Do townies get midlife crises?

[Leto85]

This question is relevant to my Freewill vs Storyprogression topic here after reading Ausettes post about the randomness of storyprogression over multiple generations on townie sims. She said that the story progression is random, but that there are a couple of things that still influences it (which I've expected).
The reason I ask about of townies are getting midlife crisises (without the influence of the gamer) is because as Ausettes stated out: the trait Family Oriented influences the amount of children a townie sim will get. So if that trait changes over time, the randomness of story progression is even more unpredictable than I already thought.

If the storyprogression wasn't random I would have asked somewhere else how much your personal sims behaviour would have influences the storyprogression, but I think that isn't relevant.

[Hosfac]

I don't think so.  So far the midlife crisis is exclusively a LTR, and townies don't get LTH points.  Likewise, I don't ever recall a sim changing their traits during a game.

[Metropolis Man]

Mid-Life Crisis is a Lifetime Happiness reward and townies do not autonomously cash in Lifetime Happiness rewards. They don't get them in the first place.

[Leto85]

Mid-Life Crisis is a Lifetime Happiness reward and townies do not autonomously cash in Lifetime Happiness rewards. They don't get them in the first place.

But they do timetraveling, right? I thought they did (with the timemachine) but I could be wrong. Timetraveling can influence the traits of a sim as it can change it's past.

[TheChronicR]

But they do timetraveling, right? I thought they did (with the timemachine) but I could be wrong. Timetraveling can influence the traits of a sim as it can change it's past.

I have a couple of questions: first of all, how can they engage in the Inventing skill or even make a Time Machine? And then, how can they get into it without you commanding them? Unless you control the townie yourself, they can't change any of their preset traits. It's just random for newborn babies and Sims like Bella Bachelor and Holly Alto (child and teen life stages, plus toddlers, while aging up).

[Leto85]

Right, thanks. Than the traits are just set by the time they get them, no matter what.

[Saltypaws]

I do know that one of my Redhouse girls I moved out, has gotten pregnant twice without me controlling them.  She had also quit her one job and was level six in another in a matter of only a few short sim days, so I am not quite sure how to figure that one out and I think the triplets got the aging bug or whatever.  They were youths one day and teens two days later.  The third twin, was way behind the other two, like 6 days, so I went ahead and aged her up.  This family is weird, lol.

[Ausette]

Hmm. This is all speculation, but here's what I think: while traits might influence a townie's life, they're not the biggest deciding factor in what happens to them. The randomness of Story Progression is. I've had a Sim with the Commitment Issues and Dislikes Children traits get married and have twin girls under Story Progression in the past. Furthermore, I don't think townies will take initiative to switch their traits around. A while ago LlamaMama came up with a great Schrödinger's Cat analogy: Townie Sims are pretty much sealed into a box when you're not playing them, and don't actually act like "normal" Sims until you drop by the visit them. When you're not directly observing them (ie. in their house), townie Sims are stuck in Limbo with the occasional birth, death, skill, job, move or relationship. The game just uses as little data as possible for the townie Sims, so they're very unlikely to start building Time Machines behind your back. 

[Leto85]

@Ausette: although as you've mentioned it's all speculation, it seems to fit every thing I was thinking myself. The fact that the game uses as little data as possible for the townies when you're controlling your own sims sounds logical to me. Otherwise no computer could handle big houses and huge families.

And how could I have missed the Schrödinger's Cat topic? I'm familiar with the theory (that's said: I've heard of it and knows the noob explanation) but those are the posts for me. I click 'Show new posts since last visit' everytime when I'm done with 'Show new replies to your posts' so It's sad I missed that one.
But I'm glad we got a Ausette around here.