GAME FEATURES
THIS IS A REALLY LONG POST
There are SO MANY features in The Sims 3 that I keep learning more and more each day, so I decided to start keeping track of all of them. Some of these I've known myself, but most of them come from Reddit and TS Forum.
I'll keep on updating everytime I find new things.
Features are under the cut!
Gameplay
Careers/University/Skills
You can sign autographs as a rock star by clicking on a random building (bookstore, theater, stadium, etc.) and make cash. You can only do it once a week and have them perform the action yourself (similar to the vaccination event you do as a doctor).
If you send a Sim to college, you can get a financial aid grant every 24 hours. Just click on the administration building and select “apply for financial aid”. The better your grades, the more money you’ll get.
Traveling to the past with ambition’s time machine, random events will change your household’s present. (Change careers or add family members).
Sims who reach the highest criminal career level glow red. This is bad for relationships with Sims with Good, Friendly, and Family Oriented traits. Having maxed out the Charisma skill will mostly prevent it, or even throw “Jar of Friendship” potion at them. Although it is good for relationships with Sims with Evil and Insane traits.
When some rectangles of one (or more) skill is highlighted, it’s because it’s the requirement for the Sim job.
If you protest about low wages, you have the possibility of increasing the wages of everyone.
Parent Sims can have a wish for their kids to have specific careers.
You will get gifts for working on your job for 5 years.
Singer Sims could sell their albums to other Sims.
If you click on your Sim work building when they’re at work, you can demand a raise. but if their mood is bad or their relationship with their boss is bad, this can get them fired. You can also go out with your boss and ask for a promotion.
Sims can die while you’re lifeguarding.
Your Sim can get caught if they call in fake sick.
Sims in the medical career can follow up with patients by calling them.
You can fry beetles if you are an evil private investigator (if you have a magnifying glass).
Your Sim can be an evil politician.
Ghost hunters can “appease ghosts” at the graveyard.
Lifeguard and firefighter sims can “demonstrate CPR” on another Sim as a romantic action.
You can select what type of sandcastle to build if you have a high enough skill.
Your Sim can get tattooed and tattoo other Sims. It’s a hidden skill that, if low, tattoos will look like child drawings. You can also get the tattoo removed.
Maids
Some maids actually don’t do their work, you have to fire them so a new one comes up, and is, hopefully, better.
Most Maids will have at least neat and/or perfectionists, brave and flirty, or charismatic traits. Some Maids are also Kleptomaniacs. Exceptions to this are: Delicia Hoover from Bridgeport and Simon Swift from Barnacle Bay, they are Slobs, which means they will never actually clean your House.
Maids will quit if they see Bonehilda in your house.
Toddler/Child/Teen
Kids will gain skills if someone reads them skill books to sleep.
When a witch sim does their homework they accidentally get it done all at once by magic. They grab the blue notebook, but the green bar completes itself immediately and they look confused for a second. In case they fail to do homework by magic, their whole body gets burnt.
When children and teens are asleep, you can click on them to select a dream, and then they’ll wake up with a moodlet related to it. While the moodlet is active, you can get a special moodlet if their dream comes true. While still sleeping, the game will notify if the dream turned into a nightmare and they will get a negative moodlet.
Toddlers and Kids can build hidden skills with certain toys.
You can put kids in time out and they will stand in a corner crying.
Toys can go on the crib.
Babies can get diaper rash if using the changing station from The Sims 3 Store.
If you take a child of the bouncer, they get bratty and mad.
Children can hold a bear while talking to an adult.
Kids can read the newspapers to see what baked goods sell better.
When you get robbed children can get the lifetime wish to become a cop or a thief. They can also want to become a doctor after seeing someone dying or getting a new sibling, become a musician after seeing someone jam, become a creature robot cross-breeder after seeing a ghost. become a firefighter after a house fire, become a magician after seeing a sim use their magic, become a singer while singing with their imaginary friend.
Child witch Sims have stabilizers on their brooms.
Kids can get sick from prison food.
Your Sim can chat with toddlers through their Teddy Bears.
Parents can play with their toddlers in the ocean.
Children inherit the effects of some Genie Wishes.
Your Sim can get detention if they slack off in school.
You can create custom and random baby DNA at the hospital.
Children can fight teens.
Parents will have a higher friendship level with their baby with an at home birth than a hospital birth.
Traits
Inappropriate sims can take sponge baths from a sink.
Your Sim can have a hidden trait called “advanced art training” earned by completing the “Skilled Painting” opportunity acquired through working in the art appraiser career. Sims with this trait can paint paintings of any skill level (0 to 9), instead of paintings appropriate only to their painting skill level.
Bookworm sims can join the book club by computer and get mailed books.
Unlucky Sims can’t die. But they can die of transmutation and leave a golden statue.
Party Animals Sims can dance on top of the counter.
Mermaids with the Evil trait can spawn sharks.
Sims with the Green Thumb Trait can Revive Dead Plants.
Brave Sims can ask for a raise.
Frugal Sims will cut coupons from the newspaper.
Daredevil Sims can “play with fire”, and will stick their hands in the fire and pull them back out until their fun motive is full.
If your Sim has the hydrophobic trait they cannot Woohoo or Try for Baby in the shower.
Being in Bot mode (Bot fan trait) will keep your sim from aging.
Sims with the daredevil trait can eat bugs.
Sims who have the childish trait have the option to read a toddler’s book like any other. Others will get the message “Sim can only read this book to a toddler.”
The Good trait Sims could accuse of being meanspirited.
Sims with the Good trait can donate to charity.
Sims with the “Never Nude” trait shower in their bathing clothes.
Moodlets
If you click on a negative need moodlet, the game will have the sim do the activity to fill that need.
If you gift your child Sims too many times in a row, they get a “spoiled” moodlet.
The creepy magical gnome (the one that kinda looks like a devil) will sometimes spawn next to your Sims bed at night with glowing red eyes. Your Sims can get a creeped out moodlet.
Buy a baby, toddler, or child a teddy bear because it gives them a special moodlet when they sleep while having it in their inventory.
You get a moodlet when you have a blog and something from the blog’s theme happens in your Sims real life.
The “rejuvenated” and “completely at ease” moodlet prevents the horrified noodlet from exploring the catacombs.
Sims can make snow angels face down, and when they do, they get the frosty face moodlet.
Mourning over the dead Sim’s gravestone would reduce the negative effect of “Mourning” moodlet.
If you send too many secret admirers texts to the wrong Sim, they will receive a negative “being stalked” moodlet.
You get a moodlet saying “Brrrr! This is cold!” when your Sim sits on ice furniture.
When swimming in the snow you will get a moodlet saying “Polar Bear Club”.
Romance/Woohoo
You can woohoo or make out behind the scenes at the theater hall if you have two romantically involved Sims visit at the same time. It works for any rabbit hole you can visit (town hall, military base, science lab…).
Using the Time Machine to Try for a Baby in the past will result in a biological teen showing up later that day.
Try Online Dating on the computer.
If your Sim is dating someone and that someone is dating someone else, you can tell them they are cheating.
Sims gets a fertility boost after getting a romantic massage.
Sims can get kicked out of theaters for woohooing.
You can give a cinnamon kiss when you flavored your food with it.
If a Sim marries a plumbot the creator of said plumbot officially becomes their parent-in-law.
If your Sim feels betrayed from an unfaithful marriage they can rebound kiss.
Money
To make money, go to the science skill tree until you have enough skill to take samples from gems, and then clone them using the science station.
Adopt a bunch of dogs or have a werewolf Sim and make them hunt.
Go through the trash of wealthy households.
Experiment on bugs until you get a plasma bug then sample and clone it. A cat with high-level Hunting skills will also catch them occasionally.
Master the Martial Arts skill and break space rocks on the board breaker and get lots of valuable gems.
Paintings appreciate in value over time and are the best sold when the Sim dies.
Miner holes are treasure chests. You can also make several holes into a cave system.
If you have a philosopher’s stone, you can turn pretty much anything into gold. You run the risk of your sim turning into gold and therefore dying. However, if you have a death flower in your inventory you don’t die and you get to keep the gold statue of your sim - making tones of money because of it.
Pets
If you’re cooking food and have a pet, you can throw scraps to them that they will eat.
You can have a rock as a pet.
You can breed fish.
If a pet bowl is outside, any other animal can eat from it.
Gnomes can encourage and discourage cats and dogs on your lot.
Your Sim can pet their dog while they are lying on the couch.
Horses will eat and destroy the newspaper.
When pet birds die, their bodies don’t disappear, they lay there until cleaned up.
Two small dogs can eat from the automatic feeder at once.
Pets can eat garden plants.
Dogs can howl and cats can meow along with instruments.
Your Sim can drop a fish from your inventory onto the ground and their cat can eat it.
If your Sim dog uses the guard-the-house interaction, it will actually bark at any strays that happen to come by your door.
Foals will get a negative moodlet if their mother isn’t around. However, if a Sim gives lots of love and feeds it when it’s hungry, in a couple of days the moodlet changes to a positive one saying that it’s not missing the mother anymore because of all the care you provided
Death
There are only two graveyards in the game with fully unique and custom graves, and no generic ones. They are the graveyards of Sunset Valley and Riverview. Appaloosa Plains is unique in that it has a pet graveyard.
Burning, electrocution, and starvation are by far the most common causes of death among the preexisting graves, with old age being surprisingly common.
If you make a ghost Sim as a playable Sim and have them paint, all their paintings will get the Simoleon bonus to value from the painter being dead.
Your pets can save your Sim from death.
You can have funerals when a Sim from your household dies.
Small tombstone: Dies before 75,000 lifetime happiness points. Medium tombstone: Dies between 75,000 and 149,000 lifetime happiness points. Large tombstone: Dies at 150,000 and above lifetime happiness points.
Sims Graves have different emblems on them depicting how they died; flames, hands reaching out of water, shark jaws, etc.
Expansions
You can discover islands on Island Paradiso.
Isla Paradiso is full of hidden chests on secret islands.
Sunlight charm spell changes a wolf to their human form.
Some Supernatural portraits & paintings (marked with purple border in Build Buy) change during a Full Moon.
Vampires can raid the hospital and the grocery store.
Misc
When out in the ocean, the Kraken can appear. It can attack and sink your Sims small houseboat. It can spawn into Sunset Valley & Lucky Palms if you go out to the furthest point of the water.
If you have a microphone from university life in your inventory, your Sim can greet other Sims by shouting in their face.
You can plant cheese and eggs.
You can upgrade umbrellas.
You can store elixirs in the fridge.
You can waterski.
Sims can mess up an alchemy spell and become a toad.
Birthday cakes can catch on fire.
There are types of objects that aren’t in the catalog that you can make in the toy machine.
If your sims mess up the weather stone, it can rain flowers.
You can open a tab at a bar and if you can’t pay it, they will add it to your bills.
Aliens can steal space rocks from the science lab.
If you steal someone’s clothes after skinny dipping, they’re too mortified to go again.
If your sims are on fire, they can put themselves out in a shower or bathtub. They also put themselves out in dive wells from World Adventures and if you have a shower in a can.
You can upload your Sim sketches and paintings to the digital frames.
Sims can send thank you notes after receiving wedding gifts.
You can place snack bowls on island countertops.
You can announce aptitude test results to other sims.
Not all adult sims get a Midlife Crisis and there are variables involved.
You can go to therapy during a midlife crisis.
Sims who have body hair can get it waxed.
If you place a professional bar at a gym, with a mixologist, they can make protein shakes for your sims and a weird wheat grass-type drinks, graveyards have the tombstone topper and others. The library has basic drinks but one is “alien brain” and is a skill drink and stacks on the library moodlet and the supernatural bonus, so reading skill books takes way less time.
Sim can free criminals from jail with the mining tool.
Celebrities can’t be abducted by aliens.
You can throw herbs at the fireplace, and it will give you a moodlet that varies depending on what herb you have.
Selling objects in the Consignment store is something you can improve over time.
Your Sim can sue people for slander at City Hall when you’re a celebrity and they spread rumors about you.
You can get arrested for harvesting someone else's plants.
Details
The stones at the bottom of the fishbowl change depending on what you put in it.
Artistic, Can’t Stand Art, Computer Whiz, Evil, Genius, Gloomy, Insane, Neurotic, and Virtuoso Sims all have different and unique painting styles.
Fish can spontaneously breed if you put them in fish tanks.
If you are being robbed, and the police come to put the burglar in handcuffs by their car, while they search your house, you can click on the burglar to set them free. They will even thank you for doing so, promising to make it up to you, although they never do.
Cats can jump onto Sim’s lap and they can pet them.
You can drag the greeting card into a big digital frame.
You can get a “wrong number” call.
Clones will be attracted to the cloned Sim.
Cats can sleep on newspapers.
Sims can get a dirtbag reputation if caught cheating. If caught a lot of times, they get a slimeball reputation.
You can “Play in Sand” in the spots where you painted the terrain with sand.
If you have a big dog and a puppy or a cat and a kitten, they can cuddle together in a big pet bed.
Different bars will serve different food depending on the lot type. You can get onion rings, nachos, and hot wings at the normal lower-tier bars but olive platters and shrimp cocktails are reserved for fancy places like exclusive lounges, vampire lounges, and art galleries.
Sims can get sick eating bar food at the lower-end bars.
You can preview a house before you buy it by clicking on the magnifying glass.
Sims can chat on the bunkbed and interact on the playpen.
Try using “Disco tags” in the cheats menu (Ctrl+Shift+C) and go to the map view.
Sims can read lying on the beach towel.
You can style the time machine.
Bonehilda will fight robbers.
Hydrophobic sims won’t accept a fishbowl as a gift.
Simbots have 0’s and 1’s instead of zzz’s.
Male Sims can leave the toilet sit up.
Sunglasses have the reflex of the world.
There are 6 types of snowman - classic, evil, tragic clown, hockey, Grim Reaper, and alien.
With no couch, sims will play video games sitting on the ground.
There’s a city in the background of the university world.
Sims can have different sitting positions.
When your Sim spouse dies and comes back to life, they come back divorced.
Horses can ride boats.
When Plumbots pee themselves, oil is what gets on the floor.
If you place a rubber duck on the bathtub, Sims play with it while they bathe. If you place “World’s Brew Bubble Bath”, they will have a bubble bath.
You can change the colors of the street lights.
You get a popup when a pregnant Sim enters a costume party (it reveals the number of hours left for the pregnancy to end).
Store items come with new skills.
You can expand the inventory and relationship tab by dragging it.
Your Sim only earns LHP when your Sims mood is in the “bubble” on the Mood Meter,
If a Sim’s mood drops all the way to the bottom (-100), the Sim may simply refuse to do anything, even if directed to by the player. You can send them on vacation but if they become depressed on their vacation, it will be necessary to send them home.
The volcano in Sunlit Tides can erupt.
Ants crawl in and out of a public picnic basket carrying food.
Every time a Sims learning the Painting skill sells a painting directly from the easel there is a 20% chance that the painting will replace a wall decoration item in the local art gallery.
You can spy on neighbors with tab mode.
Your Sims can get bitten by mosquitos.
Sims can chat with other sims while cooking.
Friends can bring their kids over to play with yours.
Resort Staff NPCs sweep the floors of the resort.
Sims can get nauseous from foods with herbs.
Sims with the Asian Culture trait use chopsticks to eat rather than knives and forks.
Ghosts can swim in swimming pools but you can’t see their body under the surface of the water.
You can double-click on the save file you want to play on the main menu screen and it will start the game.
When you have the cheapest washing machine and your Sim tries to stop it from shaking, you will get a “Victory Over Washer” moodlet.
Magic gnomes spawn at random when you do related activities.
The trash bed in buydebug makes you stinky.
If you put your bird cage outside it might fly away.
The doors on cars matter, if a car has 2 doors, 2 Sims will get in, if a car has 4 doors, 4 (or 5) Sims get in. Also, babies and toddlers will be held by their parents inside the car.
You can wax your Sims, and when you do, their body hair will appear again after a while.
If lightning strikes vehicles during a storm, it will completely destroyed them.
If a Sim is performing an interaction related to a trait, the trait will be highlighted.
You can get a graduation gnome that “hides in your books” during university classes.
Create-a-style
You can drag the whole palette to other objects so they get the same style.
You can swap patterns by dragging one of them onto the dividing line next to the other.
You can randomize patterns + colors by right-clicking on the swatches.
Right-clicking on the color above the color wheel, the game will give you a more appealing color (a different shade) than the one you have selected.
CAS
Right-clicking the icons at the top of CAS randomizes that part of clothing you are on.
You can have hairstyles in different outfits.
Build-Buy
Plants change in size as you place them.
You can make custom object collections.
If you typed in the cheat moveobjects on you can move sims by just clicking on them (on Build Buy mode).
You can set seasonal decor on your home lot to auto-change if you place the debug marker and then decorate accordingly.
If you press alt when building a foundation, you can change the height of it.
You can paint ceilings.
Mods
If you play with NRAAS Story Progression, no vampires or celebs will be in your town unless you specifically say you want them.
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Round 1 - Phylum Arthropoda
(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)
Arthropoda is a phylum of animals that have segmented bodies, possess a chitin exoskeleton, and have paired segmented appendages. They are colloquially called “bugs” though this is often only used for terrestrial arthropods, and sometimes only used for insects specifically.
After Nematoda, this is the most successful phylum, and it is far more diverse, with up to 10 million species! Arthropods account for 80% of all known living animal species. The three major subphyla include the Chelicerates (sea spiders, horseshoe crabs, arachnids, and the extinct eurypterids and chasmataspidids), the Myriapods (centipedes and millipedes), and the Crustaceans (shrimps, prawns, crabs, lobsters, crayfish, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, opossum shrimps, amphipods, mantis shrimp, entognaths, and insects).
Arthropods are so diverse in fact that it is next to impossible for me to describe a model arthropod. They are important members of marine, freshwater, land, and air ecosystems and are one of only two major animal groups that have adapted to life in dry environments, the others being chordates. All arthropods have an exoskeleton and must molt as they grow, replacing their exoskeleton. Some arthropods go through a metamorphosis in this process. They have brains, a heart, and blood (called hemolymph, though some crustaceans and insects also use hemoglobin). They sense the world through small hairs called setae which are sensitive to vibration, air currents, and even chemicles in the air or water. Pressure sensors function similarly to eardrums. Antennae monitor humidity, moisture, temperature, sound, smell, and/or taste, depending on species. Most arthropods have sophisticated visual systems ranging from simple eyes (ocelli) which orient towards light, to compound eyes consisting of fifteen to several thousand independent ommatidia capable of forming images, detecting fast movement, or even seeing polarized or ultra-violet light. Some arthropods are hermaphroditic, some have more than two sexes, some reproduce by parthenogenesis, some by internal fertilization, some by external, some have complex courtship rituals, some lay eggs, some give live birth, some have prolonged maternal care. The first arthropods are known from the Ediacaran, before the Cambrian era.
Propaganda below the cut:
Insects are the first animals to have achieved flight
The smallest arthropods are the parasitic crustaceans of the class Tantulocarida, some of which are less than 100 micrometres long. The largest arthropod is the Japanese Spider Crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) with a legspan of up to 4 metres (13 ft) long. The heaviest is the American Lobster (Homarus americanus), which can get up to 20 kilograms (44 lb).
Many arthropods are popular pets, including various species of crab, shrimp, isopod, crayfish, mantis shrimp, millipede, centipede, tarantula, true spider, scorpion, amblypygid, vinegaroon, mantis, cockroach, beetle, moth, and ant! Some are even domesticated, including silk moths and honeybees.
Many arthropods are eaten by humans as a delicacy, and farming insects for food is considered more sustainable than farming large chordates. These farmed arthropods are referred to as “minilivestock.”
Arthropods feature in a variety of ways in biomimicry: humans imitating elements of nature. For example, the cooling system of termite mounds has been imitated in architecture, and the internal structure of the dactyl clubs of mantis shrimp have been imitated to create more damage tolerant materials.
Spider venoms are being studied as a less harmful alternative to chemical pesticides, as they are deadly to insects but the great majority are harmless to vertebrates. They have also been studied and could have uses in treating cardiac arrhythmia, muscular dystrophy, glioma, Alzheimer's disease, strokes, and erectile dysfunction.
Shellac is a resin secreted by the female Lac Bug (Kerria lacca) on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze, natural primer, sanding sealant, tannin-blocker, odour-blocker, stain, and high-gloss varnish. It was once used in electrical applications as an insulator, and was used to make phonograph and gramophone records until it was replaced by vinyl.
One of the biggest ecosystem services arthropods provide for humans is pollination. Crops where pollinator insects are essential include brazil nuts, cocoa beans, and fruits including kiwi, melons, and pumpkins. Crops where pollinator insects provide 40-90% of pollination include avocados, nuts like cashews and almonds, and fruits like apples, apricots, blueberries, cherries, mangoes, peaches, plums, pears, and raspberries. In crops where pollinators are not essential they still increase production and yield. Important pollinators include bees, flies, wasps, butterflies, and moths.
Many arthropods are sacred to humans. In Ancient Egypt, scarab beetles were used in art, religious ceremonies, and funerary practices, and were represented by the god Khepri. Bees supposedly grew from the tears of the sun god Ra, spilled across the desert sand. The goddess of healing venomous bites and stings, Serket, was depicted as a scorpion. Kalahari Desert's San People tell of a legendary hero, Mantis, who asked a bee to guide him to find the purpose of life. When the bee became weary from their search, he left the mantis on a floating flower, and planted a seed within him before passing from his exhaustion. The first human was born from this seed. In Akan folklore, the cunning trickster figure Anansi/Ananse is depicted as a spider. Western astrology uses the crab constellation, called Cancer, and the scorpion constellation, called Scorpio. Dragonflies symbolize pure water in Navajo tradition. In Anishinaabe culture, dreamcatchers are meant to represent spiderwebs and are used as a protective charm for infants. They originate from the Spider Grandmother, who takes care of the children and the people of the land in many Native American cultures. The Moche people of ancient Peru often depicted spiders and crabs in their art. In an Ancient Greek hymn, Eos, the goddess of the dawn, requests of Zeus to let her lover Tithonus live forever as an immortal. Tithonus became immortal, but not ageless, and eventually became so small, old, and shriveled that he turned into the first cicada. Another hymn sings of the Thriae, a trinity of Aegean bee nymphs. Native Athenians wore golden grasshopper brooches to symbolize that they were of pure, Athenian lineage. In an Ancient Sumerian poem, a fly helps the goddess Inanna when her husband Dumuzid is being chased by galla demons. In Japanese culture, butterflies carry many meanings, from being the souls of humans to symbols of youth to guides into the afterlife. Ancient Romans also believed that butterflies were the souls of the dead. Some of the Nagas of Manipur claim ancestry from a butterfly. Many cultures use the butterfly as a symbol of rebirth. And the list goes on…
cute crab eat a strawbebby:
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