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Today's test has to do with the bonuses from gaining skills at the gym or library versus learning at home. The results may surprise you. I know that I was certainly surprised by my findings.
Before we begin I'd like you to meet our test subjects today. They are a household consisting of 7 sims, five of which have the last name Logiclearner, and 2 with the last name Bodylearner.
Computer, like his brothers, is a Genius, Computer Whiz, Couch Potato, Bookworm, and Inappropriate. He will be learning the Logic Skill by Playing Chess on the computer.
Homereader has the same traits as his brother Computer. he will be learning logic by reading a book at home.
Telescope and Chess have the same traits as their other brothers. Telescope is purple and will be learning the Logic skill by looking through the telescope. Chess, the green one, will be learning Logic by practicing chess by himself.
Library has slightly different traits from his brothers. He is Grumpy and Hates Art instead of being an Inappropriate Couch Potato.
These two are Gym and Home Bodylearner. Like the Logiclearner brothers, they have the Genius, bookworm, Computer Whiz, and Inappropriate traits. However, instead of being Couch Potatoes, they are Athletic. Oh, and Gym is grumpy instead of being Innapropriate. this is to make up for the permanent Beautifully decorated moodlet that comes with making motives static.
Since I wanted Gym and Home to be able to gain as many skillpoints a possible between becoming fatigued, i had to wait until the morning to have them take a class in Athletics. I later learned that this was not necessary due to having needs made static by using testingcheatsenabled true. Oh well.
At 09:00 on Monday, after Gym and Home had taken their classes, I gave the commands to all involved in the test to start skilling.
I was surprised an hour later to find that Home was the first to gain a skill point. Mainly because he already had one athletic skill point, but also because his brother Gym, who supposedly had a boost to skilling by working out at the gym, only had half of his second bar filled up.
The only difference is that Gym does not have a Beautiful vista moodlet, which is worth 30 mood, and he is grumpy, which subtracts an additional 20 or so from his mood at all times.
The second to gain a skill point was telescope, roughly 20 minutes after Home got his first (or second, I supose) Athletic Skill point, was the first of the Loglearner brothers to gain a Logic Skill Point. As you can see here, Homereader has only gained one half of a skill point by this time, and is roughly even with Chess.
Computer was second to gain his first skill point in Logic, at about 10:34, roughly 20 minutes after Telescope got his first skill point. As you can see, Homereader doesn't seem to be very far behind him.
I seem to have missed getting a picture of it, but Gym and Library both gained their first skill points at 10:52, roughly 2 hours after beginning. Homereader still had not gained his first skill point, so that confirmed that one definitely does get a boost from reading at the library, and it even surpasses some of the best moodlets, considering that Library is Grumpy, on a 10 comfort chair as opposed to a 50 comfort chair, and is missing out on the beautiful vista moodlet.
at 11:03, Telescope gained his second skill point. Homereader and Chess both had yet to gain their first.
at 11:08, chess gained his first skill point, followed by Homereader 7 minutes later at 11:15.
At 11:33, Home gained his second (or third, depending on how you're counting) Athletic Skill Point.
At 11:55, Computer gained his second Logic Skill Point. As you can see here, Telescope is halfway through his third, while Chess and Homereader are both only halfway through their second.
Shortly thereafter, at 12:08, Library received his second Skill point. Here is a picture of Homereader so you can compare how much more quickly Library is gaining points.
At 12:36, Chess gained his second skill point at the same time Telescope gained his third.
Roughly 15 minutes later, at 12:49, Homereader gained his second skill point. Here is a picture of Library so you can gage the difference between the two.
At that point, I stopped checking the time on every single skill point, but I'm glad I did not stop the experiment. I still kept tabs of the halfway marks, and the finish marks for each sim, however, and when the readers finished each volume of logic. I didn't get pictures of it, but Library finished his first book at 14:26 (5 and a half hours after beginning) and Homereader finished his first book at 15:40 (almost 7 hours after beginning).
The first of our test subjects to reach the halfway mark for their skill was Home Bodylearner, at 17:53, 8 hours after beginning.
At 18:29, roughly 9.5 hours after beginning, the second to do so was Telescope, at roughly the same time Homereader gained his fourth skill point.
An hour later, at about 19:25, Library reached his halfway mark. At this point in time, Chess was in last place with about 3.9 skill points. this surprised me because Homereader had been the last to gain the first two skill points.
At 23:47 Monday night, Library finished reading his second book and moved on the final Logic Skill Volume.
At 01:57 Tuesday morning, Chess was the last of the Logiclearners to gain his fifth Logic Skillpoint. As you can see here, Homereader appears to have overcome Computer in Logic skill.
At 03:16 Tuesday, Homereader finished up the second volume of Logic Skill and moved on to the third and final.
At 03:43 I was surprised to see that Library had overtaken Telescope in logic skill. Library learned his 7th skill point while Telescope still only had about 6.5
Two and a half hours later, 20 hours after starting, Gym finally hit his halfway mark in Athletic skill. By this time, Home was a whole point and a half ahead of him, with roughly 6.5 Athletic Skill points.
At 06:06, Computer attained his 6th Logic Skill Point. As you can see in the background, Chess is still a good deal behind him with 5 points. Telescope and Homereader both have 6 points.
Roughly five hours later, I was surprised to see that Homereader had caught up to Telescope. In this picture they both have 7.5 skill points.
At 00:32 on Wednesday, Library was the first to maximize his Logic skill, roughly 41.5 hours after starting.
Ten hours later, at 10:21, Homereader reaches his goal of Ten Logic Points. Total elapsed time: 51.5 hours.
Nine and a half hours later, at 19:58, Home Bodylearner maxes his Athletics Skill. according to his skill journal he has done 59 hours of cardio exercise and run 590 kilometers.
At 22:08 telescope maximizes his Logic Skill. Total elapsed time: 59 hours.
00:48, Friday, yes, a whole day after Telescope maxed his Logic skill, Computer reached level ten in Logic on the Computer. As you can see in the background, Chess still has quite a ways to go for that last point. Total elapsed time: 85 hours!
A whopping 20 hours later, at 20:01 Friday night, Chess finally managed to maximize his Logic skill. total elapsed time: 105 hours! (Now just imagine how long that would have been if he wasn't a genius)
Gym, meanwhile, still has half of a point in Athletic Skill to learn.
Finally, at 14:21 on Saturday, Gym manages to maximize his Athletic skill. According to his skill journal he has done 125 hours of cardio exercise and had jogged 1253 kilometers.
In a final attempt to see if working out at the gym has any sort of benefits, I have both Gym and Home switch to Strength training machines. Maybe you are able to work out longer at the gym or something? Nope. Both become fatigued after 14 hours and 40 minutes.
Now I will talk about the analysis if these data. Obviously, DO NOT WORK OUT AT THE GYM IF YOU CAN HELP IT! AVOID THE GYM AT ALL COSTS. For these tests I had both Athletics Skillers using the "Don't break A Sweat" tone. Obviously using Push Self and Quick Burst when they become available will help speed things along. I may test these modes at a later date, to find out which is most useful when all you want to do is have your sim use a moodlet manager to get rid of fatigue and stink in between workout sessions so you can max Athletics as quickly as possible.
For Logic, it appears that using the telescope until skill level 5 or 6 is superior to reading at the library. After one reaches level 5 or 6, reading at the Library becomes the most efficient way to skill Logic. My guess here is because of the final Logic volume containing four skill points in it as opposed to 3 like the first two. Keep in mind, however, that my test subjects are not only geniuses, but also bookworms. It is possible that sims who are niether will gain skill points faster on the telescope regardless of skill level. this will also be tested at a future date.
Now, in theory, the sims who were skilling on the computer and at the chess table were also gaining chess skill. There really isn't much of a way to test this, however, until the chess skill is able to be measured in some form or fashion.
That is all. I hope this demonstration will help you in some way or another. Especially the misconceptions about gaining skill faster at the gym. Of course it's debatable that townies who work out at the gym will be more fit than townies who do not, and theoretically they will not work out at the gym if none of your sims do, so it might be wise to use the facilities at the gym at least periodically if you do not want your town to be full of fat people. This, however, is only speculative, and not a problem if you have mods that prevent sims from being mutilated by Story Progression.
