How do I Make a Merchant Buy Stuff?

[David Brasher]

The mod calls for four different street venders in four towns. They have no shops, and the first AI package on their lists is the vender package, and the one they spend most of their time using. One of my four new vendors works beautifully. The other three will sell me stuff, but won't buy my stuff. I can give it away to them for free, and they will accept it, but they won't pay me for it. Each of these non-functional vendors has 800 gold in "Barter Gold." The way they all display 0 barter gold in-game would lead you to believe that they had 0 Barter Gold instead of 800.

 

Is there some additional setting I don't know about?

 

Does anyone know of a solution?

[David Brasher]

CANCEL

 

The problem was that the play-test was not on a clean save. The NPCs did not used to be merchants, and my character had met them before, so the newly modded characteristics did not all show up. The mod is very large, and it is hard to get a play-test character into position, so I hadn't thought much about testing with clean saves.

[ub3rman123]

That can happen? Dang it, I seem to have wasted a load of time trying to bugfix things not showing up in-game like that now.

[LHammonds]

Be careful about the use of their vendor chests (assuming they have one). Even if you set the chest as "persistent", the vendor may not be able to access the equipment unless it is in the same cell...so if they wonder around between cells, the inventory may not be available to them at times....at least that is what I recall from a problem from roaming vendors a LONG time ago. e.g. take this info with a grain of salt.

 

LHammonds

[David Brasher]

Thanks. That is a good thing to know. I might need to know that sometime. I guess you could stick a vender chest under each cell the vender wanders through.

[LHammonds]

If you do, it would need to be a reference item (if possible) that shows and modifies the contents of the parent chest...or script it so that when you see the NPC (onload or when you speak to him is probably better), it fires off a script that pulls the contents of the primary container into the container that exists in that cell. After talking with him, then push the items back to the primary chest...or just make it so that each time you see him in the cell, have it pull from whatever chest has the contents...just need to make sure that when you sell him a special item, it is there every time you see him...not just the cell you were in when you sold it to him.

 

LHammonds

[Megatarius]

I think you should put the vendor chests in plain access to the player, with the lock on Very Hard, and a key on the merchant.

 

I never liked how they hide the chest under the cell. Is there a technical reason for this, or is it just more of Bethesda's hand-holding or assuming all characters will be "good guys"?

[LHammonds]

I think it was an example of how to make mods compatible. You cannot have tons of custom mod chests, armor and equipment scattered all around the store.

 

Having chests invisible make the overall appearance of the store much tidier rather than something that should be submitted to the TV program called "Clean Sweep" or "Hoarders"

 

Well, that's my opinion anyway.

 

I would think the absolute best way to implement a vendor is to have just a few items on-hand that can be purchased immediately and others that have to ordered and delivered before you can pick it up. Such as ordering a full set of steel armor. You put down the cash to order it, the vendor then goes off to "make" the armor and has it ready for you after a certain amount of time has passed...equal to the expected difficulty in the set you are purchasing (leather being easy and fast to make, glass taking a long time to make). Maybe one or two pieces can be on-hand but not all of them.

 

An idea I had a long time ago was to have an engineer take some custom and unique armor or weapons that you have in your possession and create schematics of those items for a price. You can then give those schematics to various vendors and they can "order" these items to be created...which will likely be of lesser quality than the original...unless you take your schematics to a more skill engineer to upgrade...or maybe collect better materials for the smithy to work with to improve the quality or the time necessary to fabricate.

 

LHammonds

[Megatarius]

I think clutter is a good thing though. It gives the space life. Makes it look lived in and used.

[LHammonds]

I think clutter is a good thing though. It gives the space life. Makes it look lived in and used.

No it won't. Think about it. 50 mods add vendor chests to the room. How likely do you think they will all be spaced out, stacked and so on...not many. Most will be overlaping the same coveted space like a pile of football players with (clipping turned off) and you can't even see the chests under the mess.

 

You will never have 50 independent mods that add chests to the vendor shop floor space look realistic. You would have to edit each one individually to move the chests / containers around...and you will have to visually remember where you put the equipment from each mod...because you won't see any chests other than the current mod you are modifying. :teehee:

 

It is a nice idea but practically speaking, it won't happen...at least not in a visually appealing and believable way (read "no clipping issues")