Sims 4: Off The Grid Challenge Guide

If you choose to do this task, you will be on your own and have to live like our ancestors did, without plumbing or electricity.

You’ll need to be able to find food and water and find other ways to make money to stay alive in the game and meet your needs. SnarkyWitch came up with the task.

This isn’t an Off the Grid lot trait (challenge), even though it sounds like one. Instead, it’s a challenge with a plot and more complicated goals that you have to meet to finish.

The Off-the-grid lot feature (challenge) is a built-in Sims 4 perk that you can learn more about here. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about how to play the off-the-grid task!

Objective

The goal of this task is to build a town where a tribe of Sims lives off of what they can get from the land.

No grocery shopping, no using technology, no indoor plumbing, no jobs or companies that use any of these things, and no trips to places with these things.

Your Sims have to do everything on their own and work hard to stay alive. The challenge is over when every home in your town has made the requirements to be true “off the grid” masters.

However, if you are still having fun playing this way after your challenge is over, feel free to keep going.

Story

A tribe of nomad Sims who don’t believe in the ways of the 21st century stumbles across a completely empty landscape and sees it as a golden chance to claim the land as their own and build a permanent village there that has nothing to do with technology.

This town will be one of the few places left in the Sim world that hasn’t been changed at all by modern life.

The commitment and hard work they’ve put into building a sustainable community will help the tribe grow and do well.

How To Get Started?

Sims 4: Off The Grid Challenge Guide

Here you are at the start of your journey off the grid with your tribe of nomad Sims. First, let’s get the ground ready!

You can do this by picking one of the base game words (Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, or Newcrest) or one of the following game packs: Windenburg, Forgotten Hollow, or Bridleton Bay.

Once you’re in a map view, it’s time to set up the private and community lots. You start the grid task with empty lots for all of the houses, so make sure that all of the houses are taken down and replaced with empty lots.

Start with your neighborhood lots. In worlds with less than 5 lots, you can only have one community lot. In worlds with more than 5 lots, you can have up to three community lots.

Even though you can play with any kind of community lot, it’s best to choose ones that are more useful because there are only so many. Just like homes, these shouldn’t have plumbing or power.

If you choose a community lot that needs a forbidden item, put it where your Sims can’t get to it (like in a basement or behind four walls with no doors).

Once the community lots are ready, turn all the other lots into places where people can live for your future nomads in the off-the-grid task.

How to Complete the Sims 4 off the Grid Challenge?

In The Sims 4, you have to turn on the lot challenge in the Build/Buy menu in order to play Off the Grid. To start it, choose “Off the Grid” from the list of lot tasks.

When you go back to Live Mode, your home will get a message that you are no longer connected to the power grid.

Things that use power won’t work anymore, so you’ll have to figure out how to live without them.

Now you will need to replace your lights, appliances, electronics, and water with things that work with the Off the Grid lot challenge.

Look for the “Off the Grid” area in the “Build/Buy” section. It has items from the categories of lights, plumbing, and appliances that can be used with this challenge enabled.

Off-grid fridges need to have ice added to them often. Some sinks and baths don’t let you do much, so save water. You can get water from any body of water in the world. Each time, you can get 5 units of water.

If you have the Eco Lifestyle expansion, you can use green tools like solar panels and wind turbines to make your own electricity.

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To be eco-friendly, you can also use engines that run on gas or biofuel from insect farms. If your home is powered by green technologies or generators, you can use energy and plumbing even when you are not connected to the grid.

As long as you don’t use more power than you produce, you can live like you’re connected to the power grid and even make money by selling any extra power back to the power company.

Creating Off-The-Grid Nomads And Moving In

Now, let’s make your tribe of nomads. You can play with characters as usual in CAS mode because it doesn’t change the difficulty much.

The only thing you have to watch out for is alien suits, which are not allowed because they are high-tech and dangerous.

You can pick any goal you want for the off-the-grid task. But keep in mind that you won’t be able to use some items (like the Computer Whiz aspiration) to reach certain goals.

You can have Sims and pets of any age, but keep in mind that the younger your Sims are, the harder it will be to finish the task because you’re going off the grid and toddlers, kids, and pets will depend on you a lot.

You will have to play all of your families and switch between them, so take your time to make characters you’ll enjoy playing. In the off-the-grid task, it will be hard to take care of your pets because you can’t take them to the vet.

Give each house a week or so of your time, since you will have to play everyone in your little group. This will give you more power over how everyone ages, but you can still play a family for less or more time than that if you want to.

Game Settings For The Challenge

Once you’re in the world you chose for the off-the-grid task, go to the game settings and set the following options to have full control over the world and its people:

  • Auto age(Played Sims) > Only Active Household.
  • Sim Lifespan > Normal
  • Fill Empty Houses > uncheck the box 

Even though this is called the “off-the-grid challenge,” it doesn’t say that you have to turn on the “off-the-grid lot challenge” trait, which can make it much easier to turn off water and power on lots.

Off The Grid Challenge Rules

To live off the grid, you have to give up the comforts of modern life, like having food in the fridge and a 9-to-5 job. You also can’t order things on the internet or use a modern bathroom or toilet.

You will play with more than one family, and all of them will have to learn how to live without electricity.

The main goal is for everyone in your town to be nomads and live off the grid. The longer you want to play off the grid is up to you.

The bigger the world you choose, the harder it will be for all households to fight for off-the-grid goals. So, to finish the off-the-grid task, you must:

  1. Build off-grid homes
  2. Earn money in alternative ways
  3. Have everyone in town master practical skills to become masters of off-grid living

1. Building Off-Grid Homes

Every family in the world you choose has to start from scratch and build a house. All of the homes in the off-the-grid challenge will have to follow a set of rules.

This means that none of them can have plumbing, power, or things that aren’t allowed. The house will need at least two doors and four roofed walls.

Each room will need a roof. Living off the grid should be fun, so you have to get at least three things that can fill the daily fun meter for your Sims.

  • Rooms (General Rules): If you make more than one room, be ready to spend money, because each room needs at least one window, a floor, some kind of wallpaper, and some furniture. All of the rooms will need off-grid lighting and one piece of clutter and one piece of wall art that you make or buy.
  • Bedroom: In the off-the-grid task, only two Sims can share a bedroom, and each bedroom needs a bed, a dresser, a night table, and a light. The more people you have living with you, the more bedrooms you’ll need to build.
  • Bathroom: At least one bathroom should be built. It needs to have a sink and a bathroom, which must be made by hand with a woodworking table. Also, you should add at least one mirror to finish the inside.
  • Kitchen & Dining room: Kitchens and dining rooms can be built together or on their own. For the kitchen, only use tools that don’t need electricity, like grills, and you’ll need at least three free counters. The rules for the off-grid dining room challenge say that you need at least one coffee table and one eating table. So, if you have a family of eight people, make sure they all have a place to sit in the kitchen or dining room.
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2. Earning Money The Alternative Way

You will start the off-the-grid adventure with just $2,000 in your bank account. You will have to use cheats to make sure of that. First, open the dialogue box by pressing Ctrl+Shift+C.

Then, type testingcheats true, hit Enter to turn cheats on, and use the money 2000 cheat to set their family funds to $2,000. If you don’t have kids or pets, this will be your starting money. If you do that, you can add more money to that $2,000 total.

The extra cost is $500 for a toddler, $300 for a kid, and $100 for a pet. So, if you have two young children and a cat, for example, you can add an extra $1100.

You will get bills and have to pay them as usual, but you can ignore them if you want to. If the off-the-grid lot challenge is on, you won’t have to worry about fees.

You can’t get a job because you can’t use a PC, you can’t connect to the internet anywhere in your chosen world, and you have to turn off your Sims phones and don’t use them.

This means that you will have to find other ways to make a living, like playing an instrument for tips, making art, or selling what you make, grow, catch, gather, or find. If you don’t have City Living installed for the off-the-grid task, you can sell on a flea market table or right from your inventory.

How To Make Sims Become Masters Of Off-The-Grid Living?

Living a nomadic lifestyle with the off the grid challenge takes some serious life skills. This means that everyone in your tribe, from babies to old people, will need to learn some practical skills in order to live and grow off the grid:

  • Teens-Elders: Max out at least one practical or artistic skill: Handiness, Cooking, Gourmet Cooking, Baking, Gardening, Herbalism, Painting, or any instrument but electric. If you have The Sims 4: Parenthood game pack installed, teens will also need to have one positive character value.
  • Children: Max out at least one kid’s skill (Creativity, Motor, Social, Mental)

Toddlers: During the off-the-grid task, your child should master at least one toddler skill (imagination, thinking, movement, or communication) and a potty skill.

Social Life And Activities In Nomadic Tribe

Even though your Sims’ lives are going “back to the basics,” their social lives and hobbies won’t be changed much.

Your characters can learn skills and do fun things as long as they don’t involve power, plumbing, or items that aren’t allowed.

As long as you don’t leave their original lot empty, you can move your families around, have them join another household, or get married once they’re settled on their lot.

If an alien kidnaps you during the off-the-grid task and gives you an alien baby, make sure it doesn’t grow up to wear a high-tech alien suit.

You can also have kids with other travelers, but you need tech stuff to adopt a child. The way kids go to school won’t change.

The only change is that your teens can now let loose and won’t get in trouble if they skip school. Since they can’t use phones, they’ll have to talk to each other in person, just like in the good old days.

Traveling Rules & Getting Your Sims Needs Met

Your Sims will have a hard time meeting their needs if they live off the grid, especially at the beginning of the off the grid task. Here are the other things you’ll need to do to keep them alive and happy:

1. Hunger & Energy

Hunger: To survive off grid, you will need to catch fish and grow plants. Cooking is limited to learned recipes that require collecting ingredients in the world, so no burgers, eggs and toast, grilled cheese or similar, so they will have no quick meals.

You can cook on a campfire, a grill, barbecue drum, a wood-burning stove, and store your food in storage chests only. Only toddlers can have organic quick meals via a high chair. 

When it comes to energy needs, off the grid challenge isn’t too strict. To recharge them after a long day, get them to sleep in a wooden bed or a tent.

2. Baldder & Hygene

Your Sims will have to use the toilet they made on a woodworking table because it is the only one available.

Make sure you get a woodworking table as soon as you can, because you will need it to build a bath and a toilet.

Until you make one, your Sims will smell bad and have to use the uncomfortable, natural way to go to the bathroom in the first few days of the off-grid task.

You can also go to the bathroom in a bush. Even though they can go to any of the community lots you set up, they can’t use the bathrooms in any of them.

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3. Fun & Travel

Fun: You can have all the fun you want when playing the off-the-grid challenge, as long as it doesn’t involve electric tools.

Travel: Your nomad Sims can’t leave their home world, except for Granite Falls, where they can collect collectibles, plants, and fish as long as they don’t stay there overnight.

People from other worlds can only keep in touch with people they meet in Granite Falls in person.

This will be hard, so don’t spend too much time getting to know people from other worlds. They can’t drive cars, so they have to walk or ride bikes to get around.

Forbidden And Allowed Objects For Off-Grid Living

You can also fail the challenge if you use any of the forbidden items or don’t meet the skill and building standards.

All items in the Plumbing, Electronics, and Appliances category that are in buy mode are not allowed in the off the grid task.

The only exceptions to this rule are the Auld Crow Wood-Burning Cookstove, IceBOX Vintage Refrigerator, and Carbonette Charcoal Grill, which you need to cook without electricity and keep your fish and harvestables fresh.

You can’t use any kind of power light, so the only way to light up a room is with candles. If you have pets, you can’t use things that do things for themselves or clean themselves.

You also can’t use your cell phone (turn it off and don’t answer any calls or texts). The only time it’s okay for Sims to use the phone is when they do it on their own.

Objects that you can use in the off-grid task and that will make your life easier, especially at first, are:

  • Outdoor Retreat (campfire and camping tents)
  • Get Together (WooHoo bushes)
  • City Living (street gallery display and flea market tables)

Off The Grid Master Requirements

The challenge is over when your Sims have built a thriving village that doesn’t depend on the grid.

To get this achievement, each of your households must build a proper home out of the few things they had at the start of the task while also meeting the other requirements.

Each Sim must also be good at something that helps them live off the grid.

  • For a house to be a real off-grid home, it needs to have at least four outside walls and a roof.
  • Every room in the house must be finished, with covers for the walls and floors.
  • At least one window must be in every room in the house.
  • No less than two doors.
  • There are enough bedrooms for the whole family, and no more than two Sims can share a single bedroom. To be counted as a bedroom, the room must have at least one bed, one nightstand, one light, one desk, one piece of clutter decor, and one decorative wall hanging.
  • A minimum of one bathroom (or outhouse) with at least one toilet, one sink, and one mirror built on the workbench.
  • A way to cook meals without electricity and store food and fish.
  • At least three counter areas that can be used.
  • Enough chairs for everyone in the house to sit down at the same time.
  • At least one table to eat at and one to sit on.
  • At least one light (candle only) in each room of the house.
  • There must be at least three things on the lot that fit the Fun purpose. All of the toys in the toy box count as one fun thing. No matter how many toys you buy for the toy box, it doesn’t matter. If it can fit in a toy box, it doesn’t count as something extra fun.
  • At least one clutter item and one wall hanging, which can be made by your Sims or bought in Build/Buy, should be in each room.

For a Sim to be considered a master of living off the grid, the following must be true:

Each teen and adult Sim in the home must have one of the following skills at its highest level: Gardening, Handiness, Cooking, Gourmet Cooking, Baking (GTW), Herbalism (OR), Painting, Violin, Piano, Pipe Organ (V)

Each Sim child must be good at one of the following skills: Mental, Social, Motor, and Creative
In addition to the Potty skill, each baby Sim must have at least one of the following skills: Moving, Imagining, Thinking, and Talking If Parenthood is installed, each teen must have at least one positive trait number.

When all Sims and residential lots have met all of these standards, you have won the challenge.

You fail the challenge if you give in and let your Sims do something that the task says they can’t, or if you buy them something that they can’t have.

You don’t fail the task if a Sim tries to do something against the rules on their own and you can’t stop them in time.