I was thinking about doing some more companion guides like the gardening and career ones I did. So do you have any similar questions you want answered? Or a preference for which question you'd like answered first?

For instance, I was thinking I could have a Tech Guru sim and have him make all the different plugins, apps, games, virus, and do all the hacks possible, all along the way as he goes up to level 10 of his career and see if I could come up with an average for how much each thing will get you at each level because I've seen that they can be pretty lucrative but haven't been able to pinpoint a number. Or maybe what the total value of all the collectables is? Like if you found every single collectible and sold every single thing in build/buy, how much money would you make?

So, anything along these lines that you want tested/answered?

Sure, having the painting, writing, types of programming, performing, etc broken down into $/hour would be ambitious and interesting. Even how to even choose the right metric isn't clear and would require some study, to the point that there is no objective quantifier, at some point you must decide on an arbitrary point of reference. Ie, it's not obvious how to compare lump sum rewards, periodic and diminishing returns, and variable chance rewards (performing). Are there any periodic rewards that don't diminish? Because that infinite time frame obviously breaks some maths if not avoided.

I have a feeling I'm not being clear myself -- Not to make it overly complex though. Simulations may be easier than formulaic approaches although costing more time.

Oh well, it's your project if you choose. Have fun with that!

Yea I think I know what you mean. You're saying it's kinda hard and kinda pointless because the money you get for things like apps/books varies so much and changes over time.

I wasn't thinking I'd try to figure out specific amounts for these things. I was thinking I could find a trend and be able to come back and say something like "the apps consistently bring in higher royalties than the plugins." Or "the Impressionism paintings are consistently the highest paying" things like that.

I think knowing your options help you steer your story the way you want to.

How about the total hours it takes to master skills? Not including the speaking skills, since those are completely usage based.

Oh yea. That's a good idea!

@melbrewer367 I am confused by Tech Guru and Painting. It's really not obvious to me what the best path through is (that is, what earns the most money, since I'm playing the Utopia House Challenge). Is making a hack better than making a plugin? Does a Classic Painting bring in more $ than an Abstract painting?

Note that's influenced by your mood, and whether "very moody".

Are you by chance a statistician in real life, and if not, have you ever considered a career change?

But really, those kinds of stats can be great to have to figure out how to optimize your sim's efforts. Thank you for being willing to take the task on.

Yea, those were the same things I was thinking. I don't want my guy to spend his days building plugins if he can make double or triple just by switching to apps and things like that.

Haha. No, I'm not actually. I have done light accounting and analysis/forecasting when I was working in a corporate management office for a few years. And I have considered a career change, that's why I stopped working at that corporate management office, but I didn't change to stats. I'm actually working on a Masters in Political Science. lol

I think my brain is just too logical and efficiency driven sometimes. lol That's why I made the Gardening one first. I was playing a living off the land family but didn't want to waste my time harvesting 20 carrot plants if I could get the same results harvesting 5 grape plants or something.

I don't want to stop your fun, but I have found that after my sims have reached a level of comfort, the extra money lies unused. In my game, Jane Austen has just finished her eighth book, Pride and Prejudice. With her royalties and wages and sale of collectibles, she now has $43,000 to spare. What to spend it on? There is nothing she needs. Carrots and grapes are nothing to her.

Oh yea I've already found this too. My family had around 500,000 in their account when I bought them the new farm house where willow creek park used to be and even after everything they still had around 425,000. Now they're up to around 700,000! I've just made it my own challenge for this family in particular to get a million dollars. It'll be the most money I've ever gotten without any money cheats.

Something I became curious about today is whether it pays to send in all metal and gem samples to be broken down into their constituent elements, or only certain ones, or none at all. I've been sending everything in so I can fill in the periodic table, but that's only because I'm a chemist. In reality it might be better to keep them unrefined.

Yea, when I was thinking about figuring out how much you could earn by completing collections I was thinking that I would need to do two each of certain things because you would need one to send to the geocouncil to get your element or whatever and then another to sell in it's regular form.