Lunar Cycle & Small Telescopes

Were your Sims set in their nocturnal ways? The moon now has phases within a Lunar Cycle! From now on, you’ll notice that the moon in the sky changes over time, which affects how much light is given off at night in almost every neighborhood across all packs. This excludes locations that might not make sense, like the Magic Realm.

In total, there are eight phases: New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Third Quarter, and Waning Crescent. With default settings, the moon will change each night, but you can change the length of the phases in the Environment section of Game Options. If you want, you can also make a phase permanent or turn off moon effects.

Yes, the moon phase will affect your Sim! Each phase grants a special gameplay boost that can be viewed by hovering over the moon icon at the bottom center of the screen. This information will also display the current phase. Are you curious when the next full moon is coming around? The calendar has also been updated to display upcoming moon phases based on the previously mentioned phase length settings.

Occult Sims will find that the moon now plays an extra role in how their powers behave. During certain moon phases, Mermaids have less hydration loss, Vampires recharge power slower, Spellcasters cast spells more successfully, and Aliens receive a special moodlet while moonbathing (which is also now a thing for all Sims Teen and older)!

There are also some particularly cute new interactions for toddlers. They have special questions that they can ask during each phase and they can also say goodnight to the moon. This will grant them special moon dreams, which may change depending on the particular moon phase that night. Prepare for cuteness overload! (I’d be remiss if I failed to mention that this is where the Princess Cordelia reference is hidden in this pack. Sorry, SimGuruNinja. You can’t stop me!)

Sims are now also able to moongaze through the observatory or the…

It was a rainy afternoon one day at the Maxis office. The Bay doesn’t see much rain, and the sound of water drops hitting the windows filled the otherwise silent studio.

In a dimly lit corner on the Maxis floor, one Modeling Artist was working on a telescope model. A simple feature, a staple of the Sims and real-life space hobbyists. A smile grew across the Artist’s face. The model was perfect. Small, elegant, perfectly capable of sitting on a balcony in a virtual household. There were great expectations for The Sims 4, and the Artist had great expectations too.

Suddenly, a Game Designer appeared behind the Artist. The Artist was serenaded by the sound of rain, and hadn’t noticed that they were no longer alone.

As the Artist turned around to greet the Designer, the Designer uttered a single word, as if to interrupt eye contact.

“Bigger.” the Designer muttered.

Confused, the Artist scanned their freshly sculpted 3D model in order to figure out what exactly needed to be bigger. The base of the structure? Could it not support the weight of such a lens? Was the scope itself too small? Would the mysteries of the cosmos elude our Sims with its inadequacy?

“What do you mean by-” the Artist’s voice was cut short as they noticed the Designer digging into a fresh plate of Lobster Thermidor. A peculiar sight as there wasn’t even a kitchen nearby. How had the Designer cooked an entire lobster? The grated cheese atop the crustacean slowly melted as the Artist sat astonished.

“Bigger.” the Designer once again exclaimed. This time slightly louder, exhaling a cloud of Old Bay seasoning that stung the Artist’s eyes. The Artist blinked rapidly and grimaced.

“What exactly needs to be big-”

“BIGGER.” This time the Designer was shouting, bread crumbs flying onto the desk.

The Designer stood silently before taking another bite. The Artist looked down at the clenched hands in their lap, trying hard to find the right words to say. Where do we go from here? Where does life go from here?

The Artist tried to return their gaze to the Designer, but the Designer was already gone. Lingering steam lofted in the air. The Artist tried once again to speak, but words felt meaningless, unnecessary. The only thing that remained was the odor of buttery shellfish and the gentle hum of rain.

The Artist sighed and looked back at their telescope model, still baffled by the encounter. As their thoughts stirred, one word repeated in their mind.

Bigger.

Bigger.

Bigger.

Yes! They’re finally here. Tiny, portable, and ready to fulfill your logic dreams. This patch includes one small telescope, and The Sims 4 Werewolves Game Pack will add a second pack-specific one. Most of the interactions that were available on the observatory are also available on the small telescope, but for understandable reasons you cannot Woohoo inside it, and – as it isn’t quite as technically advanced as the observatory – using the small telescope will not reward prints. You may, at various times of day and night:

• Spy on Neighborhood
• Observe the Sky
• Search for the Truth
• Stargaze
• Track Satellite
• Spy on Apartments [City Living]

Important Warning: Viewing the night sky can be dangerous work. If your Sim notices something is coming straight for them… get inside quickly! Death by meteorite is now a thing! So are meteorite ghosts! Who knew?

Observatory

Small Telescopes aren’t the only star gazing item to get some attention. Remember the base game observatory? Yes, the big one. How could you forget after the story above?! Well, you can now discover 10 new framed moon prints when moongazing with it! They’re very pretty, and I hear one might show what Sixam looks like from space.

• We added a new beard!
• To address feedback on the rainbow Base Game wedding dress variants we released with My Wedding Stories, we added some new variants that are ombre and faded to two of the dresses.
• We heard that you wanted the My Wedding Stories wedding hijab without the veil, so now you have a new hijab headpiece in Base Game!

In Build Mode you will now find “The Brickery Elite – Caution” wallpaper, which complements the existing base game “Brickery Elite” wallpaper. There are also two new terrain paints – one has a lot of tiny rocks that are very cute and the other is pine duff! Both look fantastic in Moonwood Mill if we do say so, ourselves. Use them wherever you’d like though!

We’ve made some various improvements to the user interface in the Base Game for Scenarios.

• The Scenarios menu now uses a tile system that shows information about what to start the Scenario with and some possible Story Endings.
• The menu will also now show recommendations for scenarios and show limited time scenarios at the top of the screen.
• The Scenarios tab in the Live Mode UI has been updated to better showcase actions to pursue in the Scenario.
• Brand new players to The Sims 4 will now see a welcome screen on the Main Menu.

• Wolfsbane has been brought to Base Game. You may acquire it through cheats or random plant awards, but this will allow it to be found in the worlds of both The Sims 4 Werewolves as well as the The Sims 4 Vampires.
• We are formally excited to announce: “Reticulating Splines” is back as a loading tip!

• Why shouldn’t Sims be able to nap in a bush that’s been… partied in? We couldn’t think of a good reason, so we fixed it!

 Sweet dreams.

• The floors will no longer disappear on Low/Medium graphics settings for 2019 16“ MacBook Pro users.
• It’s a good day for 2019 16“ MacBook Pro users. Potentially more important than the ground not disappearing, the game will also not crash when on Low graphics settings.
• You know how when you’d make a picture frame black, then change it to another color, and then change your mind and decide that black really was the right option and you’d try to change it back but it wouldn’t go back to black? Well that doesn’t happen anymore! Your indecision is secure!
• If you looked at the pack preview screenshots on Origin, some of The Sims4 packs had more screenshots than when previewing a pack on the main menu, so we made sure that each pack that had at least four screenshots on Origin also had at least four screenshots in our main menu, because our main menu felt jealous, and now it doesn’t.
• The ymBody_EF01BusinessSuitMed_WarmGray suit was clipping through itself when a Sim would sit in it. Really, the clipping collected a lot of crumbs and got the suit dirty, so it was a problem that needed fixed. Fancy Sims everywhere rejoice!
• I’m not very tech-savvy myself, but our engineers fixed an issue where low/medium settings on Retina displays (which I had no clue were a thing) was causing graphical issues on lots.
• There were some unnecessary blue blocks in the Tutorials section of the Game Options Menu for Xbox, so we got rid of those. They were strange. Strange and blue… and very boxy. Too suspicious for us!
• 3… 2… 1… blast off! Sometimes Sims were unable to build rocket ships, but that is no longer the case!

• If a Sim aspiring to be a Self-Care Specialist wants to complete the “Hustle” goal, they should be able to! And now they can. The world needs more hustle.
• Russian and Polish translations for one of the new aspirations were being cut off in UI when you went to select a new Aspiration. Now the tooltips say what they should!

• Already powerful Spellcasters that seemed “stuck” will now receive additional perk points when the XP bar fills to maximum. Need I warn you all that fixing this was probably a bad idea? Does the world really need more powerful Spellcasters? This is how you get magical super villains!
• We fixed an issue where Spellcasters and Aliens were having children with incomplete genetics data. It sort of makes sense, since they are Aliens, but also it wasn’t a good experience because once that child became a teen, they would be missing pants. And underwear. With no censor grid… So yeah.

• The Proper trait now has text in Russian. No longer will players stare at the icon of a person bowing with no guidance as to what it means!

• When a Sim with level 10 in the Interior Decorator career does a level addition gig, they can now add additional levels, walls, stairs, and delete items on walls.
• Decorator Sims who attempt to do a Basement Gym Level Addition gig are now able to add basements. Sim afraid of working out underground will not be pleased with this update.
• The ymTop_GP10JeanJacket will now appear in the catalog as a feminine style choice.

• Gloves should accessorize a dress, not change it, and for the yfBody_GP11DressBridePrincess dress this is now true! No longer will gloves have an undesirable texture overlay.
• There once was a magical left-handed ring, that when worn, would replace the texture of any other ring put on the same finger of the opposite hand with its own. This was a dark magic, an evil magic, and so The Sims 4 developers put a stop to it! They said, “No more! Stay on your own finger, foul ring beast!” Now you can wear this ring and another ring on the same finger but opposite hand and they will look different! All is as it should be.
• Dmaps have been updated for ymBody_GP11SuitFlowing_Red, which pretty much means that it looks less wobbly. Nobody likes a wobbly suit.
• When you pull the camera in and out for windows windowMISHigh2x1x4_02 and windowMISHigh1x1x3_02, they will now change LoDs as desired. The Laurents won’t be quite so confused now when they come and go from their mansion.
• That awkward moment when a Sim leans in to kiss while Slow Dancing and fails… well it’s even more awkward now because they’re actually touching and their hands aren’t floating. Or is that less awkward? We aren’t sure.