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Planned Feature Quality of Item Traders is too random

cal

Landlubber
Hey guys, been playing the build mod for over a year, of and on, and i love what you guys have done, the best pirate game ever made, and thats with sid miers, disney potc online (lets not talk about that) burning seas, and black flag under my belt.

so for the first time im trying to play a pure iron man playthrough in free play, however, though it has never been an issue before, no stores carry any navigational equipment beyond the simple clock and basic telescope, i cant find a sextant and compass, and also they dont sell maps, as such im too scared to leave lurking in nevis's shoals, with no way of navigating beyond guesstimating based on sunrise and sunset my north south directions, and thats pretty shoddy at best.

is this a bug? the stores also dont carry maps either, and i cant check other stores, because, well, pirate. they dont like me...
thanks in advance
 
What is your level?
Which storyline?
Which version of the build?
 
Better items appear as you progress through the game. What is your character level at the moment?
 
at what level does the compass occur in stores? not that it helps me since i had one of the magical teleportation to the middle of the ocean moments xD
 
level 8, most current build 14 3.2 from mod db, the freeplay hawk storyline, black_corsair charecter
 
There are three compasses that show up at player levels 1, 4 and 10.

Beta 3.2 is quite old by now. Public release of the next version should be tonight.
 
Beta 3.4, admittedly not the latest release, and several stores have nothing for sale. Except ammo. I don't know whether this is because I'm Commander Nelson wandering through Havana, Santiago and San Juan, when Spain is at war with Britain. But I've got the Spanish flag up and they haven't noticed that I'm wearing a British uniform otherwise they wouldn't be trading with me at all!

Last time I saw a decent set of stuff for sale was when I visited Point a Pitre, Guadeloupe, when I was playing "Brave Black Flag" under an even earlier version. France doesn't like Britain either, so I'll see if they still have a decent set of stuff for sale when I go there in the "Nelson" storyline...
 
Item traders never care about your nationality and will trade with anyone. Town merchants may object to your actual relations though.
But then they will say so through dialog and this will not result in no items being available.

Nobody ever cares about your national ranks. Only about your actual relations along with a false flag detection chance.
Character models only change your appearance, but the game is not "aware" of what you are wearing and therefore will not react to that.
So to you it looks like you are wearing a British naval uniform in an enemy town, but the town folk only see "a character walking through town".
 
ah, so some stories do not have the item sets availible? ive almost always played the nathaniel hawk line, just for open world-yness, can this be adjusted in any of the .h files?

edit: and are certain traders more likely to carry the equipment, eg, a port royal trader vs your local pirate fence?
 
Some items are nation-dependent, but that mostly applies to weapons. Regular items should be available throughout the Caribbean.

You can try a store instead of an item trader; they usually have a lot more good stuff available.

It also depends on the quality of the merchant you talk to, which is set when you first talk to them.
This is shown in the item trade menu. Low quality merchants may have only boring stuff.
But high quality merchants may not have anything to sell to you because your own level is too low.

You can always have a look at Gregor Samsa in Speightstown port. He's generally got some awesome stuff.
 
Item traders never care about your nationality and will trade with anyone. Town merchants may object to your actual relations though.
But then they will say so through dialog and this will not result in no items being available.
Nevertheless, after finding nothing for sale at Havana, Santiago or San Juan, the first place I did find anything (other than ammo) was Charleston, where I was finally able to stock up on maps.

Nobody ever cares about your national ranks. Only about your actual relations along with a false flag detection chance.
Character models only change your appearance, but the game is not "aware" of what you are wearing and therefore will not react to that.
So to you it looks like you are wearing a British naval uniform in an enemy town, but the town folk only see "a character walking through town".
I know. That was my way of saying I hadn't been recognised. :D The stores were quite happy to take my money, they just didn't have any personal items to sell for it. Cargo sales were fine.
 
Cargo sales and item sales are quite independent of each other. Quite weird if they have absolutely zero items though.
What does the trader quality indicate in the Item Trading menu?
 
Some items are nation-dependent, but that mostly applies to weapons. Regular items should be available throughout the Caribbean.

You can try a store instead of an item trader; they usually have a lot more good stuff available.

It also depends on the quality of the merchant you talk to, which is set when you first talk to them.
This is shown in the item trade menu. Low quality merchants may have only boring stuff.
But high quality merchants may not have anything to sell to you because your own level is too low.

You can always have a look at Gregor Samsa in Speightstown port. He's generally got some awesome stuff.

How many different levels of stores are there?
 
There are 10 different levels.

Are those levels completely ramdom or is the chance to find a level 10 trader in a bigger city higher? So far it looks kind of ramdom from the past.

I had games, where I must have had a level 9 or 10 trader in a town and could by everything I wanted. And I had games, where I could not get anything I liked.

Never saw the "Qual. #" before, so I never knew why.

Is there a chance to increase the level of a trader, buy trading very good items with him or doing large volumes or anything?
 
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If I recall, the trader level is established the first time you talk to him and relates to your own player level.

Then the trader will level up by actually doing more trading with him.
So if you never use a low-level guy he'll remain low level, but if you use him he should end up having better items later on.
 
Great, thanks for the info. I will try this and look for a good trader and will trade with him until he goes nuts.
 
LOL!

To be fair, perhaps the current trader quality system isn't set up quite fairly. I always figured it is best to NOT talk to certain traders until later in the game.
So that when you DO talk to them, they'll be generated with a higher level and actually have good stuff for sale.
Otherwise *I* have to keep buying stuff from them just to give them experience, which doesn't make all that much sense.

Actually, none of this makes all that much sense. Hopefully.... some day.... :rolleyes:
 
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