Ranking the Best Money-Making Activities

[Metropolis Man]

Has anyone tested playing the instruments in the subways?

It's ridiculous. I have not pushed it really high yet, but mentioned some figures in my band article on the Guide. If you had the "Star" Challenge done AND had around 1000 performances in the skill journal, I'd guess you could rake in close to a million simoleans over a 24-hour period. But, Pam says the subway mechanic was toned down in the last patch. I have not done tip playing in the subway since my article to get a feel one way or another.

[banded]

hi I just managed to register was having problems because of activation  . anyway, I have a sim with 3000 guitar performances, guitar star challenge and the rest of the guitar challenges and at the moment I'm getting a maximum of about 65000 simoleons each tip in bridgeport's subways. they give you so much more money in bridgeport as I was getting nohwhere near that before I moved from sunset valley.

[Metropolis Man]

hi I just managed to register was having problems because of activation  . anyway, I have a sim with 3000 guitar performances, guitar star challenge and the rest of the guitar challenges and at the moment I'm getting a maximum of about 65000 simoleons each tip in bridgeport's subways. they give you so much more money in bridgeport as I was getting nohwhere near that before I moved from sunset valley.

Wow. That's interesting? Now, you're saying you did not play in subways in Sunset Valley? I have not heard that individual tip amounts in subways are necessarily more than individual tips elsewhere — just that they fly at you a lot faster. At least that's been my experience. Nicely done on the 3k performances. I guess you and I are the exclusive partners in the 2-member 3000 club. 

[banded]

Hi Metro. I actually saw your first post in this thread and thought wow I want to do that so I got all my performances in SV. Then got ambitions and Late night for christmas and instantly moved to bridgeport because everyone was saying "the subway is the best for tips". It's really wierd but in carls guide it was saying you would earn more than what I was earning outside the SV theatre. I was really amazed with the tips in bridgeport. also a quick question for everyone. where do you live in bridgeport? personally I kicked old and new glam of their beautiful vista lot to somewhere else and built a house there  .

[MasterSiwel]

Hi Metro. I actually saw your first post in this thread and thought wow I want to do that so I got all my performances in SV. Then got ambitions and Late night for christmas and instantly moved to bridgeport because everyone was saying "the subway is the best for tips". It's really wierd but in carls guide it was saying you would earn more than what I was earning outside the SV theatre. I was really amazed with the tips in bridgeport. also a quick question for everyone. where do you live in bridgeport? personally I kicked old and new glam of their beautiful vista lot to somewhere else and built a house there  .

Odd... I got the same about the same thing for Christmas... Anways, I think the play for tips at the subway is way to insane. When I had a band, I had my whole band play in the same subway, and they got 4,448 Simoleans for just one session. So despite remembering what they said about someone fixing it in an update, it's still just as crazy as before. Two more things, One is that anywhere is a good place for subways if your Sims are really good and two the beautiful vista is really a useless moodlet, because you can only access it at home, and unless you can get an increase in job performance at home it really isn't that helpful. Whew I got all that done in one post.

[banded]

I actually find beautiful vista more useful than people think. being a self employed guitar player I actually spend a lot of time at home providing I'm not maxing a career like the stylist career for a neat perk (like at the moment) but When I was in sunset valley I made a pretty good replica of carls ironwood house and raised my tips level to 3000 outside in the garden. beutiful vista would have been a lifesaver back then because I was buying the best spa package once every week just to keep my over strained sim happy. considering I'm thinking of doing the exploit with every instrument just to say I have I think that the beautiful vista moodlet would be very useful indeed. secondly, when tilted at the right angle, it is actually a pretty nice view of bridgeport in the garden. 

[banded]

Also about what you said about any subway being good, I didn't just move to brideport for the tips, I was getting bored of SV and bridgeport looks cool and has pre made bars and clubs which don't look out of place like they do when placed in SV.

[Frey]

I would be happy to take up the gardening activity if wildredchild isn't working on it anymore. What I need to know is... can I use a level 10 gardener to do this? and can I sell the vegetables in the consignment store or should I do it in the grocery store?

I'm kind of confused though because money earning can be very influenced by traits and LTR and skill level.

EDIT: just realized that the consignment store might be problematic since it doesn't always provide a detail about what you sold and for how much. It wouldn't necessary allow me to get simoleans/hour of different plants, for example.

Oh, and I could do fishing if gardening is not available. My sim is also a level 10 fisher.

[Yarakisagoa]

The best ranking? I dont think so . The best way you like, maybe. I like to make money from board breaking, it's really funny. And with the learn relic hunter ltr, my sim can get 2-4 soulpeace, rainbow, tiberium, or pink diamond pretty easy per day (spend 4 hours per day actually)

[Hosfac]

The best ranking? I dont think so . The best way you like, maybe.

Actually, this thread is more about the actual profit gained than it is about what people like doing (although they may often coincide).  If you noticed, a lot of people provided some numeric values, which is a tad bit more scientific than simply naming off items they got .

But, feel free to experiment so you can provide some numbers yourself, along with any information pertinent to your experiment (like game hours spent breaking rocks, skill level of the sim, traits and LTR that may influence profit, or anything else you might think would help the process), and I'm sure you'll get due credit for your findings.  Nobody here claims to know all there is to know about the Sims, so we're always open to new ways of doing things.

Personally, I like the Martial Arts skill.  Next to Photography, it is my favorite skills to train.  So, I'd be genuinely interested to see what you could come up with in this respect.  Likewise, I'm sure we'd all find it very helpful overall.

And welcome to the forums!

[Yarakisagoa]

Oh. I'm sorry. I dont mean it, you know (insult, mock...), my English is not good. It's hard to say what I'm thinking of. Sorry if you (or I) get it the wrong way .

Personally, I think there is many activities to make (alot of) money. Like you can sell 2 masterpieces from painting per day (about 6-10k if luck), masterpices from writing (not trying this yet, but i read somewhere that this is a good way too), sell some worth photos, gems, fish... So I think there is no-best (makes the best profits). That's all .

And for the record, I like photography too (a good way to make money too, I spent 3 days in Egypt, get the shot, back home, consign some photo, and get the money, about 10-30k ). It's (so) hard to complete all the albums (I think it's impossible since there is so, so many, many pictures to get, also glitch, bug...), but I'll try to archive this in a far far future (I've completed 5 albums out of it, yeah!).

P/s: I'm sorry. Like i told you, my English is not good .

[Hosfac]

Oh, no offense interpreted on my behalf.  I was only joking around.  But your English is a lot better that you give it credit for it, because I wouldn't have guessed that it wasn't your first language from your post.  I would have been more obvious about joking had I realized that, and I apologize if I appeared offended.

While others here may have already realized it, I had no idea that the "Learned Relic Hunter" LTR could affect gem values from space rock breaking.  It simply never occurred to me that it might.  So I was actually trying to encourage you to post some numbers because I was curious as to how much effect it actually had.  You don't have to...but I can hope.    I'll definitely try this out with my next Martial Artist, though.

Like I said:  I don't believe there is anyone here who would try to claim that they have Sims 3 all figured out.  Especially not me. 

[Yarakisagoa]

Actually, 'Learn Relic Hunter' doesnt affect the gems value, but my sims have a better chance to get the higher value gems out of space rock.

[MissPlumbBob]

I was surprised to learn how much a guitar player could make. 

Useful for anyone who does this year's tournament challenge "Here's a Tip: Party Like a Rockstar!", I guess.

[TheChronicR]

I was surprised to learn how much a guitar player could make. 

Useful for anyone who does this year's tournament challenge "Here's a Tip: Party Like a Rockstar!", I guess.

The exploit is banned in the challenge actually.

[Schipperke]

Actually, 'Learn Relic Hunter' doesnt affect the gems value, but my sims have a better chance to get the higher value gems out of space rock.

I've never bothered with the Learned Relic Hunter LTR because I thought it mainly affected relics you found in the travel destinations, and travel is so buggy in my game that my Sims rarely go anywhere.  But if that LTR really does give your Sim a higher chance of getting valuable gems from space rocks, that would make the LTR a lot more interesting to me.  Who has experience with this?  Can anyone confirm that Learned Relic Hunter increases the chance of getting valuable gems when breaking space rocks?

[Margerita]

Shipperke I can test that for you, in my immortal dynasty gen 3 spends most of her time at the beardbreaker and since Learned Relic Hunter is one of my free for all rewards I'll just go and get it and see if it has any effects

[Schipperke]

Shipperke I can test that for you, in my immortal dynasty gen 3 spends most of her time at the beardbreaker and since Learned Relic Hunter is one of my free for all rewards I'll just go and get it and see if it has any effects

Thank you, Margerita!  I'll be looking forward to hearing your findings.  Also, it may be something for Carl to add to the Guide.

[Margerita]

The first part of my research regarding how much effect Learned Relic Hunter has on beard breaking gems is done. During one week my little boardbreaker got :

Alabaster - 12
Torquoise - 11
quartz - 11
diamond - 10
Opal - 9
Luminous gem - 9
Emerald - 9
Smithsonite - 9
Ruby - 9
Tiberium - 8
Pink diamond - 7
Soulpeace gem - 7
Rainbow gem - 7
Geode - 7
Yellow Sapphire - 7
Vampire's Eye - 6
Septarian Nodule -6
Lapis Lazuli - 6
Smokey quartz - 6
Tanzanite - 5
Amethyst - 5
Fluorite palmstone - 4
Citrine - 4
Blue topaz - 3
Jade - 2

Very nice amount indeed and I also found out that Carl has forgotten to add the two gems that came with Late Night to the gem section of the guide.
Now I'm going to take a break from counting gems for a day or two and then I'll see how a sim without Learned Relic Hunter does and if there are any differences at all.

[Margerita]

Ok none-Learned Relic Hunter (LRH for short later in the post) is done with her boardbreaking.
The result of that sim week is as follows:

Soulpeace gem - 11
Tiberium - 9
Septarian Nodule - 9
Yellow sapphire - 9
Fluorite palmstone - 8
Diamond - 8
Lapis lazuli - 8
Pink diamond - 7
Opal - 7
Vampire's Eye - 7
Luminous gem - 7
Torquoise - 7
Quartz - 7
Rainbow gem - 6
Alabaster - 6
Citrine - 6
Geode - 5
Smithsonite - 5
Tanzanite - 4
Amethyst - 4
Ruby - 3
Blue topaz - 3
Jade - 2
Emerald - 2
Smokey quartz - 2

Ok looking it over the none LRH sim got 145 gems while the one with LRH got 168 gems. Seems like the one with LRH got more gems, but that sim has also broken alot more boards.
The sim without LRH got 4 more Soulpeace gems, 1 more Tiberium, 4 more Fluorite palmstone.
No difference between the amount of Pink diamonds, both got 7.
The sim with LRH got 2 more Opals, 1 more Rainbow gem.
The sim without LRH had a percentage of 7,58% for getting Soulpeace gems, 6,20% for getting Tiberium, 5,51% for Fluorite palmstones, 4,82% for Pink diamonds and Opals, 4,13% for getting Rainbow gems.
The sim with LRH had a percentage of 5,35% for Opals, 4,76% for Tiberium, 4,16 for Pink diamonds, Soulpeace gems and Rainbow gems, 2,38% for Fluorite palmstones.

Seems like the difference from getting LRH isn't very big since getting the high lvl gems is rather random as it is.
I could continue to give percentages for how big/small the percentages was for getting each game, but not right now...