Just some tips to improve career creation.

Before creation
Get an idea and shape it in your head. Some questions you should be asking yourself- Can you make it have 10 levels? Does it require skills the game caters for? Can you get a vague idea of what the chance cards will be like? If you're having difficulty at this stage, it'll probably be worth picking a new idea. Nearly 3/4 of all my ideas go down the pan because I can't visualise it with 10 levels. If you're devoid of ideas, check here.

Writing up
You have an idea? Good. Now it’s time for the planning stage. Using pen and paper, plan
The wages,
Times,
The actual job titles (not descriptions),
Skills involved,
Friend’s needed,
The vehicles and clothing to be used and finally
The workdays.

Write your ideas in a logical order, and make sure it's clear to read. Finished? That's the easy part.

The descriptions and chance cards

Now, the tough part (well, sort of). First, in a word document (or any software with spell check) write up your descriptions for each of the 10 job levels. Do not write up straight into SimPE!!! Always type in word and paste into SimPE- theere si noting worse thaan a caarer fuul of speeling mistkes!

Done the description? Print off a copy for reference, save the document and open a new document for the chance cards.

Chance cards are the most time consuming part of a career- for example, I can plan and write up a career without cards in about and hour, but it takes me a good few days to write out decent chance cards (weeks if I'm feeling lazy).

Chance cards have this layout-

Description of an event the occurs
The two outcomes that can happen -A and B.
The description of A being the right choice
The description of A being the wrong choice
The description of B being the right choice
The description of B being the wrong choice

This means that you'll need (including the opposite gender cards) 100 cards in total. If you're writing a good long paragraph for each (as I do) you'll need a lot of commitment. Good luck!

Done? Brilliant! Put them all into SimPE (using bidou's career editor) and sit back and admire your handiwork. You have your own custom career! However, that isn't the end of it.

Technical stuff

You need to do several more thing before the career hits the forums. First, change its GUID and Group ID- if you're unsure how to do this, use my tutorial found here.
Done? Now, time to make it Nightlife and Uni compatible (so that it'll work in both games). How do you do it? Go here.

Done? Good- now test it. Things you look out for-

Is it overwriting any career? (Yes? look back at it's GUID and Group ID)
Is it even appearing (No? Check to see if you've made it EP compatible)
Do the carpools/uniforms work?
Are there any spelling mistakes?
Are all the chance cards there? (Check using boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true-

1. Open the game and enter a lot
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+C and in the white box that appears type boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true (do this exactly)
3. Hold shift and click on your sim. A pie menu should appear.
Click "Spawn" and "Chance card tester"
4.




All done? Release it in the career forum, and remember to put its job levels and details in the original thread.

Key points
If you don't have either Expansion packs, and what to see if it's EP compatible, see how many files the career contains- there should be 108.

A useful little tip- when creating careers, you don't have to keep making them EP ready. What I did is downlaod one of p00jkins EP ready careers (It doesn't matter which one you pick, but don't pick Life of Crime, as it contains extra files you don't want) and place it in a folder created escpecially for careers. Every time I create a new career, I copy the base EP ready file and use it as a template

When you release a career, make sure it has at least 3-4 chance cards in it, and make sure that if you release it unfinished (which I don't recommend) have the common courtesy to finish it.

Word is your friend- never ever type directly into SimPE. I have an unfortunate habit of typing the as teh- this irritates the hell out of me, as I can't stop myself from doing it, and when posting on MTS, I have to always check over my posts to check for that error. If written straight into SimPE, my careers would be full of misspellings.

This page is your best buddie- http://forums.modthesims2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=250

Congratulations! You have a completed custom career, ready for release! Good luck with it!

Cutting out the Crud

Ok, now you've completed the career, it's time to post it. In this little section I plan to help reduce some of the unessesary stuff I personally think you don't need.

Stuff to put in your post-
Any background info
Job levels (for both adult and teen/elder)
Basic info (Is it EP ready? Does it overwrite any careers? Is there a teen/elder career version? Are the Chance cards completed? Is there a unique icon? Have you included a reward object? If so, what is it and will it work?)


Stuff I'd advise leaving out-
Versions. personally, I don't like versions. Too many numbers. I give my careers easy names (i.e. Bakery carer- Adult) and if I update them, I simply repost the updated file with the same title- replace it with my new version- easy.

EP compliments- i don't understand this stuff about compliments- All EP's, TS2 only- don't waffle on about compliments. Trust me.

Done? Voila- you have a well created and well posted career- Nice Work

Superfly

As and extra offer, if you follow this guide exactly, but still can't get results, post your career here and I'll look it over for you.

I've also included a tiny checklist for you- it just allows you to tick off to see if your career is AOK.

Last edited by SuperFly : 22nd Jan 2006 at 5:56 PM. Reason: Me can't read...

Some really good tips. Poorly planned careers get extremely irritating after a while. One minor nitpick if I may though, you wrote:

2. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del
But I think you meant
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+C

One tries to shut down your computer, the other opens the cheat window.

Thanks Echo- That small error's now been fixed

Ctrl+Alt+Del! Ha ha!

Lol! Even the experts make the occasional mistake I guess. :D

Many thanks for this tute though, and also the one to which you linked - the one for altering a Career's GUID so it won't overwrite a Maxis one. With the new Fix Integrity button it's SOOOOOOO easy now. :D

I have a question for you though, Superfly:

If I'm using a Maxis Base Career as a starting point, is there a way I can instruct SimPE to delete all its Chance Cards? I personally am not fond of them, since they are, as the name would suggest, pure CHANCE rather than a CHALLENGE based on your ability to problem-solve and pick the correct answer.

Furthermore, when creating/modifying a Career they're a pain in the butt because you have to think up and then type in LOADS of text that doesn't even need to be read(since the player can just pick A or B, without even reading the dialog, and have a random chance of success), and the whole process is a total waste of time - 10 times over(if keeping the full 10 levels)!!!

So, that's me question: is there a quick and easy way in SimPE to tell it to Remove all Chance Cards?

If so, I'm eager to start writing some new Careers. EP-compatible BTW. I should point that out, as it may well be relevent to the question I raised.

Thanks.

Hi Thraxwhirl

0 probability for the cards? Easy

In bidou's editor, find this box-





And replace the value with 0- that chance card will no longer come up. Do this for all the gaps where there are no chance cards.

Good luck with your careers!

SuperFly

You changed Ctrl+Alt+Del to Ctrl+Alt+C.
It should be Ctrl+Shift+C

skZZi

Fixed

to me (im only 14) it seems a bit confusing but im going to try it, and btw your guide is the best of what ive read so far . But wish me luck!!

Posting here as you suggested Superfly. Thanks!

I based it on one of the ep-ready careers.

I was trying to get it to work in Sims 2 only at first. Now I have Uni and NL installed as well - the career simply does not show up in either setup.

The chance cards are not all done, cos I got disheartened...

Any advice gratefully accepted.

Reading through the stuff above - could Group ID be the culprit? I never did find out how to change that?

Well, the group ID was still Maxis based, but that wouldn't explain why it wouldn't appear... To fix the group ID, click this button and then click OK when the screen pops up-





As for it not appearing... what country do you live in? If I know this, I can help you out further. If you live in a country where the native language isn't english, the problem will have to be reviewed. If you're from another country, the text will need to be enabled for all languages... I'll explain this a little better once I know what the problem is.

SuperFly :baloons:

OK - though how one is supposed to know that using the Fix Integrity button fixes the group ID? - edit - ok - I shoulda read your tutorials... it can be a life's work in itself navigating these fora and ferreting out information.

I live in UK so it's not a language issue. Game is set to English. I reset the group ID and will try again.

Oh and chewing through the tutorial you give http://forums.modthesims2.com/showt...&highlight=guid here I can't see anything that says Filetypes? Nor any dashed line.....

Last edited by Sita : 13th Feb 2006 at 12:04 PM. Reason: still struggling....

hey, really usefull. thnx alot

hey, although this is usefull, i am really confused! i have never created this b4 and i dont get simpe. i have writted everything up. times, outfits, job titles, skills, friends and the rest but then what do i do? please could you help?

Smallfry

OK, this will sound so stupid but will someone please tell me what LlamaPE is?? :S

it's April 1st....

This tutorial has been really helpful. I always knew how to actually make a career, but not how to make it useable in game and the other stuff. Thanks so much.

how do you re-load the screen for editing with the stuff you've saved?

Innit, what stage are you talking about? I'm not sure if I understand your question.

Hm. I have simPE, but bidou's career editor is nowhere to be found. I think that might be outdated. Honestly, I don't know, however. I have everything but the chance cards, and I want assurance that I or someone else can do the technical stuff first.

Have you downloaded the newest version of SimPE Sharpevil? Newer versions will automatically contain the editor, plus have fewer bugs.

I just downloaded it yesterday. It's easy for me to skip over things, however. Where is it?

What I need to know is how to start it and how to stop it from overwriting, then my dls will b fine and not rejects

Um.... What Version can this work? Is the SimPE used here Open For Buisness Compatible?

Can you check these careers? My game goes hairwire when I place it
P.S. I have EP2
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=152558
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=114028
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=109014