Costs of ammunition and other items in files

[Kaidonni]

I've decided to do a little personal modification of OL 2.2, tweaking the economy to be a bit more like Newsa+Simbion (in terms of the values items are purchased and sold at, as well as what you find on dead bodies). Now, the only problem is, I can't for the life of me find out where you set ammunition costs...and as for medkits and such, I have found items.ltx, but there are several entries for most things, such as bread, which confuses me...

Any help on this is much appreciated, thank you.

EDIT: AHHH! In the weapons.ltx in the weapons folder! Oh my life...LOL! SO sorry, so so so sorry...

[audioave10]

I would imagine every modder on here has been "sorry" a few
times...don't worry about it. I've even screwed up NatVac's ZRP
mod once and I should have known better. I felt like this......

[Kaidonni]

Well, I've changed the costs now. Haven't changed the box sizes...but then, it'd be all experimentation. Maybe I should leave the box sizes OL 2.2, just change costs...I mean, there is usually more money from the OL 2.2 quests. Newsa+Simbion and SmP seem to focus more on items (from what I have seen, anyway). OL 2.2 always seemed to just give me too much money.

[Grump642]

Yeah, money is no good if there is nothing to buy!

[Kaidonni]

Actually, there was plenty to buy. I just didn't like being able to easily afford things. I'm just copying the Newsa+Simbion values, will see where I can go from there. Should be fun, more survival-oriented.

[EggChen]

Actually, there was plenty to buy. I just didn't like being able to easily afford things. I'm just copying the Newsa+Simbion values, will see where I can go from there. Should be fun, more survival-oriented.

If you want to make the economy harder, don't just change the cost. Its all relative, so if you halve a price trader will pay half what he used to, but he'll also charge you half what he used to when you buy it.

You need to increase the difference between sell and buy prices in the trader files.
In the examples below trader gives you 10% of the cost of the Abakan (if in perfect condition) but charges you 300% for it.

Code: Select all

[trader_generic_buy]
wpn_abakan            = 0.1,   0.1

[trader_start_sell]
wpn_abakan            = 3, 3

With these kinds of values it became pointless looting broken old guns, I upped the cost for artefacts and mutants parts, so you end up hunting both.

Something else worth doing is altering the death_items_XXXX files within config/misc to make NPC's drop less medkits, bandages, food, etc. Then make the traders charge a lot for it, supply and demand right? Medicine and clean food should be expensive.

[NatVac]

I'm lazy.* I'd first look at editing the trade_manager.script script file to tweak the costs. For one thing, it's a single change instead of a bunch of changes, one for each item in each buy and in each sell category. There can be several buy and sell categories based on the conditions at the top of the trade file.

For another thing, I can tweak it again and again without having to repeat the work. It may even be possible to add cost adjustments if the NPC is friendly, although that would be some work and you'd have to wait a while for the change to propogate if you used the current implementation.

I vaguely recall someone talking about this. They may have even done it already, in a mini-mod.

I did edit the death_*.ltx files in the same way you indicate, EggChen, in my Alternities1 FPS mod. If you are accurate in an FPS, you can get by with far less ammo.

___________
*Being lazy doesn't mean I do less work. But it might mean less tedium borne of repetition.

[Kaidonni]

Well, I basically altered the relevant trader files to be similar to Newsa+Simbion. I sort of had no real idea what the values were entirely for, but now I know 0.1 is 10%. Thanks EggChen.

I have been playing today, low on ammo and all that, is fun. However, in the trader files, I notice there are usually two values for any item (such as 0.1, 0.1). Do both values have an effect, or just one of them?

[EggChen]

I've moved this into the modding techniques section, and a PM sent to Kaidonni.

The reason for two values is that the game uses the mid point. I'm not entirely sure why, but it is possible that originally there was an intention to vary the price by relationship, I'm sure Natvac would know, having far more knowledge of the trade_manager.script (and a far greater skill with scripting!!).

So in vanilla, you have :

Code: Select all

bandage               = 1, 3

Which means you actually pay 2x the price.... which in practise is exactly the same as using these values :

Code: Select all

bandage               = 2, 2

Edit: I'd never call that lazy Natvac, just "working smarter"

[Kaidonni]

Ah, that explains those values then. Thanks . I could go and re-modify the values now, I suppose, but I'd probably end up with a headache deciding what to make them into. Lots of rebalancing, I'd end up giving all traders a specific set of values, such as x2 buy and x4 sell, rather than vary it for each weapon and the ammunition...you can see where it could all go. Blanket values would be bland. Barman and Sid buying and selling at the same price...nah, pointless. At least I've learnt something about modding Stalker, anyway.