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The Specialists - a trader class rework

Shino

Shino

New member
Making traders their own special little snowflakes 💙

It sounds like a nightmare to do but I'm working (at least trying) to make traders more in line with their appearance/personality. This means, a stock unique to each one of them, selling @%$# that makes sense and not being a convenience store for players to go dump @%$# after horde night.

According to the wiki

  • Trader Joel: Armor
  • Trader Jen: Medical supplies
  • Trader Bob: Tools and vehicles
  • Trader Rekt: Food and seeds
  • Trader Hugh: Weapons and ammo
Which is fine, but I really don't notice the difference between them.

I've drafted a few good ideas from friends that play with me for each trader.
 

Trader Joel: General stuff & workstations  (The sunglasses hide the fact that he doesn't sleeps.   Open 24/7)
Joel has that scavenger vibe all over his god damn sexy face. Let's give him an inventory worthy of someone like him
General food (mostly canned, some meat, eggs and little vegetables), wood and iron ( be it the raw resource or the frame blocks) and the @%$#tiest weapons and makeshift armors you can find (low quality, tier and cnd no matter the gs (also dirt cheap) ) 
His secret stash may contain workstations or their blueprints.

Trader Jen: Medical supplies (As the last medic alive she's ready to treat your wounds no matter the time.   Open 24/7)
Bandages, first aid kits and buff items galore. All at a fair price considering the state of the world outside of course.

Guaranteed at least 1 antibiotic. 
You've got an infection? Got no honey? Go to Jen's.
Abrassion and out of bandages? Go to Jen's
That direwolf just took a bite out of your god damn leg. You've guessed it, go to Jen's
She has no guns to buy, she does sell ammo since she finds them when looting around. She's a pharmacist not a harmacist.
She might sell you the things she uses to cut open her patients.

Trader Bob: Tools and vehicles (Guy hates the morning, works late to compensate.    Opens 12:30 | Closes 03:50 )
He sells bits and bobs. Get it? Trader Bob, bits and bobs?????? * sigh *
He has a inventory similar to Joel's, more iron oriented and sells repair kits almost every time.
The catch? His secret stash has only 1 item. A gamestage+1 vehicle in acceptable condition.
So bikes, minibikes, the cooler bike, 4x4 and gyro. (neither of them guaranteed) (secret stash is either the vehicles or the parts to make them and the blueprint)
To balance this, ofc, they're pricey.
He also has electronics in stock, lights, speakers, generators and stuff.
 

Trader Rekt: Food and seeds (The Blake Abernathy of the Zombie Apocalypse.   Open: 4:01 |  Closes 20:30)
A ray of sunshine on the wasteland.
He sells food (raw, cooked and seed) and hunting stuff. (Mid quality hunting rifles and ammo for it)
His grandma taught him to cook so he has the best @%$#ing food you'll ever eat.
Also, remember the Grandpa's recipes? Well, turns out he's that grandpa. Secret stash filled with them.
He buys NOTHING but food too. Canned, liquid, rotten, don't care. 
Secret stash might have farm plots ready for you.

Trader Hugh: Weapons, ammo, armor, traps. (He might get upset at you burning daylight, but if he does it then its fine. Open: 11:00  |  Close: 00:00)
The guy only knows one thing and that's how to kill zombies.
Weapons and their parts.
Armor, mods and ammo.
Any kind of trap.
Secret stash has weapon blueprints and the best quality weapons you can find on the wasteland these days.
If you've got beef with the undead, he's the right guy to pay a visit. Otherwise get out of his compound cause you're burning daylight.
 

I also make some changes to the Vanilla clutter list that every trader has so it includes a little bit more decorations. 
Trader inventories have been tweaked to reflect such changes.

TL;DR traders now have more specialized inventories and open/close hours.

Here's the updated download link that actually downloads the right file <3

Good Ideas will be implemented and bad ideas will be discussed upon until they become good.
Feel free to test stuff and tell me how it feels. Any feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
When I added some very limited extra items to new groups/existing groups in the past, it was important to remember that with default min-max/inventory-swap items, the more you add the less likely regular essentials will appear which in the long run can be counter productive.

If the goal is to keep the mod proportional to the current default values and chance of probability, then it may be useful to also tweak up the min-max values to reflect the increased inventory.

If the goal is to specialise and by association increase the challenge, then just by having an increase in specialised items geared towards one concept will increase those chances but lower the opportunity to receive regular game play purchase stock. And this is possibly where the mod is at as the ModInfo suggests making things harder.

I suppose if your community says they are having tooooo much of a hard time purchasing 'this' item but are seeing an abundance of 'that' kind of item linked to the specialty then you'll know whether to tweak settings further to maintain quality of life gameplay for the essentials. Especially in A20 where it appears food can be somewhat more challenging to come by.

 

 
arramus said:
When I added some very limited extra items to new groups/existing groups in the past, it was important to remember that with default min-max/inventory-swap items, the more you add the less likely regular essentials will appear which in the long run can be counter productive.

If the goal is to keep the mod proportional to the current default values and chance of probability, then it may be useful to also tweak up the min-max values to reflect the increased inventory.

If the goal is to specialise and by association increase the challenge, then just by having an increase in specialised items geared towards one concept will increase those chances but lower the opportunity to receive regular game play purchase stock. And this is possibly where the mod is at as the ModInfo suggests making things harder.

I suppose if your community says they are having tooooo much of a hard time purchasing 'this' item but are seeing an abundance of 'that' kind of item linked to the specialty then you'll know whether to tweak settings further to maintain quality of life gameplay for the essentials. Especially in A20 where it appears food can be somewhat more challenging to come by.

 
Click to expand...
I've been testing with two or three people on a private one since I don't wanna make big changes to the dedicated server without testing them first.

From what I've gathered traders now sell a LOT more food. Joel has a lot of pipe weapons (as I wanted him to), Jen has her personal collection of Knifes and Spears and a lot of pricey meds to go along with the cuts you're gonna have while using them. For trader rekt, he also sells a crap ton of food and seeds to compensate the farming reworks.

I might look into the inventory swap values.
TYSM for the feedback

 
@Shino I forgot to mention one more small thing.

If possible, and should you release the final version for everyone to try, is it possible to change 'config' to 'Config'? Just with the Capital 'C'. This is because some versions of Linux ares very sensitive to upper/lowercase and it may be rejected.

 

 
arramus said:
When I added some very limited extra items to new groups/existing groups in the past, it was important to remember that with default min-max/inventory-swap items, the more you add the less likely regular essentials will appear which in the long run can be counter productive.

If the goal is to keep the mod proportional to the current default values and chance of probability, then it may be useful to also tweak up the min-max values to reflect the increased inventory.

If the goal is to specialise and by association increase the challenge, then just by having an increase in specialised items geared towards one concept will increase those chances but lower the opportunity to receive regular game play purchase stock. And this is possibly where the mod is at as the ModInfo suggests making things harder.

I suppose if your community says they are having tooooo much of a hard time purchasing 'this' item but are seeing an abundance of 'that' kind of item linked to the specialty then you'll know whether to tweak settings further to maintain quality of life gameplay for the essentials. Especially in A20 where it appears food can be somewhat more challenging to come by.

 
Click to expand...
You mean the folder or the tag?
I think the tag can be whatever I want, I just made it from a template of one of jaxtellers mods hahaha
If it is the folder I'll change it right away.

 
Shino said:
You mean the folder or the tag?
I think the tag can be whatever I want, I just made it from a template of one of jaxtellers mods hahaha
If it is the folder I'll change it right away.
Click to expand...
It means for the folder.

 
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