The Perfect Challenge

[grbell]

By the skin of my teeth:

Fish 26 = 26,000
Plants 4 = 4,000
Recipes 19 = 19,000

Total: 49,000

[CeresIn]

Just in time:

Fish: 23 = 23,000
Recipes: 21 = 21,000
Plants: 27 = 27,000

Total = 71,000

[bluebelle]

Didn't do as well as I thought especially with plants, but it was fun challenge to do.

Fish 36- 36,000
Recipes 3- 3,000
Plants 16- 16,000

Total- 55,000

[Chare]

Fish: 33 -33,000
Recipes: 47 - 47,000
Plants: 54 - 54,000

Total: 134,000

[halls]

Finished just in time! Pansy and Paprika Erfect were able to get all the possible recipes, plants, and fish available (I think) with my limited number of EPs. I thought this challenge was a piece of cake, but I do have a lot of experience since my sims always end up being gardeners  . I had 56 perfect plants, 58 perfect recipes, and 34 perfect fish for a total of 148,000 points! 
I'll post my stately after the challenge ends in case anybody is curious.

[kearn76]

Turning in results for Cookie and Finn Gardener:
     Plants - 58 - 58000
     Fish - 37 - 37000
     Recipes - 39 - 39000
     Total score - 134,000

Karen

[MomOfMany]

Didn't quite finish but wanted to get my score in. I thought I did pretty well considering I had about 5 Sim days left and had only used 2 vacation/travel days! I would have used more if I had more time but I had to chose which was worth the time as I knew I wouldn't finish completely. But it was fun none the less!

33 Plants = 33,000
25 Recipes = 25,000
28 Fish = 28,000
Total= 86,000

[ibbygidge]

Down to the wire!
31 fish
41 plants
26 recipes
= 98,000

[Metropolis Man]

This event is now closed. Wow — lots of last minute score turn-ins resulting in a total of 60 participants. Great job, everyone. Hats off to Lena and Nutella for topping the big field. Perfect job, ladies. Everyone is free to share strategy now.

[enderkay]

Yay! I can't wait to hear how everyone did so well! I thought I did pretty okay.

My "strategy" was really basic -- I made two Sims (siblings, so they wouldn't pop wishes to have babies or whatever) and gave them each a specialty: Fish Lover was the fisherman, and Plant Lover was the gardener. I also made an alphabetical list of every fish, plant, and recipe available through my expansion packs and kept them in a notebook next to my computer so I could check them off as I got them.

On the first day, I sent Fish to the park to catch some fish. He skilled very quickly and managed to catch several perfect fish by the end of the day. I supplied him with a sleeping bag so he wouldn't have to go home every night, and over the next week he cleaned most of the neighbourhood fishing spots and was sent to France, China, and Egypt to catch the local fish and pick up some more plants for his sister. He also spent part of the last trip learning the cooking skill.

While Fish was busy fishing, I sent Plant to the grocery store to clean them out of produce and had her plant the common plants right away. As soon as they were planted, I sent her to the library to start reading gardening books, and as soon as she could, she planted her uncommon plants, and then the rare ones. She fertilized them using the outstanding and perfect fish her brother had caught, and by the fourth day she had maxed gardening and could plant special seeds. I sent her to the graveyard to pick up a few, and planted those as well. During her gardening downtime, Plant also read some cooking books. She had one trip to France to work on getting some perfect recipes.

My biggest problems, I think, were my expansion packs and the town I chose. I hadn't installed Into the Future because of the opportunity glitches, and I didn't think to use it for this challenge until it was too late. That limited some of my options a bit. I also probably would have done better in a town other than Sunset Valley, where there were no glow orbs to be found (and I sent the twins to the elixir store nearly every day just to be sure).

My other problem was that I didn't think to use Fish as a cooking helper until the challenge was almost over, so he only contributed about 8 perfect meals to the total. A lot of his time was wasted trying to catch a perfect Fairy Damsel (he got all the way up to excellent, but perfect eluded him) or a perfect Ninja Starfish (which I didn't realize was impossible without perfect tofu). I also didn't focus on Plant learning her cooking skill as early as I should have.

All in all, I had a lot of fun and learned a bit about Cooking, which is a skill I've never really played with before.

[_Annika_]

Yes, no perfect ninja fish So not a perfect score, after all. Because the only way to get perfect tofu is with a mod.

The only choice here, if you have it, is Isla Paradiso for the dive spots. I couldn't get a perfect seahorse, but I think there might have been some luck (or lack thereof) involved. One of the dive spots has four spawners that spawn seahorses the most. I spent a lot of time there.

As for Into the Future, I found that I could make all the trips I needed to get the fish I wanted, without skilling up, by putting my sim in a REALLY bad mood. I collected a bunch of garbage to make putrid surroundings, and waited until he was hungry dirty and exhausted. I gave him a bad night sleep, and made him feel positively miserable. Normally we are all so busy trying to make sure that our sims are in a good mood to make sure that they skill faster, that it doesn't cross our minds to put them in a bad mood to skill slower.

I hadn't considered it until now, but perhaps not having it installed for at least some of the challenge might have helped my sims to get the opportunities they need. It's tight, but possible to get every single plant in the first day, though there's plenty of time to spread it out across two or three. My gardening/fishing sim's first stop was a vacation. Followed by time travel, which removes the travel moodlet, followed by another vacation. That covers all the plants, and there's plenty of time to wait until fishing is maxed for the third trip.

In order to get the opportunities as quickly as possible, my sim bought all their necessary plants on the first vacation. The trick is to have a maxed mood, and then plant one of each common plant, fertilize them all, and if necessary, follow up with a bunch of lettuces to level 5. Next, plant all uncommon and fertilize again, then plant potatoes. Finally, bananas yeild one of the highest experience gains for level 7 and upwards. You need to be at least level 8 to trigger the cheese plant opportunity, level 9 for steak plants, and level 10 for omni plant. Unfortunately the bug stopped me getting those opportunities, so I'm looking forward to see how Nutella, Lena and Elena managed it.

Also, something else that really helped, besides luck at the elixir consignment store, is placing SN lots - the arboretum lot has life fruit and flame fruit, the fortune teller lot has mycenas, and the vault of antiquity lot has red toadstools, though I didn't need to make a trip there anway. The elixir store has spotlight mushrooms growing (you have to save the lot from MF, the one in the bin doesn't have the plants) and that just leaves glow orbs down to luck at the register.

[MomOfMany]

I couldn't find the kissing gourami fish in Isla Paradiso. I had to buy a bunch and stock a pond but it worked. I few other fish were stubborn too. I couldn't get any prefect fish from diving is there a trick there or is it mostly just luck? I first took the fishing class but didn't get a skill in fishing anyone have that happen? It was like the class did nothing but took my money and wasted my time. I still had to fish for a couple Sims hours to get the fishing skill. I also didn't see a spot for the ninja starfish? Although now I know I wouldn't have been able to get it still curious where it is?

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

[Elena]

No story this time, sorry, because I am not done with this file yet - taking my couple to more adventure after official work has finished
I have two questions here that I'd like to ask from Nutella and Lena:

1. How do you get a perfect seahorse? I would love to how it is possible, and hear tips from Annika as well, about diving spots that give out seahorses.
It was THE problem for me - I had to get both sims diving for seahorse in the last week but still found not a single perfect.
I had to catch + tank-breed 10 in order to place them into a pond and fish for it.
I pond fished 5 types of ocean fishes using perfect baits, but for seahorse no matter what bait I used it's always nice or very nice.
I wonder if an ocean fish bait would do the job.

2. Sorry to disappoint Annika - I did not install ITF but used game selector to disable it while playing, but I am sure Nutella and Lena has found out a way.
I guess after testing last night I've realized there is actually a way to keep opps 'safe'(at least in Isla Paradise) but I want to hear their successful strategies first

As for advanced tech, I think in test file I made it possible not to gain the skill:
- Taking out all the tubes in community center, use stairs only.
- Quickly fish for two types of common ITF fishes (under trash pile or rainbow flowers floating on water)
- Finally getting crystal flowers from the bot consignment register.
That's it, you really don't need more than half a day in dystopia or utopia, but getting 30K of HPs for the controller is the challenge in here.
 
Glad to hear that a future trip can cancel out vacation moodlet, sadly I had no ITF in my official run therefore cannot benefit from it at all

As for my own thoughts on playing this…I am thinking of how to write about it, might post more after hearing from the winners!

[Elena]

I couldn't find the kissing gourami fish in Isla Paradiso. I had to buy a bunch and stock a pond but it worked. I few other fish were stubborn too. I couldn't get any prefect fish from diving is there a trick there or is it mostly just luck? I first took the fishing class but didn't get a skill in fishing anyone have that happen? It was like the class did nothing but took my money and wasted my time. I still had to fish for a couple Sims hours to get the fishing skill. I also didn't see a spot for the ninja starfish? Although now I know I wouldn't have been able to get it still curious where it is?
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

You can find kissing gourami in any empty ponds, but not empty open sea, the latter is for sea sludge and sewer trilobite.
I home-pond-fished perfect ocean fish, but I'd like to know if there is a better way, especially for the case of seahorse.
I heard with ITF EP sometimes skill might not register in classes, I did mine without ITF though.
Ninja starfish can only be found on fishing spots in uncharted islands in Isla Paradiso, but the fish itself is bugged and can only be fished with normal quality.

[MarianT]

I'd like to know how people got any perfect fish while diving. I played in Isla Paradiso and went diving frequently but the highest quality I caught was outstanding.

Just saw that someone used the ponds at home to get perfect ocean fish. I didn't think you could do that, lol!