Extreme Dumpster Challenge (Eco Lifestyle City Living Req)

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Purplethistles
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Extreme Dumpster Challenge (Eco Lifestyle City Living Req)

Post by Purplethistles »

Do you like to start your sims off rags to riches style? Do you get fed up quickly because it is ridiculously easily to make money in the sims 4? Do you end up using mods to try to make your game harder? If so, then this is the challenge for you!
The Goal
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For normal difficulty, the goal of this challenge is to complete the Swimming in Cash aspiration in as few generations as possible.
For hard difficulty, the goal of this challenge is to complete the Mansion Baron aspiration in as few generations as possible.
Setting Up
[*]Create a young adult founder in Cas, without using story mode. They must be human.
[*]Dress and style them however you want.
[*]Pick one of these traits: Freegan, Recycle Disciple, Green Fiend, Slob, Loves the Outdoors, Maker. Use the dice in game to randomise your sims traits until your chosen trait appears.
[*]You must keep the other two traits that appear with your chosen trait, even if either or both of those traits are also in the list you can choose from above.
[*]Pick any aspiration except the two wealth aspirations. You will be changing to your chosen wealth aspiration once in game.
Getting Started
[*]Your founder should be placed in Evergreen Harbour, on the Shipping Views lot. Be sure to choose to bulldoze the lot when moving in.
[*]Pause the game and in build mode, add these three lot traits which must always stay the same. Off the Grid, Eco Lot and Reduce and Recycle.
[*]Using TestingCheats On and then Money 0, take away your founders simoleons. They must not have any money at the start of the challenge.
Rules
Your founder is a true eco warrior. As such they will NEVER have a job, they will only eat food they have grown or found in dumpsters and they will only furnish their lot with either items they have found in the dumpster or have made using fabrication and woodworking. They will only be able to make money by dumpster diving, following the restrictions in the section below. Think you can take 100 photos, smash out a few paintings or go digging? Nope, not for this challenge I'm afraid.

They may not use community lots or parks or public toilets to fulfil hygiene or bladder, home lot only! For normal difficulty, after certain conditions have been met, you can begin to build a house for your founder but for hard difficulty, they must never have a four walled house on their lot. For mansion baron, you can use build mode to add a wall for windows and columns once you can afford to do so, for the aspiration goals, but you dont actually need a house to complete the aspiration! Of course, cheats of any sort may not be used, except for reset object if required. please see below for the additional restrictions for this challenge. Your sim should not have any other aspiration once they have changed to their wealth aspiration at the beginning of the challenge. They may use reward points if they have earned enough but not any rewards that affect money. They may not hire any kind of service sim or use bone hilda. They may not have the tiny home residential. Oh and no mods. None. Not even MCCC unless you really need it in your game.
Pay Your Way
Your founder must earn the $750 value of the bulldozed shipping view lot before they can begin to develop their lot. They cannot garden, they cannot build any homes or shelters, they cannot hold any yard sales and so on, until they have made $750 and the money has been deducted using the money cheat. Proof is needed so be prepared to take screen shots! Bills must be paid despite living off the grid and will result in point deductions if they are unpaid and if the repo man shows up.
Gardening
As above, you may only begin to garden on your lot once you have paid the $750 value of the lot to claim it as yours. Furthermore, you cannot plant on the bare ground. You must always have made Garden Planters or Pots using the woodworking skill. You may not purchase any seeds, instead you must find your seeds from the dumpsters. It is possible to find money tree seeds in the dumpsters, these are NOT Allowed to be used. You may not sell your harvestables using the inventory or the sell all feature, instead you will need to sell them either at the flea market or a community marketplace space or on the yard sales table. Remember, you can only eat food from the dumpster or that you have grown yourself, so take that into account when deciding what to sell!
Neighbourhood Action Plans and Community Spaces
These two features are your best friends. You may gain and use influence however you feel is best to support your gameplay. This means you can vote for particular action plans, reappeal action plans and vote on community spaces. You can also vote to change community spaces as you need. However you may not use any cheats to do so! The community space near your lot could be used initially as a market place to sell your finds, or it could be used as a community garden for harvestables, or you can have the maker space, to make furnishings for your home.
Dumpster Diving
You may only use the three dumpsters in your home area. This is the dumpster near the inn, the dumpster on the way to the community space and the dumpster at the community space itself. Bear in mind that once you vote for a community space to become a feature, the dumpster is removed from the lot!

You may dumpster dive as often as the dumpsters will allow you to. However you may not be cheaty and add rubbish to the dumpsters to make them function again. The exception to this is if your sim autonomously decides to throw away spoiled food or rubbish into the dumpster.

You can use any items found in the dumpster to meet your sims needs and to furnish their lot. The Smog Vacuum cannot be cheated into the game and may not be used if it somehow shows up for whatever reason.
Making Money
As stated, your sim can only make money from what they find in the dumpsters but there are some restrictions.

Furniture found in the dumpsters can come in three different conditions. The first condition is completely ruined and you have to pay the full price to replace the item to make it new again. These items cannot be sold at any time. They may however, be replaced and used by your sim on their lot. The second condition is that the item is functionable, but it has damage and will need your sim to 'fix scratches' to prevent negative moodlets and make the item like new again. These items can be sold ONCE they have been fixed. The third condition is that the item is in as new condition and can be used as normal without needing to fix, repair or replace. These items can be sold.

Items that cannot be sold at any time are:

[*]Any electrical appliances. This includes tv's, fridges, cookers, stereos, computers and so forth. Your sim can however repair these items for the handiness skill and for upgrade parts which CAN be sold. Aside from fridges and cookers, you can choose to keep these items on your home lot for your sims use. As your sim has to live off dumpster food or harvestables, they may not ever have a fridge, stove, grill, fire pit or cauldron on their home lot. This prevents accidental autonomy fails.
[*]Paintings and Decor found in the dumpster. This is because they are always in brand new condition and many are just too valuable. They would single handedly make this challenge too easy. If you are doing the mansion baron aspiration, you can choose to use these items on your home lot however.
[*]Plumbing Appliances. This includes baths, showers, sinks and toilets. Again like electrical appliances, you can repair them for handiness skill and for upgrade parts which you CAN sell. You can also choose to keep these items to use on your home lot.
[*]Aspiration Reward Items and Ancient Relics. Very occasionally these can be found in dumpsters and again, make the challenge too easy so these cannot be sold.
[*]You may not sell any of the festival items, so no selling harvest gnomes gnomes or selling/using the seeds from their packets. Its best to just remove the gnome tradition from harvest fest. Also no selling of any winterfest gifts, date rewards or any other items rewarded to your sim.
[*]You many not sell any items your sim makes on the fabricator or the woodworking table. These items are to be used on your sims home lot only. Your sim can paint, write novels, play instruments and so forth but again they cannot make money from these. In short, if its not in the items that can be sold list below...it cant be sold.

Items that can be sold include:

[*]All non electrical, non plumbing furniture that has had scratches fixed or found in as new condition.
[*]All harvestables except the money tree seed which cannot be planted or sold.
[*]Any collectibles found in dumpsters including frogs, fossils, simmi capsules, mysims trophys, upgrade parts, dye potions, little toys and so on.
How To Sell Items
Once you have paid the $750 for your home lot, you can buy a sales table, provided you have the simoleons from dumpster diving to do so. You can then hold ONE yard sale a day to sell your smaller items. Alternatively, you can vote for the marketplace community space and do ONE yard sale a day there. You may not mark up prices AT ALL, after all, you did find them from free mostly! If you have city living, you can also attend the flea market and may hold as many yard sales as you can within the time of the festival.

You may also buy a retail lot to sell your fixed up or found brand new larger items in. You must first have paid the $750 for the home lot and have saved $1750 simoleons which is enough to buy a small lot and the counter and till required to open your store. Once you own a retail store, you can set the mark up on your restored items to 5% clearance only. You are a budget store with dumpster restored items, huge mark ups go against the morals of your sim! Your retail store should be completely outdoors, think like the flea market. You may add lot traits to your residential lot, including the convivial lot trait which helps your sim get confident so they can try to close the deal quicker. You can also add a half wall area for a toilet and sink, that you have found in a dumpster of course.
Living Off The Grid
Once you have paid the $750 to own your home lot, you can use buy mode to purchase energy and water items for your lot. You must set your bills information to store all energy and water however, it cannot be sold. You can also purchase the fabrication machine, woodworking table and recycling machine. You may buy the candle making machine and fizzing machine for home lot use only if you wish.

If you have chosen hard difficulty and have seasons, your sim and any family they have, will be at the mercy of the weather. As you cannot build a house, thunderstorms are going to be a lot of fun! I have play tested this challenge and decided that you may take your sim and any family to the community space lot in cases of extreme weather.
Having a Family
It is possible to find dumpster items for toddlers. In my game I found the classic toddler bed, stuffed toys, a dollhouse and a high chair. I dont think you can find a potty so sadly any toddlers you have are going to have to make use of their diapers and baths! This mean's you cannot get the top notch toddler trait but you can still aim for the happy toddler trait instead. Your toddler can only eat harvestables or food you have found in the dumpsters too. In extreme difficulty they must also live outside on the lot.

Your sim should get married, if you want to make life a little easier on them! If you want to make the challenge even harder, you can choose to disallow immediate elopement and require a proper goaled wedding event. A spouse has the same rules as your sim and cannot have a job etc. You can choose to make them responsible for raising any children or they can also help with dumpster diving and sales. You can have natural born children or adopt children. If you have not completed the wealth aspiration of your difficulty choice within the first generation, you can choose how to pick an heir, who will simply take over where your founder left off, on their young adult birthday.
Generation or Challenge End
If you complete the challenge in a single generation, be sure to take a screenshot of your sims stats. On windows you can do this by holding down the windows key and the prt scn key at the same time. Otherwise take a photo on your mobile phone. If it takes more generations, every time the next heir takes over, screenshot the outgoing heirs stats. These are important for scoring.
Scoring
Choosing hard difficulty: 50 points
Paying off your Home Lot: 10 points
Having a Goaled Wedding Event: 20 points
Having a Happy Toddler Trait: 10 points
Having a Completed Child Aspiration: 10 points
Grade A Student Child and Teen: 10 points
Completing Challenge in One Generation (must still marry and raise child/ren to young adult): 100 points
In Two Generations: 90 points
In Three Generations: 80 points
In Four Generations: 70 points
In Five Generations: 60 points
Blogging/Sharing Challenge on Boolprop: 20 points
Power Cut off: -10 points
Water Cut off: -10 points
Repo man: -20 points
Any household Sim Deaths: -20 points
Baby, Toddler or Child taken away: -20 points

For Every Positive Emotion total: 5 points
For every Negative Emotion total: -2 points.
Example: Your sim stats show your sim has been happy, confident, inspired, energetic and focused 100 times in total. 100 x 5 points = 500 points. Then your stats show your sim has been uncomfortable, dazed, scared, sad and tense 80 times in total. 80 x 2 points = -160 points.
Tips and Tricks
Firstly this challenge is hard. Be prepared for it to drive you crazy and turn you into a possessive obsessed dumpster diving madman, screaming at Geoffrey to get out of your dumpster! Your sim is going to have a HARD time...as are you! Depending on the packs you have, death is a real concern. Get distracted and they may start freezing to death. Think your sim is safe sleeping in their bed outdoors in a thunderstorm? Nope, they will wake up just to get hit by lightning. Even eating harvestables can cause tummy bugs that have them rushing for the toilet...if they have been lucky enough to find one or skilled up enough to craft one. Base game fruit and veg don't seem to cause this affect, so be careful what your sim eats! They will be almost permanently dirty, hungry, tired and plain miserable for quite a while.

Your inventory will also fill up with all sorts of things that you cant sell. The recycling machine is your friend, either use one at the community space or get your own as soon as you are able and recycle everything that is of no use. Be warned, being a hoarder and keeping lots of useless expensive items in your household inventory WILL result in huge bills! I found this out the hard way. I literally had the cheapest bed on my lot only but lots of things in the household inventory that I hadn't taken care of. Bill came in, $1700 simoleons. Ouch!

Do your research on the traits listed above that you can choose one of. I did some play testing of the freegan trait for example and found it usually results in finding more simoleons than usual in dumpsters. Pick carefully.

If you have seasons, again pick your starting season carefully. You want enough time to get established and let me tell you that it took my sim nearly two in game weeks to even find a bed they could use from the dumpster! Heavy rain is a good thing, your sims can shower in it and get clean. Think about when to have a family, you will need to split your time between having your sim dumpster dive, tend any garden, work in their retail store and/or hold yard sales, compete with the weather and keep their needs up. If you have to wait until your sim is into their adulthood, so be it.

Influence is your friend. Don't spend all your time dumpster diving, when the game starts you only have around 24 sim hours to gain enough influence to vote on your nap plans and community space. You don't want to end up with sharing is caring and your hard earned furnishing being swiped left right and centre! Dont forget, certain naps can give you a reduction in your bills!

It's tempting to sell all your upgrade parts. But remember, these parts can make that rubbish bed extra comfy, or a shower keep you cleaner for longer. Strategy, my fellow simmer.

This is quite an in depth challenge and I may have missed things when trying to type it all up, so please feel free to ask questions and honestly, give it a go. It made me fall in love with Eco Lifestyle!
My Stories
Find My Never Say Never, Extreme Dumpster and One Percent Challenge Rules HERE
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