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My Sim "Family" and the Questions I Have
Chi5678
Posts: 268 Member
Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I don't know where else it would go lol. 
Basically I just created a sim and used cheats to make a teenage sim living on her own. While it's fun, I've come across a couple challenges and just have questions I'd like help with. Also if anyone wants, I can post updates about how it's going lol.
1- She's a teen sim with no adult household member, but it's also frustrating that she can't learn to drive. Is there another way other than asking a parent to learn to drive? [solved]
2- I created a Unicorn family (mom, dad, and foal) in another household. I liked having them for me to look at but tbh, unicorns are a hard creature to take care of, and I'd rather my sim focus on building skills and living on. My question is, is there a way to have a unicorn (or unicorn family) live on my property without it being under my control? Also, how would I create a living area for it without it being locked up? Finding them and adding them to my household is not the problem here, I just want to know if it's possible to have them live there but be autonomous.
[possible solution- adding as roomates. How to do that I'd still need a walk through...]
3- On a side note, would unicorns breed on their own?
4- I had my sim become a resort owner but even though I've started building the resort up, it still says resort closed because there's no resort tower. Does anyone happen to know when it will recognize there's a resort there? (Number of rooms, etc?) [solved]
5- Is there anything I can do to increase the likelihood of prom happening? I've yet to see anything related. [solved, it happens on its own]
Also, I've searched online for most of these and just haven't found the answers I'm looking for.
Disclaimer- I own all the expansion packs for sims 3, and I don't use mods.
Basically I just created a sim and used cheats to make a teenage sim living on her own. While it's fun, I've come across a couple challenges and just have questions I'd like help with. Also if anyone wants, I can post updates about how it's going lol.
1- She's a teen sim with no adult household member, but it's also frustrating that she can't learn to drive. Is there another way other than asking a parent to learn to drive? [solved]
2- I created a Unicorn family (mom, dad, and foal) in another household. I liked having them for me to look at but tbh, unicorns are a hard creature to take care of, and I'd rather my sim focus on building skills and living on. My question is, is there a way to have a unicorn (or unicorn family) live on my property without it being under my control? Also, how would I create a living area for it without it being locked up? Finding them and adding them to my household is not the problem here, I just want to know if it's possible to have them live there but be autonomous.
[possible solution- adding as roomates. How to do that I'd still need a walk through...]
3- On a side note, would unicorns breed on their own?
4- I had my sim become a resort owner but even though I've started building the resort up, it still says resort closed because there's no resort tower. Does anyone happen to know when it will recognize there's a resort there? (Number of rooms, etc?) [solved]
5- Is there anything I can do to increase the likelihood of prom happening? I've yet to see anything related. [solved, it happens on its own]
Also, I've searched online for most of these and just haven't found the answers I'm looking for.
Disclaimer- I own all the expansion packs for sims 3, and I don't use mods.
Post edited by Chi5678 on
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Comments
2- If you have NRaas mastercontroller this is possible by turning the unicorns into roommates. I’ve noticed however NRaas roommates won’t leave the property autonomously.
3- Maybe with NRaas storyprogression?
4 + 5 I don’t know, sorry.
As for NRaas Mastercontroller, you can find it here. (hope I’m allowed to give that link...) When you don’t have mods yet, you’ll have to create a Mods folder first. Here’s an instruction how.
2,3 - don't know.
4. Do you actually have a resort tower on the lot? If you don't have one of the resort tower rabbit holes you can't open the resort. The game needs those to spawn the resort workers. Also make sure your resort is profitable - that the projected profits are greater than the expenses in the resort management summary. I've had to pare back expenses by removing amenities and dismissing workers until the resort was technically profitable and then adding that stuff back as it gradually made money. (edit: you don't need any VIP rooms. I once opened a resort with only the cottage resort tower, one buffet table, and the check-in desk. It only made about 40 simoleons a day until I started expanding it.)
5. Not that I know of. There's a 14 day cool down on proms occurring, and a 50% chance per day of a prom being scheduled, but I don't know if that's rolled every day or just some days. If you use NRaas StoryProgression you can change those values to increase the frequency of proms. You should be able to do change those values with NRaas Retuner too. I don't know of any non-mod way to influence the frequency of proms.
Does this mean they'll end up getting divorced and such? Also, I'm not saying it's wrong, but isn't the game supposed to put males with females?
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
@Chi5678 Are you sure they're actually cheating? Maybe it was Geoffrey Landgraab's birthday.
Also, @igazor I'm curious about this scoring. Do you know what the range is, and how different interactions are counted? I've never had any trouble getting townies to do what my main sims want (other than cheating when I'm not around), but it's interesting to think about how their experiences, user-directed or autonomous, might affect their preferences.
When a sim is in the positives for opposite gender, they can be attracted to that gender. Likewise for the same gender. And again, sims can act or accept a user-directed action that runs counter to their preference but they have to overcome a hefty penalty in the attraction score and thus be very attracted to the other sim in particular for this to happen. Situational things like having cinnamon, romantic drinks, elixirs, spells, mood lights in play can be a factor. So can an abundance of flirt friendly traits and LTRs on both sims.
At very low scores, like (using opposite/same now) +10/-5 or something, a sim can easily flip preferences. The game itself will gently push opposite gender sims together, but it doesn't insist on it.
At very high scores, like +10,000/-10,000, sims aren't any more interested in romance than others, but it's very unlikely they will have enough experiences in their lifetime to change preferences.
If both scores are positive, then the sim is attracted to both genders
If both scores are negative, then the sim is asexual (attracted to no one).
Zero is neutral, but sims don't stay at exactly zero on either score for very long unless they aren't interacting with anyone.
For those using mods, NRaas MasterController and the MC Cheats module are required to see and change the two scores on each sim individually. NRaas StoryProgression is required to influence and somewhat randomize the initial orientation a sim gets upon being spawned into the game or, for those growing up in it, the starting out pref scores they get when they reach their teen years, so that not all sims start out quite at 0/0 or so close to it.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
It wouldn't make sense that his birthday was just a couple days into my game... would it? Also, would that affect it? If a sim aged to elder and their significant other was still an adult would the adult feel single? And I'm pretty sure Geoffrey and Nancy are both still the same age (adults? YA? idk) but they look young lol
No, the scores are hidden just like hidden traits and hidden skill levels are and can only be seen with mods. In fact, I'm pretty sure that NRaas MasterController is the only mod that reveals them. Although NRaas Tagger also reads these values and, by player options, will declare a sim's orientation on their map tag -- e.g., "Straight Adult" or "Undecided Teen." But that one is only reading the scores and doesn't tell us by how much a sim is straight, gay, or some other orientation. I'm sorry, but under EA Standard the player really is flying blind on things like this and only has sim behavior to give any clues in this area.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Ummm... that's not what I meant... Never mind. To answer your question straight-up, birthdays don't affect the status of relationships; even death won't wipe the slate clean, so to speak. (I'm sure you can remarry, but I've heard that the ghost will still be counted as a romantic interest, at least. I've never tried to find out.)
The nraas mods are really easy to use—I'm practically computer illiterate, and I've had no problem with them. Most hosting sites will have a set of instructions on how to download and install them properly, and you can read up (or ask around) about which developers make reliable mods.
After reading @igazor's typically thorough and elegant summary of the hidden gender scoring, I just had to go and have a look for myself. (I'm kinda OCD. Just a little bit. No, really, not that much, I swear.) I found that each romantic action that a sim initiates, or more specifically, that I direct a sim to initiate, gives that sim a +4 score boost towards the gender of the recipient sim and a -2 away from the other gender, and the recipient gets a +2/-1 towards the initiator's gender. So a man complimenting a woman's appearance likes women 4 points more and men 2 points less afterward, and the woman likes men 2 points more and women 1 point less. Therefore, truly bisexual sims can have two positive numbers, but any sim with a ratio of romantic interactions higher than 2/1 towards one gender will end up preferring that gender. So you can know your own sims' scores without mods if you really want to, but it would be a pain to keep track on your own. [This is the point where I should acknowledge my use of the mod-that-must-not-be-named, which could conceivably be influencing some of this.] As far as negative interactions go, I never have the heart to pursue them, so I wouldn't know how they're scored, or even which ones count.
As @igazor said, there really is no upper limit on a score. I fired up a couple of old saves and found one sim who was +1582/-791 and another who was -201/1074 (I firmly believe that everyone should have a hobby). Also, since I was messing around, and I happened upon a save where a repairman was on the lot, I asked my sims what they thought of him. Of the six who weren't children, five thought he was a perfect 10. (The one who didn't was highly skewed towards women, but in that save at least the young sims got to experiment a bit. How else are they supposed to figure things out?) I can't say I blame them—he looked great for EA vanilla pudding, and they all knew he was good with his hands.
Just a side note, in my admittedly less than thorough investigation, I found that any existing townies who are married or engaged have a +4/-2 preference towards their partner's gender, while those with a romantic interest have a +2/-1. Any sims from the bin who are in a relationship (whether I made them or EA did) also have a +2/-1 preference. Any sim not in a relationship has a 0/0 score and therefore no preference. And a couple of YAs that I'd raised from birth were also at 0/0 despite having lots of friends, as well as a creepily high number of townies of all ages and both genders that would try to hit on them whenever they went out. But then again, they both had the Attractive LTR, the Celebrity charisma achievement, and of course an excellent upbringing (if I do say so myself). So I guess it's understandable.
The other sim might accept it. That's, of course, usually what we hope might happen if we were the ones directing the interaction. They might lightly reject but be neutral about it -- like wave their hands for the other sim to just stop because they are very good friends but that's all or the mood and timing are just not right at that moment. Or they might slap or yell at your sim, how dare you try to kiss me or compliment my personality (or whatever) or shove those flowers you tried to give them back in their face and storm off. Or refuse a wedding proposal (ouch!). Those are the negative kind, it's the sims' reception to them I meant and not just the interactions themselves. And those will impact the gender pref scores in the opposite direction.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
6- I have the option to Dream About a specific thing, would Dream About Being Prom Queen at all influence prom occurring sooner? Or influence my sim being prom queen?
7- My teen sim knows how to drive now. Is there a way to make it so she'll just drive herself to school and back and not have the bus come? On a side note, I just deleted the bus using cheats because my sim wants to skip school. Will a new bus spawn on the next sim day? Or did I just permanently delete the bus XD Also, for group outings sometimes she drives and sometimes she takes a cab, why is that? (Yes she has her car in her inventory and yes it's her preferred vehicle.) And now she's started riding her broom again when she goes places. I'd rather her drive. She was driving for a short time but now she's not...
So, update. the Bus did come back but I had my sim go to school via her car. She drove all the way there then tried to run back to her house to get on the bus... I deleted the bus again. Then, I clicked on the school to have her go to school and it cancelled the action and she just stood there waiting for everyone to go in. I ended up getting her to school but it took like 3 tries lol.
8- Is there a way to set my front door to be locked to my household and my friends? My sim has friends over a lot and I'd rather leave the door unlocked cause it's easier than inviting everyone in but I don't want strangers or zombies in my house lol
9- Does anyone know what genre of music they play at the festival? Or is it just mixed? A song came on I really liked but it was a speaker not a stereo so I couldn't find out what genre it was. Also does anyone know the genre it's considered when singer sims sing?
10- Just out of curiosity, does anyone know why sims after school will stick around if they know my sim but if they don't know my sim they almost immediately go home? It makes it difficult to meet them when it changes immediately from "cannot be bothered, in school" to "going home". Is there any way to make it so sims don't immediately go home after school, at curfew, etc. other than building on lot and trapping them there? XD Or to take off the thing where it wont let us interact with them while theyre going home?
11- I made a family of ghosts just for fun but I hate the ghostly music sound, is there any way to mute just the sound of ghosts?
12- Why do I keep finding teens and kids outside of school during school hours? I would expect some people to ditch but there's a couple sims I see outside of school every day. Also theres a couple sims that are at the school but just stand outside the doors all day. Is this a glitch?
7 - For one thing, stop deleting the bus. There is a sim in there, the bus driver. Even though that's not someone with whom you can really interact, force deleting sims causes game corruption.
There are mods you can use, several of them, to cancel the schoolbus and carpool services entirely. But if your teen can drive and has a car in their inventory, then making it their preferred vehicle should stop them from being so obsessed by the school bus and brooms to get around. Can't really say why this isn't working for you.
8 - No. Sims must be lot-greeted in order to come inside your home. The only way to lot-greet sims automatically without mods is to throw a party, but that only works for the time that the party is taking place. Or you could have your sim live on a community lot, but it requires a mod to do that (NRaas MasterController) and then one has to work around not having a mailbox.
10 - Because that is the way the game is programmed. Kids who are not already friends have to go home from school before you can interact with them. Sometimes your sim will get an invite to go home with them and you, the player, are asked if they have permission to do so but that occurs randomly. A mod is required to break into the Going Home action after work and school on inactives (NRaas DebugEnabler).
12 - Sounds like your school is overcrowded or there is something wrong with it.
13 - Only by using a mod (MasterController again). You could try gifting them moneybags, but in my experience most inactive sims don't know what to do with them.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
You bring up an interesting point, though, about rejection pushing a sim towards the opposite gender from the failed interest. "I complimented a girl on her appearance and she laughed in my face, so now I'm going to play for the other team." I would say that this should be an entry in "Sims 3 logic vs real life," but we know it happens IRL too, probably more often than in the game.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
If you're annoyed that your sim is waiting in line to enter the school, you could just reset the other sims ahead of her with the command console. Crtl+shift C and type in "resetsim (first name) (last name)" without the quotes, and your sim's path will be clear.
Also, if you put her car in a parking space, you can click directly on the car and tell her to go somewhere. I think you can also select "Go to [location] with..." and pick the other people for a group outing. But if someone else in the group "reaches" for a vehicle before your sim, that may be why the group ends up in a cab.
9) I don't know if any of the non-radio music is considered part of a genre, or if festival music belongs to its own category. But when a sim plays an instrument, the music has no genre; other sims' enjoyment is determined by the musician's skill level, topping out at +40 at level 10, which is the same value as an upgraded stereo playing a sim's favorite music.
12) I sometimes see a bunch of kids standing around behind the school when they should be inside. This can also happen with rabbithole jobs, where the workers all get booted out of the building in the middle of their shift. I think it probably signifies a problem with one of the sims who was inside, because it often happens when I save and then quit in the middle of the school or work shift (when there would be potentially broken sims inside as well). I've solved the problem in the past by not saving when one of my sims is in a rabbithole; if it happens during the next shift, I quit, reload, and use MasterController to reset the lot before the shift. If you don't have mods, you can still reset a problem sim with the command I described above, but you'd have to guess which one was causing the problem.
7- lol what kind of corruption would it cause? Is it wrong I delete things all the time? I never play enough to see corruption in my game. Once forever ago I was a magician or singer or something and I was performing and the audience all got really uncomfortable cause another sim left their screaming baby on the ground next to the stage so I deleted the baby
8- I couldn't live without a mailbox so looks like that's not an option. Besides, I want it to be my sims and my sims' friends, no strangers...
12- It can't be overcrowded, sometimes said sims go in and sometimes they just stand around... What should I do to try and fix it?
13- Where are these moneybags? I wouldn't mind giving anything a try.