Don't Put All Your Collectibles in One Basket

[LenaLJ]

Household 1 201,455$ and 8 collections
Household 2 170,789$ and 8 collections
Household 3 162,897$ and 9 collections

Total Funds: 535,141$

Final Score: 535,141 * 3.5 = 1,872,993

[Whimsical Peanut]

I have a problem, even though some collections like gardening or elements show that I have all 32/32 for gardening or 15/15 for elements they don't count as completed collecctions on the corner right. Why might this be?

Are you talking about the upper right hand corner? I've had that, too. If your Sim has gotten the notification that the collection is complete, that's good enough.

Yeah that one. They appear in yellow like the others but not in the upper right corner...

Anyway without those that don't appear in the corner I have :

Household #1 §52,141 with 1 collection
Household #2 §41,144 with 2 collections
Household #3 §55,661 with 2 collections

Multiplier 1.5

Total Funds: §148,946

Final Score: 148,946 * 1.5 = 223,419

[lesleyj42]

Household 1: §222,684 with 6 full collections
Household 2: §240,055 with 5 full collections
Household 3: §321,356 with 5 full collections

Multiplier: (16*0.10)+1= 2.6

Total for all 3 households:
§784,095*2.6= §2,038,647

[Ginj]

Best tournament challenge ever! Big shoutout to the team.  I love that we're playing on short lifespans and I love the relaxation of the rules that's given me a chance to explore some game content I haven't done much with. 

Bottom line:

Household A:  103570 + 4 completed collections =
103570 x 1.4 giving 182798

Household B:  94799 + 4 completed collections =
94799 X 1.4 giving 183718

Household C:  83415 + 6 completed collections =
133464

Total score:  676281

[MomOfMany]

I have a partial score I didn't even get halfway thru but my score is
25,994 with 0 collections
30,617 with 0 collections
16,715 with 0 collections

73,326

This challenge was a lot of fun! I may do it again or finish just for fun!

[Metropolis Man]

This challenge is officially closed. I was looking through the results of all of this year's events and I did not see @lesleyj42 at the top of the pack in any of them, so I believe this event is her first win -- well done, lesleyj42!

Everyone is now free to share their strategy in how they tackled this event. Great job to all participants.

[lesleyj42]

Thanks, Metro, this is my first win. I had a lot of fun with this one. Here's how I did it. Please forgive my long-windedness...

Completed Collections:
Fish (3)
Frogs (3)
Gardening (3)
Geodes (3)
Space prints (3)
Fossils (1)

All three of the sims were:
Geek
Insider
Loves outdoors

Upon initial setup, I put sims 2 and 3 on the two 15x20 lots in Newcrest. Sim 1 moved to the 30x40 lot in the same neighborhood (I planned to grow a large garden on his lot and needed the room). The two 15x20 lots (private dwelling only) were used as storage for things I couldn't sell (buy mode items caught while fishing, things crafted with the workbench, etc). The 30x40 lot (private dwelling, science lair, great soil) had a shower room, a spaceship, a telescope, workbenches, and a large garden.

I setup a club for my three sims with club activities of friendly socials and fishing. Rally troops was my first club perk followed by skill boosts for handiness and rocket science and focusing boosts.

In the first few rotations, the club would go to various places to fish, collect frogs, harvest plants, and dig for metals, fossils, crystals and MySims. Then go back to the 30x40 lot to plant at least one of each type of plant. I also got produce from starter seeds, attending the first Spice and Romance festivals, one space mission, grafting, and letting a pile of trash take root.

I wanted to get to Sixam for two things, the geode collection (usually takes only two trips) and the alien plants (quill and glow orb). Therefore, I had sim 2 max rocket science skill in order to upgrade the spaceship to travel there.

I know that the quill and glow orb plants are not required to complete the gardening collection, however, I used them as cash crops. Those two plants start at §20 when they are normal quality; at perfect quality, they are worth just over §100 a piece. Another deciding factor was how fast they grow (time between full harvests for those is about 2 sim days). I also grew dragon fruit (§16-80/each) as a cash crop, but their harvest cycle was a bit longer (about 3 sim days). In total, the garden had over 90 plants. To care for it, I used the "tend garden together" option regularly. I never had gardening as a club activity because the produce would be harvested early (less profitable) and those harvested by the two sims I wasn't controlling would very likely be lost (not profitable at all).

As for completing the fish collection I spent lots of time out at various locations to catch everything. Sim 3 maxed handiness to break open the path to the Forgotten Grotto. The most variety was caught in and around the Oasis Springs Park.

I got the vast majority of frogs from the 3 ponds (Willow Creek Park, Oasis Springs Park, and Sylvan Glade). The rest I bred strategically to collect. Once I had finished the collection, I continued to breed the most expensive frogs. This would add approx §2,000 per sim per rotation to household income.

As I made my way around the different neighborhoods, I dug all the rocks. Sim 1 managed to complete the fossil collection in time. I got close on some of the others but it wasn't in the cards.

The last several rotations were spent entirely on sim 1's lot so the garden could grow. To pass the time in between gardening duties, I collected space prints with the telescope. I found that you got more variety if every time you collected one, you cancel the interaction, go do something else, and then come back.

Thanks to the team for another fun challenge!

[Metropolis Man]

Fantastic, detailed info, lesleyj42. Thank you very much. You cannot be too long-winded after an event is over.

[GlazeyLady]

Congratulations on your first win @lesleyj42!

My strategy was similar to lesleyj42's except that I focused a little more on completing collections.  Based on the results of previous challenges like this, I figured focusing on money rather than maxing the number of collections might result in a higher score, but I just couldn't keep myself from trying to get 9 collections each.

General considerations:

• I had a main lot where almost everything happened.  The garden was there for all three sims to collect from, the telescope, microscope, rocket ship, shower and bathtub were all on that lot, along with the main computer.  This was the only lot I paid bills on.  I purchased computers on the other lots just in time to request all the postcards at once, because in my practice games, if a sim requested postcards from somewhere other than their own lot, they didn’t come.
• I started the Collector’s Club immediately, got the Rally the Troops perk first, and the sisters never had to sleep, use the toilet, or eat.  The only time they did eat was when they were somewhere that didn’t allow a club meeting (Sylvan Glade, Forgotten Grotto, or Sixam), and then they ate produce. I added skills boosts for fishing, gardening, rocketship, handiness, and logic, and the focus vibes, as points became available.
• The key moneymakers were Gardening, Frog Breeding, and Microscope Prints (using fossil and crystal samples) so I focused on those collections early - especially gardening to get plants up to Perfect quality as soon as possible.

Collections:
I identified the collections I wanted to target based on several factors including how easy it is to get the items, how much certainty/chance is involved in completing the collection, whether the work to acquire could be done on a single lot (I wanted to keep everything on one lot as much as possible), how much $ value could be obtained, and whether there was any potential benefit or help for/from the non-played sims. 

• Postcards - Easy, quick, certain - Just requires repeated computer interactions, none of which take much time. You always get a penpal from a town you don’t already have, and you always get a postcard when you request one.  The only variable was that occasionally writing a letter doesn’t result in the opportunity to request a postcard, so you have to write a letter again.  Sims can use any computer to find a penpal and write a letter, but in my practices, they never got the postcards in the mail unless they requested them from a computer on their home lot and stayed there until the mail came. So I had the sim I was playing do the “Find penpal” and “Write letter” interactions until all towns were available for “Request postcard” and then requested all the postcards, one after another, on their home lot, and stayed on the lot (or fished nearby) until the mail came with all the postcards being delivered at once.
• Frogs - Pretty easy, devoting a day to catching frogs at a pond got most of them, and breeding got more.  I did this mostly at the pond in Sylvan Glade, which gave time for the plants there, especially the cherry tree, to grow.  Breeding is great because it takes no time - it can even be completed while the game is on pause.  I worked on completing this early in the game to give maximum money-making breeding; Once a sim completed the collection, and used a cheap frog to catch a wolf eel, I sold all the frogs except 2 Whirlyflowers, worth $160 each.  And I bred those repeatedly throughout the rest of the game.  Every breeding resulted in another $160 Whirlyflower, so I made a lot of money this way.
• Gardening - Not difficult but takes a lot of time; the only element of chance was getting the UFO plant, but with enough space explorations, it’s pretty sure to get it eventually.  I only needed one, I just wanted it really early so I could plant it and then take cuttings to graft to high-quality fast-growing plants.  I used the “Water Together” interaction extensively, and added other sims to the club to help with this.  “Water Together” also causes sims not currently being played to spray for bugs and weed, so most of the gardening work was done by sims I wasn’t playing at the time.  That was important because I had a big garden, and it took a lot of time for the sim I was playing to harvest, evolve, and fertilize.  I planted a lot of basil, sage and parsley plants because they grow fast, and I grafted slower-growing and high-value plants to them.  I evolved and fertilized these as often as possible so as to get perfect Quill Fruits, Glow Orbs, UFO fruits, and DragonFruits as early as possible. This was a big source of income.
• Fish - fairly easy, sometimes frustrating - one sim spent hours and hours trying to catch a Tilapia in the same place with the same bait used by another sim to catch about a dozen of them.  I made fishing a club activity and used “Fish Together” to get the non-played sims fishing.  Then I had the sim I was playing work on something else while the sims I was not playing continued to fish.  This resulted in them all having level 10 fishing skill when I started working on fishing with them, and that made completing the collection faster.  I used some of the rare fish for fertilizer, but always sold the sturgeons and anglerfish.  I bought the Handiness books and added Reading to the club activities - the handiness books were the only books on the lot, so the sims I wasn’t playing grew handiness that way.  Alinda’s was highest when I was ready to complete handiness, so I had her master it through upgrading the shower and tub to self-cleaning and then upgrading the microscope and telescope.  She then opened the mine so all three could access the Forgotten Grotto to catch the batfish.
• Experimental Foods- easy, took about a day, results were certain.  I took all three to the restaurant, ordered different things for each.  I watched for food to be ready to be delivered.  Based on the timing I could usually tell when the order placed for pick-up was for my sim’s table, and at that point I used “Go Here Together” to get my sims away from the table.  When the food arrived, the sims weren’t there to “claim” it, and I was able to move it around.  I put the plates for the two sims I wasn’t playing in the kitchen on the counter, and then brought the sim I was playing back to take a picture of her food.  Once she did that, I moved it off the table (usually threw it away) and moved another plate in front of her and had her photograph it; repeat for the third plate.  I did have to watch the sims I wasn’t playing - occasionally they realized their food was gone and somehow knew where it was, so I’d have to move it again before they went to get it.  I also found that if I paused immediately after food was delivered to other tables I could sometimes grab the plate, put it in front of my sim, have her photograph it, and then put it back.  The sim I stole it from didn’t notice as long as I put it back. But if I didn’t put it back, they seemed to stay a long time waiting for their food, which meant the table didn’t turn and I didn’t get a chance to steal the next customer’s plate.  Stealing the plate isn’t always possible, and it has to be timed right.  If I couldn’t steal the plate, sometimes I could engage my sim in conversation with the other sim, and sometimes that releases the plate. Also, sometimes a sim will pick up a plate and walk around with it, and then set it down on a counter or the floor, and that might release it as well.
• Microscope Prints - easy, somewhat time-consuming especially for the “Use” prints, but the fossil and crystal prints were good money-makers.  Once Belinda and Calinda had 9 complete collections, they spent their time analyzing fossils and crystals and selling the resulting prints.
• Space Prints - easy, time-consuming, but the prints were decent money-makers.
• Geodes - easy, not too time-consuming once the rocket was built (I had non-played sims help with the building).  It took 3-4 visits each to Sixam to complete the collection.
• Space Rocks & Aliens -  The space rocks collection is attractive for its size, but there is a lot of chance to it.  The Alien collection also has a lot of chance, but the likelihood of getting them is increased because they can be acquired on Sixam as well as through space adventures.  So I looked at Space Rocks and Aliens as either/or - go for both and hope for one.  Alinda needed one more Space Rock or one more Alien to finish her ninth collection, but just couldn’t get it.  Belinda actually completed both of these and skipped Experimental Food.  Calinda got all the Space Rocks and only needed one more alien.

I think that covers everything I did.  I didn’t work on the other collections at all, except to gather a few fossils and crystals for the microscope prints.  I had about 10 of each - analyzing 20 samples took long enough to get past the cool-down, so as soon as the analysis was done the sim could collect more samples.

[coolsim9999999]

Congratulations on winning this challenge lesleyj42!  Great, detailed strategy!

GlazeyLady --- Great job and great strategy, as well!