When looking for a computer for the sims 3, what should I be looking for? What sort of graphic card etc.

Pretty much any computer made in the past ten years should do it. I am able to run the game fine on my cheepo $250 Laptop with the integrated graphics of the Ryzen 3 chip as long as I turn down the graphics.

Also, I was able to run it back in the day on the computer specs that you see in my sig, that was my really old computer of course I built a new one based around the Ryzen 5 and RTX 2060 Super and that runs the game silky smooth at max settings even when I am capturing gameplay with OBS.

One thing I would recommend is if you are building a new PC built it with an M.2 drive big enough to install your OS and the full game and all of its expansion packs on to it, load times are massively improved on all hardware with that vs a HDD or SSD, I have tried it on all three and most times it only takes about 30 seconds to load a game from the M.2 drive vs. about ten minutes on a HDD and around three to four minutes on an SSD.

Hope this helps.

What is the purpose of the dance floor object? Like I know sims can dance on it, but they also can dance without it, so like what is the difference?

The one in clubs and such? Probably mostly just to be able to learn the hidden club dancing skill tbh besides the fun factor, since I think that was the only way to when LN released. Dunno if that changed with the Skylight Venue at the store since I've never really used it.

Having bought a purely digital copy of the game through Steam, I don't have the manuals that I assume came with each EP and SP, and I'd like to be able to read through them as I'm gradually figuring out the different gameplay options available! Is there anywhere I can find digital copies of the manuals that are usually tucked inside disc cases?

EA started with manuals for TS3 and then stopped because they said something along the lines of being more eco-friendly and using less trees to make paper. All EP's after Late Night does not have a manual. All SP's after Fast Lane Stuff do not have a manual. Source for the latter? My physical disc copies of TS3 EP's/SP's.

The Sims 3 EP's Manuals: https://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/download/

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On a different note, I guess the reason for having dance floors would be for players that want to be specific on where the Sims should dance. Although yes, they don't always dance on the dance floor but if there is one and enough space they usually will use that designated area. Also, Sims can learn to club dance with or without dance floors. They just need to dance.

Is the Get to Know broken? I have been having my Sims do "Get to Know" over and over again and they haven't learned any traits. The only traits my Sims tend to learn are "Family Oriented" when learning about a partner, or "Ambitious" when learning about a career. I just tested it over the course of ~4 Sim hours just going back and forth with "Get to Know" and other interactions and did not learn a single thing. I even installed this mod with the higher chance option and it did not do anything.

The Get to Know interaction is indeed broken for non-charismatic sims. However, simbouquet's mod should fix it - maybe for some reason it's not loading properly in your game? I haven't actually had a chance to try it in my game yet, but I think it should work...
Maybe try editing the XML to make it a 100% chance for charismatic and non charismatic sims and retrying. And see if it works for charismatic sims (which it should even with EA's default behaviour). If both don't work, maybe there's another issue going on?

Thank you so SO much. I have been playing with this broken feature for years. Thanks to your comment I tried to look at how to change the XML of that mod to make it 100% (Which was an absolute fail even though I have SimPE3... there was no reference to 35 or charismatic in the code so I don't know how you would edit it??) but from re-reading the mod, I learned that the "higher chance of learning traits" download was not a replacement for the "Get to Know Fix" mod. So once I downloaded that, everything went back to the way it should be. I am beyond happy!!

Is being a firefighter completely broken?

I am trying to play as a firefighter and it is the single most broken thing I have ever seen in a game.

When there is a fire if it is outside the house my sim can put it out but if it is inside the house the game stops him from going in unless he is invited in, even if he breaks the door down with an ax, it still only gives him the option to wait to be invited inside but the panicking NPCs never let him in. I have stood there for 24 hours and the fire just will not end and my sim can't do anything about it and the game will not let him leave the lot.

Is there a fan made patch anywhere that fixes this, because as far as I can tell it is broken because of the way the game treats it when your sim goes onto another sim's lot.

It was years ago when I played a firefighter but my Sim had no problems and made it all the way to chief I think she was and even had a fire truck in the driveway. Google as this has been discussed a lot already

https://www.google.com/search?q=sim...chrome&ie=UTF-8

I play firefighters occasionally and in various neighborhoods, mostly custom ones, and never had this problem either. So to me this doesn't sound as an EA-problem (which means, probably no EA-fix mod exists), the next possibility is a mod-conflict. Maybe those who struggle with this bug have the same mod installed that conflicts with firefighter lot-routing...

There is Gameplay Core Mod by Simler90. From the description it fixes firefighter career, don't know if it will do your problem.

Okay, thanks a bunch.

What's the most recent mod that lets your Sims do free plastic surgery anywhere, just like in TS2?

I'm not sure if there's any modder out there re-creating The Sims 2 Dr. Vu Automated Cosmetic Surgeon to The Sims 3 as sims can only do facial and body reconstruction in hospital rabbit hole.

2 ways I know of, the easiest/non-modded way is enable testing cheats, shift click sim then select edit in cas. Downside is that this will reset the sims age span back to the beginning of their current life stage.

The way I do it is with Nrass Master controller. You just Click your sim, select Master Controller>Advanced>Edit Sim in Cas.

Plus you are guaranteed not to get a bad surgery that way

@PizzaPartyForever thanks for the instructions. I did have downloaded NRaas Master Controller indeed.

But I stumbled upon another problem where the sliders reverted to default when I was sliding things while the Sim was nekkid and only after picked clothes (see thread). Since I have both XCAS and MC, what's the best solution to prevent this reverting again? Should I just let the Sim wear their swimwear/underwear? (it must be noted that I've never used S3PE before)

I don't have XCAS installed anymore (only had it for like 60 minutes, then uninstalled it since Master Controller has its own max sliders setting). I edited one of premade Sims from Bridgeport, Matty Crewe in CAS and he never reverted back to the default when switching to naked outfit. I am using Master Controller with Cheats, and Integration modules (also Expanded Tattoos and Cmar Tattoo Locations but those two things are unrelated)

Perhaps try Chain_Reaction advise on that site you mentioned. Switch your sim to naked outfit, go to edit in CAS and make some changes, exit, then switch your sim back to everyday outfit in live mode and see if your sim is reverted to default or not.

@legacyoffailures I purely downloades XCAS for the max sliders bc it didn't work with MC.

But if I choose to use only MC, do I have to modify the Max Sliders in S3PE or is in-game also possible?

yes, you can change it in-game.
click either City Hall, Computer, or Sim - choose Nraas - Master Controller - Settings - CAS - Max Sliders in CAS.
Default is 100, if you install more than 100, you'll have to lay it out yourself.

I don't know if it's true or not, but you may need to install integration module if you intend to create a sim in Edit Town mode, otherwise the max sliders setting won't function well.

Without MC Integration, the EA version of CAS loads in areas of the game apart from direct MC commands instead of the MC version. The EA version doesn't know anything about MC settings or additional slider allowances, so yes Integration is required to get the MC version to load from Edit Town.

You can easily tell which version of CAS you are looking at by doing a shift+right-click on the "..." button that usually leads to EA commands like Save, Quit, Options, etc. In the EA version of CAS, nothing will happen. In the MC version of CAS, you will get a bunch of MC CAS Settings options (including, of course, Max Sliders).

Is it posible to reset or remove skill challenges? The benefits of the charisma skill challenges are so annoying and take the fun out of the game, at this point I'm tempted to start a new save and just recreate my family through cheating.

Which one of charisma skill challenges that irritates you? For me, Celebrity one is my pet peeve since everyone suddenly starts becoming your friends.

This is how I tweak it, assuming you're experienced in modding.
1. Open S3PE and GameplayData.package
2. Find Charisma xml file. Make a copy of it by either exporting to a file or another package (do not edit it directly on GameplayData)
3. Right-click on Charisma and choose Text Editor. Find <LtrBoostForCelebrity value="25" />
4. The default value makes your sim start as a friend with another sim upon interacting with them at the first time. You can lower it to 1 so they will start as acquittance instead.
5. Save your package file, and move it to your mods folder.

Of course you can edit it with Twallan's Retuner instead. But I don't use that mod, therefore I couldn't give advice on it.