Can you get a specific tomb relic back after an 'oopsie'?

[Nataruma]

Hi guys!

Been playing Adventures for a while now, and the other day a peculiar bug has created a hole in my relic collection. 

While moving things around in the house and refurbishing my collection dungeon, I placed relics into my family inventory since it made it easier than shifting to live mode while decorating. Well, at some point while trying to place them in display cases again, the clicking action corrupted the stacks and I couldn't place more than one relic of each type; the french tomb collection and chinese tomb collection relics specifically. So I shut down the game completely and started again, but now I only have the single relics that I managed to place, the other two relics that were in a stack each are gone! No longer in the family inventory or anywhere else in the house. 

I've tried to read up on the bug, and from what I've managed to find (sadly not much), it seems to happen from time to time while playing adventures and accessing the family inventory. Well as they say in Champs les Sims, c'est la vie.

My question however is regarding the 'unique' named relics I had:

When you explore a certain tomb fully, you get rewarded with the relic named after that particular tomb and it completes a relic collection (usually found in the last few chest in a tomb). Now, I still have credit for the 'missing/deleted' pieces, so I will complete the collection regardless, but I would have liked to display them physically as well. Will I be able to find these tomb-specific relics again? Will they be available from the relic merchant? Archeology? Other tombs/temples in the same country? Just a confirmation that any of these relics have been spotted outside of where you would naturally find them (i.e. inside the actual tombs/temples) would give me hope that I might stumble across them again!

[seekhunt]

First of. The specific collection relics is only found not bought i think. the shops only have "minor" normal relics etc. that you find any where. So i dont think you will have your luck there.

Now my first though of helping you would might be to try a backup save. every save game you have, have a backup as well.
But the question can be that the backup as a little old. so you might need to do some gameplay again before your "up to date" BUT if your bust in you save now it might be the way to go.

SO in your documents folder where your "ea" / sims folder is.
normaly : C:\Users\"your name"\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves

you will have all your save there, including your backup save. SO when you locate your newest save game, or the one you just want to use to be sure its before you lost anything you take the backup file named "what-you-called-it".backup
Now take your normal save game and put it some where safe. and then delete the .backup ffrom the file or folder you have left.
this will now be your "new" save game and you can load that one in the game and play from there, hopefully before you lost your relics 

hope this help a little:-)

[Nataruma]

Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately, I have saved after this incident happened as I continued to play which is why I'm not sure if this method will work or not. I suppose alternatively I could try to do the tombs with his partner, and then he can get the relics that were lost. Would that work too? Unless the tombs are fully explored for ALL sims in one family if one of them goes on vacation.

My active sim at the time visited these places alone, without accompaniment, so as of yet his partner hasn't traveled or done any adventuring at all.

[Iseran]

Since the game "cheated" you of your relics, perhaps you'll find it justified to cheat to get them back.

Open the cheat console and type "testingcheatsenabled true" at the main window, before you reload your saved game.  Then, once you're in your game, go to buy mode, open the cheat console, and type "buydebug on".  In the categories view in Buy mode, you'll see a new question mark category.  Under Tomb Objects (I think), you can find all the collectible relics.  Put back the ones you know you used to have and you're back in business.

Edit: I'm not sure if they will count as having been collected by you with this cheat.  Do they still show up in your Adventure Journal?

Later Edit:  See wildredchild's comment below: the collectible Sigils, Symbols, and Signets cannot be purchased.  Thanks to w. for the clarification.

[Nataruma]

Edit: I'm not sure if they will count as having been collected by you with this cheat.  Do they still show up in your Adventure Journal?

Thank you for your suggestion! I will most definitely give that a try!

To answer your question, they show up in my adventuring journal as having been collected already, so as I said in my post it already counts the fact that I have picked them up, they're just not physically with my sim any longer.

[RockinRobin]

Another thing you might try is to move the display case and see if the relics somehow fell underneath them. This happened to me once and I thought the relic was gone. Later on down the road when I was redecorating and decided to move the display case to a different part of the room, the relic was underneath it.

[Nataruma]

Another thing you might try is to move the display case and see if the relics somehow fell underneath them. This happened to me once and I thought the relic was gone. Later on down the road when I was redecorating and decided to move the display case to a different part of the room, the relic was underneath it.

A possibility for anyone having a similar problem, however I think in my case it's a bit different. It's as if the game was getting confused and refusing to place what it seemed to think were duplicates of one relic as opposed to two separate relics in a relic stack, so when it placed one, it wouldn't place another and I couldn't use my cursor to select the second one. Very strange bug, very annoying too, as it will corrupt your sim inventories after that and won't allow you to pick up, move, or separate any stacked items. Only a complete game exit will stop it, quitting to menu and reloading won't help.

[Pam]

Unfortunately, I have saved after this incident happened as I continued to play

The game saves two copies of your game:  Your current save and the one previous.  We have a post of instructions that walks you through the steps to recover the earliest save:  http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=6.new;topicseen#new

[seekhunt]

Exactly pam.

Maybe I did not tell that part good enough :-D
But yes your backup save is not just an "extra" save but a save before your "normal" save therefore it could be a good idea just to try the idea and at least see if that helps you.

And did not know you also could buy your relics in the buy mode, but that's a good idea to try as well :-)

[romagia]

actually, in my game, the egyptian relic merchant sold once a collection dropa stone; it was contemporany, and i already had it... but it's possible for the relic merchant to sell collection relics

[Nataruma]

Thanks for the suggestion guys!

Here's an update on what I've tried:

I restored a backup save, but unfortunately it didn't solve my problem, since it was backed up after the relics had disappeared  

I tried the debug buy mode suggested earlier, but that doesn't show the specific types of relics, just the models for them that you can place in your house, which I doubt would add to the moodlet you get for displaying a complete collection. Neat trick to know if you need to replace accidentally deleted sarcophagi and various other bits and pieces you may have lost but want to regain.

@romagia: Thank you! I just wanted to know if these relics do crop up elsewhere other than in the dungeons they belong and I believe they do, but wasn't sure.

Another possible solution for this, which might be a long way around, but you could create a new game from scratch with a 'dummy sim' get the statues you lost by sending them to do the appropriate adventures, send them home, go into edit town mode, save a copy of them and their household or just a copy of them assuming the relics are in their inventory, then load up your original save and import that 'dummy' sim into your household with the lost relics, put relics on display, delete 'dummy' sim, et voila! I dunno if this will work, but I'll give it a try and see.

Long way, but I thought hard about solutions and all is not lost! It'll just take time to get them back again

Thanks so much for all who replied and helped!

[wildredchild]

Clarification

You can only get the Tomb Collection Relics by completing the tombs.  You can NOT buy them or find them anywhere else.  Other relics can be found again and bought but not the specific Tomb Collection Relics (ie, Sigils, Symbols, and Signets)

[Nataruma]

Ahh! Okay then, that clarifies that.

Which brings me to the method I suggested earlier.

I tried creating a new save game, created my 'dummy' sim, cheated to get the statues I lost, then saved a copy of the 'dummy' sim (with the relics in his inventory) to the household tray. I loaded my original save, merged the 'dummy' sim into my family, then placed the relics on display directly from his backpack. It worked, so they're back!  

All I need to verify later, when I've received the other relics to officially complete the collections, whether they will give the moodlet or not, though in all honesty I don't see why not.

An interesting side note, through 'dummy' sim's exploration, he ran into a couple of the dangerous creature collectibles in France. My original sim had not discovered that particular type before, so I figured I'd see what happened if I placed it in the house. And discovered that it will not register as being discovered for another sim. The sim will have to discover them himself to unlock the collection achievement, although I dare say they would still work in creating the moodlet, but I'll have to see later when I've done more adventuring.

I will update with what I discover!

I hope this thread will help people who have run into the same problem and want their relics back.

[Iseran]

Clarification

You can only get the Tomb Collection Relics by completing the tombs.  You can NOT buy them or find them anywhere else.  Other relics can be found again and bought but not the specific Tomb Collection Relics (ie, Sigils, Symbols, and Signets)

Thanks for this comment!  I have edited my suggestion above so that people reading this thread in the future won't be mislead.