World Handyman Championships

[BellaClo]

Huge congrat' to you Chuckles!
I had no idea that such a score was even possible until you posted, then I had to understand "how" you did it... and this drove me almost nut for a week . Yet, after many hours of mind numbing tests, I found out how to reach the 400 mark.

Most upgrades last 240 minutes (4 hrs). I think that a few ones take more time (the nectar machine for instance). But others take less = yesssss! Namely, "auto water" for the sprinkler, and "auto fill" for the water troughs. Those only take 160 minutes, a tad little bit less than 3 hours. I think this is where the gap between the 300 and 400 score comes from. I tried many variations around the tinker option, but never got good results with it. That's why I went for round the clock (thanks to the motive mobile) "auto fill" upgrades on water troughs. Additionnaly, they are very cheap to buy.

Besides this, my strategy was very close to Annieb and Drift. Meka Tronic was Handy (surprise ), Ambitious, Loves the outdoors, Adventurous and Snob. I had chosen this trait to give more wishes related to buy things or be worth X $, and in combo with her LTW, Swimming in cash. I played in Twinbrook because the fire station has more different objects to upgrade. Meka started as Annieb's Sim. Thanks to all the wishes related to reach level x of skill/career, and upgrade stuff at the fire station, she got enough points to buy Prepared traveller and Opportunist before the end of the 1st week. The 6 days in China were spent to do enough adventures to gain a Visa 3 and at least 1350 ancient coins to buy the Certificate of Partnership (+ 3 days). Thanks to this, the 2 next vacations lasted each 18 days... full of "auto fill". As Tara mentioned it, there is no need to go to France for the Nectar machine. On the other hand, China is a must for the Fortune cookie machine.

She also spent the last days of this first travel to collect as many ores and gems as possible, so that she could produce Supernovium, Compendium and Soulpeace gems back home. Thanks to this, she fulfilled her LTW and grabbed the Motive Mobile, but also fulfilled several wishes to be worth more than X $, have X $ in cash, and be partner or owner of X business. Those whishes, and the fact that she was elated most of the time, brought me enough point for the Food Replicator and the Teleportation Pad. And also, she had no money problem and could buy anything she needed to reach the 100% upgrade.

I should have stopped pursuing those wishes earlier (and rely more on the elated mood to bring LTHP) and could have upgraded a bit more water troughs.

[Sportsfan]

I guess I did okay. I chose neurotic (freak out and check sink) handy (duh) over emotional slob (no need to take showers) and loner.
I couldve probably increased my score to around 150 total but I wasn't very efficient towards the end and started goofing around. I also lost about a day total because of fires. I guess I was at a disadvantage without motive mobile. Interesting reading the strategies. And congrats Chuckles!

[xFezIsAFreakx]

Kicking myself while reading all your tips!

I was on a mission to get as much LTHP, get the food replicator and teleport pad things and upgrade them. i was so focused on those that any hint of other strategies flew out of the window! I definitely should have practised and did a lot more research, and not try to get Hansyn Handyman to be an astronaut.

[Sportsfan]

Oh and I just remembered that I joined architect profession to get a discount on buying stuff.

[cndneh]

I forgot about the motive mobile, I didn't think about the firefighter career until the last week, I went on one vacation and forgot about any others.  I made the mistake of playing in Bridgeport, where it takes forever to go anywhere.  I spent my LTHP on things like steel bladder, etc and didn't think about food replicator or teleportation pad until the last week when I had no points.   I was happy with my score though, I thought I did well.  I didn't time upgrades like sprinklers so I didn't know they were faster.  But you live and learn and now I know.  Congratulations to everyone!

  It occurred to me that I might have unwittingly cheated; I only just thought of it that way now.  I hadn't known what all the upgrades were and thought and thought about how I could find out.  I thought it was too bad that I didn't have a sim who'd already done them; then they'd be in that sim's skill journal.  Then I remembered Max (thanks Leto!)  Sure enough, they were there, and it definitely made a difference.  I doubt I would have gotten more than 50-60% of the unique upgrades otherwise.    I didn't win, or even come close, but if that means my score should be disqualified, I understand.  I hope everyone knows I didn't intend to skip around the rules when I did it.   

I don't that would be any different than looking up in Carl's guide what all the upgrades are (which I did), I didn't even know you could up grade the horse trough for example! 

[jewalsb]

Wow, thanks for the explanations. I was baffled by how people were able to get enough happiness points to get all the upgrades, and I spent weeks banging my head against the computer ( figuratively trying to calculate how over 400 upgrades in the allowed days were possible (voila, certificate of partnership and re-upgrading the doorbell!!). And I tried the firefighter route in my testing, and it seemed that doing those upgrades didn't affect my percentage of uniques, so I assumed they were considered by the game to be different, not handiness upgrades. But apparently that was wrong, I guess I should have tested that further. My low uniques score was quite frustrating to me.

Now back to the career challenge for me, maybe I can get in a bit more testing on that one before I have to do my final run.. Scores posted there so far are insane!

[Metropolis Man]

I wrote this part and deleted it, but then I thought I should be honest and re-post it.  It occurred to me that I might have unwittingly cheated; I only just thought of it that way now.  I hadn't known what all the upgrades were and thought and thought about how I could find out.  I thought it was too bad that I didn't have a sim who'd already done them; then they'd be in that sim's skill journal.  Then I remembered Max (thanks Leto!)  Sure enough, they were there, and it definitely made a difference.

Oh, my gosh, no. Pure and simple, that's called doing your homework.

[Chuckles_82]

Well, I certainly held my breath for quite a long time for this one! I knew when I saw the first 400's score that at least someone had latched onto the same strategy I used.

My sim was Ambitious and Adventurous (and of course Handy). She joined the firefighter career, and quit after level 5, though I didn't think of taking leave to not have to deal with emergencies! That said, I used a number of wishes related to the career to get as many LTH points.

My first purchase was the motive mobile, then prepared traveller and opportunistic. After that, I took a 6 day vacation to France, and had Level 3 visa and Partnership in less than 3 days, followed by two 18 day vacations.

Doorbells were also my choice of fast upgrade. The fireplace is also possible - autolight and fireproof were just as fast, but too dangerous.
 
Whilst in Sunset Valley, I checked the junkyard EVERY day until the fortune cookie machine turned up. I salvaged it, then replaced it for X amount in order to upgrade it. I spent a little bit of wasted time fulfilling wishes to get the teleporter, when really I could have focused on just upgrades and got a higher final score, but I guess I can't complain!

Thanks Metro for such a fun first challenge!

[MarianT]

You make it sound so simple! I actually had found a fortune-cookie maker at the junkyard before, but did I think to do that? or go for Visa 3 level? no. Although I will say that my experience with the doorbell in a previous game was that it took a long time.

[CSquared2]

Oh, my gosh, no. Pure and simple, that's called doing your homework.

Phew!  I patted myself on the back for weeks for that one, then today it gave me the heebie jeebies!

Congrats to everyone with those super high scores!

This was definitely a favorite.  It was so nice to focus on just one sim.

[Seabody]

My strategy seems to be covered. I used my 3 vacations visiting each country, finding the items from said country to be upgraded, and upgrading them. I don't think I used Egypt though, as there were no items that needed upgrading to increase my percentage there. In the end I missed out on Food Replicator and Teleporter.

My first thought on this was Tinkering, but in my testing, I confirmed that time was variable. Sometimes it took something like 46 minutes to upgrade, others, way more. But I discovered Tinkered objects add to your "objects upgraded" count (obviously, but I wanted to check) so I alternated between regular upgrades and tinkering.

[smartburn]

Ah, the motive mobile. Being a relatively new user of the expansions beyond Ambitions (I now have all except Pets), I only discovered the beauty of it recently. Even so, I don't think my score would've been anywhere near the top since I still never would have thought of many of the strategies I'm seeing now aside from that reward. I did not have a test file, I just jumped right in.

Mandy Handy was a handy, inappropriate, brave and friendly loner - the first two traits served me well throughout the challenge, but I probably would have dropped brave and/or maybe loner for ambitious.  I kept her in the firefighting career longer than she needed to be, though it was inappropriately helpful at times ("yo, I just saved your life, mind if I stick around to upgrade your trash compactor? Yeah, didn't think so."). By the time I realized what LTW would've been possible to achieve in that period of time (for me it would've been "swimming in cash"), it was too late so there was no food replicator or teleporter in this game.   

I could go on, but I'll stop before this delves further into "oh why did/didn't I do X" than it has already and go back to lurking, lol. I had a lot of fun with this challenge and I hope to complete most if not all of the ones for this year's tournament. Thanks Metro!

[MomOfMany]

Yeah I didn't think of the Motive Mobile either. I have never actually used it so I wasn't 100% sure how it worked probably should have tested that. With my test runs I did time to upgrades to an extent. I didn't time by min but by hour so it wasn't totally accurate but it was enough for me to know which ones to do and which is avoid! But also in my test run I upgraded the doorbell several times and only a few registered so I didn't know the trick to getting it to count every time. Although now I think it is that you must upgrade it back to basic after everyone is that correct? I focused on the LTH but still didn't have enough for the food replicator after buying the teleportation pad and prepared traveler. I did a lot of hopping about town looking for all the unique items to upgrade which I could have avoided had I did better in testing. Also I joined the firefighter career but didn't ever go to work and never went to any emergencies after the first two and I kept the job through out for the money each week! I made it all the way to level 8 too!