Sims 2 open business more customers

The adage of business is "location, location, location. Among other reasons, airline tickets to Japan would be a giant pain the expense account. In Sims 2: OFB, location is less about the physical location than it is the lot size and neighborhood sector. For example, whether you place your business lot in the precise center of the neighborhood or the very corner, you'll get the same number of customers.

A business's success depends entirely on the amount of work you put into hiring employees, stocking shelves, and the efficiency of your shop. We'll get to those finer details later. Lot size also plays a large part in things. A large lot will have an extremely high initial cost so high that you pretty much can't do it with a first-generation Sim , but it has the largest chance of expanding. Of course, as we'll talk about soon, lot size may be irrelevant for expansion; if it's your first business, smaller really is better.

Now, all this information may be irrelevant if you choose to do what many Americans have started doing lately. Specifically, you can turn your house into a business lot!

Here are the facts, pros, and cons First of all, you need to think in time. It takes loading time when you load new lots, and if you're on a weak machine, then this can grate on your nerves. Generally speaking, on a 1. Still, this guide writer has incredible patience; you may not. The point is, every time you make a transfer from a home lot to a business lot, there will be a loading time; using the home lot as a business lot also eliminates that time.

Also, your Sims will need to worry about transport time. Even if you have an Alienware rig, your Sim will still need to walk to the car or taxi to transfer between lots.

Granted, this doesn't take much time in the grand scheme of things. But, like loading times, it may grate on your nerves. Combining your house lot and business lot will eliminate this time too.

Secondly, think about the cost. We know the symbol for simoleons isn't the American dollar sign, but sue us, we're too lazy to type the special character. First-generation Sims will need to be extremely lucky to afford much more than a small lot, and that's assuming he doesn't care about expanding his house.

Conversely, starting a home business is free. Yes, you read that right: there is no fee to flag your home as both a house and a business. There is the natural cost of needing to stock your shelves and so on, but that's going to happen no matter where your business is. Your Sims' privacy isn't exactly a huge issue. Still, customers will get in the way of your family, eat their food, clog the toilets Make a separate living area upstairs with it's own entryway.

Be sure you lock the doors and make the entry Household Only, otherwise, you'll have lot visitors watching your tv and eating your food. You can pick any car out of buy mode and put them on the driveways. Use the Open and Closed sign for your business Community Lot: Create a lot, pave it and place your office where ever you want.

Get the round car displays in the OFB collection folder or in the Misc folder and put them on the lot. To Place the Cars: - The owner has to be on the lot. The car category is normally greyed out on commerical lots. To place cars on the car shelves, you have to click on the Wholesale icon on the Business manager menu, located in the upper right corner of the screen. Pick the ones you want and place them on the round car platforms. The wholesale mode makes them glow yellow.

Now price them, either individually or as a class. Just like Nightlife added vampires and University added Zombies, this expansion pack also has its special To make robots, you need talent badges, different colors depending on the robot.

You craft them at the Non-deadly robot crafting station. Robots each need a special station where they can recharge. When you are finished using your robots click turn off and they will return to their charging station. Servo is the only robot that doesn't need a charging station. Instead he charged up in the sunlight.

Sometimes robots will break, causing them to break things. There isn't much you can do about this, just wait until it shuts down and then repair it. Once I created a robot which was already broken, most likely because I only had 2 mechanical skill points. Below is a list of the 5 different robots in Open For Business, what you need to make them, what they do, and also how much they cost to make. Either mark Servo for sale or activate it to make it a member of the family.

You will be promted to whether you want your Servo to be male of female. Make sure that you have a free slot avaliable for Servo. This is why Servo is so cool. He is played like any other sim, and can get a job, woohoo ect. The only thing that Servo can not do is try for a baby. Once activated he will have 10 cooking skill points, 10 mech skill points and 10 cleaning skill points. Servo's other skills will be given depending on the skills on the sim who activates it. Servo will also have the same personality and same aspiration of the Sim who activates it.

Servo will also have some talent badges, but these are chosen randomly, and are not affected by the sim who activates him. Servo has 4 needs - Fun, Power, Social and Environment. To get fun, social and environment works like a normal sim. Power is like energy, Servo recharges when he goes into the sunlight.

You can freeze Servos needs by turning him off. This is good when you have alot of sims on one lot and are mainly using Servo to do chores. Servo will never grow up and therefore will never die of old age.

This means that Servo can stay in your familt for generations. He can still die of fire, sickness, satalite ect. Servos can create other Servos if they have a gold talent badge in robotics. If there is a hungry sim at your house then he will leave the lot and return with food. This could be food from takeaways or food that you can cook at home. Bad thing is you have to pay for the food.

When broken this robot will bring back burnt food. He will get rid of burglars, stop people stealing your newspaper or kicking over your rubbish bin. When broken SentryBot will electrocute sims which may lead to them being killed. Will spray water on fires when they occur, no more need for those terrible alarms. When broken HydroBot will spray ater everywhere which will cause loads of puddles, great for sims who want cleaning skills, bad for environment score.

Will clean up old food, wash away puddles and generally keep the house looking tidy. When broken Cleanbot will throw rubbish everywhere, not very good for your environment score.

May also lead to being killed by flies! Not as good as the robots of course but still, there is alot of fun to be had. High Mechanical skills help when building toys. This item is pretty cool, it can even learn a trick!!! Even though the trick is Play Dead its still a pretty cool item. Still, its worth a purchase to given that authentic look to your kids bedrooms. Sort of like a Spinny See-Saw type toy for two people. This toy also looks pretty cool, but as with the Twirl, Spin and Wobble takes up a fair bit of space.

Flowers are also alot cheaper to produce in large quantities than robots so it may be the way to go if you are just starting out. High Creativity helps with Flower Arranging. After some experiment I have discovered that Snap-Dragon Bouquets are easily the most powerful new item in the game not counting Servo which is not really an item anyway. A well-made Snap-dragons release a pink mist that boosts 6 of a Sims needs, excluding energy and environment as opposed to an "evil" bouquet which releases sickly green mist that drains needs, you need to watch out for those.

This has "exploit" written all over it. A single Bouquet on its own does not do much, but their effects stack, so if you say, surround a crafting workbench with these fantastic flowers, the worker there whether an employee or one of your own controlled sims can work almost indefinitely, limited only by energy.

Or build a needs-based charge by the hour business using these flowers as the backbone. Not just that, it applies to Artist easel, while studying subjects from books, working out, even sleeping! If you surround a bed with these, your Sim will wake up extremely refreshed. Basically, a sim can survive with a large bunch of Snap-dragons and a bed. An artist sim just needs these around his bed and his easel, and he can keep churning out master pieces, stopping only for sleep.

Surrounding a workout bench with them keeps hygiene up, nullifying the hygiene destroying effects of the workout! This plant is so powerful it almost renders the various needs based boosts maxmotives, and the rally forth perk useless.

And they are relatively cheap to boot, costing dollars wholesale. Basically, get one gold-badge florists to churn these out, set them on sale on a community lot, and get your other sims to visit that lot to buy these flowers. You should also note that your chances of getting a green or pink snapdragon seem to be dependent on your aspiration levels. So make sure your florist is platinum.

Snapdragons work within a 3 tile radius, except at the diagonal extremes. But if you are in a different room, then the effect stops why the pink mist cant go through fences? No one knows The compensation point: This is the number of snapdragons that you need to be in the radius of, in order to your 6 motives maxed out. Normally, your sims bladder decreases the fastest among the motives, so this is the "weak link" to watch out for.

This also varies for the activity you are doing: Working out on the exerto machine needs 6 snapdragons around to keep hygiene maxed. But otherwise, if you are just standing around, will do. But there seems to be some random factor with these snapdragons, so with bouquets, if you check on your sim, the bladder may drop a bit, and then recover after a while.

Therefore 4 or more is recommended to help your motives recover e. If you need huge numbers e. Back up your game 2. Open the goldbadge florist 3.

Using setaspiration 5 for platinum mood , maxmotives and motherlode, churn out, maybe about snapdragons, or however many you want preferably slightly more in case some are of the green variety 4. Lay them out on the lot and observe them, preferably in batches, ensure they are all pink 5.

Load them all up into the inventory of the meditator 6. Get the meditator to buy a completely empty small community lot 1x3 or 2x2 will do. Ensure that it is community, not residential 7. Send the meditator there, and get him to start meditating 8. Unload all the garunteed pink snapdragons onto the community lot.

Leave them in the open, and meditate for about 5 days, until the price of each drops to from normal depreciation. Send the meditator back home, sell the lot. Package the lot, save the package somewhere This can be done more than once if the snapdragons from 1 lot are not enough.

If you don't need them all, just take whatever you need, you will get your money back when you sell it. One last thing to note, stacking them on shelves stops their effects, so you have to place these flowers on the ground.

It requires a fair amount of starting capital to purchase the facilities needed, but otherwise its a solid choice for any entrepeneurial Sim. However, your neighbourhood may appear a bit boring if all you have are pay per hour businesses, but I digress. I have gotten the first few stages to work on a residential home business.

Nonetheless, a community lot has several advantages, the main one being that time does not pass, the disadvantage being slow and painful loading time. However, the ultimate end stages MUST be run on a community lot.

I also recommend you keep your lot small e. The key to building a decent pay by hour business are 1. Lots snapdragons specifically pink ones, at least around 20, but the more the better 2. Expresso and something to clean up the cups with e. The thing with which you use to occupy your customers will vary depending on the expansion packs you have. With no other pack, then hottubs and pinball machines will do.

With other expansions, you can bring in pool tables, poker tables, bowling alleys etc. Starting capital needed: If you are getting everything brand new, then be prepared to fork out 20k over. Otherwise, you might use a pre-fabricated and depreciated lot, that may set you back maybe 10k or less. See my extra notes below for how to make depreciated lots Note that this is only for a decent business. There are a total of 5 stages, each stage needs everything from the previous stage, and has ever increasing additional requirements and payoffs : 1.

Decent Pay off: several hundred a day, Requirements: as above 2. Level 10 business. And you need to squeeze all your customers into the rally forth zone see below. Sales sim with gold badge and friends with townies further needs to have manipulate. Choosing Customer Objects There are 5 things to consider when selecting which object to occupy your customer with: 1. AI preference: This is the likelihood that the AI will use the object without micromanagement or interference from you.

There is a quick and simple experiment to determine AI preference. Simply place a variety of objects on a lot, and see which one the AI will consistently go for.

This depends on the nature of the object. On the other hand, Sims in a hottub will only come out when called out by you, or when one of their needs is low and if they are surrounded by snapdragons they effectively wont come out till their energy is critical and they want to go home. So a hottub has virtually no interuptability, while a pinball machine is easily interupted. Social Interactivity: This is important if your aim is to climb up business ranks as quickly as possible.

Basically, customers gain loyalty stars for positive social interactions, so if you want to gain stars quickly, then use objects that allow social interactions between customers. For example, hot tubs can have up to 4 customers talking to one another. Swings on the other hand, are a relatively lonely affair.

In these combos, you use rally forth on your customers, but rally forth has a limited area see below for details , so you need objects that confine customers to a small area. A hottub on the other hand takes 9 tiles, and holds 4 customers. CPU burden. This is the burden that using the object will have on your CPU.

There is no easy direct way of measuring this. But basically, if your CPU slows down when you have 20 customers in hottubs, but a similiar slow down happens only when you squeeze 40 customers in front of a TV, then hottubs have a higher CPU burden.

And to a lesser extent, interruptability. You can mix your objects to help control customers. I put several hottubs and 1 pinball machine on my lot.

The pinball machines have high AI preference, and will keep fresh customers occupied to prevent poking fests , until I can micromanage my sim to ask them to join the hot tub. The Rally Forth Area Rally forth covers an approximately circular 12x12 tile area, and takes up 2x2 tiles at the centre. In other words Where o is the area of coverage R is the the rally forth area. You also need to find a way to ensure your rally forth Sim performs rally forth at the middle otherwise he may not cover the original area intended, and may miss some customers.

The easiest way to do that would be to put a little fencing at the centre area to ensure he rallies there. And when I say fencing, I mean using snapdragons to block out the area. That way you can easily visualize how your customer objects should fit. The Practical CPU limit Unfortunately, not all of us run lightning fast computers. As a result, the sims 2 seems to limit the maximum number of customers on your lot henceforth referred to as max cust.

This number also depends on the number of controllable sims you have. Normally, it tries to give you at least 3 max cust, and adds another 1 for approximately every 2 ranks you gain so at rank 10, you get 8. But there is a lower maximum overall sim number that you will hit, which seems to be based on your CPU speed. While another business with only 1 controllable sim, had 3 max customers at rank 0, and then reached 4 max cust at rank 2, and 5 max cust at rank 4, but then this increase stopped.

See the pattern? So my maximum overall sim limit on a lot is 6. If your game slows to a slide show, and starts crashing more often, then you might want to lower the limit back to where it was previously. Obviously, any business an benefit from having more customers, but use it with care.

It also seems you need to re-enter the code each time you enter Sims 2, possibly because the game recalculates the maximum overall number each time it restarts. I now go on to the 5 stages you can reach, for pay per hour businesses. Each higher stage builds on principles in the previous one, so if you are a beginner, I recommmend going stage by stage, starting with the simplest.

Also, scatter snapdragons in the ticketing area, to keep improve customer mood, so that they will be more susceptible to sales social. If you can afford it, you can place a solid row of snapdragons across the entire front of the lot, so that by the time your customers reach the ticketing machine, they will be completely helpless to your swindling.

Because snapdragons take care of everything, you dont even need toilets, baths or food. And you don't need employees. Just one sim the owner can run this on his own, in a community or home lot.

If you set your prices to cheap or average, and most customers will buy your tickets and come in without needing you to sell to them.

However, now is a good time to build up your sales social, so you can instead set it to expensive or higher and get your sim to keep doing basic sell, trying to make more money in the process. In between customers, chug expresso to keep energy up, and surround your sim with snapdragons to take care of all his other needs.

The goals at this stage are 3 fold: 1. A Good business Once you gain the gold sales badge, you can jump to the next stage. And then you use Dazzle rather than basic sell, and you can convince townies to buy your your overpriced tickets your other playable sims on the other hand generally don't have enough cash, and should be driven away. Notably, you can't pull off more than 11 dazzles in a row as your energy will bottom out.

Following the same system as above, they will stay until their energy is depleted, but this time round, they will be paying you far larger amounts. The most obvious examples of this are crafted items made on workbenches : flower arrangements , toys , and robots. If FreeTime is also installed, objects made on the pottery and sewing benches can be sold.

With FreeTime , it's even possible to sell restored cars. If Apartment Life is installed, potions and other witch -made items can be sold as well. If Seasons is also installed, fish and produce can be sold. If Pets is also installed, shops can sell pets. With Apartment Life installed, reagents and other items for witches can be sold as well.

The various potions can be placed on sale, and once sold, can be restocked in the same way as Buy mode objects. More expensive objects have the highest potential profits when sold. The most valuable wholesale items in the game, in ascending order, are the Temple of Jumbok IV , the Aquabox "60 Gallons of Awesome" Aquarium , the helicopter , the large skating rinks , and the pirate ship.

Of these, the aquarium is the most practical because it is far smaller. Shops can sell services such as makeovers. With Bon Voyage , a shop that has the massage table can sell massages. Deeds to other lots can also be sold in a business. If Bon Voyage is installed, deeds to vacation homes can also be marked for sale.

The Bluewater Village district has pre-made examples of many different types of shops, some of which are already owned. Venues are places, such as clubs and arcades, which sell the opportunity to satisfy motives. This is done through the Electrono-Ticket Machine , which allows the owner to charge Sims for staying on the lot. Once the owner, or a member of the owner's household, has set a price and decided to start charging, potential customers will gather at the Electrono-Ticket Machine, and consider whether or not they want to come in.

This works like making a sale in a shop, except that what is being sold is the idea of staying on the lot for a while. Once the sale is made, the customer will go to the ticket machine, take a ticket, and enter the venue. While there, they will periodically be charged the ticket price. As with selling items in shops, setting the ticket price higher means that tickets will be harder to sell. If a venue has a kitchen with a stove , it is best to put it behind doors that only household members and employees can use.

Otherwise, hungry customers will use the kitchen, and will sometimes leave food on the stove or in the oven. This can lead to burned food or even a fire. If a player wants to have a venue serve food, one way is to have a household member make it, then enter Buy mode and place the food outside of the kitchen area. When customers get hungry enough, they will serve themselves.

Customers who visit a business will earn or lose customer loyalty stars based on positive or negative interactions and experiences. Acquiring customer loyalty stars causes a business's rank to increase, which opens up new business perks. Businesses can be randomly reviewed by special reviewer NPCs. Reviewers pose as normal customers in a business, browsing or partaking in the business's services, often while jotting down notes in a notebook.

After some time in the business, a reviewer will talk to the owner or manager and reveal the outcome of their review. Businesses can either receive a good review or a bad review. The outcome of a review has an impact on the popularity of a Sim's business; a good review will bring in more customers, while a bad review will reduce the number of customers.

Businesses can receive a special "Best of the Best" award for an exceptionally good review; this award comes with a boost in customer traffic, and also gives the business owner a special plaque that can be placed in the business, impressing customers who stop to look at it. With the Midnight Hollow downloadable world comes from the Savvy Seller's Collection that is an included premium content set.

It allows the player to set up and run item shops on any type of lot, even if neither of the Sims of the households owns the establishment. The set that features a system of managing the store which is much more limited and different from other games where the game mechanic is present. Instead of being marked with a tag tool or clicking on the items to be set for sale, objects are required to be placed above shop-specialized rugs, pedestals or shelves to be marked for sale. Cars have their own object that can be placed to be put for sale.

Another difference in the game mechanics, the cash register that comes with the set isn't required for the established store to function.