Starfleet Career for The Sims 3

[Corylea]

There's a computer game called The Sims 3 that's what they call a life simulator; the little pixel people eat and sleep and get married and have babies ... and they also get jobs. There are eleven expansion packs for the game, of which Into the Future is the most recent. Well, if there's a whole expansion pack devoted to life in the future, it needs to have Starfleet in it, right? Well, now it does, because I've made a Starfleet career as a mod for the game. :-)

You can get the career at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=580458. The mod is completely free, though it does take The Sims 3 and the Into the Future expansion pack to play. It's based on TOS, so you'll see occasional references to Kirk, Spock, McCoy or Scotty, and the uniforms and career path are all TOSian in flavor.

Writing the text for the career levels, career opportunities, career events, and so on was more difficult that it might seem at first, because the proper tone for a Sims career -- based on the other careers in the game -- is mildly humorous and slightly snarky, whereas the proper tone for TOS is earnest and idealistic, and those tones don't mesh terribly well. I tried to give Starfleet a Sims spin without totally disrespecting the source material; I hope players will like it.

Since unfortunately Starfleet doesn't exist in the present day, this career is only available in the future – it's based out of the Stellar Observatory rabbithole – so you'll need the Into the Future expansion pack to play it.

Like all fan-made careers, this one requires the Nraas Career mod, or the career won't exist in your game. You can get the Nraas Career mod at http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Careers.


OVERVIEW

You can get the job by using a computer once you go to Oasis Landing (the future world in Into the Future), or you can go to the Stellar Observatory rabbithole and apply directly there.



The career levels are job descriptions, not just ranks. I figure the progression of Ensign - Lieutenant - Lieutenant Commander - Commander - Captain is not all that interesting; what's interesting is what FUNCTION your sim has in Starfleet. So that's what I gave you. :-)

The Starfleet career has two branches – the Command track or the Science and Ship's Services track – and you get to choose a track when you're promoted to 5th level. The Command track uses only base-game and Into the Future skills, so if you have Into the Future, you can play that track.

The Science and Ship's Services track also uses skills that came with Ambitions and University Life, so you'll need those two expansion packs to play that track. (If you don't have the necessary EP's, please don't try to play the Science track, or your sim's skill list will get messed up.)

There are custom tones for this career, including skill-building tones for both the base career and each branch.

There are a LOT of career events and career opportunities included with this career, and by "a lot," I mean 34 of them! They're weighted to come up quite often, so you should get a career event or opportunity nearly every day.

There are custom uniforms for this career, based on the uniforms of the original series.


LEVELS

For the first two levels, you'll be a student at Starfleet Academy; for levels 3 - 8, you'll be serving on a ship, and for levels 9 and 10, you'll be serving in a ground-based position. If you don't want to leave the ship, then don't learn the skills you need for promotion to Level 9, and you'll get to stay on the ship a bit longer. :-)

The Redshirt level is designed to be dangerous but NOT lethal:



Levels 3 - 6 assume that you're serving on the Enterprise, under Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. Once you reach either First Officer or Science Officer (depending on your track), the career assumes that you've transferred to another ship, since those positions are already filled on the Enterprise. Once at that level, the captain will be the same gender as your sim, so opportunities or events that refer to the captain will use "he" for male sims and "she" for female sims.

Some people like to know everything before they sign up for a career, whereas others think that being surprised is half the fun, so I've put the career levels under a cut tag. You can peek or not, as pleases you.

Spoiler

Career Levels

1. Plebe M,T,W,R,F 7 am - 3 pm §5/hour
Train your body and your mind, learn huge amounts of information, pass physical, mental, and psychological tests. Only the very best make it through the first year of Starfleet Academy!

2. Cadet M,T,W,R,F 7 am - 2 pm §10/hour
Continue to train your body and your mind. Learn all you can, because you never know what obscure fact or skill might save your life out there in the black.

3. Redshirt M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 2 pm §40/hour
You've graduated from the Academy and are now serving on a starship!

As a member of the Security team, it's your job to protect your captain on landing parties, guard dangerous prisoners on the ship, and generally get between trouble and the more important members of the crew.

Show a talent for survival (and for repairing broken machinery) if you want to be promoted.

4. Engineering Lad or Lass M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 2 pm §50/hour
You're the chief engineer's favorite minion, which means you get to monitor, maintain, and repair the engines. Hope you like getting your hands dirty, crawling through Jeffries tubes, and being sworn at in a Scottish accent.

COMMAND Track:

5. Navigator M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 2 pm §60/hour
You serve on the bridge now! This is where the action is.

Implementing the captain's orders about which course to follow is your responsibility. You don't want to end up on the wrong side of the Neutral Zone or in the heart of a star, so plot those courses carefully.

6. Helmsman M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 2 pm §75/hour
Piloting something as a big as a starship takes a good eye, steady nerves, and a thorough grasp of the laws of physics. Get good at evasive maneuvers if you want to live long enough to be promoted.

7. First Officer M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 3 pm §100/hour
It's the captain's job to focus on the mission and your job to keep the ship running smoothly so that everything he needs is ready whenever he needs it.

That means you get to handle everything from crew schedules to discipline to the procurement of resources. Plus, you get to go on landing parties to back up the captain whenever necessary.

Hope you don't need much sleep, because this is a BIG job!

8. Captain M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 3 pm §150/hour
You're an explorer, a diplomat, a cop, and a rescuer. You're the highest authority and the only recourse for hundreds of light years. That means you get to respond to emergencies on Federation planets, engage in high-level diplomacy with planets both allied and unallied, protect and defend Federation ships, planets, and personnel ... and squeeze in some exploration whenever you can. This can be a lonely job, but an astonishingly satisfying one.

9. Admiral M,T,W,R,F 9 am - 3 pm §300/hour
You let them promote you off the bridge of your ship, and now you fly a desk. But you get to make policy and bring all of your experience and know-how to the creation of that policy, so future starship captains will be guided by admirals who actually understand what it's like out there.

This is a good position for an older sim ... but part of your heart will always be out there in the black.

10. Commander in Chief, Starfleet M,T,W,R,F 10 am - 3 pm §500/hour
You're in charge of the whole thing; the buck really does stop here. You set the direction for hundreds of ships and thousands of people, using all of your experience and wisdom to make Starfleet's future ever better and brighter. Go ahead, implement your vision!

SCIENCE AND SHIP'S SERVICES Track:

5. Communications Officer M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 2 pm §60/hour
You serve on the bridge now! This is where the action is.

Incoming orders from Starfleet, outgoing reports from the captain, negotiations with alien ships, greetings to new planets, calls for help from landing parties ... it all goes through you.

Open those hailing frequencies and listen hard!

6. Computer Specialist M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 2 pm §70/hour
The computer controls the ship – everything from the helm to phasers to life support is computerized – so this is a key job. Do it well, and the captain and first officer will notice. Work on your logic and science skills if you'd like a position with more variety.

7. Astrophysicist M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 2 pm §85/hour
From star mapping to the analysis of nebulae, your job is to study the stellar objects all around you. You'll be expected to help the ship steer clear of black holes ... except when the captain wants to go back in time and has to slingshot around one for energy.

The rest of the crew may LOOK at stars, but you get to KNOW them.

8. Science Officer M,T,W,R,F 8 am - 3 pm §100/hour
You have information on every possible subject at your fingertips, the better to inform and advise the captain. You also manage all of the specialist scientists under your command, since as a generalist, only you have the knowledge to see how all those specialties fit together.

This may be the most intellectually satisfying job in Starfleet, except possibly for Head of Starfleet Research.

9. Instructor at Starfleet Academy M,T,W,R,F 7 am - 1 pm §200/hour
Science officer was a fun job, but it WAS a bit strenuous. As you age, it becomes your responsibility – and your privilege – to train the next generation of Starfleet officers.

It's hard to believe that you were ever this young and naive, but the next cohort of Starfleet officers comes from the kids you're teaching now!

10. Head of Starfleet Research M,T,W,R,F 10 am - 3 pm §400/hour
You know more about Science and Advanced Tech than anyone, which means you know where the gaps are. This makes you ideally suited to determine the overall research direction of every starship in the fleet AND to direct the groundside tech development that produces new and upgraded equipment for the people out there in the black.

You direct thousands of scientists on hundreds of ships and worlds; the future of Science herself is in your hands.

BRANCHES

This career is designed to let you grow up to be Kirk or Spock, and even to go beyond them, into job levels that are more appropriate for older sims (because you probably don't want to be getting into fist fights when you're 70. :-D) There's no way to grow up to be Scotty or McCoy, because their jobs require the specialized training of an entire track apiece, so including them would require FOUR career branches ... and the game engine doesn't allow that. :-)

If you decide to go for the Science and Ship's Services Track, you'll need the University Life and Ambitions expansion packs, in addition to Into the Future, because that track uses the Science skill that came with University Life EP and the Inventing skill that came with the Ambitions EP. (Spock knows how to do almost everything there is, so if you're going to grow up to be him, you'll have to learn a heck of a lot. But there are opportunities and events to help you!)

Please do NOT try to take the Science track if you don't have the necessary EP's, since that will mess up your sim's skill list! The Command track uses only base game and Into the Future skills, so you can still play the career even if you don't have Ambitions and University Life.


It wouldn't all fit in one message, so more in the next one!

 

[Corylea]

TONES

"Tone" is what they call that choice you make about how you work while you're AT work.

"Business as usual" is always called that; here's the line-up for the rest:

Work Hard = Work Like a Vulcan
Take It Easy = Relax in the Lounge
Meet Co-Workers = Meet Fellow Officers
Hang With Co-Workers = Hang Out with Fellow Officers
Suck up to Boss = Butter Up Your Superior Officer

Here's a screenshot with the Work Hard tone selected; hovering your cursor over any tone gives you a pop-up with a longer description of that tone:



There are also skill-building tones, and I've set those tones to be VERY effective at building skills, to the point of being kinda cheaty. I figure there will be some awesome technology to help us learn by the 23rd century, and Starfleet will have the best of it, so I do think the rapid skilling is appropriate under the circumstances. Players who want an easier career can use those skill-building tones, and players who like their careers difficult may wish to avoid using them. Before the branches split, there are

Play Chess – Builds Logic skill AND increases your Fun motive
Play with High-Tech Toys – Builds Advanced Technology skill

After the branches split, the Command branch has Practice Stirring Speeches, to build Charisma (and also increase the Social motive) and Read Equipment Manuals, to build the Advanced Tech skill. The Science and Services branch has Do Scientific Research to build the Science skill, Play 3-D Chess, to continue building Logic (and also increase the Fun motive), and Read Equipment Manuals, for Advanced Tech.


OPPORTUNITIES AND EVENTS

Career events are things that just happen – you get a pop-up telling you about it during play – whereas career opportunities are things where you get a choice about whether to accept, and you have to go DO something. As I said, the Starfleet career has 34 events and opportunities.

Of course, you won't get all 34 in any one play-through, since some are on one track and some on the other. But I do have the opportunities and events weighted quite high, so you should get quite a lot of them.

If you want to grow up to be Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock, you'll need a ridiculously large number of skills, because those guys can do nearly anything. In order not to make the career unplayably difficult, I've made a huge number of events and opportunities that give the player skills, so that you don't have to earn every single point.

But – you need to remember this – it isn't possible to give absolute numbers of skill points with a career; instead, the game engine allows me to give you a percentage of the skill points you already have in a given skill. This means that you'll want to use a skill-building book or object to gain at least one point of a skill, so those events and opportunities have something to build upon.

After you choose a track, you might get an opportunity that gives you a skill-building object for that track – a Charisma skill book for Command track or a Science Research Station for Science and Services track. Starfleet takes care of its own, so you don't need to buy that Charisma book or that Science Research Station; they'll just be issued to you. :-) Also, both the library and the base camp have skill-building bookcases, so you can read any skill books you want to, for free ... and the library has that useful Power Study moodlet that makes your reading more effective.

There's even a career event during the job's third level where I give you a large number of Lifetime Happiness points, so you can buy the Fast Learner trait, to speed up skill building. This event is weighted quite high, so although you aren't guaranteed to get it, the chances of your doing so are good. In fact, if you spend more than one day at Level 3, you could even get it twice. :-)

Here's an example of a career event:



The download for the career includes a text file listing which TOS episodes are referred to in the events and opportunities, so if it's been awhile since you've seen TOS, you don't have to rack your brain to figure out where you've seen or heard something before; you can just consult the Easter egg text file. (I imagine that everyone remembers "The Trouble with Tribbles," by David Gerrold, which is the episode referred to in the sample event shown above.)


UNIFORMS

There are custom uniforms for the career, based on the uniforms of the original series. I'm not a clothing maker, so all I did was stick the Starfleet logos on exisiting EA shirts and change the mask so we could get a black collar without also getting black cuffs. This means that the uniforms aren't an exact match to the original series ones, but they still look pretty Trekkian; here's a screenshot taken in-game:



Star Trek's original series never shows us what cadets at Starfleet Academy wore during that era, so I gave them white uniforms with a solid black Starfleet logo; I figure one of the perks of graduating is that the sim gets to wear actual color, plus they get a more interesting insignia. Of course, the first color you get to wear is red... :-)

A close-up of the shirt patches shows that Command, Sciences, and Engineering all have the appropriate patches; these are from screenshots taken in-game:



Mercifully, we didn't need to depend on my non-existent skills with clothing for the trousers; the uniforms use Camikitty's wonderful Baggy Pants That Work With Boots. Camikitty graciously gave me permission to include her pants with my career, so you don't need to go download those separately; they're included inside the career file ... but I hope you WILL go thank Camikitty, both for the trousers and for her kindness in allowing me to use them: http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=572849

The boots are the riding boots that came with the Pets expansion pack; if you don't have Pets, you can use a dresser to switch from whatever footgear the game assigns in place of the riding boots to the boots from the World Adventures expansion pack, if you have that one. The uniforms for female sims also use the gem earrings that came with the base game, because otherwise the game assigned a random set of earrings, some of which were not at all appropriate for a working Starfleet officer. :-)

Elder sims wear the same career outfits as younger sims, so they won't have that stooped-over and potbellied look that elder sims usually have. This is by design; I didn't forget to make elder outfits! We saw some grey-haired admirals in the original series, and they were neither stooped nor potbellied; I figure Starfleet requires its personnel to keep physically fit, plus there are probably great preventions and treatments for osteoporosis and other ills of aging in the 23rd century, so the elders wouldn't be stooped.

You'll automatically get the appropriate uniform as your career outfit. If you'd like to wear your Starfleet uniform for everyday or when working out, then you can use any dresser to Plan Outfit; both my shirts and Camikitty's pants have been made available for everyday, athletic, and even formal categories. If you don't have your elder sims wear their Starfleet outfit all the time, they'll switch from straight and fit to stooped and potbellied when they change out of their career uniform. You can think to yourself that Starfleet gives its personnel some REALLY supportive undergarments as part of their career outfits. :-)

The highest level of the career has an outfit that's a bit different from the usual Starfleet uniform, to make the highest level special. If you'd prefer to keep wearing the regular uniform, you can use any dresser to Plan Outfit.

Chococat777 has made some Starfleet uniform shirts based on the reboot movies; if you'd rather use her shirts, you can find them at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=377920 She didn't reply to a PM, so I don't have permission to include her shirts, but you can download them, if you want them. She also has the Starfleet miniskirts, for female sims who'd prefer a uniform that's more pretty than practical: http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=381233


HINTS AND TIPS

The Athletic and Genius traits would be excellent ones to take for sims intending a Starfleet career, and Bookworm would make book-learning considerably faster. If you plan on the Command track, the Charismatic trait would also be helpful. Other traits are more for role-playing than for actual usefulness, but Brave, Good, or Lucky would be appropriate choices.

A Lifetime Wish that meshes well with this career is Perfect Mind, Perfect Body for the Command track, since you'll need to get most of the way there, anyhow, or Renaissance Sim for the Science and Ship's Services track.

BEFORE you apply for the job, if you add some Starfleet officers to the future world – say, Kirk and Spock, or Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Sulu – and use the Nraas Master Controller to give those guys the Starfleet career and assign them to the career levels they should have, then one of those guys should be your boss when you get the job. (If you want Spock in blue, make sure you assign him to SCIENCE officer, not FIRST officer.) If you want to see them around town in their Starfleet uniforms, use the Nraas Master Controller to copy their career uniforms to other categories – after you've given them the job and assigned them to the right level, of course! (And if you don't want them to be fired for non-performance, you should probably use the Master Controller to give them some skills, too. :-D)

You can live in the base camp at Oasis Landing for as long as you like; it does have a lot of skill-building items. Personally, though, I find it a bit too chaotic for my tastes. The buyable lot at 432 Ascension Ave is very close to the Stellar Observatory rabbithole, where you'll be going to work, so that would be a great place to put your house if you plan on a Starfleet career.

If you want to look as if you're living on an actual starship, Brandal has a downloadable house that looks like the starship Enterprise and fits on a 40 x 40 lot at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=359127. Dakeyras has one that fits on a 64 x 64 lot at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=440855.


I've put a ridiculous amount of time and effort into making this career, so I hope that you'll enjoy it ... and I hope you all enjoy the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. Boldly go!


Other Things That May Improve Your Experience

If you'd like the start-up screen to be Star-Trek related, Sterling_Archer has an update of Joninmobile's Star Trek Start Up Scrolls at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=520203. It's very easy to edit this with S3pe, so in my personal copy, I've replaced the non-TOS items (like stuff about the Borg) with TOS-era things; I especially like my addition of "Pointing Vulcan Ears." :-)

If you'd like Spock to be your boss – or if you'd like to play him – you don't have to make him from scratch. There are two versions of TOS Spock: Princess Leia's is at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=420478, and Jwghost has one at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=491585.

Linuslover30 has a reboot Spock at http://nene.modthesims.info/download.php?t=516618, which also has useful links to Vulcan hair and Vulcan eyebrows, so it's worth checking that out even if you're not a fan of the reboot.


Thanks and Credits

1. No fan-made careers would be possible without the indispensable Nraas Careers mod. Thanks loads both to Twallan and to the valiant souls who took over when he retired from Sims modding and kept his mods up to date with the latest patches.

2. The Nraas Packer program and Nraas career tutorial were extremely helpful. I see people advising career makers to hash every string by hand, and you really don't have to do that unless you want to; the Nraas Packer program will hash everything for you automatically. This makes it SO much easier to to get text into the game that it makes it a lot more doable to make lots of career events and opportunities, to make two career branches, and to tweak the text until you have it exactly the way you want it. I strongly encourage any career maker to check out the Packer program!

3. I knew zippo, nada, nothing about making clothing for The Sims, and I never wanted to know anything about it. When I reluctantly concluded that I'd need to make Starfleet shirts myself, I was thrilled to discover the clear and easy tutorials at the Sims Wiki. Thanks so much to Daluved1, for writing the tutorials Creating Custom Clothing Stencils, Adding Custom Stencils, and Basic Mask Editing.

4. Thanks so much to Delphy, for the CAS Texture Unitool and to CmarNYC for Sim Outfitter, both of which made it easy and fun to specify custom career outfits.

5. Thanks to ralphaelninja, whose Sim Game Selector allowed me to see what would happen on the Science track if the player didn't have Ambitions and University Life.

6. Thanks to Peter and Inge Jones, as always, for S3PE and S3OC, without which Sims modding would be impossible for nearly everyone.

7. And thanks to Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon, Bob Justman, and Dorothy Fontana – and the actors, writers, and directors – for making Star Trek. If only they'd known that we'd still be talking about their creation, fifty years later!

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