Getting into TS3; some questions

First, welcome to playing Sims 3!

Anyway, I recently acquired a brand new laptop that has Windows 10 and so far two months into playing I have had no problems. I play on game version 1.67 though, which is much better than the evil 1.69 in my opinion. I know many other simmers who play on 1.69 and have had no problems. But there will be others much smarter than me answering on here so do not take this answer as gospel truth lol

Your second question: Friendships, yes they will be continued without mods. Not as well as WITH mods, however. But skill points? Yeah, that’s a solid nope. Sims don’t gain skills when inactive. But I could be wrong :)

Third, I can recommend the entire Nraas suite of mods :D
But to start out with you should use ErrorTrap, Register, Overwatch, and Master Controller.
Master Controller especially has helped save my towns with the Reset Town option. I can finally play for longer than 7 sim weeks!

Game Guides, I’d say you should look at Carl’s Sims 3 game guides . I still look there myself for info on certain things and I’ve been playing since the game first was released...which is longer than I care to admit xD

I hope this somehow helps. I’m not as educated in the finer details of this game as others on here are, but this is all my two cents :p

Hello!

I play on Windows 10 with absolutely no issues.

Yes, sims do gain skills and relationships if they are the inactive household. NRAAS's StoryProgression can replace EA's Story Progression and be used to tweak this if you wish.

Besides NRAAS StoryProgression, I also recommend the following NRAAS mods:
-Overwatch which helps keep the game running smoothly.
-MasterController which allows you to do a number of things...things that make you the master controller of the town. :lol:
-Careers so you can install and use custom careers.
-Porter to more effectively move families from one save to another while maintaining relationships and family ties.
-Relativity to adjust how fast time moves (I use 50% speed).
-Traveler so your sims can travel to any installed world and aren't limited to the vacation destinations.

If you want to look through all NRAAS mods and download them here ya go: https://www.nraas.net/community/Mods-List

And https://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/ for an online game guide. :smile:

Have fun! Happy simming! I hope you'll share your gameplay with us in the "What happened in your sims 3 game today?" thread. :3

Hi @Amphora and @Emily4331 :)
Thank you for such a lovely welcome! :)
I'm trying to navigate my way through Carl's sims 3 guides now, and wow! lots of mod suggestions, thank you so much!

Realistically I probably wouldn't get much time to play until June, as I'm a bit snowed under with uni work, but when summer comes I'll have 4 months to fill!

As far as non-active household story progression goes, I'm not sure if it would be simpler to have all my households in one save, or divvy them up into one per save. I guess I'll need to read up about sims 3 then make a decision.

Hi, BabySquare. I have Windows 10 and have no problems with Sims 3. Sometimes, if you have OneDrive active, Windows will put a copy of your Sims 3 documents folder there, which can cause some problems, so it's best to just deactivate OneDrive unless you need it for something else.

Some of the NRaas mods are, in my opinion, pretty much must haves for this game. Error Trap and Overwatch do a lot to keep your game running well, and MasterController gives you tools to fix some problems that might crop up or ways to change some things, plus has some other nice features (like Stylist). There are couple others that would be recommended in the keep-your-game-trouble-free category, but these three are the ones I always have.

Their Story Progression mod is very popular and allows you to control a lot of things that the game's story progression does not. I'm not the one to tell you what all you can do with it because I developed my play style when I had a computer that was a little under powered and thought the mod was going to be "too much," and I just never got around to playing differently. I have the game's story progression turned off, and I switch households. Not necessarily recommending that, but playing that way I do see that some of the sims in households that I switch to have gained a few skills even without any story progression (for me, it's mostly athletic, social networking and musical instrument skills - maybe charisma if the sim already has a point or more in that skill), and they do develop relationships. Thinking that is probably something you can control with NRaas's Story Progression, but someone else will have to help on that front.

I use and like some of their other mods, too, but not sure I'd classify them as must haves, and it might take all day to talk about them. :)

As for guides, Carl's Sims 3 Guide is still available and covers most things I ever want to check out. https://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/

"BabySquare;c-16976255" wrote:
Hi @Amphora and @Emily4331 :)
As far as non-active household story progression goes, I'm not sure if it would be simpler to have all my households in one save, or divvy them up into one per save. I guess I'll need to read up about sims 3 then make a decision.

I have multiple households in one save. I simply play with one household whenever I feel like it and when I get bored I move to another one. Additional bonus is that since it’s a save full of different supernatural types with vastly differing personalities I get to play all sorts of gameplay styles :)

But everyone plays differently so choose however you wish. The best part about the Sims is that there’s no wrong way to play. <3

The Story progression mod is very customizeable and has a lot of features.I have all the modules installed.
Like everyone else says, everyone has a different play style, and I have turned off/turned on a lot features in the SP mod.
I have tons of other mods installed that enhance/change the gameplay as well.

Hello and welcome back to TS3! :)

The last patch for TS3 was Patch 1.69, which is the version you'll get if you play on Origin. I play my game on Windows 10 also (via Origin), though I have to run the application (TS3.exe) in compatibility mode for Windows 8.

I second the need for the NRaas mods, especially ErrorTrap and Overwatch which are practically essential to keep your game running smoothly. MasterController adds a bunch of fun new options such as the ability to look into inactive Sims' homes, set relationships between two Sims (be they active or inactive), force-kill Sims or even completely erase them from existence :tongue: But anyway, I'll try not to repeat what others have already said. Here are a few non-NRaas mods I might recommend:

Kapaer's Children Can series of mods allows children to do lots of things they can't do in the base game, like play musical instruments, read skill books and sheet music, and help out in the garden.

If you're a family player, you might appreciate the Call to Meal mod by icarus_allsorts. Because you shouldn't have to herd cats to get everyone to sit together at the dinner table!

The Cook With Any Ingredient mod, also by icarus_allsorts, doesn't just allow you to do as the name says, it also allows you to cook any dish at any time of day :)

If you like creating Sims, I'd also recommend Shimrod101's Zoom In CAS mod. It gives you a great up-close view of your Sim!
https://i.imgur.com/XRSGBwv.jpg

If you like taking screenshots, I recommend this camera mod by aikea_guinea. It gives you better control of the camera by getting rid of the annoying drift, and also allows you to take pics from a lower angle than would be possible with the vanilla camera :>

And if you like watching your Sims paint pretty pictures (who doesn't?), let me point you to this painting replacement mod by Plum. Be warned though: it's a large file (110 MB)! Anyway, it seems the pictures on that site aren't working too well, so here's a little sampler of the paintings in this mod, from my own game:


As far as game guides go, I'd also recommend Carl's Sims 3 guide, but SimsVIP also boasts some really comprehensive guides that cover the expansion packs from Generations to Into the Future.

Hope you found this helpful, and happy Simming! :)

P.S.

Some really good advice being given here. As for the levels of control that NRaas StoryProgression offers, you may wish to have a look at what can be done with Rotational Castes. Many of us use this or a similar system to manage multiple households within the same world. Even if you have no idea how to leverage castes right away, the idea would be to see what is possible and may be wanted further down the road.
http://www.nraas.net/community/Story-Progression-Rotational-Caste-Settings

With NRaas Traveler, we also have the option of playing multiple connected worlds within the same game, although only one world is actively simulated at any given time. I have 16 such connected worlds in my one ongoing game, with "my" sims living in 5 of them (the rest are assorted vacation and other destinations). I keep making the storylines cross over; there is no need to have 5 or more separate games if one doesn't want that, so this can become yet another form of rotational play.
http://www.nraas.net/community/Traveler-FAQ

Since it's not brought up yet, I'd also like to recommend ellacharmed's world fixes to lessen the lags in the worlds. It requires the player to start with a new game though so if you already have saves, I think they wouldn't be playable, or would still use the old laggy world. (Not sure on that last part! xD)

With the Traveler mod, all worlds you have installed are potential vacation destinations. So you could vacation your sims to Isla Paradiso or any other world that has a resort on it, either placed by you prior or a custom player-made world with resorts. You would have to instruct the game to have your sims "stay" someplace random upon arrival, it could even be an empty 10x10 lot if one is available, and then have them proceed from there to a resort to check in. Then return home to their homeworld when the vacation is over.

Is that what you had in mind?

The last time I did this myself I had a large travel party of six sims. I selected a very nice unoccupied house for them to stay in, let four of them stay there, and the other two went off to stay at the resort. Since the entire travel party was under my active control, I just kept switching sims to control both factions throughout the vacation. That was fun and they all had a great time, but not sure I would always want to play a split up travel party like that for many sim days. :)