Basics
What is Riverview? Is it free? Where can I download it?
- Riverview is a second town released for TS3.
You may download it here. It is free to download. Directions on
how to install Riverview can be found here.
Why can't I view my sim when they go into certain lots?
- A feature of TS3 are "rabbit holes." Lots that rabbit hole are: masoleum/catacombs, diner/bistro, all work buildings, spa, theatre, grocery store, book store, city hall. You cannot see your sims when they are inside. Nothing is wrong with your game!
What is the mine? What is Stonehenge? What are the Catacombs?
- These are flavour landmarks on your map. They serve no real purpose. Nor can you go and explore the mine. Sometimes rare butterflies or gems spawn at Stonehenge. Catacombs are located at the graveyard, available by clicking the mausoleum and selecting "explore catacombs." While inside, you will not see your sim as it functions like a rabbit hole. You will sometimes see headline effect prompts appear, telling you what your sim is doing. They may find interesting items during their exploration, like rare seeds, books, and Mysterious Gnomes.
How do I move out of a lot?
- Have a sim use their cellphone or a computer and select the "move out" option. A window will pop up asking you how you want to divide your family. You will also receive the option to "kick out" the sim, which means they will be placed in a random lot unbeknowst to you. I suggest against kicking out sims unless you really don't care about them, like lousy ex-husbands.
You may also go into "edit town" mode and move the household that way.
Can I play more than one family?
- Yes. You simply need to change active households (refer below).
How do I change active households?
- Click on "..." located in the lower left-hand corner of your screen. Go to "edit town", then click the dual household icon nearby to switch households.
Where do downloads from the Exchange go?
- Downloads from the Exchange should appear in your launcher. From there, you can install them into your game. INDIVIDUAL SIMS go into your premade sim bin in Create-a-Sim mode. Households of sims go into your household bin, and houses/lots go in your lot bin, both located in "Edit Town" mode.
How do I place a lot/house?
- Click on "..." located in the lower left-hand corner of your screen. Go to "edit town". Choose the lot tab on the bin window, select the house you want to place. Then click the lot you want to place it. You can only place lots on spots that are categorized the same as the house you are placing (residental or community). The lot must also be big enough to accomidate the house. Keep in mind subtle differences in numbers like, for example, if your house is 40x30 and you are trying to put it in a 30x40 lot, you will not be able to turn it width-wise to face the street, so pay attention!
Why can't I move my house to a smaller lot?
- Houses can be moved into bigger sized lots, but they cannot be moved back down to a smaller sized lot. Be sure to save your houses to the bin BEFORE you start placing them in larger lots! You will have to rebuild otherwise!
How do I change the look of items, wallpaper and flooring?
- In BUY MODE, press R to bring up the paint brush and palette cursor then click whatever item you want to edit. It will bring up the Create-a-Style window. In BUILD MODE, you may also press the paint brush and palette icon near the content window and select your item from there.
Can I age my sims backwards?
- You can give your sims more days to live by eating life fruit grown from a life bush. Eating a single life fruit will give your sim one extra day. You can also feed your sims ambrosia to bring their age stage bar back to start. You cannot age your sims backwards, for example, from adult back to young adult without a mod.
Life fruit have a chance to be grown from "
unknown special seeds", you will need level 7 gardening to plant them. The seeds can be obtained by looking on the ground near the park, cemetery, science lab and other wooded areas. You also have a chance to get a seed by fishing up boxes and exploring the catacombs, though it is impractical.
Ambrosia is made from deathfish and life fruit. Deathfish can be fished out of the cemetery pond between the hours of 12AM and 4AM. You will need level 10 cooking to read the ambrosia recipe that can be bought at the bookstore. Simply cook the ambrosia and have your sim eat it.
How can I get playable ghost sims? How can I get ghost babies?
-
Death and Ghost Guide
How do I get married?
- You must first "propose going steady". This can be accomplished by having a high relationship rating with the person, then spamming romantic interactions. Eventually the option should appear. "Confess attraction" will also help to get this option to appear as it will mark the intended sim as a "romantic interest". After that, repeat the romantic interactions and eventually "propose marriage" should appear. DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN OF ROMANTIC INTERACTIONS. Due to the way socializing works in TS3, if you spam romantic interactions then do something silly like tell a joke, the person you are speaking to will no longer find you flirty/alluring, thereby wasting your time.
After you are engaged, you have the option to have a private wedding or a public wedding. A public wedding can be arranged by using your cellphone and selecting the "throw party at.." option. You rent out a venue, set the party type "wedding party", invite whomever you want. Once you are at the venue lot, you may need to butter up your future spouse by spamming romantic interactions until "get married" option appears. Your sims will exchange rings, your party guests will clap and boo.
For a private wedding, you can throw a party at your house, invite whomever you want, then spam romantic interactions until "get married" shows up. Your sims will exchange vows, and huzzah, you're married!
After your sims marry, a window will appear where you can choose who moves in with who.
What determines who takes what last name when you get married?
- Whomever proposed will give their last name to their spouse.
How can I change my sim's name?
- Go to City Hall during operational hours (usually 9AM-5PM, somewhere around there) and the option to change name should be available.
What determines a baby's gender before birth?
- Apples and watermelons will influence the gender of your baby before birth. Eat apples during the pregnancy for boys. Eat watermelon during the pregnancy for girls. Keep in mind when making food that is made out of fruit (pancakes, waffles, autumn salad, etc), because these will also count towards the gender of your future child as well. If you are having difficulties forcing the gender of your children or feel that your game is bugged and only giving you the same of one gender, there are mods available elsewhere that remove the influence of food. Google it.
What determines multiple births?
- Have your pregnant sim listen to kids music and watch kids television to increase chances of multiple birth. Also, buying one or both of your sims the "Fertility Treatment" lifetime reward (costs 10,000 points) will increase your chances as well. You may only have twins or triplets, though bugs have occurred where sims have given birth to more than triplets but this is a plight I would not wish on my worst enemy.
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Advanced
What is a legacy?
- Legacy challenge is a player-made challenge where you attempt to get to ten generations without cheats. You start off very poor, must marry a townie, and pick an heir. You manually score yourself based on a point system.
More can be found here. There are also different variations on Pinstar's original legacy challenge,
you may find them here. There is also a scorecard for the original challenge
available here.
What determines my sim's tombstone size at death?
- Tombstone size is purely dependent on lifetime happiness points. The game counts both spent and unspent points towards your total. You cannot edit the tombstone after your sim has died. They get what they get when they die.
NUMBERS AND TYPES OF TOMBSTONES:
LESS THAN 75,000: small, flat, on the ground
75,000-150,000: small, standing
150,000+: large, standing
What is a death flower? How do I grow it? What does it do?
- Death flowers can be kept in your sim's personal inventory (backpack tab or press I), after which if your sim gets into an accident and would have normally died, the reaper will spare them. The death flower will not spare your sims from death by old age.
You can grow death flowers when you reach level 7 gardening from "unknown special seeds". There also seems to be one death bush at the cemetery that will bloom a single flower, which can then either be planted or kept.
A single death bush will always sprout a single death flower, so it seems silly to try and get more this way. Though a sim with the Green Thumb trait can revive the plant to force it to grow one more flower.
Death flowers have a chance to grow from "unknown special seeds" which can be found along the ground around the cemetery, science lab, park and other wooded areas. You also have a chance to get these seeds from fishing up boxes or exploring the catacombs, but it is just easier to collect the seed off the ground.
What are the cheats and how can I use them?
- Find a complete list with
descriptions here.
What are the qualities of food/fruit/plants?
Horrifying -> Putrid -> Foul -> Bad -> Normal -> Nice -> Very Nice -> Great -> Excellent -> Outstanding -> Perfect
How do I give my sim more lifetime happiness points?
- Open up the console by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+C, type testingcheatsenabled true then CTRL+click the area between the number amount and the treasure chest on the Lifetime Happiness tab. Each click grants 500 points.
What is Mr. Mysterious Gnome and how can I get one?
- Mr. Mysterious Gnome is a special kind of object that should not be confused with the regular, boring gnome purchasable in buy mode. At night, we will often times move to different parts of your lot, striking stationary poses on objects, or turning on the stereo. When you click on him, you have the option to name him or kick him.
You have a chance to get Mr. Mysterious Gnome from the following sources:
* criminal career field
* fishing boxes
* cutting/smelting gems/metal
* exploring the catacombs
What determines how a community lot is categorized?
Community lots are categorized by items on them. These values do not stack, so if, for instance, you are creating a park and put 3 park items, but have somehow managed also to put 16 art objects, the art objects will override the park items and consider it an art gallery regardless of how many trees are there. More about this can be
read here.
How do I change a residential lot into a community lot or vice versa?
- Go to edit town mode, click the lot, then there is a button there to convert it back and forth.
How do I make ambrosia?
- You will need level 7 gardening and level 10 cooking. The ingredients are life fruit and deathfish.
Life fruit have a chance to be grown from "
unknown special seeds". The seeds can be obtained by looking on the ground near the park, cemetery, science lab and other wooded areas. You also have a chance to get a seed by fishing up boxes and exploring the catacombs, though it is impractical.
Deathfish can be caught between the hours of 12AM and 4AM at the cemetery pond.
You will also need to have
read the ambrosia recipe bought at the bookstore. With ingredients on hand, you can cook ambrosia and feed it to your sims to replenish their age bar or revive a ghost.
How do I plant a money tree?
- Money trees have a chance to grow from "
unknown special seeds". The seeds can be obtained by looking on the ground near the park, cemetery, science lab and other wooded areas. You also have a chance to get a seed by fishing up boxes and exploring the catacombs, though it is impractical. Money trees do not appear to die.
What are hidden traits and how do they work?
- Hidden traits are unlocked by having offspring with certain "service" sims or sims of a certain career level.
A complete list of hidden traits can be found here.
Pizza Appreciator: Pizza Delivery persons
Pyromaniac, Immune to Fire: Firefighters
Makes No Messes: Maid
Rocker: Rockstar
Can Apprehend Burglar: Police Officers
Sneaking: Burglar
Salute: Military
Hidden traits are.. well, hidden. You will usually know whether or not a child has inherited a trait by the time they are Young Adult.
What are all the possible ways a sim can die?
- Old age. Electrocution. Starvation. Drowning. Fire.
What's up with the protests in front of City Hall? How can I organise a protest?
- Protests are similar to the mine and stonehenge, in the fact that they simply add colour to your town. There is no way to force a protest, nor is there a way to have your sim set up one. They are a purely random occurrence. No code has been uncovered to explain the frequency or percentage chance of protests.
When a protest is occurring, you may join in by clicking the building where the protesters are and selecting "join protest."
What's up with that well-dressed sim in facepaint and a tophat I see in the park? What is a Magician?
Magicians are nonplayable townies. Nonplayable in the way that they have no household in the town, so you will have to move them into your home in order to play them. Magicians appear at random in the park, usually drawing a small crowd of sims that are around. They perform magic tricks and sometimes poof away when you come near. It is possible to befriend/seduce them.
If you move them into your household, they will show up as unemployed and have no special abilities or traits. You cannot be a magician, sorry.
How do I move stacks of items (personal inventory)?
- Click and drag from the tab I have specified below.
How do I change the default picture of my uploaded lot on the Exchange?
-
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/40396.page#318684
Can I edit a sim post-CAS? Why isn't "edit in CAS" cheat working?
- "Edit in CAS" is not a working cheat. It is not possible to edit a sim after they have been saved out of CAS without a core mod. Awesomemod will allow you to use the "editsim" command, but you will only be able to edit certain things within a certain threshold before it starts to bug up. For more information on that, please visit the core mod's website for documentation. (Google it.)
Alternately, you
can bring your sim to a mirror or dresser, change appearance or plan outfit respectively, then click the little doodad button on their tiny portrait at the bottom of the screen and resave them to bin. The saved sim will end up in your premade sim bin in CAS. This will at least allow you to create a new character in CAS based on that character. You will obviously have to start that character over, but it is better than nothing.
My sim just died, where did their personal inventory go?
- When sims die, their personal inventory (this includes lifetimehappiness rewards like the collection helper) will transfer either to their spouse's, eldest child's, or eldest housemate's personal inventory. Please pay attention to headline messages when sims die as it will usually tell you who inherited their possessions.
----
Traits
Base Descriptions of Traits
-
http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Traits
Farmed XML Data on Traits and How They Effect Your Sim
Lovingly stolen from Zucabr on MATY, since I cannot link there.
How do I steal things? Where can I find stolen goods? How do I return stolen goods?
- You may only steal things if you have the "kleptomaniac" trait. You may also only steal things when it is nighttime and there is no one around.
To steal something, click the ground normally, as if you were going to walk somewhere. The option to "swipe something" will appear. The items you steal are randomly chosen based on a number of tiles around the area you selected. After you have stolen something, it will appear in your sim's
Family Inventory in buy mode.
If you want to steal something from inside a fellow sim's house, you must first be invited inside.
To return an item, simply go to your mailbox and the option to "Return Stolen Item" should be selectable, then just pick the item from the list. You will receive a positive moodlet called "Returned Stolen Property" that increases your mood by +15 for 8 hours.
Other sims will not recognise items you have stolen.
You may only steal three items per day, the reset timer is at midnight.
Why can't my sim "kick it up a notch" after they've cooked a meal? What does "kick it up a notch" do?
- Your sim will need to have the "Natural Cook" trait and a level skill of 4 in cooking in order to kick it up a notch. It improves the quality of food cooked by one "notch". Refer to the qualities listing for names. Sometimes sims will autonomously "kick it up a notch", so if the option is not there, but you have the trait and the cooking skill, you may have missed your sim doing it without you asking them to.
How do you donate to charity? Why can't my sim donate to charity? What does donating to charity do?
- Sims that are good or evil traited may donate to charity. You may donate to charity once a day (resets at midnight), in money increments of 100, 250 and 1000.
You will receive moodlets after donating to charity, "Charitable"/"Fiendishly Delighted" which increases their mood by +30/15/10 depending on how much you have donated.
My gardening skill is maxed and I cannot revive death flower plants, why?
- Deathflower bushes may only be revived once and your sim will need the "Green Thumb" trait to do so. Otherwise, these bushes will only yield one flower before they perish.
My sim wears formal clothing while exercising and goes to sleep in their swimsuits, is this a bug?
- Your sim likely has the insane or inappropriate trait. It's perfectly normal.
What does "Never Nude" do?
- Sims will wear their underwear in the shower. They never appear nude. That's all.
What are some good ways to raise the fun bar of a "Technophobe?"
- Guitar, books, chess, telescope, swing sets (if childish), sprinklers.
Why is there a red circle with a line through it on some interactions?
- When you see this on an interaction, it is because it goes against a certain trait your sim has. They would never perform this action autonomously, as well.
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