Actually, the three gardening opportunities have the second highest chance of happening.  Their 'ChanceToGetOnPhone' is 70, ReviveGhost is 75, next highest is only 20, while most are 5 or 10.  Opportunities seem to come every 2 to 4 days, and it randomly selects one out of all opportunities you qualify for with probability based on 'ChanceToGetOnPhone'.  If that's all correct, the quickest way to get the opportunity would be to not have a job or any other skill, therefor massively reducing the possible opportunities you could get.

I was hoping that any item that had 'Age Children="True"' would let those with the childish trait use them, but it didn't work like that.  When I looked at the toy box and doll house, they were marked as available for all ages, and I couldn't see anything limiting them to child/childish.  I think 'child's toy' might be a flag on the actual object and not in the XML.

I saw several complaints about adults using the sprinkler to much in the AWESOMEMOD! requests thread, so I spent a few seconds and made this XML tweak.  Only children get the 'Play with Sprinkler' option.

A sim is rich when their lot is valued at 100,000 or more.  Rich unfortunately has nothing to do with how much money they have on hand.

I recommend making a brand new game file mandatory.  If I started in my current neighborhood I could harvest all of the money trees and other perfect plants from the lots there.

I don't think files in the probation folder get loaded, so one of those two files are probably causing the issue.

Use AwesomeMod or another mod to enable debug commands and refresh the thumbnails (refreshsimthumbnails, refreshhouseholdthumbnails, refreshlotthumbnails).  That should fix the issue.

Artistic simply adds a 1.1 multiplier to the speed you learn the Writing skill.  It also multiplies the speed for Guitar by 1.1 and Painting by 1.25.

You gave me a great idea.  I just made a quick XML mod to enable the haunt action on playable ghosts.  You just click on the ghost sim and pick haunt.  Unfortunately, the ghost will then randomly select any object on the entire lot to haunt.  Funniest haunting I've seen so far was when my ghost haunted the decoration on the bottom of the pool.

Thank you.  I totally missed those two.  For some reason they were much later in the XML and not grouped with the rest.  They both rank the lowest at 0.333.  The list was edited to include them.

Is skilling modified by the speed at which you read the skill book? I keep wanting to think PPM is Pages Per Minute, when it's Points Per Minute.  Since the Homework skill gets 10 PPM (3 PPM if you copy homework), 1 PPM doesn't seem like much.

Thank you.  I edited my post.

Book Values...
From the Writing XML I calculated the average pages and average unmodified royalties for each book type to find the royalties per page.  Most of the results were obvious, but I like to have hard numbers when picking the best thing to do.  I was a bit shocked at how well Childrens ranked.

Masterpiece - 1.463
Vaudeville - 1.288
Romance - 1.104
Satire - 1.086
Childrens - 0.857
Fantasy - 0.75
Mystery - 0.652
Historical - 0.644
Humor - 0.638
Drama - 0.562
Article - 0.554
SciFi - 0.433
Trashy - 0.416
AutoBiography - 0.406
Biography - 0.406
Fiction - 0.333
NonFiction - 0.333

Three tests are hardly conclusive.  I thought I read in one of the XML's that the library gave some percent increase in the chance of hits and best sellers, so I searched through all the GameplayData.package XML's and found this;

In the Book XML it states the library grants a bonus 1 point per minute when reading.
In the Homework XML it states the completion rate modifier from the library is 1.111.
In the BuffPowerStudy XML it states the "working from home" performance (for workaholics) multiplier for the library is 1.5.

Absolutely no mention of any writing bonuses.

I was upset I couldn't haunt objects with my playable ghost like the NPC ghosts can.  I love to sit in chairs or benches while they're being haunted.

You use a program like S3PI to extract everything from GameplayData.package.  It results in 2,278 XML files that take up 13.4MB.  Considering the amount of data, I've only scratched the surface, but I doubt an XML tweak would let you override the household limit.

Yeah, I've seen things in XML relating Boring to No Sense of Humor and Worrywart to Neurotic

I searched through all the XML in GamplayData.package for a couple of them...  Nothing for Wanton, in Idles it mentions the Materialistic trait, in Socializing it mentions the Greedy trait.  Haven't found anything interesting yet though.

EDIT: Something slightly interesting in Socializing XML;
Did Crybaby become Loser?

There are 3 toddler books for each Fun, Painting, Logic, and Writing.  Unfortunately they all have names like "ToddlerBookWriting1" in the XML, but they are all available from the book store.  Each category has a book valued at 50, 125, and 210.

I can confirm that.  When you choose 'Move in Household' you will see the actual lot sizes instead of the rounded lot sizes.  A lot of the "30x30" are actually 30x29, 29x29, etc.  It makes it a pain in the ass to design lots for multiple neighborhoods since a 30x30 lot might not fit in a "30x30" lot.  I always have to find the smallest lot of a certain size to build on, so it will fit on all lots of that size.  Great job, EAxis...

Step 1 is actually unneeded.  If you go to the graveyard a lot to play guitar for tips and chat with the ghosts, you'll get the opportunity.  I think the thing that triggers it and increases the chances of the opportunity is your relationship with the ghost.  Unfortunately, I could only find one way to interact with the ghost on my lot, which was dancing to music.

That is awesome!  I was trying to figure out if quality made a difference.

As always, Prima had some errors.  Here is the exact data from GameplayData.package, the numbers stand for "Fertilizer_Value"-"Fertilizer_Days", and if the item has an asterisk (*) it means you can't purchase that item from a store.

25-6 = Lifefruit*
25-4 = Angelfish*
25-3 = Vampirefish*
20-4 = Shark*
20-3 = Lobster
15-6 = Garlic
15-4 = Steak, Bell Pepper, Flame Fruit*, Blowfish*,  Piranha*, Red Herring*, Siamese Catfish*, Tragic Clownfish*
12-3 = Black Goldfish, Salmon, Swordfish
10-5 = Watermelon
10-4 = Jellyfish*, Minnow*
10-3 = Tuna
8-3 = Rainbow Trout
5-6 = Lime, Onion
5-5 = Potato
5-4 = Burger Patty, Cheese, Egg, Apple, Lettuce, Tomato
5-3 = Grapes, Alley Catfish, Anchovy, Goldfish
-200-4 = Deathfish*

Based on that, out of the things you can purchase, Lobster is the best thing you can fertilize with, but Garlic is close and lasts twice as long.

NOTE: Could this thread be moved to the Facts & Strategery forum, since it has many useful facts.

From what I've noticed with the vacationer trait, if you don't go to work you get a very minor performance hit, but you won't get fired even if you miss a week of work.  My sim with vacationer would only show up to work when he needed money or all of his performance smilies (skills, coworkers, etc) were maxed.  That's the only trait I bought.

Not sure why you're having so much trouble killing an NPC, the only one I tried to kill was the papergirl because she always kicked my flamingos.  Unfortunately she just teleported out of the prison room I made for her.  As for the opportunity, you can just go to the graveyard and pick up one of the tombstones.  Just remember, whoever you pick will become a playable ghost living in your house.

Motive bars still do affect a sims mood, it's just so easy to get jacked up on positive moodlets that it's hard to notice.  Infants are clear indicators of that, since they don't get moodlets.  I'd hate it if they hid the motives bar, because they'd still be functioning in the background, so they would just be taking away information we're shown.  I'm too much of a control freak to like that.  Imagine not knowing you had to use the bathroom until you got the two hour warning moodlet...  I foresee many wet pants that way.

Here's the mod from just before the newest update; awesome.zip

EDIT: The newest version of AwesomeMod, dated 6/7 10:41 PM, does not have the 0100 crash so I deleted the link.