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Plumbbot & general help needed
The search feature didn't help so...
Am once again trying TS3 out and have hit another snag. My sim has made it to the future world and has been asked to greet a plumbot and then ask it what is its function. I have no idea what to do.
In TS3 what is a plumbot? There are robot things all over the place, most have regular names, and my sim can greet and chat but there is no opton for asking the function. Now what?
Is there a way to enable my sim go to other worlds that the one she lives in? Feeling trapped. It's not a problem in TS2 as there are 'satelite worlds' my sim can easily get to and there is the capability to have and play multiple lots so there is a communiyt feel. Not so in 3 with its one sim per town/gamesave structure. I have all the packs and several of the extra worlds, so places to go is not the issue.
Thanks in advance for any help you folks that know what you're doing here may give!
Am once again trying TS3 out and have hit another snag. My sim has made it to the future world and has been asked to greet a plumbot and then ask it what is its function. I have no idea what to do.
In TS3 what is a plumbot? There are robot things all over the place, most have regular names, and my sim can greet and chat but there is no opton for asking the function. Now what?
Is there a way to enable my sim go to other worlds that the one she lives in? Feeling trapped. It's not a problem in TS2 as there are 'satelite worlds' my sim can easily get to and there is the capability to have and play multiple lots so there is a communiyt feel. Not so in 3 with its one sim per town/gamesave structure. I have all the packs and several of the extra worlds, so places to go is not the issue.
Thanks in advance for any help you folks that know what you're doing here may give!
Post edited by Oldeseadogge on
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Zumi and the Winchester Brothers
The Watcher's Caretaker - A Limited ISBI
The NRaas Traveler mod way, your sims can visit any world you have installed within the same ongoing game.
One thing that doesn't change is that only one world at a time can be simulated. So regardless of whether your actively played sims are in France (WA), Oasis (ITF), or Dragon Valley or a custom world (Traveler mod), the homeworld in which they live permanently goes into suspended animation and is frozen there until your sims return back home.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Plumbots are usually found in the Oasis Landing world. @igazor has offered up some important info regarding using NRAAS Traveller and NRAAS is one of the ways that we as Sims 3 players have kept our game stable and (less...though not always prone to crashing).
I'd highly suggest setting up a Mods folder and downloading NRAAS Overwatch and Error Trap as well as Master Controller. That will stabilize your game and hopefully prevent any crashes along the way as you're exploring different worlds.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
3 certainly has plusses - well developed sims, that fun mini-game while it loads, nice music. It also has things I don't like - ugly sims that all look alike, graphics that look out of focus and bland/muddy, cranky edge scrolling, the vaunted open world seems more like an animated loading screen (sim teleports into car, car goes from sim house to destination through a maze of streets in about the same time a loading screen takes, sim teleports out of car and walks into the destination), limitation to one sim/household per game save, almost every destination other than the park is a rabbit hole with no opportunity for my sim to meet other sims and interact with them, a so-called summer festival with 2 wooden statue like food vendors, 2 photo booths, and my sim (and only my sim) present. Whoopee. This is my fifth( sixth?) attempt to get into it and I've yet to encounter what has the rest of you so enthused about it.
Will keep plugging at it, re-read your posts when it's not so late, try the suggestions I can. Again, thanks, from a struggling simmer.
@Oldeseadogge, My favorite Sim in Sunset Valley is her...
Mind, you, this is after I tweaked her from...
What does that mean? It probably means... Miracles are possible.
Yes, this game is cranky in terms of edge-scrolling and there are some out of focus parts of the game in terms of trees and other items, but on the whole; how it's liked is subjective.
And trust me, I still haven't figured out how to "rotational" play with different families in the same save...but there are others who do it, so it is possible.
NRAAS (even though it is a mod) is a life-saver with this game. Otherwise RAM errors will hog up your memory so fast that crashes are inevitable. NRAAS Error Trap and Overwatch are what make this game even playable and that is a sad verdict on the coding in this game.
My friend, we each like different aspects of the Sims. But hopefully you can find something merit-able in Sims 3, eventually.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
I play the whole town (well, to different degrees) of Sunset Valley at once in my main savegame. Of course, I have my main families.
As soon as the families get larger, that's more of a blessing. You can set the interactions via work tones and deal with other issues in the meanwhile. If you want careers with lots of personal interactions, you need packs like Ambitions or Showtime. I find this means you are basically forced to play that one sim most of the time. Also, besides parks, there's always the other residential lots, the museum, the gym, the public pools, the graveyard, etc. Also, in most towns, the business center (in Sunset Valley it's the lot that contains the grocery, theater and bookstore rabbitholes) is always full of sims, sometimes dozens. The lot with the hospital and the diner also has always people to meet.
Hmm, the game usually pushes around 8 other sims on the lot you go to, but the number depends on your system. Did you set it up properly so the game knows that your computer can handle more sims?
To Nikkei: My usual mode of play, regardless of version, is going in with a single sim who them meets the locals (premade playable sims, townies, other singles I've made & put into the neighborhood) and gets to know them. At some point one of those sims stands out as 'mate bait' and the marriage & family thing goes on from there. Depending on planned story for the household may sometimes put in either a mated pair or the pair with a child - usually teen. On one occasion I did a widowed dad with his teen daughter who made it her mission to get him hooked up again. Hard to do that when the place seems deserted.
Your before & after shots show my point. Even TS2's ugly ones look better than that before sim. They at least have character, TS3 ones are just there, bland and lifeless.
One thing I've learned over the years, is not to put too many lots like that into your town, and try to incorporate as much as you can into one lot ( without going overboard ) otherwise the sims in your town will be spread so thinly that you'll not have any lots that seem "full".
I've built a hangout for my sims that includes bowling lanes, pool tables, arcade machines, things like magic mirrors, chess tables, domino tables, a jukebox & dancefloor, a bar and outdoor stuff like a skating rink, soccer net, driving range, electrodance sphere etc, all that kind of stuff, so that sims are pushed to this one lot, rather than 10 other lots around town.
I usually only add one pub to my towns, and I change the lot designation to Dance Club or Disco Club or dive bar wherenever I have a sim who wants to learn all different kinds of drinks, otherwise it stays as a local watering hole.
My recreational lots usually aren't empty, and I don't have any trouble meeting sims in my game. You'll find yourself much better off setting up mods in your game though.
As for the ugly sims, well, TS3 sims are known for being little pudding heads. Again, mods that alter the range of the sliders like Master Controller will help prevent this, though it wont do anything for already created sims unless you alter them. I believe there is also a setting that can help with making sure the game doesn't generate puddings, and has a more varied facial / slider range.
I don't know that for sure because I use AwesomeMod which does that automatically. One thing, when you're editing or creating sims - they will instantly look a hundred times better when you reduce their head width slider. It's usually far too fat and wide.
Default replacement skins will also help with the plasticine look of TS3 sims. It IS possible to also set up rotational play, with TS2 style aging thanks to NRAAS mods, but you'd have to seek help on their forums for that ( I think ) because I tend to just play a single household and couldn't help sorry, and I am not sure of any others here who play rotationally. I go back to TS2 when I want rotational families.
As @Nikkei_Simmer said, it is best to explore the open world on foot. If your sim likes collecting gems, metals and insects, there are always plenty to find. Gems can be cut and sold at the consignment store or right from your inventory, and each skill has a series of challenges that I find really fun to try to complete.
Personally, I don't think you're going to get past the "Meh" feeling with TS3 without using at least Master controller and Error Trap. Sadly, Ts3 can run into a lot of problems which can leave people feeling very discouraged and frustrated and unable to enjoy the game. I wouldn't wait to install them, but that's just me. Most people here who do really love and enjoy their games are using the NRAAS suite of mods in some regard.
Good luck with it, I hope you find a happy place with the game.
PoppySims Archive
InnaLisa Pose Archive
Devolution of Sims - a once customisable open world sandbox which has become a DLC Party catalog in a shoebox
I ♡ Pudding
OP: TS3 is a "story-tellers" game, the expressions are so subtle that you have to be expert to read into them what you want. You have to catch them at the right moment for your "narrative"
We use all the tools at our disposal to weave a story instead of relying on overly animated characterizations of emotions of the sim in question.
I do find that our sims animations are rather muted but for us that's the beauty of it. We can make their muted animations to be what we want them to be rather than be forced around the animations of the developers.
You can't mistake this expression for anything other than shock...
"Setting up a mods folder" is quick to do. You can do it manually or you can get a premade (zip file) that contains all your folders that you put into the C:/Documents/Electronic Arts folder that your game folders are in.
Step One is: Make a New Folder (label it Mods)
Step Two is: Open up your Mods folder: Make two Subfolders in your Mods folder - Label the first folder Overrides; label the second Packages <---- This folder is where you will place all your mods that are labelled as .package
If you have a Sims3pack. Those go in the C:/Documents/Electronic Arts/Downloads where EA's Launcher will take care of it.
Step Three is: Open up Notepad on your computer. Copy the following
Save it as resource.cfg place it in the Mods folder.
When you are set up. Your mods folder should look like this:
File folder: Overrides
File folder: Packages
file that is titled resource.cfg
Ignore my Cache File, I use it for something else. All you need is the two folders and resource.cfg file and you're all set to go.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Clearly they are an avid simmer, but this is the sixth time they are giving this iteration of the game a chance, as they say, and they are expecting all along for it to be like TS2 only better once they find out how to make that happen. It never will be, in that regard it will always disappoint. TS3 stands on its own merits and although there are of course similarities between all of them in the series, TS3 is a very different game from the others. If one regards the open world as an annoyance and is unable to appreciate the vast possibilities that the it brings to the table, the design tools we get to work with, and the blank slates that the sims themselves present to us to work on with or without the help of mods, and it's still all just "meh," then this sudden enlightenment, oh so that's what everyone keeps talking about kind of thing, is just not likely to happen.
It's perfectly fine that many players did not bond with it the first time they tried, and it's fine if they never will, but forcing themselves to find redeeming qualities to a game where they constantly refer to sims other players proudly showcase as bland, dull, lifeless, worse than the ugly TS2 sims, etc., constantly comparing everything TS3 has to offer to TS2, telling us that all lots are rabbitholes, shunning advice about getting the game to recognize the power of their newer computer's hardware when it (the game) might need some help in doing that, all show us that the metric being used to measure quality and enjoyment here is skewed.
Either that or the OP is troll-baiting for their own amusement. And no one starts school in June. (of course they do, I just threw that in there for fun) But I would prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt. TS4 is not and will never be my cup of tea even as an occasional alternative to T3, I recognized that years ago, and there is no point in forcing myself to try to enjoy it. The same can said for many players when it comes to TS3. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but if I really felt that way about a game that has evolved as far as it is ever going to, as opposed to a new one still in its early development stages, no matter what everyone around keeps saying, I would after a while just choose to play something else instead.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Zumi and the Winchester Brothers
The Watcher's Caretaker - A Limited ISBI
( seriously, if that is the case, and you feel you'll never "bond" with the game, maybe it's best to put it away )
Also, I really hate this word filter. Some of the words it filters are so dumb and unnecessary.
PoppySims Archive
InnaLisa Pose Archive
Devolution of Sims - a once customisable open world sandbox which has become a DLC Party catalog in a shoebox
I ♡ Pudding
Not ignoring advice on taking advantage of newer computer. The poster simply asked if I had done it. I have no idea how to do that, especially with a Windows 10 machine, which seems to have changed all the usual compter tweaking rules.
Creative tools: other than the color wheel which appears to be confined to CAS, and the heard about world thing, what are they and how do they get activated?
Packs: as far as I know have over the years found & installed all of them. I know I get the warning message when the game starts. Knowing how to take full advantage of them is another story.
TS4 is pretty much a 'I want to relax/unwind but am too fried for anything remotely challenging' kind of thing. Especially after 3 patches that have only made things worse. May have become not my glass of water, let alone a cup of tea.
Nikkei: Have made a Mods folder with sub-folders per your suggestion. Windows thinks the resources.cfg is a text file but your photo shows it as a config file, even after renaming it once I got it into the Mods folder. Notepad refused to save it with a .cfg extension so kept the .txt. Either I have a cranky Notepad or don't know how to use it. Interesting set of photos there. I'd say the first evil smile is Phil's in photo 1. Good thing he got out voted.
Aren't trolls those little critters that live in Scandanavian mountain caves?
Class begins tomorrow, online, in creative writing. Just because I've a book published doesn't mean such skills that I have don't need improving.
Pary: Feel free to be pushy. If one loves something the natural inclination is to share one's enthusiasm, or even promote it. Fully agree on the filter. Courteous consideration of others is one thing, censorship another - especially if we don't know the parameters of their PC vision.
We love TS3 so naturally, we love to enthuse about it and well, hopefully you'll bear with us and perhaps our over-enthusiasm.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Setup_and_Files
Then there is no need to open the file in Notepad and it doesn't matter which icon or file association the cfg file picks up as it will work regardless of those.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Still no luck with the plumbots, the option to ask about function has yet to appear.
I think Origin/EA is stiffing me. There are packs I know I've bought but they do not show up on the list.
This may go back to the PC optimization thing I don't know how to do: The game displays as a square even though full screen is enabled in game options.
Are there any empty lots in the game? The ones I've found so far have houses, they have residents, and the lots seem very small. Hard to build a nice Vicky on a dinky lot.
Will give that mod thing a second look when have more time. Gotta go! Thanks again for all your help and patience!
Also, if you're playing TS3 on Origin on patch 1.69, sometimes it disables packs that you own from reports by other people.
I play on Win 7, so I'm not sure how to help with the resolution thing sorry.
Just a sidenote about building ... I ( and some other people from what I've seen ) have a small, empty custom world specifically made for building lots installed in my game. It's much easier than trying to build in an already established world, and loads much faster.
I use THIS ONE , and although it isn't available online anymore, I don't think Regina would mind if I uploaded it to share, her TOU allowed that, as long as it wasn't to a paysite. There are all kinds of lot sizes, primarily the standard ones, and they are all labelled.
Alternatively, I've seen people using THIS ONE too, though I never have so can't speak from experience.
PoppySims Archive
InnaLisa Pose Archive
Devolution of Sims - a once customisable open world sandbox which has become a DLC Party catalog in a shoebox
I ♡ Pudding
@Oldseadogge; I'll take a look at what I did when I went in and did the manual rename in File Explorer... Because I did it when I had Win10 as an OS.
I've just taken a head-first dive into Sims because it's addictive.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
A postive note: went hunting for TS3 guide books in my mess of a nest and found 7 of them, or rather they found me by falling out of the box they were in. Am hoping they will help with at least some of my problems. Am presuming all the expansions had a book, so that leaves 4 to find out there in the marketplace. Am also presuming there are no books for stuff packs unless little guides are in the boxes. All my TS3 is via boxed disks, which I know have stashed somewhere.
@Oldeseadogge If you want information about expansions, stuff packs and everything else Sims 3 related I recommend that you visit Carl's and SimsVIP. Plenty of useful and interesting things to read and look at there.
Personally I've used both sites a lot ever since I first started playing TS3 in the fall of 2011.