User blog comment:WayfinderOwl/Questions about sims children/@comment-1441666-20130122181638

Hi there - I still play TS2 a lot and additionally I own copies of the Prima guides which are usually pretty reliable on issues of game mechanics, so here's hoping I can cobble together some answers to your questions.

From the Prima guide: Genetics in TS2 follow this pattern: for eyes, brown and dark blue are always dominant over light blue, grey and green, so in answer to your first question all their children will have brown eyes. For hair, brown and black are always dominant over blonde and red, so if the Sim parents you mentioned have the same colour as both dominant and recessive in each case, all of their children will have black hair. (In my game when this happens and I want them to have blonde or red hair I don't use cheats - I just wait until they are a toddler or child and then "dye" their hair using the change appearance option on a mirror.) [Also, I've heard it said by some people that red hair is dominant over blonde, but I've never seen any evidence of this in-game myself or in the Prima guides, which only describe two levels of dominance, dominant and recessive. It isn't the 100% dominance that brown and black hair have over blonde and red if it does occur. There are also a few reports of blonde or red hair being dominant over black or brown, but since they're so very rare I reckon they're usually down to game glitches. Just thought you'd be interested.]

Children can definitely go on vacation (see Tina Traveller's character page), but toddlers, babies and pets can't.

As for custom hair colours, my memory is a little less clear and I'm not sure how many you get without "University" installed, but there were some available for males as well as females and from age child up with certain expansion/stuff packs, although as in most cases of hair and clothing in TS2 I think females get more options. I remember there being red, blue, green, purple, pink, etc. styles, as well as some that were natural colours with highlights (see the type used on Miranda Capp). You can't access these styles in CAS, you have to create your character and then edit their appearance in-game using a mirror and clicking the custom hair tab. It's also worth noting here that you can't select custom hair colours for any style you want, they are pre-set designs with a single style per colour.

Sorry for the long post. Hope this helps though. By the way, it's good to see I'm not the only person who puts so much planning into the game before even starting. ;)