Gardening - what do you plant?
In this game, I started looking into gardening after I had been playing already for quite some time. Which may be a bit surprising, given I had been playing quite a few sims in the science career, where the gardening skill is one of the metrics for progression. However, I mostly preferred to just read skill books in the library or, later, listening to tabcasts while fishing, cooking or writing a book. This means I had sims who had mastered gardening without ever having harvested or planted anything, let alone weeded, watered or fertilized. However, I started getting interested when it came to making ambrosia, and since then, I've slightly improved in this regard :wink: . Basically, what I'm interested in, how do all of you deal with gardening? Do you do it at all? How do you set it up? And, last not least, what do you plant? To make a start, I just talk about what I do nowadays. In the beginning, I may just plant whatever I have, but I still often skip this phase by learning gardening theoretically. Given I use the Seasons EP, I pretty much exclusively plant indoors in whatever setup that is suitable. I generally do not plant cooking ingredients, with the two big exceptions being flame fruits and life plants. This doesn't mean I never plant garlic, tomatoes or potatoes, but if I do, I use them as fertilizer (garlic) or just sell the stuff. For cooking, I just buy what is buyable. I have never managed to finish the opportunity chain that leads to omni plants. Nope. I never got past eggs and cheese. Most of my sims know alchemy, which means those ingredients are a must in that case. The minimum are Wolfsbane, Red Valerian, Spotlight Mushrooms and Red Toadstool for the most useful elixirs, and to a lesser extent the other ingredient plants. I love the idea of the University Life herbs, and I often plant them, but when it comes to actually using them, I mostly don't do it. Not sure why. The same is true for the coffee beans. I like how the plants look :lol: . I usually don't plant trees, given I do mostly indoor gardens. The occasional money tree may slip through, but I usually regret it. I never planted all those different grapes from France. I still have to use that wine maker, as I haven't even tried it. That's still a project for the future, as I tell myself I want to do it, but this hasn't materialized yet. As to the setup, I sometimes just use three plant bowls for life plants, or here what I did directly in the master bedroom of a family in Bridgeport, where someone is watering the plant on the pic: This here is the same idea, but the garden - on the upper floor no less - is separated from the bedroom. It even has a sprinkler :lol: . The teens can fix the garden before they go to school: I also have used several greenhouses already, often, but not always, in combination with the SwiftGro Gardening Station. My latest attempt includes those sunflowers that produce "sunshine" as fertilizer, and the combination is as close as you can get to "official cheating", it's so good. You have to replant all the time though. Now, the layout of that garden is not good - it looks like that as it was born from the preexisting garden beds on that Moonlight Falls lot. Turning everything by 90 degrees would help with some of the shortcomings. However, in the end, it works. Still, you are busy all the time, so I finally succumbed and ordered the gardening service from a mod: I'm sure I forgot something, but now I'm interested in hearing how you deal with all of this :smile: . Edit 2026: Old thread, but with fixed images, as far as it concerns those I have access to.
Has anyone played in the Woeford world?
I usually play in Lucky Palms, in a lot that I add at the end of a dirt road, and placed a run down shack. I love rags to riches, grunge, and apocalypse type stories. I just discovered Woeford. This is my first time seriously playing in a custom world. https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=631613 I am not sure what has been added for lighting, but my game has never looked this good. The strawberry chocolate UI is a pretty good match. Not quite the match that it was in Lucky Palms with the Perfect Day lighting mod, but still quite good. https://www.tumblr.com/house-of-mous/164601699787/ui-recolor-strawberry-chocklate-by-houseofmous I think it is interesting that trend is still to mod Sim 3 to look more like Sims 4, when the trend in Sims 4 is to mod it to look warmer and darker. It all comes back full circle. LOL. So I am skipping anything cartoony or bright, and trying to excentuate the default asthetics of Sime 3. I wish there were a peach chocolate UI, similar to the Strawberry Chocolate UI, but I love pink, so I actually do love the Strawberry Chocolate even if it is not a perfect match. The starter homes in Woeford are quite nice, but I have gradually perfect the Hermit Cabin over the years, so I added it to my game. https://modthesims.info/d/639104/hermit-s-cabin-no-cc.html I am still figuring out what is happening with population. There is no population, but there are Sime working on the community lots? Are they randomly generated? What is up with the Alpha and the Beta? I see houses set aside for them. But the game is unpopulated? Is there a set of residents to download somewhere. Can we buy books? I need to refresh myself in how rugs work, and then decide if I should add a bookstore. Maybe there is not supposed to be a way to buy books? I think it was at the food depot that I saw a bookcase with skill books that I can just read there. I cannot order books on the tablet. I can see a lot of work and thought went into this game, but I don't know where to find out more information about it. I feel like I am playing blind. But I can adapt to that, if I add that feeling into my gameplay. I guess it adds things to discover over time or just remains a mystery. LOL.
Movie and other fun?
My sim in Monte Vista has been going on dates, including going to the movies, which is pretty much the only 'fun' thing to do in town besides the Festival. But the movies don't seem to have much effect on fun, only a bit. Why? is there a way of increasing fun at the movies? Perhaps the genre? Which titles are the comedy one's? Ooh I just realised he hasn't tried a game or concert yet. Are they much more fun? Thanks.
Houseboat can sail normally in Sunset Valley but cannot dock / return to port
Hi everyone, I’m experiencing a strange houseboat docking issue in Sunset Valley and I’ve exhausted nearly all troubleshooting steps. When I choose “Dock to Port” or “Return to Port,” the houseboat sails toward the dock normally, but once it reaches the edge of the blue gangway docking zone, it stops. The docking animation never completes, the hull ladder does not deploy, and my Sim starts doing the foot-stomping animation as if something is blocking the path. There is nothing visibly obstructing the port or shoreline. The boat consistently stops at the same edge of the blue docking zone every time. Ports place without issues. Houseboats place correctly. Sailing in open water works perfectly. The boat can leave shore without any problem. This appears to be specifically a docking interaction failure, not a general routing issue. I have tested extensively. I placed ports farther into deep ocean. I tested completely straight docking approaches. I used smaller houseboats on 64x40 lots. I tested both EA premade houseboats and downloaded houseboats. I built ports in multiple locations near Old Pier Beach and Recurve Strand. I confirmed I did not use moveobjects when placing gangways. I tested multiple port widths. I even teleported the boat directly next to the port for testing. The result is always identical. The boat stops at the blue docking zone and will not complete docking. To narrow this down further, I tested the exact same setup in Sunlit Tides. The water there is actually shallower than Sunset Valley, yet docking works perfectly in Sunlit Tides. However, I created a brand new Sunset Valley save and docking still fails in exactly the same way. To completely rule out mods, I renamed my entire “The Sims 3” folder so the game generated a completely fresh user folder with no mods. I started a brand new Sunset Valley save and tested docking again. The issue still occurs exactly the same way. So this does not appear to be water depth, port placement, boat size, shoreline clearance, or mod related. Docking works in Sunlit Tides but fails in Sunset Valley, even in brand new saves with no mods installed. Has anyone encountered world-specific docking behavior like this before?
Attempting to rebuild an old TS3 Pets Console house
Morning all! When I was little I used to play The Sims 3 Pets on PS3 religiously, and there was always this one house I played back to back, mainly. It was an alternative house for the property at 202 Old Cedar Mill Road. I have been attempting to rebuild this house in my current Sims 3 save on PC. I was wondering if anybody still owns the console version of The Sims 3 Pets and, if you do, do you have any images of the interior / exterior of the house? I have managed to rebuild the exterior to the best of my memory but something just feels... off... and I need affirmation! Many thanks <3mystery house
Hi all ... it's my first time posting here, and I'm wondering whether any Simmers out there can help me find a CC house. I downloaded it a couple of years ago; then my computer crashed, and I lost a lot of stuff. I had placed the house on a lot in one of my save games, so I just saved that lot to my new memory bin when I got a new computer and reinstalled everything. I wanted to find the original house because I had placed my download on a larger lot than the house was built on. So I recently began looking for it online--but I've had no luck whatsoever. I have a feeling the original builder removed it from whatever site they posted it to, which is a shame because it's a lovely split-level house that must have taken a ton of work and care to build. Here's a photo of it as installed in another save game (the original was on a 40x40 lot): Does anyone else have, or recognize, this house? Maybe someone even knows who the builder was...? If anyone can help me find this house again, I would be so appreciative. Thanks in advance!
Need Room for Rotational Play in Sunset Valley
I realize that not many people play the Sims 3 rotationally. At least, not many people document that type of gameplay online the way they do for the Sims 2, but I'm planning quite a big undertaking in my own personal game. I have added several families (including plans for new businesses / community lots) to Sunset Valley and plan to play them all in rotation Sims 2 style using NRAAS and other mods. However, I need room for the extra families and the expansion of descendants over time, and unfortunately there's no option to add more space via subhoods like there is in Sims 2. All that to say, does anyone have ideas / techniques (probably using create a world to modify the map I guess?) to expand Sunset Valley with more residential lots in a way that feels organic and keeps most of the premade houses intact? P.S. ~ I know it might sound like if I like Sims 2 style rotational play then I would be better off playing that game, but I love so many things about the Sims 3 like the traits, customization, and open world detail, so I feel like I could better tell my sims' stories the way I want in that game, even if it takes some tweaking to get it working the way I need it to.
