Collecting Experiences with the Downtown Developer Event

[ErinPW]

Thank you so much for all the explanation, Thuraya!
I have copied the updated post into the older post and deleted the other one.

[SKatF]

About the building downtown, if you know you’re not going to finish it in time then does it make any sense to keep collecting? Does anyone know if it will help out in the end?
TIA!

I hope it helps. I don’t think I will finish on time and I’m not breaking my neck for it. I think even finishing late, within 45(?) days, gets you an empty 3 floor condo and or lot where you can build a three floor condo. There’s nothing really to recommend finishing on time. The condo furnishings are pretty pedestrian imo. I think this is true but I could easily be misunderstanding everything.

If you don't finish on time, you still need to collect all required resources at your convenience or pay many SP in lieu of resources. You also pay a huge simolean penalty for each stage you don't finish on time.

In the end you get a free build, but when you build it, it's just a vacant lot. It is NOT an empty building as seems implied.

When you build on it, you will have to pay for second and third floor, if you want them.

[mudgenie]

Does anyone know if this is a one time build of the apartment or can you build it more than once?

[ErinPW]

Does anyone know if this is a one time build of the apartment or can you build it more than once?

The first apartment was free, after that it costs simoleons.

[mudgenie]

This is literally the worst event in the history of the Sims imo--so far anyway—who knows what horrors they will think of next. There is no way to win without spending huge amounts of SP. I am so discouraged right now. I’m in the middle of waiting 24 hours for the right shard permit to be given. This is so annoying. You should just get the permit you need. Plus this thing is not fun at all, it is super boring. It makes SimChase look good, which is saying a lot.

[mudgenie]

So I’m finding that the only time you should spend SP is the last 15 days. I wasted a lot of SPs early on because I thought that is would give me a head start. But by the time I got to the last major stage (made up of 3 sections), I still only had 15 days to finish. So my advice is save your SPs for the end of the event if you want to get the building. I’m so tired of this event that part of me wants to spend SPs to make it stop (is that their strategy?). Also buying the help of the dude, if you can afford it, would have been helpful but it’s too late for me now. I’m going to try and get the building because of the windows, but it’s going to be a close thing and I don’t know if I will succeed. Good luck everyone!

[Ruskettle]

I am currently on stage 5. I paid the late fee on stage 4 as I had 7 hours to mine the last glass . Stage 6 should be fine now that I know what to prepare for.
When I get to Stage 7 I'll have to choose one of:
A: complete Stage 7 in 3 days, skipping 2 granite and 2 glass with SP, which will give me 9 days for stage 8 and then 3 days for stage 9.
B: Complete stage 7 in 6 days (5 if I get all the gold on day 3, which will give me an extra granite day at the end of Stage 9) and skip 1 gold on stage 8, which means I can do that in 6 days leaving 3(or 4) days for stage 9.

The SP costs seem to have gone up. They are currently 15 SP for 1 granite, 93 SP for 2 glass, and 146 SP for 1 gold (in stage 5). If that is the same at stage 7 It will be cheaper to skip 2 granite and 2 glass than 1 gold.
I will monitor the in game skip costs and make a final decision on day 3 of Stage 7.
There doesn't seem to be any way to avoid paying SP somewhere because of that 7 gold requirement in Stage 8, unless you buy Joe.