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.
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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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