Re: The best MODS for Sims 3?

@SuperNTG  No, I don't think Sims 4 would be conducive to this at all.  The closed world means you can only ever see the lot you've loaded and its immediate surroundings, and you can only load a lot if you send your sim there.  The game will push sims to the active lot, and they can build skills or friendships while there, but that only covers the sims on-screen for as long as you're watching them.  Nothing happens on lots that aren't being simulated.  The Neighborhood Stories feature and some mods will push some forms of progression, but it's just data being updated; there's nothing to watch.

Sims 3 can be set up to come very close to what you want.  If that's really not enough for you, then what you're looking for isn't available in a Sims game.  They're not built to run themselves while the player watches; everything is centered around controlling some sims as others act out their lives only while being watched.  The only reasons Sims 3 comes as close as it does are the open world and the talent of the original NRaas developer.

@SuperNTG  Here's how to install mods:

http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Setup_and_Files

I've seen that the download itself doesn't work in Chrome these days, at least for some users.  But it does work in Firefox and is very safe: it's probably been accessed literally over a million times since it was first posted.

For the mods themselves, here's a good place to start:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-3-Common-Game-Fixing-Mods-Hero-Approved/m-p/9838855#M244208

All of the mods listed have thousands of downloads, if not (many) more, and have been extensively tested and are known to be safe and compatible with a fully-updated game and with each other.  NRaas StoryProgression isn't on the list because it doesn't "fix" anything, exactly, so it's a bit outside the scope of that guide.  But it's just as well-made as the other NRaas mods and can be found on the same site.

Additionally, the NRaas site includes a forum for requesting support with the mods, whether you run into an error or just want help setting them up.  The current developer is active there, as are others who understand how the mods work.

@SuperNTG  You'll need to explicitly set the other sim(s) within the active household as "unselectable," which you can do with NRaas MasterController plus its MC Cheats add-on.  To do so, click on a sim and select:

NRaas > MasterController > Advanced > Selectability

Sims that are not selectable will be governed by StoryProgression.  I've never actually tested this with only a pet as active, so I can't tell you exactly what you'll see, but I do know the overall concept works.

For the age range, it really depends on your preferences.  I personally would suggest starting with either aging off or the lifespan on Epic, then decrease it if and when you decide you want the sims to age more rapidly.  I mostly play on a normal lifespan, but I actually like the hectic results; you may have a very different response.

Keep in mind that once you've loaded a save, you can adjust the length of any individual age stage, for both humans and pets.  Shortening it may cause temporary errors when sims that weren't due to age up yet are now overdue, but with StoryProgression and Overwatch installed, the mods will fix it on their own; there would be no need for you to do anything except wait a sim-day or two.

As far as other expansions go, I'm not sure that any specifically further your goals.  It's more about what you want to see in-game.  Do you want occult sims (Supernatural), or street performers and outdoor concerts (Showtime), or extra hangout-style community lots like a coffee or comic book shop or bowling alley (University Life)?  Do you want something simple like more interactions available, especially for children or elders (Generations)?  Do you want seasons?

Given your playstyle, I think it would be best to skip World Adventures because you'll get almost nothing out of it without an active sim—no travel and no access to the WA skills unless you deliberately buy and place the related items, all of which are found in buydebug but don't otherwise exist in homeworlds.  The same is true for Into the Future.  I love Ambitions, but it's not necessarily that much fun to watch inactive sims pursue "active" careers rather than controlling them, and all the fun of sculpting and inventing comes from having your own sim make things.  Island Paradise is fun to think about but doesn't add a lot for you to watch passively either, and the world that comes with it is somewhat broken out of the box.

I suppose my cautious recommendation would be Showtime and University Life, in either order, with the major caveat that this depends in large part on your own preferences.

@SuperNTG  Yes.  You can stay in Map View if you want, or you can use street view and zoom out all the way (the minus button, or scroll with the middle mouse button) as you hover over downtown.  If you decide your prefer Map View, I would suggest adding NRaas Tagger so you can see where all the sims are at various moments.  It's not necessary to support your style of play and doesn't solve any obvious problems, but it may be convenient to be able to see what the sims are doing at any given moment.

If you want sims to show up at a current location, try watching that location for a little bit, or even briefly making your "unselectable" sim selectable again and sending them to that location.  The game should send other sims there.  But if you prefer to let everything happen naturally, that's fine too.  There are also mods that increase the number of sims that go out, but it would be best to play without them first to see whether you need them at all.  I personally don't; others wouldn't play without them.

Finally, keep in mind that if there are too many community lots in one world, sims will be spread out more thinly among them, with few if any lots being busy.  This may or may not be a problem for you; if it is, remove some of the lots, or look into a mod that pushes more sims to go out on the town.

@SuperNTG  Some community lots are rabbitholes, meaning sims walk in and disappear until they come out again.  These include City Hall, the grocery store, the default restaurants, etc.  For some of these, you can make your own replacements that sims will use for work; look up "Zerbu ultimate careers" if you're interested.  The idea here is to create workspaces that sims use and that you can see rather than them disappearing from the map.

Community lots that are not rabbitholes—the library, the gym, clubs, etc.—can be viewed easily enough.  Just zoom in on the lot and go down a couple of floors until you get the view you're looking for.

By default, all inactive sims' residences are "closed," meaning you can see the houses on the map but not what's inside.  There is an NRaas mod called HomeOpener that makes all houses open by default, so they'd work like non-rabbithole community lots.  However, using this mod in a medium or large world would be a significant drag on performance, so I'd only even suggest it if you were playing in a small world with a very limited number of households.

The alternative is to use NRaas MasterController to "open" whichever houses you want to view, then "close" them when you're done.  The option is under the main NRaas MC menu when you click on the house itself or its map tag.  I don't know how powerful your computer is, but I'd suggest not having more than about six households open at a time, and fewer if you notice performance issues.  You could leave the same households open or rotate; it's up to you.

One note: if you do install HomeOpener and remove it later, you'll need to manually "close" each household.

Please also keep in mind that when sims are home, they're mostly not doing anything at all.  The game will start to simulate them if you focus on them or "open" their house though.  That's why having all houses open is such a drag: it takes more resources for the game engine to simulate every single resident at the same time.  It might seem attractive, but you can't watch all of them at once, so there's no real benefit.  StoryProgression will simulate their progression whether they're performing the actions on-screen or not.

Finally, a bit off-topic, I would suggest disabling memories, which is in the third or fourth Options page.  Since you're not going to view them yourself, there's no point in having them, and they're a significant drag on performance and a major cause of save bloat, especially as time goes on.  In case you'd rather have a few memories, there's a mod called "no (or fewer) automatic memories" by velocitygrass that works well, but like I said, you're not going to see the memories if you're not actively playing these sims.

Any MODS to make my Sims smarter?

@SuperNTG  If by smarter you mean making better decisions, not really.  You can block individual actions through NRaas Retuner, and there are some mods that replace specific poorly-done in-game mechanics with something better, i.e. the scolding replacement from icarusallsorts.  But there's no overall fix; sims are dumb in Sims 3 and Sims 4 and were dumb in Sims 1 from what I remember as well.

I am back and now that I have decided to install mods, I need a step by step instructions.  You and I talked for a while about mods and I was not sure then.  But I am sure now.  If you could help me that would be great.  i also have heard of a new mod that I wanted to ask you about.  I have already downloaded the nraas SP mod and installed sims 3 on steam.  Just need to learn how to put mod in Sims 3.

Thank you for your time and patience

Nathan

@SuperNTG  Here are two guides for installing mods:

https://www.nraas.net/community/How-To-Install#Blunote00s-Check-List

https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files/Setup_and_Files

Pick whichever one feels easier to you.

Feel free to ask about the new mod as well, as long as it doesn't contain adult content, the discussion of which is not allowed on EA forums.

@SuperNTG  I hadn't heard of it until now, nor had I heard anything about whether it works as intended or breaks saves.  What I would suggest, if you'd like to try it, is running it alongside the usual cleanup-related NRaas mods (but NOT StoryProgression), on a spare copy of your save, to see whether you like it AND whether it makes the game use more RAM than you can accept.

The fact is that Sims 3's memory limit of about 3.7 GB (4 minus some overhead) gets in the way already, not always but often enough that we all have to be aware of the potential problems.  A mod like this would almost certainly increase memory use; the question is by how much, and then whether your save can afford it, so to speak.  I don't know the answer—it'll depend on how the mod is programmed and how much RAM your save can spare.

Then there's the question of whether this mod causes other problems.  It may or may not; I'm not trying to criticize it, just saying it's complicated enough that it really does need to be done exactly right.  This is why I'd suggest testing on a spare copy of a save, or a new save, so you're not doing damage to anything you'd like to preserve.  if you're happy with the results, you can add it to your main save.

Please do keep an eye on RAM use though, in case this amount of overhead is not sustainable.  You wouldn't want to start a save that already uses > 3 GB RAM with this mod present, then need to abandon it a few sim-weeks in because it's crashing or throwing out of memory errors.  But again, it might be fine.  And the less memory your save uses without this mod, the more room you have to accommodate the extra workload.

@SuperNTG  There's a download link here, a bit subtle; ctrl-F and search for Download if you're not seeing it:

https://boringbones.blogspot.com/2024/05/supreme-ia-sims-autoconscientes.html?m=1

That takes you to a Google Drive upload, where you'll need to click the Download button in the upper-right corner (not on the file name).  Right-click and Extract the .zip you've downloaded, discard the other mod if you don't want it, and install the mod the same way you would any other.

And as noted (in case someone else only reads this post of mine), I can't say for sure whether this mod works as intended or might harm your saves.  It's just a .package file though, so it won't affect anything other than Sims 3 itself.

@SuperNTG  The files should have a .package extension.  And you don't open them or modify them in any way.  (If you have tried to open them, delete them and download fresh copies.)  The only thing you need to do is place them in the Packages folder for the game to read.

The Windows Media Player part is irrelevant.  That's Windows telling you what app it would use to open the files by default, and I guess you set that association with .package files at some point.  But it doesn't affect how Sims 3 reads the files at all.

@SuperNTG  Is OneDrive running on your computer?  Even if you never use it, OneDrive can interfere with saving and with mods or other manually added user content.

If OneDrive isn't present, or it's unlinked (i.e. you're not signed in), what antivirus do you use?  An AV could also interfere with user data.