Long Live Sims - How to?

[Lol@Sam]

Oh, I know about this!! My friend (the one who had 29 generations of sims before he gave up) does experiments and stuff with sims, and he had one where he'd have two seperate games with the same copy of a sim with the same traits and everything and he'd treat one good and grant her wishes and achieve her lifetime wish, etc. so she had loads of Lifetime Happiness Points but he'd do the complete opposite with the other and keep her miserable all the time.... but then, shock of all shocks, when they reached the elder stage.... The happy one died fourteen days before the sad one! (and that's including calculations about how far along they were in their lives when they started, etc.) So it probably is just random.. 

I believe this was me.

[TheChronicR]

@ Seabody - The chances don't have to reach 100% for a Sim to die. They just rise and at some random point when they are high, death will occur. For me, high enough is most likely over 5 percent.

[Hosfac]

I believe that Seabody was just doing the math on the theoretical maximum age, using the assumption that there could, at some point, be a sim who would live until that chance reached 100%.  While it's mathematically possible, the odds of it happening are so remote that it's only worth mentioning for the purposes theoretical discussion.

[Esther1981]

I don't know I believe it is random. In one of my Dynasty attempts, Chris only lived to 89 and he was employed as a painter, and had a massive amount of happiness points. In the most recent, he lived to 95 and nothing had changed from one attempt to the other so I think it's 100% random when they die.

[Seabody]

I believe that Seabody was just doing the math on the theoretical maximum age, using the assumption that there could, at some point, be a sim who would live until that chance reached 100%.  While it's mathematically possible, the odds of it happening are so remote that it's only worth mentioning for the purposes theoretical discussion.

That's exactly what I was talking about. In theory, (and this is only in theory), a sim could live until the chance to die is at 99.90%.
Using that, they would live until 488 days over the selected lifespan.

[TheChronicR]

That's exactly what I was talking about. In theory, (and this is only in theory), a sim could live until the chance to die is at 99.90%.
Using that, they would live until 488 days over the selected lifespan.

Ah, I understand now. Well, we are just discussing theories here!

[TheChronicR]

I see this topic hasn't had replies in a while.
I've just been Google Searching the question, and stumbled upon a site which had a list of traits that will prevent death of a certain type. Well, we know that Daredevil and Brave reduce the chance of burning to death, Handy makes Sims immune to electrocution (Sims that are Handy will never fail while upgrading an object), Hydrophobic reduces the chance of drowning and Unlucky Sims will be resurrected by Grim.
But did you know that Natural Cook reduces the chance of burning to death? I never knew that before.
P.S. Do you think I should add all this valuable info to the first page?

[Schipperke]

But did you know that Natural Cook reduces the chance of burning to death? I never knew that before.

That's because they don't burn food when they're cooking.  But I'm pretty sure it doesn't affect their chance of burning to death from other causes, as for example if a Natural Cook were to take up inventing or making metal sculptures.

[samoht04]

That's all prety logical about the traits. Hydrophobic reduces the chance of Drowning because the Sim will hardly ever Swim.

[sydney511]

I just wanted to say: Vegetarians will most likely live longer than other sims. If you scroll over the trait in live mode/CAS, it says that they live longer. But apparently in some cases they don't.

[Hosfac]

I just wanted to say: Vegetarians will most likely live longer than other sims. If you scroll over the trait in live mode/CAS, it says that they live longer. But apparently in some cases they don't.

The general theme in this thread has been that death by old age is random, with things like traits and athletic challenges decreasing the chance.  I'll toss out some arbitrary numbers so you have an idea of what I'm talking about:

Let's say that the base chance of death by old age is 5% per day, and the vegetarian and Marathon Runner challenge both decrease the chance by 1% each.  You have 2 sims:  Sim A has both by the time they're an elder, and Sim B has neither.  That gives a 3% and a 5% cumulative chance per day respectively that Grim will stop by to say "Hi" to either of them.

10 days pass.  That gives Sim A a 30% chance that today is their last day, while Sim B has a 50% chance.  It is entirely possible that through an unfortunate "roll of the dice" that Sim A will die but Sim B won't, even though Sim B actually has a better chance of dying.  It's also entirely possible that Sim B will continue to get lucky, and will live quite a bit longer that Sim A.

It's very likely that the numbers are smaller than what I used, and will change depending on the lifespan you're playing on.  But that's the general idea of how it seems to work.

[Pam]

Loser Sims will be resurrected by Grim.

This is Unlucky Sims, not Loser.

[TheChronicR]

This is Unlucky Sims, not Loser.

Oops. Thanks Pam. I'll correct that.