Cooking fires! In TS1 my people only needed to earn a couple of cooking skill points to stop the kitchen fires. In TS2 it's FIRE every other day or so even with 5 and 6 skill points. I've searched the forums here but can't find any mention of a solution. Is it a personality issue--slobs versus neatniks? Or a question of mechanical skill points? Just wondering. I guess I should see it as an opportunity to make friends with the fire brigade. Except I'm worried about someone getting burned to death.:(
I've noticed that some sims seem prone to accidents ... this seems to be associated with slobbyness ... but also tired, uncomfortable, sick sims are more likely to lose concentration. Pregnant sims seem to burn dinner more often and sims with max cooking skills may just get bored and wander off to do something else, while very neat sims often suddenly decide to make a bed or clean a sink while the pork chops incinerate ... it's very annoying but funny when they catch fire. I wish I could show you all ... but Mikki decided to grill some hotdogs and it all went up in flames. Soon he was in Big Trouble and I was laughing so much cos his backside was on fire and he was dancing around in panic and then noticing his flaming pants and trying to beat the flames out like a puppy chasing its tail ... I was too busy ROFLMAO to hit C. Tho to be honest only a movie would've done it justice.
The likelihood of fires depends on the difficulty of the food being prepared, the skill level of the Sim and their mood (especially energy level or the room environment). So, your Sim with a skill of 10 will still start fires occasionally when they do baked alaska or lobster, but rarely when they are doing the dishes they learned before level 8. Basically, if they just got to the level where they learn a dish, they will burn it if you are not completely vigilant to make sure they don't wander off (to the bathroom, to scrub the counters, to talk to their child, etc). Food that they learned at least 2 levels ago they generally won't burn unless they are very tired or very distracted (such as by a dirty room. In other words, anything where they get the red desperation symbols. But also for things like their child asking to be read to.) TS2 has very complex actions and abilities for their Sims. That's why it was so much easier for TS1: they didn't have the complexity of foods or behaviors. (But that's probably why many of us don't believe we'll ever go back and play TS1. The complexity adds so much interest.)
