It might; the sim who got mugged there that I remember was busking for tips.

Those 2 items both increase science+logic right? Whats the difference between those 2 items?

The chemistry set on the left increases logic, the thing on the right increases science. The chemistry set produces potions that cause a variety of effects on sims. The science thing performs experiments on bugs, seeds, plants, fish, and sims that produce a variety of effects.

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Science_(skill)

Chemistry bench is the key to immortality - the young again potion.
The science station is the key to wealth - cloning plasma bugs.

Does anyone know how long it takes to master cooking without skill books? Is there a table somewhere that shows how many meals a sim needs to cook?

I think there might be too many variables to calculate that properly. Recipes have different prep times, and some of this will depend on the quality of the stove (if a stove is used at all, which wouldn't be the case for salads, some sandwiches, fruit parfait, things that are microwaved) and other cooking equipment like food processors and grills. Prep time is also affected by one of the cooking skill challenges they will pick up along the way. Some of the stoves give an extra skill bonus. Some players use NRaas Relativity to affect skill gains through life span scaling and other factors, so that would add more variables to the mix. Cooking and gardening are also odd in that a skill burst is provided when the finished dish is placed on the counter (or something is harvested) in addition to that which is gained during the cooking (or gardening) procedures.

I had to put a roof over the garden so that my sim could get her first few levels of gardening! Since it's the rainy season, she didn't have to water which is great once you've already leveled up a few times. Looks like I'm going to have to find her a non-cheaty way to get those cookbooks if I want to open a restaurant any time soon.

Is World Adventures required for Relativity? I run a very long lifetime, and my sims skill up too quickly.

No EPs are required for Relativity. Actually no EPs are required for any NRaas mods although Tempest, for example, wouldn't have anything to do if Seasons weren't present but nothing bad would happen. Some MC commands and SP options that are specific to an EP that isn't present may still show up on menus, but they won't do anything if selected or changed.

Great. I think I'll pick that one up, then.

Hm, I think I can give you some rough numbers. With only Autumn Salad and/or Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches (i.e.. no stove involved) your Sim can reach level 10 in Cooking somewhere between the first challenge (50 meals) and the second one (75 meals).
My current Sim who was forced to live like that reached level 10 some time around his 60th meal. He may have accidentally watched the cooking channel a few times, though.
But in any case, he has maxed the skill a few days ago and is still a couple of meals away from the 75 meals challenge.

Another thing that factors in is that any dish you cook on Store items (baker oven, pizza oven, the harakiri grill (or whatever it's called) will not count as a cooked meal in the skill journal but will raise the skill nevertheless.

I don't have any experience with TS2, but I think there might be more categories of NPC sims in TS3 to work with.

There should be no corruption related problems whatsoever with moving in Service Sim NPCs such as the examples you gave. But they won't be Service Sims anymore, once they become a town resident they will instantly lose their service assignment and the game will draw a new one from the service pool or spawn a new Service Sim to take their place when needed. Stray animals (Pets) are also considered Service Sims. Oddly enough, so are the Grim Reaper and the Time Traveler (ITF), but those we know should not be messed around with. So, in other words, you can get your maid to move in with you, and then marry them even, but you can't then expect them to be a maid anymore and you will still have to pick up after yourself (maybe).

Role Sims, these are sims who are tied to a role giving object in town (cash registers, bars, bouncer ropes, tattoo chairs), can be either homeless or residents so it's fine to move those in as well, but they really shouldn't be part of the actively being played household while still carrying their role assignments. Same for the special Global Role Sims who do not have actual object assignments but they behave the same way -- Paparazzi, WA Special Merchants, Uni Mascots.

Some NPC sims we don't see much of should never be messed with or at least are not designed to be -- e.g., carpool, taxi, school bus, limo, food truck drivers although I have (rarely) seen them wandering about town when not on duty.

They won't keep their roles anyway, if you move them in and play in an unmodded game. I think initially this was one of the purposes of NRaas Register to allow active Sims to keep role assignments. Without Register they will lose their role immediately once they become playable, either by moving them in or by making their households active.

The food truck and ice cream truck, btw, do not have any drivers, as far as I remember. That's what makes them so creepy. They are controlled by either Elon Musk or the Illuminati is my guess.

As actively played, they tend to randomly lose or be unable to fulfill their role assignments with Register in play as well, although some have had more success with that than others as per a discussion with Arsil about his Custom Generic Role mod. I like to have occasional inactive households of three or four Role Sims here and there to break up the monotony of them all being homeless "commuters," which is really what I meant by moving them in (moving them into town somewhere else). But regardless, either way corruption should still not be a constant danger.

Are you sure about the food and ice cream trucks? I'm pretty sure there is a sim in there, the one who serves you when you order. I don't remember if we can see them in the driver's seat when the trucks are in motion, it can be kind of difficult to see in there, but I thought NRaas Tagger shows us who the driver is. Not that we can do much with that information. Maybe I'm making this all up, will try to take a closer look the next time I see one.

What do you prefer sims 3 or sims 4?

Hi there. Hmm. Well, as a wiki organizer for NRaas, where we make and support mods for TS3 only, and as someone who doesn't even own TS4 and has no interest in playing it, guess I'll kind of have to go with TS3 for now.

It's possible though that you meant to direct this question to everyone, not just me through the Reply button.

My whole strategy for starting a town has been inviting NPCs to live with my sim. Thus far, I've got 2 mail carriers and a firefighter added in to my household. They bring a nice bonus $20,000 or so with them too. I guess its a difficulty reward? They can be hard to form a relationship with since they can't really hang out, you don't see them around town, and they have strange hours. My head cannon is that the $20k is their life savings.

For Live Show venues, I have the option to put in Space For Benches, but not Space For Tables, like I would for a Coffeehouse with a Showtime Stage in it? Do you need to put those down, anyway? Or do Sims just collect in front of the stage when something goes on and stand in front of it?

Aren't those spaces (square, invisible rugs) the same anyway? As far as I can remember the game will automatically spawn the required furniture in those areas. Some performances are standing events, so any tables or benches will disappear during that, and it will respectively spawn tables or benches when the performance is a seated affair.
For comparison's sake it is always helpful to look at how those venue types are made in Starlight Shores.

Audience Sims, btw, will always just gather within those designated areas (the square, invisible rug ones); they actually cannot watch a show from outside these areas. And there is always a maximum of two (?) Sims that fit into one rug space. So if your venue has three rugs your maximum audience will be six. All other Sims in the venue will be unable to watch the show.
This makes Simfests so boring because the co-contestors will be your only audience.

The ice cream truck in any case because AwesomeMod has it always flagged as a driverless vehicle.

But just to confirm here, they don't really continue to be mail carriers after you have moved them in, correct? If you have found a way to do that, there are many players who would like to know how!

Nope, but the NPC fireman and one of the mail carriers occasionally wear their uniforms around. I think it's a glitch as neither is inappropriate or insane. I justify it as kink. The other one is both proper and insane and she wears her evening gown most days, sleeps in her bathing suit, and swims in her every day dress.

Okay, my game is doing that thing where, no matter how often I close the launcher and Origin and relaunch, it still thinks I have no EPs downloaded. Whatever. It has moods like that. But I noticed this 'writing' at the top of my Sims 3 in Origin; I don't think it was there a few months ago. And, no, I cannot make it any larger; that's at the largest setting Origin allows game covers to be shown... anyone have an idea what that is?

Don't have 4. If the question is 2 or 3: that's a tough one. I play both.

1) That's not what I asked.
2) I deleted 4 because I realized it was just BORING to play, even with the EP I had.

The way I understand it, it's not IMPOSSIBLE to get Sims 3 to play under 1.67 if you have/want EP/SP installed?