New Gem, Metal, and Gem Cut

[Royaca]

I was having one of my sims break space rocks for gems, and I noticed a new gem called fluorite and it was worth somewhere in the 400 simoleons range. It has a light purplish-gray color uncut, and cut it has a pretty purple and aqua color when cut. While I was getting those gems cut, I noticed a new cut called Sculptor's Egg Cut (for 175 simoleons), and I cut an opal with it. The original price of the opal was 422, and cut with the new cut it was worth 1,266, so it has a x3 multiplier. I'm not really sure how you get the cut, or if you start off with it, but I have a prediction that you might get it when a sculpted item breaks (and you get a gem?). In the next few days, when I was sculpting, I got another fluorite, and a woohooium ore. The woohooium, unsmelted, is worth at least 500 simoleons, but I'm not sure how much it's worth smelted since I was on vacation and it came back smelted really close to it's original worth. I have no idea if you can get any of these from transfiguring, but I'm sure the original rules work for making them big.


Sculptor's Egg cut opal

Heart-shaped cut fluorite

Sculptor's Egg cut fluorite (It looks like a dragon egg!)

Woohooium ingot (I love the heart where the plumbob usually is.)

[Pam]

All of this information is confirmed in the Prima Guide. Also, the Sculptor's Egg is available right away. That new gem is gorgeous, by the way!

[wildredchild]

Pam, I am not getting the Sculptor's Egg cut.  Do my Sims have to be sculptors to get it?

[Pam]

Well, this is very interesting. I just went gem collecting for the first time in Twinbrook, and I don't get the Sculptor's Egg cut either. I checked the Prima Guide again and it definitely says it's available right away. We'll just have to figure this out as we go. When anyone gets some definite information, please post it here.

[Valadhiel]

Maybe it depends on your collecting "skill"?

[Calgary_Rose]

Has anyone read the description for Woohooium and tested the implied effect?

Edited to add:  I mean the in-game description, not the Prima guide one.  I don't even have the guide yet.  Hover over a single chunk or ingot of the metal in your Sim's inventory to see the description I mean.

[Jimbob0i0]

Well, this is very interesting. I just went gem collecting for the first time in Twinbrook, and I don't get the Sculptor's Egg cut either. I checked the Prima Guide again and it definitely says it's available right away. We'll just have to figure this out as we go. When anyone gets some definite information, please post it here.

Wouldn't be the first time the prima guide got something wrong.... there are so many mistakes in the base TS3 guide and world adventures it gets a bit silly at times....

I kind of excused the TS3 one seeing as EA massively postponed the game and it could have changed quite a bit from the game code prima worked with to the release date given that prima had the guide ready for the original release but when postponed the developers continued work on it... (eg the cold shower upgrade and silent dishwasher off the top of my head...)

I was hoping the WA guide would be more accurate given there was no delay for that so they should have been writing to near final game code... and yet there were definitely mistakes in the WA section and they just incorporated all the wrong info from before in it rather than take the opportunity to revise it to be correct....

So far as the sculptor's egg is concerned at any rate however... I worked on inventing before sculpting and when I was searching the map for gems to get the heart cut for the level 10 inventing opportunity (never did find a pink diamond in Twinbrook.... got one in the end from mining with the driller but that didn't appear to count towards my 'gems found' total so I had to go on holiday to discover enough gems to make the '10 gems discovered' challenge complete for the heart cut)  and I definitely didn't have the egg cut when I did that. At some point in sculpting (I can't say exactly what level... but it wasn't due to a broken sculpture as I haven't had a broken sculpture yet) the egg cut became available. All I can say is that I had the egg cut on my sim at sculptures at level 5 or less as I cut gems at that point for something else and I had the egg cut then...

[Pam]

I think that the Prima Guide is probably written when the game is still in Beta testing. The stuff in the Prima Guide is probably accurate when they write it, but EA makes changes at the last minute before releasing the game. There wouldn't be time for the Prima Guide to get everything 100% because they have their own deadlines for writing, printing, etc. in order to have their guide available on the release date of the game. I don't hold it against them and it's definitely better than nothing when running a Forum like ours, but we always keep in mind that the information may not be completely accurate.

[Branr]

I think that the Prima Guide is probably written when the game is still in Beta testing. The stuff in the Prima Guide is probably accurate when they write it, but EA makes changes at the last minute before releasing the game. There wouldn't be time for the Prima Guide to get everything 100% because they have their own deadlines for writing, printing, etc. in order to have their guide available on the release date of the game. I don't hold it against them and it's definitely better than nothing when running a Forum like ours, but we always keep in mind that the information may not be completely accurate.

Oh, I have found misspellings (page 160, they can't spell THIEF??), Career tables with wrong information (not as in "it was updated since written", but as in "the information is for another career": page 141, the career rewards listed for the Architect are for the Investigator).  There is some useful information, but it definitely not worth full price.  Of course I only paid $5 for it (had a $10 gift certificate that was about to expire).

Edit: just checked the Prima forums and found this:

On page 141 of the guide, the rewards for the Architectural Design career are listed incorrectly. The actual rewards for this career path are as follows:

Action_________________________Reward_________________________XP Reward
Complete 5 Jobs------------------Architectural Designer's Honor Trophy-------100
Complete 25 Jobs-----------------Architectural Designer's Valor Trophy--------200
Complete 50 Jobs-----------------Architectural Designer's Medal---------------300
Reach Level 10-------------------Architectural Designer's Key to the Town-----100
Complete 15 Jobs at Level 10------Empirical Building Model---------------------500

We apologize for the confusion and we hope this clears things up.

[ik]

On page 141 of the guide, the rewards for the Architectural Design career are listed incorrectly. The actual rewards for this career path are as follows:

Action_________________________Reward_________________________XP Reward
Complete 5 Jobs------------------Architectural Designer's Honor Trophy-------100
Complete 25 Jobs-----------------Architectural Designer's Valor Trophy--------200
Complete 50 Jobs-----------------Architectural Designer's Medal---------------300
Reach Level 10-------------------Architectural Designer's Key to the Town-----100
Complete 15 Jobs at Level 10------Empirical Building Model---------------------500

We apologize for the confusion and we hope this clears things up.

Do you know if this kind of career reward list for all professions is available online? Unfortunately my guide probably won't get here until the end of the month, and I would really like to know if my firefighter has collected all available rewards before switching her to another profession.

[Sarah]

Pam, I am not getting the Sculptor's Egg cut.  Do my Sims have to be sculptors to get it?

Going out on a limb, it sounds as though your Sim would need to know the Sculpting skill up to a certain level? My Sim I've chosen to sculpt is only level 3 so far, not seen it yet.

Has anyone read the description for Woohooium and tested the implied effect?

What's the description? I won't have much Sims-time the next few days and that's made me all interested lol

[Esther1981]

Cool! I knew there was a reason I took this pic other than the fact I'm obsessed with taking pics of odd things lol But I haven't figured out what it does either  

[Leto85]

I was trying to complete my gem collection now (including the spire cut for every gem) and now I finally have a Fluoride spire cut gem. It weights 335,16 kg and is worth $64.998 simoleons! :O
For those who doesn't know it yet, the egg cut-form is only available for sculpters, no matter how experienced they are with collecting.
Man, I like collecting!

[Esther1981]

Whoa! That's a lot of simoleans! I thought Tiberium was a lot, but now I need to figure out how to get me one of those! How did you do it Leto?

[Pam]

I can confirm that only sculptors can get the Sculptor's Egg cut.  Also, my Sim found a fluourite while using the miner.