The Diving Skill

[Tilia]

I thought we should start a thread to discuss the new skill.  Is there a place to take classes on the skill in town?  If so, I haven't found it yet. 

Does anyone know the levels you need for each of the diving spots?  What skills boost your chances of successfully fighting a shark?  Any helpful info in general?

[Ricalynn]

Carl just finished an entire guide on the Diving Skill.  You can find all the answers to your questions here.

[Carl]

The only thing that didn't happen in the course of me writing the guide was to defeat a shark. I was lucky and only got mauled once, but I didn't spend an awful lot of time watching them and that makes the chance of an attack 5 times more likely than just letting them swim by. At level 7 the Sims should stop having accidents in their wetsuit just from seeing one. I thought I saw a trait that makes it less likely though I couldn't get the game to confirm it.

I just made a guide edit to Scuba's Shark section. In investigating, I just found that Shark attacks grow 2% more likely for every raw meat you're carrying - fish, eggs, hot dogs, burger and steak are all edible raw to shark and werewolves. If you're catching a lot of fish when you dive you should offload those catches to the fridge or another Sim for storage to reduce the likelihood of attacks.

[Tilia]

The only thing that didn't happen in the course of me writing the guide was to defeat a shark. I was lucky and only got mauled once, but I didn't spend an awful lot of time watching them and that makes the chance of an attack 5 times more likely than just letting them swim by. At level 7 the Sims should stop having accidents in their wetsuit just from seeing one. I thought I saw a trait that makes it less likely though I couldn't get the game to confirm it.

I just made a guide edit to Scuba's Shark section. In investigating, I just found that Shark attacks grow 2% more likely for every raw meat you're carrying - fish, eggs, hot dogs, burger and steak are all edible raw to shark and werewolves. If you're catching a lot of fish when you dive you should offload those catches to the fridge or another Sim for storage to reduce the likelihood of attacks.

Awesome.  I'll let you know if I ever win a shark fight.

[Caterina]

My sim was in a shark fight and won.  I thought she would get a moodlet from the encounter but I don't remember seeing one.   She may have been carrying fish at the time because I was having her catch everyone that swam by.  I need to check on her traits the next time I am in the game but I think three of them are Childish, Genius, and Hopeless Romantic.

[doxxielover]

You can woohoo or try for a baby in a cave if you and a person with high enough romantic levels is on the dive lot.

[Pam]

My Sim defeated a shark and got the "Pumped" moodlet, as if she had been working out.  I don't know why she defeated the shark.  She has no athletic skill at all.  The shark came by, she examined it, and it attacked!  When it was done, she was fine and the shark was gone.

[Blue Rose]

Are there any dive spots more shark-filled, or is it just based on chance (which you can increase with the raw meat)? Trying to kill off some sims and I want them to die by the shark attack death (although, I guess I could settle for the scuba diving/no air death, but idk).

[Ricalynn]

There are more shark spawners in Mermaid Grotto than any of the other diving spots.

[Susinok]

I find the Diving Career pretty difficult to advance. I can't see the shell spawners in the dive spots at all, so it's catching fish and exploring caves for me to get money to advance. I'm stuck at level 5 right now.

Otherwise, the diving and snorkeling and other water sports is a lot of fun. This is certainly a very different EP. Now to add houseboats to Barnacle Bay and Sunlit Tides!

Has anyone figured out how to build a dive spot yet?

[Ricalynn]

Building one is not difficult.  Building one in a new town where the water isn't really deep enough - is difficult.  The gurus told us not to expect to be able to do it anywhere else and the ways that have been explained already are sometimes really glitchy.

As for the seashell spawners, they are kind of a little bit of everywhere.   You can use the testingcheats to "buy on this lot" with buydebug on to see where they're supposed to be.  The Collection helper also helps tremendously.   My favorite way to get shells is by snorkeling though. 

[Gaelicsunrise]

Susinok, you can also check for diving jobs at the restaurants, the science building and city hall (there may be more, but that's all I've found).  The simolians earned from that also up your diving career earnings.  Some of them pay well, like delivering 3 eels to the bistro pays about 10k simolians.   I did find that if I had more than one family member catching fish from diving, and they gave their catches to the sim with the dive job, that counted towards fulfilling the job. 

I also placed a consignment store and my diver sold fish caught from diving there, and that also went towards his diver career earnings. 

[Edit - the dive jobs don't seem to help your career, sorry bout that.]

[Ricalynn]

I've never been able to get the "diving work" to go towards my self employment diving career.

[Gaelicsunrise]

Hmm, I thought so, but may have been mistaken, Ricalynn.  I'll edit my post so as not to cause confusion.  But the consignment sales did give a jump in career as they popped up and at the same time he got notice of a promotion, so I'm pretty certain that worked.  Thanks for correcting me.

[Susinok]

It's slow going but my Sim is getting there. I will get better at checking for Diving Jobs. I did learn that even fish caught with a fishing pole count towards your diving job money. Same with shells found on the beach instead of just shells found on the ocean floor. I suppose that makes sense, since the game may not distinguish where the particular item was caught.

Swimming around under water is a lot of fun though, isn't it? I've always loved underwater scenes. I'll have to build a world with deep enough oceans to make diving spots of my own. That would be very cool.