More Awesome Than You!

I've been playing with FT installed and thought that I'd try out the super fertility lifetime aspiration benefit with a couple of family sims. I gave both of them the 'benefit' and played a few pregnancies out of curiosity and it looks like EAxis have implemented it in a slightly arse about face way. I've got ACR installed so I can track the progression of each pregnancy.

Pregnancy no1 - single conception, twins birth (WTF? At this point I started paying more attention to the pregnancy stats.)
Pregnancy no2 - single conception, single birth
Pregnancy no3 - single conception, single birth
Pregnancy no4 - single conception, twin birth (pregnancy switched from single to twins at second? stomach pop)
Pregnancy no5 - single conception, single birth
Pregnancy no6 - single conception, twins birth (pregnancy switched from single to twins at first stomach pop)

So it looks like EAxis are rerolling the twins odds at each stomach pop. My overall odds may be slightly higher due to twins and triplets being installed, but I'm going with the original chances which I believe are game default (not the mod overrides).

Is this consistent with others people's experiences so far?

That would explain why out of 16 conceptions to family aspiration sims, I got 0 twins at conception. I just assumed it was broken and fed everyone with that reward cheesecake...

I haven't been keeping track of the stats at each pop, but I've had a deluge of twins. I have ACR set to 8% twin odds. Only one sim used the LTA twin benefit.

Of course, it could just be my RAMZ.

It seems reasonable enough to me. I mean, that sort of thing happens in real life, too. But again, it seems like a totally useless perk, given that the ability to have twins on demand already exists, and basically, all the Family perks above level 2 are totally and completely worthless, meaning there is no reason now to ever choose it as anything other than a secondary.

Hell, try level one. Comfort soup? The hell? Given that odds are they're going to sit down to eat it they're about to get themselves come 'comfort' anyway. It would only really impress me if it imparted comfort when you threw it onto a sim ("Ah! I am warm and soaking wet! But oddly comfortable..."). I just fail to see how it's much of a benefit item. Sure, a sim might be really uncomfortable after gardening for hours, but... just go sit down a minute! There are so many more benefits that could actually *benefit* a Fam sim. I mean, increased odds of getting a runaway teen or pet back, slower relationship decay with immediate and/or extended family, quicker potty training/teach to study, allow families to grow past 8 sims on the lot... but no, food that makes you feel like you're sitting down while you're sitting down to eat it? Meh, not impressed.

It also cures disease, so it's useful if your sets of twins all decide to bring home the flu from school and cough on you.

Well, the benefit for it is low, but it *DOES* exist: It cures the plague, which is the IMPORTANT part. I believe it will ALSO cure the morning sickness, since it is also implemented as the plague. More importantly, it's a level 1 perk. Does anyone seriously expect a level 1 item to be THAT good? The fact that it *DOES* produce a meaningful, tangible benefit is enough as it is! The level 2 perk, a motive-decay-reducer, well, they're not the most IMPORTANT motives, but you can never go wrong with that.

Level 3 and level 4, though....totally and utterly worthless. There are far better, more reliable, more controllable ways to achieve twins, and if you manage to get the SS to actually appear, you
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/cats/fail.jpg)

Since the level 4 perk is what defines validity as a primary aspiration (LTWs and normal wants count equally for both primary and secondary without differentiation), and the Family level 3/4 perks are totally worthless, there is no reason to EVER choose it as a primary now. Especially since family primary ALSO gives that annoying screaming-by-mailbox-on-return-from-work thing!

I had the SS show up this week. I overestimated the amount of time she would let go by with children unattended in the house. There were three kids come back from school at 3PM and the first parent was to be back at 5PM.

And again, that does not make the perk useful, because if the SS shows up for THAT reason, you're NOT AROUND TO ACTUALLY USE IT. Still useless.

Curing the plague? Well, hell yeah, that's a tangible benefit - especially if it also cures the pregyak. Still wanna see sims fling it at each other, though. Sad and tragic lack of food fight in this game.

Maybe pissy housemates could fling their soup when they flounce off to find a new place to live.  ;D

I got away with an hour overunderlap yesterday, maybe an hour is max?

I frequently have that hour's gap (kids home @ 3, parent home @ 4) with no problems. The popup about not leaving your kids home alone does come up, but it's right before the parent gets home.

I can leave my sim babies home alone for hours. When the adult leaves, I will get a pop-up that says I shouldn't leave the kids home alone and that I need a babysitter with the option to click "nevermind" or "I need a babysitter". I click "nevermind" and the adult just goes to work and leaves the kids.  I don't get the social worker.  It seems that I have some hack that is allowing this, but, after looking through my hack folders it's not obvious which one it is.

I actually had a chance to use "plead with social worker" on one occasion.
The baby controller hiccuped and left a toddler sitting all by itself in a corner in social desperation, while I wasn't paying attention.
Lucky for me it worked, or I would have failed the apocalypse challenge right there.

SShack pops up that dialog, but you're only allowed to leave children unattended. Toddlers and babies use the original rules. However, the override lets you force them to go to work anyway if someone would return right away within a few minutes of you leaving, or a nanny, or what-have-you, without being stuck unable to leave because for some reason you can't be gone for all of 5 minutes.

I do have SShack.  I have only noticed being able to leave babies, toddlers and children for hours in one lot.  I will have to check another one to see if they can be left alone without a social worker showing up.

Children can also ring for the nanny themselves if the adult - or god - forgets, I discovered the other day.

Maybe ChildrenCanStayAlone by XPTL from the Insimenator site?

Yeah, or if daddy gets abducted by aliens for the umpteenth time... ::)

Yeah, I just don't use nannies as a general rule. If the lot had had a car, I would have just had the mom wait an hour and leave then. But they don't, they are still pretty poor. Nice house, but no disposable income. She's at her ordained career level, just was out of vacation days, and there were just two days left when there wouldn't be a teen in the house. I'd saved before I told her to go anyway, so no harm done.

You can get some entertaining glitchiness from a race between aliens and social workers.  I once had a social worker on the lot (about to snag the toddler) RIGHT as her father was coming back from his abduction.  The toddler poofed away in a bright light and then RETURNED.  The social worker just got in her van and beat the hell out of there.  (that toddler later went on to become Soylent Vu, the Messiah of cult called Saturn's Nine).

Parents home alone with the kid should not do "irresponsible" things like look into a telescope.  What happens if the parent puts the kidlets to bed and then goes jogging?  That would be, IRL, much more irresponsible.  Perhaps I should try this.

/me has never yet seen the social worker in any 'hood.

The only time I have seen the SS was when I did a Poe and convinced some poor shmuck to visit the celler for a cask of Amontillado.  His poor offspring soiled themselves in their toddler bed and the Waffen SS came to take them to a forced relocation camp.  Mommy came home and was so distraught and commited suicide.  Eventually the toddler was taken in by a nice family though.

Not much of a perk.  I've never had a sim die from illness.  If a sim gets sick I put them to work training body, dance, or badges and then wait for the recovery message.  It would be more of a perk if badly cooked comfort soup could backfire and make the illness worse.

Macro>eat and all my family sims cook is comfort soup ::)

Lord. Eyeroll indeed. I have been wondering, though, is that soup very filling?

My sims only ever need one serving usually, the pregnant ones sometimes come back for more.

I think this is the only time I lost a kid to the social worker, apart from death of both parents in unfortunate fire.

Happened to me too-luckily he didn't get a memory of the baby being taken away and I got him to re-adopt.

@ Emma: Did that memory just "luckily" not happen thanks to SimPE?   ;)

No, I think it was because he was busy being probed at the time :D I didn't cheat-honestly!

That would kinda put all other things out of your mind.

Maybe it's intentionally that way? Since you can't help it if you get abduct-taped and whatnot.

I dunno. I've only had it happen once, so I haven't had any opportunity to test.

I have found if you have FT and Family maxed to give more of a chance at twins you actually get them.  One family in FT the women got pregent then her husband got pregant by the alien both had a set of twins to go along with the daughter they already had.  Talk about a huge family and grandpa lived to be 110!

Mos to of the familys that have both parents with xtra change of twins get it or at least with my game.

As for the Nanny I used a hack from http://www.simwardrobe.com/ that keep the social worker from comming when children get hot/cold and found it keeps her off the lot permently.  I found that out when both parents went to work and the daughter got home from school and was alone, no message no social worker has ever showed up!  I even tested this by killing off both adults in another house where there were two toddlers.  No social worker ever.  I used the FT version.

What is "pregent"? And what is "pregant?"

I was thinking "pregent" might have something to do with a sex-change operation?

I've been wondering about the super fertility benefit, may have to carry out my own experiments later, but does the father's benefit affect the twin odds at all, or does the 'mother' have to have it? Also, does giving both parents the benefit increase the odds, or does it only apply once? (If it's just forcing a re-roll at each bump, it may still be using the standard twin odds?)

I have one family sim who I'm planning to let go at it, and see how many kids she gets. She has all the benefits already. Her husband's primary aspiration is wealth, so he doesn't have it. #1 is on the way, single birth, no bump yet. I'll take notes, perhaps report back once she's done having kids.

I had a quick look in SimPE and the increased chance of twins seems to be handled by the BHAV "FT - Family - More Twins" which is called when the pregnancy state updates. As far as I can make out it checks first if the mother has unlocked the twins 'superpower'. If she doesn't it then checks if the father has the twins 'superpower' unlocked. Either way as long as at least one parent has it, the game rolls a random percentage (0-100%) and checks if it is below a fixed percentage chance (50%). This would certainly fit in with the pattern of twin pregnancies I was getting which was roughly every other.

Well, it's nice that it WORKS, but it's still USELESS. Either you do, or you do not, want twins. If you do, there's a way which is 100% reliable and does not cost anything. If you don't, this perk would be counterproductive. This "perk" is not a prerequisite for anything USEFUL. In fact, family-3 and family-4 are both entirely useless.

I have precisely one sim with family as the primary aspiration, and I don't really see that changing any time soon. Personally though, I prefer the elevated chance to the 100% chance, I even have a 'fix' for the cheesecake odds. Sims who I want to have single births will have single births, regardless of what they were going to have. But occasionally I like to let a family do what they will, give them a bit of free rein. (Though not free will, I have some standards.)

Mostly I was curious about the odds, and how they're applied. Which I now know.

Yeah yeah Yeah I am not the best of spellers.....

Please try, Brittany.