Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.

Anyone tried this before with just one Sim?

OK, I am attempting the ultimate challenge on Sims 3. This Sim must have all skills maxed plus completed all skill challenges. That includes the skills which comes in the Sims 3 Store such as the violin and gambling skill. On top of it, this Sim must earn all the available degrees in the game (with the highest honors), reach the top career ranks in all the jobs, including part-time ones. He/She should also complete all photographs in every subject and collect every collectible in the game.

Do you guys think this is a doable challenge? Also, how long in game hours will this take with just 1 Sim? Has anyone done this before?

Thanks.

:)

Comments

  • IreneSwiftIreneSwift Posts: 6,247 Member
    edited July 2017
    I'm doing almost the same thing right now. I started my sim as a toddler with a single mother, and am playing on full epic lifespan. She is not only going to master all of the regular skills and the skill challenges, she is also going to master all hidden skills. I'm also going to have her collect everything that can be collected, learn and cook all recipes, plant every garden plant and bring them all up to perfect, etc.

    I was originally going to have her get every degree, but I'm not that fond of university. One degree per sim works better for me. Besides, when you go back for a second degree, your sim will have no classmates, and no professor. You will need to use mods to assign students and professors. But if you don't use mods, and you don't mind your sim being the only one in the lecture and activities class, with no professor lecturing, they can still get their degrees, so long as they do the work.

    So far, she is making very good progress. As soon as she learned all the toddler skills and had all the books read to her, I aged her up with a birthday cake. I'm using mods and giving her summers off from school, with two weeks for each season. She's taking the after school scouting class, and will be doing ballet when she finishes scouting. Right now, four sim weeks into her game in her home world, she and her mother are vacationing in Bridgeport, thanks to the NRaas Traveler mod. They have been there five days so far. Her mother, who is in the music career and has mastered guitar, is spending the days playing for tips in the subway, so they can move from their small starter house to one with a big yard and enough rooms for more skill equipment, while my child sim has caught the three fish unique to Bridgeport, collected termites, spiders, and every kind of will o' the wisp, the two LN gems, and one of the LN metals, as well as two pink diamonds and several other gems, metals, and space rocks. She is digging through junk piles at the junkyard and working on inventing when she isn't collecting or taking pictures.

    She has the collection helper and the fast learner LTR. She also has the multi tab 6000, and learned photography entirely from tabcasts. It isn't going to save her time, because she still has the skill challenges to do, but it did allow her to not waste money getting bad photos, or a large collection of tiny little photos too small to see when they're hanging on the wall.

    Of hidden skills, she has mastered all the toddler skills, the toy oven, block table, sandbox, homework, and skating, and has made good progress on several others. She has written her first book, painted several paintings, including one brilliant one, and invented three inventions.

    She will be vacationing in Isla Paradiso for as long as it takes to collect every kind of seashell and underwater sea life, and while she is in the WA worlds, she will be working on other skills along with the ones specific to those worlds.

    I'm also using NRaas Relativity to slow down the clock, but she doesn't learn skills any faster that way, because it adjusts skill gain to the change in time. But it does give her time to do things like wash her hands after she uses the toilet, have a submarine adventure in the bathtub every morning, have slumber parties with her friends, interact with her mother every day, do fireworks on leisure day, etc. I don't expect to need to extend her life beyond her lifespan, but if you choose not to turn off aging, and you find your sim is not going to be able to finish all of the skills and challenges before they reach the end of their lifespan, you can have them use the young again potion from the chemistry table, the fountain of youth elixir, the young again LTR, or ambrosia. There's also the fountain of youth and life fruit, which will give them one extra day each time they eat the fruit or drink from the fountain.

    I am not cheating with my sim, except to fix things that go wrong. When I sent her to the place where she needed to fish for the kissing gourami, from where she had caught the sewer trilobite, she took a water taxi, which turned around and dropped her off at the same place where it picked her up. So I canceled the action of going there and teleported her, or she would never have made it. I've done the same when she was not able to get on her bicycle and go home from somewhere, and I also had to reset her when she couldn't go to her scouting class and the bus stopped taking her home. I can't think of any other cheats I've had to use up to this point.

    I'm using CC storage chests based on the WA treasure chests, to store all of her collectibles, paintings, photos, and inventions. I want to keep the space rocks until she can analyze them, and the gems and metals until she can smelt or cut them herself. She may also need to sell some of her paintings and collectibles to buy herself a house, when it's time for her to move out on her own. I'm going to move her out as a teen, as soon as she doesn't need her mother anymore. At this point, as a child, she can't even open her own storage chests. I have to use her mother to open them so she can put her stuff in them. She will also need her mother to drive the boat while she works on the waterskiing hidden skill, and of course, to teach her to drive. I'm also probably going to have her mother dumpster dive, and do other things for her to take photos of for some of the photo collections. She has so far gotten photos of her mother cooking and playing her guitar, but she is not going to be working very much on photography until she ages up at least to teen. She does have photos of Matthew Hamming posing for her for the celebrity sighting photo, the mixologist at the mausoleum in Bridgeport, and of Catarina Vanderburg jogging in Hidden Springs, her home world, for "diplomat extraordinaire."

    My sim is not going to be doing any actual careers, but will be making her living with her skills. I had another sim, a few years ago, who I made to work at every career and profession I had never played before, including the ones that they can get with social influence, but eventually, it got boring, because she had already mastered the skills she needed for the jobs, so with the social influence jobs, it was just a matter of going to work and coming home, and getting one promotion after another, with no real effort. Besides that, some of the professions are glitched, and it got very tedious trying to complete them. You can have your sim finish all of them, but it will take a lot of patience.
  • IreneSwiftIreneSwift Posts: 6,247 Member
    I'm doing almost the same thing right now. I started my sim as a toddler with a single mother, and am playing on full epic lifespan. She is not only going to master all of the regular skills and the skill challenges, she is also going to master all hidden skills. I'm also going to have her collect everything that can be collected, learn and cook all recipes, plant every garden plant and bring them all up to perfect, etc.

    I was originally going to have her get every degree, but I'm not that fond of university. One degree per sim works better for me. Besides, when you go back for a second degree, your sim will have no classmates, and no professor. You will need to use mods to assign students and professors. But if you don't use mods, and you don't mind your sim being the only one in the lecture and activities class, with no professor lecturing, they can still get their degrees, so long as they do the work.

    So far, she is making very good progress. As soon as she learned all the toddler skills and had all the books read to her, I aged her up with a birthday cake. I'm using mods and giving her summers off from school, with two weeks for each season. She's taking the after school scouting class, and will be doing ballet when she finishes scouting. Right now, four sim weeks into her game in her home world, she and her mother are vacationing in Bridgeport, thanks to the NRaas Traveler mod. They have been there five days so far. Her mother, who is in the music career and has mastered guitar, is spending the days playing for tips in the subway, so they can move from their small starter house to one with a big yard and enough rooms for more skill equipment, while my child sim has caught the three fish unique to Bridgeport, collected termites, spiders, and every kind of will o' the wisp, the two LN gems, and one of the LN metals, as well as two pink diamonds and several other gems, metals, and space rocks. She is digging through junk piles at the junkyard and working on inventing when she isn't collecting or taking pictures.

    She has the collection helper and the fast learner LTR. She also has the multi tab 6000, and learned photography entirely from tabcasts. It isn't going to save her time, because she still has the skill challenges to do, but it did allow her to not waste money getting bad photos, or a large collection of tiny little photos too small to see when they're hanging on the wall.

    Of hidden skills, she has mastered all the toddler skills, the toy oven, block table, sandbox, homework, and skating, and has made good progress on several others. She has written her first book, painted several paintings, including one brilliant one, and invented three inventions.

    She will be vacationing in Isla Paradiso for as long as it takes to collect every kind of seashell and underwater sea life, and while she is in the WA worlds, she will be working on other skills along with the ones specific to those worlds.

    I'm also using NRaas Relativity to slow down the clock, but she doesn't learn skills any faster that way, because it adjusts skill gain to the change in time. But it does give her time to do things like wash her hands after she uses the toilet, have a submarine adventure in the bathtub every morning, have slumber parties with her friends, interact with her mother every day, do fireworks on leisure day, etc. I don't expect to need to extend her life beyond her lifespan, but if you choose not to turn off aging, and you find your sim is not going to be able to finish all of the skills and challenges before they reach the end of their lifespan, you can have them use the young again potion from the chemistry table, the fountain of youth elixir, the young again LTR, or ambrosia. There's also the fountain of youth and life fruit, which will give them one extra day each time they eat the fruit or drink from the fountain.

    I am not cheating with my sim, except to fix things that go wrong. When I sent her to the place where she needed to fish for the kissing gourami, from where she had caught the sewer trilobite, she took a water taxi, which turned around and dropped her off at the same place where it picked her up. So I canceled the action of going there and teleported her, or she would never have made it. I've done the same when she was not able to get on her bicycle and go home from somewhere, and I also had to reset her when she couldn't go to her scouting class and the bus stopped taking her home. I can't think of any other cheats I've had to use up to this point.

    I'm using CC storage chests based on the WA treasure chests, to store all of her collectibles, paintings, photos, and inventions. I want to keep the space rocks until she can analyze them, and the gems and metals until she can smelt or cut them herself. She may also need to sell some of her paintings and collectibles to buy herself a house, when it's time for her to move out on her own. I'm going to move her out as a teen, as soon as she doesn't need her mother anymore. At this point, as a child, she can't even open her own storage chests. I have to use her mother to open them so she can put her stuff in them. She will also need her mother to drive the boat while she works on the waterskiing hidden skill, and of course, to teach her to drive. I'm also probably going to have her mother dumpster dive, and do other things for her to take photos of for some of the photo collections. She has so far gotten photos of her mother cooking and playing her guitar, but she is not going to be working very much on photography until she ages up at least to teen. She does have photos of Matthew Hamming posing for her for the celebrity sighting photo, the mixologist at the mausoleum in Bridgeport, and of Catarina Vanderburg jogging in Hidden Springs, her home world, for "diplomat extraordinaire."

    My sim is not going to be doing any actual careers, but will be making her living with her skills. I had another sim, a few years ago, who I made to work at every career and profession I had never played before, including the ones that they can get with social influence, but eventually, it got boring, because she had already mastered the skills she needed for the jobs, so with the social influence jobs, it was just a matter of going to work and coming home, and getting one promotion after another, with no real effort. Besides that, some of the professions are glitched, and it got very tedious trying to complete them. You can have your sim finish all of them, but it will take a lot of patience.
  • Luma_Bear32910Luma_Bear32910 Posts: 157 Member
    I have only ever done the legacy challenge (which I'm currently doing) but it has never been anything to this extent. Do you have the link to the original challenge or is this one you made up?
  • TreyNutzTreyNutz Posts: 5,780 Member
    Are you referring to this challenge? I think @ChelleJo is doing that challenge. And I think her YT channel has occasional updates. I haven't tried it. It seems too specific as to what career and what skill in what town, etc. to accomplish for me. The idea is interesting, but I think I'd get bored with playing just one sim for such a long time.
  • siva20092403siva20092403 Posts: 631 Member
    @Luma_Bear32910 I actually made up this challenge myself since having Sims 3 and all the EPs and LPs. Hoowever, I have never completed it because of some heart wrenching bugs like the shutternut bug and counters giving wrong values in collections when you travel. That really discouraged me. This was before I installed any Nraas mods. After installing the mods, I realized that the shutternut bug cannot still be fixed despite having the Traveler mod.

    @IreneSwift To be honest with you, I never thought of starting this challenge with a toddler. However doing this with a toddler and having to grow him/her up to a Young Adult and completing everything in the game will most definitely provide the most complete experience of playing Sims 3.

    @TreyNutz No, I am not referring to that challenge you posted. This is a challenge that I have always though of doing since playing Sims 3. Even on the old days of playing Sims 1. For Sims 1, back in 2000, I actually maximized every skill but I did not have all the expansion packs because at that time, my PC was an ancient Pentium II 300MHz. I never got a chance to play Sims 2 when it came out because I was still using that "dinosaur PC". It is only recently in which I have all the Sims games from 1 to 4. This idea has always been with me.

    Some people have completed this challenge and when you go through the other Sims forum like Carl Sims, 1 or 2 people have done it. However doing this starting from the toddler age brings the term "tedious" to a whole new level.

    :)
  • IreneSwiftIreneSwift Posts: 6,247 Member
    Some people have completed this challenge and when you go through the other Sims forum like Carl Sims, 1 or 2 people have done it. However doing this starting from the toddler age brings the term "tedious" to a whole new level.

    :)

    LOL! I'm not finding it tedious at all. But I like working on skills, and even when my child sim is playing, most of the time she's still working on skills. I've just finished playing two more days in Bridgeport. Then next will be their last. She has finally found tungsten carbide, and has made 4 more inventions. I think she is at level 7 in inventing now.

    When she's at school, her mother is available for me to do things with, and she's been very busy too. But any time they're both doing something that would otherwise be tedious, I put the game on fast forward.

    I've always had an issue with trying to get a photo of an eating contest. It always says it's a festival, and the one time I had an eating contest on my sims' home lot, and had my sim that was working on photography collections take a picture, because one of the contestants at their party was a celebrity, it just said "celebrity sighting." My current sim and her mother were at festival, and I tried to get a picture of the eating contest, but it only said seasonal festival. So I decided to get a picture of one of the food stands, in hopes that if I just got one labeled as a festival, the eating contest label would come up on the other one instead. But when I aimed the camera at the food stand, in the opposite direct from my sim as the eating contest, it said "serious competitive eating." Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, so I got the picture of the food stand for the competitive eating picture, and the eating contest for the seasonal festival picture. LOL!
  • kusurusukusurusu Posts: 971 Member
    edited July 2017
    What about Lifetime Rewards and other special traits? Would you hoard them aswell?

    Anyways, here a few tips for you...

    Photography: If you move to a new town the shutternut bug should be fixed*. Or if you don't want to move (because relationships/purchases) make sure you take the last remaining photo of every collection not while traveling but in your home world. As for your travel destinations: you could delete the corresponding files in your save folder (which resets every progress you made there) or live with the fact that in those places the counter will still be outdated.
    *Except for Everyday Moments which will always show up as incomplete (unless you use a mod).

    Nectar Making: 1) If Number of Sims Served is > 0 the Number of Recipes made won't reset, 2) Vizard of Vine challenge doesn't accept base game grapes, you have to use the WA ones instead.

    Consignment: To gain skill here you have to make charts on the whiteboard (from University Life) over and over again.

    Laser Rhythm-A-Con: You need a tuning mod* to complete the Star challenge (as otherwise no opportunity would count)
    *you also need tuning mods if you don't want to wait weeks for another instrument related opportunity

    Collecting: Two collection percentages (fireflies, seashells) will be broken/reset to 0 after travel and you can't get the Firefly challenge (unless you exploit the other bug)

    Collection Journal: Plants will show you the quality of your latest harvest (and not the highest one - this is acutally another bug).

    Riding: Jumping reset to 0 after travel -> one or two challenges undone

    Charisma: All relevant stats reset to 0 (no bug)

    Air Guitar: You need the Hypnotizer from the Store to gain this skill

    ... there might be more to come

    p.s., turn off memories (completely) if you don't wan't to carry tons of LifeEvent data
    Post edited by kusurusu on
    My SuperSim Collection: Rosetta Stone · Sona Ali
  • MamaSimTeeMamaSimTee Posts: 963 Member
    I'm doing a combo of the challenge @TreyNutz posted and combined it with the 5x5 challenge (If I had the link handy, I'd post it, but I don't). I'm making up my own rules for myself. I'm having a great time. I have my SIM Althea, set on Normal lifespan and since I can earn rewards I use the "young again potion" when it comes time to move her on to the next city. In the "What happened in your game" thread, I posted a bunch of updates regarding Althea's progress in Sunset Valley. I've recently moved her to Riverview and starting her time in that world. Since Photobucket and I don't get along right now, I haven't really posted updates with pictures.

    I love that we all play the same game, but have so many different ways of playing it. Even with the challenges. My favorite thing about the game, is that I've been playing SIMS 3 since the beginning and I'm still learning new things.

    Happy Simming to all!
    <insert inspiring comment here> :)
  • cleo00cleo00 Posts: 1,088 Member
    I feel like with one sim itd be too easy, and less of a challenge and more of just being a completionist. I feel to make it a challenge youd have to have an entire family going along side it, so that the day to day life of parenting and whatnot gets in the sim's way of completing everything.
    For me, if I wasnt working the whole summer, it'd take a week or two :D but I will have to save attemtping this for my christmas break.
  • 1need4kaffee1need4kaffee Posts: 486 Member
    For me, this game would be challenging in two different ways. First, keeping the game from crashing due to all the stuff stored on the lot. I get unplayable lag when I have 600 pieces of scrap in my inventory. I can only imagine all the rocks, gems, minerals, seeds, etc. you are collecting and holding until the child grows up to use them just killing my game. Second would be to persevere. I would burn out and want to start a new sim half way through. If you make it all the way, you have my admiration! :)
  • IreneSwiftIreneSwift Posts: 6,247 Member
    @1need4kaffee I don't keep all the collectibles in my sim's inventory. They are in storage chests. The only things she has in her personal inventory are her collection helper, expensive camera, tablet, laptop, teddy bear, umbrella, and homework. The only time she has more than that is when she is actively collecting, fishing, digging through junk piles for scrap, etc. Most of her paintings are hanging on the wall, and so are her and her mother's skill certificates.

    And as long as I keep my sims busy doing things that I find interesting, which just about every part of skill building is, I don't get tired of them. Plus, she is going to eventually get married and have a family, so there is that too. I am also considering having her join the singer career when she grows up, not to perform for tips or gigs, or do sing-a-grams, but just because I enjoy listening to my sims sing. Her husband is going to have to master karaoke too, so I can have them sing together.

    @siva20092403 What exactly has happened for you with the shutternut challenge? I've had sims do photography before, and complete collections, but I don't remember ever having any issues with it. Every picture my sims gets still always shows up as completed in their skill log, even when they travel.
  • siva20092403siva20092403 Posts: 631 Member
    kusurusu wrote: »
    What about Lifetime Rewards and other special traits? Would you hoard them aswell?


    Collecting: Two collection percentages (fireflies, seashells) will be broken/reset to 0 after travel and you can't get the Firefly challenge (unless you exploit the other bug)

    Does the Nraas Traveler mod fix the collection percentage of fireflies and seashells when you travel? Also what about collecting Nanites? Do these get fixed as well with the Traveler mod?

    Yes, getting all the Lifetime Rewards count as well.

  • siva20092403siva20092403 Posts: 631 Member
    IreneSwift wrote: »

    @siva20092403 What exactly has happened for you with the shutternut challenge? I've had sims do photography before, and complete collections, but I don't remember ever having any issues with it. Every picture my sims gets still always shows up as completed in their skill log, even when they travel.

    For example, when you complete 1 or more photo collection, travel and return back to your home town, the counter gets reset. Granted, in my latest test, I completed 1 photo collection (Architectural & Buildings Collection I think) in France and when I traveled back, the counter reset to 0. Some users have reported that to prevent this bug from happening, do not complete any photo collections when you travel. Instead complete them in your home town. The Nraas Traveler mod as yet to fix this issue though but other collections were fixed with this mod.
  • SimplyJenSimplyJen Posts: 14,823 Member
    I had intended to max all base game skills at one point this year but never got around to it. All pack skills + store seems incredibly daunting. I'd have to have a sim I really liked enough to play them that long. It would make a good save file to keep coming back to as a break every now and then. Kudos to anyone who tackles this even if they don't succeed.
    i7-13700K • 16GB • RTX 4070
    S3 simblr: http://simplysimming.tumblr.com/
    S4 simblr: http://simlogic.tumblr.com/
  • IreneSwiftIreneSwift Posts: 6,247 Member

    For example, when you complete 1 or more photo collection, travel and return back to your home town, the counter gets reset. Granted, in my latest test, I completed 1 photo collection (Architectural & Buildings Collection I think) in France and when I traveled back, the counter reset to 0. Some users have reported that to prevent this bug from happening, do not complete any photo collections when you travel. Instead complete them in your home town. The Nraas Traveler mod as yet to fix this issue though but other collections were fixed with this mod.

    OK, I'll be watching for that. I think my sim has already done everything in the Architecture and Buildings collection that she can in her hometown. The rest are in WA worlds. So it's too late to do anything about that one, if it is going to glitch out. But I intend to complete more collections than just the number required for the challenge, so in the end, it may not make much difference. I'm probably going to save the easy ones she can set up in her home, such as home sweet home and still life, until after she finishes all of her traveling, and I will be moving her future husband into her house as a friend/roommate, before getting them romantically involved, then married, specifically so she can get the housemate photo first, then the main squeeze and spouse photos. He will also be helping her with ones like dumpster diving, etc., where she needs to get photos of sims doing specific things, except for the ones she catches her mother doing while she's still a child.

    I looked up the photography skill page on the sims wiki, and found that to get the photo of a photographer, your sim has to get a picture of another sim taking a photo. Have you ever managed to do that? I've tried getting a picture of a paparazzo before, but it looks like I'll have to catch them in the act of photographing a celebrity. That may not be easy. I guess that once her mother gets high enough in her career to gain enough celebrity to actually keep it (I have celebrity depreciation in NRaas SP on the default settings), if a paparazzo finds them doing something together and starts photographing her mother, it will be better to abandon their bowling or dominoes game and get that picture.
Sign In or Register to comment.
Return to top