I personally have all the expansion packs and stuff packs,. Hi I wanted to disscuss some of you guy's ides for Community, Housing, As Well As Apartment Lots for worlds in the Sims 3,

But this is the link you can use if you need help, but this link is babbarded with ads and is annoying to me, in which is why I would perfer a MTS refrence to Lot Assignments to look for and how to use them.

Rather then to go back in forth to the wiki site and fight with all those annoying ad popups. My computer screen started to freeze when i tried to copy and paste the definitions from that page into a note file, becuase of all of the annoying ads on that particular sims fandom page

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Lot_assignment


I want to know from as many of you guys as possible. What objects and spaweners you place for under what lot assignments, to get an overall idea of what I should be putting in under which lot assignment.

Since with all expanion and stuff packs there I am NOT BRAGGING but I have hundreds maybe thousands of options to choose from and I just don't know where to begin

Ok? so I'll start with some of my previous ideas when I made quite a few custion Festival Grounds by first typing in

testingCheatsenabled [true or false]
&
buydebug [on or off]

with BOTH those cheats turned on you can build any lot you desire [in game]

Get the Seasonal Marker and Press Shift and Click on it to set the lot Season objects for each Seasion you can even setup a "lot constrcution status" for when it switches between seasions

for an Apartment Lot you need one apartment for sims to live in and the rest of the apartments marked with the Hidden Marker and the public room marker for the hallway

this game is SUPER COMPLICATED that is why i need ideas

Such as certain lots activate certain moodlets and actract certain types of sims and some don't attract no sims and some are just lots with rabbit holes on them those are easy but the things like "Consignment Stores" "Big Show Venre" "Base Camps" "Custom Tombs" the 3 different types of Bars, and so on

I love that idea and still want to try something also. I have one lot I did in 2 versions, one regular and one decorated for Halloween and can swap them in and out of the game. But I love the idea of doing more lots with seasonal things. DANG, I may need to start another world in CAW with that in mind.

The seasonal lights and decor in 4 are fun to use. It would be nice if we had even more of those options for 3 also.

you can also use testingCheatsenabled true + buydebug on cheats to access most of the CAW build objects such as the Seasonal Lot maker and even the bug and fish spawners too

You can do that in an already established world in edit town mode

Yes, I know how to get to buydebug, have made many worlds and have done many festival lots, etc. Fun to do.

Nitromon, why not just get to buydebug the normal way? I am in buydebug constantly. I am there most often to do ports.

One of the few custom lots I have made for myself is a vampire lounge. The big thing used from buydebug are the fog emitters. One day, I will check if there is a way to set them on a timer, to only start at night.

I don't remember but I think one time I built a beach using the seasonal marker and had it so that the wedding arch only appeared during the spring.

Hmmmm, that is interesting as I have converted everything I could to packages including store items and do not have that problem. And I have merged many packages. I am sorry to hear that you have that issue. This is one of many things that shows how our experiences can vary.

You can use them on residential lots (which is nice to automatically put up seasonal decorations and items).

The only thing to keep in mind is that it will pause your game while the seasonal changes happen and that pause is longer the more lots it needs to swap. So if you decide that the entire town is going to put up Christmas decorations, you might have a sudden lag at 3 am when the seasons change.

OOH that is interesting to hear. I may need to do some tiny village world so all can decorate and then when they do just go get a drink or something thinking I will do as they put up their decorations.

Apartments are best played when all the apartment markers besides the one you live in have the "Public" marker, because if you use the recommended "hidden" marker on all the other apartments besides you own sims it makes all the other apartments completely vacant and inaccessible to all roommates.

Although you can dismiss or sometimes the game will even let you turn roommates off under real-estate if you own the resort I Guess? then with a sim phone go into somewhere into that menu to turn roommates for your apartment complex off.

but if you want a place for all those townies to stay and work in your town it is better "in my own opinion" for all the apartments that you do not plan on having a family or hoursehold live in for playing you do not use the hidden room marker unless you want all the townies to use your stuff including your refrigerator, plus they will give you rent money for affording your household's rent and bill costs, if they are happy and plus even though you can only buy for things in your own apartment space? at least you can assign your townies their own custom apartments for charging up their moods and living out their lives

If all your apartment have the hidden marker nobody including townies will be able to access any of those apartments. I currently don't know why the internet recommends not using the Public marker for all the rest of the apartments is not recommended by default, of coarse you may need a higher end PC I would recommend at least a NVIDIA video card from 2009 "OR NEWER" on default settings and 8GB of RAM installed on your PC or Laptop before doing that though

Maybe that was why the internet recommends that you use the hidden room marker instead but I don't know

@Aspersim: I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying. I've been using public/hidden markers for years and never had any of these issues that you're talking about in terms of roommates and such.

You use hidden markers so that you can have sims living in a building without having to worry about decorating their apartments, as well as make it possible for your household sim to ring their bells and meet them in person.

I was just saying every time I google how to build Apartments in The Sims 3 most every one of the result recommend the hidden marker, When the room is marked hidden in my game nobody else will enter those apartments and It could be just an error with my game only, I don't know, but sims will never enter or even try to enter any door with a hidden marker in the room and I don't know why.

*(edit)"
And the doors are never locked either

@Aspersim: I think whatever tutorials you found are giving you the very wrong impression of why there are public and hidden markers. You're not supposed to enter apartments with the hidden markers, because those are for NPC sims. The hidden markers are so that if you want NPCs in your apt building, you don't have to decorate their apts; you can just leave them blank, place a door tagged for NPCs, and the NPCs will come and go as they please without needing essentials to survive. (Their needs will take care of themselves on their own.)

Also, hidden markers force walls to stay up, which gives your building the illusion of apt hallways and corridors.

thank you for this information I was playing the wrong way I am now going to always remember to turn off roomate fuction and use the hidden markers for and see if the NPC will occupy those apartments eventuallty thanks for the good advice @thesims1depot

I always found that the NPCs would all pick one apartment, and you'd have 50 living in one room! It's a lot different from Sims 2, but it's nice when you see a carpool driver go into a building instead of just vanishing. Makes the world seem more real!

Yes, that feature drives me crazy. I build small two story townhouses that only have three apartments at the most and would find a million sims registered to each callbox! I knew rent was at a premium in the real world; I guess they are astronomical in Sims 3!

(Sorry, forgot to check the forums). It depends heavily on how many lots you have and how good your computer is. On mine it's just long enough to be a mild annoyance if I'm about to give command (less than 10 seconds) and I'm on a medium to low level computer.

I just built my vary 1st resort in Sunset Valley world, and found out that it is now drawing more sims to a outskirts of the town on the road by the water

there is a Cafe/Coffieshop on the edge of town, ever since I built that resort, I've been getting more sims on the Cafe/Coffieshop lot, in which will enable my sims who have invensted partnership in that rabbit hole café to actually start receiving money from it's profits

Before I built that resort down the street from it also on the edge front of town? the café and bars next to it barely got any business or thru traffic, with sims getting hungery at the resort they are now flocking to the local coffee shop for a bite to eat while in town for a visit

All you need is a desk room, maybe some hidden hotel rooms and maybe one open room with a bed in it. OR just put a resort tower on the resort lot then your good to go, except for food and entertainment

I tend not to pay so much attention to how many, but rather being able to find them. This, especially for butlers when they suddenly take off and never return. Cannot fire them over the phone, so this way, I can find them. I usually find a good spot to place one of the LN apts in every world I play. Even ITF, I placed apartment in the wasteland.