This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal,
private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other
web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a
violation of copyright.
[2.1] Daily Salary (S)
[2.2] Hours per Day (H)
[2.3] Days per Week (D)
[2.4] Skill Points Required (P)
[2.5] Family Friends Required (F)
[2.6] Basic Statistics Table
[3] Calculated Statistics
[3.1] Hourly Salary (HS)=(S/H)
[3.2] Weekly Salary (WS)=(S*D)
[3.3] Free Hours per Week (FH)=(168-D*H)
[3.4] Salary per Free Hour (FS)=(WS/FH)
[3.5] Free Time Ratio (FR)=(FH/D*H)
[3.6] Calculated Statistics Table
[4] Net Statistics
[4.1] Daily Salary
[4.2] Hours per Day
[4.3] Days per Week
[4.4] Skill Points Required
[4.5] Family Friends Required
[4.6] Hourly Salary
[4.7] Weekly Salary
[4.8] Free Hours per Week
[4.9] Salary per Free Hour
[4.10] Free Time Ratio
[4.11] Net Statistics Table
[5] Quality Statistics
[5.1] Work (W)=(P+F)
[5.2] Net Work
[5.3] Quality of Life Score (QLS)=(FS*FR)
[5.4] Net Quality of Life Score
[5.5] Adjusted Quality of Life (aQLS)=(QLS/W)
[5.6] Net Adjusted Quality of Life
[5.7] Quality Statistics Table
This faq was made after I decided to publish the results of some statistical
career analysis that I did. All the figures are as accurate as I could find
and pertain to the top level of each career. If I have made a mistake please
email me at the address provided at the bottom of the faq. I would also like
to mention that this analysis does not factor in three things: chance cards,
career ladder, and time of hours. These things may change the total career
value for you, either economically or otherwise. Also, hours at work considers
that you leave for work at the last possible second. Leaving any time before
that causes work value to decrease.
Statistics are given variable symbols denoted in the section title.
These statistics are a little more interesting. They consist of two or more
values being calculated against each other. The variable designations and
formulas are noted in the section title.
[3.1] Hourly Salary (HS)=(S/H)
The hourly salary is how much your sim earns for each hour spent at work. I
consider this the simplest measure of career efficiency.
This statistic is a count of how many free (non-work) hours this career has
in a week. I have noted it in both absolute value and percentage.
(There are 168 hours in a week.)
This basic measure of how well a sim is living. By dividing the weekly
salary by the number of hours a sim has free in a week, you get the amount of
money they can spend for each free hour. This roughly translates into how
wealthy they are. Keep in mind that this doesn't factor in how much free time
they have, and all the money in the world means nothing if you have no time to
spend it.
This is a ratio of free hours to working hours. The value represents the
number of free time hours the sim gets for every hour spent working. It is a
relative measurement of how much time is spent at work. The lower the number,
the more time spent working.
These statistics are comparisons against the averages. It gives a relative
view of how the numbers compare, career to career. It should be noted that in
the presentation of hours per day, days per week, skill points required, and
friends required, the value is positive if the career is lower than average.
This is to keep with the trend in this set that positive is better than
the average value.
[4.1] Daily Salary
This is a basic comparison of how much each career brings home a day.
This is a comparison of the first real calculated statistic. This gives a
relative comparison of the hourly salary, the most basic efficiency statistic.
These are some statistics I worked up to paint a more accurate picture of
each career, as compared to many fragmented statistics. These statistics are
basically a summation of all that has been presented here. If you don't want
to analyze all the basic, calculated, and net statistics, this is the easy
way to tell which careers are superior (economically) to others.
[5.1] Work (W)=(P+F)
This is almost a calculated statistic in that it is just the sum of skills
required and friends required, but I only use it here in the quality section so
I have placed the statistics here.
If I were to rank all of the careers based on one statistic, I would use
this, the Quality of Life Score. It the product of the free time ratio and
the salary per free hour. It measures both the amount of free time and money
that a sim will have for that free time. A high score can be achieved in this
by either a high paying, work intensive career, or a career in which you have
a lot of free time and average pay. This is the best overall numerical
statistic that I could calculate to compare the careers.
I figure that one should take into account how hard a career is to obtain
for the returns it provides. If I can get the same QLS in two careers, which-
ever career is easier to obtain is obviously economically superior. To factor
this into the scores, I divided the QLS by the work statistic, and multiplied
by ten to get a nice number.
After all these numbers and comparisons, what does it all mean? Well, I
think a couple things are clear. Some careers are superior to others. Better
pay and less hours is always better than less pay and more hours. But which
ones are at the top of the list? Here is a list of careers, as sorted in
descending order of QLS.
1. Science
2. Athletics
3. Culinary
4. Business
4. Slacker
6. Criminal
7. Politics
8. Medical
9. Law
10. Military
Looking at this list, the top careers balance a high salary with a high
relative amount of free time. Remember that the Science career hours are very
late at night, but I didn't factor this into the scores. Also, note that
Business isn't really higher than Slacker, it is tied with it.
That list shows which is purely the best, but which is the best in terms
of economics? That is, which is the greatest output (QLS) with the least cost
(W)? That is the aQLS. Here is another descending list, ranked by aQLS. The
position change is noted in the parentheses.
1. Science (0)
2. Athletics (0)
3. Slacker (+1)
4. Culinary (-1)
5. Business (-1)
6. Criminal (0)
7. Military (+3)
7. Politics (0)
9. Medical (-1)
10. Law (-1)
There are a couple interesting things about this list. First of all, due
to the low work requirements for the Military and Slacker careers, they both
jumped up in position. Some of the more work intensive, such a Medical and
Law took a dive. Note that Science is still at the top of the list.
I think these lists both give very good overall representations of how
efficient each career is. Take in mind that this is the final level of each.
career, and the career ladder and chance cards are not taken into effect. I
hope that this helps in your career decisions, or just gives you a little
insight into the numbers behind the careers.
Email me if you have any comments, questions or suggestions.
This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal,
private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other
web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a
violation of copyright.
I would like to thank SnootySims for some of the career data they have.
Maddison: I <3 you..
Maxis: For creating one of my favorite franchises in history.
Coke: For making Diet Coke.
The 80s: Greatest decade, EVER.
Life: In general, you are pretty great.
