Built as a small community garden in two parts, the social & walking out side; and the community lots and picnic area. The lone building on the lot is a simple (and play tested) two stall bathroom with a sink for washing up on the outside. While there's no spawners or moo, there is a fair mix of items from ep's, sp's, and the store. From the description "The garden contains a "walking out" flower garden area, a residential garden lot section and a small area for friends and neighbors to swap veggies and have picnics. No moo, spawners, lot markers, or cfe used. In game designation 'small park' might have to be set manually." Exchange link: www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9300692 While it was in progress. Time to play test.
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This house is for another simmer to use, if they want, when they create worlds. The house is not the size of the floor plan that inspired it, primarily because I was trying to keep in a tight budget. Which means in addition to loosing two bedrooms, it also lost the basement. The inspiration. This floor plan was labeled as one used in the 1970s for small families. The slide show just below presents my amended take on the above floor plan. Because of the room count adjustment I moved the bathroom next to the dining room. The hall between the kitchen and carport has space for stairs to basement if anyone wants the basement back, but the door to the carport will need to be moved. Exchange link: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9300386 I had a tester sim on the lot to make sure there weren't routing issues with the bathroom, and to help dirty up the place a little bit. She wasn't supposed to catch the stove on fire, but she did ... she wasn't allowed near the fireplace though ... so I've left the charred stove in the build and it's now part of the back story. ;) In a word, Yes, especially for a livable lot for your sim. As is evident in the slide show below a 1 square foot (sf) lot really just doesn't work. Not only are the trash can & mailbox bunched on top of each other, the child who delivers your paper will have a full on hissy fit & your sim get's no paper to read. Oh and Angelica was never able to actually stand on/in her lot. So she got to move, but not to the huge 64x64 (4,096 sf) lot on the other side of the map. Angelica got to move to the nearby 5x10 (50 sf) lot. Essentially I want to know how small I can go with a living space that only includes base game objects. Even though the ITF objects and Generations bunk beds do make life for a sim easier, I wanted base game only answers. It took some tweaking but here is an overview of the almost final design. Yes that is a fully functional 2x2 (4 sf) bathroom; total space 16 sf (3x6). In this overview there are two items that need to get moved back to a previous position. That bathroom will not work with a square shower, it has to be a rounded shower. (See slideshow below.) As evidenced from this earlier position, the only place that works for the tv is the wall at the foot of the bed. This was a 15 sf build, she didn't like having the head of the bed by the door which is why I added a foot to the length. Yes I could have flipped the bed around, which would mean moving a lot of other items around. In this picture we see that the counter and chair work best if facing towards the back of the lot. Yes, Angelica really was able to move between the end table & counter to access the bathroom and sink. There are a few more things to play with but overall I'm content that a 5x10 lot with a 16 sf efficiency will work, for enlisted personnel quarters on the tiny world I mapped out. For those who might wonder yeah but did you try ...? Here is a slide show (49 pictures) covering everything I tested today. Enjoy. :) A point of interest, I was hoping to dome the pagoda roof, or use the dome roof, neither roof will work on a build this small unless the lot is wider than the 5 squares I was working on. Was hoping for a semi quonset hut look, instead settled on a flat roof. You'll notice that Angelica seems fairly cross in most of the pictures; she's athletic so kept trying to autonomously work out to the tv/radio. Now that I know several build related answers, my next step is to play Moonlit Falls (but not today) and test the crime track for conflict. After that my next step is to kidnap 3 sims from uni, for their level 10 social statuses and see where those careers work from. I know from the Stones that art appraisal works out of the crime warehouse. Feeling a bit daunted by the medium map I jumped to. I've stepped back towards the tiny map 256x256 to get a better handle on how some of the tools work. Such as roads, lot sizes, and what not. I've also been exploring the internet for any existing resources that provide information on rabbit hole sizes and information. In terms of sites with rabbit hole information so far the most comprehensive I've found yet is Frozen oj's Community Lots Compendium, the only thing not included is the size of the rabbit hole itself. For those either caw wiki which does not include s3 store world rabbit holes; or Faith and Kaela's blog have to do, sadly has not been updated past 2013, but does include store worlds. For honorable mention there is a list floating at the MTS in the forums, not comprehensive but it's good if you're working base game only with caw. Roads and sidewalks. There is a limit on curving, I'm not sure what it is yet since I accidentally made a tiny circle the other day. The one thing I'm noticing is that placement, curved or straight, works best if you put down the intersections first, then connect the intersections with your road/sidewalk. I suspect all of this is covered in a caw guide somewhere. ;) Lot sizes To be clear it is possible in caw to create a lot as small as 1x1 in total size, just big enough for a sim to stand on. In terms of game play you don't want to do this, especially not as a residential lot. All residential lots auto spawn a mailbox (1x2) and trash can (1x2). So theoretically the smallest it's safe to go is a 2x2 lot, will provide space for the mailbox, trash can, and your sim to stand, for a homeless sim challenge that might work. Out of curiosity I tried to assign a negative nice view value to a lot as well as a cost of 16,500. In the short trial run I did it didn't seem to work, at least not how I wanted it to, although I was more interested in the work-ability of a 5x5 lot or up to 5x10. Poor Alvara, I randomly grabbed her from my in game library for testing purposes. Her she stands on a 5x5 lot which can give a 9 square foot living quarters, not I didn't say home nor am I trying to place more than one sim on such a small lot. A note of interest with Uni & ITF installed. The uni bucket & itf time portal go straight to family inventory if you get the living space walled before they spawn. Another note on the itf portal, it spawns near the mailbox. So if you want it at the back, center, or side of a lot away from the main house place your mailbox at that spot until after it's spawned. I quickly built a small shelter around her. You can see some of the different size lots I drew behind and to the sides of the current lot. I suspect in terms of game not freaking out 5x5 might be the smallest to go, even for homeless challenges. As you can see a 5x5 is a snug lot. Nope, not going to work. Why? The chair is blocking acces to the itf food replicator, which also doubles as a dishwasher. Why ea/maxis, why? And no I'm not referring to the papergirl who is upset with the door placement. I'm referring to the fact that to climb into her bed, Alvara walked outside and to the back of her abode to climb up to her bunk. Sheesh! Windows blocked but now she can use the food replicator. Time to test out the next size I'm considering, this one is a 5x10. Decidedly a bit more flexibility. This is a 3x5 (15 sf) accommodation. For kitchen I've used the mini fridge & a dishwasher. Oh and hey look, she's climbing up on the inside. The trash can & mailbox mark the end of the property, so there is more space to work with. Back to the 5x5, micro lot. As you can see a few tweaks have been made. Itf fridge gone, but now dirty dishes have to be dragged to the trash, so that's not such a good idea. Yes that's a tv on the wall. Alvara has no problems watching it. I had her test roof access. Getting to the roof is no problem. Gee look at all the paparazzi's. :p So on a 5x5 a 3 or 4 story tower might work, especially if sticking to base game objects. That however defeats the premise of barracks that I'm considering. I'm also toying with the idea of a boarding house style barracks, but ts3 apartments are very different in nature to build than the old ts2 system. So it would have to be a uni dormitory style build. I tested a few other build notions while I was in game. The theater is from Midnight Hallow, which somewhere I read included crime. It doesn't. Although the fault for that lies with me. I miss remembered MH instead of Moonlight Falls, sigh, headdesk. So now I need to test for the MF's rabbit hole, grumble, my fault! Miffed at myself, no worries I'll forgive myself. ;) lol The tiling underneath is because I was trying to determine rabbit hole size. Of the ones I was measuring:
The smallest are as follows in terms of civic/education: DV city hall, Aurora Skies school as well as the military & police combo building. As to why small, tiny worlds are 256x256, with a 254x254 workable area with leaving a minimum of a 2 square border around the perimeter, because npc's spawn in odd places. So to pack a punch into a small town/city you need to work with small as much as possible. Even then to get a good mix of lot sizes, it's looking like roughly 60 lots total for what I want to attempt before returning to work on the medium world which is equal to 4 tiny worlds. Horses & are the other critters that seem to spawn fast with an empty world, so I had Alvara plunk a food & water spot for them nearby, even though I had no plans for saving this test run. It does help show off the boundaries of the neighboring 5x6 nicely though.
I've taken the plunge into sims 3 create a world program. I don't know that I'll ever have the finesse of some of my favorite builders like Rflong I do hope however to get half way decent at worlds in the tiny to medium range. My first attempt at a tiny world was every definition of the words clunky and noobie. As you can see from the second and third pictures below I had a few issues. The wonky road was a result of learning how to place roads. The one bit that worked exactly as I wanted was Rflong's trick of placing the dumpsters in the open world. I've learned that there is one other handy item I can place in the open world, the showtime trailer for sleeping in. I also figured out that all of those sculpting tricks from the ZooU threads in the main ea s3 builders forums are very helpful for world building. I've upped the ante on myself, and jumped straight from the tiny world above to a medium world. I started with a flat map under water and have sculpted out a decent sized island. It will take me several days to finish, but my end goal is a playable empty world with roughly 31 empty residential lots of assorted sizes, and a nice range of commercial lots. One particular bit that I took note of in all the tutorials and threads I was reading on working with caw ... Layers, specifically different layers for different elements. So now that I've got the terrain sculpted to my satisfaction, I'm adding and labeling the layers according to what I'm going to want on them. It will be interesting to see how much of what I want to do I'll be able to do. Update, here's where I left off the other night.
This space is at the base on the back of the big cliff in the above picture. I've got the mine, actor trailer, and a street light. Along with 4 lots, 1 micro 4x4 (?2x2) lot for a homeless sim to start out on, a slightly bigger lot which will feature an abandoned mine worker locker room, a 20x20 criminal community lot - just right for the Rustler's den & a few items, and a 20x30 junkyard designated lot. This is a quick over view of where to find most of the collectables on Rflong's Industrial Island. Dot's a placed by memory. I know I didn't get every single spot, but I know I got the primary ones that I've been hitting with my sims. It should also be noted that I haven't been seed hunting, but the island is rich with seeds and spawners. The entire island isn't in the picture. #Sims3 #RflongsIndustrialIsland #Spawners Update 3/22/2018 or 22/3/2018 for those outside of the US. :)
I grabbed a couple of screen shots with spawners before I switched houses. Due to it being 6 am in game not all spawners were active, so I only snagged shots of the three primary spawners. For gathering purposes the outer edge of the island is the place to be. This build is a smallish library I threw together for Industrial Island and the renovations I'm playing through. A bit of a heads up on the library's in sims 3 there are 3 bookcases that you need to make sure you have on the lot if you want your sims to be able to skill or read to toddlers. Those bookcases are the "Classically Tasteful Literature Shelving" for toddler books, and for skill books "The Book Corral" and "Penningway Bookshelf". Also at least one of each other base game bookcase for most other simlit books such as pregnancy books. If I remember to grab an overhead of the interior I will next time I'm in game. The library consists of a central corridor where the skill (resource) books live along with the librarians desks at each entry point, a computer room with 4 desktops, a main reading room, across the hall are two restrooms, between the public bathrooms is the children's area. Update, here's an overhead picture of the full library.
Ignore the white fluffy stuff, it was snowing in game when I snagged the picture. So I broke down and installed all 11 ep's. I guess 8 months was my limit for base only game after having played a fully (all ep's/sp's/store content) loaded game for so long. Since I put the ep's on it seemed appropriate to revisit building up community lot's. This time I used Rflong's Legacy Island III - Build version (she also has a fully built up & inhabited Legacy Island III) for the demo. This is just a brief overview no lot build up's. I do love the detail that she puts into her work. I used Angelica Branis again. This time she gets to chill out at Rose Haven, an ea house from the generation's ep. Once active she did the happy fist pump for the pool and then went inside and grabbed a book. (I usually play with high freewill on.) Down to business. Here is an overview of most of the lot's available. Since I didn't spot a laundry there might be a few lot types that didn't get marked. Given the size of the world, not something I'm worried about. There's even an empty 64x64 residential lot way off the mainland if you want to do a faux cast away challenge, or have an isolated resort. Don't forget name the commercial lot's what you want them to be. You can always rename them later. Now let's have Angelica browse her phone for available lots and buy them. When sorting by property type, it will list them in the following order: property (commercial lots), residential lots, and resorts last. Here is a small section of what she now owns. As you can see some of the lot's like the fire station were not available for purchase. A few others were skipped over, like the library, since I've already covered them in part 1 or 2. Here's a look at how the phone interface has changed with the added expansions. (Note, it's highly probable that the wrench icon was in the corner for the base only game & I had missed it.) Let's take a brief look at some of the lot's to see what they will require. With a double check of the arcade to verify that the phone and lot information match up. For the most part lot's like hangout's & coffee houses all just have a cash requirement. Whereas most bars & lounges (and yes now the vampire lounge is available for purchase) require toilet, sink, and the professional bar. And here is a cursory look at the resort information, since I know there are several resort how to's out there. Notice until you add at least one tower the resort will be closed, and yet it will still get reviews from npc's, lol. Here are the rest of the community lots available for base game only, no store content, patched to 1.67. (Personal opinion, there is absolutely no need for patch 1.69 other than to force tie s3, especially it's digital content, to origin. If you own all content, baring store content, on disc you can get away without patching to 1.69.) Altogether for base game only sims 3 there are 14 community lot types available beyond rabbit hole lots. Of the 14 lots only 10 of those lots can be purchased by an active sim. Of those 10 lots 1 will require store content or an EP to be added. I didn't save the game yesterday. So I started with a fresh game again today (7/1/17); this time however I have saved the game so I can come back to it for additional lots, or questions. Your guide is once again Angelica Branis, and we are once again on Industrial Island. If she looks puzzled it's because she's not only at the other end of town from yesterday, but she's also in a nicely furnished ea house that runs at over 71 thousand move in cost. Freerealestate, like motherlode has it's uses. ;) As in handy when building up a town, but boring for starting up with; unless your story involves someone inheriting a fancy place. :) Here is the end of the island being worked this time. It holds 16 20x30 lots, all of equal value. Now to change the zoning of 14 of those lots over to community lots. Take note that while in Edit Town mode the values for the lots haven't changed, rather they've stayed at the 1,200 cost. This like the cake, is a lie. Trust me I'll show you soon. One wee step to take care of before popping back to Angelica in live mode. To make finding the lots wanted easier, let's change their lot info. For those unfamiliar with the process, to change lot info you click on the paper icon next to the buy/build icon on a lot's information panel, and that opens the Edit Details window shown below. If you plan on sharing your lot, or even just saving it for future reference, it is recommended to give the lot a name as well as fill in the "Lot Description" box. In the past I have deleted lot's I had downloaded because they didn't have a name or description. I would also mark down (take away) points when scoring for a build competition if there was no name & description. For this tutorial I'm just naming the lot's what they are; pool, no visitor, hangout, and so on. Now that we're done editing lot types as well as lot information let's switch back to live mode. Ruh, roh .... Out of the 14 lots that were rezoned only 12 have icons on the map. Those two without icons are the "visitors Allowed" and the "Visitors Not Allowed" community lots. Without jumping to an ea world for confirmation today, I'm going to hypothesize (guess) that those two lot designation might be reserved for the different Rabbit holes. Let's check out the cost of lots now that we are in live mode. There's one other detail that need's to be taken care of. As a fresh from the bin sim Angelica really doesn't have the funds to buy any of those lots, so let's fix that with the family funds cheat code. Now it's Angelica's turn again, and she has plenty of cash to not just buy the lots but build on them. Today she's going to show off the phone real estate command menu. It's pretty straight forward*, but it doesn't hurt to show it off. (*I've been simming since The Sims 1, so I've had 17 years of sims command menu's.) You can stay in the buy real estate menu until you are done buying/selling as many lots as you want. So now let's take a look at the Town View and see what she now owns. Well there went two more lots; the small park and the vampire lounge. So we went from 14 to 12 down to 10 ownable lots. This will probably vary depending on which EP's/SP's/SC's owned and installed. Notice all of those round circles with slashes through them. All of the owned lots are considered "Closed" by the game mechanics. So even if townies & Npc's hangout on your lot you won't earn any money. Now lets take a look at the requirements for 1 Star and getting those lots to earn money for your sim. So ... um ... laundry, yeah not happening anytime soon. Yes I could download a laundry set from the store, but I'm not going to. I find the game far more enjoyable without laundry, I do enough in rl. ;) Moving on from laundry. :) Yesterday I built up an Art Gallery so this time let's build up a Big Park. Some things to note when building up a community lot: * Grass, terrain paint, does not add any value to the lot. * Use the most expensive build/buy items available, you are not building a starter lot. * Watch where you buy from; the picnic bench in build mode is free and does not add to the lot value/cost, the picnic bench in buy mode runs around 200 something and does add to the lot value/cost. * When you own a community lot you can build on it while there are active sims on the lot. Now let's Build up for two stars. And the final 3 Star build up. Again as with the Art Gallery, I didn't go for pretty I went for fast & meets requirements. With each build up level there is a certain amount difference with cost from what's needed to the added money value of the lot. Now let's address the question of does lot size make a difference. I converted a 40x40, which also has a nice view buff on it to a Big Park. The 20x30 lot has an added value of 12,000 to it's base cost of 1,200 for a new cost of 13,200. The 40x40 lot has an added value of 12,000 to it's base value of 8,192 for a new cost of 20,192. So the answer is no size doesn't really matter the cost for a Big Park looks like a constant +12,000 to the cost of the whatever base lot you pick for building on. Could you skip all of that and just build up a lot and convert it to type? Yes, but your sim won't own the lot and if you want your sim to own the lot you'll still need to buy it.
As of now I have the world saved, and might do a few more lots in the future, however for the immediate now there's an Apocalypse Tournament starting. ;) Here is a detailed overview of building a non rabbit hole community lot from scratch in Sims 3. (Fair warning this is a bare basic meet the goals build not a pretty finished build.) Angelica Branis (base game version) is your sim guide. (There's a Midnight Hallow version in my studio.) For speed I'm using Rflong's Industrial Island. I'm also playing in windowed mode for the purpose of grabbing screen shots. Working on this part of the island. Why not this lot. Note that starting value of 3,100 will not remain once it's changed to a community lot. I don't know all of the factors behind the cost change, but my best guess (based on recent game play) is lot size in one part of the equation and lot type is another factor. Art Gallery looks good, or more to the point I haven't built one in game yet. Remember I said the price would change ... With just that little change to art gallery the lot price went from 3,100 to 83,180. Ouch! (Museums: guards, tour guides, art buyers, coordinators, advertising, up keep, and probably a few other jobs ... yeah okay I can see that kind of overhead.) Motherlode to the rescue. ;) Increased the funds to over 300 thousand. (This lasted until the last upgrade.) Now she can buy the lot, and get started building. If your town has a city hall the sim will go to city hall to buy the lot. Since I forgot about city hall she just stood around and thought about her new lot. Take your time and scroll through the slides to see the new menu interactions. As you can see there are 3 areas that need to be addressed; money/lot value, art, and public bathroom. For two of the three ea gives you a set need list, as to the lot value it is left up to the player how to reach that goal. Time to build. Out of deference to time, and a little bit of let's get this built, I'm taking advantage of blueprint mode. The one drawback to this is I threw in an art studio, so now I don't know if an easel is part of the second upgrade. As you can see even with plopping down a two story build, it takes a while to reach the value limit. A one star lot. One star is nice but I bet two stars is nicer. So lets get started. Back to town view to see the newest goals, and then a quick add on. This time I added almost everything to the 2nd floor, the exception being one outside sculpture. Well two stars wasn't to bad, let's go for three stars now. One would think that the big plane plus a painting or two would have been enough, but it wasn't. Decor items depreciate like crazy, so it took another motherlode, and several more decor items plus a few lights to be on the safe side to reach the final requirement for three stars. Nothing left to add, so now it's time to wait for Monday morning 9 am to roll around to see if all that build and expense was worth it. I may play a cruel apocalypse, however I don't see any reason why Angelica can't wait in comfort. I was fast forwarding the game so it's actually closer to 10 am than the minimal 9 am. That's a nice pay out (146,000 minimum** over 4 weeks), especially if the lot stays in the family for several generations. My opinion, costly but worth it, especially if the lot will be staying in a legacy line for more than One Generation. (** I say minimum, because something to keep in mind she did not own a 3 star lot for a full week, she owned it for barely 24 hours. So the pay out for a full week might be higher. I didn't save the file so I won't be testing that aspect.) Non sim bonus peak at the Karen Hallion art work that is paneled across my desktop.
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Mama Dragon
40s almost 50s mother and grandmother, who also enjoys sims. Handy Reference Links
Links Eventually
Rosemow's thread for Building Tips & Tricks on the forums.
Hotkeys List for Sims 4 Carl's Guide for Sims 4 Builds SimsVIP Guide Ruthless_KK - Simply Ruthless guide for Sims 4 Archives
April 2019
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