[Done] Merchant Missions

[acidia]

Adds

1. Clear the back bay of zombies
2. Investigate missing caravan
3. Acquire atomic battery mods

Would have held off for the other mission sets but this ads a number of changes including support for assassinate missions and basic increase in faction rep as you complete missions. The site is generated during mission start so it can be in well known/traveled areas.

Known Issues:
-The current item bug means that you shouldn't try to pickup items when you kill the npc bandits.
-[Fixed] Don't ask the merchant to teach you anything, I'll disable that since he needs to be next to you.
-[Fixed] The proximity check for the ambush site doesn't stay in the current world map which can cause the npcs to not spawn, seems pretty rare though.

When I get the Old Guard missions up I'll change the bandit weapons to actually be mostly significant.
In theory, the bandits are only hostile because of your faction relation to them. So if you can increase Hell's Raiders faction relation (in the future by killing Old Guard/police type npcs) I could potentially add a non-hostile way of solving the situation (large cash sum).

Edit: Forgot to mention, any reference you might find is only made in jest as an insider joke.

[KA101]

dealt

[KA101]

Minor lore point: atomic battery mods are something the Lab folks came up with, and aren't generally known. (You find the recipe in lab finales, and ONLY lab finales.)

Perhaps either ask for plutonium (cells) that their people could jury-rig, or explain that they have this weird atomic rig-up (atomic battery mod) someone traded 'em, and need more like it?

[acidia]

Arg, I started off with plutonium but the game doesn't like to count it correctly since it is considered an ammo. I'll look into it again.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

I like this a lot.

[KA101]

Better NPCs is definitely an improvement.

wonders what the odds are on naming the next stable; thinks Acidia's looking pretty good there

[acidia]

Nooooo's, I doubt NPCs are going to be stable enough by the upcoming release... hoping most kinks are out by the following one. :)

Now to find that overmap bug...
Edit: Got-er, let me know if you encounter any other bugs because that was the last one I was aware of.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

25 plutonium cells? Wow that's a lot!

They come in stacks of five at a time, and they're not exactly common items; that mission will likely keep people searching for a long time to complete it.

[acidia]

Given that it's the last one in the path, for a while, I figured it should be time consuming. I already have parts of the four missions I'm giving to the Old Guard rep done but I'm kinda at a loss for what to give the arsonist... burning down buildings is what he would do? I was going to give him a, "Collect a full set of firefighting gear," but the item missions only support a singe item. Given that he sells most of the low end fire weapons it wouldn't make sense to find/build him one. Maybe he would want you to collect all the fire extinguishers for him to destroy... As a side note I was thinking about fixing his gender to female and name to Makayla, just for fun.

I haven't even looked at how well support for multiple missions is implemented, although it is there. Since it existed I figured I'd make an infinite loop of collect jerky, gasoline, and ??? for the merchant... that way you would always have a mission even if it was a generic fetch quest one. What crops can you turn into a preserved food without much effort? Like, dried corn in real life. Either through the main merchant or someone designated as in-charge of food stock I want to encourage playing with farming/fishing. I loved the hell out of some harvest moon back in the day. :)

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

Maybe the arsonist could request increasingly large quantities/containers of gasoline?

As for producing non-perishable crops, you can readily grow corn, wheat, barley, and cotton. Also marijuana, which would probably fetch a decent price from the merchants as well. And there's always dried/smoked/salted fish and meat, or dried vegetables and fruits.

[KA101]

Hey, is there a particular building I should look for? Not seeing the Refugee Center in my overmap.

(OK, found it. Typo: Refguee -> Refugee)

[acidia]

lol, I would have noticed that if I ever typed the whole name... I always used 'Re' or 'Ref'

[KA101]

Oops. That anti-teach code doesn't seem to work. I asked the merchie to help me with Bashing Weapons after I killed the special out by the back bay...and he did, just laggy as the get-out.

(And in trading after that session, I'm showing a profit of $492, without any items targeted? Not sure if that's deferred from the mission or what.)

[KA101]

And it just crashed when I Never Mind'd out of another teaching check (the ambushed scav party went well, BUT the bandits should probably load & use weapons).

All in all, I like it. If it hadn't crashed, would likely have merged.

[acidia]

The anti-teach code is working for me... I recompiled from the fork to see if I missed anything but npctalk.cpp line 1269 should be
if((!p->skills_offered_to(&(g->u)).empty() || !p->styles_offered_to(&(g->u)).empty())
&& p->myclass != NC_EVAC_SHOPKEEP) {"
If you somehow have a version between commits that would explain some of the crashing?

Never touched reward payments/items so I couldn't tell you what is up with that other than the mission is worth $500.00 to him by definition. Just tried it and if you choose the, 'you owe me' reward then the amount that you should have gotten for choosing 'I want an item' is deferred until your next trade... at least that is what I'm observing. Maybe add a straight cash option would be better if the npc actually has the money?

On another note, I guess cornmeal works pretty well as a trade good as long as it doesn't rot. I'd like the smoked/dehydrated stuff but until charcoal can be produced in a pit or salt gleamed from salt water, neither is the renewable source I'm looking for.

[KA101]

Uh, charcoal kilns are touchy thanks to running on charges, but they're fairly sustainable IMO. I'll check the teaching again.

(One thing I noticed: the Bandits' names & titles overflow the NPC-name box on the map screen. Might want to check that; @illi-kun's pretty good at dynamic UI IIRC.)

[KA101]

???
Just traded with the Merchant and I didn't get the money I had coming, but DID give the stuff I'd offered.

(OK, there's the gas mask. Missed it. Thought he'd stiffed me on the gear too!)

[acidia]

Huh? In a normal trade or was this a reward, 'I want an item'? Or a 'you owe me'? I do normal trades quite often and have never had a single problem.

I haven't messed with any of the code for this other than saying that the merchant shouldn't try and teach you stuffs. I'll take a look at it either way.

[KA101]

Bay: no reward asked
Convoy: You owe me.

Traded later, stuff for stuff, I was showing about a $9K profit based largely on trading over an MP7 and P90 I'd found at a nearby miloutpost, and got no money.

After the bandits, yeah, didn't try to teach.

[acidia]

Wait, did it try to teach before the bandits?

Unless someone has a problem with it, I'm going to switch the 'You owe me' to 'I'll take cash if you got it.' To provide an incentive to ask for items, I'll make the cash sum at 60% of the item value sum.

[KA101]

It did the first time, after the bay. And yeah, I tried trading and this time it worked OK. ???

Update: Yeah, if you ask for gear (plutonium) the merchant gives you a $3K credit in trading...but you don't get whatever you don't use. :-/ At this point, we don't have enough of a post-apoc economy to say whether 5 plutonium cells are worth more than (say) an Uzi or other SMG.

[acidia]

My thoughts were that I almost never use trace amounts of ammo regardless of how good it may be... at the same time it does increase faction rep and eventually faction score. 25 plutonium cells are worth 3k in a straight trade so that is where I got the mission value from.

Replaced the bugged 'you owe me' reward so if you start a fresh save everything should be good?

[kevingranade]

"As a side note I was thinking about fixing his gender to female and name to Makayla, just for fun."
I'm very for this.