Servo

A Servo is a robot that was introduced in The Sims: Livin' Large. The name possibly refers to "servus", which is Latin for slave. When translated literally, it means "I look after".

The Sims

Servo

Servo from The Sims: Livin' Large.

Shiny Things Inc. makes dreams come alive! Meet Servo, our new experimental home robot. Tired of cleaning? Cooking? Gardening? REPAIRING? Your lack of respect for the dignity of work gives Servo a reason to live! Servo is self-powered, self-guiding, self-cleaning and self-denying! Concentrate on living. Let Servo do the rest!!!

Servos are bought from the Electronics->Other section of Buy mode, and cost a whopping §15,000, but will walk around the house cleaning up messes and repairing broken items, so Sims don't have to. Servos will also do gardening, but appear to do it on the gardener's every-three-days schedule. A Servo that has nothing else to do may attempt to converse with or entertain visitors.

A Servo will change hats depending on whether it's cleaning, repairing, or gardening. When cleaning, Servo will wear a maid's hat; when repairing, it will wear a repairman's cap; and when gardening, it will wear a straw sun-hat. (This may be a play on the idea that someone who does many different jobs "wears many hats".)

As a rule, a Servo cannot be controlled, only turned on and off. The one exception to this is that a turned-on Servo can be told to make a group meal for Sims. Since Servo literally makes the food, without using a fridge or stove, these meals aren't very fulfilling, but they are free, and a child can tell Servo to make food.

Servo comes with its own charging chamber, and will return to it and turn itself off when it has nothing more to do. Servo's charging chamber also has the control panel that's used to turn it on, and can be used to turn it off or tell it to serve food.

The Sims 2

Servo

Servo from The Sims 2 Open for Business.

Gardening? Check. Cooking? Check. Periodic bursts of wanton destruction? Indeed, check. This friendly humanoid robot is truly but one step from humanity. The Servo Model has a gender-assignable artificial intelligence unit that simulates all the desires of a real human: friendship, success... even love. Just make sure you keep the Servo Model in a good mood, else you'll be the one cleaning up all the ash piles while your new friend lies sparking in the corner.

When The Sims 2 Open for Business expansion pack came out, Servo returned - as an artificially intelligent Sim. There are some differences: Servo isn't concerned with comfort or hygiene or temperature, and doesn't need to eat; but The Sims 2 Servo is essentially a Sim in robotic form. As such, a Servo is fully controllable, and has relationships, wants, fears, aspirations, etc., just like normal Sims. A Servo can get a job, or be employed by a business, or even own a business. A Servo can even WooHoo.

Building & Activating

To build a Servo a Robot Crafting Station and a Gold talent badge in Robotics is needed. Building a Servo costs §3000, and takes about six game hours, not counting breaks.

When built, Servo is switched off and can only be activated by a Sim (teen or older) if there is room in the household for another member. The Servo can be activated as male or female, and can be given a name when activated. The Servo takes on the personality, skill points, and last name of the Sim who activates it.

Since an activated Servo is considered an adult, Servo cannot be activated in a college sub-neighborhood.

Buying and selling

An unactivated Servo can be marked for sale in a business. If the Average price is selected, the Servo will be priced at §6210.

Spawn Servo Cheat

Servo can be unlocked by using testingcheatsenabled and shift left clicking on any Sim, then clicking Spawn/More, and then clicking new Servo.

Features

Servo comes with 10 points in Cooking, Mechanical and Cleaning, and will take on all other skill points of the Sim who activates it. Servo also comes with one or more random talent badges, and will often have a gold badge. Servo also takes on the aspiration, turn ons and turn offs, and personality of the Sim who activates it, though it may have a different Lifetime Want. Servo can also alternate between everyday and formal attire, with the only formal wear option being a tuxedo jacket (male) or a hot pink dress (female).

Servos cannot use clothing racks on community lots, so one thing a Servo can't do that a normal adult Sim can is buy clothes for other household members.

Servos can get jobs, and can even have job-related Lifetime Wants, but since they never become elders (they only have an adult life stage), they cannot retire. Since they only have an adult life stage, they cannot attend college, so the University careers (Artist, Natural Science, Paranormal, and Show Business) are closed to them. By default, Servos will do chores when no actions are manually queued by the player, but there are game modifications which can affect this or even prevent it.

Servos never age and thus can live with a family for generations. They can be powered down, and can be left powered down indefinitely, effectively making them un-playable. However, they cannot be completely de-activated.

Like normal Sims, they can fall in love and get married to other Servos, and even to normal Sims. They can not reproduce naturally, but they can adopt. They can father children with the Tombstone of Life and Death. Servos have the invisible face genetic, like the Grim Reaper, so if the player cheats to make a Sim pregnant with a Servo, the baby's genetics will have the first default face, and might have some of the mother's genetics.

Servos can be combined with the Vampire, Zombie, Werewolf, and Witch Life states. Vampire Servos rapidly lose power in sunlight, and recharge in coffins (or beds, if none are available). Werewolf Servos regain all of their Power motive at night. This effectively makes them active 24/7.

An odd feature is that, since Servo can eat, but has no Hunger meter, anything it eats transfers directly to the fitness gauge, making it "fat" by Sim standards.

Needs

Servo has only 4 Needs: Power, Social, Fun and Environment. Power can be restored either through Recharging, in which Servo goes under the sun to recharge, or by sleeping, in which case Power is replenished at the same rate that a normal Sim would replenish Energy. Also, drinking the Elixir of Life while in gold or platinum aspiration will restore a Servo's Power, and Servos can use The Eclectic and Enigmatic Energizer. Servos can also select a Secondary aspiration and Aspiration benefits if the player has the FreeTime expansion. Servos can gain power from eating along with sleeping and recharging, though this may depend on which other expansion packs are installed.

Dangers

Water to Servo is like fire to Sims except the effects are much more. Water will drain all of Servo's needs extremely fast, especially Power. If Seasons is installed, a Servo may autonomously decide to splash in a puddle. It's probably a good idea to interrupt this before the Servo gets to the puddle. While Servos do not have Hygiene or Comfort motives, a Servo can be told to use a shower or bathtub. Fortunately, they will not do so autonomously. A Servo may even have a want to use a hot tub. Since Sims have to get into shower stalls to clean them, cleaning a shower stall may be hazardous to a Servo. However, Servos have no problems cleaning bathtubs and shower/tubs.

When broken, Servo will run amok and cause havoc. Nearby Sims can be electrocuted by Servo at this time. Eventually he will power down, allowing someone to repair him. If the Servo is the only person on the lot, a signal wil be sent from the Servo's anntena, and a repairman will come to fix the Servo.

Player Tips

Servos needs are little and easy to deal with, so it's better to start a business with them.
Servos never age, so they can live forever. It is a good idea to create a Servo to watch over the family for generations if you plan on making a legacy family or a big family.
Bigfoot and Servo can be great for a busy family. Bigfoot is an excellent worker and so are Servos. Combined, a business can prosper, babysitters aren't required if one stays unemployed, and the place is bound to be tidy because of a Servo's need to clean.
Sims can dress up as Servos. To do that, get a Servo, buy a wardrobe, go into Plan Outfit...Outfit and they can dress up as a Servo
Also their heads (hair) are available in CAS via debugging cheats but it has an odd appearance.
While Servos do not need to eat, they may do so anyway if told to serve food. If you want a Servo to prepare food, it may be better to use the "Make" option, and leave the serving to a normal Sim.
Some people have tried to kill the Servo using the testingcheatsenabled cheat. Try it yourself and see what happens!
Servos can be killed by satellite. If University is installed, they can also be eaten by the Cowplant.

The Sims 3

SimBot

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Sim Bot

Inventor and Sim Bot in The Sims 3: Ambitions.

SimBots are the spiritual successors to the Servos that featured in earlier Sims series games, introduced to The Sims 3 in The Sims 3: Ambitions.

Compared to Servos, these playable creatures have two eyes instead of a single camera-like eye, and have a more robotic, less streamlined appearance. This is consistent with the belief that The Sims 3 is set 50 years before The Sims 2 and 25 years before The Sims, and has led to speculation that SimBots are prototypes for Servos. SimBots can be male or female, and seem to vary in their structure.

A SimBot can be built using the Inventing skill, or it can be bought through the 'My Best Friend' lifetime reward for 40.000 points (if you don't want to spend the huge amount of time it takes to invent it or if you don't care about the gender). According to one player at a UK Ambitions hands on event, SimBots eat scrap metal, don't need to shower, and can spin their arms like helicopter blades to smash objects. They can also WooHoo, although they cannot have children. They can be built at level 10 inventing skill and they can't swim.^[1]

In fact, all SimBots are created with the Hydrophobic trait. A SimBot which gets wet, for example by forcing them to shower, will shut down and get a "Short Out" moodlet which lasts for four hours. During this time, other Sims can repair the SimBot, or can choose to Reprogram them, which allows a reselection of their traits. Electrocution also seems to cause this Short Out state, and other events may as well. However there seems to be no lasting damage from shorting out a SimBot, so it can be useful for redesigning the personality of a newly created SimBot (as there is no other opportunity to select traits for them).

To build a SimBot, a Sim must reach inventing level 10. The inventor will then receive an opportunity to build their first SimBot. To build a SimBot, a Sim must have the required materials: 1 smelted bar of Palladium, 10 Life Fruits, 1 Pink gem with a heart cut, and 100 units of scrap. SimBots take a very long time to construct, although one can be constructed in a single day by a dedicated inventor. There is no option to select the gender of this initial SimBot. After the opportunity is complete, the inventor can continue to build more SimBots (as long as they have the required materials), and may choose the gender of additional SimBots when beginning the construction.

SimBots come online with automatic ranks in both the Handiness and Inventing skills. They may use their Smash interaction to reduce objects to scrap, which they can then eat. While SimBots can eat food, they prefer scrap, and a single piece will completely restore their hunger and provide the Great Meal moodlet. SimBots also receive a variety of unique interactions, such as Show Off Features, Discuss Oil Brands, Insult Puny Human Brain, etc. They can also Converse with inanimate machines such as food processors to regain their social need.

SimBots have most of the same needs as human Sims, except, of course, for Hygiene. However, their needs are named differently: Hunger becomes Scrap Reserves, Fun becomes Trivial Entertainment, Social becomes Human Interaction, Bladder becomes Waste Buildup and Sleep becomes Charge. Unlike the Servos of The Sims 2, SimBots possess no ability to shut down to recharge or use solar power, and must sleep in a bed as any other Sim does, so be sure to have space in your home for your SimBot.

Other Sims may react to SimBots with revulsion or fear, in the same way as they might react to Ghosts and Mummies, although some (perhaps Brave Sims) may cheer instead.

Sim Bot

Iron Man coloured Sim Bot.

On the 28th of April TheSims3.com ran a promotion for The Sims 3: Ambitions, using a YouTube video featuring a Sim Bot recolored in the Iron Man suit colors. This suggested that Sim Bots might be recolorable in either Create a Style or Create a Sim. One hands on preview states that Sim Bots cannot be recolored, this is confirmed as partly true, as with modifications, it is possible to bring a SimBot into dresser mode and recolor them. ^[2]

Servo

Retro Servo
File:Sims3pic.jpg
Gold Servo statue in the Science lab.

The TS1 and TS2-style Servo is not available in The Sims 3, however there are several depictions of it in the game.

There is a statue of a Servo inside the science lab rabbit hole in Sunset Valley.

Sims 2 Servos also make an appearance in a TV show (on the action channel) as an army being commanded by a mad scientist, and are defeated by a female protagonist. This was actually part of a The Sims 2: FreeTime music video called "Fa-Fa-Fa" by Datarock.