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hollywood3015 · 7 years ago

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One of my favorite challenges is the BaCC (Build a City Challenge). It was unique for the sims 2 and though many tried to convert it for the sims 3 and 4 it just wasn’t successful. But now with the cats and dogs patch it seems this may not be able to happen... I am still a noob at sims 4 and with more packs and my knowledge growing these rules are subject to change I thought I would share these with anyone that wanted to give it a go.

RULES

Getting Started:

Roll a die to determine how many families you will have in town.

1-2 = 1 family

3-4 = 2 families

5-6 = 3 families

Once you figure out how many families you will have roll a die to determine how many sims will be in said family.

1-2 = Single Man

3-4= Single Woman

5-6= Couple

Once you have all that figured out bulldoze all the lots in Willow Creek. If you want to you can bulldoze all the lots for every world but I wouldn't worry about that until you unlock that world.

Have aging set to whatever you want, short, normal, long but have it so only active household members age. You don't want your other settlers getting old before you really get a chance to play them.

Restrictions:

1. No Electronics/plumbing. To start off your sims may not have any

electronics (tv,computer,stereo etc.).

They can have the cheapest fridge and a grill. Bushes to use for the bathroom, 1 sink and 1 bathtub.

Rocket ship cannot be used until electricity is unlocked.

Retail lots cannot be opened until electricity is unlocked.

This restriction is removed when one of the settlers reaches level 10 handiness

2. No Adoption/Pizza/Maid Service etc. Population must be 100 to unlock services.

3. No Hospital Birth. It is unlock when the doctor career is unlocked.

4. No aliens. This restriction is removed when Magnolia Promenade is Unlocked.

5. No Magnolia Promenade. Restriction is removed with 3 retail stores have been opened.

They must all be owned and run by settlers.

6. No cheats.

7. Aspiration may not be changed! Even when you complete an aspiration it must stay the same. If it bugs you that much to see a completed aspiration sitting there then you may change it but it doesn't count toward anything. In essence 1 aspiration per sim.

Example: Your first aspiration is angling ace. You complete it and that's awesome then you change your sims aspiration to athletic to complete a goal but that one doesn’t count.

8. Club cannot be joined until you have unlocked Winderburg.

Retail Lot:

Retail lots are unlocked with electricity.

Unlocking Community Lots:

Park- Park is unlocked when someone reaches level 5 gardening and 20.000

Bar- Have a sim max the mixology skill and 7.000

Library- Have a sim max the writing skill. and 10.000

Lounge- Have a sim max guitar,violin,piano, and comedy skill. More then one sim can complete this. (Ex: One sim can do piano while another does comedy and another does guitar etc)

Museum- Have a sim max a painting skill and 20.000

Nightclub- Have a sim max the charisma skill.

Spa- Have a sim max wellness skill and 6.000

Gym- One sim must have completed the athletic aspiration

Arts Center- When a sim grows up to adult with max creativity its unlocked.

Cafe- When a sim reaches level 5 culinary and city pays 10.000 this unlocks.

Karaoke Bar- When a sim reaches lv.10 singing skill and 5.000 dollars.

Pool- When 10 sims in town have a pool and 25.000 dollars is paid it is unlocked

Resturant- When Culinary is unlocked a resturant may be built

Vet Clinic- When a vet clinic retail lot is max then this may be unlocked

Unlocking Careers:Astronaut- One sim must max the rocket science skill to unlock the career.

Athletic- There be at least one gym community lot in world.

Business- Must be 3 retail lots. (Vet, Food, Retail)

Criminal- One settler must max the mischief skill

Culinary- There must be a resturant retail lot.

Entertainment- Must be one lounge community lot to unlock this career.

Painter- Must be one museum/art gallery

Secret Agent- One sim must complete the detective career to unlock.

Tech Guru- A sim must max programming and gaming to unlock. ( More then one sim may help with this)

Writer- There must be a library community lot.

Detective- Criminal must be unlocked.

Doctor- 5 babies must be born in game to unlock this career.

Scientist- One sim must complete the astronaut career.

Babysitter- At least one child must be born in game

Barista- One sim must complete the mixologist branch of culinary.

Manuel Labourer- A sim that wants to join this career must have level 5 handiness.

Retail Employee- Must be one retail lot in world

Fast Food Employee- One sim must have completed the culinary career.

Unlocking Towns:Oasis Springs- 5000 dollars to unlock

Magnolia Promenade- 2000 Dollars

Newcrest- 10.000 Dollars

Brindeton Bay- 5000 Dollars

Winderburg- 5000 dollars

San Myshuno- 5000 dollars

Forgotten Hollow- 5000 dollars

Vacation:For Granite Falls to be unlocked and your sims to take a vacation

20.000 must be paid from city funds.

Unlocking CAS Sims:Every retail store opened by settler +1

Every career unlocked +2

Every skill maxed +1

The Sim Multiplier:+7 for every World unlocked

+10 when you get every type of retail lot

+5 For every career unlocked

+1 For every career topped

+1 For every skill topped. (1 per sim)

#ts4 #ts4 rule set #ts4 bacc #i'm making it happen again

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pi-noir · 5 years ago

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Once Upon A Stakeout, a true & personal account

As a private investigator, you always need to be on your toes; always be prepared for anything. I'm an army veteran, so the cry "Stay alert, stay alive!" rings just as loudly now as it did then. On occasion, I whisper a mental thank you for the training.

I done a lot of reading and studying before I made the leap into private investigation. Mounds of books and study material would lay around my home as I was reading up and de-romanticizing the career path that I was going to walk down. I recall reading a passage in one of the study guides about how a California PI had been licensed for 20 years and hadn’t ever felt like his life was in danger and so had never carried a firearm. I don’t suppose all private investigators carry, but after this case I decided that I would never be without one.

Hollywood has romanticized most professions, but none no more than private investigation. From Philip Marlowe and Mike Hammer to Dick Tracy and even Ace Ventura, we all have preconceived notions as to what the job is all about, but we’re wrong. In a nutshell, private investigation is unglamorous and largely boring the majority of the time, and this case started off to be no different than the dozens of other surveillance cases I had worked in the first several months of my career. Being a dick in Appalachia is a bit more difficult than in a rural setting; subjects often live out in the middle of nowhere and getting close enough to get video or photographs without being seen in your inconspicuous vehicle is, well, very conspicuous at best and downright suspicious under the worst of conditions. Luckily, ‘round these parts, a Jeep is a pretty inconspicuous vehicle on back roads as well as in town

The subject’s employer had to place him on medical leave yet again and suspected that he was trying to get disability, an Appalachian pastime and career goal, so they wanted him investigated for worker’s compensation fraud. I had done tons of them, but in all prior cases I was provided with an address. This schmuck’s address took me to an open field in the middle of no man’s land. The nearest house was two ridges over and they hadn’t ever heard of the guy. All of the company’s mail had been sent to a P.O. Box in a town so small that if you blinked while driving through you’d miss it, but we’ll call it Sagebrush, because the names and places have been changed to protect the guilty.

The Sagebrush Post Office was a one-woman, half service joint where the walls were lined with PO boxes and handmade signs looking for lost dogs, cats, and kids’ belongings. Some were printed with the frayed strips at the bottom so folks could pull off a phone number. Seemed like one babysitter was a lot more popular than the others, but she couldn’t have had anything on the dish that stood on the other side of the window. She was a short dame with meth mouth, and open sores on her arms, from what I could hear her telling another lady was caused by her eczema. From the looks of it, the only medication she was taking for it was rat poisoning. I stood by and waited for the lady to leave before approaching the window and making a noob mistake – I asked about the address for the subject….in a small town where everyone knows one another. I used the pretext that I was with the company and needed to get him some papers to sign. She was nice enough to refuse to provide that kind of information but told me that someone at the grocery store might be able to help me. I walked next door to a small mini-mart sized store and asked the clerk about where I could find who I will refer to as Ronald Langley. The guy was very helpful and though he didn’t know the address he was able to tell me how to get to the house.

The subject came an went multiple times in his blue pickup truck and was kind enough to toot his horn at me each time he passed by. Langley had an informant; either the post office meth-head or the minimart clerk, or both, but either way, he knew where I was at and what vehicle I was in because the locations I parked at changed from day to day, but were all entrances to the road to his home, and he seemed to always know where to find me, blowing that horn and waving each time he passed. I decided one morning to change vehicles and to park some distance away from one of the two intersections that he used but that didn’t work either, so it was time for drastic measures, and again, pulling from my highly motivated military training, I decided I was just going to make it happen regardless of what was required. So, I headed home early that day and began to prepare for the next day i was to go out.

I held off for a few days so that Langley’s suspicions would die down a bit. I pulled up my GIS software and mapped out his area. I knew of every entrance and egress from his property, every hill, every draw, every spur, and every watershed that surrounded him. I knew that I was going to have to treat this case as an op and so I put forth that much effort to get myself ready. I loaded my Jeep the following morning and said a small prayer that the day was met with success and then I headed out for the town of Sagebrush.

At the top of the hill, before descending down into the hollow and coming within view of the subject’s house, sat a little church and a cemetery. Parking in the vacant church lot would still bring unwanted attention since chances were the guy I was after likely attended services there. I arrived just before dawn and the church’s service lights were illumination enough for me to see without my headlights, at least until I got up behind the cemetery. And that’s when the op began. Jeeps are pretty good at making their own roads and I’m not the kind of guy who can sit in a vehicle for hours and/or days on end, so after parking a good distance in the woods I hopped out and while grabbing my gear, I decided as an afterthought to leave Betsy, my 1911, in the vehicle. I may had been what I was now considering enemy territory, but I still felt safe enough considering all I was doing was my job. Remember, the ‘ol California PI says he hadn’t carried one time in his 20-year career, so I would surely be safe in this nice community of country folk. I turned on my night vision and began what would take an hour trek to make my way to the location I had picked without being spotted. I sat down against a large tree, behind a thicket that provided ample blind but still gave a good view of the Langley home and his blue pickup truck. The hill below the thicket sloped down toward a small creek and to the road passing by the house. Just as the mountains began turning purple from the morning’s first light, I took my first video pan of the area as to document the date, time and location for the client and for any future court proceedings. I repeated this every hour as proof that I was still at the location. The first day that I was there produced a considerable amount of video that would show that Ronald Langley was actively doing work and manual labor that would far exceed the limitations that were stated in his injury report for his neck, back and shoulders. He had made multiple trips in and out of his property, loading and unloading building materials, large boxes, and tools. Langley climbed ladders, swung hammers, lifted an entire framed wall of an outbuilding that he was building. I would later learn that he built these outbuildings to sell as an income.

As the sun began to set I knew that I wouldn’t be getting any further video that night, but the day had so much successful footage that I didn’t want to leave. The state required three separate days of video evidence in order to charge anyone with worker’s compensation fraud and one day's worth is all that I had. I was going to need to stay for as long as I could hold out. I came dressed for a long stay, and although I was chilly I wasn’t freezing with the multiple layer upon layer that I was wearing; I decided to stay in place overnight and so I bedded down until morning when the rumble of his engine woke me up. The sun had already risen and shined brightly on the newly fallen snow that now blanketed everything. My view was somewhat obstructed through the thicket and my clothing was no longer providing any camouflaging for me to stay hidden if I were to knock off the snow from the brush to help me see. It was just past 8am when he came back out to his now heated truck and he drove away. Mrs. Langley walked over and stood on the inside of the sliding glass door wearing exactly what she would be wearing to bed for her husband. She was a tall, and well-groomed dame with long, well defined legs that went all the way up to heaven. Mrs. Langley was quite perky so the room must have been cold, but I didn’t mind at all, I was enjoying the view. I began wishing that I was that cup of coffee that she was putting those full lips on as she sipped and looked out at the snowscape that wasn’t half as beautiful as she was. I pulled the camera out to do a pan and thought I would catch her standing there – for posterity of course, but she began walking away. The video caught evidence that she does a lot of squats and could crack walnuts among others with her cheeks, but before I was able to get the full pan hubby came roaring back in. I had suddenly realized why he was trying to be home more often.

Ronald Langley was just as busy the second day as he was the first, completing one outbuilding and then beginning on the next and my lens caught it all. Toward the end of the day he had someone arrive and Langley helped him load the completed outbuilding onto a flatbed trailer before the guy handed him some cash, shook his hand and drove away. The screen on my camera flashed a warning that my second battery was nearly dead, and I loaded my last one in. As I had done a million times, I turned the camera back on, but this time it beeped, and across the pillow-soft cushion of the snow the sound echoed across the creek and road over to Langley. He paused and my heart stopped. He never moved a muscle for several seconds and I had to finally take a breath just as he turned and walked into the house. Perhaps he imagined it. Maybe it was inaudible, and he dismissed it. I hoped. I hoped. When he returned he returned quickly and lifted a bolt action rifle and aimed in my direction and pulled the trigger. As the barrel was brought to bear I remember realizing that I was dead, but the shot struck the tree that I had been sitting against and about six feet above my head. Bark rained down on me and around about in the snow as the blast from the rifle reverberated between the hills of the hollow. My heart gave a sigh realizing that he wasn’t trying to hit me, but I jumped up and threw my hands into the air.

He told me to get off his land, but according to tax map information, the land I was on belonged to the church. But I wasn’t going to argue and his aim might have been a bit more intentional the time that trigger was pulled, so I gathered my gear and began heading out with him still yelling until I was too far away to hear what he was saying. Langley wasn’t as mad at my presence as he was at the fact that I beat him and his little game he was playing – providing a fake address, having informants, and cheating tax payers out of money. The weeks ahead proved that there still wasn’t enough evidence on Langley. The company and state still needed one more day of footage in order to prosecute so I formed the long con.

During my study of the subject, Ronald Langley, I knew that he frequented a rental company over in the next, much larger town. I applied and was hired as a delivery driver and salesman at the store. He nor his wife had ever gotten a good look at my face so I stood a good chance of not being recognized when they came in to buy a new sectional. I requested to be the driver to take them their new furniture, especially when he said that he would help me get it into their house since we were down one person that day. I stopped by my vehicle and I grabbed my covert camera / ink pen before loading the sectional into the delivery truck. Just before arriving at Ronald Langley’s home I turned my camera on and then pulled up to the house. He was very helpful, offering to take the heavy end of both sections of the couches. Once we had gotten it into the house he tried to sell me an outbuilding and even bragged that he builds them himself. I drew him into more detail about how he went about building them and the time and strength it takes to do it all himself. Mrs. Langley, Becca as she asked me to call her, offered me a cup of coffee while Ronald stepped outside. I happily accepted. Becca was a bit of a tramp, making sexual innuendos toward me and hinting that she liked me, but after I had more than enough evidence to satisfy the state, and not wanting to push my luck, I left. After returning home that night I processed the footage from my ink pen and sent it to the client, 7 months after I began the case.

About two months later I read where Langley had been arrested on multiple counts and would be away from home for a while. Unable to pay for the sectional, the rental company picked up their new furniture; I stuck around a bit to see if she needed a man to help out with anything. Turns out she did.

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andromedahawking · 7 years ago

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OC Bullshit AKA: Group Project Part 1

Maria hated group projects. With a passion. Every time, she ended up pulling all the weight while everyone else skived off.

This time, though, she seemed to have joined a group that shared her pain.

The project was daunting: a full rundown of the 2056 election, primaries and general, due in one month. Five people in the group: Adrien Cranston, Hannah Chase, herself, Tatjana Mekall, and Xander York. By her logic, that was one person for each primary and one for the general, if they wanted to divvy it up that way. Although, none of them were exactly equally weighted—she knew for a fact that the Progressive primary had been a beast that election.

She had been the one to set up the group chat after class that day, already gearing up for another hellish month of dealing with four useless partners and doing the heavy lifting all the way—but this time was different.

Tuesday 2 October 2084, 17:47

MT Hey guys, Maria here. This’ll be a big project, we should schedule time to get together soon to work on it.

XY Hey! Agreed, we should meet ASAP.

If we can get this done early that would be ideal, I have big stuff in English Week 4.

AC I’m free every Monday, Wednesday and Friday after 16. Free all weekends, but Tues/Thurs are no-gos.

TM I’m in Xander’s English too, Week 4 is a major due date so finishing this quick is a really big priority.

MT I’m free past 16:30 on weekdays. Not free until 16 on weekends.

XY I’m free every day after 17.

HC I’m busy Mon Tues and Weds, free after 17 otherwise.

TM I’m free until 20 on weekends, free after 16 on weekdays.

MT So Friday and weekends after 17 work best for everyone?

AC Yeah that works

XY Can do.

TM Yup.

HC That’ll work.

MT Okay. Let’s meet up Friday at 17:30.

AC Meeting point?

HC Does everyone know Lac de la Lune?

XY Yeah I’ve heard of it.

AC Are you kidding I love that place Let’s do it

TM That’s in Walnut Creek, right?

That works for me.

MT Yeah, it’s in Walnut Creek near the Millenial Cinema on Locust.

So, Lac de la Lune at 17:30?

AC Let’s do it

HC That’s good

XY Yes

TM Yeah

MT Alright. It’s set.

See you guys there.

Bonus points to Hannah for suggesting Lac de la Lune. They served the best drinks there. Maria had arrived at 17, not wanting to be late, and got a booth for them. She’d brought her laptop and her textbook with her, and promptly supplemented that with a White Russian. Alcohol made History go down more smoothly.

17:10 gave her the first pleasant surprise of the day: Adrien arrived with all his materials.

“Afternoon,” he said with a wave, sitting down opposite her. “I’m glad you got a booth, I always liked them better.”

“History requires a cushy seat and strong drinks,” she said, smiling crookedly.

“God, relatable…” he groaned. “I look at the project outline and I feel my soul die in my chest.”

“Have you seen the Wikipedia article on the 2056 election?” she asked. “It makes me wanna die. It’s a nightmare.”

“I have,” he said. “I also wanted to die when I saw it. It’s so long.”

“And that’s just the Wikipedia article,” she said. “There’s so much stuff about this whole thing, you could write an entire textbook about it.”

“Someone probably has.” Adrien picked up a menu. “I don’t know what I want to eat…”

“Pick a drink first, that’s my advice.”

“I already know what I want to drink, that’s easy. Food is a lock I can never pick.”

“Burger. You can’t go wrong with a burger.”

“True, but…” He bit his lip. “Burgers weigh me down. I need something lighter.”

“Pizza? You can get it thin-crust and plain.”

“Ooooo. Oo, yeah, that sounds good. I’ll do that.”

The others trickled in early as well. It was 17:20 by the time Xander came in and completed the group. Everybody was actually prepared. It was amazing to see: all five of them, laptops and books at the ready, eager to get this damn thing done swiftly and painlessly.

“Okay, so, first of all,” Hannah began, “we need to figure out how to break this up. It goes from about June 2055 to January 2057. There’s the four primaries, then the general and everything between that and the inauguration.”

“We shouldn’t do one primary or the general apiece,” Xander said. “The Pros and Dems' primaries are a huge mess compared to the Reps and Cons.”

“Yeah, Mazer and Birch were locked in way before Hanover or Scott,” Maria nodded. “We’d be better off going by subjects or something.”

“We also have to remember the 29th Amendment,” Tatjana said.

“Oh, fuck, you’re right,” Maria groaned. “The proportional voting totally changed the dynamic.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Adrien agreed. “And there’s also the VAP Automatic Registration Act.”

“Okay,” Hannah said. “So we can break it up into five groups of subjects, like, um, election changes and things like that… uh, debates, other things.”

“Yeah, that oughta work better,” Xander said.

“Cool,” Maria said. “Let’s do it.”

They made some decent headway before their meals came, but it was to be expected that once it was time to eat, work ground to a halt.

“My favourite part of the whole thing is how she was president for two terms, and now she’s a Senator,” Xander laughed. “Like, there’s nothing in the Constitution that says you can’t be a Senator after you’re President! We have two former Presidents as Senators right now!”

“It’s so fucking weird, man,” Maria sighed. “The government is a shitshow.”

“I mean, to be fair, Mazer is a pretty darn good Senator,” Adrien said. “Even if she is a Republican.”

“Don’t you know?” Tatjana said with fake disgust. “Labels are fake. Politics are a lie.”

“Yeah, haven’t you heard of RINOs before?” Hannah giggled. “She used to be a Progressive.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know,” Adrien said, taking a big bite of pizza. “But still, she’s the only Republican I ever voted for.”

“Oh, so you’re one of those people?” Hannah asked. “You vote along party lines?”

“Not always! I cross the aisle sometimes.”

“Fuckin’ weirdo,” Maria said. “Be a good little Democrat and stay in line.”

“I’m a Progressive, thank you very much.”

“Same here,” Tatjana said. “I don’t matter, though, since I’m first-gen.”

“What, your parents are immigrants?” Xander asked.

“Mm-hm. They immigrated from Germany back in the 40s.”

“Oh yeah, so you’re locked in, basically,” Adrien said.

“Pretty much,” Tatjana said, grinning widely. “I’m a good girl. I vote Progressive.”

“I’m not that far gone,” Maria said. “I stick with the Democrats.”

“Establishment hack!” Hannah gasped dramatically.

“California corrupted you, didn’t it?!” Xander said. “The conservatives got to you!”

“Oh my god, is being a Democrat really being a conservative?” Maria laughed. “I thought there were two other parties that had that base covered!”

“All Democrats are conservatives in disguise,” Adrien deadpanned with a thick Southern drawl. “Don’t y’all get that? If you ain’t Progressive you ain’t American.”

“Oh good, can we get rid of Washington and Oregon, then?”

“Only if we toss in Wisconsin.”

“I can live with that.”

“What? You can’t do that!” Xander said. “That messes up the borders!”

“Look at this noob,” Tatjana said. “He thinks borders are something to be honoured!”

“Toss Wisconsin to the dogs, borders be damned!” Hannah said. “And I’m speaking as a Minnesotan, we’d be better off!”

“Well, of course you want them gone, then!” Maria said. “You have state rivalry in play!”

“Duh!” Hannah took a big sip of her drink. “It’s in my blood!”

“Okay, we obviously need to pro-con getting rid of Wisconsin,” Adrien said. “On one hand, it makes Minnestoa happy; on the other, it fucks up the borders, as Xander pointed out.”

“Wisconsin is good for industry,” Maria said. “I say that cancels out the wingnuts.”

“Well, by that logic, Montana should be counted as an asset too,” Hannah said.

“I mean, they have Teller City!” Maria said. “Teller City does some amazing stuff for robotics.”

“Okay, but that’s only industry,” Adrien said. “What about other things? What does Wisconsin add or subtract from the nation?”

“They have the cheeseheads,” Hannah said.

“We can enjoy cheese memes just as fine without Wisconsin,” Tatjana said. “They can leave and still make dumb memes.”

“You’re right. Memes are a constant,” Adrien said.

“I think we should get rid of Wisconsin,” Maria said. “50 states is a nicer number.”

“Yeah, but 51 divides into 17, and 17 is cool,” Xander said.

“I think we should nix Wisconsin on the grounds that they beat the 49ers last season,” Tatjana said.

“An excellent position,” Adrien said. “You know what? It’s decided. Wisconsin is expelled from the Union. Fifty states again.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Maria said.

“And good riddance!” Hannah cheered.

#OC bullshit #Maria Taylor / Maria Mekall #Tatjana Mekall #New OCs

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