Lot Sync Timer: how do YOU use it?
trillkey:
Quote from: Jelenedra on 2008 March 06, 16:41:43
Seasons helps alot. I play each household for an entire season then move on. That way, from neighborhood view I can see who is behind by what season they're at.
This is exactly how I play too.
Keeping everyone in rotation is easy, but my problem is university. The advantage of playing every family for one season is that it's easier to have children of different ages throughout the hood (kids, teens, etc.), but then I think, when do I send them to college? How long do they stay here? I use the college adjuster so I can speed them through, but then I'm not sure when to bring them back to their families. Currently I'm just sort of waiting until each child has reached teen, and then sending them in batches, and I'm kind of thinking that I'll play the households back in the main hood for a season and then bring the kids back. What does everyone else do?
(And sorry for the hijacking!)
Sivany:
I play using the season to keep up my rotation as well, before that I didn't really have a system. With the whole going to college thing I only let them go the day they are due to become an adult because I don't actually mind the teen stage. What I then do is I figure it out at one college year for every sim day, so if I have two teens go to college on the first day of the season they would be in fourth year by the end of the rotation, whereas a teen that went on the final day of the rotation would have just finished first year at the end of the rotation.
I don't keep really accurate notes of this though and I don't use the lot sync timer, so probably some of them end up on the wrong schedule depending on what I decide. I use the college adjuster to speed them through college and they only take the end of year exams, never the halfway exams, to prevent memory spam with the Deans list thing (although I don't allow them all to get full marks every term).
The kids return in the next season so if they leave in autumn it will be winter when they return to the main 'hood, although sometimes that means they've left university in the spring depending on how long I've spent playing them on the university lots!
Zazazu:
Quote from: trillkey on 2008 March 06, 17:56:54
Keeping everyone in rotation is easy, but my problem is university. The advantage of playing every family for one season is that it's easier to have children of different ages throughout the hood (kids, teens, etc.), but then I think, when do I send them to college? How long do they stay here? I use the college adjuster so I can speed them through, but then I'm not sure when to bring them back to their families.
To start, I do the seasonal rotation.
My college kids don't go in batches. They go when they are at the appropriate age. I'm kind of anal about everyone being the exact span of days they should be from each other throughout their lives. My teens get seven days as teens/YAs total. That means that a teen who doesn't go to college gets to be a teenager for seven days. The last three days, I usually keep them home. I switch them via Inge's school hacks to the flexischool, meaning that they don't get queued for the bus. They take that time to jump-start into a career and study needed skill points for later, or are useless bums and spend the time on community lots partying.
Those teens who do go to college spend four days in a true-teen state. After four days, they leave for Uni. I usually play 1 semester a year and fast-forward via the college adjuster. Sometimes I just play the first and the last semester. Depends on how interesting the individual sim is, and if I have other playables currently going through college. (Right now, that's a no. I'm about to welcome the first 5th-generation spawn, but the 4th generation only had three kids, two of whom have gone to college and one whom I haven't rolled the decision for yet. The three are pretty far apart in age.) At home, that time is played as three days, so they are coming back at the same time they would normally have aged up. If that homecoming happens at a time overlapping a rotation, I just make a note in the family information, like "Daphne, back Day 2". I don't use the lot timer as I don't see much of a reason when you are actively playing all lots. I do use the Season adjuster (looks like a vase) from Paladin's SimWardrobe to keep all the houses on the same time, as often kids will move out mid-rotation.
jsalemi:
Boy, I feel old-fashioned. :) I play each lot through one full day, usually saving it during the night in case of a reset, and then move on to the next. The only time I go beyond that is when a birth is imminent, then I'll wait until the baby is born and named and then save.
I pretty much just use the lot timer to check where families are in relation to each other in how long they've been in the hood.
Jelenedra:
It tells you all that? ;D I usually don't play my neighborhoods long enough to worry about sending kids to college. =p
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