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Theorist
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 4:45 AM
Default Elder life stage ... how long do they actually have?
So I started to post this in stupid questions, but thought it might be better on it's own.
In an unmodded game, the life stages of baby through adult are all set days and elders days are done with more of a count down. I'm tryin to get a better understanding of the elder life stage and so was lookin on the SimsWiki.

Quote: Originally posted by SimsWiki
When Sims become elders, they are considered to be 54 days old, regardless of the number of days they have actually lived. They are then provisionally given 10 days as an elder, but two numbers will affect this. First, a random number number of days from 1 to 10 will be added on, there is no way to influence this number. Secondly, aspiration comes into account; based on the color of the Sim's aspiration bar, days are added as follows: Platinum = +10, Gold = +7, Green = +3, Upper Red = 0, Lower Red = -2. Instead of showing the number of days until the Sim ages, the age bar shows how many days he or she is considered to have lived.


So then when a sim ages to elder they have a minimum of 10 days left, yes? Are the aspiration influenced days added when they transition into elder? When lookin in SimPE it tells you how many days remain in whatever lifestage the sim is in. Take for example the PV ancestors (according to the SimsWiki, I didn't look them all up in SimPE) seem to have lots of days left in their life stage upon their death. Does this mean they didn't have happy lifes? (Yeah, I know the developers prob just killed them off, but I'm just tryin to better understand the workins of it all.)

Gunther Goth has 32 days left, but is said to have died of old age, whereas his wife, Gretle Goth has 14 days left and also died of old age. So who died first and who lead a happier life? How could he have had 32 days left, did he not life even a day past his elder transition?
Provisional 10 days
Random 1 - 10 days
Aspiration -2 to 10 days
That's max 30... no?

Mortimer is said to be on his 5th day as elder and have 7 remainin days left. 5+7=12 so he must of had a really crappy life. Yeah, his wife disappeared leavin him to raise a toddler and teen, but still...
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retired moderator
#2 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 5:09 AM
Pre-mades are all messed up though. Ages are off, genetics are off, whats to say life days aren't off as well. To get a real picture you should use sims who have died of old age in a vanilla game with various aspiration levels. My guess is that the Maxis developers offed Gunter and Grettle of old age because they were setting things up, not playing them for another 32 day and 14 days.

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Theorist
Original Poster
#3 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 5:15 AM
Yeah, I get that, which is why I said I figured they just offed them. I used them as examples as I'm tryin to understand the dynamics of the elder life stage.
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#4 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 5:32 AM
Well I can tell you elders created in CAS in a vanilla game don't have long at all-probably just the ten days. The aspiration your adult sim had at turning elder is what determines more or fewer days. Way back in 2007 playing legacies we all strived to have them platinum for that elder birthday so they would live longer. Or conversely, those who wanted them gone would purposely grant fears so they would be low red. Not sure if it's much of a known thing anymore.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Inventor
#5 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 8:11 AM Last edited by Devon Aster : 12th Mar 2019 at 8:31 AM.
According to Almighty Hat's gestation based aging mod , the default range is indeed anywhere between 9-30 days. The minimum 9 is what a sim would get if the random number was 1 and they were in low red aspiration on age up. And yup, the 30 maximum if they got a random 10 and had platinum aspiration on age up.

ETA: Well, I just found something interesting. I didn't have any CAS elders I had made, so I thought I'd take some sneaky-peaks at the elder townies to see if maybe they might offer an idea of what an elder from CAS might have. That didn't help much, as they had anywhere from 12-19 days. So, I looked at Faith Goodie in a hood where I knew she was still in the bin... and found she's listed as having 0 days left in SimPE. Herbert Goodie is the same. I checked in another hood where no sims have been played and found them the same there, as well. This certainly explains the kookiness I've witnessed with them in one of my current hoods! While their housemates have been dropping rather predictably, the Goodies' life-bars kept jumping up and down, and when I checked those versions of them SimPE reported they had 103 days left. Which I could not figure out, as I didn't age them down and up again for my aging mod to take effect, I had simply set them to age on certain days (like the rest of the house). If it weren't already way past when I should be asleep, I'd go poking around by creating elders and seeing what their files say while they're still in the bin!
Mad Poster
#6 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 10:23 AM
Then there's a wrench thrown in when you use an aging mod, such as Inge's-which not only lengthens the lifespan of the normal pixel, but also wildly randomizes the elders as well. I've not played many elders but by the time one of the few I'd had died, they were about 83. That was a CAS character, who'd been a vampire, (but saw the light) and aged out as a normal human.
So she'd had about 20 years left as an elder. I think the pre-mades were screwed up by Maxis so you can never tell when they're going to kick off.

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Theorist
#7 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 10:52 AM
Inge's mod is actually quite useful in making the Elder stage a little more predictable if you follow her instructions on fiddling with the configurations. For example, in my game I shortened the Elder Stage to be 10-15 days (which goes along with my lengthening the adult stage to incorporate human Middle Age)

I don't think the premade Elders are purposefully "screwed up" I think they're just CAS elders, and CAS elders don't live long, as already pointed out.

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Inventor
#8 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 3:00 PM
On the question of how many days a CAS elder gets: it seems to vary. Since I had to be up early anyway, I decided to test it out. I made three elders, two in a household and one on his own, in a fresh new hood. I checked them with SimPE when they were still in the bin. Like the Goodies, they showed as having 0 days left. I next moved them into two lots. With the single, I moved him in, then exited the lot without saving, so he was about as fresh from the bin as he could be. With the other two, I decided to test if their aspiration on age-up at 6pm would have any effect. So I put one into aspiration failure and gave the other perma-plat, then cheated the day forward to 5pm. After they aged at 6pm, I saved and exited. When I checked them again in SimPE, I found they all had been given random remaining days. Ironically enough, the one I had put into red aspiration had ended up with the most, while his perma-plat housemate had the least of the three

I don't really have time to test further if the Goodies always end up with the same remaining days as each other, or if that would vary as well. I did test whether setting an adult in the bin (Cyd Roseland) to 0 days would have a similar effect, but he simply showed 1 day to Elderhood and aged up to elder at 6pm. I'm not terribly surprised at that, though, since there is a built-in day difference between days left to age up and what shows on the life-bar.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 5:12 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Devon Aster
I looked at Faith Goodie in a hood where I knew she was still in the bin... and found she's listed as having 0 days left in SimPE. Herbert Goodie is the same. I checked in another hood where no sims have been played and found them the same there, as well.
I think uninitialized Sims still in the bin always (maybe I should say "usually") have zero days left in their current life-stage. All the ones I've checked do.

I know it's not quite the question OP is asking, but I think in my game, my elders actually live for ever! Normally, playing, as I do, with aging off, to turn it on and let my elders die, would feel like killing them. The Sixth Commandment forbids me from doing that.

Actually all the Elders in my game were either created by me as Elders in CAS, or else they're Maxis Pre-made Elders. I've never yet let an adult age up to Elder, and I may never do so. Over the years I've been playing them, the Maxis pre-made Elders have sort of grown on me. I've even developed a bit of a soft spot for Consort Capp.

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Forum Resident
#10 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 5:18 PM
According to TwoJeffs Age Duration Hack , there is a bug in the elder code age calculations.

"There was apparently supposed to be some randomness built into the base elder lifespan, it should be a random 10-20 days + the aspiration bonus of -2 to +10 days for a range of 8-30 days. But it's not random at all and is always 20 days and then the asp bonus/penalty is applied for a 18-30 day range."

Since the default adult stage was fixed at 28 days, this meant that if Sims were in gold aspiration when they transitioned to elder, they would have a 30 day elder stage which was longer than their adult stage.

His hack changes age duration as follows:
-The elder life stage is now from 10-15 days (totally random, not dependent on aspiration level).
-The adult life stage is now from 28-33 days (totally random) +/- the aspiration bonus/penalty that used to be applied when becoming an elder. This can be from -2 days to +10 days depending on asp level making the final range from 26 to 43 days.

These would only affect Sims going through the actual age transition. It wouldn't affect CAS created Sims or Sims aged up through InSimenator or SimBlender, etc.

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Forum Resident
#11 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 5:56 PM
My elders that grow up Platinum usually die in their late seventies/early eighties. There's definitely some randomness to it, but that's how it usually goes. The hood I play right now has an 84 days old sim. Her husband and twin brother already passed away, but she's lasted an entire rotation longer. I do expect her to pass early in the next week. Her eldest son is only three days away from becoming an elder himself and I've never seen elders survive long enough to see their children become elders themselves.
Alchemist
#12 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 8:45 PM
"normal" Elder span I take to actually be 11 sim days.
random addition I take to actually be 0 through 10.
aspiration; minimum -2, maximum 10.

all factors; 9 through 31.
Inventor
#13 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 9:32 PM
Quote: Originally posted by AndrewGloria
I think uninitialized Sims still in the bin always (maybe I should say "usually") have zero days left in their current life-stage. All the ones I've checked do.


Ahh, that's interesting! Cyd had the usual complement of days when I messed with him, but it's entirely possible he was initialized by the developers and then put into the bin. I know some of the bin families must have been, as they have extra clothes in their family wardrobe (such as the Travellers). So of course I had to check it out . You're right, my newest test family were all at 0 while still in the bin (Parents, child, and grandparent). Which does make sense, since we can mod age lengths and new sims will have it applied (since it seems they don't get assigned their days until they're put on a lot). It kind of points to the Goodies being a unique case, as they are basically the same as CAS sims that players can make. The other bin families, as best as I can recall, all have the default assigned days if you move them onto a lot.


Quote: Originally posted by HobbesED
According to TwoJeffs Age Duration Hack , there is a bug in the elder code age calculations.


I remember reading this, but I definitely had a sim that died very quickly after aging up to elder while in red aspiration. I would have said it even seemed less than 8 or 9 days, though it absolutely wasn't anywhere near 18. It's possible there was a glitch or some sort of corruption, as this happened in my one of my first hoods and I did a few Bad Things(tm) back then. Testing it now would require taking out my age mod, though, and I think I'm done with messing about for the time being! But it's certainly something to think about.
Mad Poster
#14 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 9:51 PM
The first time I played the Goodies (in the old vanilla hood), I had them adopt a kid.

Faith died the day after the child became a teen.

Herbert stuck around until she went to Uni, and also had some elixir of life by then, so I kept him alive long enough to attend her graduation.
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#15 Old 12th Mar 2019 at 11:13 PM
I play with longer ages so my elders should live to be 70-80+ years, which would be 20-40+ days.

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#16 Old 13th Mar 2019 at 10:55 AM
So far any elders I’ve had just don’t wanna die so they often live full life out even if they didn’t achieve their goals and shit
Sort of annoying

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Mad Poster
#17 Old 16th Mar 2019 at 5:53 PM
I've discovered that if you don't really care for the sim, he lives longer. If you hate the sim, he eventually becomes immortal.

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