The Perfect Challenge

[MomOfMany]

I don't have Into the Future so that isn't the problem with my skill not counting. Me either Marian! When I tested a home pond I could only get the basic pond fish that are everywhere! And I was diving too but couldn't get better than outstanding either I eventually gave up. I checked everywhere for the kissing gourami even in empty ponds but it didn't show? You can fish for seahorse I thought that was a dive only fish?

[_Annika_]

If you get ten of each dive fish, you can stock a pond with them and then fish for them, though they have no specific bait. Fishing for the seahorses was going to take too long to improve the quality, and the best seahorse I caught while diving was outstanding. You need to be at level 10 diving skill I think. I think diving skill effects the quality of fish you catch while diving. I also used fish tanks and put all the diving fishes in there until I either caught ten, or they bred enough to get 10. I think mood might come into play, too.

[Tandrael]

My natural cook was also handy so she upgraded the stove. She also maxed the cooking career to get the nice fridge. With those two things everything she cooked was perfect. I should've been faster though because she got the nice fridge the day before the ending of the challenge.

My fisherman also loved to swim so after fishing she also practiced diving, but I still didn't get any perfect fish from diving… well, now I have some ideas of what I should have done. She also didn't get a perfect fairy damsel, and she did have the perfect glow orb in her inventory. Glow orb spawn during full moon, btw.

I wasn't sure in what town to do the file, there is a lot of information on Sunset Valley, but I finally decided for IP for the fish, and I didn't get those either! If I had done it in SV I would have had perfect flame fruit at least! And I didn't even get the opportunity for the cheese plant until my gardener had mastered gardening, I have no idea why! So the cheese plant didn't get to perfect either. I did a test file in each town but not for the whole 4 weeks but just for 2 and figured things would work out fine after that… no the didn't.

I think for these challenges you need a lot of planning and a bit of luck!

Can't wait to hear from the champs!

[saltpastillen]

My biggest mistakes was not getting rid of the lower quality produce when my sim was cooking, not going off to France early enough (one of the grapes didn't get ready in time) and not playing in Isla Paradiso (so I couldn't get the fish). I should also probably have uninstalled the ITF expansion so that my gardening sim could have gotten some cooking ops. But I'm pretty happy with my score.

[Nutella]

Few strategies / tips:

1) One sim for gardening/cooking, the other sim for diving/fishing.  Do gardening first, then cooking later.  Diving first, fishing later.
2) Gardening/cooking sims trait -- green thumb (obvious) + gatherer (plant higher quality plants) + natural cook (obvious) + perfectionist (high quality meals) + ambitious (need this for culinary career).  I spent 2 weeks getting this sim to max culinary career for the refrigerator, which is very important in producing perfect meals. 
3) Diving/fishing sims trait -- angler (obvious) + gatherer (for smelting metals, help with income) + loves to swim (obvious for diving) + loner (less socializing needed).  Last trait not too important.
4) This challenge, obviously the more expansion packs you have, the bigger the advantage is.  I played with all xpacs (including into the future).
5) Isla Paradiso is important for this challenge, the fishes you only get while diving, invaluable.
6) For getting isla paradiso perfect fish - go level diving collect 10 then dump them into a pond in your home lot.  Use separate ponds for separate fish - don't need much space, just a small pond and you can stock the 10 fish.  Use lure (no bait) and keep fishing till you get perfect.  It is impossible to get perfect fish if you are diving for it.
7) Ninja starfish cannot be perfect, game mechanics.
Seahorse - perfect yes.  Requires over 150 catches.  I use travel time to help get the perfect seahorse.  After you arrive in future, build a pond next to base and just fish for seahorse like crazy.  When i got the perfect one, I was so happy i took a screenshot of it -- ill post it later.
9) How to avoid advanced tech skill -- travelling the portal 4 times will give you one AT skill point, which will disqualified you.  The trick is to use the portal 3 times only, no more than that.  Going there once and coming back count as 2 times.  Also when you reach the future, make sure you watch your sim carefully, if you don't, he will sometimes take the elevator and get AT skill point.  Use stairs!
10) I send my fishing sim to the future in the beginning to buy crystal flower (from shop), then back -- so that's 2 portal travel.  Later like mid game I send my gardening sim thru portal to fish 10 Three-eyed fish to bring home, made a pond of three-eyed fish for my fishing sim to get perfect, that's 2 portal travel for her.  Last I send my fishing sim thru portal one last time (the 3rd portal travel) to the future, made a one way trip -- no returning home, and ended the game in the future.  He spends all his travel time in the future to fish seahorse, and also for rainbow snail (easy to catch).
11) Forgot to mentioned, use your lifetime happiness points to buy the portal reward, which will trigger utopia or dystopia with one click of a button. 
12) For plants, get all the variety as early as you can since they have to grow and you have to wait.  Almost everything can be bought from grocery shop and elixir shop.  The ones you can't buy go to egypt -- flame, life, and death.  And of course all the 3 travel locations have their own special plants you can buy from the shop while traveling.  The french grapes in the island is super easy if you have boat, just boat over there, no need meditation, zeneport, etc etc.
13) Also the plants, before your sim starts planting anything - buy the super green thumb lifetime reward.  With all the traits plus this reward, you only need to plant them 2 cycles and you will get perfect.
14) Meals is all about the kelvin refrigerator.  Get that from maxing culinary career, then buy "born to cook" lifetime reward.  With traits + reward + fridge + perfect product (from gardening), meals can be cooked perfect in just one try. 
15) I didnt' upgrade stove, I find that I didn't need it.  Only "peanut butter and jelly" i had to cook more than 5 times to get perfect.
16) Get collection helper early, for diving.  Easier to catch those fish if you know where they are, I find it hard to see underwater.
17) Both my sim have "swimming in cash" lifetime wish -- I use a combination of selling books from china base camp and smelting metals.  I would buy all the metals from the relic merchant, send tham off to smelt.  With gatherer trait, you make some good money.
18) Also playing in isla paradiso, you discover one island just by passing by it.  Use that to your advantage - sell the island, voila 10K cash.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but if anybody have any questions fire away.  I might have missed something important.

[_Annika_]

Thank you for letting us know about the seahorse! I didn't know that it was impossible to catch a perfect one diving. I should have wasted my last days fishing, not diving, and used the rest of my travel time.

For my cooking sim, I worked out how many meals I needed of the harder ones to cook to get them perfect, and only cooked those to start with the get her cooking skill to level 10 before doing other recipes. That also gave time for the plants to grow. The harder ones being the ones on the bbq and the ones that required no cooking at all - I think veggie rolls took the most tries, and the pet food took quite a few tries too. Without my cooking sim doing anything else, she had finished all recipies perfect in just over 3 weeks. She didn't need the culinary fridge, or the upgraded stove, but she did take the LTR as soon as possible.

I have to disagree on the AT skill - you can get at least 4 travels in if you put your sim in a really bad mood. My sim made it there and back twice, without gaining the skill. I did however have the other sim use the time remote - I'm not sure if that contributes to the skill, but I think it may do.

Thank you so much for sharing Nutella!

[saltpastillen]

@_Annika_

What a great strategy to put the sims in a really bad mood to decrease skill gain. Sometimes it's the easy things we forget we can do

[Elena]

Can't believe that it takes 150 catches for a seahorse!
I remember that it already took me ages to fish for one, about 3-4 hours, but it's faster during 12-5am, you must be fishing 24/7 for more than 15 days! lol
I didn't have ITF on so I guess fishing in another world to save time was not possible for me.
Note: you cannot dump 10 fishes into a vacation world pre-built pond unless that's a pond for your vacation home(which isn't possible anyway), or they will disapppear and won't register.
I wonder if someone else has found a better way to pond-catch ocean fishes? I used perfect fruits/fishes bait instead of luring and got myself all types of perfect up to the eel pretty fast.
I got Hermit Crab and Sea Urchin at perfect quality already from diving, and when I fished for anemone and sea polyp it's one go to get perfect because they are level 1.
I used perfect vampire fish for octopus and dragon fishes for squid and eel because the bait is at a higher level than the fish, so the result is better.
I do remember getting seahorse at great quality once, so I wonder if there's actually a bait that the seahorse prefer to shorten the perfect time a bit.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but if anybody have any questions fire away.  I might have missed something important.

Hey Nutella, again I would like to hear tips about onmi opp chain with ITF on? Because that was the reason which forced me to abandon ITF EP, as it causes declining of opps.

I figured that with Onmi chain, if I am lucky I will get 5 special plants with 3 opps, if I am not that lucky I will still get 4 special plants with two opps.
Instead of ITF with 2 fishes + 1 crystal + now possibly the seahorse. So I took a gamble and disabled ITF.
Opps are always nightmare to me because they are random and can be distracted by other skill opps. Here are some caution I've made to increase the chance of onmi chain:
On day 1, I had the couple planting fruits on home lot to both gain a level in gardening. They will both have gardening skills to insure onmi opps will arrive.

Then I sent my angler/diver sim to China for metals/fishing/harvesting plums/cherries+pomelos from Han's orchard.
When she's back, the gardener/cooker sim took another trip to France, getting pomegranates/plums from the one household garden.
As for nectar grapes:
Cherimola/Renoit/Avornalino are available in the nectary garden;
Cranerlet/Gralladina are on the little island - with IP on you can go there with a boat;
Meloire Grapes are outside on the steps of an empty vacation house.
As for life/flame fruits I also placed the MF arboretum to harvest instead of spending time to find them.
Death flower is perfect in one go and I found a special seed (value 0, tested with pot) easily on the long chain of isles near Rocky Reef.
Sometime, when harvesting, you might get very nice/even great quality depending on your luck. The quality of community plants increases the more you harvest them.

Angler almost maxed fishing in China, as for the only imperfect tancho and dragon fishes, she got 10 of each and pond-fished them later.
She did 'telescopic metals', completed 'metal collector' and hunted daily for plutonium as well as buying metals from relic store.
This enabled her and Gardener to complete LTW of 'Swimming in Cash' immediately back home. She harvested Han's orchard daily to gain gardening skill to lv.6 by the end.
Gardener harvested daily in nectary and cooked autumn salad in base camp. She gained lv. 6 in both skills by the end of the trip.
Back home, both bought all types of fruits from grocery/elixir store and harvested arboretum. They both planted 19 types of plants to register 'master planter' to reduce weeds on future plants.
After that, I deleted them all, replanted the 'official' ones and fertilized them with plasma fruits - the best easy fertilizers I can think of in early days.
It is natural that they'll both have gardening lv.8 after all this ordeal, and Angler can now help Garden when it is urgent to get all fruits planted/fertilized on day 1.
The couple had no more trips until 'onmification plant' opp secured. It seems that every travel will disrupt the schedule of opps and cancelling all other opps speed up calls.
I got cheese/egg in the end of week 1, steak/burger by week 2 and onmi by the end of week 3. My angler always have better luck than gardener on this.
They both have Super Green Thumb LTR and are gatherers (the most important trait - it allows you to increase planted seed two levels higher).
When handing in steaks for onmi opp, eating a basil and have 'Opportunistic' LTR will grant you 6 seeds, one of them at excellent quality.
Planting an excellent onmi seed to get perfect plant, fertilizing it with perfect life fruit for the fastest growth and feeding it perfect life fruit again registered perfect onmi plant on skill journal for me.

The rest of things are pretty easy and I've done my best without another test run and without ITF. The only other things that I can think of:
Gardener/Cooker did culinary career for the fridge as well, almost all recipes are pretty easily perfect with it or before that, perfect ingredients.
However, for hot dogs and tofu dogs you will need an expensive outdoor grill - I used the one from Outdoor Living SP.
Angler secured 'catch every types of fishes' wish of 8.5K before diving, because all types of ocean fishes caught will benefit fishing skill stats.
Diving helps greatly with completing skill challenges of fishing - especially commercial fishing-man. 
Here is my regret - I wasted a seahorse feeding it to onmi - all fishes post Supernatural EP are not feed-able to onmi plants!
The plant will be stuck in harvest stage and no products available, making it totally useless!
Fairy damsel cannot be fed to onmi either, I used non-perfect glow orbs to catch them from fishing spots (only available when the spot is 'great') because other fishes kept distracting me from getting it.
Finally I got 10 and pond-fished for them with perfect glow orbs.

I checked everywhere for the kissing gourami even in empty ponds but it didn't show?

I forgot the name of that lot, it's the community pond next to Ichtaca Community Garden, which is empty, I got my kissing gourami from there.

[Nutella]

I didn't get to omni plant for this challenge, not enough time, only did cheese/egg/patty/steak.  There really isn't any tips in getting the omni opp chain with ITF on except pray.  While testing I noticed all the other misc opps have less phone calls, but I always seem to get the uncommonly good phone call, not sure why.  Sure enough during scoring file, I got the call in week 4 day 4.  After the first call, the rest of the chain phone call will always come if your gardening skill is high enough.

[Turoskel]

Interesting read.

After the first call, the rest of the chain phone call will always come if your gardening skill is high enough.

You say that Nutella but I actually never got the rest of the chain, I only got uncommonly good, and I didn't use ITF for this challenge so it wasn't that causing it. Same thing happened in my current life states as well, first part but no follow up so far.

It was only after I started I thought about the diving fish, too late then as I wasn't playing in IP instead I chose Appaloosa Plains (I use challenges as my excuse to get out of Riverview a bit more but I did miss that hatchery), honestly can't remember most of what I did now, I do know I never went to Egypt as I got those plants in France instead. I also wasted time on that starfish not realising it was broken. I too made little fish ponds, something I've done in the past for the perfect aquarium LTW as well.

I know at once stage I got a bit annoyed at my chef, took her so many goes to get a perfect Autumn Salad yet first try doing Lobster Thermidor and it was perfect, the state of ingredients didn't seem to matter sometimes, even if they were perfect she'd get stuck on outstanding or excellent for ages, I didn't have the fridge though so maybe that might have helped, not sure.

[LenaLJ]

Writing from my mobile phone so just a few notes of my strategy.
My plan was pretty similar to Nutellas. Until the future travel, there I did just like Annika described with the low moods, and Gemini my fisher sim didn't gain a Advanced tech skill point.
And for money gain I sent one of my Sims on a one day trip to university and sold everything at the place she was staying.
Instead of cooking career I upgraded the stove. I think the faster time I would get by cooking with the culinary stove, would equal out on the time with the upgraded stove.

For the plant opportunities, I sent Delta to a rabbit hole each time the phone rang, at some point I was lucky and got the opps. I have also encountered you can get the opps if you are diving and very lucky to get a call there. I had this happen, once in this file, and twice in testing.

I actually caught both a eel and a seahorse as perfect while diving. I might have been lucky.
And the extra point I was talking about was the ninja starfish, I was sure if I would keep fishing for it, it would get perfect at one point, but i forgot about it until last so i only caught 125 of it, and that wasn't enough. But maybe its totally impossible I don't know.

Sure enough during scoring file, I got the call in week 4 day 4.

Nutella if you first got the first opp at that point, how was it possible for you to get all 4 plants to perfect. Or am I misunderstanding something here.

[Nutella]

lol sorry, typo error.  I meant to type week 1 day 4 (not week 4 day 4).

[Tiamet]

You say that Nutella but I actually never got the rest of the chain, I only got uncommonly good, and I didn't use ITF for this challenge so it wasn't that causing it. Same thing happened in my current life states as well, first part but no follow up so far.

I'm not playing with ITF either, and I found going to the diner/bistro would get the rest of the chain to fire.

[Deklitch]

My problem was using Emit and visiting the future for the first time ever in this scoring file. I decided that 'going into the future won't hurt, if i just have a look around'.

In any case, congrats all on your scores and thanks to the team for the challenge

[_Annika_]

I love strategy time. It's my favourite part of the whole challenge Now I can't wait to do it all over again with my tofu/links/roast plants mod. And of course turning off ITF until I get the opps.