how to modify a custom career, in a very basic way

How to modify a custom career, in a very, very basic way: and some super dorky experiments in binary math!!! Woohoo! LOL! This tutorial assumes a very basic knowledge of SimPe, and is probably a great way to dip your toes into using SimPe if you've never used it before. Modifying custom careers was one of the first things I tried with SimPe.

Also, at the end, I've uploaded my modified stay-at-home parent career.

First we'll start with something very easy, modifying the daily wages.

Click on your BCONs, these are one of two things you're allowed to touch. Also note the Text Lists at the bottom, you'll be allowed to go in there too. Anything else is over my head, and if you bork your file, I can't help you, lol!

So click on your BCONs and to the right, all your BCON files will come up. I don't know what all of these do, but the ones you can change are pretty self-explanatory.

Click on > Tuning - Daily Wages.

Down below, you'll see eleven lines, line numbered by the hex value (decimal). The corresponding value is in hexadecimal. For any one of these sections, the 0x0 (0) line is always for the "unemployed" field of the career, so leave that alone. Each line after corresponds to the career level.

To the left, you'll see two boxes, and this is where you'll change your value. You want to put your numbers in the "dec" box, for decimal. Unless of course you happen to think in hexadecimal, and if you do, more power to ya ;) It will automatically convert this to hexadecimal for you, and change the corresponding value.

Change your values all the way down the lines. Don't forget to commit (to the right of this box), and save (at the top).

That's it, done! :)

Other things you can modify are: start hour, hours per day, family friends, and skills required (by a multiplication of 100).

Work day flags is trickier, and here's were the dork-fest begins...

The work days are set up by a binary code of each of the days of the week, converted to hexadecimal. Binary/Decimal/Hexadecimal converter here.

You lay out the binary number by the days of the week - 0 meaning doesn't work, 1 meaning works - starting with Monday from right to left (week = SSFRWTM). So if you want your Sim to work Monday through Thursday (as I've set up in my career), it would look like this:

0001111

That converts to a decimal value of 15, and hexadecimal 000F.

Another example, if you want your Sim to work Monday, Wednesday, Friday, it would look like this:

0010101

Which converts to a decimal value of 21, and hexadecimal 15.

If you put either the decimal or the hexadecimal value in SimPe, it should automatically convert the other value for you.

The other thing you can modify is the Text Lists:

First is your career titles and descriptions. There are 40 lines, 0-20 for the male titles and descriptions, and 21-40 for the female titles and descriptions.

Don't touch the attribute lists, or the call named tree, or outfits.

The other text list you can modify is your chance cards. I've never modified chance cards before, not because it's hard or anything, but because each card needs 10 different paragraphs written, and it looks like a royal pain in the ass! But I can tell you how, if you feel so inclined ;)

Starting with the first set:
(19) Choice A
(20) Choice B
(21) The question: male
(22) The question: female
(23) Chose A, and it passes: male
(24) Chose A, and it passes: female
(25) Chose A, and it fails: male
(26) Chose A, and it fails: female
(27) Chose B, and it passes: male
(28) Chose B, and it passes: female
(29) Chose B, and it fails: male
(30) Chose B, and it fails: female

And you'll carry on down the line with this pattern, one set for each of 10 levels. OMG, that was a chore just writing that out! I can't even imagine writing out actual paragraphs for each and doing that ten times over!

This only modifies the text of the chance cards though. To modify all the bonuses and penalties, you'll go into the BCONs, and the tuning for each bonus or penalty is sorted by choice (A or B), then by skill, good/bad, money, or job level.

Doesn't that all make your head spin??? May we all bow down to custom career creators!!!

I've attached a custom career below that I've modified myself from someone else's career. This is similar to how you would make your own custom career from scratch as well, except you'd modify everything from a blank template.

(ETA: another custom career tutorial and blank career template. This is a really good tutorial for if you want to write your own whole custom career from scratch.)

I originally wanted a Stay-at-Home Parent career as a placeholder, so my at-home parents wouldn't keep rolling wants to get a job. I found one at MTS that was along the right lines, but I wanted to tweak it to suit my needs. I couldn't find the original on MTS (or any custom careers for that matter... where did they all go???), so I can't link to the original. I didn't write the chance cards for this, and it does have some, but I can't vouch for their contents, lol! So sorry if they don't make sense. Like I said above, chance cards look like holy hell to write, and I have no desire to do so!

(ETA: found! Modified from the Stay-at-Home Parent career by Sassie Teffie)

I just cheat them in to this career if I want them to have it, by the way, because you don't need to apply to be a stay-at-home parent :)

Stay-at-home Parent Career: because parenting is serious business!
1.) Playgroup Member $10
2.) Playgroup Leader $20
3.) Carpool Driver $30
4.) New Parent Call Volunteer $40
5.) PTA Member $50
6.) PTA Council $100
7.) Parenting Class Teacher $150
8.) Parenting Magazine Contributor $200
9.) Daddy/Mommy Blogger $500
10.) Parenting Guru $1000

(download here)

Works Monday through Thursday, for one hour a day, at 8pm, to minimize conflicts with the other working parent of the household. Skills focus on just a base knowledge of cooking and mechanical (because I can attest to the fact that you don't need to cook very fancy stuff to stay at home with kids, lol!), mid levels of cleaning and charisma, and high levels of creativity and logic to reach the top. Pay is quite nice towards the top, but they'll need to be very skilled to get that far :)

Keep in mind, because this is a one-hour job, you cannot be even one minute late to work, or you'll miss the whole day. Because you'll be one hour from the end of your shift, and that's just the way the game works.

I tested it on Piper :) And she rolled up this, while I was in there, and it reminded me that someone over on Carla's blog wondered about can you roll a baby want if you're not married, and Piper wanted to answer, "Oooh, oooh, me me!!! I'll have one!"

She's been wanting a baby since about the minute she dropped out of college, lol! Since long before she even had a man to have one with! And if it wasn't impossible for her to roll a baby want as a YA, she probably would have then too :)