Experienced Sims

EXPERIENCED SIMS

When a new Sim is created, whether through CAS, a townie spawn, or a premade household in a new save, Experienced Sims gives them a believable skill profile shaped by their traits, aspiration, and age. They show up with the skills to indicate that they have actually lived a previous life.

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INCOMPATIBILITIES / DISCLAIMER

- It is highly recommended to start a new save file. The mod may add skills to previously played sims. Their existing skills will remain intact, but new ones will be added on top.
- It may conflict with skill decay mods due to how sims are checked for randomization.
- Premade sims (Goths, Landgraabs, etc.) keep any skills EA gave them. The mod only adds, never overwrites.

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PICK ONE OF THREE VERSIONS

Only install one at a time.

- Player affects your active household and premade families like the Goths.
- Townies affects only townies, walk-bys, and NPCs.
- Complete affects everyone.

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WHAT YOU'LL SEE

Every sim arrives with a full skill panel instead of a blank one. Most skills land at low levels, a handful sit visibly higher, and one skill stands clearly above the rest. That standout matches who they are.

A sim with the Master Chef aspiration peaks Cooking. A Bookworm peaks Logic or Writing. A Dance Machine peaks Dancing. An Elder musician might be sitting at level 8 Guitar with scattered knowledge of Piano, Singing, and a little Fitness from years of performing.

- Toddlers and children get age-appropriate skills started
- Teens get roughly 20 skills, mostly at level 1, with one clear standout at level 4
- Young Adults peak at level 5, Adults at level 6, Elders at level 7 or 8
- Skill bars land at a random point within each level
- Older sims have more secondary interests on top of their signature skill

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HOW IT WORKS

THE SKILL PROFILE

Every sim is built from five layers, applied in order:

- Vital skills are always present at a low level. Logic, Charisma, Cooking, Fitness, Handiness. The basics of a lived life.
- Common skills have high but not guaranteed coverage. Most sims pick them up, some don't.
- Niche skills are randomly sampled. A sim might have one or two that have nothing to do with their personality. People are weird like that.
- Secondary peaks are a set of skills elevated visibly above the baseline, chosen based on traits and aspiration. These are the sim's developed interests.
- The signature skill is the one that defines them. Trait and aspiration affinities push heavily toward the most fitting choice.

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TRAIT AND ASPIRATION AFFINITIES

This is the core of how personality shapes skills. The mod covers 144 traits and aspirations across the base game and all major packs. Each one maps to a set of skill affinities with weighted values.

Those affinities stack. A sim with Foodie and the Master Chef aspiration gets a massive bonus toward Cooking and Gourmet Cooking. A sim with Music Lover and the Musical Genius aspiration gets Guitar, Piano, Violin, and Singing all competing for the top spot.

The signature skill selection is tiered:

- Affinity 6+ (aspiration-level match): 95% chance that skill is locked in as the signature
- Affinity 4+ (strong trait match): 70% chance
- Everything else: weighted random, amplified cubically so stronger matches still dominate

This means a sim's defining skill almost always makes sense for who they are, while still allowing occasional surprises.

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SECONDARY PEAKS

On top of the signature, sims get a set of secondary peaks: skills elevated above the baseline that represent developed side interests. The count scales with age.

Toddler: none
Child: 0 to 1
Teen: 1 to 2
Young Adult: 1 to 3
Adult: 2 to 4
Elder: 2 to 5

Secondary peaks are chosen by the same affinity weighting as the signature, so they cluster around the same personality space. A sim who peaks Painting is likely to have Photography and Writing as secondaries too. A sim who peaks Charisma might also have Comedy and Mixology sitting above baseline.

Secondary peak levels are biased toward the middle-high range for each age group so they're clearly visible and distinct from ordinary randomized skills. They're not just a little above level 1. They look like actual interests.

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SKILL SYNERGIES

Skills don't exist in isolation. If a sim has a dominant skill at level 3 or above, the mod checks a table of 36 skill clusters and applies a minimum floor to related sister skills.

Some examples of how this works in practice:

- A sim with L4 Cooking will always have at least L1 Gourmet Cooking and L1 Baking
- A sim with L4 Guitar will always have at least L1 Singing and L1 Piano
- A sim with L4 Logic will always have at least L1 Programming, L1 Rocket Science, and L1 Robotics
- A sim with L4 Fitness will always have at least L1 Dancing and L1 Rock Climbing
- A sim with L4 Fabrication will always have at least L2 Handiness and L1 Robotics
- A sim with L4 Gardening will always have at least L1 Flower Arranging, L1 Herbalism, and L1 Fishing

The synergy floor only raises skills. It never lowers anything already higher. A sim who already has L5 Baking from other rolls keeps L5 Baking.

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TRAIT SUPPRESSION

Some traits actively conflict with certain skills. The mod accounts for this. Suppressed skills are not impossible for a sim to have, but they are 85% less likely to be chosen as a signature or secondary peak.

Some examples:

- Lazy sims are suppressed from Fitness, Dancing, Rock Climbing, Skiing, and Snowboarding peaks
- Loner sims are suppressed from Charisma, Comedy, and Acting peaks
- Evil sims are suppressed from Parenting and Charisma peaks
- Erratic sims are suppressed from Logic, Research, and Robotics peaks
- Squeamish sims are suppressed from Fishing, Gardening, and Veterinarian peaks
- Socially Awkward sims are suppressed from Charisma, Comedy, and Acting peaks
- Noncommittal sims are suppressed from Parenting peaks

A lazy sim can still end up with some Fitness from vital rolls or synergies. They just won't be the sim who secretly peaks it. The suppression applies to the selection stage, not the result. Life is messy.

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DABBLE TRACES

After all other rolls are done, the mod gives each unrolled skill a 12% independent chance to appear at level 1. Up to 3 extras per sim. Teens and older only.

This creates the "took one guitar lesson in college and never followed through" effect. The skills show up at L1 with a random amount of progress within that level, looking exactly like something a sim tried once and abandoned. They won't appear on every sim. Most sims will have one or two of these alongside everything else.

It makes sims feel like actual people rather than optimized character sheets.

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AGE BREAKDOWN

Toddler -- no signature, no secondary peaks, age-appropriate basics only
Child -- signature at level 3 (30% chance), 0 to 1 secondary peaks, full coverage of child skills
Teen -- signature at level 4, 1 to 2 secondary peaks, roughly 20 skills mostly at L1
Young Adult -- signature at level 5, 1 to 3 secondary peaks, broader spread and first real peak
Adult -- signature at level 6, 2 to 4 secondary peaks, deeper coverage with clear interests
Elder -- signature at level 7 or 8, 2 to 5 secondary peaks, decades of practice and wide clusters

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COMPATIBILITY

- All packs supported. Pack-added skills are detected automatically at runtime, no manual configuration needed.
- Premade sims keep any skills EA gave them. The mod only adds on top.
- The mod hooks into sim creation and spawn events. It does not run on a timer or loop.

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COMMANDS

Type any of these in the cheat console:

- esm.randomize_active_sim -- rerolls the currently selected sim
- esm.randomize_household -- rerolls everyone in your active household