Inventing

[MomOfMany]

Oh thanks I will have to try that out later. I hadn't gotten very far in inventing yet.

[enigma1717]

I didn't know you could use the miner on other lots! Shucks, I've just been digging holes in one spot then filling the hole then re-digging it. I could have been making a strip mine out of that little town   Anyone else notice that you can "travel" through the holes you make sometimes? This would make putting holes on far off lots kind of a cool short cut if you really can drill on those lots. I'll also have to remember the fence thing! All my neighbors hated myself and my little simbot boy  

Also, not sure if it was mentioned anywhere else but since I just figured it out and I was confused, I'll just say that the Simbot is a opportunity that you get when you max inventing, it is a short chain with some pain ingredients that either will require time and effort on your part or possible another sim with the related skills. I'm not sure if the recipe changes or not, but I needed palladium, scrap, a heart-shaped pink diamond, and life fruit.

And boooooy, am I getting sick of gnomes. Between mining and inventing, my house is CRAWLING with mysterious mr. gnomes and mechanical ones, too. Around midnight or one o'clock, it is like musical chairs.

Edit: Pbbth, just noticed we got a new invention guide on the front page that does say that the recipe is the same for the simbot, and how to get it. So, ignore all my confusion, heh.

[Crise]

Regarding the inventing guide on the site... there it says this about the simbot: "It takes 1 palladium, 1 life fruit, 1 heart cut pink diamond and 100 scrap"

That is correct but I could swear that I needed 10 life fruits (at least for the opportunity chain you need to do, didn't really fancy making more than one of those).

[John Allen]

Since progression is based on sales made for this profession, thought it might be helpful to know the best per hour widgets and toys to build.  These numbers are without the 40% boost from master inventor.  Large inventions sell for more per, but on an hourly basis they make a lot less than widgets and toys, so I left them off.

They are also without a comparison too the Salesperson trait, which my first sim had, but not the current one.  Once I get a comparison I'll add that- but i did notice a good difference in consignment sales and the consign something wish comes up quite a bit-adding points for LTR's.

Can't really paste the whole spreadsheet I made, so i needed to cut it back quite a bit. Originally it had more info.    

Scrap cost is based on buying it through the inventors workbench.
                     

Level, Invention, Sell Price,# per hour, hourly sell price, Scrap Cost, hourly net,
               

1 Drinking Llama,    $20.00,    6,      $120.00,      $66         $54.00    
               
1 Smasher             $23.0       8      $184.00      $88         $96.00
               
2 Dog Toy    $27.00    1        $270.00     $110         $160.00
               
2 Rotational Pull     $29.00     7       $203.00      $77         $126.00
               
3 Cow toy             $37.0       9      $333.00      $99         $234.00
               
3 Tenta Wind Up   $53.00     6       $318.00      $66         $252.00
               
4 Whale Toy   $52.00     9       $468.00      $99         $369.00
               
5 Loc Stat Test     $138.00    5       $690.00      $55         $635.00
               
6 Floating Duck   $165.00    4.5      $742.50     $49.5         $693.00
               
6 Robot Toy   $86.00     9        $774.00     $99         $675.00
               
7 Flying Fighters   $172.00    5.5      $946.00    $60.5         $885.00
                  
   

                     

[Metropolis Man]

John — thank you SOOO much for doing this. I was thinking it was Robot Toys after looking at Carl's numbers. But, it's Flying Fighters, eh? You just saved me a bunch of work. I think I mentioned I was going to pen the da Vinci LTW article for the Guide soon and the angle I'm taking is one of pure money making. So, I wanted to know what the best money maker was. Unfortunately, it looks like Inventing still can't hold a candle to Painting. Not sure on Sculpting yet. Haven't touched that one.

[John Allen]

John — thank you SOOO much for doing this. I was thinking it was Robot Toys after looking at Carl's numbers. But, it's Flying Fighters, eh? You just saved me a bunch of work. I think I mentioned I was going to pen the da Vinci LTW article for the Guide soon and the angle I'm taking is one of pure money making. So, I wanted to know what the best money maker was. Unfortunately, it looks like Inventing still can't hold a candle to Painting. Not sure on Sculpting yet. Haven't touched that one.

No problem, Metroplis Man.  and thanks for acknowledging the post. 


So Painting does better?  Never crunched the numbers but on on one sim I could knock out a large painting in a few hours, and they sold for over 3k a piece, but I never really focused on it to much, since it was an NPC wife to one of my early sims.  Any idea how it breaks down per hour?


Sculpting I haven't done much with, since i focused on the thrill of inventing and blowing things up.  But out of 2 items sculpted, both were chairs and the first sold for about 115 or so if i remember correctly.  Not sure how long it took, but definitely a few game hours.  Guessing hourly was maybe around 40 at level 1.  Still better than rabbit hole jobs at that level though.

[Metropolis Man]

I think Painting is definitely better per hour than Inventing. I haven't crunched the numbers yet since i haven't gotten too far into it, but I'm pretty sure small sized canvas is the way to go based on sheer volume output.

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EDIT: Right after I posted I remembered this thread. $862/hour is what I came up with for Painting so it very well may be on par with that rate that you found for making the Flying Fighters. Like you, I have no clue on Sculpting yet. Looking forward to diving into that skill.

[Leto85]

But what do you mean with supernatural lifeform? A secret way of becoming a superhero, having powers or something like that?

Haha!  Leto, you're just not going to get superheroes in Ambitions. Although you're giving it a valiant effort! 

Just wait untill you are at level 10 of the firefighter career. Maybe, just maybe...

[Carl]

Thanks John Allen. I'm going to put maxed out stats in the scrap column to help with that. Note it gets a little better for the robot toy with mastery and lifetime rewards, as you can make the cheap one for just 1 scrap and it still sells for 86. But yeah, fighters still win by about a hundred at max. Heck, I think I need to add some more there overall.

[Leto85]

You can invent everything while on vacation, which is handy for skilling because neither work nor school get in the way there, but robots cannot be invented, nor can they join your family through a LTR.
They can't probably not on vacation to, but that is something that yet has to be confirmed.

[Crise]

Are children supposed to be able to invent stuff... I mean they can dabble and then invent but they don't seem to make any actual inventions out of it.

This would make me think that it is not intentional for kids to be able to practice the skill, can anyone confirm whether this is an issue with the game or an intended behavior for the invent skill with children (one thing that would point that it is intentional is that kids use different tools, ie. hammer rather than the burner to work on the workbench).

[Simbacat]

I have one sim kid who already has a level one skill on inventing. I'll have to play her a little more and let you know if they can invent anything other than widgets. I'm thinking thay probably can't do much more than that.....I have the strategy guide and it doesn't say much about this.

[Crise]

My sim kid, which came as free souvenir from a trip to the past (it said she saved an orphan or something like that), has 3 skill points in the invent skill but he hasn't discovered how to invent a single thing yet (ie. not even widgets). This is why I think something is definitely off here.

Edit: btw. some of the unlockable outfits you get out of time travelling sometimes are pretty nice... someone has to try to figure out how many of these are there.

[Simbacat]

I'll give it a go. I'll have my Da Vinci descendent work on inventing once I get her tot he top of the sculpting profession. I'm a little afraid to try the time traveler since I read in my guide that they can return with a BABY. Oh no, not going to like that at all.

[Crise]

I'll give it a go. I'll have my Da Vinci descendent work on inventing once I get her tot he top of the sculpting profession. I'm a little afraid to try the time traveler since I read in my guide that they can return with a BABY. Oh no, not going to like that at all.

I don't know about babies... but you can come back with a child like in my case or a teen or an elder can pop out of it later (if you woohoo in the time machine, whether you do it in the past or in the future determines which you get, a teen or an elder).

As for the outfits I got two from the past and one from the future... your sim will have the unlocked clothes on when he or she comes back if you are in luck (after that they are visible in plan outfit with little "unlocked" sing at the corner).

Since my sim is a lady all I got are the female versions and I assume the male ones are different... also after unlocking outfit recolors are available from CAS.

Most of the time if you come back from a time trip with an item it will be a book and/or some money based on my experience... kinda put time traveling on hold after I got the unwanted child.