Baby Boomer IV: Family Tree Explosion

[Ricalynn]

With the workaholic trait, I would have the teens come home from work, take an invigorating potion or hop in the motive mobile to fill up the sleep bar and then work all night until school the next morning. 

[ratchie]

My teens would stay out after curfew and get grounded by their parents. I then left them to work at home until just after dinner where one of the parents would let them off the hook and they could go to work.

I completley missed a trick and had two human parents there would be some cjanges if I was ever insane enough to do it again.
I used the move objects on trick for my collecting too.

Rachel

[Sarabi]

With the workaholic trait, I would have the teens come home from work, take an invigorating potion or hop in the motive mobile to fill up the sleep bar and then work all night until school the next morning.

I did that as well (though it was the elixir or invigorating potion for me, as I don't have Generations).

Since I typically aged them from child-->teen after midnight, they had plenty of time to work up the job performance bar plus get an RI before they needed to go to school or work.  For example: cake up at 1AM Thursday, get job at cemetery (which would start Friday), work from home until the paper carrier showed up at 9:16AM - Mom would then Age of Instant and Love Charm the paper carrier, Teen takes a break to meet the new RI and fix motives, and then still has ~ 24 hours until school starts.

Since I was usually raising them in pairs, the 2nd Teen to get the RI would typically be late to school the next day.  That was only an issue with kids destined for LTWs where traits are important - and for them, the parents were able to tutor them enough to allow me to choose traits where needed.

With the workaholic trait, Teens only needed to go to work 2 days to max the career.

[Deklitch]

I had two witches for parents and all but one or two of my five kids were witches.

I had the 'brainwave' on about day one to send the father out to buy gems from the consignment store and then brought them home ... discovering later that didn't do a thing for the collecting business.

My game kept on crashing on me for this challenge, and when I wasn't getting anywhere with the kids doing collection challenges, I was thinking forget this for a joke, I'll just send the kids to boarding school. Then I realised that I was having the issue with no money and after so many crashes, I put in a wonderful score of 7.

I gave mum simmunity LTR and dad fertility treatment ltr and tried to use the map of Sunset Valley (from Carl's Guide) to see where metals were usually located. I never thought of using move objects on. I also never thought of using my laptop to hold the map from Carl's guide while I was hunting metals/gems. That would have saved me a lot of unnecessary changing between screens.

I sent the kids to the library to raise skills at childhood and after mum/dad grounded the oldest one, I locked mummy and daddy in a room with the screaming toddlers, a fridge, cots, potties, and toddler toys and let them suffer. This also ensured home births. I believe I gave both parents "hates the outdoors" as one of their traits as well as nurturing.

Thanks for all the strategies, people.

[Vinyl]

Ricalynn's strategy is pretty much exactly what I did as well.  Mum was a witch, dad was a vampire, and the love charms and potion drinking didn't stop until the challenge was over!

• I didn't know about the walks or hospital births, but it did seem that spamming snuggle on a baby was the fastest way to raise a relationship (took less in game time than playing with).  That's all the parents did (feeding and diapering as needed), and generally the babies were ready to be caked up by the next day.  Part way through the challenge I gave every baby the friendly trait, thinking it might've made a difference.  Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't.  Same with having the charisma challenges done - sometimes the child would jump to good/best friend, but most of the time they didn't.
• The toddlers generally needed a long nap, since they'd been snuggled non-stop for hours.  After they woke up it was potty training, training to talk, and getting a head start on walking.  After another sleep/feed/change, they finished learning to walk then were taken by mum or dad to the library where they had skill books read to them super quickly.
• I aged up the children off the lot as much as possible, or aged them at home if the teenagers were out.  This way the household didn't get interrupted constantly.  Babies were generally taken to the venue next door, or to the library.  Toddlers were always at the library.  Children and teenagers ran off the lot and used an age of instant potion.
• Kids drank a potent bliss and potent invigorating potion as soon as they aged up.  If it wasn't too late in the day I'd have them pick up any easy gems or metals to start their collection on the way home.  At home they'd grab however many more unique ones they needed, then hit the block table.  I wound up needing a ton of age of instant potions, because sims can only cake up once a day, and the kids were usually ready to age up the same day!
• Every teen, regardless of LTW, had the workaholic trait.  They'd drink potions or use the moodlet manager as needed.  I'd have them skip school to work from home at the library if it seemed like that would help them net a faster promotion.  Regardless, it still took DAYS to age them up.  This wasn't a baby boomer challenge - it was a part-time teen job challenge!
• For romantic interests I'd have the parents snag the paper girl, invite her in, and have her blow out a birthday cake (usually at that time of day the teens were in school).  Then at some point, once the offspring hit the teen job bottleneck, I'd have mum throw a party, invite all the paper people, and toss love charms around until the romantic interests were done.  The teens generally never spoke to their RI again.  Also, once the teen was a YA, I'd have middle of the school day parties and age up all of the RIs who were still teens, so the next batch of offspring wouldn't waste time meeting them in school.
• One of my biggest stumbling blocks was not realizing how MANY kids would be possible on the long lifespan setting.  I'd initially planned for 16 (oops - double that number wound up moving out!).  If I was crazy and did the challenge again, I'd always have at least one child with a career goal, since those take the longest even with job boosters, workaholism, and motive mobiles.  There was a rough time when nobody moved out because the young adults all had longer term LTWs - that prevented at least two batches of babies from joining the household.
• A nifty quirk of the vampire child/fast skill system was that the child kept the ability to learn super fast even if they changed supernatural type.  I turned some of the vampire babies into fairies or werewolves, since they'd quickly shoot through the hidden skill trees, which let them do the supernatural LTWs as soon as they got them.
• As much as possible, I'd have the parents set up an LTW to be instantly completed by a YA.  Like bottomless nectar cellar (many trips to the consignment shop), perfect aquarium (pre-caught fish), or stockpiling potions (zombie maker, mystic healer, master alchemist, etc) .  Or I'd try to have complementary LTWs, like a mystic healer and a zombie maker (one brother made a zombie, the other brother cured the zombie!).  Or I'd use one LTW to get another ready (Greener gardens fairy bloomed through enough generations of plants to set up the perfect garden).  Probably half of the offspring achieved their LTW the instant they became YA and were able to select it.  Moving them out straight away prevented the household from having a day off to attend graduation.
• I was kind of shocked how useful and game changing the potions were.  Dad was a level 10 alchemist with a well-stocked garden, and a huge batch of gems to use (thanks to the child stage requirements).  Other than cribs, my house had no beds, and the only reason the lot had a fridge was for the vampires to drink plasma juice.  The family lived on potions, had the occasional shower or witch cleaning charm, and supplemented hunger with a moodlet manager or took a motive mobile ride.
• Lastly, not that it made a huge difference once all the gems were cut and metals smelted, but both parents were ghost hunters.  The stipend came each week, the jobs were easy to ignore (they almost never actually went to work), they gained career levels by learning logic, and somehow they gained job experience passively over time.  By the time one of the kids had the Ghost Hunter LTW, there was a spirit detector all ready for him to use!
• I didn't have Seasons installed when I played the challenge, which helped.  While it's a nifty expansion, it would've been a pain to manage the forced holidays and weather effects (dormant plants, frozen ponds, etc).

[Sarabi]

I gave mum simmunity LTR and dad fertility treatment ltr and tried to use the map of Sunset Valley (from Carl's Guide) to see where metals were usually located. I never thought of using move objects on. I also never thought of using my laptop to hold the map from Carl's guide while I was hunting metals/gems. That would have saved me a lot of unnecessary changing between screens.

I have found that switching (Alt-Tab on a PC) in and out of the game is a prime cause of crashes, at least on my system.  You might have better luck if you avoid that.

• I aged up the children off the lot as much as possible, or aged them at home if the teenagers were out.  This way the household didn't get interrupted constantly.  Babies were generally taken to the venue next door, or to the library.  Toddlers were always at the library.  Children and teenagers ran off the lot and used an age of instant potion.

I very much wanted to do this, but since the rules specifically stated "cake up", I interpreted that as being contrary to the ruleset.

[Ricalynn]

We had a lot of people ask about the cake up phrase.  That's all it was is a phrase meaning to age the child up.   

[Sarabi]

Then I regret not having asked - it would have made this challenge much, much easier for me.  The cakes were a huge hassle.

Going forward,  I guess I'll need to remember to ask more questions, even when the rules seem to be simply stated with little room for ambiguity.

[Vinyl]

I very much wanted to do this, but since the rules specifically stated "cake up", I interpreted that as being contrary to the ruleset.

I initially thought the same thing as well!  A PM cleared it up for me, thankfully.  Caking up off the lot really helped too - I mainly used the potions for aging the children to teens.  The family lived next door to a venue, so I'd have the aging up teen visit, drop a cake on a table, and hold a party for one.  Sometimes the parents would drag the baby or toddler out and hold a birthday party there as well.  I even resorted to dropping cakes in the park if the venue was closed, the library was littered with books, and a nooboo was ready to age up!

[Bee]

First, a huge thanks for coming up with and hosting these challenges. I really enjoyed this

My mom was human and self employed as a painter, dad was a genie and an alchemist. Painting was easy to stop and start and bring in money in between meeting needs of babies. I chose genie for the instant cleaning and perfect food summoning abilities (for Baked angel food cake moodlet). Though I debated vampire, too, I decided the genie was the better option until I could get the motive mobile. I planned to change him to a vampire afterward, and forgot. Oops. All of the boys except one were genies, and all the girls were human until my very last female nooboo--a genie. As soon as he could, I had the dad make a midas touch elixir and turn statues into gold.

Dad changed most of the kids to vampires (or other SNs as needed) with potions, but I also assumed "cake up" was a rule. Oops. I played in Moonlight Falls, and then had issues with collections--there didn't seem to be enough spawners to complete metals (only seemed to spawn gold, silver, iron, palladium), beetles or butterflies, so each child did gems. That was the most time consuming, because 6-8 of the 10 were easily found most days, but then I'd get stuck waiting for the rarer gems, and multiple kids needed the same ones. I did place some of the missing community lots, however, so that may have been my downfall, seeing as MF has the "glitch" where an empty lot has to be deleted because the game thinks something is there (hmmm.... now I assume those lots contained spawners, so not a glitch).

I ended up with twins most of the time, after mostly trips in my practice. Twins were easier/faster for sure (and though I didn't have time to try it out, I think I would have ultimately ended up with a higher score using twin births due to time saved). I had some of my YAs buy collectible LTRs and then transfer them to the parents on moving out. I sent my kids to the lot next door to age up as often as possible, but didn't have the forethought to consider graduation, which caused delays for some of my YAs.

Wish I'd known about the stroller trip bumping the relationship quickly, and using move objects for gems and metals.
Nooboos were given the Friendly and Neurotic traits, children were given workaholic, and teens inappropriate for the ability to kiss a potential RI. YA was given a random or LTW appropriate trait if I was able to choose. Teens immediately got a job and worked from home in order to get their first promotion on the first day of work.

I had fun trying out LTWs that I've never attempted before, but I know I could have done so much better if I'd taken the time to practice properly beforehand. I came close to throwing in the towel with the constant crashing/clearing caches/restarting that probably only allowed me to play for 20 out of every 30 minutes. So with that said, I'm not going to wait to start the gnome challenge

[Ricalynn]

I did place some of the missing community lots, however, so that may have been my downfall, seeing as MF has the "glitch" where an empty lot has to be deleted because the game thinks something is there (hmmm.... now I assume those lots contained spawners, so not a glitch).

Those lots in MF are small parks, not empty lots so if you deleted them you violated the General Rules.  There are about 9 lots that are small parks and not empty.   They just don't have anything on them or so it seems.  You can tell if it's actually an empty lot because it will have a sideways diamond/plumbob under the bench and most of the lots don't have that.

[JSBrantner]

I used a witch mom and genie dad. Mom had Surrounded by Family and Motive Mobile, Dad got Perfect Garden and No Bills Ever. I had already figured out the MOO trick with gems and metals during my practice run, so Mom got busy converting during her first pregnancy, taking time to study logic and alchemy while waiting for her magic to return. I didn't know about giving birth at the hospital putting both parents as friends, it was always my previous experience that neither one of them was when giving birth there, so Mom got locked in the house while going through labor. Give birth, feed or put to bed as needed, down a Procreation Elixer and start another. Once mom got to best friends status the baby was dad's responsibility while mom went back to converting and studying. Cake up as soon as dad got to BF and potty train/feed/put to bed until all training was done and a skill was learned. Cake up to child and they got tutored by mom while dad dealt with the younger kids and gardened. As soon as they reached A in school it was blocks time. I used the oven for one child but it took a lot more time than I wanted to spend and she was the only one doing a cooking skill LTW. As soon as the blocks reached level three, down to the basement to pick up gems or metals and then cake up to teen, using trips in the motive mobile with mom as needed. Once they learned to drive they had a motive mobile assigned to them and used it for school and work. I didn't think of the workaholic trait until almost the end, so they usually had some time as teens to either complete a LTW or get everything they needed to be able to complete it upon reaching YA stage. Witch teens helped out with converting and creating elixirs, except for the one teen who got to use a Fairy elixir so she could complete a Greener Gardens LTW. At the end mom only had a couple days before turning to elder so I had her give birth to twins one last time just for the extra points.

[lvrugger]

One of two things I was doing differently was how I got my romantic interests. I had the mother cast a love charm on the teen, then the teen would drink a clone drone and do a friendly introduction to the clone. Instant unique romantic interest. Then I'd ask the clone to leave and age up the teen.
To get the charisma challenges done faster, just meet an NPC or two. You have to get slightly above new acquaintance with him or her, but not much. Then go to another lot and "invite household" a few times. Select 8 different NPCs each time. Boom, you've got the celebrity challenge. Do it a few more times and you've got super friendly.

[Veldmuisie]

With no Generations or Supernatural in Sunset Valley, the collecting part was a pain.  Even with the Collection Helper you can sometimes wait 3 weeks for a Rainbow and Pink Diamond or Platinum metal to show up.  I found myself staring at the "buried" rocks for dogs and felt certain that it was the one I needed.  Forget about butterflies/beetles, the rare one finally shows up and your kid does not catch it    So both the parents worked on some really bad sculpting to break stones.  It was not as fast as I hoped, but at least it was achievable.  The Seasons sick days and festival days helped kids do collecting, teens meet/butter up a romantic interest, and give all the toddlers a nice moodlet booster.

After the challenge I purchased Generations, and wow, that Motive Mobile is the bomb!

[SimBlip]

Hi everyone! Congratulations to LenaLJ and Nutella and thank you all for playing.

Lady Fairchild was a witch and mainly occupied herself converting things into metals and gems. Lord Fairchild was a genie. He was responsible for all the elixirs used. Her LTW was surrounded by family, and he completed Jack of All Trades.

Lady had all the babies at home. It is very easy for a genie father to befriend his nooboos using the 'magically clean Sim' interaction. It takes about 16 'handclaps'. But, Lady was friendly, family-oriented, charismatic and nurturing which reduced the time for her to become best friends with the nooboos too.

Both parents acquired infertility treatment, simmunity and Super Nanny very early on. There were about four Motive Mobiles in play (that was Lord Fairchild's LTR), but the moodlet manager from one of the kids came in handy too.

Toddlers all read a series of 3 tod books at the library, because it goes so fast. What they read didn't really matter. Later on they could take a class in whatever and then max the skill in a minumum of time with potent skill boosters.
Toddlers sometimes had to wait for midnight before they could be caked up. There was no such problem with the children or the teens. They used the 'age up' potion.
All toddlers acquired the 'workaholic' trait when becoming a child. Teens who would go into a profession as YA's were tutored to become 'ambitious'.

For the celebrity LTW, and LTW's involving charisma I naturally used genie children. A 'map to the stars' reveals Sims, but genies can 'magically clean' anyone visible in the game to (best) friend-status in very little time, be it day or night.

What unsettled the pace for me were the holidays and the graduations days. I had not really tested that bit much and it threw me. I also missed out on prolonged 'youth' for Lady Fairchild by thinking she could still get pregnant on day 0 before her next birthday. That was so wrong. 'Extra' pregnancies must be conceived on day 1 before ageing up.

Edit:

I forgot to add that most of the romantic interests were newspaper boys and girls. Lady Fairchild would cast a love charm the minute they grew up. Her son or daughter would throw a jar of friendship, make a compliment, and hey presto, be smooched!