Ranking the Best Money-Making Activities

[Jarin]

A fun trick with Tiberium that I stumbled over. It does require Science lv9 and a research machine, but the rewards can be pretty impressive. Get one spire-cut tiberium and plant it in your workshop. This is your "seed" unit. Then alternate "analyzing" it for samples. Then simply clone the samples. You'll get a small already-cut tiberium spire that you can plant to grow.

Combine with the bonus from traits and hocking it at the local swap shop (possibly needs elixir shop, I haven't tried the regular one), and each spire can easily sell for 70,000 simoleans.

[MeestorMark]

Or you can even do better if you get the gem cutter machine that came with Supernatural. Analyze uncut tiberium and clone that. Then when you use the gem cutter to create the small spire cut, you also get a few tiberium gem dust to go with it. The gem dust when placed on the ground will also turn into large spire cut tiberium eventually. So this way you get 2-4 to sell for one cloning, but you have to have Supernatural and have purchased the gem cutting machine as well. But you can cut a whole stack at one time after cloning a bunch. One of my sims has become a tiberium farmer this way. Lol.

[Jarin]

I'd thought of that, but after testing it a bit, I hadn't had any Tiberium dust grow. Does it take longer?

[joker]

 i just want to add that i always got tiberium (80 -90 %) or skull cut by using carter display x (fromWA) 8 slots. and I put  a mix of smelted metals and cut gems (or relics if you want) worth (3500-4999 simeleons) see carl and pam info about gems . then cut the resulted  tiberium  by gem u cut machine to get   tiberium dusts and spire cut tiberium . then put each one in a separated room and dont forget to sell it after 2 days in elixir shop (take samples of it if you have UL)
and if any one need golds (metals) you can purchase the philosopher stone LTR to transform an apple to gold

[Esther1981]

My Tiberium dust always grows within at least 3 days.

[grimnitz]

Hi all, new user here, first post.

After reading through the 9 pages of content and understanding that the metal transmutation seems to be the cash grinder par excellance, I propose the following method which I call “Better Living Through Speculative Alchemy”. 

This method requires Supernatural.
1) Roll a Witch.
2) Buy a bare lot.
3) Go straight to the Elixir Consignment Store.
3) Buy everything.  Repeat.  When your money runs low, buy prioritizing as follows: Books and Recipes, Metals, Potions, Ingredients, always going from Highest to Lowest.
4) Now you are a landowner with no house, and pockets full of bottles and junk.  Now we begin the selling cycle.
   A) Sell the books from your inventory directly into the sell box.  I have found in most cases the buy price is almost always less than the default price.  This restores immediate cash.
   B) Sell back everything except Invigorating Elixirs (regular or Potent, you will need those), and Skill Boosters.  If you have time to kill before the money comes in,  research Alchemy at the station conveniently provided.  You have as of this moment “moved in” to the Alchemy merchant.  The baneful potions I always sell back, but as the investment capital starts piling up I begin stockpiling all the beneficial potions for personal use or to make best friends with celebrities instantly by splashing them with Potent Friendship.  Once the financial padding is in the 5 figure range, you can afford to even hang on to all the materials, especially those tasty bits of Gold, Silver, Iron, Palladium, Mercury… all without leaving the shop!

Needs Management
HUNGER: You are a Witch, remember?  Conjure up a couple of apples to get rid of those hunger pangs.
SOCIAL:  Bomb the Elixir Consignment Vendor Sim with Friendly Text messages.  It will start building your Social Networking skill and social need simultaneously.
BLADDER: The Bathroom is in the corner.  Please put the seat down when you are finished and flush.
HYGIENE: Not much help here, you can live with the stink, or pop by the Gym for a quick shower before returning back to the Shop.
ENERGY:  Invigorating Elixirs while powering through to the next pay cycle (17:00 daily) is better than drinking energy drinks named after unnaturally colored bovines, and no crash!  You should have a couple in your inventory piling up.
FUN:  I don’t think I have ever had to address this need.

SKILLS:  Quaff those potions!  Take a few classes in your down time, you will be able to afford it.  Buy some properties!
Within a couple sim days you should be able to amass anywhere into the 5-6 figure range, enough that you can start stockpiling the utility potions and all ingredients to start bringing your alchemy skill up to 10 and bang out a couple of the skill mastery challenges along the way.  You may never find the ingredients for the exotic potions like Fountain of Youth on the vendor, but in the course of stockpiling you effectively are ageless.  On day 1.  The ingredients that are provided are plenty for making skill boosters, etc.

In a sim week you should have your Alchemy skill maxed or close to it, your Consignment Challenges met and maxed, Metals by the bushel for Transmogrification, potions for every occasion (including the ones requiring pain in the posterior collectible rares), Social Networking (and the perks pertaining) Maxed as long as you have chugged your skill boosters.  No cheats, mods, line commands needed,  just a magic stick and a desire to drink substances made from insects and toxic materials. Enjoy your gateway to prosperity.

[violaine]

Ok, so coming back to less supernatural things, i like writing sport books.

Skilled writer may wrap up a bunch of books (have to test exactly sorry but more as 5 for sure, 7-8 maybe?) and each one is more as 2000 on the day plus same amount every week for 6 weeks...

This writer can wrap up quickly more as 300 000 royalties a week in my experience

Well now it s worth if you like to keep them alive, if you use a normal speed aging and let them die, writers tend to lose all their interest

Works well with medicine career if you dont want to do always the same, doctor are going quickly up 2500/hr (use University to speed up the climbing) only have to had genius-workalkolic traits to the writers traits to make a good and enjoyable money maker who dont touch all these supernatural exotic things

[Shimobe]

Frankly i don't use the guitar exploit - that's pretty much cheating (it's a glitch that was let go to far), plus the process of racking up enough performances is annoying and difficult to automate (and trust me, you'll want to automate it - i had a sim with 10,000 performances once and it was a nightmare)... I've been performing without going into world view or cancelling the queue for some time now and it's much more rewarding... As for it versus the Midas Touch method: yes, buying a guitar is cheaper, but as the post above proves, you can pretty much live and breathe on Alchemy and i'm pretty certain it's way faster to get into the big money (even if timed after prep, not to talk about before). And of course, the other method is not an exploit... I haven't played since Supernatural though, so i think i'd like an update on any cool new money-making methods that came with the last expansions (now that the game is complete)  .

P.S. My doctor's a writer as well , though she earns close to 3.7k from medical (oh, you said an hour, i'm playing vanilla (i.e. no expansions) right now  )...

P.P.S. To the post one post above mine (about Alchemy) what do you mean by "metal transmutation": the transfiguration that came to display cases in W.A., or Midas Touch? Because the former really isn't a big deal (as far as money-making goes at least)...

[LordMagikarp]

1. Guitar
- The most broken money making method ever.....period. No further explanation.
- I'm at only 500 performances and I make 6-10k per tip (Bridgeport subways).

2. Fishing
- Non-baited Deathfish sell for 7-10k each; YES! 7,000-10,000. No Typos. EACH.
- Baited (Angelfish) Deathfish sell for 20k-27k each. YES! 20,000-27,000. EACH.
- I put the Baited Deathfish into Consignment Store; they sell for 50-60k each
- I sell the Non-baited Deathfish straight from my inventory
- Note: I have caught 7,000+ Deathfish; that's why they sell for so much.
- Note: Yes, it took a super duper long time for 7,000+ fish caught. Ultra Speed + Needs Static.
- Note: Before I go to bed (in real life), I move to a new town because moving to a new town means starting on a clean slate. Make a pond; stock pond with Deathfish; Fish as long as possible until I wake up
- Note: No disturbances because you have no friends/friendships with the new town so people don't call you
- Note: To avoid possible Opportunity pop-ups, before you go to bed, just accept Opportunities to fill up the Opportunities' queue that way you won't get more pop-ups

3. Painting
- I'm at 700+ paintings total
- Note: I no longer paint "normal" paintings, only Brilliant and Masterpieces now (been this way since 150-200 total paintings I think)
- Both Brilliant and Masterpiece paintings sell for the same prices which is 9,000-11,000
- Consign the paintings for 20-25k each
- Note: Yes, it took a super duper long time for 700+ paintings. Ultra Speed + Needs Static.

4. Sculpture
- I'm at 1,100 total sculptures
- 1,000 of them are Clay sculptures
- Note: I did not sculpt SPECIFIC sculptures; I sculpted the CONVENIENT way ----> I just clicked "Sculpt" ----> "Clay"; no specific Clay sculptures because that would be a hassle choosing a sculpture each time...
- My clay sculptures sell for 3,000; up to 3,800 for Brilliant; up to 5,600 for Masterpiece
- Consignment for 2x the price!
- Note: Yes, it took a super duper long time for 1,000+ sculptures. Ultra Speed + Needs Static.

5. Writing
- I have all rewards and achievements
- About 250 books read
- About 350 books written (275 Children's Books)
- I am a Children's Books Specialist
- I make 700-950 royalties for Children's Books
- However, I make up to 25,000 royalties for a Masterpiece
- Note: It seems that my Children's Books have capped at 950 royalties (been that for 200+ books)
- Note: Masterpiece royalties seem to be increasing; increased steadily from 15,000 royalties to 25,000 royalties; however, I've only written like 20 of them


Important Note: Because Children's Books have seemingly capped (at 950); it should be assumed that all other novels should cap as well, thus Writing makes less $$$ than the previous skills (Guitar, Fishing, etc) ----> this is in the LONG RUN, not short-term; obviously Writing makes more $$$  than painting, fishing and sculpting at lower levels; but I have proven (or at least have evidence) that fishing, painting, and sculpting [will] surpass writing in $$$ making

6. Nectar Making
- Comes in 6th place because it's a bigger hassle than the previous skill
- You CONSTANTLY have to garden AND make nectar
- Prices don't seem to increase for each bottle you make (unlike for fishing, painting, etc); price only increases if nectar is stored
- Note: I've only made like 200-300 bottles of a single nectar; so I could be wrong in saying that prices don't increase. Someone can comment on this.

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Unknown Rank:

1. Inventing
- In theory, inventing should be 1st or 2nd place because prices DO increase for XXX amount of inventions made
- Thus if you've come to a point where you can sell small widgets for like 10,000 each ----> more profitable because of time spent making a widget ----> making a widget only takes like literally 5 minutes...or not even that (now obviously getting to this point will take a long time....lol...but again, in the theory of infinite, inventing should be first or second place)
- Note: I have not fully tested this out yet (to see how many XXXX widgets you need to make to increase the price of the widget to whatever it may be)

2. Gardening
- Money Trees
- Obviously you can have as many money trees as you want, but obviously you can't collect all the money trees at the same time, thus income per time unit is limited/capped at XXX amount of trees per hour
- Note: I'm not sure if values for Money Bags have a limit/cap; the highest I got to was 1,000 per bag
- If there is a cap to Money Bags, then Gardening isn't a top-tank money maker. Someone can comment on this.

3. Alchemy
- I don't have Supernatural, do I've never done Alchemy
- I THINK potions have caps like veggies, fruits, rocks, and collectibles, but I'm not completely sure. Someone comment on this.
- If prices don't increase, then Alchemy isn't top-rank. And considering there is prep-time to make potions and elixirs. Just time-consuming; another skill will surpass Alchemy during that time spent.

[Schipperke]

It sounds like you've done a very detailed study of money-making techniques, LordMagikarp.  I am familiar with most of them but have never taken the time to work out the details as you have.  Thank you for sharing that information with us! 

And welcome to the forum. 

[LordMagikarp]

Thank you Schipperke.

Update: I just got Supernatural, so I'll test out Alchemy.

[Playalot]

Wow LordMagikarp! You've really done your homework on this! Thanks for all the information, especially the deathfish. I hadn't really thought about the difference between baited and non-baited and 50k at the consignment shop is a great return for a few hours fishing.

[Deklitch]

With Nectar Making, I discovered that the nectar you find/purchase also counts towards your self employed nectar making career, I wasn't sure if it would or not, but I tried it and it did. I got my sim to level 1 in nectar making by reading the lowest level nectar making book, stored the purchased nectar in the basement and went from there.

That is probably something already well known, but it was new to me.

[Serenity S.]

Using Midas Touch feels like cheating to me, so I tell another good one from Supernatural. The Orb of Answers is very good if you want to have more money, but not ridiculous amounts. Just keep asking "Will I become rich" or something like that, until it says "Use the motherlode cheat" and the game gives you 50 000 simoleons without the usage of the said cheat. That's enough to buy a simple house or build one yourself, and if you run out of money, just ask again until game gives you another 50 000. Quick, easy, and not cheat-y.

[Shinigamigurl]

Hands Down- Science Skill- both for the Group Science Project and for the ability to clone

Group Science Project (with a gem cutter on the lot)
You have to do nothing more strenuous than collect the rocks that fall from the sky and cut the gems after. After you cut the Tiberium gem into a spiral cut take it out of your inventory and let it grow. Once it's large enough take it to the consignment store. A single spiral cut Tiberium gem will sell for $60,000+  and for each uncut Tiberium rock you find you will get at least 4 spiral cuts because even the Tiberium gem dust will grow into a large spiral cut. The only time you have to leave your lot is to put the gems up for sale. You can get all the rare metals and gems without having to travel at all.