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Disabling Trader protection

Tryin to be as clear as possible. Is there a way to, idealy in a already used world but if not i can live with that, disable the lock that prevents you from messing up a traders base? The trash the broken stuff it irks me so bad and i would edit my world file just to make it possible if i knew how

One thing that would be nice though would be the option to re-enable it once it is clean so that zombies cant just mess it all up when im not looking. ive tried to scrub for a thread with these answers but came up dry

 
There are files in the programs dir .../Data/Prefabs/POIs/trader_[name].xml that define each trader POI and the lines "<property name="TraderAreaProtect" value="0,0,0" />" and <property name="TraderArea" value="True" /> that seem to be doing that magic.

Now I don't know if it suffices to remove the Protect line, but this would be the first thing to try. If not, then changing the value to 100,100,100 might do it at the cost of some random area 100 blocks from the trader being protected. Or even changing TraderArea to "False". but I would guess this disables the trader functions as well.

There are also mods that disable trader protection, I think Darkness Falls is one of those. If yes, simply download darkness falls and search its code and data for anything relating to traders. Maybe that mod has changed the xmls files above and you should be able to mimic that in your files. 

 
I tested this extensively. The easiest way to edit a trader area is to edit the files mentioned above ( 1 for each trader i.e. Trader_Rekt.xml ) and set the "TraderArea" value=True to False. Then load the game enter the world and you can then edit every Trader Rekt as you want. This works on already created/generated worlds. Save and exit the world, then edit the Trader firle to hold "TraderArea" value=True, and you're set. While editing the area, you can hang ladders, open the unmarked supply crates in the area, etc and they will be lootable in game. I did not test if they respawn but based on the ones that are default and do respawn loot, I imagine these will also.

You can also set the value to false and fix any issues players may have caused ( i.e. blew up holes on the outside with explosives._

 
Hello,

Following up on this. Can you and your friend delete your mods folder and validate files and see if it continues to happen? The instructions for validation is below:
  • Launch Steam
  • Click Library at the top
  • Locate the game in your list (e.g., 7 Days to Die)
  • Right-click the game title
  • Click Properties
  • In the left sidebar, click Installed Files
  • Click “Verify integrity of game files”
  • Steam will:
    • Scan your files
    • Replace anything missing or corrupted. This can take a few minutes.
  • Once finished, start the game again
  • Check if your issue is resolved

  • This won’t delete your saves
  • It will overwrite modified game files
  • It does not remove mods in your Mods folder (you may need to remove those manually)

Thanks,
Dollie
 
Tryin to be as clear as possible. Is there a way to, idealy in a already used world but if not i can live with that, disable the lock that prevents you from messing up a traders base? The trash the broken stuff it irks me so bad and i would edit my world file just to make it possible if i knew how

One thing that would be nice though would be the option to re-enable it once it is clean so that zombies cant just mess it all up when im not looking. ive tried to scrub for a thread with these answers but came up dry
2026-04-01_18h46_32.png
This is from Darkness Falls trader xml, test this. This is all we change far as I know. Leaving false on causes quest issues which is one of my few real gripes along with trader biome requirements, such a needless pain in neck.
 
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Using the O-SCore mod by Spherii, I have disabled trader protection mid game. I imagine if you do this, make your changes and then remove the mod, it *should* work. Not a modder, so try on a disposable world first.
 
If you just want to make changes to the trader compound, the steps mentioned by Kosiam are all that is needed. Change TraderArea to false in the prefab files, run the game and make your changes, then exit and set it back to true again. As Krunch says, leaving it false breaks trader missions. DF does use those lines, but they are the same as vanilla. What makes it work is that DF uses 0-SCore, and trader protection is disabled with that. I believe 0-Score is the only way to disable trader protection, and still have trader missions working properly. But if you just want to clean up the trash, just do the True->False->True.

Oh, and to protect the compound while working, just disable the AI.

Also oh, backup your save and world just to be safe.
 
What makes it work is that DF uses 0-SCore, and trader protection is disabled with that. I believe 0-Score is the only way to disable trader protection, and still have trader missions working properly.

So this is what that is lol, i knew there were translations out of those folders but i thought it was related to our own traders and quests playing nice with the vanilla traders and quests. Would not have guessed that would be overwritten from there. Learn something every day lol

Also, could you not just make these changes in the POI editor? Seems like way too much work to do from in game. Just make your own variations of traders and give them slightly different names to make it easy to swap them into any map. Then you have them consistenly every map.

1. Grab all 5 traders from current vanilla install.

2. Navigate to the core Local Prefabs folder here \AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie\LocalPrefabs

3. Create a folder there named 'My Traders'

4. Copy and Paste all 5 current vanilla traders to My Traders folder.

5. Rename your Traders slightly different, makes it easier to swap them into an rwg map's prefabs.xml file. So 'trader_joel.xml' would be something like 'my_trader_joel.xml'. Be careful renaming the blocks.nim file as well. Make sure it goes from 'trader_joel.blocks.nim' to 'my_trader_joel.blocks.nim' or the POI will not work.

6. Once those traders are renamed, go in and make whatever changes you want, you can playtest in editor and test it against zombies there.

7. To get these into a map, you now go into your maps 'prefabs.xml' and do a find and replace, so like replace "trader with "my_trader . This will automatically swap the traders to yours, just make sure that trader folder stays where the game can see/read them.

8. If you do server multiplay, the easy way is to create a modlet to give players the POIs, but its not the only way to do this. You could also xpath your changes over the vanilla traders with i think the blocks.nim and include the .mesh file in the modlet alone to see changes in vanilla trader, but that method requires different troubleshooting/updating on version changes and I find just using my own POis easier.
 
Editing the POIs with the editor would indeed be the best way to go if you want to have modified versions in all your games. You don't really need to do all the renaming stuff. DF for example has customized versions of all the base game traders and those are in the prefabs part of the mod (DarknessFallsCore). When the map is generated those prefabs are used instead of base game versions. You could do this for an existing save, but you would have to add the mod and then regenerate the chunks around every trader that has been visited to get the modified version.

If you just want to do some cleanup at a certain trader, the Kosiam method is quicker. I for example like to delete the lamp post at Trader Jen's compound that is right next to the helipad. Makes it easier to land my modified gyrocopter. If I made more changes I'd probably opt for POI editing. Well, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe I'll do that. It's been a long time since I worked on any POIs and it might be good to re-familiarize myself with it.
 
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