More Awesome Than You!

Since there's been a good bit of discussion about how much money each career generates, including the perks, I thought I'd start a list. Obviously, each career now gets occasional bonuses, but I suspect most careers will be within a relatively small range when they first hit level 10. I have to say, the varying effects that you get from different career paths is one of the better changes from TS2.

I'll get better numbers later, but here are some ballparks for the careers I have experience with, off the top of my head. Feel free to post data below and I'll keep a running list in the first post.

Criminal (Evil) -
 - requires athletics, workplace relationships (especially the boss) and, for the very last levels, a little bit of logic.  
 - ~3200 per day
 - occasional free items, which sell for anywhere from 1k to 8k. I'd say about an 80% chance of an item on a given workday
 - the dropdown option "Do Side Jobs" nets about an extra $750 per day
 - also has dropdowns for improving athletic skill, meeting co-workers, befriending co-workers, and befriending boss.
 - will post workdays later. Have to check, but I think it was 3 days a week. Works at night.
 - Occasionally radiates a red aura in the presence of groups of sims. I think this is supposed to scare them because you're Mr. Evil, but it doesn't really appear to have any effect.
 - At lower levels, your sim can get arrested and spend a 12 hours or so in jail. Jail has dropdowns which include building athletics and your fun meter. My sim was arrested twice in his career, both times very early on.
 - Top tier ride is a black limo. Top tier costume is a black outfit with green piping, in a vaguely 1940s military shape. (tier 9 costume is Dr. Evil, to a T)

Music (Rockstar) -
 - Requires guitar skill, workplace relationships and musical performances (can be performed at work via dropdown).
 - At top tier, has no work hours. You perform shows or do an autograph session whenever you want, within certain hours.
 - Theater shows net about 1k and last about two hours,  Arena shows net 2-3k and last about four hours (time frame is a total guess. I wasn't paying attention). Money from shows seemed seriously lame, to me. There doesn't appear to be a way to get a raise, since there's no job performance bonus possible - the meter doesn't fill up anymore.
 - Sims in your household can go to the show for free and will get a nice moodlet afterwards.
 - Autograph signing sessions last four hours and net 6-7k, but it's not autonomous - you have to queue up a bunch of "sign autograph" actions (not that much work, really).
 - Getting your guitar skill up has a lot of perks of its own, including the ability to make decent money by playing for tips in the park (playing for tips still generates skill) and to serenade significant others.
 - Ride is a Rockstar bus from level 6 or so to level 9 (fully replaces the cab. The bus will take you everywhere). Level 10 is a blue limo.

Journalism -
- Skills Required: Writing from the beginning, Charisma at the higher levels. (Surprisingly, Creativity is NOT required at all. Because it no longer exists, my mistake.)
- Friends: Indirectly required to gain Charisma skill after the first few points. It is possible to get quite far (around level 7) with minimal friends (3, in my sim's case) however. The game recommends you befriend the boss, though I didn't notice much benefit.
- Other Requirements: At the higher levels, job performance is ostensibly influenced by the quality and frequency of your articles, interviews, and reviews, though my sim hasn't written anything but novels since level 6 or so with no effect.
- Perks: Under "Special" interactions, your sim gains the ability to Interview. This allows you to discover all five traits of any sim very quickly. Also, there is a special writing skill achievement ("Feature Article Writer") that increases the chances of producing hits and bestsellers. This appears to be exclusive to Journalists. The indirect perk is you're more or less required to max Writing, which makes it an ideal career if you want to concentrate on novel-writing primarily, and do a traditional career on the side.
- Salary: At level 10, Star News Anchor, I believe the starting salary was around 700 or 800 (not sure exactly.) With raises from maxing job performance, my sim is currently making 900+.
- Hours: For level 10, Star News Anchor, M W Th F : 8:00 am - noon.
- Opportunities: Interview City Councilman -- go to City Hall for a couple hours. Save your branch from being closed by the network -- write a bestselling article. A few other opportunities were similarly based on writing hit or bestselling articles. All successful opportunities result in higher job performance, money (not much, usually around 300) and sometimes, better relations with your boss, whatever that's worth.
- Job-Specific Working Technique: Practice Writing (increases writing skill) and Discuss News With Co-workers (increases relationship score with co-workers).
- Level 10 Vehicle: Margaret Vaguester - speed 10.

Athletics [from roflganger (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15057.msg433494.html#msg433494)]:
 - I have to check my game for exact numbers, but at the top, they bring in a sizable sum and can also do autograph signings and advertising deals.  
 - Work schedule sucks though - 3 work days and 2 game days.  
 - Performance factors: relationship with boss, relationship with teammates, athletic skills and (after a certain point) how the team does in games.  
 - Extra perk: family members can attend games for free.

Culinary [from gyrobot (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15057.msg433497.html#msg433497)]-
 - Very low maintenance Career, requiring only cooking as the only skill with good workplace relationships.
 - You get an improved Food Processor and a Fridge that boosts all food quality by 1. Leftovers also last longer in that fridge.
 - You get half price meals for the place, not that it matters since the only place worth going is the Bristo
 - Can switch between restaurants for speed/mobility.

Science -
 - Top Pay (Will update this.  At Level 8 it's currently 257/hour with MTTF workdays, 9:00-1:30)
 - Performance Factors:  Mood, Gardening, Handiness, Fishing (One of the more skill oriented careers)
 - Decent work hours - Seems to hover around 6 hours.
 - Occasionally you can get burned at work.
 - Standard Work Options: Business as Usual, Work Hard, Hang Out in Specimen Closet, Geek Out With Fellow Scientists, Help Boss, Independent Research.

Business -
 - Rank 10, Power Broker started at around $400/h.  Workdays were only 8-11AM on M,T, and T.
 - Player could choose to 'Hold Meeting' at the upper levels, which lasted an hour or two and paid $750. Good for raking in cash. They should have called this Srs Bsns.
 - The company occasionally gave out a 'Deliver the Top-Secret Package'/'Host a Work Party' opportunity, or some other tomfoolery.
 - It was a rather dull career, but such is business I suppose.  Undecided


Medicine -
 - Requires logic skill, and reading medical journals (not as a career opportunity, but as an aspect of job performance)
 - Don't remember that well, but I think it was just shy of 3k per day when I hit level 10. Someone else can probably give a better number.
 - Can sleep at work, or play golf at work (sleep meter and fun meter).
 - You sim has to carry a beeper and is often "on call." Occasionally, you'll get called back to work at odd hours.
 - My retired medical career sim makes 460 a day.

- Law Enforcement ( superspy / forensic analyst )
 - During the career your given your own police car and your own laptop.  
 - You also get the option to question sims to learn every detail about their traits and life status.



--Working From Home--

Hacking -
 - A full night hacking session currently nets my hacker around 3-4k. It has gone up noticeably since I started, probably due to logic gains (though possibly due to hacking experience). Logic is still around 8, so I'll update this later. Can only hack between 9pm and 7am, so it's not quite as flexible as other home careers.
 - Hacking requires the computer whiz trait, it does not appear to require any skills, and it does not boost any skills
 - Cybercrime division occasionally fries your computer (I assume the unbreakable upgrade will stop this, but haven't tested it)

Logic Problem Solving on the Computer -
 - I had initially assumed that every time I did this I'd get a harder problem and make more money, but it appears to be a random amount between $50 and $150, and I don't think it goes up. The failure rate is also very high. Not a viable way to make money, as far as I can tell, but works for getting your logic up.
 - does boost fun meter, as well as logic skill.

Writing -
 - Very slow starting, but a high ceiling. I've read one person claim they currently make 24k per week in royalties. Royalties come in every Sunday for 6 weeks from when the book is published, and you can be receiving royalties from numerous books at once. If you're not playing on Epic lifespan, getting paid once a week pretty much sucks. Especially early on, when your big payday is 2k.
 - You receive a free copy of each book you publish
 - Different types of books become available as you increase in skill. Different types have different lengths and different payouts.
 - fun meter drain and stress moodlet generator (contrast to painting, which is a fun generator).

Painting [from VeilSethekk (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15057.msg433495.html#msg433495)] -
 - Seems to be in the same boat as Writing, a slow start, but a high celing. And the lack of 5-digit number earnings on painting (Compared to writing royalties) is offset by the increased frequency in terms of the time it takes to finish a painting.
 - Chance to receive a "Paint X amount of paintings" opportunity, which can rake in 5-digit earnings. I've yet to see a Sim get that more than once though, so it maybe just a one-time thing.
 - Paintings made can contribute to the "Decorated rooms" moodlets should you decide to keep them.

Gardening -
 - Time-consuming for your sim, but easy for the player thanks to EA adopting an auto-garden script that some brilliant person had for Sims2.  ;)
 - Not very profitable from what I can tell. A stack of 200 low-grade veggies will net about 2k. I haven't tried selling high grade veggies yet. Plants grow very slowly, can be harvested 2-3 times, and then go barren and die.
 - There is a money tree that you can grow. Produces bags of cashable money that increase steadily. Does produce seeds occasionally. Lives much longer than other plants. Most cash seen so far is $700.
 - Sims can eat most of the foods harvested, providing quick hunger relief. The only things that I've seen harvested that are unedible were the Death Flowers and the Money Tree cash bags. This is really useful if you're off on a fishing or hiking trip and get hungry.
 - Massive hygiene drain (about equivalent to working out).

Fishing -
 - As with TS2, it's possibly to reel in objects. Guitars seem common.
 - Perfect quality deathfish look to sell for about $900-$1k. Fishing for deathfish looks like it could be pretty lucrative. Too bad they're only available from midnight to 2 am.
 - Other than the deathfish, no real money to be made.

I'm just going to throw in some random notes for you - hopefully it's helpful:

Notes for Fishing:

Randomly collected junk can occasionally be quite valuable.  I reeled in a laptop that way.  Also picked up a birthday cake. 

Athletics:

I have to check my game for exact numbers, but at the top, they bring in a sizable sum and can also do autograph signings and advertising deals.  Work schedule sucks though - 3 work days and 2 game days.  Performance factors: relationship with boss, relationship with teammates, athletic skills and (after a certain point) how the team does in games.  Extra perk: family members can attend games for free.

Here's what I've gotten from the Painting experiences so far:

Painting:

-Seems to be in the same boat as Writing, a slow start, but a high celing. And the lack of 5-digit number earnings on painting (Compared to writing royalties) is offset by the increased frequency in terms of the time it takes to finish a painting.
-Chance to receive a "Paint X amount of paintings" opportunity, which can rake in 5-digit earnings. I've yet to see a Sim get that more than once though, so it maybe just a one-time thing.
-Paintings made can contribute to the "Decorated rooms" moodlets should you decide to keep them.

And I'll add these few things to Gardening:

-The money trees don't produce seeds, but only bags of cashable money. I haven't seen a money tree die yet, though.
-Sims can eat most of the foods harvested, providing quick hunger relief. The only things that I've seen harvested that are unedible were the Death Flowers and the Money Tree cash bags.

I think probably the do x amount of y wishes are tiered for each profession. Probably directly linked to the amounts in the journal as well.

Paint x, Catch x fish, Upgrade x objects etc...

Culinary

-Very low maintenance Career, requiring only cooking as the only skill with good workplace relationships.
-You get an improved Food Processor and a Fridge that boosts all food quality by 1. Leftovers also last longer in that fridge.
-You get half price meals for the place, not that it matters since the only place worth going is the Bristo
-Can switch between restaurants for speed/mobility.

Some notes from my experience:

With the logic-problem solving, I have gotten as much as $200-$250 for one problem.  It does not seem to depend on logic skill, and it does not seem to be affected by being in the library.  I have actually had a fairly low failure rate, and most of the failures seem to happen when my sim had the "sleepy" moodlet (the one that doesn't actually affect mood) but this was not a controlled experiment.  Also notable is that this builds fun, whereas novel-writing does not, and gardening only seems to build fun for sims who Love the Outdoors, and seriously drains hygiene for all.

Novels written in the library seem to do better than novels written at home, even at higher writing abilities.  The very first novel my sim wrote was written entirely in the library and turned out to be a "hit," whereas the second one (same genre, with about four more writing skill points) did not do as well and was not counted as a "hit".  Third novel is being written entirely in the library and seems to be doing more than twice as well as either, based on the amounts my sim gets for submitting chapters (this is a genre which is supposed to give "$$" in royalties instead of "$").  Again, not a controlled experiment.

It is difficult to start out as a novelist, though - a full-time job does not give you enough time to write, and fun is a serious issue since writing novels is still unfun (damn you, EA).  I wound up getting my sim a part-time job, which left her some time to get some work in every day and gave her some pocket change if the logic-problem-solving failed.

My plants last a lot longer than 2-3 harvestings - I think 3 may be the shortest lifespan I've seen, but I've definitely had some apple trees and lettuce plants that just seemed to keep giving and giving.  The ones that have fewer harvests seem to be the higher-level ones, which makes sense.  Also, different plants grow at different speeds and require different amounts of watering - grapes are incredibly slow, and watermelons are incredibly thirsty that I've noticed.  You can water plants with the sprinkler, and it does not appear possible to over-water them, so you can just leave it on 24-7 and never have to water anything yourself.

Also, is it possible to be arrested at the top of the Criminal track?  It's a really annoying side-effect of that career - you randomly get summoned from work by the police and go to the law enforcement building for several hours.  Your drop-down choices while you are there are "Pass the time", "Work out" (which does not seem to have any effect except increased fun and eventual fatigue), "Make friends", and "Play dominoes".  And of course, while you're in there you're "Missing work" so you lose job performance.  Also, they don't feed you.  I had to use testingcheats so that my sim didn't die.

My criminal was only arrested twice, and very early on. He's been at the top for a really long time, so I suspect it's not possible to get arrested that high up.

I found jail to be vaguely amusing and not that annoying. Work out should build athletics.

My sim got arrested at level 9 which, yeah, doesn't make any sense.  Go EA, etc., etc.  Work out should gain athletic skill, but I don't think it actually does - I did not notice any increase in the skill bar while I was there.  It's also utterly ridiculous that exercising for a few hours straight should result in fatigue when my sim can go for much longer if she's not doing the "Quick push" option (or whatever it's actually called).  So either way, it seems to be messed up.

I've definitely seen my sim's attributes go up from drop-down menu away activities. I've gotten athletics to the next level while at work, so I presume the jail one should work as well. I would expect them all to use the same routine. Maybe jail is just less effective than other methods.

Yes, I too have gotten athletics increases from work.  I have also never gotten fatigued from training athletics at work, for the entire workday, which lasts a lot longer than jail.  Training athletics at work seems to be working right.  Working out in jail seems to be broken.

Science Career:

Top Pay (Will update this.  At Level 8 it's currently 257/hour with MTTF workdays, 9:00-1:30)

Performance Factors:  Mood, Gardening, Handiness, Fishing (One of the more skill oriented careers)
Decent work hours - Seems to hover around 6 hours.
Occasionally you can get burned at work.
Standard Work Options: Business as Usual, Work Hard, Hang Out in Specimen Closet, Geek Out With Fellow Scientists, Help Boss, Independent Research.

I had a sim work partime in the bookstore. The starting salary was low, I think about 150$ per hour, but very often she would get 12$ rises, so after some time she was earning about 400$ an hour. I have my game set on no aging so I'm curious myself how many more rises she can get. Also, the money tree dropped a seed in my game after some time and the money bags increase in value with time, the largest I've cashed in was about 700$. I'm considering starting a money tree orchard, they live a lot longer than any other plant.

Uh, no.  You mean $30 an hour, $90 a day.  When you get the third (and top) level, you get $50 a hour, $150 a day.  After that there are no more promotions, and you just get the $12 raises.

Business:

Rank 10, Power Broker started at around $400/h.  Workdays were only 8-11AM on M,T, and T.
Player could choose to 'Hold Meeting' at the upper levels, which lasted an hour or two and paid $750. Good for raking in cash. They should have called this Srs Bsns.
The company occasionally gave out a 'Deliver the Top-Secret Package'/'Host a Work Party' opportunity, or some other tomfoolery.

It was a rather dull career, but such is business I suppose.  :-\

- Painting
The opportunities to paint x paintings for a building can happen more than once but is extremely rare.  I had it happen 2 or 3 times in my sims lifetime.  From starting painting at the age of a teen and painting everyday while stopping to build one or two other skills to the date of death he made over 350k.  He did however have the perfectionist trait and the lifetime reward to be artistic to make his paintings better.  Each painting netted him between 2k - 4k at max painting skill, may require some experience to get up that high can't quite remember.

- Law Enforcement
You get the choice to become a superspy or a ferensic analyst.  During the career your given your own police car and your own laptop.  You also get the option to question sims to learn every detail about their traits and life status.  At high levels you have the option to workout at your job to improve athletics.  You can also make friends with coworkers and i think there was an option to solve crimes which supposed gives a performance hit but can have good benefits, i didn't actually try it out.

is that ~2k for a small and ~4k for a large?

I assumed that the small and large paintings had appropriately different completion times and values, but I never bothered to time it.

Let me throw a couple things in here.

Law Enforcement:
At level 6 or so you get a Police Cruiser, and the chance to branch off to either Forensics Analyst or Secret Service. (I think thy were showing you can make branching jobs. I don't know if there are any more that do this.)
Make about 2.3k a day with my level 10 with my FA.
You also gaing the ability to question people, this allows you to learn all their traits. Level 6 I think.
When you take FA you also gain the ability to Forensics Study on the computer which rakes in $600 in about 3 or 4 hours. Nice to have when preggers.
When you get to level 4 you can also apprehend burglers, dunno how this works as I haven't had the chance yet.
You can work out on job as long as you have Athletics skill.

Another thing you might mention is with any job that has the option of doing extra work:
Like Law Enforcement = Special Investigation Case
Science = Independant Research Project

These if they work out can do one of two things:
Raise your rank or Give you cash raise.

My level 8 Law Enforcement (FA) got a couple raises and I think it carries over to the next level.

Sounds like these are just job-specific variations on "work extra hard"

I think every job has that in there somewhere.

Sorry about that 2k to 4k was for a large painting only.  I think small was between 600 to 1.2k but i didn't really paint them much aside from doing the painting opporutnities.  Also if i remember correctly depending on your paintings value and how many you need to paint for those opporunities you can earn up to 6 figures.  Oh i also forgot you can rarely get an opportunity to paint a single painting for a sim.

Oh i also forgot to list he had the artistic trait as well.

The best fish I've seen value-wise have been the deathfish and robotfish - they seem to sell for a minimum of 200; I reeled in a perfect robotfish worth 250, I'd assume a perfect deathfish would fetch 300'ish since it's the 'ultimate' fish.

The robot fish have hilarious weights - my record so far was 952.46kg. So if you ever get a wish for catching a heavy fish, just go fish behind the science center. :D

Science: At the top, level 10, you get to do experiments on all furniture at home. It mostly makes the items give out mood boosts or have a higher room score, but can also backfire, giving bad moodlets or emitting annoying sounds. Quite fun to mess around with.

No, if it fails or works it will change your Sim back to carry on as usual. I have watched this very closely. I have gotten a raise when it said my case succeded and it switched me back to the casual work. I had to change it back to the investigation one. It also has the Work Hard selection too.

Junk can be fished up at any level (even 0). Fish come faster after reaching certain achievement levels (you can see them under Skills, in the skill journal) and of course are easier to catch with the appropriate bait.

Journalism:

Skills Required: Writing from the beginning, Charisma at the higher levels. (Surprisingly, Creativity is NOT required at all. Because it no longer exists, my mistake.)

Friends: Indirectly required to gain Charisma skill after the first few points. It is possible to get quite far (around level 7) with minimal friends (3, in my sim's case) however. The game recommends you befriend the boss, though I didn't notice much benefit.

Other Requirements: At the higher levels, job performance is ostensibly influenced by the quality and frequency of your articles, interviews, and reviews, though my sim hasn't written anything but novels since level 6 or so with no effect.

Perks: Under "Special" interactions, your sim gains the ability to Interview. This allows you to discover all five traits of any sim very quickly. Also, there is a special writing skill achievement ("Feature Article Writer") that increases the chances of producing hits and bestsellers. This appears to be exclusive to Journalists. The indirect perk is you're more or less required to max Writing, which makes it an ideal career if you want to concentrate on novel-writing primarily, and do a traditional career on the side.

Salary: At level 10, Star News Anchor, I believe the starting salary was around 700 or 800 (not sure exactly.) With raises from maxing job performance, my sim is currently making 900+.

Hours: For level 10, Star News Anchor, M W Th F : 8:00 am - noon.

Opportunities: Interview City Councilman -- go to City Hall for a couple hours. Save your branch from being closed by the network -- write a bestselling article. A few other opportunities were similarly based on writing hit or bestselling articles. All successful opportunities result in higher job performance, money (not much, usually around 300) and sometimes, better relations with your boss, whatever that's worth.

Job-Specific Working Technique: Practice Writing (increases writing skill) and Discuss News With Co-workers (increases relationship score with co-workers).

Level 10 Vehicle: Margaret Vaguester - speed 10.

There is no Creativity skill in TS3 - there is a Writing skill, a Painting skill, and a Guitar skill.  This is a great improvement, IMO.  I've always been annoyed by how you can have sims in TS2 that do nothing but play the piano and then they magically have the ability to write best-sellers as well.

Just as a brief addition to the writing stuff - the books you write will often end up in the library. That may of be interest to someone.

Books can also appear as the delivery for Book Club members.

I mentioned that, as far as the Music career goes, playing the guitar has several of its own perks. I forgot one of the most obvious: playing for tips in the park, aside from making money and raising your skill at the same time, also builds relationships with your tippers.

My rockstar had accidentally completely one of the charisma challenges (20-something friends) before he even had the charisma skill.

On the subject of novels, there are two hidden genres that become available after you've mastered the three Writing skill challenges: Vaudeville and Masterpiece.

Vaudeville novels are 1250 pages in length and have a royalty value rating of 4.

Masterpiece novels are 2000 pages in length and have a royalty value rating of 5.

My sim earned around 8000/week for a Vaudeville novel, and over 12000/week for a Masterpiece. Both were best-sellers.

Ok, the science career is officially one of my favorites.

Science Updated:

Level 10 Pay: 437/hour.
Workdays: M Tu F
Work hours: 9am - 1:30pm

And if you keep putting in good effect at work, even being on the top job... you can get a raise, so 437$ isn't the limit, it just matters on how much you want to "work hard" and what not at work. you will keep getting raises.

Ew.

Also, wouldn't that fry the laptop?

I forgot to mention earlier there's two tracks to the criminal career.  Criminal Mastermind and Master Thief.  At the end of the master thief one you get a statue of a gold fox holding a money bag.

Military:

No forks in this career, top position is Astronaut.
Perks: None, except for only one workday a week as astronaut.
Pay: 18 hours x 341§ = 6138§ per week at astronaut level.... Not great!

At least you get a lot of time for other pursuits. My sim is playing her guitar (concerts and for tips) and going fishing.

Ohhhh Nice! Me wants! Hehe.
That's one thing I have noticed/liked about TS3, that even though there is only 12 odd careers, there is like 20 career paths.
just don't fall into the trap I did... I had the Lifetime wish of becoming the Secret Agent of whatever.. And at Level 5 or something a box pops up, and asked what track I wanted to go down. So I just clicked the random one, Something CSI related... And I never got the Lifetime want, so had to quit, and start again, Lulz! (User Error)

Forensics Analyist and Secret Agent (I'm pretty sure of this but I could be wrong.) were the choices I had in Law enforcement. I have had three law enforcement Sims.

I think your on the money with that one.. I'm a fan of the different paths. Im just annoyed that Lifetime wishes cannot be regen'd after completion, which sucks!
But I guess its because, then LifeTime points would be coming out left right and centre.. but still. would be good to roll another one.

Music (Symphony branch)

Skills Required: Primarily the guitar, which ought to be maxed by level 10. Secondary skill is logic. It is possible to reach high levels without these skills at the recommended levels, but there will be a massive drain on performance (requiring you to "work hard" every day and have perfect relations with the boss and coworkers).

Skill improvement: There is a "Study Music Theory" option that alternatingly increases logic and guitar skill.

Perks: Autograph sessions similar to those in the rock star branch. You can attend the theater for free. Any perks related to high guitar and logic skills will also accrue to you, of course.

Salary: The level 10 salary (Hit Movie Composer or something of that sort) is just under $400 an hour, netting near $1800 a day. You work four days a week: Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday.

Opportunities: You can perform a movie symphony at the theatre on Saturday or Sunday evening and net a few thousand.


Level 10 vehicle: To and from work, you use the car immediately inferior to the Margaret Vaguester (the one that looks similar to a Porsche). The taxi is completely replaced by a pink limosine (likely to be blue for male characters).

I didn't get these perks directly after fulfilling the three writing challenges, because as soon as you mentioned this I checked my male Sim's options and he didn't have either Vaudeville or Masterpiece.  He got the Masterpiece after a couple more novels though, but still no vaudeville...

(http://bluesoupistan.com/bluesoup/pictures/Misc/Josh_writing.jpg)

I think Vaudeville and masterpiece are not tied to completing those challenges. I have received masterpiece and have only completed two of the three challenges. I still haven't gotten to $30k royalties. I have had 25 bestsellers, so I think I received masterpiece because of that. Not sure exactly when it was earned though.

Yeah, I don't think they're tied either.  I think Masterpiece must be tied to completing 25 books, bestseller or not, because the book you see in the picture as his highest earner was his 26th, and it was a Masterpiece.  But he's completed a couple of books since and still no vaudeville.  His next wish is for 40 books, so maybe it's at 40 books?


I've actually noticed the exact opposite.  The only plants that seemed to me to have low harvest rates was the Death Plant (two with a revival in between harvests) and the common produce types.  They died faster than any other type, even though the quality of all of them was perfect.


I've never had a money tree die either.  They do produce seeds though, you can see them on the ground underneath occasionally.  I've also noticed that the money trees increase in quality as time goes on too, but that may be because one of my sims is a green thumb and both have the super green thumb LTW reward.

There's also a science career opportunity to bring an urn or gravestone to work and have it restored.
I've done it 3 times, and it said the experiment failed, but it turns the urn\stone into a playable ghost.

I'll kill some more of my neighbors and see if it ever succeeds. 
After you accept the opportunity and bring in the first stone\urn, an option for "restore ghost" appears on the science bldg.

Thank God I don't live next to you.

Yes, I would be intrested to know if it ever works. I have a level 10 in the science field.

It doesn't appear to be specifically tied to the Science career - my politician Sim got the same opportunity.

A little perk of the science career: Once my sim reached Mad Scientist, he was able to "Perform Experiment" on nearly every object in the house. It would give objects either a positive or negative effect. Sounds objects became noisy, pretty, or give random good moodlets to sims who used them. Luckily, if you get a bad experiment, you can undo it just as quickly.

Sometimes the experiment will destroy the object.

That's...actually kind of awesome.

The graveyard ghosts- is this the only way to make them playable?

Very long-time lurker, first time poster (woop woop) chiming in to say that the Evil Red Aura of Evilness from the Evil branch of the Criminal career seems to make either all relationship decay, or at least those with sims with the "good" trait.

I found this out in a rather amusing fashion with mine and my partner's selfsims, as we'd both obtained the charisma perk that stops relationship decay and still had somehow managed to get to "wishes to be mean to other sim" cropping up levels.  Then, I'd noticed that the bar was decreasing with each pulse of Evil Red Evilness.  Some acquantances started off in the red, as well, and then I'd managed to put things together.

So, the Evil branch's perk is fantastic if you want to make the whole town hate your sim, though the random thieving is still rather neat.

Is the Medical career's perk just being able to increase fun and energy while at work?  Those are pretty useful, but my first foray into The Horror was the science career, and being able to mess with almost all inanimate objects kind of outstrips "making people hate you" and "bed at work".

I don't know about the medical career but you can also sleep at work in the culinary career as well. I noticed it hadn't made it onto the list, but you can choose "sleep on prep table" and that will increase your energy while at work.

I think they have that in every career, my criminal had the option also. But his wife either never had the option or lost it at a certain level, which kind of sucked.

The 'sleep at work' option seems to pop up only when your sim is very very tired, in my experience- at least with Medical and Criminal career.  The first amused me: the idea of the trauma surgeon napping after having been called in on his beeper is interesting, to say the least.

My Criminal track Sim seems to have triggered the sadorandom JAIL JAIL JAIL option.  She's low in the career (level four or five, I think), and it's around twice a week that she gets taken away, no matter what she's doing.  Even if she's just lazing around at work, she goes to the slammer.  I wonder if there's someway to make it pop up less often: my other sim in the track didn't have this much trouble.

Actually I only noticed the option was missing when she was extremely tired, but I hadn't looked for it before. I ended up having her leave work early to sleep.

good info.

and yeah, my criminal sim keeps getting thrown in jail XD. got bummed and decided to make a politician instead Oo;

It is a random opportunity that pops up if you have had a housemate die. Kill one off and always answer the phone. Eventually you will get it offered. May take a few weeks though. Don't switch sim families after you get it or you lose it!

It doesn't appear to be tied to having a housemate die either - my Sim got it despite the fact that she had no way of fulfilling it.  No one had died, or even had a near death experience. 

The resurrection option may be more tied to the age of Sims in your household or their nearness to next age-up level / something awarded regardless of career after X number of Sims days, but that's a wild guess. My Journalist and Musician both received the perk after accepting the opportunity. If you accidentally right-clicked or missed it, it MIGHT still be available at the Science Center; check and see.

Re: Lifetime Perks: I assume that once you fill up the available space for perks, you can't purchase any more. Is this true, or can you go for all of them?

You can buy more than what fits in the window, it actually grows as needed. I don't know yet if you can buy all of them, but I'm on my way to it...

You can buy all of them.

Just reached the top of Law Enforcement: International Super-Spy. I did really like the uniform for the Triple-Agent level and how it changed daily. For the top level, the straps of the female dress seem really fuzzy. You'd think EAxis would learn to do straps and necklaces by now. Raiding the Criminal warehouse takes quite some time for a modest reward (I got around $350 twice).

As for rewards, everyone gets Observant in my game. Other than that, it depends on their traits and LTW. My party animals both got the Legendary Host one. My guy who wanted level 10 in two skills got Fast Learner. Then, I focused on the friend retention wants because with two party animals, those were a lot of friend-loss notifications.

I was focusing on the Distant Friend type rewards for my socially-inclined Sims until I realized that one of the Charisma skill rewards (Super Friendly) featured non-decay of friendships.  Now I save the lifetime reward points for bigger and better things, as the people likely to care about friends are the easiest ones to get 20 friends for anyway.

I can confirm that Vaudeville does not require 40 books, as my sim has only written 29 books and this option became available a couple novels ago.

(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8666/ts3h.th.png) (http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8666/ts3h.png)

I don't know why you're not getting the Vaudeville genre. Perhaps this is a trait/career issue?

Interestingly, my sim doesn't have the Romance Novelist challenge available. Maybe Feature Article Writer supplants Romance Novelist? You can only have three at a time?

The X Genre Writer achievement is genre-specific. If you look at the text before achieving, it says you must have 5 books of a certain genre to get it. You have 8 Feature Articles, and <4 of each other type, so that's the one you have. I wonder if you can get the achievement more than once by doing 5 of several types? One of my sims wants level 10 writership and level 10 painting.

Yeah, my Sim is now a Satirist actually.  But I still have no vaudeville, and he's at like 57 novels.  So I have no idea what the requirement to get it actually is.

If no one beats me to it, I will test this out next time I play. (Write 5 novels of some other genre and see if my sim loses Feature Article Writer status and gains something else, or if both achievements can be maintained simultaneously.)


Did your sim lose Romance Novelist status after becoming a Satirist?

Yes he did lose the Romance Novelist status.  It does seem you can only maintain that perk for one type at a time.


It's weird to quote myself, but I just got a new option on both of my Sims novel menu: historical.  That appears to be related to them being old now.

(http://bluesoupistan.com/bluesoup/pictures/Misc/historicalnovel.jpg)

One of my Sims is now Leader of the Free World, which was his lifetime want. Whenever he needs to go somewhere, a white stretch limo comes to get him instead of a taxi. I really do wish there were a way to choose a new lifetime want after one has been fulfilled.

Hmmm - I know that my first writer to get to a 9 or a 10 skill got the option for writing fantasy novels.  But my next writer got romance instead, which ticked me off because I wanted her to be a fantasy genre writer.

Haven't seen the other genres yet - the satire and historical, or the vaudeville ones.

Oh well fantasy shows up as soon as you write 5 sci-fi novels.  I assume vaudeville works the same with another genre (no idea which one though).  Historical showed up when they both aged to elder.

Has anyone considered that some genres might be tied to traits, like historical is to age group?  Anyway, it pleases me that certain sims can only write certain kinds of books, I'd already been playing that way in TS2, with sims choosing their genre based on interests, personality and asp.

I would assume, then Vaudeville = 5 humor novels?

I wonder which sort of novel leads to masterpiece. Drama, perhaps?

Couple of Painting Questions:
I have had a wish sitting in the queue for a while now "Paint something over $5,000", I have all the traits and lifetime rewards to help in the venture and all motives high, but for the life of me, cannot make anything over +/-$4,200 <$5,000. Also, the value seems to decrease if I paint one after another. (And this is the same with books) :S

Does anyone know of an easy way to do this, or is it just a matter of painting something 4,200+ and waiting for it to appreciate in value? (Would EA be this smart?)
Does the price of paintings increase when the artist dies?

If this is still being updated:

Scientist, level 10 (is this the top level? I thought there were branches...my criminal sim got offered a branch), $404/hr, M Tu F workweek.

I think writing 25 novels leads to masterpiece, and not tied to any particular genre.


Science doesn't have branches.  Mad Scientist is the top level.

You're right, BlueSoup. I just confirmed it by power-writing to a total of 25 with the shortest novel types, fiction and nonfiction.

Did no one bother with the military career?

Astronauts only work on mondays but it goes from 7am to 1am.

lv 10 starts at 334/hr

Require: mood, athletic, handiness, boss relation.

Options: usual, work hard, goof off at the post exchange, hang out with fellow soldiers, suck up to superior

You can also demand a raise when you click on the military building, though I'm not sure if that is the same for all careers or if it's a trait thing.

Hi,

I hope I'm not restating to many things that have been posted elsewhere already, and when I do, please take them as corroboration of said info, so here goes.

Some things about gardening:

- money trees never die, sometimes a seed spawns next to them (I'm not sure if this can happen multiple times for the same tree)
- a perfect fruit of life nets 100$ when sold, and resets your sims lifetime by one day
- plant of death can only be harvested once and then dies (which is unfortunate because then you can never get more than one) unless you have the green thumb (don't know if thats the correct name, I have the german version) trait, then you can revive it (which only works once on the same plant, as far as I experienced) and harvest again

Some things about fishing:

- the deathfish (lure: angelfish) can be fished from the pond at the cemetery between 0.00 and 04.00
- deathfishs can net 600+$
- if you want a very heavy fish, go to the pond behind the science lab and fish robofish (I don't remember the lure, but there are books about it in the library) they can be 600+ kg (I'm not sure how the sims manage to pul those out of the water or carry them around :-) )

Something about cooking:

- ambrosia (recipe at the book store for 12k$) is cooked from deathfish and fruit of live - when eaten the complete life span of the current aging phase of your sims is reset and you get a moodlet with +75 for 7 days

Thats all I can think of at the top of my hat.

[edit]
I forgot something most important of course:
- plant of death is automatically used from your inventory and your sim is brought back to life if your sim dies from an accident, does not work for death from old age (but you know to work around that)
[/edit]

[edit2]
I think proper perks from careers should stay with the sim even when they quit, like career rewards from TS2. From what I've seen so far the only permanent perks are the one from top tier science (perform experiment) and top tier musician (some kind of awesome sound system). Can anyone confirm anything else?
[/edit2]

The fridge from the culinary career is way more awesome than the catalog fridges, and gives the Sims a positive moodlet from superior equipment.  And it lasts even beyond the Sim's lifetime.

My sim has written 6 humor novels without Vaudeville appearing. It doesn't seem to be based on the good sense of humor trait either.

I've had a Sim trotting over the countryside for unknown special seeds, and there does appear to be a small chance of them growing into death flowers. He has four perfect death flowers now. (Also, I think he brought one home from work once as a random thing. Science career.) Life and flame fruit plants are far more common.

Also, it seems that money trees drop their seeds once they reach perfect state, I noticed this sim's trees (he has six now, thanks to those unknown special seeds) slowly increasing in health over time, and no seeds dropped before they reached perfect. Haven't played long enough to see if they die or more seeds drop, though.

As for novels, he had written three of each (including satire - possibly unlocked by three humour - and fantasy - three sci-fi?) when I noticed Vaudeville was an option. It definitely wasn't when he had only written two of each type. I have no clue what unlocked it, though.

Satire is not unlocked by any other genre.  It appears as a type when your Sim gets to a specific writing level.

I have a law enforcement family, the Dad is a Superspy and the mom is in Forensics.  The Superspy is a touch more difficult, because it really wants you to get a ton of athletic points, on top of all your logic points.  The Forensic path has you level up in painting on top of logic, but it doesn't have to be very many points to satisfy the game.  Right now I have three and am on neutral, and she's at level 9.

Basic Law Enforcement options start out with Business as Usual, Work Hard, Take it Easy, Sleep on Couch, Work Independent Case, and Talk to your Partner.  After spending one day talking to your partner, you barely have to socialize with them again.  On the Lieutenant level you start having the need to write reports, and the quality of your reports and therefore the happiness of you report level is absolutely dependent on your writing ability.  I eliminated every variable and saved that for last, and just having three little writing points made a world of difference.  To get info for the reports you either Question townies, or Rummage through their trashcans--my favorite part of this job.  You can find gems, space rocks, bubble bath, teddy bears and, of course, trash.  Your Sim will continue to be disgusted until you remember to remove the trash from their inventory and throw it in their own can.  No, you can't rummage your own can.

The Superspy has to carry a beeper, and is almost always called out the same night they work.  Forensics doesn't have to.  The Superspy options change to Business As Usual, Work Hard, Take it Easy, Work Independent Case, Chat with your Partner, Build Athletic Skill.  Forensics stays the same, unless I'm just not remembering properly.

I did get the Opportunity to build friendships to create a network of tipsters.  That was for the spy.  Once he reached level 10 he could raid the Criminal HQ, but that was rather meh.  Quite a bit of to-do, for not much return.

i have level 10 in writing but i dont have satire :/
i got all the writing achievements as well..

Do money trees come from an opportunity?  I've wandered my sims through hill and dale and am always disappointed to find that a "special" or "rare" seed was another watermelon, garlic, or flame fruit.

On the subject of gardening-related opportunities, are the ones that grant meat plants, egg plants, and cheese plants rather full of it when they tell you to stop by the bistro for more opportunities once you reach level 10?  I suppose I could test this personally but it doesn't really seem that thrilling of an activity, and unless already having level 10 in gardening somehow ruins it (which, given the EAxian <i>m.o.</i>, seems plausible) the "full of it" option seems like a fine lazy default.

Interesting about the death flowers, it's nice to know they have a point, and I'm not sure if this is worth mentioning or not but Green Thumbed sims can revive death flowers to get two harvests from them.  Oh, and one <i>fun</i> thing to do is plant a life fruit orchard with some throwaway gardener sim and then harvest to your heart's content with a family you've actually got an interest in playing.  I'm not sure if this is actually the case, but harvesting from higher-leveled fruits did seem to raise gardening faster than tending and harvesting things in normal available level range, and all the life plants are still alive and kicking after harvesting a few hundred life fruits - I'm into the mid teens at the very least for number of harvests, and as far as I con it, they're supposed to kick the bucket after five at the most.

All in all I find the perks a little disappointing when juxtaposed against career rewards.  Since neighbourhoods don't really feel nearly as vibrant to me when they're not filled with leftovers from abandoned legacy challenges gone prosperity mode (ooh!  backstory!), the perks form journalism and law enforcement haven't really felt very worthwhile, assuming they stay "interview" and "question".  Ooh, great, my vinyl-skinned doll can find out things about some doughy-faced fat vinyl-skinned dolls whom I don't care about.

My sim gets the option to rummage from her garbage can.  I thought it was due to one of her traits.  She is insane evil mean spirited inappropriate and 1 other I forgot.

Also when my sim got taken to jail during work she lost all her inventory.  I got a message about taking my adventures of rymundo so other inmates don't get jealous.  I couldn't find the unknown seed I found either.  A different time on a different sim that wasn't a criminal I couldn't find the seed after a while.  Maybe they die and disappear from inventory. 

Seeds don't die.  Well, if they do, they take an incredibly long time to do so, because my Sim picked up a special seed shortly after I created him in CAS and 17 weeks later, he finally got around to planting it.

According to the Prima guide -- so take this with several grains of salt -- satire appears when you've written three humor novels and vaudeville appears when you've written three each of drama, sci-fi, humor, mystery, and romance.

Yeah, not so much. As you can see from my sim's writing stats here (http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8666/ts3h.png), Vaudeville can show up with only 2 of drama, sci-fi, humor, and mystery. (But now I can't remember when my sim wrote that third romance novel -- it was either right before or right after I started working on Vaudevilles and Masterpieces, so it possibly could have been the trigger, I'm not sure.)

Thanks for the tip on 3 humor --> satire. I think I'll test that out.

It's how I got it. Three humor = satire. Three sci fi = fantasy. I was doing three of each type to see what happens, but then got the extremely lucrative painting deal. The heirs have been moving up every generation, so I want Charlene to have as much cash as possible.

TS3 ad on tv right now. So CGI and doesn't look much at all like the actual game, at least as far as the sims go. False advertising FTW.

Money trees CAN die, if neglected. Just FYI. I gave it a try, and, sure enough, dead tree.

You can just keep painting.  I may have had to do 3 or 4 masterpiece larges before I had one that happened to be >$5k.
I do not believe books nor paintings necessarily decrease for consecutive completions.  (If you're human, you may be the type of creature that is more likely to notice / remember negative results.)

I have no advise on appreciation.

It also helps if you change up the painting size. There was a period where I needed money for my sim and I kept painting Large paintings one after the other. After a while, each consecutive painting started decreasing in value. Then, when I wasn't looking the game queued up my sim to paint a small painting. Lo and behold, that one actually jumped up in price and almost matched my highest previous haul for a painting. Since then I've been switching up the painting sizes and my paintings have just been increasing in value.

Perfect quality deathfish look to sell for about $900-$1k. Fishing for deathfish looks like it could be pretty lucrative. Too bad they're only available from midnight to 2 am.

Midnight to 5am.

Build a pond on your sims' lot, have them stock it with deathfish.  Deathfish can then be caught at any time in that pond, you are no longer limited to midnight-5am fishing to catch them.

To stock a pond requires 10 of the type of fish in your sim's inventory.  You can stock a pond with more than than one type of fish - you can stock the pond with all 21 types of fish if you want.

Not sure what happens if you switch households, as I'm only partway through a rotation and haven't gotten back to the ponds I stocked yet.  Hopefully the ponds will still be stocked next time I play those lots.

On the subject of fishing, has anyone been playing Riverview with a fishing sim? I seem to be getting less varieties of fish than I did in Sunset Valley, mostly due to the fact that there isn't any salt water except for the Hatchery. Also, Robotfish in SV were found at the Science lot, but I haven't been able to catch one anywhere in Riverview. Any ideas?

My Riverview angler was able to fully stock his pond with all varieties of fish.  I found robot fish in a fishing spot in the river near the science lot, so haven't had any problems with finding them, nor with finding deathfish (found in a fishing spot near the cemetery that appears at midnight).

I noticed that there are sometimes a couple of fishing spots near the mouth of the river that may be salt water, although I didn't check to if they were, as I found all the salt water fish at the hatchery.

I switched households after stocking one sim's pond with deathfish, and the new household was able to drop by and catch a few deathfish, in broad daylight.

This sounds like a short route to being filthy rich. My sim caught 6 deathfish between midnight and 3 the other night, and 3 were perfect, for a total of 4-5 grand for 3 hours fishing.

Robot fish are directly in front of the Science lot, in the water. The death fish/vampire fish are at the point of the middle island. Envision a line from the masoleum to the tip of the island and extend it into the water. You'll find them there. There is a slight fogging effect over their spot at night. There are red herring and vampire fish during the day, death fish and vampire fish from about 12am - 3am.