Sims3- hints, tips and general findings.

[Twoyys4me]

So many things to learn but I thought it would be nice if we share some things we know so far. I'm yet to get a guide so this is all from gameplay.

Teenage Sims have a curfew of 11pm- if they are caught out after that the police bring them home. (It's so hard to hide!). They get a lecture from a parent on arrival home.

Fire actually burns items rather than reducing them to ash piles. I had a tv catch on fire, which then caught the curtains behind. My 'fire loving' (brave) sim extinguished the flames and was given insurance (via pop up) to replace said items. I just clicked on the items to replace them with shiny new ones. Brave sims get the option to 'play' with fire- don't try that at home kids!

So far I've found the Business career to be the only one (that I've played) that needs no skills.

Also- you don't need all the skill requirement to advance in a field, my Medical career sim got 3 promotions without filling her skills required. (The requirement appears to be in 'blocks' rather than a single skill, so it seems that as long as you are within that 'block' your skill is 'good').
She got a couple of 'chance card' type things which boosted her performance and presumably led to the promotions as well.

Very chubby sims will get slim if you have them work out. I find jogging to be the most effective, I have them run all over town. Of course if you use the reward type points to give them a 'faster metabolism', that helps. They do lose their shape if you don't keep them working out, but that's life right?

If you want your Sim to play guitar in the park, place the guitar in their inventory. (I haven't figured how to get an easel there yet).

For a laptop, you just need to buy one and place it in their home- another laptop mysteriously appears in their inventory anyway.

Picnic baskets- buy one and put it in inventory- then whilst at the park/beach plonk it down and click on it to open it up.

For parties at a venue, go to Edit Town mode, choose your venue and decorate accordingly (I use buffet table, stereo, some balloons and a couple of tables for cake or homemade food), then hit Edit Town mode again. The lot will stay the same unless you alter it again, which means only one set up unless you like to change stuff. (You just have to clear the buffet table to use it again). You need to take a birthday cake with you on the day of the party.

There is a little cowplant in game, it's a statue but I laughed when I saw it- I decorated mine using the leather cow hide- lol. Also at the Science building in the lobby is a statue of a Servo.

There is an old abandoned mine on the outskirts of town that my Sim found whilst jogging around- useful if your sim likes to collect rocks.

I had a sim stargaze with the telescope and she got a pop-up telling her she'd seen a falling meteor- she then had the option to go find it in the town.

On your simpage you can view uploaded pictures, simply add the picture to the Launcher to upload it. Then on a simpage you will find under 'My studio' the options for 'exchange', 'media' and 'movies and more'. The 'media' section hosts your pictures. I put one up of the first counter I made as a test. click www.thesims3.com/myMedia.html?action=default&persona=Twoyys4me to see

As sims don't physically 'get into' cars anymore you can place a driveway/garage anywhere at all on the lot! I just love this feature and I know you fabulous builders are going to as well.

Sims can sit on the edge of bathtubs and fountains.

There is a hot air balloon that flies over the town.

Buy some bubble bath and candles from the supermarket- place a candle and bubble bath on the end of your bathtub and enjoy a candlelit bath (you have to light the candle!).

Sims can dig in other sims trash cans- sometimes they find cool things, but don't forget to empty their inventories of trash piles afterwards!

If your Sims have a fire pit they can sit at it and roast marshmallows- or any other type of fruit/veg or fish if they have it in their inventory.

Handy sims can change the colour of their fires (flames) when they have enough skill.

If you buy a bicycle stand and bike the whole family will use a bike to get around unless you specify an owner. Kids seem to get around on bikes even when you don't buy a stand/bike.

I'm not sure what effect a sims favourite colour has, but I'm finding it so much fun to use their colours for their clothing and bedrooms. My one sim couple have a combination of hot pink and turquoise- it makes a very funky looking room. Plus I can spot my sims all over town- heh.

There are fun events that happen all over town. Read the newspaper daily to find out all the latest births/deaths/marriages and town news, and it'll tell you the weekly events such as cookout at the beach or weekly chess tournaments.

You can manage all the dead at the graveyard, go into 'Edit Town' to get to the graveyard, build your family plots, hit Edit Town again, and then next time in live mode go visit and you click on the mausoleum to 'manage dead'... a list of all the tombstones they have will come up and you can place them as you like. Depending on the lives they had will determine their tombstone size.

There are lots more- feel free to add as we go along!

[Val]

Twoyys you have been busy!
These are some fabulous tips! I never would have found this all on my own!

[jendowoz]

Yes, ditto to that. You have been busy. Could you then check that question about delivering cookies to the local school. Seems you've been playing it for ages. I have read the cookie recipe book, made the cookies and put them in as leftovers, couldn't put them in inventory, but I may not have aligned it properly.

you'll find it here question

regards, Jen

[Joe]

Put the cookies in the fridge, then open the fridge, and then open your inventory, drag the cookies from the fridge to your inventory, or simply just put the cookies on the counter, try to stop your sim from stealing them, then open inventory and place the cookies in your inventory, then go to the school

[Joe]

Oh some of those things I learned first hand, my very first sim, was cooking dinner on the stove, it caught fire, and destroyed itself. Later on I was messing around with money cheats and stuff, bought a bigger house with a fireplace, lit the fire, upgraded the fire to different colors, ignoring the make fireproof upgrade, my stupid sims left for work, and when I came back, the fireplace caught the chair, and table next to it on fire. Both had to be replaced by insurance.

Of course there is my electrocuting both my sims in the same hour, one fixing the stereo, the other when he fixed the microwave. It was quite funny, and I had just gotten the prima guide about 10 min after the first sim died, so I held a llittle funeral pary for them. Amusing, but sad, I had to restart both sims all over.

Now, I'm experimenting with super fat sims, I wanted to see if working out, made them lose weight, and it does in fact. My sim with the atheletic skill, is currently at level 6 athletic skill, and he was as fat as I could make him. Now, with all those cardio workouts, he's superslim.

I'm currently having fun exploring the game, it appears there is a memory leak in this game like there was in sims 2, which causes frequent and nasty return to desktops, and loss of progress. So my best advice for this game is to save and save and save. I think it was Nik that said he even saves it as a save as file, cause sometimes the save file is corrupted.

Anyhow, back to seeing what kind of mischief I can get myself into.

[Joe]

I went off exploring with my sim, and found all kinds of gems, butterflies, and bugs. Problem is there is a fish tank, and the prima guide mentions something about, keeping the butterflies in terrariums on your lot, but I don't see a terrarium anywhere in the buy mode. Anyone have an idea. I'm finding more ways to do things in this game, I like the openness of the game.
Thanks

[Joe]

Bah, I found the answer, after browsing thru the entire guide, at the back it shows interactions with various objects. And sure there is the terrarium that the guide mentions, when you read about collectibles.
Anyhow, a terrarium forms when you drag the item from your inventory. It adds to the environment.
Gems can be cut when you click on them, and I guess as handiness improves, you can get different cuts.
Seeds can be anything, from money trees to cheese trees. ( at higher levels of gardening I imagine).
ANyhow enough rambling, I'm going back to my game, I almost want them to quit their jobs, so I can go exploring some more.

[Twoyys4me]

I missed that post Joe, sorry. You can actually stack the terrariums in stacks of 3's I've found. Also when you place your cut gems on a table you get an option to display them either as is, on a pillow or a stand.

Once you get about 30,000 lifetime points (I think), you can buy a collection helper, which is brilliant, it shows you where the collectables are, you choose either bugs, butterflies, gems, seeds or rocks I think. They then highlight when you pan out over an area.

Twoyys

[nik24x7]

Last night I learned something new. I had my Sim visit the bookstore. He purchased every book I could think of that was related to skill building. I then had him return home, open the bookcase, open his inventory, then I dragged each book to the bookcase. I imagine that the refrigerator works much the same way with cookies and other prepared meals.

I also learned that when you place a smaller home onto a larger lot, you actually end up with the larger lot. I was able to move my fence to the new boundary and put in a pool. Cool! I was playing with a home that I downloaded from the Exchange (from some unknown person, not one of us). I loved the home but hated the landscaping. The fence was crowding the home. Not sure why it took me so long, but I eventually discovered that there were squares outside of the fenced-off yard. Duh! I quickly removed the old fence and built a new one. Bigger yard solved!

I'm still trying to figure out how to place a Community Lot into my neighborhood. I've downloaded Twoyys' city park with the pavillion, but I'm not able to place it. Residential Lots are placed on the blank squares. None show up when I switch to the Community Lot tab. Do I first need to remove one of my existing community lots?

[Twoyys4me]

Hi Nik,

That's cool about the bookcase, if you watch the bookcase, as sims take books from it, it actually empties itself.

I'm not sure what to suggest about the community lot. I got it working in my game- I mean my sims could visit there but I couldn't get a party going- then I realised I only named it for the upload and not in my own game. duh- problem solved. I wonder if you could rezone the lot before placing it, and then zone it back? I haven't downloaded any other community lots myself either. I'll have a hunt on the BBS and see if I can find anything out.

That's great news about the lot size! I know they said they were putting it in but I wasn't sure if they would. I'm pleased about that.

I thought I'd share this fridge/inventory picture with you to show you how I transfer stuff.


So when you 'open the fridge' you see something like the top picture. You can see I have 2 eggs in my fridge, 1 lettuce, etc. The bottom picture is my inventory.

Do you notice by the edge of my 2 eggs the corner is darker? That's because I have 2 in there- it's a 'stack'. ok, so let's say I want to see the quality of the 2 eggs, you click that darker corner and another window opens up (not shown in pic)- you can then mouse over each egg to see if they are 'good', 'excellent' etc. That helps a lot when a neighbour/ challenger wants you to bring them '5 excellent fruits/veg' etc.

Now if you are a gardener and have say, 100 apples in your inventory, they are all in the same 'stack'. To move them, you simply grab that darker corner in your inventory stack, and drag it into the open fridge inventory. The whole lot is moved in one go, and it beats trying to move 100 apples one at a time. For illustration I placed an arrow on my 5 bubble bath to show the corner you click and drag over. I don't put that in my Sims fridge- honest.

Hope that's clear and helps.
Twoyys

[empathlunabella]

Jun 9, 2009 17:46:31 GMT -5 Twoyys4me said:

Now if you are a gardener and have say, 100 apples in your inventory, they are all in the same 'stack'. To move them, you simply grab that darker corner in your inventory stack, and drag it into the open fridge inventory. The whole lot is moved in one go, and it beats trying to move 100 apples one at a time. For illustration I placed an arrow on my 5 bubble bath to show the corner you click and drag over. I don't put that in my Sims fridge- honest.

Hope that's clear and helps.
Twoyys

Oh my dear gods Twoyy's I love you so much right now if you were in oregon I'd make you home made chocolate chip cookies.. >.< this was driving me MAD

[Twoyys4me]

ooh, I do like cookies. ;D

I think for the first two days I played a gardener so intensely it drove me mad to be putting his harvests into the fridge 'one by one'. I figured it out by accident when I must've clicked one of the corners and the whole thing lifted up. lol. Thank goodness for accidents.

Twoyys

[jendowoz]

Thanks, Twoyys. It is really handy to know that you can do that. Like Luna, it was driving me mad too.

regards, Jen

[Joe]

Hrrm, Is there a way to increase lot size, it seems the lots are fixed in the game. There was a download, one of the first i think on the exchange of a fishing cabin that was like 64x64 in size, the largest available lot I see is 60 x60

[nik24x7]

Jun 10, 2009 3:34:51 GMT -5 Joe said:

Hrrm, Is there a way to increase lot size, it seems the lots are fixed in the game. There was a download, one of the first i think on the exchange of a fishing cabin that was like 64x64 in size, the largest available lot I see is 60 x60

Joe, I've downloaded that same lot and have yet to figure out where it can be placed in either Sunset Valley or Riverview. It's still sitting in my lot bin, but maybe not for long.

What I did in my game, to clarify, is to download a 30 x 20 lot from the Exchange and place it on a 30 x 30 empty lot. I was able to move the fence to expand the yard to be a full 30 x 30.

I have no idea whether it would even be possible toexpand the empty lots to be larger than what was defined by EA.