Guide to Scientist Breakthroughs and Inventions

Learn all about sims 4 scientist career
Guide to Scientist Breakthroughs and Inventions
Authored by : StoreParrot Editorial
Last updated on 09 March, 2024

The Sims 4 Get to Work pack comes with multiple professions including the scientist career path. The difference in a profession versus the other jobs is that you get to go to work with your sims. The scientist career is unique in that your sim is required to have scientific breakthroughs in order to advance in the career and each breakthrough unlocks unique items and abilities.

This article will go over everything you need to know about scientific breakthroughs in the Sims 4, including what a scientific breakthrough is, how to have a scientific breakthrough, the cheats involved, and an overview of the scientists career path.

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What is a Breakthrough?

If your sim is on the scientist career path your sim is required to have scientific breakthroughs in order to advance in their career field. A breakthrough is when your sim has a new idea for an invention. Your sim will not have these breakthroughs if they are not in the scientist career.

The scientist career path comes with Sims 4 Get to Work, it is a profession that allows you to go to work with your sim. It can be a fun career path if you like using unique items during gameplay. If you like playing with occult worlds and sims this is a great option for you.

When you are in the scientist career you are more likely to be abducted by aliens, if you want to know more about alien abductions and how you can contact aliens, I wrote an article covering every detail about aliens and the secret alien world.

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Which activities lead to a scientific Breakthrough?

Your sim will have a breakthrough when performing certain activities. You will know your sim is getting closer to a breakthrough because a lightbulb will pop up above their head and will start to fill up. Once you have performed an action long enough the lightbulb above your sim's head will fill all the way up and you will receive a notification about your sim's newest breakthrough.

Some activities that lead to a scientific breakthrough include:

  • Reading
  • Taking a thoughtful shower
  • Tinkering
  • Gardening
  • Brainstorming on the Invention Constructor
  • Playing chess
  • Viewing scientific objects
  • Experimenting at the Chemistry Lab
  • Using the microscope
Sims 4 scientist breakthrough

There are twenty-one total breakthroughs your sim can have. Once your sim has a scientific breakthrough you will get a notification that tells you what your sim has discovered.

If you are interested in having your sim have scientific breakthrough's by gardening and want to know where to get started, check out my guide to gardening.

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How to get a Scientific breakthrough by cheating.

If you don't want to wait for your sim to have scientific breakthroughs on their own, there is, as with everything in the sims, a way to cheat.

First, you have to join the scientist career. Then you will want to hold down shift as you click on your sim. You will click on "Cheat Sim Info." You then will see an option for "Scientist..." click on that, you have four choices, "Scientist Almost Breakthrough," "Scientist Breakthrough Add Almost 25%," Scientist Breakthrough (All)," and "Scientist Breakthrough."

Sims 4 scientist cheats

Scientist almost breakthrough will get you 75% of the way to a scientific breakthrough. Scientist breakthrough add almost 25% will get you 1/4 of the way to a scientific breakthrough. Scientist Breakthrough, will complete the next breakthrough for you.

If you click on Scientist Breakthrough (All), your sim will have a breakthrough and you will receive a notification saying it is your sim's twenty-first breakthrough. Your sim will have the ability to make every invention and serum that they would normally have the ability to make if you went through each breakthrough one at a time.

For these cheats you don't need to worry about what level of the scientist career your sim is at, you can unlock all the scientific breakthroughs even when your sim just started the scientist career.

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Which inventions and serums are unlocked with each Breakthrough?

As your sim makes their way through the scientific breakthroughs you will have the ability to make new inventions and serums. You can create inventions with the invention creator, and you can make serums with the Chemistry lab.

Here is a full comprehensive list of each breakthrough and the ingredients needed to make each object.

BreakthroughUnlocked InventionsIngredients Needed
1Momentum ConserverNo ingredients required
2Synthetic Food Serum2 Plants
3SimRay1 Common Crystal
1 Common Metal
4Red Hot Serum1 Basil
5Hover LampNo ingredients required
6Rose Perfume Serum1 Rose
7Satellite Dish3 Common Crystals 
3 Common Metals
8Snake Oil Serum1 Daisy
9Cloning Machine2 Common Crystals
2 Common Metals
10Slimify Serum2 Carrots 
2 Parsley
11Electroflux Wormhole Generator2 Elements
2 Uncommon Crystals
2 Uncommon Metals
12Ghost Goo Serum3 Mushrooms
13Need Fixer Serum2 Common Metals
1 Spinach
14Embiggen Serum2 Apples 
2 Plantains
15Spark Drive Serum1 Common Crystal 
1 Strawberry
16Ox Strength Serum1 Common Crystal 
2 Spinach
17Smart Serum2 Apples 
2 Chrysanthemum
18Fixer's Luck Serum2 Upgrade Parts
19Reaper's Friend Serum1 Alien Crystal
1 Death Flower
20Alien Aura Serum1 Alien Crystal
1 Alien Metal
1 Alien Plant
21Age-Away Serum2 Alien Crystals 
1 Quill fruit
1 Xenopetrium

Tip: You will need to visit the alien world to obtain the alien crystals to make the age-away serum. To get to the alien world, you have to upgrade your Electroflux Wormhole Generator.

In addition to creating these inventions your sim will also have the option to upgrade some of these inventions with the Invention Constructor. You will need to drag the object into the invention constructor and your sim will have the option to upgrade the object. You must be active in the scientist career in order to upgrade your inventions.

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Can you purchase inventions through build/buy mode?

There is a way to purchase some inventions in build/buy mode without needing to have any scientific breakthroughs or go through the effort of making them.

To use Cheats in the Sims 4 hold down Ctrl+Shift+C for windows or Command (⌘)+Shift+C for Mac at the same time and a small bar will appear at the top left hand corner of the screen where you can type. Type in your desired cheat and then hit enter.

If you want to purchase either the momentum conserver, simray, hoverlamp, satellite dish, cloning machine, or the electroflux wormhole generator you can use the bb.showhiddenobjects cheat. This cheat will unlock all objects that are required to be created by sims in game play.

There is one caveat to this however, you still have to be high enough in the scientist career to upgrade these objects. For the simray you can do a variety of upgrades that requires you to be anywhere from level 3 of the scientist career up to level 10. For the satellite dish and the cloning machine you have to be level 8 and for the electroflux wormhole generator you must be level 10.

If you are wanting to purchase the electroflux wormhole generator to go visit the alien world you have to upgrade it first before you have the ability to walk through it to the alien world.

If you want any of the serums you have to use the bb.showliveeditobjects cheat. This cheat gives you access to many different "debug" objects. Debug objects are items that the developers use in the world that you may see as you move throughout the world but don't see in your build/buy menu or objects that are objects meant for sims to use during certain animations. Such as when your sim goes and gets water and a cup appears.

Unfortunately, the debug items are not nicely organized like other objects in the buy menu. To find them you have to search for "debug" in the buy menu's search bar. Then just scroll until you find the serums, luckily all the serums are together once you find them.

Sims 4 scientist purchase inventions

The serums will cost $0 and you can use them right away without needing to be involved with the scientist career or have any scientific breakthroughs.

You have to unlock the chemistry lab by reaching level 4 of the scientist career. If you want to create serums with the chemistry lab but don't want to interact with the scientist career, you can use the bb.ignoregameplayunlocksentitlement cheat to do so. This will get rid of any game play requirements for purchasing objects.

If you want to learn more about objects in the Sims 4 and everything you can do with them, I have created an in depth guide that goes every cheat or tip you need to know.

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The Scientist Career

If you want to go through the steps of the Scientist Career, it is a fun game play career path. You have the option to go to work with your sim and help them advance in their career field. You get to interact with fun objects and have unique tasks that you must perform from day to day.

If you want to learn more about the Scientist Career, and exactly what to expect, I wrote this article that can help you navigate the interactive profession.

If you are interested in the Scientist Career and want to see what is involved at each level below is a table that will show you what you can expect.

Career LevelScheduleWageBonuses
Lab technicianM-F 10am - 7pm$24/hrN/A
Apprentice InventorM-F 10am - 7pm$32/hr$192
New Clothes 
Journey to the Stars
Junior TinkererM-F 10am - 7pm$39/hr$256
New Clothes
Flying Saucer Table Lamp
Serum SequencerM-F 10am - 7pm$48/hr$312
Chemistry Lab
Technological InnovatorM-F 10am - 7pm$72/hr$382
New Clothes
S1m5-4 Test Tube Pediestal
UfologistM-F 10am - 7pm$102/hr$579
Cautionary Tale Door
X-180 Shatterproof Window
Laboratory LeaderM-F 10am - 7pm$142/hr$816
Hygienic Decontamination Pod
Pioneer of New TechnologiesM-F 10am - 7pm$187/hr$1,136
New Clothes
Mad ScientistM-F 10am - 7pm$215/hr$1,496
New Clothes
Extraterrestrial ExplorerM-F 10am - 7pm$247/hr$1,720
New Clothes 
Out of this World Desktop

When you go to work with your sim you will be required to do a variety of tasks, from tinkering with the coffee machine to creating new inventions. Your sim must have a certain amount of scientific breakthroughs to advance to the next level of the scientist career.

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How to advance in the scientist career with cheats?

If you do not want to go through the game play to advance in the scientist career you can use the careers.promote adult_active_Scientist cheat. This will promote you to the next level in the scientists career. You must first join the scientist career before you can promote your sim to the next level.

You can join the Scientist career by telling your sim to find a job. You can use the phone, mailbox, computer, or the work tab in your sim's profile to find a job.

Tip: If you are planning on cheating to purchase any of the items it may be a good idea to promote your sim in the scientist career so you can upgrade the objects in order to get full use of all the features.

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