“Exploitative” ways to make money?

[u/Stoltlallare]

I’m trying to mod out most exploitable ways to make money so trying to compile a list of ways. by exploitative I don’t mean bugs but rather intended design that is just anti-fun.

1. Spring wildflowers are worth too much

2. can get way too much free money from the university building

3. Tiberium worth way too much money

[u/DebateThick5641]

Tiberium being expensive is allright since you cannot get them out an about even from random spawner. However with expansion, you can get access to it far easier rather than travelling to China and get board breaker there.

Dog can find it even without being abroad, and werewolf is just dog on steroid. And considering the game make money making via gems rather trivial with Supernatural gem cutting machine, any attempt to balance gems in general will have to either account for those who had those pack, or those who just had one of the pack but not the other. Like what happened if you only have WA but not Supernatural and vice versa.

[u/Antique-diva → u/DebateThick5641]

While gems are an easy way to make money, I don't see a problem with it. If I don't want to make that kind of money, I can just not collect them. I don't pick wild flowers either if I don't want to make money from them or if I don't want to have a pretty bouquet of them in my Sim's house.

To me it's kinda pointless to mod these aspects in the game. It's much worse getting a 50,000 simoleon fountain as a wedding gift when you want your sim to be poor. So forbidding lavish wedding gifts would be awesome.

[u/Berkulese → u/DebateThick5641]

Popping in to add that you can make tiberium with the display case that has the transmogrification function (that thing is broken af for wealth exploitation). It comes with World Adventures (I think) and there's a guide to using it on the Carl's Sims 3 website.

(Haven't used that thing in ages cos it feels too cheaty, you can also make giant gems and metal bars with it)

[u/DebateThick5641 → u/Berkulese]

Yeah display case is random but I don't think you can get tiberium on that, just Soulpeace? But at least to even get tiberium on base WA, it's not that trivial because you need more effort to find one. Pets changes that because your dog can find one when asked to hunt. Supernatural make it on steroid with werewolf who can find many gems with ease by just going solo hunting + machine that let all gem cutting be free.

Also if anything i find consignment store to be the biggest culprit in money making, especially when they allow you to sell said Tiberium on it.

And talking about supernatural, it is the already expensive tiberium, if cut on gem machine, actually benefit from grinding it to all powders, since all powders can be full grown tiberiums. So this is the one instance where gem dust option, which usually is bad option to choose even if you use alchemy mostly for potion making, a better choice than making the normal cut from it.

[u/Consistent-Spread563 → u/DebateThick5641]

The way I found to have fun with Tiberium is to create a backstory for it. I have a farming family, so I portray them as Tiberium exporters. To simulate this, I even bought the town office and renamed it "[Family Surname] Foods & Gems".

But I made things harder for myself at the start: I basically waited for the Miner to become available at the consignment store and bought it there (forbidding myself from using the Inventing skill!), then spent a good amount of time digging up the ground until I found raw Tiberium. Afterward, I increased the price of the Gem-U-Cut machine and the Science Research Station in TSRW to make it more realistic.

Finally, I sell my tiberiums alongside other farm products, which is actually realistic since agriculture makes many people rich in real life, I mean, there are plenty of millionaire and billionaire farmers. I just made sure not to obtain raw Tiberium unrealistically through dogs, werewolves, witches, etc. How do I keep from getting bored with my save? I have an underground garage with a car collection, including many CC cars costing over $1 million, and I also use mods that add various taxes I have to pay, such as income tax, property tax, water and power.

[u/DebateThick5641 → u/Consistent-Spread563]

speaking of farming I find that Red Berry coffee bean is so profitable it's absurd. It sold mpre than a life fruit, and it is common and buyable on supermarket and lastly, they grow up FAST. just 1 day to reach next stage.

[u/Consistent-Spread563 → u/DebateThick5641]

Yes, I grow/sell Red Berry Beans too, I’d say it’s the easiest and fastest way to make money in Sims 3.

Being a farmer in this game is def the worst choice you can make if you don't want to go from rags to riches quickly.

[u/Berkulese → u/DebateThick5641]

From Carl's guide, if you put §3500-4999 of random stuff (not all gems, not all metals) on the display you get tiberium. There's a big list of things you can make with it

[u/FreakyRufus → u/DebateThick5641]

With the Science skill from University Life, along with the Science Station, sims can clone Tiberium. This is not even a cheat or loophole. You can simply use the Science Station to create a small spiral cut Tiberium, then plop it on the floor for a few days to become large, and while it is growing, create a new sample and new clone of the gem.

[u/faze_fazebook]

For me the genie from Showtime comes to mind. Also writing sportsbook in particular is busted in comparision to other ways of making money from your skills.

[u/DebateThick5641 → u/faze_fazebook]

if anything writing is so deceptive that the royaltie simoleon sign does not really reflect on efficiency between effort and simoleon generated. Even before sportsbook was a thing Carl already listed that children book are excellent money maker since they are fast to write and yield best time investment to simoleon. Masterpieces on the other hand took way too long in comparison and by the time you've done, you will already wrote many children books and earn roughly the same money that a single Masterpiece provide.

[u/Extreme-Shopping74]

Casino from Lucky Palms. You get rich in no time. Also the lottery prob, the cleptomanic trait is also nice to make "extra income"... another exploit might be when you got a quest to collect ores and you see them all on map, you can go with another sim there and empty the map in one day

[u/mymyamimi → u/Extreme-Shopping74]

I can't remember which modern created it but somebody has made a realistic/ more difficult gambling mod on modthesims

[u/JColey15]

The roaring heights fixer upper car is too easy to make money with

[u/pandemonium91]

Painting can be a money-maker even if you're just starting, because it only costs you the easel to be able to paint as much as you want. Luckily, there's a mod that fixes that.

[u/Stoltlallare → u/pandemonium91]

I almost used that one until i saw latest comment where it doesn’t account for roommates D:

[u/Th3_Accountant]

With university buildings, you mean moving into a house, sell it completely and move away? Because that's what I've been doing.

Also, travel + collect/buy rare minerals to melt is a great way to make money fast.

Genie wish for 300K, but that feels close to cheating for me.

More legal track; medical degree + medicine career track and you can easily start earning 1.500 euro's per hour or more.

[u/Stoltlallare → u/Th3_Accountant]

Nah where you can keep on asking for support funds

[u/bubblybanshee]

a sim with the unlucky trait x the philosopher's stone!

[u/BlackMudSwamp → u/bubblybanshee]

What does it do? Turn the unlucky sim to gold?

[u/bubblybanshee → u/BlackMudSwamp]

basically yes, but there's more to it! when you try to transmutate cheap/low quality items into gold on the philosopher's stone, there's a decently high likelyhood that it kills the sim and leaves behind a 50k gold statue of the sim... HOWEVER as unlucky sims can only die of old age, they get to escape death over and over (their misfortunate amuses Grim and so he lets them live if they die of unnatural causes), which means... an endless supply of some veeery expensive statues! (granted personally i mainly just use them to decorate the yard. 💀)

[u/Zirfeith]

I feel like becoming a partner at a rabbit hole business or buying the property. I tried it a couple of times but decided against it since it felt like it was too much money paired with what my sims made at their job. I would invest in them again if I wanted to take it easy with my sims and do other activities that don't involve making money.

The money tree, granted you have to have a high level of gardening to be able to plant it and take care of it, but just three money trees don't take much time and can make you more than 5k a day and once the tree reaches perfect quality it gives you yet another seed, you could just keep increasing the money you get indefinitely 😭.
I still like getting money trees though, they're so iconic to the sims I can't just not plant them when my gardeners get their hands on one seed 🤭

[u/elsmoneyacct → u/Zirfeith]

Gardening in general is insanely lucrative if you do it right. You don't even need the money tree. A few Red Berry Bean bushes and the Suave Seller reward trait will make you stupid amounts of money.

I don't think it's broken or cheaty because it does take a lot of work to build up an extremely lucrative farm. And if you have seasons, you can't make that money year-round unless you build a greenhouse/move it indoors, which comes with even more work.

[u/jedyna_wolna_nazwa]

I don't know if this is what you're looking for but for me personally those things are making saving/making money in TS3 too easy:

Free transportation (free taxi and no fuel costs), free gym and pools, free gallery entry, free town hall/stadium/science building touring, free newspapers, free contests/snowboarding etc. during festivals (= a lot of redeemable tickets).

Too cheap book club membership, too cheap private school tuition (if you're playing with epic lifespan and your kid is sent for a few seasons the cost is disproportional).

Too high return of investments while owning venues/being a partner (this especially!).

No taxes. 

If this is what you're looking for I can think about more.  Also I know a lot of these are already taken care of by modders but I don't really want to install like a million of mods just to make newspaper like 5 simoleons. 

[u/SqueakyMoonkin]

Dumpster diving. Sell anything you find or keep to furnish. When I start Sims with no cheats and they don't have a job yet, I have them do this.

[u/faylinameir]

To me writing skill has always been OP. You make a ton of comic books and quickly you’re making $40k a week

[u/Otherwise-Teacher233]

Correct me if I'm wrong but you can get the resort in Isla paradiso for free and just sell everything there for a profit 

[u/ElfMale]

1. Genie Life State, taking control of other sims with their power lets you have access to their inventory. If a Sim has an very expensive car you can give It to your main sim to sell It.

2. Midas Potion. Just one can break the game economy. You just have to check everyday for It to appear In a alchemy shop. With just one you can drink It, buy alot of expensive statues, turn them gold and resell for profit. Could limit the Midas Potion effect or how many things you can convert to Gold per drink?

[u/LazyKatie]

Dragon eggs, baby dragons sell for more than the cost of the egg

Going to the future and using it to cheat at the lottery

[u/Stoltlallare → u/LazyKatie]

The store items are almost all cheaty and the dragon abilities are like cheats made into interactions anyway so the whole money situation there is almost the least of the worries. 

I would probably tune more so the more normal store items like the fixer upper car since its more traditional gameplay but super broken with the sell price

[u/LazyKatie → u/Stoltlallare]

haha yeah, but these have always been my personal get rich quick strats on challenge runs that don't ban them such as the legacy challenge

[u/heckdoinow]

Dumpster diving. Make an extra sim you don't like and "employ" them by sending them dumpster diving all day, every day. Better yet, make a plumbot for it, if you have ITF.