Economy mod

[Alistat]

so I was pondering on a few mods and came across this idea to work on first. For the most part I allready have it worked out how I am going to make it but any other advice/suggestions would be appreciated :)

 

--------------------------The Process--------------------------

--Step 1--

make a 'store inventory' item I put on each shopkeeper and it keeps track of all the items they are selling (this is probably going to be the hardest or most impossible part to script) then it will add up all thier inventories and set a general price for the good based off some function I make up that seems reasonable. Then I would script in certain amounts of products to spawn in cities each day or so to fit what economic setup I think the region should have (areas near farms would have more food, areas near mines more raw meterials/weapons exc.).

 

This will make it so you can be a trader as you buy and sell goods as you travel from town to town to make some change on the side or a full fledge profession :) I'll also of cource add in legitimate non-kajit traders to the game that travel from town to town selling goods, sadly they will have 3-6, odds say well trained, men in their bodyguard :P

 

--Step 2--

I would make mercantile ( i guess now thats speachcraft :/) into a bonus that only give a significant price reduction when buying/selling items in bulk from a vendor (for each item you buy the next one is some % cheaper and so on, caps off at some percent based on your speechcraft. Selling would be modified too).

 

Readjust normal merchants and what they are willing to buy and sell so you they aren't willing to spend all or even most of thier money on random items they don't typically deal in (aka you can't unload a full dungeon worth of crap on the first vendor you see, you'll actually have to find a few people to divie it up in between or in some cases a magic items specialist who wants it.. lol otherwise you can find your own cave to make your personal loot stash :P )

 

--Step 3--

I would make the items on common bandits not near as good quality as the ones you can buy and odds say not scale with level (I'm hoping for a more morrowind sort of static loot setup). Then I would add in different levels of quality for items that merchants sell that typically always excedes what you find on enemies.

 

I am also hoping to find, if not make, a durability mod and add it in, one that makes it so weapons slowly degrade over time, like for each hit on durability it takes you can only remake 90% of the loss. Some meterials would be more resistant to this like steel and ebony while others will be less like glass iron and possibly daedric. There still will be random chance drops of the high scale or enchanted weapons and it shouldn't be too game breaking since its, well, sort of rare and they wear out and eventually so you shouldn't end up with a full set off of random drops since the pieces wear down and break over time :)

 

--Other Stuff--

Possible add in realistic food mod so you have to buy supplies here and there along with a darker night one so torches have more of an impact. Also if you sleep in an inn it would make you better rested so you get buffs to your stats for a few hours. Oh also since you would have to carry around more stuff I'd make a packhorse ( you would have to feed or, well, let starve :P ) if their already isn't one in the game :) Of cource a companion mod would work well with this idea as you would have to pay weekly upkeeps or something of the likes.

 

--------------------------The Goal--------------------------

The point of all that is to make it so you actually have some upkeep costs to deal with and in the end a purpose for money unlike in Oblivion. Instead of sitting on millions of gold and feeling no more special than before you could own some of the most top notch gear in the world and have multiple farms/investments in shops around the world along with your own garrison of troops :D (that would help with the next mod I plan to make after this ;) ) Mainly though it would make the city thief and/or merchant spec into a legitimate spec since you can buy and maintain top notch armor and weapons with the utterly fantastic income you can get. I'll still try my best to keep it in balance with primarily warrior type specs since they have much better fighting skills and loot stashes to pawn off when they can:)

Edited October 31, 2011 by Alistat

[Psientist]

I've been giving thought to economy mods too.

Now I'm not much of a programmer, nor have I checked through oblivion's code, but shouldn't it be possible to make a simplified fluctuating regional economics going on?

Like there must be variables somewhere referring to major hubs, right? Or possibly make an invisible Actor and place it in an area and have it check for relevant merchant actors within a XYZ radius and for each present assign them a value that represents the region.

And then have each region you want to have in the game list prices for every item in the game that can be sold and add a random value (within reason of course, like a 10 - 20% fluctuation at most) as prices that reflect the industries/natural resources in the area.

That way it would be more profitable to buy say iron ore in a mining village but more profitable to sell that ore in the village far away from any mountains.

Of course you'd have to know how the game keeps track of time, if you can add timers in the background, how to make sure non-local areas are still updated.

 

Something like that anyway.

[TFSakon]

I don't have much to add as regards ideas , but I'd like to show some support, this is definitely something that would improve the game for my more mercantile characters. :)