Weather-controlling machine

Weather machines are special devices that can be used to control and manipulate the weather, season, and precipitation. The machines appear in The Sims 2: Seasons, The Sims Castaway Stories, The Sims 3: Seasons, and The Sims FreePlay. Each game, with the exception of The Sims 2: Seasons and Castaway Stories, has a different model, but all of them have essentially similar functions, namely to manipulate the weather elements in the game.

The Sims 2: Seasons
The Weathernaught 57X is an aspiration reward that was introduced in the The Sims 2: Seasons. It's a weather machine that allows Sims to change the season, extend the current season, maintain the current season indefinitely, or change the weather. It has five uses, which are indicated by five lights that are visible when its antenna is open. However, if the Sim using it is not in gold or platinum aspiration, it may cause meteors to fall on the lot for a few seconds. Luckily, if this happens, it will not use up one of the Weathernaught's five uses.

As the Sim using it pumps a lever, a parabolic antenna opens up. When the antenna is fully open, a bright beam shoots into the sky for a few seconds. If the Sim was changing the season, or extending the current one by a few days, the antenna will then close. If the Sim wanted to maintain the current season indefinitely, the antenna will remain open until someone turns off the indefinitely prolonged season.

If the Sim used the Weathernaught 57X to change the weather, the antenna will remain open until the created weather has run its course, unless someone turns it off before then. It should be noted that the machine can not only create precipitation, but banish it, creating a clear sky. If this is done, the antenna will remain open, and the clear sky will be maintained until it is turned off. Using the Weathernaught 57X to change seasons will not turn off the clear sky.

Trivia

 * The Weathernaught 57X also appears in The Sims Castaway Stories as the "Ignis Ex-Machina". The player will obtain it at the end of the story from the helicopter pilot. Since "ignis" means "fire" in Latin, the name can be translated as "Fire from the machine", and may be a reference to "Deus ex machina".
 * Although it's a story reward in Castaway Stories, it has 5 uses, just as in The Sims 2: Seasons. It's a very expensive object, which costs about 15 000 resources. Players can choose clear sky, rain or hail as the weather, and can also prolong the seasons.
 * There is a miniature sculpture of the Weathernaught 57X in FreeTime.

The Sims FreePlay
The Weather Machine is the main part of the Climate Control update for The Sims FreePlay, which was released June 6th, 2013.

In May 2013, a friendly green alien, Osiris, landed in Sim Town, giving the players a certain amount of limited time goals they needed to complete in order to get limited edition teleporter. As this event finished, the following notification appeared, revealing a tip:


 * Great job helping Osiris with his research!


 * So what's coming up in the next update? Well, Osiris is going to start work on some kind of new device... so be sure to tune in to see WEATHER or not he needs your help!

Osiris is back with new goals that players need to complete for a weather machine. The Weather Machine was separated into three models, depending on number of goals players completed:
 * Basic Model - Although this particular Weather Machine has limited functionality, it can switch between day and night with the touch of a button!
 * Upgraded & The Snow Park - This upgrade to the Weather Machine allows you to create snow! But that's not all... Once the Weather Machine is upgraded to create snow, you'll get access to the all-new Snow Park where you can go snowboarding, have snow fights, ride the ski lift and more!
 * Fully-upgraded - This final upgrade to the Weather Machine allows you to create storms at your Sims houses!

The machine can be bought in the Home Store under the Electronics tab, for 300,000 Simoleons, and can only be placed once per household.