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perihelion
11th May 2010, 11:32 PM
The Challenge

Your Sims want a mansion, but all they have is a shack. So they're scraping together some cash and building the mansion of their dreams!

The Method:

1. Create a blank lot in the neighbourhood of your choice, with the following conditions:
Largest template must be used.
Lot must be flattened to street level.
Lot must have a dirt terrain.
The only structure allowed at the start is a 10x10 shack at the edge of the lot where your sims will live while they build their dream home.
2. Create a married couple in CAS. Can be same- or opposite-sex, it's up to you. They must, however, be married/joined. No kids or pets. If you have a polygamy hack, however, you can make a multi-spouse family.
3. Move the family onto the lot and set them up in the shack with basic amenities. Get them jobs. As they earn money, enter build mode and build the house piecemeal in the centre of the lot (eg. do a foundation, earn more money, then put some walls up, earn more money, put up a column or two). Once you progress to the point where the house can be minimally lived in, demolish the shack and move your Sims into the house proper, where they can continue to build until the house is finished.

The Rules

You may only enter build mode when two or more adult Sims are on the lot at once, for safety reasons.
You may not enter build mode unless all adult Sims are wearing hard hats.
You may only build on your Sims' days off and vacation days. If for some reason your Sims find themselves unemployed, you may only build on weekends.
You may not use any cheats except for those related to building.
Your Sims may use any aspiration rewards available to them.
Your Sims may not procreate until they move into the house. That shack is no place for children.

University:
Your Sims may only send their spawn off to college if said spawn roll the want to go to college and have at least two different scholarships.
You may play the YAs through college if you wish, but they must be moved back onto the home lot to help their parents finish the house.

Nightlife:
Your Sims may not become vampires.
Your Sims may not go on scored dates. General day trips, however, are fine.
Your Sims may not go Downtown.

Open For Business:
Your Sims may not purchase community lots. They need that money to build the house.
Your Sims may use crafting benches to make stuff and sell it from their inventories for extra cash.
You may set up a home business, but you must keep customers away from the construction area for safety reasons. Put up a fence or something.
Your Sims may build and activate Servos ONLY for the purposes of building and making money on the home lot while your Sims are at work.

Seasons:
Your Sims can grow and harvest crops and fish for money.
You may not build if it is raining, hailing or snowing.
Seasons must be set to a standard summer-autumn-winter-spring cycle.
No snowmen.
Your Sims may not become plantsims. If they do by accident, purchase and use Plantophic-C ASAP.

Pets:
Your Sims may not have any pets until they move into the house. Strays must be shooed away.
Don't go near the skunk.
No werevolves.
Pets may be trained and found employment.

Bon Voyage:
No vacations.
No digging for treasure.
The home lot may be on a beach lot if you desire.

FreeTime:
Your Sims may only use hobby objects that can be used to make money (like the pottery wheel).
Your Sims may only visit hobby lots that will allow them to make money in some way (like Sue's Secret Kitchen).
You may sell Mr. Humble's computer for extra cash, or use it to find a better job.

Apartment Life:
Your Sims may become witches, since they can sell crafted objects for money. However, they may only study magic and craft objects on non-building days.
The home lot must not be made into an apartment lot. Base residential only.

There is no scoring system for this challenge.
The challenge ends successfully when your house is fully built and ready for the next generation.
This is not a legacy challenge! If your builders die of old age or other causes before the house is finished, you fail the challenge.

supersimoholic
12th May 2010, 12:16 AM
This is pretty cool! But 10x10 is a little big for a shack! At least to me - a "small" house in Amanshire is 10x5! 10x10 is like, an average, size home to my sims XD!
I'd have a go at this but I can't stand big houses, I always end up with too much empty space XD
Maybe I'll give it a go later.

perihelion
12th May 2010, 02:34 AM
Trust me, you'll be thankful for the size of the shack once your sims start accumulating possessions and making things and such.


Oh, I forgot to mention that you have to use the biggest lot template for this challenge.

perihelion
20th May 2010, 12:59 PM
OK, here's my couple:

Meet Con Struct...

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/thirishar/snapshot_98f67531_d8ff186c.jpg

...and his lovely wife Dee.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/thirishar/snapshot_98f67531_b8ff1837.jpg

(Con Struct and Dee Struct, geddit?)


Anywho, they've only just gotten jobs and been promoted once in their respective careers. He's in Dance, she's in Culinary. They haven't even laid the foundation for their house yet, but they've been working and skilling like mad.

AmICute
22nd May 2010, 09:24 PM
Wow! I'm totally gonna have a go!

Where can you get hard hats, are they on here?

perihelion
23rd May 2010, 09:21 AM
Hard hats come with FreeTime, but I just discovered there's none for the ladies. I'll have to rectify that.


EDIT: I'm having problems with gender-swapping the mesh. For now just have all male Sims wearing hard hats during construction.

perihelion
25th May 2010, 09:03 AM
Edited OP to include rule revisions.

Here's a couple more snapshots:

The shack
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/thirishar/snapshot_98f67531_59082aa4.jpg

The beginnings of the house
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/thirishar/snapshot_98f67531_d9082abe.jpg

AlexandraSpears
25th May 2010, 11:01 AM
Hard hats come with FreeTime, but I just discovered there's none for the ladies. I'll have to rectify that.


EDIT: I'm having problems with gender-swapping the mesh. For now just have all male Sims wearing hard hats during construction.

When I do CAS, you can put a hard hat on a female.

BTW--why not name them Bob and Wendy? You know, Bob the Builder...?

perihelion
25th May 2010, 02:35 PM
When I do CAS, you can put a hard hat on a female.

BTW--why not name them Bob and Wendy? You know, Bob the Builder...?


Then why can't I do the same in bodyshop? Weird.

EDIT: I don't like Bob the Builder.

AlexandraSpears
25th May 2010, 06:25 PM
Then why can't I do the same in bodyshop? Weird.

EDIT: I don't like Bob the Builder.

LOL My 8-year-old son loves Bob, that's why it came to mind.

The hardhat is in Create-a-Sim. I never do Bodyshop.

perihelion
28th May 2010, 07:47 PM
ARGH! Setback!

My sims were robbed during the last gameplay session. the burglar took the bookcase, mirror, robotic crafting station and easel. ALL THE MAIN SKILLING ITEMS! If Con hadn't been recently promoted, they would have been pretty hard up and unable to replace their stuff. As it was, I could only get them the bookcase and mirror, plus a boombox.

Since it's now winter and the snow is halting construction, I'm going to get them to save up and start a basic home business that will supplement their pay. Con is now in the Adventure career and Dee is in Intelligence (their LTWs are to top those careers) but they're still taking ages to get anywhere financially. The recent burglary has only made a bad situation worse.

perihelion
31st May 2010, 08:14 AM
OK, I've re-edited the OP to reflect Alexandra's correction. Thanks for your help. I used the Change Appearance interaction on the mirror and saw that I could in fact get Dee to wear a hard hat.

Anyway, they've now got a home business - a fun centre of sorts that never closes. :) People just cruise in and out and pay the ticket machine to play pool, play video games or have a go on the karaoke machine. The business is now at Rank 3 due to the high volume of customer traffic. Since it's been snowing and raining a lot, by the time my sims were able to build again they had §20,000 in the kitty, which was just enough to build the house to the point of being able to move them in and demolish the shack, which means the children and pet restrictions have now been lifted.

The house is really ugly right now though. No windows, no proper roofing (just flat), nondescript wallpaper and ivory carpet. I had to spend a bit extra on the carpet because Con and Dee kept waving at me and whining about the house's low environment score.

perihelion
5th Jun 2010, 01:18 PM
Finished the challenge!

Ladies and gents, I give you 113 Challenge Street, Desiderata Valley:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/thirishar/snapshot_98f67531_b911bb9d.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/thirishar/snapshot_98f67531_b911b98f.jpg

Dee and Con got accepted into the garden club(the first of my sims to do so), and now have a baby girl, Rhea Struct.

So who else is doing this?

pandadoraa
26th Jun 2010, 06:22 PM
I'd love to start this, it sounds fun. And I love building so it may take them all their lives to move into their big house haha. One thing thought, I don't have FT so can I just make them wear earmuffs ? :p Or any other hat to symbolize a hard hat?


Edit: http://i48.tinypic.com/2qal3iu.jpg
Little house (:

http://i49.tinypic.com/2571wdh.jpg
Big house

I've been at it for about 13 sim days. Almost topping their careers, and the house is being build (:

perihelion
27th Jun 2010, 10:53 AM
Holy cow that was quick! Did you use the Career Adjuster or something? I had to use the Elixir of Life to keep my Sims going.

EDIT: If you have OfB, use the knight or diver helmets as hard hats. :D Or you can use the horned helmets from the base game.

lauratje86
27th Jun 2010, 05:46 PM
I decided to give this one a go :-)

Haven't been playing it for long yet, but here goes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v409/kathryn1986/Sims%202/SimBuildersChallenge01.jpg
This is my sim couple, David and Victoria Barnett. He is working in the Culinary career, as his lifetime want is to reach the top of it. She is working in the Adventurer career, and her lifetime want is to maximise all skills - probably not going to happen!

So far they haven't started building their mansion. This is their shack.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v409/kathryn1986/Sims%202/SimBuildersChallenge02.jpg
It's not bad for a shack! Beats living in a 4 by 5 room, that's for sure!

It's almost winter, so they're going to work hard, get as many promotions as possible, and save up until the first non-snowy/rainy day in spring, and then they'll make a start on Barnett Manor!

**UPDATE**

Well, it's day 2 of winter, and no snow as yet. So I decided to make the most of the fact that my sim builders both had a day off on the same day, as well as having about 11,000 simoleans in their bank account! :-) So here is a picture of Barnett Manor, Stage 1.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v409/kathryn1986/Sims%202/SimBuildersChallenge03.jpg
The room with the bed in (on the left) is the master en-suite, then there are two more bedrooms with a Jack and Jill bath (at the back, no furniture yet), a career/aspiration reward room (back right, with the Energizer and Culinary reward in), a kitchen with dining area (right, not much furniture yet) and a large living room (front middle). As you can see, it's lacking in furnishings and decoration, but at least they are able to move in and demolish their shack. And now they can start having babies! :-)

pandadoraa
27th Jun 2010, 05:53 PM
The main thing I do in sims is get those LTW, I know how to do it quick. I did just use the elixer of life, one bottle for each because they had only 6 days left, and I want them to have children (: But the wife had already topped her career, and the husband has a day or two more to get there, and their house is far from ready. I'll look into those viking hats, I've just been skipping that rule really.

lauratje86
27th Jun 2010, 06:40 PM
My sims have only been alive for 8 days, and both are on level 6 of their careers. And one has maxed out 2 skills already! :-D I generally concentrate on getting promotions when I play sims, so I am getting fairly decent at it. Both my sims have the day off today, but they are both on track for another promotion when they go into work tomorrow :-) Yay - more money for the house! :-D

**EDIT** I forgot to add some pictures of Stage 2 of the build, so here goes! :-)

For some reason, I decided to fence off the garden and put in a couple of driveways. Not sure why I thought that that was a good use of their cash, but never mind! There are also windows now, and lights, and carpet/wallpaper. Now their Environment meters aren't always way down in the red!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v409/kathryn1986/Sims%202/SimBuildersChallenge04.jpg
Here is the inside of the house. As I mentioned before, carpet and wallpaper have made an appearance! :-) Still rather lacking in furniture, though.....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v409/kathryn1986/Sims%202/SimBuildersChallenge05.jpg

pandadoraa
27th Jun 2010, 09:18 PM
What are you plans for these sims after their house is done? I decided I'm gonna torture them by having as many kids as I possible can lol. I have 2, one on the way, and I think I can get her to have 7 more, if I don't use another elixir drink.

lauratje86
27th Jun 2010, 11:03 PM
Oooh, how cruel! :-D That many kids would drive me mad, never mind my sims, so I think I'll just stick with the ones they've already had! Besides, I don't think my sims will have long to live after their house is done.... I just decided to put a swimming pool in which is going to cost 20,000+ simoleans..... And I've barely touched the garden yet, either. And I want to buy the family 2 cars, too. Victoria reached the top of the Adventurer career, and has now taken a new job as a University Guest Lecturer (Education career - I wanted the career reward!). She also maxed all her skills (that was her LTW). David reached the top of the Culinary career, and I'm letting him keep it as he's looking after the kids at the moment anyway. They had girl-boy twins, Scarlett and Romeo (gotta love cheesecake!) and they've just become toddlers, so plenty to do! I reckon I'll need about 50,000 - 75,000 to finish the house they way I want it, it's cost about 60,000 so far. As they've just had twins, I'll probably let them raise their families in Barnett Manor too after their Mum and Dad die of old age..... Mum and Dad are only 8 days away from becoming elders, so I may give them two drinks of Elixir each before they do.

**UPDATE** Here's a picture of Stage 3 of the building. Way more furniture now, and the beginnings of a swimming pool in the back garden.... :-D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v409/kathryn1986/Sims%202/SimBuildersChallenge06.jpg
Got any more pictures, pandadoraa? And I'd be interested to see more of your house if you have any perihelion, I know you finished a while ago, but it looks really pretty!

perihelion
29th Jun 2010, 03:21 PM
Great house Laura! Yours isn't looking too bad too, pandadoraa.

Here's a full set of photos of my house: http://swear-bear.deadjournal.com/10666.html

lauratje86
29th Jun 2010, 05:34 PM
Thank Perihelion :-) I love your house! Mine's not as big as yours, but don't worry, the 20,000+ simolean swimming pool is making it suitably expensive! I didn't have time to play yesterday, and I got new glasses so I was too excited about being able to see far away things to be on the computer much, but I'll do a bit more of the challenge today, assignment allowing! :-)

pandadoraa
29th Jun 2010, 10:38 PM
You've done so much! Already onto more careers lol. I don't have pictures as I've only played a couple hours past my last update. But they have moved into their new house, and I'm working on those babies haha. I picked the largest lot possible when placing my sims, so I'm thinking of filling it out by doing a couple generations, and having a massive garden (: