Is 'upgrading' worth it?

I upgrade everything that can be upgraded, extra options and moodlets make it worth it. I find the reward for the Nerd Brain aspiration, "Instant Upgrade" a real boon since it does'nt cost any parts; pity it can only be used once a day. :smile:

"TheStarHermit;c-16749883" wrote:
I upgrade everything that can be upgraded, extra options and moodlets make it worth it. I find the reward for the Nerd Brain aspiration, "Instant Upgrade" a real boon since it does'nt cost any parts; pity it can only be used once a day. :smile:

I use a mod that takes away the Instant Upgrade cooldown period. My Sims ain't got time for that. B)

"SheriGR;d-948724" wrote:
Has anyone else noticed that spending thousands for upgrade parts and having a '10 handy' Sim upgrade and even make some things 'unbreakable' does not necessarily seem to be reducing how often their stuff is breaking down?

Spending thousands? You know your Sims can "salvage for parts" in piles of trash and get upgrade parts for free? Some of them can also salvage for parts in trashcans.

And, yeah, I upgrade a lot because it lets me use lower end items that might otherwise be traded in for high end items that have some of the upgrades already built in.

I put all the bells and whistles in the bathroom parts and every morning when my sims did their bathroom routines they would get I think 3 happy moodlet increases which helped get them into the ideal career mood easier (and stave off things like the dang sad moodlet because mr pancakes who I only met once died) I say it's worth it myself but I salvaged all the parts really until I had enough excess money where it didn't matter to use a little for upgrade parts

I solved the dryer catching fire problem. I don't have one.

@kalaksed True, true, true... as long as those things work they way they say (the upgrades). I'm usually too busy bossing my Sims around to track whether anyone had to clean the toilet (which is still destroyed by diarrhea or vomit I assume? Hmmmm, guess I need to spy a bit. Gotta leave something for the maid, right?). I assume many upgrades are working as expected, I was just a bit unnerved when I had them do all - ALL - upgrades and all and those stupid bathroom plumbing issues are still there continually. So... I was assuming the other upgrades may or may not be doing what they say. I made a greenhouse with earth in the middle so I could use the sprinklers (huge time saver, especially since not all of my towns are letting me hire gardeners... :/ ), and those things couldn't stop breaking long enough for him to get through all of the upgrades! I hope they are better now, as they run almost constantly now (what's up with that?).

@greenXen Ummm... yea, I know they can scavenge for parts (which I used to always have them do, especially when their money was tight), but they never seem to have the right ones in their inventory for most of the upgrades anyway, and I got sick of doing the run-around to always have them do the scavenge. I usually drag it to the trash later now. They have the money for the parts, it just annoys me that the parts cost so much then I keep having to re-purchase as they continue the upgrades because they run out of the parts they need to do the upgrades... thousands of bucks later. So... I was expecting more than I got from those upgrades. I don't really mind, as I usually have someone who can use the skill work, but just seems a bit costly for what you get and some 'false advertising'. I'd be better off to get the more expensive upscale item, but I thought it would work out to be similar. Between you and me, I actually have germ-type OCD in real life (seriously) and it freaks me out a bit to have them scavenge through other people's trash. Sorry, I'm a bit of a weirdo in that way. ;) Hahaha...

@catmando830 That just made me laugh and still does. I'm with you... Who wants to do more laundry? That one's a bridge to far for me. Hahaha....

@stilljustme2 What an instant upgrade?

I always upgrade everything as soon as possible for a couple reasons. The stackable moodlets are great to enhance other moods for one thing. Plus it's great having your Sims hygiene go up when they use the toilet. Sometimes they don't even need a shower afterwards and it also cuts the time needed to use those things almost in half or even less. Lastly, because I absolutely adore having the Retro station on stereos to hear TS2 songs.

Oh and just a tip for those who don't mind doing something a bit cheaty to get free parts. You don't have to spend thousands. All you have to do is scavenge for parts then click to throw away. BUT, immediately cancel the action and they'll drop the bag allowing your Sim to scavenge again. You can do this over and over for as long as you want to get more parts. Just make sure their trash can is far away. ;)

The only drawback is the time consumption. I think it's worth it though if your Sim doesn't have a lot of simoleons to spend on parts or enough satisfaction points to spend on rewards to eliminate those needs.

EDIT: One more thing, I never get the thermostat for my Sims, they all have a fireplace to keep warm and it's always on except in late Spring/Summer. I have not had one fire yet and that's one thing I've never upgraded. I didn't even know it was upgradable until I read about it in another thread.

The only one I had fun with was in TS3, the doorbell update. You get some fun doorbells.

I miss an option to upgrade beds, so that they give more energy. I like some of the looks of the cheaper beds a lot but they are literally torturing the Sims who own them. I finally modded that myself (https://www.deichschafblog.de/s4/sonstige-mods/), but I would still appreciate EA taking care of that.

I like the upgrades self lighting fireplace and bidet to the toilet a lot. I also like the upgrade for the stereo that gives the Retro channel.

Every time I update the tea pot, I regret it, because afterwards it always gets buggy and needs to be replaced because the foul tea can no longer be removed. Also until some patches ago, the upgraded tea pot used to just vanisch from the game completely (which is luckily fixed by now).

I think the upgraded items break significantly less, but they still break quite a bit as the original breaking chance is too high without mods.

In my main save the plumbing objects seem to break a lot. Then again, some of them probably need to be replaced with higher quality items when the sims can afford it.