Guide to Talent Badges
General Information
Talent badges, first introduced with the Open For Business expansion pack, control your sims' efficiency at certain tasks, in much the same manner as the current skills do. Talent badges are primarily aimed at the various tasks that make up the running of a sim owned business, either for your own sims or their employees; however there are some which can be used on a normal residential (non business) lot.
As with most of the normal skills, talent badges are earned by doing the tasks associated with them. However, unlike the normal skills there are only three levels associated with each; bronze, silver and gold. Each higher level increases your sims' ability at the tasks at hand, be it selling an item or building it; where your employees are concerned, the higher their badges the more likely they will do as you ask (and the higher wages they demand too).
Townies are randomly assigned talent badges (including those in any sub-neighbourhoods attached with an expansion), however your playable sims must earn all of them from scratch.
What Are The Badges
These badges are available with the Open for Business expansion.
- Sales:
Earn badges by using the Sales option on customers.
Badges unlock Offer at Cheap, Hard Sell, and Dazzle sales options.
- Flower Arranging:
Earn badges by making flower arrangements at the Floral Arrangement object.
Badges unlock more flower arrangements that you can make.
- Robotics:
Earn badges by making robots at the Robot Crafting Station object.
Badges unlock different types of robots that you can make.
- Toy Making:
Earn badges by making toys at the Toybench object.
Badges unlock new toys that you can make.
- Restocking:
Earn badges by restocking the store.
Badges lower restocking time.
- Register:
Earn badges by ringing up customers.
Badges increase your speed in ringing up customers.
- Cosmetology:
Earn badges by giving makeovers.
Badges increase your chances of a good makeover.
These badges are available with the Seasons expansion.
- Gardening:
Earn badges by fertilizing, watering, spraying, tending, harvesting, planting.
Badges unlock more varieties of produce, increase the quality of produce, reduce the need for weeding and unlock the ability to talk to plants and trees.
- Fishing:
Earn badges by fishing in a residential or community lot pond.
Badges unlock more lures which increase the chances of catching more varieties of fish, and reduce the chances of catching nothing.
Skill Acceleration
Each of the talent badges is associated with one of the normal skills, this allows your sims to earn their badges at faster rates; the higher the related skill, the faster they get their badge. Because certain personality traits are also related to certain skills, having the right personality means you can increase the speed that the skill is achieved too.
The associated skills and personality traits with each badge are listed below:
Talent Badge - Associated Skill - Personality
Sales - Charisma - Outgoing
Flower Arranging - Creativity - Playful
Robotery - Mechanical - None
Toy Building - Mechanical - None
Restocking - Body - Active
Cashier - Logic - Serious
Cosmetology - Cleaning - Neat
Gardening - Charisma - Outgoing
If your sim has no skills in the related badge, the time it takes your sim to earn that badge is listed below:
- No badge to Bronze badge = 12 hours
- Bronze badge to Silver badge = 24 hours
- Silver badge to Gold badge - 48 hours
This means that your sim would go from, no badge to Gold badge in 84 hours. If your sim has maxed out their skills in the related badge, this halves the time it takes to achieve the badges:
- No badge to Bronze badge = 6 hours
- Bronze badge to Silver badge = 12 hours
- Silver badge to Gold badge = 24 hours
This means that your sim would go from no badge to Gold badge in just 42 hours; this shows that it's worth getting your sims their skills first, or choosing badges for your sims to wok on based on the skills they have already.
Note: If you have the Sims 2 Seasons expansion installed, you can further increase the speed of learning a badge during the Autumn season
Miscellaneous
There are several other aspects of the different levels which are not specific to an individual badge. They are listed below:
- The more badges your employees have and the higher their levels, the greater the increase to the financial worth of your business
- If a single employee achieves at least 5 points worth of badges, they can be promoted to a manager of that business*
- Employees with higher badge levels will demand higher levels of wages, but they are more likely to stay at their posts when their needs diminish
*Note: For the purposes of appointing managers, the badges are worth:
- Bronze: 1 point
- Silver: 2 points
- Gold: 3 points