Skills A nice chunky skills panel is a lovely sight to behold, but please can we pool our knowledge about what they do? This is what I know: COOKING: As they gain this skill Sims learn to cook new and wonderful things that are far more filling as well as being a lot fancier and nicer-sounding than the 0-cooking skill junk food. The last meal learnt how to cook is Lobster Thermidor, which is so difficult even Sim master chefs can burn it sometimes. For some reason, Sims often Want to learn how to cook things they already know how to cook, for example, a Sim with eight cooking skill points Wanting to get to grips with how to put a TV Dinner in the microwave, or put some cereal in a bowl with milk. Family Sims like to learn how to cook. MECHANICAL: Sims with high mechanical can fix stuff more quickly and without getting electrocuted. I don't really see the point in reaching the high levels of this skill other than for a job or because a knowledge Sim Wants to. It's far easier to pay someone else to do it, or, if you're rich or you cheat, buy a new one. CHARISMA: Sims with high Charisma are supposed to tell better jokes, though I have seen no evidence for this. Are Sims with Charisma actually more charismatic? Teenagers and Popularity Sims often Want to practice this skill. CREATIVITY: Improves fun; Sims can paint portraits of Sims in the house and pictures of what's in their house (I find this extremely fun, and often paint pictures in place of taking photos, so Sims can hang their family history on their walls); max it and Fortune Sims'll stop wanting to buy junk and become very easy to please, as will Popularity Sims; selling paintings and novels gets money; paintings look cool; high-level Creativity Sims playing the piano builds atmosphere wonderfully; that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Creativity is my favourite skill. LOGIC: Improves fun; Sims playing chess together build short-term reletionships, improve social and improve fun; Sims with 3+ logic skill can meditate, which freezes their needs and is very useful for pregnancy. After a while of meditating they hover, and after another while of meditating they can teleport, which is also useful. BODY: Improving this skill stops Sims getting fat, and makes them get fit, which can be a Want of Romance and possibly Popularity Sims; with 4+ Body points Sims can do yoga, which looks cool, builds Body, improves fun, and can be a social activity if you ask people to join. CLEANING: Family Sims often Want to improve this skill. Other than that, I'm not sure of the point of this skill, other than for jobs. Maybe Sims make less mess when they cook or something. Please advise. At the moment, things like Creativity and Logic are really fun and useful to build, whereas things like Cleaning, which you would have thought would have some cool use because it's new to TS2, seems to have no function beyond Wants and jobs.
Knowledge Sims like to learn how to cook too. If your Sim asks to learn to cook a TV dinner, chances are that you never let them do that before. Otherwise they'd be wanting to just eat it, not learn to make it. All you have to do to fulfill that want is to have them make it. Well, unless your sim needs it, it isn't necessary. However, if you've ever had your Sim's computer break down after 5pm when they have a big want to chat online, you'd want them to have pretty high skills so that they don't get electrocuted. Also, sometimes it's easier to have the Sim fix something since sometimes the repairpeople come in, walk right past the broken item and then leave (with the object still unfixed.) I don't know how much the charisma really affects things. I've had my 0 charisma Sims do a very nice "charm" on other Sims and the Sims even with 0 charisma seem to get just as many laughs out of their jokes as those with full charisma. I suspect that this is one which has its greatest effect when used by the aspiration types who need it (or who need it for a job.) However, I've got a couple of Knowledge Sims who maxed it out so that they could get the massive "max all skills" want fullfilled. Even the Knowledge Sims enjoy painting. It's a lot of fun to watch them do their "still life" paintings. (Most of mine are portraits, but not done as "portrait" since that seems to be a pain for the sitter. It's much better to do it as a "still life" IMHO.) Yep. Lots of fun with this one. I generally just have my Sims do weight training or the TV/music ones when they have been overindulging. However, I encourage yoga because it is a fun group activity. It's a hoot watching a whole family and their friends all dangling their toes over their heads. Sims with high cleaning skills can finish their cleaning chores much faster than one without high cleaning skills. The fun one is when someone has "high neat" personality. They clean it so well that it shines and has bubbles while they work. I've found that the higher the cleaning skill, the more likely the Sims are not to make a mess (except that they still spray food when eating, but it's not something they have to clean up later.) Unless they have high "neat" personality, they won't clean compulsively, but their houses are cleaner than what a maid would do. (And the maid often isn't there when a mess needs cleaning. I don't care for the maid. But I *really* miss Servo.)
