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Post by fetaplop on Feb 9, 2021 10:32:51 GMT -5
Hiya, this might sound a bit strange but I thought it doesn't hurt asking.. :D Why?? Well I'm a physics student myself, would be cool to know if there are others out there (out here?), students, grad students, postdocs, anything..! AND I'm currently making a physicist career* and I'd be curious to hear any suggestions or maybe feedback if someone wants to test it out.  Also it'd be cool to chat anyways! Actually anyone with a degree in natural sciences would be helpful because I'm a little unsure of the post-graduation phases of academic careers. Obviously it can be a little different in different countries but I'd say it's mostly the same. * I might actually branch this out and make some other specific fields, probably biologist at least. This all started because I was so annoyed about the cartoony, ridiculous way that "sCieENcE cAreEr" is portrayed in the game with relevant skills being handiness, fishing and gardening (?!). Like you can take the microscope (help) and take a look at plant samples, or, if you're feeling more like it, metals or rocks. And then wrap up your work day by calling ET... You get the picture! Even though it's wacky and Sims, it could at least try to be cohesive! |
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Post by freeasabird on Apr 1, 2021 8:16:36 GMT -5
Hey I'm not a physicist, I have a psychology degree and have studied evolutionary Biology and history at degree level. And I too am always stunned by the stupidity of the so called science career. Seriously who does that in a lab, and the 'tourists'? What? I can only conclude the people who made that had never set foot in a real lab or even seen a working lab on tv. I am interested to know what you would include in a physicist career, I have a fascination for this science but no qualifications, but to play at being a physicist would be brilliant. I am thinking about what would seem right to me, a whiteboard for calculations, a supercomputer for testing theories, lots of other physicists to argue with  I am thinking about The tv show the Big Bang Theory they had a lot of cool machines to play with but the Sims don't  oh well. It would be nice to go to a science job and not have to freeze people, make them change clothes and hug tourists (shudder). One of my favourite shows is How The Universe Works, We don't see them working but these guys do have social profiles, and might be able to give you some info? Phil Plait and Michio Kaku have YouTube channels. I know Michelle Thaller is a lovely lady, supersmart and works for Nasa. Or maybe just catching a show or two will generate some ideas. One of my favourite episodes, S05, ep 2 The Mystery of Planet 9. |
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Post by fetaplop on Apr 8, 2021 11:38:24 GMT -5
freeasabird yay I already gave up and thought I'm not going to find a fellow scientist here so I'm very glad you responded! :D So what I had planned would be a more realistic physicist career so that the skills and tasks required for promotions would make more sense. Also I planned it so that you could start as a research assistant (I'm applying stuff I know or have done while working as research assistant myself) when you're still in university but after a certain point you would need to get a degree to be able to continue further on your career (I mean, like it actually goes :D). So this means that my mod would require Discover University (or heavy use of cheats to be able to progress without the pack) and therefore I could see myself creating more careers using the available majors we have in game (so at least biology!). But I'm a physicist myself so that is obviously my main focus but I'm sure a lot of the code could be re-used for other careers. Obviously I would need help from other academic simmers with fields that I'm not familiar with. I have already fleshed out a general structure for the career with a lot of hopes and dreams for backlog but for now I managed to create 5 levels with promotion tasks, a reward trait and whatnot. I'm aiming to make it so that at the top (lvl 10) you would be a research group leader / professor. But I'm kind of struggling with the levels after graduation and what I'd want them to be. One is certainly going to be post doc, then it would make sense to have thesis worker too, but then what to have as the levels leading to research group leader..? Currently I have the first 5 levels thought to be leading up to graduation so you could jump straight to level 6 if you have a degree in physics. But levels 6-9 I'm a bit unsure of.. Like what they would represent in real life and what to call those levels? I'm kinda stuck at the moment.. :D Also.. "hug tourists"?? What?! :D I clearly had less patience for the wacky science career than you did.. But I thought some of the items from Get to Work could be usable, maybe even that horrifying telescope. Of course for now I'm aiming for a "minimum viable product", using the equipment would probably have more to do with different career tracks which could, for instance, include something like geophysics, theoretical physics, astronomy/space physics.. But that's for later! First I need something working with just one track. I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts or comments! (and if anyone else.. ever sees this message, I'd love to hear any comments :D)
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Post by freeasabird on May 4, 2021 19:40:45 GMT -5
Sounds good so far. I have Discover University and it does have a physics degree option, although due to the bonkers career options its only good for a couple of jobs. I would love to see your range of jobs (geophysics, theoretical physics, astronomy/space physics). Exobiology would have been a simple option for Maxis to add but didn't so that would be cool. The strange thing is they have the rock collecting, crystals, minerals and elements and even (badly done) fossils but they are seriously underused. I have a totally insane collecting addiction that ends in shelves full of specimens and nothing to do with them  So maybe you could include something that at least pretends that they were needed? I have had a think about the career progression but this is not my area of expertise. There is one thing I thought of. Over here to be a professor is the highest award that can be given by a university. It can't be earnt through a course nor is it a position that can be applied for. Its given as recognition for a significant contribution to the knowledge of the field you are working in. Like Professor Hawking. So maybe that could be the highest position for one of your careers? Oh as an added thought Discover University doesn't have any MA, BA or PhDs so as you maybe they could be included as stepping stones too? I have a very limited patience for the science lab job, I go there mainly because I spend hours trying to make the lab really cool. I also have a mod by coolspear that ensure that the first task completed means that the stupid work is complete and I can then do what I want until home time. None of which has ever been changing the workers clothes, freezing them or hugging them, in fact it's generally avoiding them  The Lab a while ago.  |
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Post by fetaplop on May 15, 2021 15:46:54 GMT -5
Oh yeah, exobiology would make sense too, thank you for the suggestion!
I totally agree with you about all the objects that are so underused, they seem like such an oversight! There are some tasks in the Science career where you're required to take samples and look at them (at least for minerals and plants, do we have that for fossils? Can you take samples of them and look at them with the gigantic microscope?) and that's some of the few good parts about the career in my opinion. But I would love to take advantage of those gameplay options and use them for daily tasks or something.
Ok I have to ask, what do MA and BA stand for? Arts? :D Master/Bachelor of Arts? I'm not very knowledgeable about degree terminology in English.
In my university and the research group I worked for we had the professor of that unit also as the research group leader which totally makes sense and I think I'd aim for that kind of a design choice for my careers too. And I don't see how one could further their career any further from that point so it would make most sense to be the level 10 position. Then I'm thinking about other people in our research group who I see as being next in line after the professor but I'm just.. struggling to define how they stand out from the other researchers. Having a doctorate at that point is not really a "big deal", it's more like required. I dunno, maybe like senior research scientist or something? Head of computational or experimental group (section? division? The research group is actually divided into two parts: others do theoretical work, which is labelled the "computational group" while the others do all the experiments and are thus labelled the "experimental group" but obviously the whole research group is conducting research on the same topics.. I wish there was some kind of universal standard for this kind of terminology!) would also be a good candidate for the 9th level.
I don't want to get ahead of myself but actually.. I dream of completely reworking the silly science career. I don't even know if it's possible but hey, a girl can dream. Obviously I could probably reuse a lot of code from these custom science careers. I know that I have to keep my focus on smaller tasks for now to get myself more familiar with how the game works and learn to become a somewhat decent modder first.. :D It's such a challenge to keep motivated with the constant patches and learning resources being kinda scarce. (And well, I have actual school stuff to do too! :D) Some amazing modders have done amazing tutorials but since all the information is scattered around the internet and there is no material (or I haven't found it yet) concerning kind of like.. All of the basics and what kind of things are handled and how. Especially it bugs me how it's difficult to understand the different tags in XML, as in why do I need this tag and not that one, why are the code blocks as they are and what kind of stuff is allowed to be put in them. If I want to learn a specific programming language I will easily find material to work with but there's no one to teach you how the Sims 4 works and it's frustrating. Also using mod constructor gets you going fast but there's the downside of not having to fully understand what's going on. Maybe it's especially hard for someone with an academic background since we're used to better materials. :D
Speaking of coolspear, I'm now trying out his fix for the simulation lag. I've only recently started to really experience it in my game but oh boy is it a nightmare! It takes 1-2 seconds to open the computer pie menu in game, I don't even want to play with this amount of lag. I hope I can sort this out..
Your lab looks cool, it feels like it's a scene from a SciFi film! :D
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Post by freeasabird on May 16, 2021 4:40:33 GMT -5
First "Ok I have to ask, what do MA and BA stand for? Arts? :D Master/Bachelor of Arts?" Yes they do, I am also curious as what the letters stand for at the end of film credits, directors and producers have letters after their names but I have never guessed their meanings. I just found out that Emeritus means "permitted to retain as an honorary title the rank of the last office held". I had seen that title but never given it much thought. I think designing a rank order for scientific jobs has to be a pain. I agree there is no universal structure, in real life a lot of senior jobs are simply " jobs for the boys" or made in the old boy network that is alive and still dragging along in England in the 21st Century. How about giving the position for the ninth level tenure? The terminology is different too, in psychology the experimental group is the one which is testing the hypothesis (the unlucky volunteers). I did have a thought about the science job in the game, maybe those programmers just made a job which they have always wanted to do. Not an accurate representation but a fantasy job, and seeing most programmers have a mean age of 15 we got freeze rays, clothes changers and the other stuff that would cause real life scientists to roll on the floor laughing. So maybe you should do the same thing. Make a career with all the ingredients that you would imagine as your ideal life choice, something you could commit to for the rest of your working life. Don't worry too much about the right terminology for the job titles instead concentrate on what you want for this. I would be really interested to what a real life scientist could dream of I don't blame you for wanting to rework the science career, I know coolspear did something along those lines. But he likes to party at work so after trying it, and it was fun, I went back to vanilla version. Although what I loved was the non stop party on the alien world. However, the game would generate new aliens every time I visited, you know how it is, the EA programmers have no thought about population stress, so I ended up with a HUGE bunch of aliens that drove me crazy. They were everywhere. I am sure there was another mod to stop this but I never got around to installing it. I have no skill in modding and less than that in programming. Like you I look at xml files but don't know which ones come first or why. I know that the game is designed as a sort of domino effect, so one action leads to another reaction and so on but how its written and executed is beyond my understanding. Eg I would love to take the option to offer a massage to anyone who a sims meets away from them. But its not on the massage table so I can only assume it's within a sims social programming a place I have never been and am too apprehensive to attempt. I once asked my cousin who took his PHd in game design, to 'Fix' my game. When I told him it was the Sims 4 he laughed and said, "Not without a proper dedicated game engine, the one EA used is a complete hash of leftovers". As you said, you are used to better materials. The lab does look like a movie set, it's because I have been too lazy to change those background sets to more science based objects. I am enamoured with the flashing lights and don't want to lose them, they look very cool in the lab, but rooster man and woman have to go, I will see if I can replace them with the suit from the robot station, (an iron Man lab!) would look a lot better (Yes the fossils can be analyzed with the microscope, it sometimes gives a collectable wall print, I think, like the plants and crystals.) |
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Post by fetaplop on May 19, 2021 11:55:58 GMT -5
Ahhh of course!! Thank you for reminding me! I just took a look at some of my earliest notes on this project and I already had Professor Emerita/Emeritus as the 10th level position but somehow I just forgot. :D Wow I think I have the levels pretty well figured out (like 90% is good enough at this point, I can always tweak them later anyways so yeah, it shouldn't be that serious lol), thanks so much for helping on that! Having the degree as a requirement would be the next big step but I'll just try to get a full length career track done first. MVP! Aiming for the MVP now! (minimum viable product in this case, not most valuable player :D) And thanks for the encouragement as well, I'm feeling motivated to work on this. The irony of life is that of course, right now I have some uni stuff to do.. I did some experiments at the lab (just part of a course) and now I have to analyse and write a report on them. :D Let's say I'll just take it as inspiration.. Oof I wanna open the project so bad right now but it'll have to wait until the report is done. Something that is inspiring in the sims is that we don't have nepotism and those 'brother' networks. When I played a bit with the active detective career, all of my co-workers were women, most of them black. ^^ I didn't set it up or anything, it was completely random. I just thought "only in the sims".. :D Damn I'd love to hear your cousin's thoughts about the game engine, I'm sure it'd be hilarious. Also I can totally see what you mean about that Science career being the programmers' fever dream about the "science-y" job they dreamed of as kids. :D If you have any favourites or just think that some of the gameplay seems particularly well executed in the Science career (or related stuff) feel free to mention them since it seems like you have played around with it more than I have. I might just forget they exist.. It's not exactly a stroll in the park to look for the interaction tuning with s4s and it helps to know what you're looking for! :D |
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Also it'd be cool to chat anyways!
oh well. It would be nice to go to a science job and not have to freeze people, make them change clothes and hug tourists (shudder). One of my favourite shows is How The Universe Works, We don't see them working but these guys do have social profiles, and might be able to give you some info? Phil Plait and Michio Kaku have YouTube channels. I know Michelle Thaller is a lovely lady, supersmart and works for Nasa. Or maybe just catching a show or two will generate some ideas. One of my favourite episodes, S05, ep 2 The Mystery of Planet 9.
So maybe you could include something that at least pretends that they were needed? 