The Island Elemental Twins: Random Ideas and Challenge Rules Thread

My current household is the Green Tail Elder Heir: Alen Finley. You can find his story's beginning here:

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17962879/#Comment_17962879

My challenge for my Elder Heir households is essentially a rags to riches style of gameplay. For Alen, he'll be caring for animals and starting out running a vet clinic. My idea is that the Vet Clinic in Brindleton Bay was shut down for mysterious reasons, and there are a lot of sick pets. The world of Brindleton Bay is sick because of the poor care the Cats and Dogs are receiving. The Cats and Dogs are the Heart of that world, so the state of the animals will be reflected in the story I'm telling.

The way I'm approaching this is that Jack will spend everything he has to get a vet clinic up and running to help heal the animals, and the world. So, the household funds will be zero because everything will be dedicated to the vet clinic. This will be my first time running a business without relying on households that are guaranteed to buy up the entire store. So, the extra income will be a buffer to keep things running.

Because pets are involved, Jack will have more income than normal for a rags to riches challenge because I want to ensure the pets are cared for even though Jack will struggle to care for himself. I'm only going to give the vet clinic enough funds to be functional with a buffer just in case there are any unforeseen elements. I've had cats and dogs for a long time, but I admit that I haven't experienced much of the content in detail.

Technical Details:

I cheated the neighborhood to make it Industrial, but the industrial element will naturally decay to neutral over time. As long as the Neighborhood is in an Industrial State, the home lot will have the filthy challenge that makes everything get dirty quicker. Water and Power is produced via industrial means.

Jack will have to overpower the industrial elements in the neighborhoods with green elements to remove the Filthy Challenge. He can not remove the on lot industrial elements.

Thanks to city living, there are wallpapers and floors that look like they need maintenance. Jack has a roof over his head, but things are far from their highest quality. If he wants appliances that aren't used, he'll need to buy them from a retail store. Unfortunately, retail stores cost more than the catalog. The walls and floors can't be improved unless he has the money to replace the wallpaper and floors. He'll have to decide if new floors and wallpaper is more important than the appliances. As long as things are filthy and the walls are covered in mold, he'll have to watch out for the creepy crawlies.

To get rid of the creepy crawlies, he'll have to remodel his entire home. Not a single room can be left with mold covered walls and subpar appliances. He'll have to raise all of his money for the remodeling from the vet clinic. He'll be allowed a limited allowance to withdraw from the clinic.

Weekly, he can withdraw up to 500 Simoleans for the pets, and he can withdraw up to 1000 Simoleans for the home renovations. Business operations have costs that must be balanced.

I'll probably revise this as I play out Alen's Story for his first rotation.

I've been listening to this song while trying to think of the story I want to tell with Alen, and I admit that it has helped with stress. However, I don't think it's the right theme for Alen's story. I'm still looking for something that fits his story.

https://youtu.be/DmKGReoV0u4

For the industrial elements, I'm making a revision after building the vet clinic. Walls and floors with an industrial effect can be replaced in the main part of the build.

I created a small room that goes in the basement of my builds. this room is the main cause for the industrial effect, and it won't be something that can be removed.

So , I learned the vet is glitched and sims are getting free vet visits. My solution is to cheat funds. I'll be cheating 1000 simoleons for every five customers until it's fixed. My number is not random.

Running the vet for a single day cost me around 700 Simoleons. So, if I cheat 1000 Simoleons, my sim only makes a profit of 300 simoleons. If I do this five time a day, my sim will only make a profit of 1500 Simoleons. Every week, my sim will take 1500 simoleons from the business funds to increase the standard of living at home.

Alen should break even this way. He'll need to take 10 patients daily for five days to turn a profit.

So, the customers are paying for their vet visits. It seems restarting the game fixed the bug.

So, I just realized that Alen's rotation falls in the summer month, and I have a long holiday that season.

So, I'm going to cheat the net profits so he's paid for his vacation like most sims are during vacation holidays. Unfortunately, the Vet Career doesn't pay vacation time when you're the owner.

The summer season has a week long holiday themed around the island festivals. This holiday would result in a very powerful sad moodlet if Alen missed it.

Alen makes around 1000 Simoleons before wages are deducted, and he has two employees. So, for each day of vacation, I'm going to give Alen 600 simoleons. This means that once the holiday begins, he'll get around 6000 simoleons for 10 days off. That 6000 will be his total income that will go into the business funds, not household funds. I'll use the 6000 to develop the vet hospital, but he'll only pull from the business funds if he absolutely needs to.

My major revision to the Green Tail Heir's rules is that funds won't be restricted to an allowance. I have found that running a vet clinic is a reliable source of income.

So, My Revised Rules after a little experience running the vet clinic.

Alen will have a Vet Clinic with the latest equipment, but this equipment cost him everything he had. As a result, he has nothing but a worn down house without any furniture or appliances. The house is inhabited by 7 abandoned pets that have not been properly cared for. The house provides shelter for the strays, but Alen is sleeping outside wherever he can find comfort.

He can run his clinic as long as his employees aren't tired, and he can withdraw as many funds as he wants from the business to develop his home. He must leave 200 simoleons in the business funds so that he can operate his business.

The abandoned house inhabited by strays is both filthy and infested with creepy crawlies.

To remove the filth, the industrial smog plaguing the neighborhood needs to be cleaned up.

To remove the creepy crawlies, the house needs to be remodeled with all the essentials needed for a functional home, and it needs to not get filthy as often.

A big part of the challenge is the untrained pets. Cats and dogs will prevent your sim from getting a good nights rest, they need to be properly cared for before your sim, and you can't lose a single animal to animal services.

Auto aging must be turned off, the death of a pet will not be allowed. The sim must care for all pets. As a vet, aging down and up the pet from Adult to Kitten or puppy is allowed.

For Setup, the lot has to have an industrial footprint that shifts the entire neighborhood industrial.

To do this:

1. I created a room with Island Living torches that stay lit

2. The room itself has walls and floors with an industrial footprint. The ideal walls come from Dine Out.

3. I used industrial generators and industrial water production from Eco Living.

For the Vets that help with the clinic, I custom made them.

Vets can't have maxed skills.

It's recommended that they have:

Level 4 Vet
Level 5 Charisma
Level 5 Handiness

It is recommended that they are unplayed and have a pet.

Eventually, the desired vets will become available for hire, and hiring vets is important for the challenge. Employees get tired, and this effectively limits the amount of income you can make.

I'm copying and pasting this here because this is what I did to make my custom vets show up for hire.

1. They can't have maxed skills.

Level 4 Vet and Level 5 in Handiness and Charisma are the max possible if you want them to show up.

2. They can't be played households.

But, you can move them to the played household after they are hired.

3. Giving them a pet increases the chances of them becoming customers and consequently increases the chances of them being available for hire.

4. Allowing new customers will generate new sims you can later delete until the sim you want shows up.

Every new customer refreshes who is available for hire, and every customer that is later deleted increases the chance of the desired sim to show up.

When I encounter the bug that causes owners to not get billed by my sim, I will cheat 200 per customer that doesn't get billed. That's less than what my sim charges, but it's easy math.

Interestingly, it's only the sim I'm playing that encounters this bug. The employees can bill patients without any issues.