About bills

[Sportsfan]

How does the game figure out the amount of money our sims have to pay in their bills?

[CarlosLordofTacos]

The amount of stuff you own and the value of that stuff.

[Sportsfan]

But like what percent?

[Pam]

But like what percent?

I don't think anyone has figured out the percentage.  I just know that the bills go up as the value of the lot goes up.

[Metropolis Man]

1% is the only hard figure I found when I snooped around the internet trying to find an answer. It certainly would not be difficult to test that out — find out the value of your lot and belongings in Buy Mode right before you receive a bill and then see what the bill breaks down to. Buy a ton of stuff right before the next bill shows up to see if the percentage is fixed.

[Sportsfan]

Also, does it include the value of the lot, not just what's built on it?

[kiko94]

I thik EA is just too lazy to exclude Lot value, so probably it counts the value of the furnished lot

[simsally]

Not sure what the percentage is but 1% sounds pretty accurate.  I had a sim buy an empty lot for $1200 and then live at the fire station.  Trying to save money for a house  .  When their bills came it was only like $1.  As she planted seeds on the lot and they grew into harvestable produce the bills went up to like $3.  I wasn't testing it or nothing, just something I noticed while I was playing.

[Hosfac]

I thik EA is just too lazy to exclude Lot value, so probably it coubts the value of the furnished lot

I doubt it has anything to do with laziness.  It's probably got more to do with realism.  In real life, all property has value even if there's nothing built on it.  So even a vacant lot has bills in the sims.

[Sportsfan]

Along the same lines, at what point is the bill's amount locked in? For example, if as soon as the mailman (or woman) arrives at the lot, you spend a lot of money is build/buy mode, will that change the amount that you have to pay for bills? Or does it always change until the time you pay it?

[BellaClo]

I would say midnight.

When I start a new game for a challenge, I usually pick up an empty lot and I don't always build the home right at the start. If I wait after midnight, the first bill on Monday morning is still worth 1$. To be verified.

[Hosfac]

Midnight makes a lot of sense. 

The birthday notification happens at around 6 a.m., and I can say with 100% certainty that if you make an attempt to reset a sim's age after the notification is made (either by way of Ambrosia, Life Fruit or the aging glitch), it will fail.  One thing I have never tested is whether or not this reset will be successful just before this notification pops up.  However, pregnancy is another way to delay an age transition and I have tried to have a female sim get pregnant on the day of her birthday, prior to the notification.  It was unsuccessful, and I have tried this several times.  When you add this to the information BellaClo provided above, this leads me to believe that this decision might be locked in before you get the birthday message. 

When you consider the concept of programming efficiency, it would require fewer lines of code to have a single subroutine that makes these decisions all at once, as opposed to several subroutines that make single decisions separately at different times.  The most logical time to make these decisions (and probably many others) would be when the day changes.

However, this is just an untested theory.

[Sportsfan]

But Hosfac, this is about bills, not when a sim ages up.

[BellaClo]

This might look unrelated  , but it's quite the same topic in fact. At least on my side, Hosfac's post rings a bell. Some modders have explained that most, if not all, EA story progression is processed around 1.00 am. This could include bills, but also life stage transition subjects.

[Hosfac]

But Hosfac, this is about bills, not when a sim ages up.

This might look unrelated  , but it's quite the same topic in fact. At least on my side, Hosfac's post rings a bell. Some modders have explained that most, if not all, EA story progression is processed around 1.00 am. This could include bills, but also life stage transition subjects.

Yes, in my revelation I forgot to tie them together lol.