I was wondering if it was possible to make a cave in the sims 3. Is there a mod or cheat that would let me tunnel beneath a mountain or something? I know it's not possible in the regular game. It would also be cool for making natural arches an things like that. But even if I were to dig out a cave, you probably wouldn't be able to see it under the terrain that's left on top. Also, I'm not sure whether sims would be able to walk into it. Does anyone have any ideas for ways to make this work? I hope I'm making myself clear here.

You have different ways to do this, but your problem is the ceiling. You could make a walk-in-basement, or in create-a-world/caw make a ceiling of objects like rocks. In caw I read about someone wanting to make a sky like a cave. Those are the options I can come up with right now.

caw can be hard to do and is a big project for you to do. It might also be possible to get hold of objects to use on a regular lot to act as a ceiling in the same way as in caw, you just have to find somewhere to download them, or edit the files themselves with s3pe.

It depends on your skill level. You could post in the Sims3 WCIF or "where can I find" forum to get hold of some rocks to use as objects, but you need to be careful doing that. They could turn out to be blocks for sims, so the area below them can't really be used. The objects on a regular lot is probably still the easiest options though.

By making a ceiling of rocks, do you mean building one story and then putting rocks on the second story as kind of a roof?

yes, you need to keep a sim on the lot to ensure the cave ceiling works. You may need to make it two floors above ground if the object has a high footprint, maybe even three.

Don't forget the objects needs support from below, make them as columns and you should keep them until the structure is finished. There is a possibility the structure will be destroyed if the lot is relocated or moved. You can then somehow put the columns in as a fixed part of the decoration.

Sorry if I sound a bit bossy.

You don't sound bossy at all. Those are helpful tips, and I'll try them

from http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=430919

Make the entry 2 tiles broad, above the basement you could place more earth if you want to...

As I said initially though the problem is still the ceiling. If you really want a cave.

You could make a custom cave object, and place it over your structure. One way of doing this would be to take a simple object which already exists, like a rock or a stone (these tend to be CAW objects) and enlarge it by 10,000% or so. You might have to redo the textures. Then just place it over the building.

Well you could go 4 floors down if you make the entrance, on to however you can make the ground higher so it's more like a cave entrance (and indeed you can cover it with rocks to make it look more natural, myself I experimented after my previous post->




Made a car entrance with a building right on top (stairs connected ground floor and -1 (-1 is entrance for cars), but also a sort of cave entrance (and as said you could have a cave of 4 floors) as in my example the building on top of the cave is max height. Max height as ground level and entrance in -1 level (so with much ground on top)... I think there isn't any better way to illustrate the max effect you can make within Sims 3...

might be sad but I'm already happy with all basement floors as cave (make the entrance natural as possible) and decorate with stones (just read it here so isn't in my example (yet can make a natural (as possible) cave. Still the walls are straight and you could put enough stones in front of to cover (and is a nice idea for a "old" cave in your town but will cost time (and a cave entrance for a home is this example for me good enough, even more with the stone decoration = thanx very much for that!

Maybe ceiling tiles with rock texture might make a more natural looking ceiling, the only option else is indeed to create it as an objects...

To follow up with visual material ->
A cave entrance decorated with stone, a tunnel first as slope, then 3 floors down with stairs, of course you could decorate the tunnel as well (make it wider so you have space for stones!!), now I made a wall with a Arch to enter, but you can leave the wall out.


This got me thinking for underground, you can decorate the tunnel above and make all the walls covered with stone. If you create a open space and want the top level to look like stone you can use 3 levels of the basement covered with stones and the -1 (top level basement) to place stones as roof; seen the time I got I made this Idea on ground level with foundation tool (made a the outer octagon 6long wall, inner 4 long wall lengt emptied out. Same principal with rocks used, made a entrance with arch (so i keep "support for the +1 level), forgot to remove it while shooting screenshots but is possible (tested). here you can see walls covered with stone and a stone roof (which you could make on toplevel basement as well, creating the possibility of a underground 3 floor high basement (off course you can make this 5 levels above ground (a octagon mountain of 5 levels (0level 14long walls, +1=10long, +2=8long, +3=6long +4=4long) comes to mind and the stones placed in the less thicker wallss could be nice as well...)

Larger stones will be nice (don't know about sizing up over 500% though) especially to make a diverse look (used 8 different stones here), still nice for a old town cave (could make one displaying a T-Rex skelleton 4 example) but unless you're a caveman (and make a town of caveman limited to live in (if you want every surface to be rock = no toilet on a wall = wont work (although could make a fountainpool to create a underground river (limiting the cave to 2 floor levels but with fountain or pool cavelake)
=Cheats used: moveObjects (for stone placing) + constrainFloorElevation (creating walk in basement and sloped basement)

p.s. both these examples are on the same lot so the foundation cave and the stone covered underground entrance could be connected with an elevator (if build above eachother)

You're better than me on logistics. I have too many ideas competing for the attention, i can't keep the logistics going that long.

Looks like a nice Kheops pyramid entrance.

Thanks! (I Guess), I created some impressions of the idea's came to mind, my first post in this topic I gave a link to another topic (with new Ideas for me as well) and working with stones was offered over here, the combination of both made a real interesting mix for this topic.

in the download section I found some more stones in the Garden center, the stones I used are nice to cover the open spots but in the examples I chose to make it as small as possible (but large enough to make the idea visible), for a 50x50 tiles 3 floor high cave it will take hours with the "little"stones, and I just made examples as quick as possible (put the idea on paper in it's most basic form), but it is as new for me as for you so I guess better examples will come

Seen I thought this was a nice Question and I hoped to give answers before I end my contribution with a nice end result Cave building->

First I started with making the basement (4 floors) after which I made a 2.5 floor high foundation outer wall and placed Large stones on the ground floor level. At the end I go up 1 floor (to 2.5 floor level foundation height) I placed a large stone on top... TIP: make a entrance to the basement before placing stones/foundation (stairs can cause difficulties when placed in objects

Remove the outer foundation wall, after removing you could make the top stone(s) visible by going to the +1 floor, on groundlevel the roofstones won't show (can be helpfull by editting)

Now I created the top level basement, first I made the entrance to the floors down (I chose a ladder here but all entrances above could be used ofcourse), after the ladders I made a room and removed all tiles around it. Now I started decorating the entrance room wall with stones after which I placed stones as large as I found around it (WHITOUT tiles beneath them on -1 level = when u look up you'll see stone instead of tiles...)

Now it's time to cover the complete basement wall, used stones over 5 floors high (won't show above ground!) when done -2 nd -3 level are free to edit/remove tiles (seen the stones are placed on -4 level). at the end you can see @-1 level that everything is covered with stones! walls, ceiling inside only the floors arent's covered...

Now it's time to decide the layout of the cave, I wanted a cavelake = I had to make the on the -3 level (can't go below -4) so this gives space for part use of the -4 level. As you can see, poolwalls I also covered with rocks (the light you see are lamps inside the rock)

Beneathe the entrance I made a walkthrough cave, the lower part I could use I made into a T-Rex Skeleton museum (kind of)


The end = a cave accessable by ladder/stairs with a real stone roof and walls.

Off course you can go into detail as much as you want but for me these type of caves will do; hope to have solved the quest for a cave!

@Anno2015 Very cool- thanks!

no thanks needed, had some buidling fun and got me inspired... Gonna build a Jurassic Island (with underground Cave) and got me thinking about an Egyptian Underground Crypt as well! If anyone wants to (and post here) I'll make some example pics of that as well (fits in broader than the original quest for a stone roof)! For me myself the stone roof concept is fine above ground (as roof) but losing a level underground takes away to much space (4 xample the egyptian column's top still tops the 4 floors, besides 3 different heigth plataus gives the cave more depth (and realism) besides the option to make smaller caves in the larger total 4 floor cave (pictures above where pure experimental, the walk through cave beneath the exit and the pool maintenance space (space -4 level covered with the floor of level -3; see entrance in the left bottom image)...

All the options made my head spin at first but got it in a row again (using much options in one example is nice but using them all every time doesn't make it better/more beautifull I tend to do that (using to much). Using these kind of caves to make a dino zoo fits for me (finaly got use for my dino statues), some aspects fit into a underground biodome as basement -to cover the walls/ceilings with stone you can make it more natural and I'm really happy with; that idea solved the quest here in my mind=Thanx again!- and an Egyptian crypt with the Column but also the "ruin" stones as deco in the wall fits that theme (Although the ruin stones cover a lot of wallspace and are not to wide (cover 2 tiles if placed half in the wall if I remeber correct), in diversity aspect those are nice for natural caves besides crypts as well, but as said I try to maintain some specific aspects and so not overdo...

@SocialistBunny hope to have solved your specific quest -> let us know!