If my sim is out of money they can still dig for treasure and even bones or rocks are sellable.

In my early game I simulated a family living on benefits by a very restricted use of the Kaching cheat. I used it when they really needed money for essentials like food or bills, but didn't allow them to buy luxuries. (It was the Moltke family, and I admit I also used it to buy christianlov's Easy Bed for Julian, as I really wanted him and Andrew to be able to sleep together. [They only slept together -- they didn't have woohoo until they got married late last year. Andrew is quite conservative in some of his thinking. -- But I'm drifting off topic! ]) The reason for them living on benefit was that they had a toddler -- little Hans -- at home, and I was so inexperienced as a player, that I found I needed both parents there to look after him. I suppose their teenage son could have helped more than he did, but, though his intentions were good, Julian was so head over heels in love with Andrew that he found it hard to think about anything else.

TadOlson, I don't think there's any need to get hung up because a feature is only available through the Cheats window. Some mods, and indeed some Maxis features (like money trees) feel much "cheatier" than the cheats. Using a "cheat" in The Sims -- a single player sandbox game -- is scarcely the same as marking your cards in a high stakes poker game. Or taking performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympics. Many of the things in "Cheats" are just ways of extending the game and making it more interesting. I don't feel I'm doing anything wrong, when I turn Aging Off to spend more time with Sims that I love. Or when I turn MoveObjects on to put a fire alarm above a window. In fact I'd feel I was doing something a lot more wrong if I turned Aging on to let an Elder die! (I'm an Elder myself, and I certainly wouldn't want anyone to do that to me!! ) It's up to each of us Simmers to decide for ourselves what "cheats", mods and Maxis features we're comfortable with.


On a different topic, Sunbee and I seem to have discovered that the game checks the work/school hours of Sims, when selecting visitors for the Welcome Wagon. It appears to only send Sims who are available at the time. See recent posts in the What do you make of the Welcome Wagon? thread.

I've suspected this for a while, as elders and pregnant women are disproportionately represented in the Wagon. Nice to have it confirmed.

That may explain why the Welcome Wagon seemed to be deterministic in my test hood.