Thursday, March 7, 2013

Hard Mode Pack 1.50

This is a pack of mods that makes the game harder and more game-like.

The pack includes:

-Smooth Motive Drop
This mod makes your sims motives drop at a smooth rate. See here for details. This is an alternate version which makes hunger drop more slowly when it gets particularly low so that NPCs at University are less likely to drop like flies.

-Devastating Burglaries
Simply put, this mod makes burglars much more devastating. They steal more and are more likely to spawn. Read on for more details. 

--Burglars now try to steal 25% of the household value, instead of 5%, and the limit of value they can steal was raised from 20,000 to 200,000. This means that if your sim has a household value of 10,000, the burglar will try to steal 2,500 simoleons worth of stuff- which can be pretty devastating. If the house value is 200,000, the burglar will try to steal 50,000 simoleons worth of stuff. Since the limit is 200,000, the burglar will only try to steal under 25% of the household value once the house is worth over 800,000 dollars- since 25% of any value past that is over 200,000 dollars. The main idea of this part is to just make the burglary a more devastating experience for the sims who fall victim.
--Max items a burglar can steal is now 50, instead of 10. I am not sure if the burglar will actually try to steal 50 items if that is how many he needs to reach their attempted quota of 25% (say, if you filled a house with cheap knick-knacks, I don't know if the burglar would indeed take up to 50 of them before he would leave), but that is how this should work. Mostly I am just raising the limit so that the burglar will definitely keep stealing until they reach their quota, if they don't get caught. They will probably not have to steal 50 items to reach their quota.
--Chance of a burglar once EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE IS ASLEEP is now 5% instead of 2.5%.
-- Maximum amount of time AFTER EVERYONE GOES TO SLEEP that a burglar will show up is 6, instead of 4. The time the burglar comes is randomized between 0 and 6, meaning after everyone goes to bed a burglar could show up in 5 minutes or 5 hours, it's random.
--Minimum days between burglaries is now 7 instead of 4, to compensate for the higher chance of a burglar.
--Relationship drop with a burglar is now -150 instead of -20.
--For every 10,000 simoleons added to the household worth, the chance of a burglar increases by 1%. That means that when your household value is over 100,000, burglars will be a constant threat- at least once every 7 days. Your home is VERY attractive to burglars.
--A relationship of 50 with a burglar means they won't rob your house. It used to be 75. So if you happen to meet both burglars in the NPC pool at any given time and befriend them, you will never ever be robbed.


-Higher Taxes
In a nutshell, this part of the pack makes bills more expensive. Theynow come EVERY BUSINESS DAY OF THE WEEK, but you are now billed for 5% of the household value (1% with each new bill), instead of only 1.3%. Please read the other bullets to learn just what this means.

--With this mod, If your sim was, say, level 1 in the Business career, they'd bring in 810 simoleons in a week. For a 20,000 dollar home, their bills would be 1,000 simoleons a week, or 200 simoleons PER DAY! Woops! Can't afford the bills, sucks for you. A sim at level 1 business career could only afford a 16,000 dollar home, at 800 a week- but they wouldn't be able to afford food. This means a sim at level 1 business career must have a home of, say, 15k to live comfortably. That would cost 750 simoleons a week, allowing 60 for food. (Keep in mind this is with base game values- the food part of this mod pack will make it even harder!)
--Basically, you might have to do math to survive. Nooo! In the base game, as long as a sim has a job, they can afford the bills. This is no longer true. You have to live within your means. You cannot have too high of household value until you get a few promotions. Even two sims at level 1 of the business career would struggle with a typical 20,000 dollar home. You have to save money now instead of spending it as soon as you get it.

-Expensive Food (Ingredient Purchase Incentive)
Basically, this mod makes food purchased straight from the fridge (without owning the ingredients) more expensive.

--By default, the markup on food is 50%. If you don't own the ingredients required, the food costs 50% more from the fridge. This mod changes that to 500%.
--By default, waffles would cost a sim (who didn't have an egg in his inventory) 15 simoleons. With this mod, they will cost him 50. With an egg, they'll be free (Not counting how the sim had to pay for the egg, of course.)
--Overall, this means that food is SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive if you don't do regular grocery shopping, and regular grocery shopping will save you a ton of money. Finally there's a reason to get groceries! As long as you keep track of what ingredients food requires, you'll save lots of money.

-More Expensive Burglar Alarm (Optional)
--Well, each package is optional, but what I mean is this isn't a default replacement. It is an alternate burglar alarm which costs a whopping 20,000 simoleons to install. No more advanced burglary systems in tiny poor shacks built in the middle of a swamp and owned by an old lady who makes money writing crappy romance novels.
 
Combined, these mods make the game much harder. You need to plan more. You need to make sure you live within your means. You have to buy groceries. A burglar alarm is pretty much a necessity but it is also an investment. Not paying the bills can cripple your sims' livelihoods.

Enjoy. :D

If you come across any bugs, please tell me!


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Smooth Motive Drop 1.5/Uni

This is Smooth Motive Drop (Makes key motives like Hunger drop smoothly instead of changing speed depending on their current level, like in Sims 2) updated for 1.5 / University. It does NOT affect PlantSims, and may be updated to, depending on whether or not they're stupid.

WARNING: NPCs in Dorms are apparently complete idiots, and sometimes will not feed themselves. They die of hunger. A lot. I recommend always SERVING meals and "Call household to meal" every time you eat, because it looks like they've got something wrong with their AI. This mod does not afford them the 24+ hours of time to figure it out that the default game does.