Sims 4 Gameplay Hints and Tips

[MarianT]

When musicians try to write a song, it can be hard to cancel the action. Sending them somewhere else on the map works.

After a musician has started writing a song, you can find the sheet music in their inventory. You can click on that to resume song-writing. This action is easier to cancel, but still tricky. I've found that queuing up a phone call to someone always cancels the action, whereas queuing up a shower, getting a meal, or using the toilet only works sometimes.

My sim couldn't license the first song she completed, but this might not have been the first song she started. After she licensed the first song, the option to license a song was greyed out. However, I noticed that when she finished a third song, there was a jump in her royalties.

I've also noticed that there is a thin ring around the activity a sim is working on -- a song or book being written, or a picture being painted (or a meal being eaten). A green line in that ring indicated how much progress your sim has made.

[Dellena]

You can online license one song per instrument at a time.  The license runs for a week and then you can apply for another license.  So you could license a violin, guitar and piano song all at the same time, but not mutiple guitar songs, etc.

[Franki]

If you need to mentor a child several times for a task, just start to mentor the child, give it a few sim minutes, cancel and do the same again until you have done however many the task asks for, it counts as a new one each time you cancel and restart the mentor. If you have autonomy turned off you can get 30 done in about 20 human minutes.

[dnagirl]

When having a conversation with another Sim, place your cursor over their photo in the small relationship/convo window that pops up in the top center of the screen.  This will tell you any traits and relationships you have discovered about that Sim.

I kept going to the relationship tab on the bottom right of the screen then having to scroll all the way through the Sims my Sim had a relationship with to find out the traits.  This is much, much easier.

[MarianT]

If your teen gets an A in high school, he or she starts at level 3 of a career; a B student starts at level 2 (at least that was the case for my twins).

[_Annika_]

Be careful which online charity you donate to. It could be a scam. My sim donated to the dragon-dinosaur one, and got the sad moodlet because the money was lost to an online scam.

[Dellena]

For my teenager, once he got to an A, I make sure he does his homework and then use Slack Off at school and he comes home with a full fun bar ready to do other stuff.  As long as he does the homework, his performance doesn't drop even though he slacks off all day.

[Dublin]

Buy a garbage can and keep it outside.Have your sim kick it,and leave it until the garbage plant grows.

[Marishkah]

Garbage plant?  I think that is a new one on me lol
So you get garbage from the plant I assume? lol

[MeestorMark]

Don't know if anyone else has figured this out with garbage yet, but it is pretty cool. We all know you can rummage through the garbage for upgrade parts. Then it turns to a pile that you can just throw away.

But.... if you immediately cancel the throw away action once the sim picks it up in a bag, the new trash pile on the floor will become rummagable (is that a word, ) again. You can really collect a lot of upgrade parts this way on the cheap, specially if your sim is high enough in the handiness trait to always get a rare part.

[Marishkah]

Ah thanks for the tip on rummaging through trash!  I will have my Sim try that next time she repairs anything.

[ManiSims]

For my teenager, once he got to an A, I make sure he does his homework and then use Slack Off at school and he comes home with a full fun bar ready to do other stuff.  As long as he does the homework, his performance doesn't drop even though he slacks off all day.

Thanks for that tip! In my house full of 7 teenage Sims, this will definitely help!

[billythegreat]

If you have a neat sim DO NOT give him the fast cleaning trait from the reward shop. The neat sim when cleaning will get a powerful +2 happiness  for 8 hours. With the reward shop trait he/she will not get it anymore cuz he clean too fast.

[Franki]

If you give birth to twins and one disappears on you, send your adult sims out of the house (babies go to day care) give it a couple of sim minutes and then return home, the missing baby should now appear in the house.

[Tigerskin]

In the Secret Agent career, after a certain level you can run an "instant background check on (a sim)". It told me two of her traits and that she liked Baked Alaska - Eliza Pancake FYI.

Not sure what level it appears but my sim is currently level 8 Spy Captain (In Diamond Agent Branch).