Merchant Container Respawn Issue

[Balognadiddler]

I made a mod with a made-from-scratch merchant and recently noticed a problem with her inventory: items sold to her never go away. Her merchant stock seems to be respawning properly, but any items sold to her are available for buyback forever. Here's what I know:


-The bug only affects her.
-The merchant container items and caps respawn properly.
-Items sold to her are not available for pickpocket, so I don't think she's putting them in her personal inventory. Also she does not equip armor upgrades.
-I reproduced the bug on a fresh game after clearing out the save folder.
-Her vendor conatiner is in the vendor container cell.


Is this a known issue with a known solution?

Is there a script I can use to forcibly clear out the vendor chest and reset it every three days?

How should I begin troubleshooting this problem?


Thank you in advance for your help.

[Balognadiddler]

I just had a look in the merchant safe and it turns out sold items aren't going into it. Anyone have a clue what's going on?

[Aonghus]

Not sure about a custom script (the respawn option should take care of it.) My only thought is have you assigned ownership of both versions of the chest to your vendor?

 

This tutorial may be of help: http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/6825/?

[Balognadiddler]

Thanks for the reply, Aonghus. The base chest does not have an owner, which is--to my knowledge--correct. I tried setting its ownership to the NPC since I wasn't sure what you were suggesting, and this did not seem to effect things one way or another.

I also tried comparing the mod with an older version which I know works properly in FNVedit and saw no difference besides the changes I had made to the merchant inventory. I thought that maybe the problem had to do with using too many leveled lists. Not a great theory as most vendor containers use more than this one, but a theory nonetheless. I went to edit her inventory in GECK and that's when I saw it: I had put a quest item in her inventory. Took it out, tested it, and she now works perfectly fine.

So now I know that putting a quest item in a merchant's inventory causes them to remember everything you sell them while also continuing to resotck their inventory. I suppose the only question now is if anyone knows if that's the extent of the glitch, or if it can somehow cause problems later on. If not, it could be a simple trick for modders who want a merchant that does that for some reason.

 

 

Edit: Just realized there's a better way to do that. So, you know, don't put quest items in a merchant's inventory.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Balognadiddler

[Aonghus]

Glad to hear it was something so simple. Actually, I'm not entirely sure the quest item behavior you mentioned is a bug rather than a feature, but I don't recall ever having run across any mention of it.