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Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 4:11 PM Last edited by Florentzina : 16th Jan 2017 at 10:09 PM.
Default Running Institutions (i.e Schools) on Residental Lots
During the last couple of days, I'm been working on adding playable institutions such as:
Educational School: Day schools, Preparatory School, Boarding Schools (these should be self-explanatory ). University is maxi run, but using hacks to allow sims to study in the main hood and will live in dorm-like residential lots during their studies). There is also Home Schooling and Tutoring but these kids are just studying with Simlogical flexi school tables.
Finishing Schools for female teens, learning etiquette and lady stuff
Specialty Institutions: Prisons, Hospitals, Orphanages, Parochial (Religious),
and a Knight/Military Training School which prepare athletic boys into knighthood or military services.

Each educational institutions (Schools) has at least an proffessor, teacher (sometimes combined) and a doctor or healer, selected from my large populated Warwickshire inspired medieval integrated hood, where the majority of things are run by playables. For institutions I use mainly stuff from Simlogical and Sim Wardrobe to run them. In total, I got up to 10 school institutions each specialized for different education paths. (Yes, many, but I've like 50 households to deal with. ) but only need to play the day schools right now as the children are still too young to enroll for boarding and specialty schools.

Planning this up was the easiest part (used the Warwickshire education charts as a guide), but the reason I started this thread was because It seems like many simmers prefer playing these institutions as community lots (and saw threads mostly discussing that), but I want to play them as residential lots as I'm not big fan of community lots (loading time, fiddling with non-students with visitor controller etc), while residential lots, I only heard simmers don't like them because the kids might enter other rooms instead. With the later EP's you can lock doors so I don't see this as a big deal.

But one dilemma I am bit unsure of: Teachers with large families and playing with relatively smaller lots (I prefer lots that are less than 3x3). The school area will be located on one side of the lot, similar to home businesses, so locking doors won't be so fuzzy/finicky to manage.
As I try to use less cheating with motives, one I was worrying about is micromanaging the other members of the families. I know how the Simlogical institutions works, but I don't know how to prevent it becoming a chaos when it comes to motives. While my game can handle many sims at the same time, managing all of them feels a bit crazy without cheats (each household is average 6-8 sims along with 6-10 students each season).

So rather than talking about setting up the school, I'm wondering for those who play Simlogical stuff on Residential lots :
How would you micromanage/deal with the motives and such when playing this sort of schools in a residential lot with large families and limited places?
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Forum Resident
#2 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 5:08 PM
As much as we like to say sims are idiots (and they are sometimes) they can usually take care of their own motives. All but one of my peasant households are small. Most of them have 2 children or more and the parent(s) still has to gather whatever resources available to sell to pay taxes and feed the brats. More than once, I've just ignored the rest of the family and only paid attention to the head of family selling food/wood/herbs/etc.

The family usually just interacts with each other. I'll check to make sure they eat once or twice, but the kids can get snacks and the adults can serve meals on their own. Everyone is usually playing or talking while my head of household is working the business.

If you're worried about the family members wandering into areas they should stay out of, you can always make sure they have what they need in their quarters and lock them in.

For my physical health, I can't eat cheesecake everyday.
For my mental health, I imagine eating cheesecake everyday.
It's a delicate balance.
Scholar
Original Poster
#3 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 5:19 PM
Yes, It is because I find them idiots when they are not micromanaged, such constantly yelling about all of the bathroom is taken and wet them-self. Having 10+ sims behaving like this is what make me worried.
Although I've the unlimited sims hack (which I use to enabled pregnancy and litters regardless of sim size), I feel most comfortable with 6-8 sims, adding another 6-10 sims I'm not sure as If I'm not mistaken it, Simlogical make the students controlled.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 5:24 PM
Since my one Sim's assistant wound up pregnant twice ... once by her employer and once by his brother (ACR .... sigh), living space is limited and the newlywed wife isn't quite happy with the arrangement. Right now, though he did get a small monetary gift from Daddy and Mommy after graduation, the employer's house is getting really crowded with the two toddlers, the assistant and the wife, who strongly wishes to get pregnant soon. He's not THAT far in the world yet. His house is nice, but certainly not a mansion. Mommy and Daddy do not believe in funding him, and he doesn't want this either.

I'd like to keep the assistant on the grounds ... her employer keeps her busy, and there is a genuine affection between her and her boss (she has refrained from romantic involvement since her employer's engagement) ... but that second child could be a problem, since she apparently had that dalliance with the employer's brother and he's still in Uni . I'm debating on either having a set of grandparents raise the child, or putting the child in a small children's facility. I would think that facility needs at least a couple of staff members to keep those young'uns happy and stop them from wreaking havoc on the house owner. So yes ... I guess that would be a small institution. I already have an elderly Sim running a small home for girls.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 7:29 PM
I play my school as a residential lot because that's the way that Inge wrote it. I wouldn't know where to start running one on a community lot!

Historically teachers tended to be married men (in boys' schools) or unmarried women. I think for practical reasons, I'd try to avoid large families living on the school lot. Only one teacher (or staff member) has to live on the lot. The rest can live elsewhere (or can even be townies). When you use the school bell to start school, the other teachers will be summoned along with the pupils. Two of the teachers in my school live in (they're in a relationship), and the third one lives elsewhere on the island. One of the live-in teachers actually does very little teaching; mainly he cooks meals, cleans, orders food supplies, and arranges repairs. I find I really do have to micromanage the school, especially when they're doing gradework. When they're starting class, the pupils keep stopping work and the teacher has to call them back. But the teachers are worse than the pupils: if I don't keep a very close eye on the teachers, they leave the classroom completely and go to the gym to bounce on the trampolines! Needless to say, if the teacher leaves the room, all the kids stop work -- even the class swots and teachers' pets! As I recall joandsarah77 uses Inge's homework books instead of the gradework books, but I found that a bit too easy --- even for me and my Sims. Generally my pupils only do gradework once or twice a week. The rest of the time they are doing more fun stuff like art and gym. Despite all the messing about, most pupils leave with A+ grades.

My school has two classrooms, each with seats for up to 8 pupils, but my computer has limited power (it's a netbook) and I found it began to lag if I went over 9 pupils and 3 teachers in total (12 Sims in all). But. even if the computer could handle them, I think I'd struggle with many more. As it is, my game spends far more time paused than running, while I check up where all the pupils and teachers are, and what they're all up to. I definitely couldn't cope with a large family too. So I suggest, if any of your teachers have large families, that they don't live at the school. Remember what I said about women teachers being unmarried. Married female teachers were quite rare before the late 20th century.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Scholar
Original Poster
#6 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 9:54 PM
Andrew Gloria
Well, I do not have a single adult women in my hood, the eldest children would around 10-13 years old in the second generation after this rotation (still have few more to set up before the rotation start, mentioned in the other healthcare/education thread), while all founders were couples, So regardless of the history or traditional, mine cannot be single teachers. also because I play with a bit too many families that I was prepared to handle (but want to stick to it) so I prefer having relatives lives with their teacher to avoid adding unnecessary cluttered households. I don't use townies and so I don't like turning playables into townies. Just a personal preference though! :p

Beside smaller households tends to be easier to handle, so I was thinking about the very large households on how to micromanage their motives and such.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#7 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 10:55 PM
I play my schools on residential lots. I have only small families. My primary school couple had two, my teenage boarding school lady was single and had none. I would not have a big family on a school lot as its simply too many sims, not only to keep checking motives for but for lag. Just not worth it. I guess if I was given the situation as a challenge I would go to the shop and buy some snap dragons.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Scholar
Original Poster
#8 Old 16th Jan 2017 at 11:02 PM
I guess I'm the opposite only have large families than. Unless they die from childbirth or illness, they tends to have 4+ kids each, but not everyone will survive childhood due to a health score system I use,

AND btw, I was asking about suggestions on how to deal with MOTIVES when dealing with ANY number in schools that you find difficult to manage without micromanaging or everyone whining about "accidents". Be it 3 or be it 23, or something in the between...
Mad Poster
#9 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 1:26 AM
I've always played them as residential. Either a single sim owns the lot, or a small household. For the simple reason that there are going to be twenty-plus students showing up eight hours of the day, and it is too much.

Once I used General Grunt to run a boys' school in a Victorian-esque hood. He taught all grades, boys only, from his own social class. I figured a retired military man would logically end up running a boys day school. I had the family quarters upstairs and the school down, and locked the doors to upstairs to everyone during school hours because all the fun stuff was up there and if I locked it only to family the three Grunt boys would be up there in a heartbeat.

Pics from my game: Sunbee's Simblr Sunbee's Livejournal
"English is a marvelous edged weapon if you know how to wield it." C.J. Cherryh
Mad Poster
#10 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 1:29 AM Last edited by gazania : 17th Jan 2017 at 5:16 PM.
In my old hoods, I had residential schools, with pretty much the same situation as AndrewGloria. My current custom hood has a cram school. The students meet on Saturdays and Sundays to keep their grades up/move their grades up. It does get pretty challenging in the morning because I have both heavily-distracted students and teachers like AndrewGloria is experiencing (I also have students do gradework). The good news is that they settle down ...eventually. I do cheat and make sure the motives don't get too low. I have enough problems with antsy Sims! When the kids are done with gradework, they are permitted to skill-build.

I find doing this two SIm days a week quite enough!

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Scholar
Original Poster
#11 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 1:35 AM
Sunbee. 23 was just an example, haha. For me, when it comes to visitors (such as students) it's up to 16 sims without pets.
I've been trying having 30 sims on a lot though, but using maxmotives on them. My laptop could handle it, which surprised me. (As long as cimematics are off).

I just wanted to clarify that the amount of sims YOU might find too many too play at the same time wasn't the thing I was trying to ask in the thread, but managing their motives/behavior while running the school, whatever amount it would be. I don't want to sounds "grouchy", but otherwise you get "it's not worth it", "split them into more households" type of suggestions which kind of defeat the purpose of TRYING to managed more-than-you-can-handle sims.

EDIT: Err.. might misread the comment about "twenty---something".
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#12 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 2:09 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Florentzina
AND btw, I was asking about suggestions on how to deal with MOTIVES when dealing with ANY number in schools that you find difficult to manage without micromanaging or everyone whining about "accidents". Be it 3 or be it 23, or something in the between...


Which I answered. Snap dragons. My school has about 14 or so depending on how many children are in my hood, it fluctuates. I simply give them lunch and free time and check each ones motives a couple of times. Many of my skill items build fun like chess, playground equipment and musical instruments.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Scholar
Original Poster
#13 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 2:33 AM
It was the "just not worth it" as if assumed it's not worth it for simmers to play schools with a large family on, so sorry if I misunderstood. While with snapsdragon, to me that's no different than using motives on sim blenders so I personally see it as cheating (same with money trees and the elixir) and never play with those "special" maxi objects and prefer managing motives the regular way when not "cheating" it or make it extremly easy with enchanced objects (i.e. Sleep - drink coffee or bed), but this get difficult to do when you deal with many sims.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#14 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 2:50 AM
I meant it's not worth it for me. My game lags on larger lots or with too many sims. The only place I have snap dragons is my hospital wards but if I had to deal with a crowd and didn't want to be dealing with motives that's what I would use. I will probably place a few in workplaces, workers who are assigned the till or chef.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Forum Resident
#15 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 8:53 AM
When I've got a larger school, I tend to assign tasks to each student immediately after they've arrived - some are sent to deal with their bladder need immediately and then do school work (if it's a really large group, I use the homework mats instead of the class ones). Everyone else is sent to some skill or badge building classroom and given something to do and then I leave them with their task until their needs lead them to drop it. While everyone is busy, I keep an eye on the colour of everyone's icons and double check the needs of anyone sinking into orange or who is platinum; if anyone has pressing needs, I cancel their assigned task to deal with the needs. Students who've stopped doing an assigned task due to low needs are usually pretty good about filling the low need - problems really only come up if everyone's bladder tanks at the same time, and sending some students to the bathroom immediately upon arrival mitigates the worst of that. For hunger need, I either have a teacher cook lunches or use the dorm cook (simlogical override to make the cook available on all lots), and sometimes the school has cooking classes. Part way through the day, I assign everyone to a new activity and a new group of students to school work - that's a good time to double check needs, too.

I make use of the pause button. I pause the game when everyone arrives and when I see a large number all have to have the same needs met (that way I can send them all to separate toilet stalls or to grab different plates of food so none of them complain about things being used by their classmates). If there are too many students dropping tasks or the lot starts to feel unorganized and chaotic, I pause the game and provide direction to those sims that are contributing to the chaos. However, since I only have about a quarter of them doing school work at any given time and the rest are mostly directed to skilling activities that they enjoy and then are free to socialize, students generally do a good job taking care of themselves. I normally only have to pause at the start of day and at the half way point when everyone is being assigned a new activity. In a boarding school setting, I do direct everyone to go and eat at about the same time or call everyone to a meal, and put everyone to be within the same hour.

My military and police barracks have a sim assigned to cook breakfast and supper; they'll make the meal and call everyone to eat. Another sim will be responsible for cleaning - if anyone autonomously helps, that's great, but not expected. I find my military and police barracks fairly easy to manage; the sims shower regularly and put themselves to bed when tired. They all have slightly different work schedules, but that makes handling individual sims' needs and wants easier. Prisoners held by the police are even easier to manage; food is dragged into the cell and they then take care of themselves - my last prisoner kept his needs, other than environment, high for a season without me directing him.
Scholar
Original Poster
#16 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 9:13 AM
The pro's with prisons is that the prisoners already live on the lot and summon only in a few guards and "service" sims (such as cooking) along with special schools where the children are teens, I don't need the scholars/doctors live on the lot but summoning them via cat teleporter instead to supervise them once in a while to give instructions. But for regular school like day and private school, it doesn't sense make to have every single child live on the school and fortunately its just one season each child who enroll and then ships to boarding and preparatory schools if they can afford it (or healthy enough).

But in regulare homes who teach students, hunger and bladder is what going to drive me crazy as it feels like they must eat-poop constantly and it feels a bit excessive or unrealistic to have like 10 toilets (be it maxi, stalls or all-in-on CC) in ONE house. I think I will build them "boarding house" style, where the families lives in a large house with many spare rooms for teaching. In my fancier families houses, I tends to overdo this area (4 toilets for a six sized family, seriously? )that or use max motives.
Alchemist
#18 Old 17th Jan 2017 at 8:04 PM
Great minds must think alike, @Florentzina, because I've been busy building schools, too! My Mortimer has given up caring for his and Dina's triplets and decided to send everyone, Alexander included, off to boarding school so that he can get some peace and quiet skilling time.

Okay, first, let me say I personally find the idea of running a school without some sort of motive boost or cheat both a little crazy and more than a little scary. But to each their own, so my first piece of advice to you would be keep admissions down and make the schools small. It's too stressful otherwise. But only you know how many sims is too many sims for you, so you'll have to just try it and see what works.

Next, I never considered running a school as a community lot before. If it could be done as a community lot biz, that could be something to consider, as that could effectively solve the too many sims problem, letting your headmaster/teacher be played normally for the most part, then when school is in session, you'd play the biz and not have to worry about monitering the family's needs. I'll have to try this and see if it can be done.

Anyways, the best thing you could probably do is test it out. Create a test hood or find one with a bunch of kids you aren't using, plop down one of the schools you plan to use and see what works and what doesn't. Just run the school as a school and figure out what you can handle and what problems arise and what can be done about them. Then, once you test, you plan, plan, plan.

I tested out running a school in a copy of Veronaville and I can tell you some of the things I found. For me, about eight students is max for one school, especially if the lot is small. The test school had 16 students, 8 teens and 8 kids, and though my computer handled the sims fine, managing all the sims was a bit too much for me and I had to resort to cheats, maxing motives once a day, when everyone arrived. I do agree that the bathroom can be a problem, so build communally. Have showers for after gym class, but use stalls so more than one sim can go at once. Also, Veranka has an all in one shower (it's pricey but worth it) and some outhouses are the same, so sims can pee and raise hygenie--a great time saver. For food, my schools didn't have cooking class and I used buffets. This too was helpful because you can set out the food for hours and not worry about it and sims can grab what they need when they need it. Inge even has a special one to use with the school, where you can set times for the buffet to open and close and not have to worry about a sim doing it.

I think the biggest thing I learned was that, for me at least, running a school was all about scheduling. My school was free will based and I only directed sims to study when in study hall--for those cooking, mechanical, and cleaning points. And maybe Charisma. All other skills they learned (or didn't learn) on their own. I've since picked up some autonomous career rewards (icad's, I believe?) and that'll help too. But the more social sims will never have qualms about talking and picking fights instead of studying. Speaking of fights, did I mention my test hood was in Veronaville? And that the students were mostly Capps and Montys? It took me some time to figure out which sims could be in a class together, as Tybalt picked fights with Romeo and Mercutio, Juliette picked fights with Mercutio, and for some reason Hermia and Melody Tinker could not be in the same room together or they'd poke each other all day. Not to mention the fact that if Juliette and Romeo shared a class, they'd make out the whole time, rather than study or talk to other people! So be mindful about who is paired with who, especially if there are any family feuds going on. If there aren't any feuds going on, though, running a school is a great way to get one started.

I think the controller is set to four students per class, so I had four classes and rotated what room each class was in. That's something for you to consider, how many classrooms you're going to need--or how many rooms each school has will determine how many students you can have. I had set it up so that each class was in its own room, studying something different. That worked for me because the lot was medium sized and the classrooms were relatively small. I also realized that you can only really have two classes per day. Lunch time was the busiest and most stressful time for me. By the time everyone walks to the lunch room, goes to the bathroom, and eats lunch--well, doing all that is about as long as a class. I suppose lunch could have been done in shifts, but I liked having everyone together at least once a day, so sims could socialize with sims not in their class. Anyway, I got quite detailed with my schedule. I had gym, music/art, study hall, a coursework class, and a free period where sims could either socialize, play chess, goof around, or paint. Teens went to a room with exercise equipment for their gym while the kids got to go to the playground for theirs. I set it up so that each class was in each room twice a week and everyone worked on every skill at least once a week, if not twice. Oh, and a word of advice, doing coursework tanks fun, so if that's not at the end of the day, I'd schedule a class with a lot of fun building activities after; for me that meant music class was next.

And I didn't actually use teachers, I just had one headmaster. Sims would stay in the classroom as long as I used the classroom door that came with the set, and pointed the doors in. The coursework book calls students to it, if you set out work for them, and they'd work on it at least for a little while if there was no teacher. Usually, they'd stop only if their fun was too low. Mostly, as long as sims were in the right room, I let my sims decide whether they goofed off or not, so it worked out. Sims are still sims, though, so that meant double doors and wide hallways were still key.

Otherwise, I had lots of fun playing it; I just had to keep an eye on everyone and glance at their panels every now and then to make sure their needs weren't completely tanking--which is why I think having only 8 students to keep an eye on will be easier. With that class size, you should be able to at least check in on any family living on the lot and give them a string of commands every so often. I suppose you could pick up self preservation by Cyjon. That should help sims from starving themselves and be smarter about fulfilling their needs. Oh, and Pescado has a mod for a bathroom, too--it calls sims to the bathroom and makes them go when their needs hit a certain point. That way you don't have to worry about traffic jams or anyone peeing themselves. I think it's called Bathroom Runs You.

Those should help. As for myself, I'm looking forward to running a boarding school, but I've no idea if it will go well, as I suspect everyone's energy will tank around 7pm. We'll see what happens.

"May the sunlight find you, thy days be long, thy winters kind, thy roots be strong." -Grand Oak Tree, DAO

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