Life Skills Challenge

I’ve asked if viewers would like to see the seven children from Super Kids Challenge (before that, they were the toddlers in my Rags to ‘Riches’ 7 Toddler Challenge😊), continue in a Let’s Play as teens. So far the consensus is yes. As a result I’ve come up with some goals for them as teens in what I’m tentatively calling ‘Life Skills Challenge’, though I’m open to other name suggestions! Timing of when it will go live will depend on when the kids have completed all their child goals, but we’re getting close on that!

Super Kids Challenge Playlist link

Goals for our Teens

I’m thinking of the following goals for all seven when they are teens:

To become grade A high school students,
To get to level four in the following skills:
* cooking, handiness, gardening, charisma, fitness, logic, one instrument (that allows them to continue with their emotional control), research & debate (requires Discover University),
To do the first tier of the following aspirations:
* Friend of the World
* Nerd Brain/Renaissance Sim (the first tier is the same)
* Athletic
* Music
To max a part time career or their odd job rating (the latter requires Island Living)
To keep at least 4 character values in a range to be positive, though preferably all 5, when they age to Young Adult, these must include Manners & Responsibility.
To get to level 2 of their chosen aspiration (these will be picked based on ones teens can do)
At a minimum max one skill (this will be determined up front, but will depend on the teen & their interests/chosen aspiration)

We will also see if any of them make any friends and/or start any romances. As such I’d love to have your teen sims (if they are part of a family and/or have been played with, even better) in my save. Use #MaplesLifeSkillChallengeSims when sharing to the gallery. Please no custom content.

Goals for Norah

While the children are working on those goals, Norah will need to finish the fortune aspiration if she hasn’t already done so and she plans to start university and perhaps work on her cooking aspirations while attending university.

Also, after raising seven children it might be nice for her to find love so her nest isn’t that empty when the kids eventually leave. I’d love some sims to place in my world for her too, use #MaplesLifeSkillChallengeSims, same as above. 😊

Let me know in a comment, either here or on the Super Kids Challenge Let’s Play, if there’s anything else you’d like to see added to this challenge or in general for the Let’s Play.

Once the children have aged up to teens I will add a link to the family and their home if you’d like to play along.

Here’s the gallery link to the family just after the children aged up: https://tinyurl.com/y7b8bvsw

Link to their furnished home as set up for when they were children: https://tinyurl.com/ycfmsyc6

Alternatively, there are also two unfinished, unfurnished versions using base game only available on the gallery:

Version on a 30 x 30 lot:
Gallery link: https://tinyurl.com/y9umjzr3

Version on a 30 x 20 Lot:
Gallery link: https://tinyurl.com/y7g8ah42

N.A.P. Issues with Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle

Do you have Eco Lifestyle? Are you finding things are going missing? Are NPCs constantly doing things like playing with future cubes, drawing tablets and baking cakes, among other things? This is probably caused by Neighborhood Action Plans (also known as N.A.P.s) that are currently in place. The July 23 game update was supposed to have fixed the issue of N.A.P.s enacted in other neighborhoods impacting your active neighborhood. Here are some suggestions that may help, including links to a couple of mods by Simvasion. 😊

I try to avoid it by turning off NPC voting in game options before I start playing in a save; I would recommend doing this from the world selection menu because I’ve heard of some people having issues with the game crashing after they made the change if they don’t, though not everyone does, so you may be fine if you go in from your neighbourhood menu or from your household.

Here’s what I mean by the world menu.

From there go into game options and select the Eco Lifestyle tab and uncheck the ‘Enable NPC Voting’ option.

Along with not enabling NPC voting, the NAPs I have found to cause no issues are as follows:

Clean Energy Production: Just make sure to add a dew collector & solar panel or windmill (I usually add at least one of all three and have had no problems passing the inspection).
Green Gardening: I’ve heard to pass this one you need to make sure you have bugs (ie the Mitey Mitey Home Insect farm, or bees if you have Seasons) and that the inspector doesn’t look at the size of your garden. I usually have both and have passed this inspection.
Self-Sufficiency: If your sims have a garden and NPCs have access to it, the NPCs will harvest your garden if you’ve not already done so and you lose the harvestables, however if you fence your garden or lot and lock the gate to the area, this NAP also causes no real issues.
The two initiatives that are unique to Green Harbor, Green Initiatives and Modern Development (all three neighbourhoods in Green Harbor have these two options) have not caused me any problems either.

However, if you’ve already started playing in a save and the N.A.P.s are already in place, you can try repealing the N.A.P.s (either using the game play mechanics of getting 5 signatures to support the repeal or by using cheats). If you plan on using the in game mechanics to repeal a N.A.P., you can only do one repeal per voting period and it’s only available while the voting is open (ie 8 am Friday to 6 pm Monday). The use of cheats has the advantage in that you can repeal N.A.P.s at any time and as many as you want.

To use cheats, you need them on (to turn them on type ‘testingcheats on’ or ‘testingcheats true’ in the cheats console). Once they are on, shift click on a mailbox or community board and select ‘instant repeal Neighborhood Action Plan (Cheat)’.

Then select the one you want to repeal. If you want to repeal more than one, just do this again until all the N.A.P.s you want removed have been (there can only be up to four at one time 😊).

Unfortunately my understanding is that sometimes the actions will persist even after they’ve been repealed, if so you can try a couple of mods by Simvasion that should help. They should also help if you want to leave the N.A.P.s in place but have them be less intrusive, for example have them remain in the neighborhoods they originated in. 😊

Here are the links for Simvasion’s mod (it was previously two mods, but they’ve now been consolidated into one), which has been confirmed to still work and be needed after the July 23, 2020 game update:

Eco Lifestyle Interactions Fixes:
https://simvasion.com/eco-lifestyle-interactions-fixes/

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/979020/broken-updated-mods-cc-july-2020-nifty-knitting-patch/p4

The issue of NAPs in other neighborhoods affecting NPC behaviour outside that neighborhood was supposed to be fixed with the pre Nifty Knitting game update of July 23, 2020, however other issues remain.

EA AHQ Links:

Here are the links to the EA AHQ reports on these issues if you want to add a ‘Me Too’. 😊

Items disappearing from lots:
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-ECO-Objects-disappear-from-lots-NPC-Stealing-with-and/m-p/9178834#M134874

Other threads related to the same N.A.P issue:
Future Cubes/Clay Spawning in Inventories:
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-ECO-Future-Cubes-Clay-Spawning-in-Inventories/td-p/9180759
Objects disappear from lots/ NPC Stealing (with and without N.A.P):
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-ECO-Objects-disappear-from-lots-NPC-Stealing-with-and/td-p/9178299
Random Romance Interactions w/wo active NAP:
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-ECO-Random-Romance-Interactions-w-wo-active-NAP/td-p/9180001
Obsessive cooking and baking by sims:
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Sims-are-obsessed-with-cooking-and-baking/m-p/9187007#M138704

There is also another issue that causes objects to be swiped. This is your OWN Sim swiping his OWN own household objects (Recycle Trait):
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-ECO-Sim-swiping-own-household-objects-Recycle-Trait/td-p/9175363

Super Kids Challenge

The vote results were to go ahead and do the Super Kids Challenge with our 7 toddlers from my Rags to ‘Riches’ 7 Toddler Challenge. First part will go live Friday, Jul 3 at 1 pm Eastern.

Playlist link

The goals for all seven children will be as follows:

To max all four childhood aspirations;
To complete all their scout badges; and
To get all their character values in a positive range.

While the children are working on those goals, Norah will continue to work on her fortune, painting and gardening aspirations. We’ll also see how green we can make their Newcrest neighbourhood. Of course her long term goal is to complete her cooking aspiration, but that may have to wait.😊

I’f you’d like to play along with the same family, here’s the gallery link to the family just after the children aged up: https://tinyurl.com/y7b8bvsw

Link to their furnished home, now set up for children: https://tinyurl.com/ycfmsyc6

Alternatively, there are also two unfinished, unfurnished versions using base game only available on the gallery:

Version on a 30 x 30 lot:
Gallery link: https://tinyurl.com/y9umjzr3

Version on a 30 x 20 Lot:
Gallery link: https://tinyurl.com/y7g8ah42