Off The Grid Cooking Needs Revamp

[Renaissance_Sim]

I was really excited when I saw the Cottage Living pack was coming out and overall I am very happy with it. Paired with the new lot Challenges update I am finally able to live my dream of having an off-the-grid farm where my sims grow and harvest everything they need (simple living). One problem. The off the grid cooking as it stands makes no sense whatsoever. 

• My sims can cook pumpkin stew but not chili (not even vegetable chili)-inconsistent
• They cannot bake pies, scones, or crumpets despite all recipes predating the modern oven-mostly by a lot.
• Some recipes they can only cook one serving at a time (grilled cheese, eggs and toast, etc.)
• They cannot make pan-fried tilapia or fried fish or even some other obviously soup-ish and stovetop recipes.
  • I.e. pancakes, eggs and bacon, etc.

All of these are grayed out and say "no power off the grid" when scrolled over.

I am mostly upset because this shows a clear lack of research on food history as it seems the developers largely said anything that must be baked is obviously impossible without electricity- WRONG! Baking has been around in many forms for thousands of years. Therefore my sims, living off the grid, should be able to bake some things like pies, scones, and shepherd's pie, etc. And really, it should at least be consistent about the recipes allowed to cook off the grid.

[jpkarlsen]

@Renaissance_Sim 

You are confusing two things being Off the Grid and Living simple.

The recipes are all because of living simple. 

1. There are no chilis so you can not make Chilies meat or veg, You can get spicy mushrooms and make something similar.

2. In all these cases you lack either Eggs, Flour or Sugar I recommend that you hover over the recipe to see a list of required ingredients.

3. If you only have one of an ingredient you can only make one serving. 

4. See 2.

No power of the grid comes from not having a stove or fridge that is marked as working of the grid.

I hope this clears it up for you. Perhaps you should choose only one of these challenges at a time until you have learned more about them.

[Renaissance_Sim]

@jpkarlsen 

I was not "confusing" the two. My sims are using both Off the Grid and Simply Living Lot challenges. Not one or the other. I understand the requirements of both but the fact remains that there are recipes that if I have all the ingredients for I should be able to cook them off the grid and I cannot. I am very familiar with both challenges requirements as I have used Off the grid as a lot trait many times before. As for the servings you are mistaken. I have plenty of ingredients and yet for the some of the recipes I can do I still am only given a single serving cooking option. I hope this clears things up for you on my position. And there are chilis btw. Those are recipes in the sims. 

[jpkarlsen]

@Renaissance_Sim 

I was mistaken you can indeed make chili recipes if you are at least level 6 cooking and you have the necessary ingredients.. If you do have enough ingredients you can make more than single servings. Click the arrow down. You may have to scroll down a bit to see Family size(4) and Party size(8). You say you didn't confuse the two but the headline talks about of the grid cooking while the things with recipes you mention had to do with Simple Living. you say you have used off the grid a lot so it puzzles me that you did not know what the message no power of the grid meant.

[Renaissance_Sim]

@jpkarlsen

I understand how cooking in the Sims works. You seem to be under the impression I was asking for help. I am not. I am giving feedback that I do not agree with some of the choices that were made regarding what can and cannot be cooked off the grid. I understand that currently there are many recipes that cannot be cooked off the grid. However, the choices made for that are not consistent with food history. It is not even consistent with what types of recipes are able to be cooked off the grid. I repeat, am not asking for help, I am commenting on a flaw in the way Off the grid has been set up. It should be more compatible with a lot of the recipes and Simple Living than it is.

The issues with servings were specifically only a couple of recipes and are not the main point of this post.

Just because today is the first time I bothered to make a forum account does not mean I am new to the game. I have been playing the sims for years. Please do not patronize me.

[shamelle71]

I completely agree. I was doing a decades challenge and had both the off the grid and simple living lot challenges and noticed the weird choices too in regards to foods available. The off the grid trait in general needs a whole revamp and is so often overlooked. Like I have bust the dust and there is no off the grid way to vacuum so my sims either have to be uncomfortable all the time or I have to take off the trait and let them vacuum and then put it back. I also should be able to use the black wood stove off the grid too.There also is a glitch If you try and gather water from the new ponds there is no icon just a red x.

[xochiquetzl_xkvn]

I'm sure you already know this, but for anyone reading this who doesn't...

I use Off the Grid with Wind Turbines and Solar Panels from Eco Lifestyle.  That's pretty much the main thing I use Wind Turbines and Solar panels for--the stove and fridge.  If you give the stove and fridge energy-efficient upgrades two wind turbines will run both the fridge and the stove and will let you use all options on your phone--if you delete all electric lights.

(I'm assuming you're doing the Decades Challenge or are for other reasons Choosing Not To Do That.)

That said, I do that because the off-the-grid cooking options are so limited.  I mean, I totally get that off-the-grid is a lot challenge and they're trying to make there be consequences to choosing that lot trait/lot challenge, but...

I guess... what the OP said?

[edited to add:  I do NOT have Bust the Dust... thank $DEITY]

[Renaissance_Sim]

@xochiquetzl_xkvn and @shamelle71 

Glad you both joined the discussion! 

@xochiquetzl_xkvn you would be correct that I am going for something more similar to the decades challenge which is why I am avoiding the green energy options for off the grid. I really wanted to play a more "little house on the prairie" type game now that there is the option of real farming and the simple living lot  challenge is available. Give the game more of a frontier or olden day feel. 

The fact that I am unable to bake a pie-which dates bake to Queen Elizabeth the 1st days in it's modern form- but can make bread? Shepherd's pie (AKA cottage pie) is kinda an old recipe too dating to at least the 1700's

The Dev's know what a dutch oven is right?

Speaking of which i think it would be cool if we could do some cooking in the fireplaces-at least the nice wide one that came with Cottage Living. 

And truly,I understand not being able to cook everything off the grid, but it should at least be  consistant. If I can cook a soup pot dish I should be able to cook all soup pot dishes.

As for the challenge aspect I think having more recipes available for OTG would not change that. They would still have to cook it. They would still have no electricity or internet. Would still have briney water, tepid baths, have to fill the fridge with ice, and have no central heating or air conditioning. 

What else do you think should be added or changed to improve the off the grid lot challenge?

[xochiquetzl_xkvn]

@Renaissance_SimWell.

To start with, I think they did improve off the grid a lot in the patch to support Eco Lifestyle (at least, I think that was the patch).  I used it prior to that, and....

Anyway.  I'm mostly playing off the grid for Rags to Riches, or for conservationist/environmentalist narratives.  Rags to Riches, why would I pay for utilities when I own no electronics or plumbing? except then I just end up never turning it on. :D  Environmentalists are doing it for what are probably obvious reasons.  I had a Rags to Riches with several teens I played rotationally, one of whom had a child brother he was responsible for, and for the brothers who lived in The Shipping Views it was A GREAT DAY when they were able to buy a cooler, and A GREAT DAY when they were able to buy a fridge that worked off the grid, and A GREAT DAY when they bought the horrible used Yum Cooker, and it was SO AMAZING when they got a wind turbine and were able to cook more things. 

I did have a Sim where I was experimenting to see if she could live in Granite Falls full-time without a mod.  Her home lot, which I didn't really want to end up using, was the cheapest lot in the game (the $1500 lot in Oasis Springs) and she had a 4x4 floor under her tent (so it would count as a tiny house for skilling), a portable camping shower, a pee bush, and a cooler while I skilled her up.  BTW, the answer to whether she can live in Granite Falls full time is "Yes, if she's a freelancer she can work from Granite Falls forever, but no, she gets a sad 'homesick' buff after being in Granite Falls for 5 days."    So she never turned on her power, but she did do the gardener, fishing, and outdoor enthusiast aspirations and then went on temple runs in Selvadorada before spending her earnings on one of the super fancy farms in Henford on Bagley, where she has both off the grid and simple living, but also the green energy generation options.  TBH she'd probably be happier in a tent but she has a spouse now and I plan to have her start a family.  (Also before she married her social was always awful so I had her adopt a cat.)

SO.

Earlier iterations of off the grid were barrrrrrrrrely functional, IMHO.  You couldn't take a bath, but you could click your toddler and choose "bathe" and your tub would suddenly work for only that purpose, for example.  So my mermaid conservationist who lived off the grid and supported her teen sister was pretty much tense, dazed, or uncomfortable 24x7.

• Tense: from tepid off the grid water, either from the quick tepid shower or from washing dishes or...
• Dazed: from cooking off the grid (apparently the Yum Cooker leaks gas)
• Uncomfortable: sore from chores, and also she fell victim to the bug where mermaid scales were permanently dried out if their hygiene ever got low once. 
• (I also made them mermaids because they were perpetually tense from low fun, as the only fun items on the lot were books and a chess board.  Go swimming, girls.  Go swimming!)

I basically bought Eco Lifestyle for her.  :D  Prior to that I'd abandoned the save in frustration (see also mermaid marine biologists are constantly assigned the WFH task "snorkel," which mermaids can't do, so she was constantly Not Paid, thank goodness for gardening!).

So, what would make it better:  I would like to see the wood stove possibly produce an "ouch! burned hand!" uncomfortable buff instead of a dazed "from cooking with gas off the grid" buff, especially at low cooking level.  Wood stoves have a learning curve!  I'd like more variety in what I could cook off the grid--I agree that you should be able to cook pies even in the horrible death trap Yum Cooker stove.  (I remember panicking about how I would get a cake when it came to be time for my mermaid conservationist to age up her little sister! I'd decided that I'd find a public lot with a stove and cook there.)   I don't know, more soups and simple baked items like pies and maybe not gourmet items and no cakes or cookies or, I don't know, nothing too fancy. No Eggs Benedict, LOL.. I might be misremembering but I was under the impression that medieval people used a communal oven for all their cooking?  I haven't tried the grill with Simple Living, but I'm curious, LOL. (BTW, even in on grid non-simple-living lots I basically only use Quick Meals for kids who are grabbing a snack when the household is out of leftovers, so I applaud turning off Quick Meals.)   TBH, I'd like my Sims to have to purchase gas if that Yum Cooker is burning gas, or wood for the wood stove (or gather wood some other way? I know EL has "bio fuel" to run "fuel cells" on the stove, but I try to avoid making my devices industrial because, again, a lot of these Sims are in the Civil Designer or Environmentalist careers).

My impression is that electric lights use a ludicrous amount of energy and I'm actually fine with that.  I like giving my off the grid lots oil lamps and candles.  I actually really enjoy having my Sims make candles out of bees wax, but don't do it as often as I probably should.  :D  (I have the bees for my garden.)

Basically, if an electronic item has an "energy efficient" upgrade I let my off the grid Sims have it, and if it doesn't they can do without.  But again, I'm playing Conservationists and people who get their electronics out of a dumpster, LOL.

[Bellalily1]

This is something that really bothers me. I had been waiting for a pack like cottage living for a really long tme and I had wanted to beable to do something like simple living since Igot the game but it really makes me crazy that I cant cook hardly anything off the grid and simple living even when I am growing all my ingredients and I cant even find a mod to help me. I shouldnt have to "pretend" to be off the grid or ruin my game play by putting solar panals or eco stuff on a farm that isnt suppose to have those things. why cant we just vbe off the grid and simple living and be able to cook anything with a stove that has wood under it. it is obviously suppose to be an old fashioned woodburning stove. i just dont get it. it is very annoying.