NRaas Industries

[Hosfac]

Anyone who knows about mods should already know about this site.  Those of you who were on the fence about them, but are considering trying them, might not.

Twallan, the site owner, is one of the best and most responsible modders in the community.  He is knowledgeable about how things work in the game, and his mods are always of the highest quality.  He is quick to update his downloads, and has always been more than happy to address technical issues you have with his mods.

His biggest, and most well known mod is Master Controller.  It's primary purpose is town population management, and gives you complete control over the Sims in your town.  You can manage them individually, by demographics, or even as an entire group.  It allows you to see the status of any Sim, and much more.

The best part about this mod is that it's modular, and has optional mods that are designed to work with it (meaning they won't function without it).  These mods do things like add additional functionality to the original mod (extra cheats), expand the possible tattoo locations, change how CAS works, expand relationships in the family tree, and even offers a more active version of Story Progression that actually tells you what's going on in your town!  Non-active Sims will be more apt to find jobs, get promotions, train skills (where the skill objects are available to them), form relationships, end relationships and move to more reasonable accommodations. 

Two other mods worth mentioning are Overwatch and Error Trap.  Overwatch corrects the common bugs and glitches that plague us all, while Error Trap does clean up on your saves (helping to keep them reasonably sized) and provides error reports that can help to troubleshoot game related issues.

He has far too many mods to really mention in his library, but these are three that I don't play without.

You can find the whole list at NRaas Industries.


To Sign In and Make a New Post at Nraas:

Easiest way found:

1. Sign in or Register using this link: https://www.nraas.net/community
-- Look for Register or Login to the top right of the screen.

2. Click the New Topic button to the left of the Search box in any of the boards, like for example under the word Chatterbox. https://www.nraas.net/community/chatterbox

They do have a FAQ page that has some member information: https://www.nraas.net/community/FAQS

[twallan]

I hear they have some very useful mods there.

Though, if you ask me, the chap that maintains them is kind of a nut.

[Hosfac]

Well, everyone thought Leonardo da Vinci was crazy, but it turned out he was only a genius.  Who would have guessed, right?

Guess it's that perspective thing I've heard so much about lately.  Silly, new-fangled concepts... 

[KJSinclair]

I know that it may be a little exhaustive, but I would really appreciate a run down of what all Twallans mods do, I am currently considering installing one or two, but really I get lost and confused whenever I search for an in depth explanation.

Kindest Regards
KJ

[Seera1024]

I know that it may be a little exhaustive, but I would really appreciate a run down of what all Twallans mods do, I am currently considering installing one or two, but really I get lost and confused whenever I search for an in depth explanation.

Kindest Regards
KJ

If you go to the main page of the site the mods are on, and scroll down about halfway, Twallan gives a one line summary of what each of his mods does. All I would be doing is just copying & pasting what he put so it's best to just direct you to the source. If there's a specific one or a few of them you want a better summary of, post which one(s) and maybe someone can answer your questions about them.

[KJSinclair]

I know, I have visited the website and it's the one line that's the problem. I do not in any way mean any disrespect by saying this however, as a complete novice when it comes to mods, I need a little more than one line to determine whether this add-on is something that I want in my game. I have always been of the opinion that more information is much better than too little and so far through my own research I have come across far too little information to make a decision that I am comfortable with.

I want to know in depth what these mods add, tweak or take away from the original. I am always curious as to why the mod was created, some of them may well be self explanatory. If the mod adds actual game-play then I would like to know what it adds.

I accept that this information may not be delivered, I just thought this would be the best place to ask, this site already offers in depth information into how the game runs as it was intended, by relaxing this rule to a degree I had hoped that the same depth of information would be made available to us.

Kindest Regards
KJ

[samoht04]

I agree with KJSinclair on this, I looked at the Site but really I don't fully understand what some of the Mods do and what features they add.

[xFezIsAFreakx]

I have some questions regarding Twallan's mods.. Not sure if I should post them here or start a new topic, but I'll just post them here and this post can be moved or whatever if I'm wrong.

I already have Overwatch.
Regarding ErrorTrap, which I'd like to install:
- I'm running on a really old laptop with chipset graphics, will ErrorTrap make it lag at all? I'm assuming not, but I've heard some mods can make your game lag, so I was just wondering.
- Seeing as it is a core mod, how does this affect patching?
- Will it help to stop my crashing? My laptop crashes a lot during TS3, and about 60% of the time it's not to do with overheating at all, so will ErrorTrap fix whatever is going on the game that causes this? (If it's any help, sometimes before it crashes I get a little windows pop-up talking about a 'runtime error'. Not sure what that is, but I think it must be one of the causes of my crashes.)

Regarding Story Progression, which I'm thinking of installing:
- I've heard, because all the townies become so active etc., that this mod can really lag your game if your system isn't quite up to it. My laptop is only just over the requirements of TS3, so I'm guessing it certainly would cause lag for me?

About my laptop, yes I know it's practically a miracle that I can play on it, but I will be getting a new desktop which will run TS3 a lot better for my birthday in August, I just need t make do with what I have at the moment.

[lvrugger]

I won't go into depth about all of Twallan's mods, but here is some info on the ones I won't pay without in my personal games. And trust me, once you get used to these mods, you'll have a harder time doing challenges without them. I use my modded game to test things that I will use in my unmodded game for the challenges.

Master Controller. I've used this since it was called Master Computer. The main function I use in this is to look at townies and NPCs and play arranger behind-the-scenes. I can look at which townie has a trait or skill, make townies friends/family/enemies/whatever. I will use it to find appropriate sims for marriage material or whatever reason. I use cheats to fix things - max motives is my favorite. This mod does so much that I cannot describe it all in one paragraph. You need some add ons for full functionality like cheats.

Careers. This mod adds part-time, self-employed and trade school options. You need the addons for full functionality like trade schools. I use this one so I can send my kids to military school, enroll my teenagers in a part-time job that gives them a leg-up when the go to the full time job in the same rabbit hole, and for the homeschooled option.

Traveller. This fixes so many bugs when travelling, and also expands travelling so you can visit other towns and not just the three vacation towns.

Woohooer. This adjusts so many things in woohoo that are just great. If you get the addon woohoo skill you can gain skill points in woohoo (I don't use that part). For a while I was stuck on gay families and used woohooer to make pregnant males - you just have to find proper skins for them or they become floating heads during the pregnancy.

Story progression. I don't use this anymore as my game clock has a tendency to stop moving so I lose all sorts of progress. I'm sure he's fixed this by now, but I am stuck on another story progression mod which he doesn't make. Story Progression does a great job at making your town come alive and makes sims get married, have kids, take jobs, and more. It's fully customizable to your content. And there are add-ons for personalities and more.

If you can't tell, I love Twallan's mods - He's one of the best and brightest of the Sims 3 modders and I highly recommend his stuff. 

[NonaMena]

If you want to know exactly what a mod does, go to the mod's page. Let's take MasterController for example. You can find the main page for MasterController here: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/MasterController

Notice that there are different versions and modules listed. Let's just look at the base mod for 1.31: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/MasterController+Phase+Seven

You are now at a page which summarizes all information pertaining to MasterController, including a link to a FAQ, a link to a page describing every interaction added by MasterController, and more.  All of the mods are like this.

Note that when a mod has several modules, all interactions are on the same page. If a certain interaction requires a module, it will be clearly denoted.

[Seera1024]

@Sam and KJ

There are just too many mods (he has 31 of them as of today) and any post that would go into detail about every one of his mods would become a wall of text and be just as unhelpful most likely. Because I don't know about you, but I would become lost in a wall of text. Especially for his bigger mods like Story Progression.

Are you guys looking for a paragraph to summarize or do you guys want a lot of detail? If it's the latter, you're probably not going to get it and going to the site and reading and asking specific questions about what confuses you is probably best, though someone else might be willing to do it.

If it's a paragraph, then you might be more in luck. Though some mods probably only require the sentence.

And NonaMena also makes a great suggestion.


@Fez

Whether it lags or not will probably depend on how many you have. ErrorTrap alone is probably not going to break the proverbial camel's back. But if you get too many, then it probably will.

Since Error Trap is a core mod you definitely must remove it before playing after you patch. I like to remove all of my mods before patching that way there is no way I can play with outdated mods after I patch.

And it might fix the crashing. But Error Trap is as easily uninstalled as it is to install. So you might want to considering trying it and seeing if it does fix your crashing. Then you can go from there.


My old desktop could barely run the game. It couldn't even handle Bridgeport (it wouldn't render any Sims that weren't necessary and the lag was crazy bad). So if you can run Bridgeport to some degree, Story Progression probably won't cause too much lag for you. Except maybe in Bridgeport. And just like Error Trap, it's easily uninstalled if it does cause more lag than you can tolerate.

[MoMoll]

I love Master Controller, WooHoer and Stroy Progression. However, I find the townies seem to progress Tooo rzpidly in their careers, and gain celebrity staus too quickly, so I use Story Progression to slow it down.
I love being able to unlock other households and see what they are doing; while my sim is occupied.
Tr

Edit: 3 hours of sleep and can't type. twallan's mods are to die for and NOW, I can't live wihtout them.

[ZapKid]

I love Master Controller, WooHoer and Stroy Progression. However, I find the townies seem to progress Tooo rzpidly in their careers, and gain celebrity staus too quickly, so I use Story Progression to slow it down.
I love being able to unlock other households and see what they are doing; while my sim is occupied.
Tr

Edit: 3 hours of sleep and can't type. twallan's mods are to die for and NOW, I can't live wihtout them.

You made quite a bit of errors there.

Are there any mods that would help aspiring builders? I'd love cc windows but alas, you can't post homes with them. Or any custom content, for that matter.

[Seabody]

Are there any mods that would help aspiring builders? I'd love cc windows but alas, you can't post homes with them. Or any custom content, for that matter.

Buzzler's Build Stuff at MTS. I'll grab a link and edit it in.

EDIT: Buzzler's Build Stuff.

[NonaMena]

Buzzler's Build Stuff at MTS. I'll grab a link and edit it in.

EDIT: Buzzler's Build Stuff.

Yes, great set of mods. I've even recommended it in my thread!