie mod, otherwise, yes, you'll have to play the zombie to make more zombies. There shouldn't have been any kitty social workers yet, (I had forgotten about them) so next time I do an update, I'll remember to add that in.

ttowntallyho

26th Jul 2012, 01:47 AM

Do you mean then one that makes them fight -> Eat Brains which turns the other sim into a zombie? Yes I have that one. I was under the impression you could make a CAS zombie and pluck him down in the neighborhood. Then, when playing from the Founder household, when I visit a community lot, the CAS zombie would attack others. So far on multiple visits to the military base, the CAS Zombie has walked around looking at the decor as in "View Many". He doesn't even interact with anyone, let alone eat their brains. :-/

On another note, this challenge is hilarious. My crime bill was almost 6,000 and Founder couldn't afford to pay it. He was in a double bed sleeping when the Repo man...er crime lord crony...came to collect. The crony took EVERYTHING. Even the cat scratch pole and catnip mouse that cost like 40 bucks. He took the toilet, fridge, a cheap mirror on the wall, every single thing. After gaining about 20-25 negative memories of the repoman, Founder woke up in order to go to work. The crony nabbed the bed he was sleeping in, said something like "man, you really are poor..." and left. Founder had about 2,200 in cash, but he had to buy the essentials (bed, toilet, sink and fridge) and couldn't get any fun-raising items so he's more miserable than ever, poor guy! Not only that, I missed a chance card and he got demoted to level 6. I have an aging mod (that makes adult age in 26-33 days instead of the standard 28), but my founder is getting up there and it looks like it's gonna be a close call whether he fails this challenge. :-/

Phaenoh

26th Jul 2012, 02:31 AM

I think the problem there is your CAS zombie. I don't think that sim is actually a zombie, and there is your problem. Does he walk around all zombie lurchy? Otherwise you need to get a real zombie.

You aren't the only one who has mentioned ridiculously high bills, maybe I do need to adjust that.

ttowntallyho

26th Jul 2012, 04:14 AM

He's definitely a zombie. I used one of the premade uni sims (Rubin something from Sim State University). I killed him with Rodney's Death Creator and had the emo chick bring him back to life as a zombie (I saved the game here). He promptly attacked her and turned her into a zombie (but I didn't save again, because I was fearful that 2 zombies would overrun the hood too fast). I had him drop out of school and I put him into an empty lot. ( He showed up in my Founder's welcome party, but my founder rightfully stayed indoors.) He drags his foot behind him and gurgles and all that, but I guess he's just more into pictures than he is eating brains *shrugs*. I think I will play him and get him to make a couple new zombies after my founder gets back on his feet. I am really loving this!

Modder

26th Jul 2012, 06:38 PM

Hello again, all. I started a livejournal which I will be updating with my newest Apox Challenge, found here (http://lastdandelion.livejournal.com/).

xSkyBirdx

28th Jul 2012, 03:05 AM

Hey, I have a question.. you said that to get jobs we should go to the corresponding community lot and use Mog's noticeboard... well I had my founder head down to the military base, but they offered her a job at level 4. How am I supposed to get a level 1 job?

EDIT: Nevermind, I was reading some of the older posts on this thread and I found out that you can download simblender to cheat back down to lvl1.

EDIT AGAIN: I think I'm going to fail the challenge :( My founder is aging up into an elder in 19 days and she is still at job rank 1. She got fired on her first day of her military job because of a chance card, which sucked because I'd spent her college gaining the skills needed for that career. I got her a new job in culinary, but she still doesn't have enough job performance for a promotion, even though it's been at least a week. By the way, is it normal to start a job with the performance bar at half, or below half? I don't remember where it usually starts, but hers started below half way. I wasn't sure if when I used simblender to get her from level 2 back to level 1 in treated it as if she got demoted or something. Anyway, the bills came in the mail for $9,000! There is no way I will be able to pay that much! If I remember correctly, the original apocalypse challenge had you sell and rebuy your items and the loss in depreciation was the protection fee--- there is no way I would have lost $9,000 that way because I only had like $1,500 to buy all the furnishings at full price! By the way, I know that since I haven't lifted the hopelessness thing yet I'm not allowed to move anyone in, but would I be allowed to try for baby with someone who doesn't live with me? I'm guessing the answer is no, but it can't hurt to ask, right?

Phaenoh

28th Jul 2012, 03:49 PM

I seriously need to fix that bill thing. Pay half, and cheat yourself some money to pay the other half. As for the try for baby thing, yeah, I think you can do that.

Edit: Ok, I've lowered the criminal protection fee. Bills should still be high, but low enough to be able to actually pay them.

Modder

28th Jul 2012, 07:23 PM

Thanks for fixing the bill thing, although last playthrough my family ended up getting dead rich very fast from all the level 10 job holders so it was a relief to get rid of some money once in a while. Although I think it was broken for uni sims, since I would get normal bills for them and had to subtract money manually. The new version hopefully won't do that!

xSkyBirdx

28th Jul 2012, 09:55 PM

Well, thank goodness I can try for baby because otherwise I would have failed the challenge for sure. Things are not going well for my founder. Once she finally got promoted, it only took one more day to get promoted again, but things started going downhill fast once the bills were due. I couldn't even afford to pay half the bills, so a message popped up saying that they were going to repossess my stuff. I waited a full day, but no repoman ever appeared. So, while the founder was at work I was forced to repo myself by cheating away all of my items. Then, another chance card popped up and I picked the wrong one again, so she got demoted. Founder came home to an empty house before she could even eat at work. I rebought the fridge, but nothing else because I wanted to buy the bed next and I didn't have enough. Founder downed three instant meals, peed on the floor and then proceeded to wallow in her own filth for 8 hours until she passed out on the floor. She has since been able to repurchase the bed and sink, and has been spending most of her time digging for rocks and building an army of snowmen to scare away those zombie walkbys. The bills came again, a reasonable $900 this time, but founder ended up getting demoted back to rank 1 for coming to work in a bad mood. I'm currently just trying to save up some money before quitting to have a baby, since with half of her adulthood behind her, there is no way founder is going to max out her career.

Also, I just realized that we aren't allowed to spray the roaches, and I have done that like 3 times... oops I'm just going to keep playing and make sure I don't do it again.

And, do any of you know if there is a way to let the zombie walkbys attack even you don't greet them? Twice my founder has been outside during a walkby and all the zombies do is wave and then keep shuffling away, so they aren't really threats (I haven't been to a community lot since applying for my culinary job).

EDIT: So... my founder only had $850 when she was put on maternity leave and forced to quit her job... they couldn't afford the bill of $900, but again some error caused the repoman not to show (no idea why?), so I just got rid of the money I had and didn't sell anything. I played out the founder through her miserable pregnancy. They didn't own a toilet, and founder was constantly at risk of both motive and aspirational failure. Finally she gave birth to a (surprisingly healthy) baby boy. Unfortunately, I knew that with no way of earning an income, both mother and son would soon starve. :( I decided to put them out of their misery by forcing the founder to die by starvation with testingcheatsenabled. However, I had forgotten that social workers were disabled, and I couldn't bear to leave the little one lying on the floor like that (not to mention that it could screw up the game somehow) so I removed the no social workers part of the mod and did it again. The founders ghost will remain in the bunker as a reminder of how cruel post-apocalyptic life can be, while I restart the challenge with a new founder. The reason I was always out of money was because I though you had to buy a 5x5 lot in the beginning, but I just found out that you don't have to do that anymore. I'm doing adult start this time instead of mid-uni, and I don't even think I'll do the 2 day head start since the apocalypse is going on (also I want to get started on a career asap!)

ETA Pics :)

This is Gray and his sister Sylvia. They both survived the primary threats of the apocalypse and secured some land on which to build their bunker. Unfortunately, Sylvia was gravely ill, and passed away just moments after his picture was taken. Gray is now alone in his quest to rebuild society. Can he succeed? I placed them on a 3x3 lot, so they will hopefully have enough money this time. Too bad I am busy tomorrow and won't be able to play, though...