Study abroad works! 

I sent my YA on vacation from her home lot, a dorm on my downtown LCU campus.  When she got to her hotel in Takemizu Village, I plopped a uni-test thing in her hotel room.  I spawned a semester tester for her, which was functional.  From her hotel she can do her assignment, do her term paper from a computer, and go to her classes.  She was not prompted to go to class autonomously, though I was able to send her.  She went and got credit, met the appropriate professors.

One weird thing is that the mascots, professors, etc. stopped by because the uni-test was on the lot.  There's probably a mod for that somewhere.

The biggest annoyance was that I was not able to place a college adjuster on her hotel lot, which means I have to play all 72 hours before she can go to her exam, and that kind of sucks!  I usually only play 48 hours to a semester.  I don't know if this would be different if she were staying in an owned vacation home instead of a hotel.  That will be my next trial.  Does anyone else know of a way to skip to the final exam without the college adjuster?  Or a way to place the college adjuster where it's not available? 

I didn't have time to finish out all 72 hours, so I didn't get to the exam yet.  I assume she'd be able to go without any problems since she went to her classes okay.  I guess the real test will be sending her back home after the exam to see if she keeps all the credit she earned.

This will be a lot of fun if it works out.  And a great way to charge my filthy-rich trust-fund simmies more money to go to college.  I can't wait to build a kind of boarding house (hotel) for my students to stay and study at. 

Anybody else try this yet?

One more thing to note:  you'll want to put your studying-abroad students in a different household than your staying-home students, since you wont be able to play your home students again until your abroad students come home.

It would be really cool if there were some kind of mod to keep the abroad students (or any vacationing sim for that matter) from walking around the regular neighborhoods and showing up on community lots.  It kind of ruins the illusion that they're supposed to be half a world away, you know?

ETA: I just finished out the semester, she went to her final exam and passed.  She came home with the appropriate credit. 

What a great idea!  That would be so much fun to send a couple students "abroad" to study.  I'm totally going to try this

Well, I don't know what's different about this setup, but I've got a group of YAs from my downtown uni on vacation right now, and no problems so far.  Maybe it was the Squinge hacks that caused the problem before?  I don't know, but it's working.  So, Yay!  I'll be glad to have spring breaks again

I have no idea if this would work or not, but could you try saving the community lot with one of those uni test paintings on it?  Maybe then it would be recognized as a uni community lot?

It's weird, but I still have one community lot that I stole from my college and brought downtown and the cafeteria worker still spawns.  So maybe also try taking the lot to your real uni and saving it there, and then bring it back.

Just got a chance to play and this seems to be working well.  Are you all getting the semester timer to count down?  Mine isn't.  I remember that the timer did count down with Argon's mod, so I'm wondering if that's something that could be added to this?  It's handy not having to have those stupid apples all over the lot.

Also wondering if anyone's tried sending YAs on vacation?  I know back when I played original Uni, I could send them on vacation, and I usually had each bunch of students go on spring break somewhere.  But I haven't been able to do that since moving my uni downtown - they age to adult as soon as they get to the vacation hood, same with hobby lots actually.  I'm hoping it might be different with these in place.  I'll be trying it out as soon as I get them all through the current semester. 

Everything else I can think of is working - dorms, prompts for going to class... Good work Lion!


Yes, eliminates the need for regular uni, but not only that, I believe the last time I checked I wasn't able to play regular uni anymore - they would age to adult there.  (Last time I tried was with Argon's mod.  I haven't tried with this one yet.)  So if it's basically the same, I think you'll have to choose one or the other.

Can't remember what their diplomas say.  I'll check next time I play.

As far as I know, no one has made a mod to charge for college costs (though that would be a really cool mod!).  So I use Monique's computer, and you can either donate the money (it just vanishes into space), or my uni has a President who owns all of the campus lots, and through Monique's computer, they can pay their tuition to her so that she can go around building up the campus.

What other things did you want to know about?  There are a ton of different mods and cheats I use for my random events, none of which I made myself  

Very cool!  I will try this out in my downtown uni as soon as I get a chance to play!

I've done it before and never noticed any problems.  The owner will get the money for it, and everything should still be inside the way you left it last.

In the spirit of sharing, I thought I'd throw my random file out there too, since you all are sharing such great ideas.  I've already added in a couple I stole from this thread, and there are probably a couple more I stole a long time ago from wherever... so have fun!

Good ideas!  I'll be stealing a couple of those


About the same as yours.  They pay $1000 a semester, for a total of $8000 if they complete their degree.  They also pay rent in the student housing which ranges from $200-$1000 a semester depending on which dorm they want to live in.  I don't have any kind of community college set up, but my uni is in my downtown, so anyone can go there to study. 


I have Squinge's fight anytime too.  Love that one!  I would love to see some fighting between sims in 100/100 relationships.  There's just too many happy families going on in my hood.  After all these years, I still have yet to have a teenager run away from home because I've never been able to get the relationships down that low without just completely arranging it myself.

Ha, there's a new random event for us - teenager runs away from home!

That's a great idea!  I don't think I have many events that apply to the younger life stages.  I'll have to think of some more.  If you have any in mind, I'd love to hear them.

I never thought about putting their names in the random file.  I just roll a random number between 1 and 80, and since I already have a list of them in order by age, I just count.  And then if the Sim chosen doesn't make sense for the event, I reroll.  Hmmm, both ways seem equally complicated

I roll four events at the start of every round (who the event happens to is random as well).  But remember I have a huge population, so four events per about 80 sims/ 25-30 households.  That takes me usually a little more than a month to get through.  So I guess that works out to about one event per real-life week.  I don't think my Sims could handle much more devastation than that      

You guys all have some great ideas!  I use Random Stuff too, and a deck of cards when needed.  I play to my Sims wants and fears and personalities as closely as I can, and try not to have my own ideas about what I want them to end up doing. 

My ‘hood is huge.  I have 79 playables and a chart where they're all listed by age.  This is how I keep everybody in sync, and I can mark by their names things like who has bad credit, who's currently pregnant, who owes what money, or whatever.  I play everybody 2 days at a time, and I use Inge's agecons, modified so that one day represents one year.  By the time I get through, it really does feel like it's been two years in the hood. 

Nobody gets any free money.  They take out loans with Inge's shrubs for their homes and businesses.  Kids pay a ton of money if they want to go to college.  They can take out student loans if they can't afford it.  My sims have to pay back their loans at 10% of the loan every play-session, which is 2 sim-days.  I'm very strict about this, and if they can't make their payment, after three strikes, I declare them bankrupt for 10 sim-days.  This hardly ever happens though. 

It's so hard to keep these sims poor, without going the all OFB route, which I don't have the patience for.  I only allow skill building if they have a want for it, so that keeps about half of them in pretty low-level jobs.

The only thing I have to add that hasn't been mentioned is that I like to play with random disastrous events in my random file.  Some of them are kind of morbid, but realistic. Things like people dying, losing jobs, being forced to move out of the neighborhood, midlife crisis where they change their aspiration - and some good things too, like inspired to take up a new hobby.  I think someone shared a similar random events file once.  It's really the thing that's kept my game the most interesting for as long as I've been playing.  And the rule is I have to follow through, no matter what.  Even if it's one of my favorites.  And a lot of these things also help me keep the population manageable, because after all, not everybody lives to die at old age, and not everybody lives their whole life in the same town they were born in, you know?  Even so, my population is just about as big as it can be while still being manageable.

Then there are rules like, any time someone is in a bad mood, they MUST argue with the person closest to them, be it parent, spouse, sibling.  It really should be built into the game that you fight with your spouse when you're in a bad mood.  I mean, hello, that's what spouses do!

No exiting without saving rule.  Whatever happens happens, even if I don't like it at the time.  It almost always makes the game more interesting.

Any time someone gets depressed, they MUST roll the random file, and they have a 1 in 20 chance of offing themselves.  Morbid, I know, but it happens, doesn't it?  They have 10 in 20 chance of doing something, anything, to make themselves happy, regardless of the consequences.  And 9 in 20 chance of just moping around.  They have to roll again for every day they're depressed.

So, basically, I like to keep the game surprising me.

My pleasure sims also roll the stay home wants occasionally, not related to anything sometimes it seems.

LOL, this is brilliant!  I am absolutely going to steal this idea.

Croiduire, I have to agree with you, but I don't know about the three-day thing.  Maybe one full day?  What's bothering me more than anything else is age problems.  Perhaps some kind of age check could be added?  So that they couldn't be promoted beyond a certain level that makes sense for their age.  That is, if such checks can be made in terms of sim-days old, rather than just the broader age stages. 

For example, I have a girl straight out of college, adult, and supposed to be about 24 years/sim-days old and in the medical career, and I've got her as an intern or resident, which makes sense, but I can't keep her from being promoted and have to keep knocking her down a couple levels.  I really can't see her being a surgeon or whatever until she's at least in her 30s, you know?  I have another guy straight out of college in the law career and he's gotten up to Entertainment Attorney in just a couple days.  He'll probably be promoted again soon. 

Otherwise though, I'm happy with everything else harderjobs is doing.     

Yes, that did the trick!  I figured I would try out the simplest sounding option first   Thanks!

I haven't tried out the new terrain cheat yet either.  It might be useful though since most of the land on the neighborhood template I'm using is too low to use basements.  I don't suppose it allows you to add new roads?

So I guess I messed this up pretty bad and I'm wondering if this house can be salvaged or not.  I downloaded a house that had a basement and placed it in my hood (based on the bluewater template, low floodplane) and the basement flooded and turned the neighboring house to sand outside the lot.  See pic here: http://s61.photobucket.com/albums/h46/darceemichelle/?action=view&current=snapshot_53685518_f4efe67c.jpg

I have long since bulldozed the offending house, but this other house never went back to normal.  I have a family living here and don't really want to go through the hassle of moving them.  There are several other houses in this immediate area, and none of them are having this same problem.  They all have grass outside the lot, just as they should.

I've tried the terraintype cheat.  I can't think of anything else to try.  Anyone have any ideas?

Don't forget about the sethour cheat.  I use it all the time with the community time project.  I send my sim to the business at 9 a.m., and home at 5 p.m., but very often I end up setting back the hour while I'm there to get more done. 

Yes, I've made over that particular dormie too.  I have a shop on campus called "The Ugly Stick" with a plastic surgery machine, mirrors, and a townie maker gun (for new clothes) and I've pretty much taken care of all the EAxis uglies at this point.  And then I make the surgery genetic so they don't pass on fugliness to their spawn.  I don't want them all looking pretty or anything, I just don't want them to be freaks.

Your girl's not bad looking, save for those eyebrows. 

Do you always age them up right away to take a peek at what they'll look like?  I never thought about doing that, but I guess if they turned out looking like a train-wreck, you could quit without saving and let the birth play again and get a different kid.  Interesting.

Sorry, I'm not awesome.  But I like these ideas.

They could study badges on Monique's computer.  http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=64137

If you have FT, this computer is not updated for it, but still works.  You just wouldn't get the new FT options.

Yes, I've been changing mine too.  Probably 75% of my pre-existing sims ended up liking fitness.  I haven't had many babies born since FT, but I'm hoping when the next generation comes along it's more random.

Mine are working fine.

Cool, I didn't know that.  At least there's something then. 


Yes, exactly. 

ETA:  Okay, I just did a little math, and according to the info posted in the War Room, even if they never gain a single event boost, a Sim who leads a reasonably happy life would still have enough points to fill the bar before elderhood, and that's fine by me.  Not that I want them all to fill up their bars, but just as long as they can carry on doing the things they want to do and be rewarded for it.  Slightly less disappointed now