When you install Seasons, you enrich your towns and narratives with incredible new holidays, festivals, weather, objects, and more. And like other The Sims 3 expansions, Seasons also introduces new career options and new skills, expanding the Simology for your current families as well as any new households you create after adding the expansion.
New Career: Alien Test Subject
Seasons offers an all-new part-time career; however it is exclusively for the new type of Sim only found in this expansion: aliens. Now, we deep-dive into aliens in the Aliens chapter later in this guide, but because Alien Test Subject is a new career, we’re also covering it here in this extension of the New Simology chapter.
Once you have brought an alien into your household whether that’s through marriage or you’ve had a baby with an otherworldly visitor (and raised it to at least teen), you may report to the science facility in your city (in the case of Sunset Valley, that’s the Landgraab Science Facility) during business hours and enroll in the part-time career.
As a part-time career, the Alien Test Subject has limited hours. This allows you to pursue other activities—and there are so many fun things to do as an alien. However, by working fewer hours, an alien earns a lot less than a full-time career, or one of the active professions that were introduced in Ambitions. However, unless you have a single alien household, there’s a good chance your household will have multiple revenue streams.
Though the name of the career—Alien Test Subject—sounds like it may actually damage your alien, be assured that no physical harm will come. The biggest risk is that, after every completed shift, there is a small chance the alien will leave the science facility with the Nauseous moodlet. If this happens, pursue de-stressing activities (a visit to the spa?) or look into activities/interactions that generate positive moodlets to offset the hit.
Get to Work
Like other part-time careers, there are three “levels” to being an Alien Test Subject. When you enroll in the career, you automatically jump into the base level of the career: Associate Probe Tester. You start work at 4 PM in the afternoon and only stay on until 7 PM. It’s a short shift, but because you are a test subject, it’s probably best that hours are limited. Plus, that leaves more time for abducting townies! (More on that in the Aliens chapter.)
This part-time career has only three tones: Business as Usual, Work Hard, and Take It Easy. As with all careers, showing up in a good mood is a key component of getting a promotion and, thusly, more pay. Here, Working Hard and showing up on time are huge helps. Now, the Work Hard tone decreases Fun and Energy faster and can contribute to stress. But it does lead to a quicker promotion. Business as Usual is right down the middle. You work, but not hard enough that you get all stressed.
Every promotion in this part-time career comes with both a pay bump and a bonus. Once you hit the top spot in the career, you can no longer advance, but you can continue to receive raises. This chart shows you the three levels of the part-time career, including the hours/days worked, pay, and bonuses:
| Career Level | Position | Hourly Pay | Work Days | Hours in a Day | Metrics | Promotion Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Associate Probe Tester | §64 | M, T, W, Th, F | 3 | Mood, Performance | n/a |
| 2 | Specimen (Living) | §84 | M, T, W, Th, F | 3 | Mood, Performance | §768 |
| 3 | Organ Farm | §114 | M, T, W, Th, F | 3 | Mood, Performance | §1,008 |
Level 1: Associate Probe Tester
Tried of just lying there and taking it at your current job? Consider a career where that IS your job! Sign up to be an Alien Test Subject! The hours and instruments are both flexible, and you can tell your friends that you are aiding in vital research. (By which we mean research of your vitals.) Apply today!
Level 2: Specimen (Living)
Valuable test subjects are declared official specimens and are used for the harvesting of truly impressive amounts of data. The “Living” tag is extremely important. Be sure to specify that you are the living kind of specimen before each test.
Level 3: Organ Farm
Certain specimens have just the right physical attributes to allow the growth of exciting new organs within their person. These little “experiments” are nearly guaranteed not to interfere with the function of existing organs, and may even increase their efficiency.