I suspect the fence is creating a new, unlit room, despite the fact that the light is actually penetrating.

If you get in at the right angle, you can do it intentionally... The classrooms have very pixellated blackboards and posters, the hospital has a little lobby area, with flowers on a table.  All very backdroppy looking, but fun to play around with while you're waiting for your Sim's workday to end.

With the huge pixel blur, they probably figured there was no point in making a naked mesh since theoretically, we'd never be able to tell the difference.

I find them to be less of a pain in TS3 because you can age the infants up pretty much immediately by buying a birthday cake.  In fact, and I suspect this is a fact that quite a few people haven't discovered yet, you can age anyone up at any point in time by buying a birthday cake and clicking "Blow out candles".  You will get a list of every Sim currently in the house, including friends, neighbors and countrymen, and you can just select whichever person it is you want to age up.

Kids are definitely better, IMO.  They do homework autonomously, will go to friend's houses after school, and generally seem to take pretty good care of themselves.

They increase a room's environmental score.

Unfortunately, I don't know how you can retrieve the missing Sim, but resetsim Firstname Lasntame works very well for unsticking Sims.  Someone else tried the old standby of selling off their Sim with the same result.  I suspect this is no longer safe to do.

I have yet to find the catacombs - any pointers as to where they are?

WRT fertilizer, one of the Skill Journal perks mentions that "fertilizer will last longer" which leads me to believe that fertilizer must be applied multiple times to be of any use.  I suspect you would have to do it until the plant reaches maturity.  I don't know for certain because I can't be bothered to continually refertilize a freakin plant.  With all foods seeming to have nearly identical hunger-satisfaction factors, there doesn't seem to be much point in taking the extra effort to grow higher quality vegetables (unless your Sim is gardening for income, I suppose).  By the time the opportunities that require high quality produce come up, your Sim probably already has enough gardening skill to grow high quality produce naturally.

I've had families where kids grew up and moved out.  I checked in on them from time to time and they had gotten themselves jobs, and established romances.  I do play the game on Epic lifespan, so I think things tend to move a bit more slowly.  

My gameplay style for TS3 really isn't all that different from how I played TS2.  I create a Sim, get him a job in line with his personal goals, find him a suitable mate from the pool of Townies (it's a fairly small pool, I have to admit, most are already attached, and my Sim guy doesn't go for baggage carriers), work them towards success, and spawn.  Once the original Sim and his wife have achieved their lifetime goals and are fairly well established, I move the Sim kid out, and start playing his story.  If I get bored, I just abandon the family to the mercies of Story ReProgression and start with a brand new Sim.  

It works for me.  There is plenty to dislike about the game (such as Story Progression not actually working ATM) but I have to say most of my free time has been spent playing the game.  

Oh - and CASt, for me, is *huge*.  When I first read about it, I thought it would just lead to tacky rooms plastered in identical textures, but not so much.  You can, for instance, take a texture you like and use it as a bedspread, then pick accent colors out of the texture and use it as wall paint, turn that shade a few shades darker for trimwork, etc.  I've never been much of a Sims decorator, but I have created some rooms that I am quite pleased with - coordinated, yet not ZOMGeverythingmatches!!

Not all public lots are rabbitholes.  There are a few places to socialize visibly - any of the parks, one of the restaurants (with the "Eat Outside" option), library, gym, pool, etc.  Workplaces are rabbitholes, which is no different than TS2, really, where they just disappear offlot for a while.  I take advantage of that time to spy on other Sims just to see how they act on their own.

The scavenger minigame is really optional.  Jobs don't require it, skill level isn't dependent on it.  It is necessary for some of the "skill journal" achievements, but it's entirely possible and feasible to completely ignore the collection of seeds, fish, ores, bugs, etc.

Relationships - pain in the ass, because there is sort of this enforced foreplay thing going on, where you have to get a Sim, regardless of relationship level, into a receptive frame of mind before certain interactions are available.  You can't woohoo your girlfriend and then immediately ask her to move in, because "Move in" is a friendly interaction.  You have to work your way up these trees of interactions until the Sim reflects the proper "perception" of your Sim.  Hate that aspect but once you understand how it works, it's really not difficult.  To its benefit, it does prevent random romances from a single flirt - you have to really intentionally set the stage for the "romantic interest" flag to get set.

Most of other stuff is strictly a matter of opinion and taste.  With some patience, I've been able to create some mostly puddingless Sims, and their eyes are (IMO) quite natural.  I've never gotten the Victorian doll vibe from them.  And while there are certainly some fugly Sims around, they're fugly in a much more believable way - fugly like people you'd run into at the mall, instead of at a house of mirrors.  I may demand perfection from my Sims, but I enjoy the realism of fairly diverse looking Sims running around.

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.

Judging by your avatar, I'd say that would make perfect sense.


You can't call it a mishap when you've clearly indicated that you're doing it intentionally.

Pick the object that you want to copy the color (or color scheme) or texture from.  The horizontal palette above the color wheel should display the color channels used.  Simply drag the color you want from the palette onto the object you want to update.  If the object has multiple channels, it will let you pick which one to replace.

If you want to copy the whole scheme, kit and caboodle, the vertical palette has a "grippy" corner that you can click then drag to the object you're updating.  Somewhere around here someone explained this in pictures, but it's fairly straightforward.  The only real hassle is that it tends to be a bit sluggish, at least for me.

There was a speck on your message, I cleaned it up for you.

I'd have to chalk that up to coincidence.  While doing genetics testing yesterday I started saving the mother's gender wishes.  She had 3 girl wishes, and ended up having 3 boys (singleton and twins) and three girls (triplets). 

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. 

Since I'm conducting some genetics tests, I figured I'd take a moment to test the speed between zoomed on grass and zoomed in on Sims.

Zoomed in on grass: in one real minute, 4hours 16 minutes Sims time elapsed.

Zoomed in on Sims: (who, because their motives are maxed, were just standing around): in one real minute, 3 hours 5minutes Sims time elapsed.

I love the guests-with-food thing.  Attire doesn't seem to matter - casual dress birthday parties have the same effect.  It does seem to be restricted to home parties though; my park parties have not resulted in any potlucks.

There is indeed a resetsim cheat:  resetSim Firstname Lastname

Works regardless of whether they are household or not.

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

When you have multiple items in your inventory, it will have a curled corner.  Click and drag the curled corner to move the entire stack (whether to the sell bin, into a container like fridges, bookcases, or into the garbage can.)

I'm still running the RLD version (because unlike you lucky bastards overseas, I have to deal with bandwidth capping).  The only graphical glitch I've experienced is someone having a newspaper stuck in his crotch for a few seconds.  I've had Sims go through the entire aging process, and no stretchy necks or gaping mouths or any of the amusingly horrifying things I've seen. 

I also haven't had any problems with performance or crashing, on my AMD 3800, Nvidia 7600, 3Gig system.  I was worried I'd have to settle for low end graphics, but I've got everything maxed except for the building detail. I can even run in windowed mode without issue.

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

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

One thing that really annoys me is the lack of half walls, especially since many of the premade houses were designed in a way (railings around kitchens, etc.) that suggests that SOMEone must have thought, "Gee, a half wall would be perfect here".