Differences in building costs

[Twinmum]

So there has been some discussion about some people getting a building discount while building if they enter Edit Town before they finish building. I'm trying to do some testing on this and getting some mixed results. I thought if I could post a short list of instructions for a few people to follow and see if we all end up with the same value at the end.
Before I post the instructions though, I might state I've already come up against discrepancies when doing the same thing twice! One thing I did find was there seemed to be a difference in price depending where I put kitchen counters and if I placed them and then moved them, my overall value went up even more!

It's strange, I was building a house before and I did notice that I got the 'discount' to the value of about 1500, but when I did this and made a list of everything I did and bought to get other people to replicate it, I didn't get a discount. Anyway We'll start with this and I'll try and build something else (maybe somewhere else) and see if I can get the discount to happen again.

For now, it would be helpful if a few people followed these instructions and take note of values where I have and we'll see if everyone gets the same result.

Values are in brackets - if there is only one value that means the furnished and unfurnished value are the same, if there are two, the first will be furnished.
Start a new game in Sunset Valley and go into Edit Town before selecting a sim. Select 9 Sun Song Ave ($2700) and hit build/buy.
Using the foundation tool, drag out a 10 x 10 square - I don't think placement matters as I kept getting the same result. (3,500)
Use the sledge hammer and remove the inner 8 x 8 square of foundation (3,564) not sure how removing something makes the value go up lol
Go to the flooring and select the first carpet (white circles) and cover the whole 10 x 10 area (3,965)
Using the wall tool, make a 10 x 9 room on the foundation, leaving a one tile wide porch along the front. (6,625)
Select the first base game door (The Door From Doors And More) and place opening onto the porch (6,700)
Place 4 truth divider windows (7,000)
Using the Homestyle Ascensions Device place a 2 tile wide stair using auto rails from the porch to the ground (7,096)
Select the first available paint selection and paint all the walls, inside and out (7,400)
Select Edit Town and save the game. Move the curser over the house and check the value (7,399) - wow huge discount there lol
Click on the house and again select build/buy
Go into buy mode and buy the following and place in the house:
1 x Bargain John
1 x B.R.A.S.S. double bed
1 x Chillgood fridge
4 x country Fried counters
1 x Cowpoke stove
1 x prim and Proper lounge
values are now different (9,909 / 9,234)
Go to Edit Town and save.
Return to game setup
Select a household to move in (doesn't matter who, as we won't really be moving them in)
Mouse over the house and check the prices are the same.
Back out of selecting the household and go back to edit town and select the house again and hit build/buy
make a 5 x 5 room in one corner and add an Insta Door (10,709 / 10,034)
Buy a Swish Dishwasher, sunup Breakfast Table and 4 Cozinator Chairs (11,334 / 10,034)
Go Edit Town and save

I'd be interested to see if everyone gets the same final value.

Norma

[Twinmum]

Success, I think I may have worked out why some of us get the building discount as TommyT calls it and some of us don't. The truth is it is not a discount but a refund.
Here's what I did:
In a clean neighbourhood, I selected a 2,400 block (in Riverview) On that block I just placed a row of 4 Country Fried counters. The value of the property went up to 2,960 which was correct 140 x 4 plus the original 2,400
Next I picked up one of the counters and made it form a right angle against the others. Now I didn't buy anything extra so my value should have stayed the same, wrong, I got charged another 140 taking the value up to 3,100
So then I undid the action, but didn't get my money back. You can redo the action and not get charged again, but if you make another corner with a different counter you will get charged again. Now for anyone like me who when building places things like counters and rearranges them endlessly, this could become quite costly.
So next I played around with those 4 counters making corners with different ones and i ended up with a lot value of 3,660 which meant I still had only 4 counters, but had the cost of nine.
Then I went back to edit town (there is no need apparently to save at this point after all) and moused over the lot and the value was back at 2,960 what it should have been for the piece of land and 4 counters.
So it seems that it is just adjusting the value to what it should be and the reason that some of us get a 'discount' is because we obviously move things around until we are happy with the arrangement while others just place and leave.

Of course this probably needs a bit more testing to set as true, but it looks promising. So if someone else wants to test it out, I'm off to bed for now but will check back in the morning.

Norma

[MomOfMany]

Oh Norma that so makes sense. I was the one who brought this up in the first place and moved things around a lot never paid any attention to the price while moving them as I figured it wouldn't change. I in turn moved the counters quite a bit as well while changing the sizes of the rooms. And I had a price reduction of about 3,000 when going back into edit town but like you said I moved 3 or 4 middle priced counters like 5 or 6 times trying to get things the way I wanted them.

[samoht04]

In CAW there was also a option when placing lots to add additional cost to the lots price, some lots may be more expensive than others of the same size, which could be used in Sunset Valley, Twinbrook or Riverview.

[TommyT]

Interesting!  That makes sense for me because pretty much every objects in my home is moved ten times before I'm happy lol.  I wonder if there are any other buggy objects that increase prices, I'll do some research as well.

[AriaGirl77]

I've got the building contest locked for now until we've got this figured out, but it sounds like we're getting there!

Thanks for doing all this testing you guys, I'd love to but my life just doesn't permit it. 

[Twinmum]

Well I have spent a fair amount of time this morning testing this. It does seem to be the case of a refund for being over charged. I built several (simple) houses and furnished them making sure not to move anything I placed and the final cost always stayed the same. Then I built several kitchens and added and rearranged various counters (from the cheapest to the most expensive) I also added the overhead cabinets and they do the same as the counters if you move them around. The end result in these kitchens was always the same - being overcharged for counters and cabinets that were not purchased then being refunded for these extras when you go to edit town.
I looked through the catalogue trying to find other things that behave the same, but I think the counters and cabinets are the only items in buy mode that snap together, I remember in TS2 we had modular lounges that you put together like the counters, but not in TS3.
So after my testing, I'm pretty sure that the extra money isn't a discount and so I'm not able to build cheaper than other people.

Norma

[AriaGirl77]

Awesome!  In that case, I'm just going to leave the contest as is.  Thanks for doing all that testing and figuring it out for us!! 

[samoht04]

I was having problems uploading the sims for the contest through the launcher (The upload failed with a Red circle with the line through it) I will try again this morning.

Good to know the problem is solved!  It makes sense because in Real-life you would have to pay to buy a counter and it's parts then pay extra to have it assembled.

[MomOfMany]

Thanks for clarifying that as I don't think I ever would have figured that out myself.

[Seriphina]

Though kind of backwards, I have found a solution to fix the problem.  After you've finished the building portion of your project, go to the map view in edit town mode, save the lot to your library.  Now, bulldoze the one in your town, then re-place it with the copy in your library.  Since the game registers only the individual items and walls, the costs incurred from changing things will be corrected.

[Twinmum]

Good idea Seriphina. Of course this method would not be an option for challenge games as the edit town screen is usually out of bounds, but for the likes of the building contests it would be fine. I already actually do this when building something that will be shared. I build, then save a copy to the library, then move my build tester sim into the house to make sure all is good. Then if it's fine, I move the sim out, bulldoze, add the house from the library that hasn't had anyone live in it and then share it.

Norma

[Chuckles_82]

I do the same thing Twinmum.

I, too, noticed that the lot price was doing strange things as I built. I always exit to edit town and go back, and it rights itself. I have to do that several times by the end to make sure my lot is the right price for a competition build.