General tips on collection

Well, first it helps to have some vacation days (or no job at all). Plenty of time in your day to go looking for things. It's okay; if you get doubles you can sell them.

Most things require touring the worlds looking for spawn points. You will need to look in ALL of them to find everything. You will even need to go into space for some items and that means building a rocket. Others you will need to go on Vacation - Salvadorada requires multiple vacations. Frogs and fish can be used as pets. Obviously they're not real pets but they look like pets.

I also advise putting together a big collection room in your basement - I mean, you don't need to keep them but it sure gives you a good sense of self-satisfaction. It doesn't have to be very detailed; all it needs is lots of shelves. LOTS of shelves. There are some collections that can be stored specially, like the Elements and even a couple that are dedicated to Events that you may need to use BBitems if the event doesn't come back. When it comes to flowers you may want to use them to learn gardening rather than putting them on shelves.

So it does require a lot of travelling (loading screens) and patience by the sound of it. Thanks.

A year or so ago, I started to put museums in some saves, dedicated to storing all the collectibles and paintings my sims found/created. I've also included woodworking and other stuff they can put in their personal inventory. I made it a generic lot, so no other sim will go there. This is to NOT have huge, full basements. It can get a bit laggy, and of course add a lot to the weekly bills. I keep a collection, lets say crystals, until its complete. Then I move it to the museum for display. For displays, I use shelves on walls and dining tables, since they can hold a bit more than display tables.

If you are missing elements, don't sell duplicate crystals or metals. Send them off to the Geo council (vampires can crush them to get the elements, not sure if aliens also have such powers). Crystals can also be used with the helmet from Get Famous, and refined crystals can be used for powering jungle artifacts (its been a while, I forgot what they're called). So I always keep a few duplicates in a storage chest.

You can buy crystals on the computer. My sim started a sort of jewelry shop and bought all the supplies from the internet.

Unfortunately you can't buy all the crystals online.

Also, visit the Flea market. I've had sims complete collections there, like the Snow globes.

There are certain collections specific to a world that might be a little easier. Like the snowglobes, as Kathykins mentioned, and also posters can only be found in San Myshuno, I think. Those are relatively easy to find. Then Sulani has the shell and treasure collections, although the volcanic lot traits does help with the crystal, metal and fossil collections. Frog, insect and feather collections are fairly small and probably won't take as long to complete, and pets will help find feathers, at least cats do...not sure about dogs.

"mikamakimon;c-17492016" wrote:
Frog, insect and feather collections are fairly small and probably won't take as long to complete, and pets will help find feathers, at least cats do...not sure about dogs.

If you have a cat and a peebush, the cat brings a feather every day.

I am starting with something small. Postcards. Kind of fun getting postcards from sims 3 worlds. Oh I miss them !

If you have a scientist sim, in the lab grounds rocks spawn very very quickly. As quick as sending your sim to break a solitaire rock and when he gets there, there are already two or three more.