Penthouse

Penthouses are a new addition in The Sims 3: Late Night. They are fixed-size lots on top of skyscrapers. They can be residential- as well as community lots. People can be seen moving in and out, but the active Sims are the only ones living in the building.

Penthouses are similar to apartments in The Sims 2: Apartment Life, but do not feature the entire social experience of living in a community. The active Sims are the only playable Sims living in the building where the penthouse is located. However, NPCs will often live there as well, but there are no determinate neighbors in penthouses. NPCs are totally random, and can be sometimes seen walking to the elevator and locking doors. Playable Sims can actually talk to them, and can ring their doorbell to get them out of their rooms in order to socialize with them.

Penthouses have been compared to the "shell" buildings in World Adventures, such as the pyramids. Apart from the residential space, there is a lobby with an intercom (to allow visitors to talk to Sims in their rooms) and an elevator. Because of this, players can only build within the already existing outer walls, which means they cannot add a new floor.

Most of the penthouses are one-story, one or two bedroom units and range in price from moderate to very expensive. Some of the more expensive units can have two stories.

Editing the walls and adding extra room to a penthouse cannot be done in a natural way, though it is possible with the use of the "RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings false" cheats. For additional space, try deleting hidden room markers to expand the size of the unit. It is best to make this type of building edit before moving in Sims, otherwise players could experience system errors or freezes when a family is actively occupying the space. Players can place pools on elevated floors in penthouses as well as windows as the siding in pools.

Penthouses return in The Sims 4: City Living expansion pack along with Apartments.

Building penthouses
It is recommended that you have some experience using buydebug, and understand what debug objects do prior to building a custom penthouse/apartment. Although all apartments in the base game are referred to as penthouses, not all of them have rooms available on the top floor. They vary based on the chosen shell. To build an apartment, the player must make a residential lot of a large size. Then the player will need to type in several cheats: testingcheatsenabled, buydebug, restrictbuildbuyinbuildings off, moveobjects (not required, but makes shell placement easier.)

The player can then go to the debug section of buy mode and search through the "misc or ?" section to find one of two (27 if Patch 18 is installed) high-rise shells.

The player now has the freedom to build inside or outside of the unit to complete the apartment. To make public rooms, one must use the "Public Room Marker". To make hidden rooms, the "Hidden Room Marker" is used. They are silver-metallic spheres.

An unofficial tutorial for making an apartment-like residence (such as a house in which your Sim rents a single room with the other rooms being communal) can be found here. A tutorial on building a row of high rise buildings can be found below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr668wvntVg&list=UUrgbH1HPHsUkIzeQjNRXx-w&index=0&feature=plcp
 * Beware that using these cheats may cause your game to freeze.*