I have started a family that live above their shop. This has been working really well, the sims can bake or make nectar and sell it. But they adopted a child, and when he goes home from school, he actually goes to the proper home, not the flat above the shop. I have to close the shop and send both parents home to collect him. Is there any easier way to return the child to the shop, rather than their real home?
@sheridanhoughton Sims will always return to their "official" home after work/school, and unfortunately there's no way to change this (at least without mods)
@sheridanhoughton Sims will always return to their "official" home after work/school, and unfortunately there's no way to change this (at least without mods)
@sheridanhoughton @You don’t have to send the parents home to collect him though. You should be able to click on the corner of his profile and choose “bring here”
@sheridanhoughton In addition to the most important part of this dynamic that @PipMenace mentioned (clicking on their icon at the bottom of your screen on the retail lot they're living in and choosing to 'bring here'), I thought I'd add a few factoids that I found helpful/good to know when owning a retail business and 'living' on the lot via this workaround, in case any of it becomes relevant to you as you play this family...
I have three types of business that I did this 'workaround' with. One is a retail store, one is a vet clinic (where I also tested out hiring vets for the clinic and getting them to live in (as roommates) the 'technical home' that my Sims had while the family lived on the vet clinic lot), and one was a restaurant... (see notes in spoiler tag)
A note of explanation for a few details (most or all of which I think you know): The household that owns the business must own separate property to own a retail store, so the family has a 2nd home they technically live in. You run the household from the retail or clinic lot. They stay there and you assign beds, etc. If a child goes to school or an adult or teen goes off lot they will return to the home they technically live in (not the business). You just need to click on their picture at the bottom of the screen and direct them to come here/to the lot.
Overall notes on gameplay: I'm able to assign them beds on the retail or clinic lot. In my recent lot I 'lived at', which was a Vet Clinic, my Sims did all of the Country Living stuff on the lot, including the crops, farm animals, plus having fox, rabbits (stump) and birds (tree) on the lot. All of those functions worked fine. A few things to note (from my Vet Clinic playthrough/tests): • You cannot add functioning laundry aspects to the lot. It breaks. • You cannot add a butler. • You cannot ban vampires, though they also did not bother me. • You can advertise for roommates (after you add sufficient beds for all family members and roommates on the 'home' lot (I used a blocked basement room to put a bunch of beds on, then added a bunk to the regular bedroom of their owned home in game), but they will not answer the ad on the retail lot. I assume they went to the home. I was able to place the ad (after adding extra the beds to the other 'home') and ask Sims that came to the retail lot (for other reasons), or other acquaintances, to be a roommate while the add was active. In my test I actually had both of the vets I hired living in the 'technical' home, paying rent as roommates. I was receiving over $3000 each time for rent. • I could hire a maid and gardener. However, at first they came to the clinic and after I visited the home they stopped coming to the clinic. They were still hired though. If I fired and rehired they did not come to the clinic lot. I assumed they had started going to the home. This would help for a maid, though, as they will make sure the renters don't destroy the home. I kept the maid.
I did do some experimenting at using this workaround in an owned restaurant, which didn't work well for me. I remember that I found that I could not add any dining tables in areas that customers were locked away from, as since they were still on the restaurant's lot, they would count as tables for available customer assigned tables, so I think that messed up those Sim's ability to be seated. However, at one point I began to have some buggy behavior in my household, and I even had once or twice where a customer (NPC) absolutely refused to leave (and he stole something). I ended up getting so frustrated with him that I went in the 'non played' households, hunted him down, and deleted him! Anyway, the behaviors in my household were not ones I wanted to continue, so I stopped playing it, which was very sad for me. (The couple began waking up in the middle of the night and yelling at their sleeping spouse - something about they were behaving inappropriately (?). It would cause them to be so upset they couldn't sleep and things like this.)
Hope something in there may help you in working out the details that you want to in your game! Have fun! 🙌
that solution really worked. I didn't know you bring them home that way. much easier.
and thanks, Sheri, for the extra information. Some of your ideas wouldn't work for me as I don't have all the EPs (eg renting out my real home). But it was all really interesting.
I have a cow and chickens on the retail lot, as well as gardens for growing produce and nectar ingredients. So when my sim cooks, it is a bit cheaper because of already having some of the ingredients. And I am looking forward to the nectar her husband makes reaching maturity so that it will sell for a lot as well.
You're so welcome! Actually, I didn't rent out their home, I added roommates to it in the example I mentioned (roommates come with Discover University). Sounds like you're having a ball 'living' on the retail lot! I really like playing that way as I can 'open the store' for longer hours since the employee leaves after not long, and I can run the family on the same screen while customers browse. My favorite thing to do on a retail lot is to add 2-3 'Lice Cold Freezers' on the lot and add my produce and baked items or even meals my Sims (with high cooking and gardening skill) make (which can fetch a high price with retail markups). (You just drag them into the freezer and they automatically get marked as 'for sale'... and in the freezer they last a long time). The customers then just browse the freezer and help themselves when they decide... no need to check them out! On retail lots that's the way I make most of my profit, as it seems that the customers usually start purchasing more after I've been open longer than the employees stay. I will just keep one family adult or teen up the whole time open, and I rotate between them so they don't get too tired. I normally keep a retail store open 2-3 Sim days straight, and I make a LOT of money doing it this way (A perfect dragon fruit or gourmet meals/desserts sold this way fetch a pretty penny!). I've even added the freezer on retail lots like a car lot... in the lobby of the 'store'.)
I, too, love the Lice Cold Freezers. I have been putting baked goods, canned goods and milk and cheese in them. I don't actually have any staff yet. The couple who own the store run the store. And with most of the saleable things in the freezer, there is not much call for ringing sales up.
I hadn't thought of selling fruit and vegetables, or gourmet meals. So thanks, I will give that a try.
I have a flower arrangement table on the lot, and was thinking of later branching into selling flower arrangements. Do you have any tips for them?
@sheridanhoughton I have a lot of flower shops. They're my favourite things to sell. They make a huge profit too. The most important things to know are you must make them Timeless or you'll have a store full of buzzing flies and dead flowers. It's difficult to find which one it is too if you miss one. You just hear buzzzzzz and have to look everywhere. Also if you save the store to the gallery the arrangements don't save properly. Luckily another player warned me about that. They turn into pretty stalks. But, it doesn't affect Wedding Bouquets if you have Wedding Stories. You can copy those easily to save time by making a few, saving the room and then placing it again. But just not the full flower arrangements. I add a little wedding bouquet shelf to a lot of my retail lots this way.
If you have a Spellcaster you can use Copypasto to copy flower arrangements, but you can't restock those manually like other stock. You get a little ash pile. But bearing that in mind it's still a quick way to add flowers to a retail lot. You just get them to restock the same way or by making a new one.
I like to add the Nifty Knitting plants too (but frustratingly you can't sell the hanging pots). I add the ceramic llamas and the knitted cacti.
All my Sims head to the florist after moving in, but again those flower arrangements won't look the same if the lot is added to the gallery.
I always put a little apartment upstairs as it takes a long time to stock the shop one arrangement at a time. So my Sims will live there a lot of the time. One Sim has 2 florist shops. I also add the little flower stall from Wedding Stories to the car park so my Sims can buy flowers individually and get the Bluebells needed to make them Timeless.
