Environment

See also: Decorations

Environment

A messy and poorly maintained room

“	Decorations and landscaping around the lot will affect the environment. Sims like bright, clean spaces with plenty of color and light. A well kept house and yard will surely fulfill this need.	”
	—The Sims 2

Environment (in The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories), also known as Room (in The Sims and console games of The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Pets), is an often overlooked motive that determines how happy a Sim is with the environment around him or her. It is a combined rating that analyzes the design and content of the room that the Sim is currently standing in. Different factors can affect this motive; for example, Sims don't like small rooms, or rooms with not enough light or windows, nor do they like dead fish in the aquarium, dead plants, walls with no texture on them, foundations with no floor texture on them, dirty plates, puddles, ash piles, or dirty or broken objects. Certain purchases will improve the room rating, such as expensive fireplaces, sculptures, landscaping, or paintings.

Although this need does not exist in The Sims 3, The Sims Medieval and The Sims 4, object catalogues inexplicably still mention the environment need and negative moodlets are given for dirty objects or plates and lack of or no furnishing or light while positive moodlets are given for rooms or outdoor areas with good decorations and lighting.

The Sims and The Sims Bustin' Out

This meter is known as room in The Sims, and both child and adult Sims have it. If Unleashed is installed, pets also have it. This is the only need in the game where Sims won't complain when it's red, thought it still affects their mood.

This meter is absent from The Sims Bustin' Out for handheld and replaced with the homesick meter, although the icon for the room motive is still used. This motive can be replenished by staying at home, and depletes by leaving home.

The Urbz: Sims in the City

Room is not present in The Urbz: Sims in the City, but some objects have stats for room.

In The Urbz: Sims in the City for Handheld, there is a homesick meter similar to the one in Bustin' Out for handheld.

The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories

In The Sims 2, it is renamed environment, and does not appear until a Sim becomes a teen (though, in The Sims 2, babies have the environment motive when their motives are viewed with testingcheatsenabled enabled). In The Sims 2: Pets, environment is replaced with scratch (for cats) and chew (for dogs). PlantSims do not have an environment motive. Unlike in The Sims, Sims will complain about environment when it's red, which can be a bit of an annoyance, especially if players intentionally want a room to be small or with other features that Sims might find appalling.

If a Sim wakes up to an alarm clock, or noise caused by a neighbor through a shared wall, their environment bar will become completely red, until the noise is gone. If they can't, their mood will drastically decrease, but it quickly recovers once they finally turn it off. An accident or fire causing Sims to panic will also drain all of their environment bar.

If there are too many plates of spoiled food around a Sim, and a Sim's environment bar is low, they may die by flies.

Broken objects, dirty objects, trash, dirty dishes, spoiled food, dimness, and puddles also decrease a Sim's environment need.

Since it depends on a Sim's surroundings, environment is not affected by the maxmotives cheat, or by motive-affecting items.

Despite being a need for children in The Sims, it is not a need for children in The Sims 2, meaning children's moods will not be affected by a messy room, possibly to make it similar to how most children in real life don't care about a messy room.

The Sims 2 console games

In The Sims 2 and The Sims 2: Pets, the motive is room, which is same as The Urbz: Sims in the City. However, in The Sims 2: Castaway, the motive is environment.

The Sims 3

The environment need has been removed in The Sims 3, The Sims Medieval and The Sims 4.

In The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, objects still have an Environment rating, and Sims who are standing in a room with a high environment rating will get a "Decorated" or "Nicely Decorated" moodlet. Sims in a room with trash, puddles, spoiled food, and dirty objects will get the "Dirty Surroundings", "Filthy Surroundings" or "Vile Surroundings" moodlets based on how dirty the room is.

Calculation system (The Sims 3)

Whether a room gives the "Decorated", "Nicely Decorated", or "Beautifully Decorated" moodlet depends on a complicated calculation system seen in "EnvironmentScore_0x04539a6dd98350aa" in GameplayData.package.

Many of the finer details are unclear, but it relies in part on the exact numbers of objects in the room with Decorative stats, the size of the room, and how the highest-stat objects are calculated.

All rooms seem to need a minimum of 3 objects with at least 1 Environment point each before it begins counting.

For rooms that are less than 25sq² (Equivalent to 5x5sq), the first 5 objects count the most. If there are 6 or more objects with at least 1 Environment point each, then the 6th-highest-stats object onwards count much less than the first 5, and there are also complicated measures in place to prevent filling rooms with "Environment: 1" objects to try to reach the thresholds.

For small rooms with only 5 Environment objects, 8+8+7+7+4 (34) is roughly sufficient to get "Beautifully Decorated", whereas 8+8+7+6+5 (Also 34) does not. Around those thresholds, the margins are slim, so in unlikely circumstances it is possible to e.g. replace an "Environment: 1" lamp with a lamp that has no Environment stat and get a higher calculated score.

For rooms that are more than 225sq² (Equivalent to 15x15sq), the first 15 objects count the most, and each object is counted as 60% of what they would be counted as in a small room. In outdoor spaces the first 10 objects count the most, and are counted the same as in a small room, but each object is only counted if the Sim is within 10sq of the object.

Points are deducted for burned tiles (-5), puddles (-8), broken objects (-10), charred objects (-10), having neither lights or windows in the room (-5), and having uncovered ground or walls in the room (-15).

The Sims 4 and later games

In The Sims 4, decorative objects provide a moodlet that gives the Sims inside a happy moodlet, and multiple decorations stack the moodlets and make the Sims happier. Conversely, spoiled food, puddles, trash, and damaged items give nearby Sims uncomfortable moodlets.

In patch 95 of The Sims 4, all architectural elements such as wall patterns, floor patterns, fences, and columns will have impact on environment either positive or negative. This feature can be disabled in the gameplay option menu.