nraas

I've never used the Architectural Design career before, and I think I realize why.

In my current game, it seems like the client is never around when I want to "finish renovations". A message pops up telling me to wait until the client arrives back at their home, but it takes endless in-game hours until they arrive back, wasting precious time my designer could be using to renovate other homes!

It seems like the clients don't tend to arrive back at their property until the "on the clock" hours for the career are over, meaning I don't get a chance to "finish renovations". I suspect this may be due to StoryProgression pushing the client sims to their jobs, which can be problematic if they have a job during the hours my designer is on the clock. For example, StoryProgression pushed a resident sim to join the military career, and they're on the lot when my designer shows up, but StoryProgression pushes them to attend their job, making them leave shortly afterwards. The sims doesn't show up on the lot again until their career hours are over and they have time to get back home, but by then the designer's on the clock hours are over and I'm extremely bored due to the wasted time I spent waiting around for them.

I still want the client sims to attend their jobs, gain work performance, and get promotions, but is their some sort of way I can force them to remain on the lot until my designer is done with renovations? (Time is paused when I'm in buy/build mode anyways...) Or have it where the sim can "finish renovations" using another sim that resides in the same household (assuming their a YA/A/E)? Or maybe, is there a way I can alter the architectural design career's hours so that I can actually "finish renovations" when the client sim arrives home from work? I just was wondering if anyone was experiencing similar issues.

Note: I've also had the same thing happen with the Stylist career in the past, where the client will appear on the salon lot, get pushed to their job, and then are unavailable until the stylist's on the clock hours are over.

Its very irritating. Its the same when you want to go visit a sim. As soon as you click on their house to "Visit so and so", the sim suddenly decides to leave the house and go somewhere. The way I solve these problems is to step off the lot (onto the road outside the house) and reset the lot. This will force the sim back home.

If you reset a lot that is involved in an architectural project and/or the sim who is to be the stylist customer, doesn't that kill off the entire scenario and send your own sim home (if they were on the lot being reset at the time)?

I usually use MC > Status > Career to find out what the customer's working hours are. If they are impossible to work around, some are but not all of them will be, then I let the job go. Or I might give them a paid day off with MC Cheats. If the sim needs to be pulled back to their own home for reasons other than their being at work/school, MC > Invite Over (if my sim is already there) or Go Home (if not) usually does the trick.

I forgot about the Go Home option, that would be much better.

Thank you for the tips! The "Paid Days Off" trick seems to work excellently. I did not consider your suggestions as options, and I didn't realize the sim with the paid day off would come home immediately upon receiving one.