Is there a tutorial on the internet somewhere that outlines how to set up and run a farm as a business? I recall visiting a website that had hacks for getting the employees of a community lot business to plant/tend gardens, but I'd like to know the best way to set up such a farm, and I don't recall seeing any extensive instructions on how to do that on the website (simlogical, I think it was..?)

Thanks!

I use the "businessrunsyou" mod from MATY which allows you to designate employees as farmers and fisherman with the harvested produce and fish going into the owners inventory. Other than that the business runs as normal set out the produce or fish for sale and then restock from inventory.

I know simwardrobe also has some tools that facilitate for farming and they come with a RTFM that explains how they work.

Other than just knowing how the mods function the business would run as any retail shop would.

I don't know of any tutorials, but I can tell you how I did it.

1. Make sure to pick up the produce packing station from simwardrobe.com
2. Call on the phone to set up a home business.
3. After packing your produce, put them on selves and set prices for them.
4. This is just a tip, but make sure you have at least two people checking out to avoid long lines.

Where you plan to set up the business is up to you. What I do is make a fruit stand beside the farmhouse
and sell the produce outside. I think it is the best way because it keeps people from roaming around your house. If you have a lake, you can pick up the fish packing station and sell fish as well. Also, Clashfan is right about businessrunsyou. It's great for farms.

I hope this helps.

Like MimiSim, I run produce stands; pack up harvested food using simwardrobe's produce packing station and sell the crates. If I've got a large-scale business, I open the produce stand as a local farmer's market on a separate lot. Really, to start up a farm you just need some gardening plots (found in Build mode under the garden section) and money to plant seeds and buy orchard trees, and if you want to expand, to fertilise plots, buy sprinklers, and make a greenhouse.

The website you're thinking of for the employee gardening might be www.simwardrobe.com; they offer an employee gardening controller:

"This controller allows you to assign an OFB employee to gardening. The employee will tend all plants and fruit trees that create produce. When the produce is ready the employees will harvest it. The employees will also fertilize empty garden plots."

Available under sims 2-> objects-> business facilitators-> employee gardening.

Clashfan,
Could you please elaborate how businessrunsyou works when you assign an employee as a gardener? Can you tell them what to plant and what exactly do they do? Do they water in addition?

With simwardrobe's gardening controller, I found out that sims always water plants, even if you have sprinklers.

Babahara,

I can answer that for you. On the BRY controller, you can set the employee to garden. I believe that you have to have garden plots available for the option to show up. BRY only shows you the options for what is on the lot, if there is no bar, you cannot assign an employee to be a barista. The employee does everything needed for the garden plots, they water (if you do not have sprinklers, I think, I do not use sprinklers) and this is a little-known tip:

In the ffs section for the your latest EP (mine is AL): http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/f...ir=al%2Ftest%2F there is a test directory. In there are mods, which for whatever reason, were never released to the public. (All of them work fine in my game for months now.) Anyway, there is a file called gpsign.package

According to the folks at MATY :



And gpaccessory:



I have them both and I can report they work marvelously with BRY. So now, when crops are harvested, whoever is designated to Be Farmer (with BRY) or Garden (with macrotastics) will automatically use compost if you have it a full compost bin on the lot and bagged compost if you don't and replant whatever plant you have situated to be in the plots for that sign.

Tip: You have to use fence around the plots and put the sign inside the fence. This a picture of what I mean:


The little sign with the garden badge is Pescado's gpsign (garden plot sign). On the other side of his sign, I have a little photo garden sign I downloaded from TSR, I think...that tells me what crop is planted there. It is not necessary, but I just think it's prettier and easier for me.


That's Wellsley guarding the crops, by the way.

The rocks around the plots are a fence. Let me look up where I got the fence and the garden signs from...

TSR - Simaddict99 - Rock Garden: http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org...99/object_sets/

and

TSR - Prin6je - Garden Signs: http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/463976

Hope this helps!

Wow, LivLukas thanks for answering that. I would never have gone into so much detail, very nicely done.

Thanx Clashfun

But what is a BRY controller? I saw that the mod requires a few other hacks, so I installed them all, and now I'm not sure what is what. I found some kind of box and a communist sickle sign. The box seems to be about macro, and a communist sign offers to bugger off

The communist sickle is the BRY controller ( not sure if Pescado is Russian or not but I think the communist stuff is a joke or at least I find it funny). Stick it on your lot and click on it and the option menu comes up. I use it primarily to assign/reassign employees and open and close the business via toggle. The bugger off option will make lingering customers leave the lot.

As for the macro options that is referring to the the macrotastics system. The two systems work together and I'm not sure I could run a business without them. For example if you have both and make sure your employee area has an expresso machine (or coffee pot), and you have his bathroomusesyou controller installed in the restroom then your employees will take a break when their energy level drops to a certain point and refuel and relieve themselves as needed.

There are features that cover for them taking care of pretty much all their needs as long as you provide the necessary equipment for them reading the manual on the controllers is your best bet on the full benefits.

It's not like just using maxmotives or another modded item to pump up their motives as they physically have to go and eat, pee, drink coffee whatever. During that time you do have to cover their assigned place so it's still challenging.

What it does away with is all the waiting around to tell them to take a break only to have them wander off the lot and come back an hour later without their motives increased. Just makes the whole thing more efficient and you don't spend all your time worrying if your employees need a break or not.

Edit: I just realized the "box" you referred to is the one with Sgt stripes. That is not really for a business lot it's more for home or community lots. You don't even have to use the box as it gives you the same options as clicking on your Sim and going to the "macro" option on the menu. You can do either some people just find clicking on a stationary item with one menu easier than clicking on a Sim. I primarily use it on my community lots where I offer skilling items (having a community lot skilling hack as well of course) as in that situation I do find it easier to click on the box then the Sim.

It's an amazing system all in all and I don't use all it's features as I like controlling my Sims so I never use the "power idle" option for example. It is something you can play around with without doing any major damage to your game, unlike the batbox, so you might just want to fiddle with it to see what suits your play style best.

Probably going a little off topic, but it's related to a minor internet meme. Ukranian comedian Yakov Smirnof used to make comments along the lines of "In America, you watch Television. In Soviet Russia, television watches YOU!" relating to the potentially controlling/Orwellian-style government of Russia. Business Runs You is an extension of that (you don't run business, business runs you!).

I must say that I regretted installing BRY. After I put it into one of my businesses, employees refuse to work properly. They tend to leave work and sip coffee instead. And I understand that going to toilet is a nice touch of realism, but my employees used to work fine the whole day without ever having to leave their work and go to toilet. I can't believe that even the cashier leaves the register and sips coffee instead of attending to clients...

After deleting BRY from lot it somehow remembers that it was once there, so I cannot make my employees work as usual any longer. Is there any way to stop the lot from thinking that BRY is still installed on it, short of deleting BRY from the Downloads folder completely? I'd still try running a home farm with it.

That sounds a bit strange as mine hardly ever take breaks and when they do they're quick about it. The controller only works when you use it to assign your employees work positions. You shouldn't have to do anything but reassign your employees via the regular method even if you don't remove it from your lot.

Strange indeed, I never used the controller to assign positions, yet it started pushing the employees to drink coffee at once. BRY must be useful for somebody who plays a business with very long hours, but I decided to give it a pass. Drinking coffee takes sims way too long.

I wonder if the OP found the thread useful, she\he didn't showed up in this topic a second time.