self sustaining hoods

[joandsarah]

I don't think anyone here plays this way, but I've been interested in these for some time, partly trying for it with my last BACC.
Basically if you haven't heard of it before the hood is meant to have all services and sims in those services just like a real large town would. Many that I've read about have a tax system which they use to build new 'gvt' run type services. Some use no Maxis made career jobs at all while others have limits to the jobs or who can hold them. So say if a sim is Captain Hero he or she is the only CH for the entire town while there can be quite a few regular police.
There are some interesting and intensive blogs around. Some people have all kinds of spread sheets and detailed rules.

Anyway I decided to try it again as my current BACC is so very slow. (My own fault for having a no digging all created things policy) Still a good challenge but I have a few new careers and mods I want to play around with. So I thought I would start another SSH (Self Sustaining Hood) and put down some of my ideas and links down here for anyone else who is interested. CC certainly helps and certain aspects would not work at all without mods to change game play.

*You can see my trial of both an old banking and police mod over here at MTS
www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=3898490#post3898490
There are quite a few people over there who play the SSH)

I only just made this new hood, Vegemite Valley >cough< I couldn't think of a better name! yesterday by placing a nice little police station. Because right now that's what I am interested in, rather than making myself play BACC style and waiting on what I want to do.

chickadeelee.livejournal.com/18023.html I did extensive renovations inside and some outside which I will show later. Mine is a police station and a jail on a residential lot with room for one policeman/lady to live. It's really quite squishy though so I added a roof top area for prisoners and a basement shooting range. Didn't have room for a police conference room, you know where they all talk about current cases. I may yet do away with the jail area and have it on another lot.

The other thing in regular game play I want to get away from is sims going into a career as an adult from CAS with no skills. With my harder skills mod learning skills takes a long time. Making teens though isn't really any good as they need an adult (or you kill them off) and need to go to school. So what I am thinking is young adults. I have two options now for those. regular Uni, which I will need to build to suit my purposes. (Mootilda's uni inspired me and it does wotk ) Or I also have the college in the base hood mods. I still have to play around with those some more. Seeing I put in a police station first, my second thought was a police academy. Somewhere that the YA can train in body, logic and cleaning (Don't see how cleaning is needed but it is to be Captain Hero) I like how in sims 3 your YA are adults, but it just gives them extra life span. I don't see why teens who don't want uni should have to skip right to being 'mature adults' I like the idea of a few years where they can study at more vocational type places or just get on with their lives while not literally losing days. I also have a mod to try out that halves uni time to help keep hood ages more in line. Uni as it stands takes 24 days. Adults only live game wise for 30!
Anyway, long rambling post. I'm going to see if I can build a police academy next with training items. Maybe make 3 cadets and see who does best. I'd rather download one, but I don't think such a thing exists or if it does I can't find it.

[amylu1988]

Interesting thoughts, Jo. I'm slowly building a spreadsheet to start my BACC with next year, so this is something I've been looking at. It's going to take a lot of notes to keep track of who is in what career and what spots are still available, but it makes so much sense. I play the police force like that in Pleasantview now, but not the other careers.

Good point about the teens too, I'll be playing by the BACC rules that say you can't add a uni until near the end (or until the tax is built up) so I'll have a lot of teens going straight to adult, and a lot of unskilled CAS adults. Let me know if the academy idea works, I can always tweak my rules.

So much to think about, and I'm supposed to be finishing the OWBC (and WYDC) first!

[joandsarah]

I do want to finish my OWBC and WYDC as well. I actually did play the main house Wongelpongs and put a few pics and text into Word. Aged up Oz to teen and the alien twins are kids so I will have to writing that up soon.
WYDC wise I am somewhere around baby Q but again only updated to about N I think.
I decided I am not really a story teller that much (Mostly too much like work) so my legacy will only have plot up to gen 5 is born. That and everything else (except heirship challenge-that I have ideas for) will go to pick spam. I've talked about possibly doing that for ages but only said the other day that is how it will be. Hope that doesn't disappoint too many people, but I don't get a lot of comments anyway.

Anyway back to this, have you ever read the Isle of Tyme? I have parts of that (blog was taken down ages ago) I think that and Apple Valley were some of the first SSH's
I'm sure it could be played less intensively or only played intensely in some areas.
I sent my three cadets to Mootilda's uni to the police academy dorm I built and gave them 'police majors' (downloaded from MTS) I figure that would be fairly intensive. I just didn't bank on them needing cooking, charisma and mechanical first term. So having no skills I am making them all study those as I don't want drop outs right away! I may have to remove my 'notownieregen' mod as I've played a day and a half and seen no mascots at all. The couch turned up at least. All dormies are being made by that hood and wouldn't you know both are girls and they and the cook all got the monkey face! I was worried it was stuck, but then the couch came and broke that run with a different template.

Are you playing the original or one of the tweaked BACC rule set? I play by my own rules for the most part with ideas taken from the other rules. For examples, three fires mean I can add my fire station (I have a fire fighter career) Want to be a DR? You have to go to uni! I could never get my head around sims surgeons who didn't go to medical school. I have another mod that changes what jobs need a uni degree. So medicine is now a uni degree while cult leader isn't. We should probably make a BACC thread for talk about that challenge as it is somewhat different to the SSH idea.

[amylu1988]

I'm up to baby V now but need my copy of BV to finish the challenge. I'm posting from U to the end in one big post and then it'll be done. Yay for more Wonglepongs, I do love your OWBC!!

The thing that marks your stories out for me is the humour, you do make me laugh and smile and your stories always cheer me up. Plot or no plot, as long as you keep updating and posting I'll read. They're your stories, after all, so you should feel happy writing them.

And back to the SSH, I haven't read many 'hood-based stories yet. I need to read some BACCs and such-like to see how people get them done, and get my head around all the different ways of playing a whole 'hood.

Oh dear, a 100% monkey face dorm does not sound fun! At least the coach looked different, that would have been really annoying if it had got stuck. The career based uni courses sound like a good idea, what other ones have you got?

I've written up the original BACC rules set, but I'm not going to be playing anything until next April (planning way ahead here), so I'm open to ideas and hearing how it works best for people, which is where the SSH stuff comes in.

The tax system is the thing I can't get my head around, it seems to take so much working out!

[joandsarah]

V, you'r doing well.

Thanks Amy, that's my intension to be light and humorous, although the more plot I add sometimes that gets derailed and I have to stop and pull it back around as it's easy with plot to start getting more serious. I have all these crazy ideas for heirship, it's just getting there...

If you Google 'Sims 2 self sustaining hood' you will find some. There are lots more BACC and depending what rules they play to, some are more or less sef sustaining.

The hack "More realistic major to career linking' is here: www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=460959
Apart from that, adding the police major from MTS is my first custom major. Like custom careers they are all good so long as they have their own guild and you don't pull it out while playing those sims. I think it's just based on another major just with a name and symbol change.

I'm the same way with the tax system. I have the updated Monique’s computer which allows things like loans with interest but I haven't tried that yet. Somehow I can't see me keeping up with an actual tax system.

[amylu1988]

Me neither, and I deal with tax at work! It confuses me no end, I wouldn't want to have to play sims with a calculator, it'd take all the fun out of it for me.

I was looking at the majors and what careers they linked to the other day when I Maxis Matched the unis, some of the links are obvious, like biology leading to the medical career, but some are just bizarre.

I can't wait for your next heirship challenge, will it be the two boys against each other and the girls refereeing?

[joandsarah]

The boys will be against each other but what with being twins with 8 and 9 nice points I'm sure they will apologize to each other and the 'victims' the whole way. Well Angel has always been compare/host so I think that will continue. With her "Sit down and shut up" attitude she lends herself to funny. Rosa and Ari are also super nice, but will certainly be present, maybe as side presenters. *head on desk* over nice gangsters. I have this idea for making the heirship a type of safari hunt....

It confuses me no end, I wouldn't want to have to play sims with a calculator, it'd take all the fun out of it for me.

Same for me. Just the thought of keeping it all on spreadsheets with every minute detail accounted for makes my eyes swim. So I guess mine will be the 'light version'

I'll have to post some pictures and upload my police academy if anyone wants it. Larger would have been good, but 3 by 3 was the largest lot Mootilda's uni would take. You should check it out if you haven't seen it, it's gorgeous. Never thought I'd say that about a uni...