Do NPC go to school or work at all?

[MOMO & YUNA]

I used an adult sim to visit an NPC household 9:40 am Monday and not a public holiday. I was surprised to see their kid still at home when they should be in school. This immediately killed the immersion of the game.

I remember in TS3, you cannot see an NPC while they are at work or school.

But in TS4, you can see any NPC at anytime regardless of their work/school schedule. This is so lame. It kills the immersion of the game.

It's like they don't live a life. They are just there.

[WarWolf]

Same

[Chanja6]

Children and Teen like to go for a Walk during School Hour.
The Townie Sims have no life. That is better in Sims 2 and Sims 3.

[Blood Lightning]

I dont know, i have been to NPC houses and noticed certain family members missing, if you go to world mangament and click on the households, sometimes the NPCs will be blurred out and it will tell where they are.

[The Living Darkness]

unplayed Sims will go to work, but only sort of. Using Bella Goth as an example. She is a spy, you can view her work schedule is you ask her about her career. If you go to her house while she should be at work she will not be home. If you are at her house when her schedule would call for work she will leave the lot when work would start. If you have her at a club gathering and its her work hours, she will show up and then immediately leave. If she is at a club gathering and her work starts while she is there she will leave when work starts.

However npc sims at work will usually show up at your house if you call them and stay, as if they shouldnt be at work. Also you will see them jogging or at public venues, so even if Bella should be at work you can still see her at a retail store or something.

On a side note, learning sims work schedules makes a big difference for club gathering. kids and teens have school every weekday so they tend to leave your club gathering due to school hours. Sims who are unemployed or have jobs with no actual hours will never leave a club gathering (there is no need to lock the doors) as long as they have access to food, beds, toilets, showers so they an manage needs. If you ever want a club to go for days on end only invite unemployed sims, stay-at-home moms, community center managers, freelancers and some service workers.

[76561198213095365]

Originally posted by The Living Darkness:

unplayed Sims will go to work, but only sort of. Using Bella Goth as an example. She is a spy, you can view her work schedule is you ask her about her career. If you go to her house while she should be at work she will not be home. If you are at her house when her schedule would call for work she will leave the lot when work would start. If you have her at a club gathering and its her work hours, she will show up and then immediately leave. If she is at a club gathering and her work starts while she is there she will leave when work starts.

However npc sims at work will usually show up at your house if you call them and stay, as if they shouldnt be at work. Also you will see them jogging or at public venues, so even if Bella should be at work you can still see her at a retail store or something.

On a side note, learning sims work schedules makes a big difference for club gathering. kids and teens have school every weekday so they tend to leave your club gathering due to school hours. Sims who are unemployed or have jobs with no actual hours will never leave a club gathering (there is no need to lock the doors) as long as they have access to food, beds, toilets, showers so they an manage needs. If you ever want a club to go for days on end only invite unemployed sims, stay-at-home moms, community center managers, freelancers and some service workers.

Clubs are interesting, but unfortunately, I do have a problem with clubs as well. They are supposed to be fun and interesting, but with the parenthood pack you also have additional responsibilities of needing to take care of children and the challenge of trying complete aspirations and increasing skills as well at the same time. It gets even harder to do these as well when playing with multiple families at the same time on The Sims 4. I am also concerned about not enough families getting pregnant and adopting as well even with them being enabled from neighborhood stories.

There are for example plenty of vacant lots on The Sims 4 even with the move in option enabled from neighborhood stories. I get that there is also an option to resurrect the dead if you are worried about the neighborhoods not having enough sims such as removing the ghost option from the MCCC mod for example, but I find that I have hard time with finding enough time to participate with clubs, partying, and social events that I frequently turn down (although, in theory perhaps I would have more time for these things if I had life expectancy set to long instead of normal on The Sims 4 and also made sim adults not go to work in addition to stop having more kids). Also, if your sim is a loner important to keep in mind that they might also hate parties, clubs, and social events as well if they do not have enough friends within those social gatherings.

[Zunnoab #931]

I have had sims with keys show up for random visits during their work hours but I can't be sure if it's caused by the way too many mods I downloaded.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by The Living Darkness:

...as long as they have access to food, beds, toilets, showers so they an manage needs. If you ever want a club to go for days on end only invite unemployed sims, stay-at-home moms, community center managers, freelancers and some service workers.

I have a bunch of sims who are part of an exercise club, but one or two refuse to wash after becoming filthy when exercising to excess. They can wash themselves but for some reason they choose not to. Ironically these sims that don't wash themselves go about the gym cleaning everything because of their neat trait.

So unless you specifically direct them to wash in the club goals, or you have a spell caster that knows scruberoo, otherwise you'll have these dirty smelly sims wondering around refusing to wash themselves.

[The Living Darkness]

Originally posted by Xautos:

I have a bunch of sims who are part of an exercise club, but one or two refuse to wash after becoming filthy when exercising to excess. They can wash themselves but for some reason they choose not to. Ironically these sims that don't wash themselves go about the gym cleaning everything because of their neat trait.

So unless you specifically direct them to wash in the club goals, or you have a spell caster that knows scruberoo, otherwise you'll have these dirty smelly sims wondering around refusing to wash themselves.

Im not saying what you experienced didnt happen. But I can also say they will wash themselves. Slob trait sims dont for obvious reasons. Maybe you had a few slobs? Typically speaking a non slob sim wont wash unless they absolutely have to, obviously that can be fixed by adding bathing as you mentioned. It isnt necessary though. It may be possible that if a sim becomes so miserable that their AI essentially breaks, that also shouldnt happen though if you provide the proper facilities. Ive even done this on a haunted house lot with every negative trait, running a club of unemployed NPC sim painters with painting as the only encouraged behavior. I would usually work them for 2 to 3 days then give them a break as they would slowly start to break by that point but they would shower and sleep when they needed to.

I have certainly done the scruberoo thing as well. Sims often do wait until they are red hygiene before they will consider bathing and club perk that recovers most needs doesnt cover hygiene, so I have done that in some cases when im a spellcaster and running a club that isnt designed to be a free labor force LOL. There may be other traits that conflict with bathing too other than slob that I am just not aware of. I wouldnt be surprised if erratic sims only bathe in the rain or something like that, no idea if thats true, but it wouldnt shock me.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by The Living Darkness:

Originally posted by Xautos:

I have a bunch of sims who are part of an exercise club, but one or two refuse to wash after becoming filthy when exercising to excess. They can wash themselves but for some reason they choose not to. Ironically these sims that don't wash themselves go about the gym cleaning everything because of their neat trait.

So unless you specifically direct them to wash in the club goals, or you have a spell caster that knows scruberoo, otherwise you'll have these dirty smelly sims wondering around refusing to wash themselves.

Im not saying what you experienced didnt happen. But I can also say they will wash themselves. Slob trait sims dont for obvious reasons. Maybe you had a few slobs? Typically speaking a non slob sim wont wash unless they absolutely have to, obviously that can be fixed by adding bathing as you mentioned. It isnt necessary though. It may be possible that if a sim becomes so miserable that their AI essentially breaks, that also shouldnt happen though if you provide the proper facilities. Ive even done this on a haunted house lot with every negative trait, running a club of unemployed NPC sim painters with painting as the only encouraged behavior. I would usually work them for 2 to 3 days then give them a break as they would slowly start to break by that point but they would shower and sleep when they needed to.

I have certainly done the scruberoo thing as well. Sims often do wait until they are red hygiene before they will consider bathing and club perk that recovers most needs doesnt cover hygiene, so I have done that in some cases when im a spellcaster and running a club that isnt designed to be a free labor force LOL. There may be other traits that conflict with bathing too other than slob that I am just not aware of. I wouldnt be surprised if erratic sims only bathe in the rain or something like that, no idea if thats true, but it wouldnt shock me.

not a slob in the mix, infact none of my sims are slobs. i don't want any of them dumpster diving to find some food from.. that thought is just too disgusting. *shudders*