pst.. do coffins count as beds? :3c

Round 2 rent rules only apply to round 2. For the rest it's only part of host bonus so 4k for 1 sim and 6k for more than one sim

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I have decided to extend judging round until the end of this week, and so you guys still have a fair chance to work on your round 3 entries after getting judges critique we'll be extending round 3 until the end of next week (so 5 days longer on both). I hope that doesn't make things too complicated for anyone. The reason I've decided to extend is because several of the judges have a rough week this week, and my week is also crazy. I think we'd end up needing to extend it whether we want to or not, and in that scenario I think it's better to do so in good time and let you all know what to expect so you can plan your stuff accordingly.

I'm glad of that. I haven't started on round 3 yet.

Would a default-replacement terrain (like a better looking concrete neighborhood type) be allowed CC? Since it's not required for a download (as far as I know??) I thought it might be but I wanted to double check.

yep. I'm using a default replacement terrain too. potential downloaders don't need to download it.

That's great news for me as I am on holiday this week and when I return I start a new job on the Monday! I started Round 3 before I left so I am quite well into the round but the extension is very helpful, thank you.

I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah a downloader doesn't HAVE to have it, but the lot won't look like what you are presenting on their end. If I was a judge I would probably deduct deco-points for that, even if it passes the CC rule. That's just me though, no idea how judges would judge it

I made this apartment with Young Professionals in mind - specifically my favorite CAS sims whose personalities, careers, and relationships I want to develop first before letting them go forth and multiply

apartment 1 3BR, 1BATH, 2WCs
is made for 4 male CAS sims I downloaded from various simmers. They're all so handsome but I highly doubt their genes contributing anything good. Chiseled cheekbones have a price in sims 2. I made this apartment with them in mind first because I want to get to know them. They're the only strangers to me here hahaha
apartment 2 3BR, 2BATH (1 ENSUITE)
is made for my girls! They started out as a dice-roll-made household in Sim State University and have a special place in my heart.
apartment 3 2BR, 3BATH, 1 Secret Room
is for sim-versions of my RP and comic characters who eloped together - my future mob-boss winemaker and my friend's necromancer med student. The spare room is for their would-be inlaws in case they were ever found OR an unsuspecting roommate!
apartment 4 2BR, 1BATH, 1 Office
is for two pairs of my older, more established couples from my other comics. They're much older than all of my sims/characters and are at the top of their careers (in story) so it would make sense for them to be roommates with their economical and intellectual equals until they decide to start a family.

Basically it's an OC housing lmao

Anyways please note the following:
--I used Maxis extracted craft-able objects: flowers and curtains for apartment 3 and 4.
--All apartments are fully tested by 4 sims and 1 roommate (I tried with 6 at first but they all died due to vending machine madness)
--BBQ is still weird. They'll grill on the rooftop but will eat in their unit. I kept it there in case the landlord throws a party.
--All units are fitted with a dishwasher, trash compactor, sprinklers, and phones.
--1 Burglar Alarm is at the elevator lobby
--Trash Chutes are in every floor near the elevator
--The Balconies outside the bathrooms is for drying laundry IRL or an outdoor cat litter space? idk. it looks nice. I only put a window there so its space is not included in the rent. Players can choose to use it by putting a door there instead.

Whew! YAY!!! Thank you for extending the round, Gummi, now I can take a breather and get some laundry done, and get groceries too - although daughter has already voiced her excitement over the possibility of pizza for dinner tonight
My weekend was great - though it did rain the entire time - thank you all for the warm fuzzies, prayers, thoughts, and vibes. I made it through ~ still in one piece!
...and my scores will definitely be on time (now!)

Dadgummit to heck.

I have a camera in that seems to do the job. All I had to do was fix the things I noticed in playtest, move the housemates back in, and start taking pictures. In the middle of making the last connections, my game crashed for no apparent reason, and when I got it back up, Nova Colonia was gone! I can still see it, but it's now got the Travellers in it, which means it has a stealth subhood attached, which may mean the game is confused about how to read it, because Nova Colonia was made as a downtown subhood, intended for attachment to my BACC in due time.

Fortunately, I had backed up the original Nova Colonia before I started this project, and of course I'd put a copy of the building into the lot bin. But unless I can get the building Nova Colonia working again, I'll have to take pictures of it in the nearly-empty hood I also had in this AGS, without all the surroundings that I feel are important for ambiance. Plus, the last round building, which is a Maxified copy of the first apartments I built for Nova Colonia, does not have a Maxified copy in the lot bin and I'd have to go through it all again. Plus, my lovingly created playtest households won't be available to give life and interest to the architectural shots. And since I don't know what caused the crash, I don't know this won't happen again.

Well, the last corrections are done and there's a copy of the finished version in the lot bin. I'll worry about it tomorrow. I'm too annoyed today. Hmph. Is it possible to delete a stealth hood once it's attached?

Just letting you know that I'll probably post Round 2's entry tomorrow. I'm almost finished with testing.

I'm currently preparing my entry, should be up about an 1 hour or 2 from now. I have 45 pictures to turn into JPEGs and attach (I will attach less as some will be edited in one for the rent).

EDIT: Oh crap, I realised I didn't take the rent screenshots properly. I will post my entry as is and then add the rent pictures when I load the game again, OK? @gummilutt

This apartment lot started out as a converted warehouse/factory on a 2x2 lot, but as I was shaping the exterior, I realised it didn't quite fit that description, so I just assumed it was an aprtment block built during the Industrial Revolution era and now refurbished. Rents are quite cheap but each apartment is fully livable, with a certain degree of comfort. Units 1-2 are 1-bedroom units (T1s) and the cheapest, in the 800/week range. Units 3-4 are studios (T0s), slightly more expensive, in the 1000/week range. Finally, units 5-6 are 2-bedroom units (T2s), spanning the top two stories, as would be typical in a building that has an elevator, in the 1500/week range. Thus, apartments fulfill the rent criteria (I was going to add a picture with the individual rent per apartment, but since other contestants have just added the rent as seen from the neighbourhood, I just did the same as it would be easier. I guarantee I didn't cheat ).

I won't add photos under spoilers for each unit, as it would be a lot of screenshots - I mean really a lot: I reached the 32-picture limit! However, I clearly labeled each photo with their unit number and they are sorted from left to right, bottom to top, so you don't confuse them. Thus, the left unit in the ground floor would be Unit 1, the right unit on the second/third floors would be the 6th. Each bedroom (or, in units 3 and 4, as they're studios, the whole apartment) is noiseproofed, and after intensive testing, issues I found where corrected: I added a communal trash chute in every floor as the landlord would insist on using your Simmies chute instead of the communal bin and would stomp because the door was locked.

Units 1 and 2 are designed for a Sim fresh out of university (or still in it, if you have a mod*), unit 2 more towards the artistic side. Unit 3 is for a starving artist (Caution! Starving leads to death and as such should be considered a high-risk activity. Proceed at your own peril. The landlord is not responsible if your grave ends up at Joe's DIY Repair Shop or other random community lots!) while Unit 4 is for a jock (I actually added a machine to build body, which I almost never do! Jumping rope works just fine). Units 5 and 6 are for two roommates, not really having a theme (though I would say Unit 6 is more feminine, as it has more space for clothes).

Outside, the landlord has provided 3 chess tables for everyone, 2 grills and some outdoor benches and tables, as well as a nice grassy area with plenty of shade to hang out with other tenants. This lot may be cheap, but life is actually quite good. And our solar panels provide an extra 200/week to help pay the rent.

Some playability "quirks":
- Units 1 and 2 have clothes rack, but they aren't usable because of the bed. They're just their for decorative purposes (I imagined everyone needed somewhere to hang their clothes!)
- Every double bed is a Murphy bed as to add extra space when closed. This means they are actually usable (and WooHoo-able) in Units 5 and 6, despite being against a wall, if you direct one Sim to close it, direct the other to stand on the other side, and then direct the same Sim who closed it to open it again. To get out of bed, the process is the same. Since these apartments aren't really meant for couples, I didn't find that to be a major problem, so I hope I won't be docked playability points there (if I am, well, too bad)

Every unit has burglar and smoke alarms, as well as either a bin or a chute and a phone.

Special thanks to gummi and the judges for agreeing to give me an extension in this hard time of my life, it meant a lot . Also, a shout-out to my mum, who kindly helped me both with my hospital stay and with the decoration of this lot. She was the one who suggested having clothes rack or coat hangers in every unit (even if decorative) to have somewhere to hang clothes. I ended up having lots of fun building small - really small, unit 1 has 49 tiles of usable space, if I did the maths right (that's equivallent to a 7 by 7).

Hope you like my entry, though I know I do . I'd love to live here in my college years (1 year to go!). Let me know if you have any questions.

*I don't want to use apthack, but I think Chris Hatch has a mod which allows apartments in University. Is it all the mod does (as in, there's no hidden features?). If so, that would be great, as that is the part about apthack I really like. Also, how would the rent work?

omgosh look at all those nooks and crannies! great job @Yvelotic2001 it looks like a fun place to explore xD

I have my playalong sorted!

Thanks to everyones tips on how to reduce rent. It seemed the biggest rent killer is taking away their individual garden spaces, even if they were tiny, it saved almost $1000!!!!!

Anyway, I have made these into the typical New Zealand scody units most young adults will live in for the first time after they leave home! These are modelled on my first flat that I lived in. It had no double glazing, no insulation, no fire alarms, it was made of block, and they always left one or two walls un-gibbed inside so you had a cold block wall, that in winter time would be soaking wet, so you couldn't really put anything on it (we hung a blanket across it to try and get extra warmth) They had no heating included, had to run an electric heater (I've been nice for the sims and added a heater!) we got power by the way of whats called a power manager, you topped up a card and had to swipe it and the amount you topped up would be all you could use, it really sucked when you didnt top it up enough, and it would run out and then couldnt top it up again as the rest of the pay went on alcohol!! The area we lived in was very undesirable, across the road from us lived the Mongrel Mob. Down the road was a kid that was always running away and he kept ending up at our flat, one time he stole my bike, called the police they had a chat to him and he told them he'd left it outside the Mobs house, they gave it up as a lost cause! We had 6 flats in total and 2 were in each row. We were number 1. Number 2 was a tinny house (drug dealers) before we moved in apparently ours was also a tinny house, my first night there I was woken by a knock at the door at 2am, was a drugged up fella asking if he could buy my drugs, sent him next door or failing that told him to head across the road! Number 3 had a really strange couple in it, number 4 had a lovely girl who was putting herself through nursing, number 5 never met them, and number 6 had a crazy girl who was convinced my flatmate was stealing stuff from her (she wasn't had never even been in her flat!!) and waited down the drive one night as she came home from work and jumped her and bet her up a lil bit! As you can imagine we didn't last long there!!!

Anyway heres my scody flat, and must say, its a dam sight better than what I had (though if I had the use of cc, I would have made it really bad!)
The only landscaping is overgrown, as no one wants to do the garden (true story!)

Where were you? Hutt Valley or Highbury in Palmy? Or maybe Mangere. Haha.

Linwood, Christchurch

@ekrubynaffit what an adventure! It's fun to read about it now but I bet it was hell while you were there. I lived in Melbourne for 2 years and spent the first half with a broken heater in the middle of winter. The house was insulated but it was still freezing so I cannot CANNOT ---CAN NOT imagine living in a block house with no insulation and weeping walls! Not to mention you lived next to a drug dealer and a mob across the street hahaha I say you nailed that round xD

Oh, no, freezing Christchurch. I've been to similar places. You survived - well done. And I am, right now, sick of winter in Melbourne.

Edit: I'm struggling with inspiration on this round, for some bizarre reason. I will need every hour of those five days. I've started building but it's a bit of a mess.

Just to be clear, we have until when to finish Round 3?

I had updated timers but look like they flipped out and reverted back to old settings. Made new ones so hopefully no more malfunctions. 10 days left on round 3.

That's a relief!

Yip!! Been there done that never again!! Though even though we had the mob there it was actually for the most part, safe. As gangs don't tend to s%&# in their own backyard, in fact quite often they'd help with community stuff. It was when rivial gangs came a calling you had to shut and lock your doors! And the drug dealers for the most part seemed alright, wasn't a meth lab or anything they just grew a bit of pot and sold it. The worst neighbour was actually the one in number 6, she was just cray cray!!! Had an ex as well who, while I was in this flat was a bit of a stalker and in the mornings I'd see him hiding across the road as I walked to work, or he'd be up on the corner waiting when I got home, that was a bit scary! Once I got the police involved though that all ended! In the end you can chalk it all up to experience and I now know what to look out for, for when my kids move out, if they want to go to Linwood will be saying Hell no!!!

Are stair wall openings allowed? Technically, they're windows, so I'm assuming yes?

Yes, they're allowed