The main attraction of NPC Villages, other than the relief that comes from finding you are not alone in the vast expanses of the universe (and raiding the hell out of them), has got to be the commercial parts of town wherein one can scout the shops, looking for items to buy. You can buy recipe ingredients, clothing, weapons, and... er... the same ingredients, clothing, and weapons farther down the road? When you explore the world, what other merchants do you find? Clothing... and Wizards selling drugs? When you explore the universe, does any of this change? Sadly, no. I realize that Starbound is still in Beta, and is still being refined, but the lack of variety in village markets and throughout the game is striking. In a village, you can literally look in one shop, then look three feet away and find another merchant selling the same items in a different order. The lack of variety in merchants is a key limitation in the experience of finding and exploring a village, and for all exploration. It's very boring. It could use a lot of improvement (which I am 100% positive is coming sooner or later), so I thought I'd toss some ideas out in the open for the Dev team and for user commentary. First, an analysis of merchants in-game now. There are currently three types of merchants that spawn in villages: Clothing: Sells race-specific starter outfits (Clothing you can spawn with) Blacksmith: Sells a host of random weapons, as well as random race-specific weapon and armor blueprints Ingredient Peddler/Farmer: Sells random ingredients. Selections vary by race There are also two kinds of merchants one can find outside of towns (that I have found. If list is incomplete, please feel free to correct me): Vanity Clothing: Sells an assortment of vanity clothing, with no race restriction (which is very weird IMO). Wizard: Sells Stim Packs as well as the Wizard Hat vanity item In addition to those randomly generated merchants, there exists, currently, four other merchants a player can spawn in using a randomly found NPC spawner item (as well as more Wizards): Chef: Sells all ingredient items, with no race restriction Doctor: Sells health regenerating items (Bandage, Medkit, Red Stim Pack) Stim: Sells all four types of Stim Packs Tool: Sells mining tools (Flare, Rope, and Bombs) Wizard: See above Second, my suggestions for improvement within the existing scope of the game. Optimizing current NPCs with currently available items. I do not feel that these need much explanation. Comments are welcome. All existing NPC types should be able to spawn in a village. The larger the list of possible merchants, the more variety within a market. Clothing and Vanity Clothing NPCs merged into one, with more variety in wares that varies from race to race and merchant to merchant. Blacksmith NPC split into "Weaponsmith" and "Armorsmith" variants. "Weaponsmith" will sell various racial weapons and weapon blueprints, and "Armorsmith" will sell racial armors and armor blueprints. Weapons and Armor sold at these merchants have better stats that randomly generated items, and weapons can have "elemental" affiliations. Weaponsmiths also can sell items like Grenades and other throwing weapons. Chef NPC sells recipe foods (Burger, Hot Bone, etc) that vary by race, but also have a chance to sell other races' recipes. Also randomly sells recipe blueprints. Ingredient Peddler/Farmer NPC will sell a variety of ingredients that vary by race, and has a chance to sell other races' ingredients. Doctor and Stim NPCs merged into one, which also sells Nanowrap Bandages (at a higher pixel cost to normal crafting) as well as any other medicinal items. Tool NPC also sells Pickaxes, Axes, Drills, etc, which vary in selection depending on Planet Threat Level. Third, suggestions for improvement not within the existing scope of the game. NPC Types: Geologist, which sells Crystal items (possibility of blueprints), random Ores, and random mineral blocks. Botanist, which sells crop seeds (including race-specific seeds, but also others randomly), as well as randomly chosen sapling types. Could sell rarer "natural" stuff like Mushroom/Toxic/Rainbow/Etc. furniture and blueprints. Archeologist, which sells structure blocks and items from recent structure raiding explorations. Could be split into various types that correspond to specific shop inventories. Librarian, which sells any and all Codex entries at random, as well as various Bookshelf furniture and Pile of Books (block). Mechanics: Merchants that spawn with a Village can be of any race. A majority may be of the village's race, but it makes sense to have traveling merchants of different races within a town, or merchants who have set up shop away from their home world for more profitable venues. Merchants spawn with appropriate items and hold these items while near their shops (Chefs wear a Chef outfit, Librarians wear Glasses and hold a book, Farmers wear farmer clothing and hold a Stone Hoe, etc). Merchants can buy items from the player, and, if an appropriate item for the merchant-type, can update their shop inventory to include the item. Shop inventories remain infinite, but there is a finite amount of Pixels that the merchant can give to the player in exchange for items. That amount increases with purchases made by the player from the shop inventory. (Ex. Sell Farmer 20 Pineapples for 40 Pixels. Farmer's available Pixel supply drops from 200 to 160. Player buys 30 Feathercrown for 120 Pixels. Farmer's available Pixel supply increases from 160 to 280.) Merchant name (randomly generated), type and Pixel amount appear on the shop GUI. I think this would be a good start for villages. Other things need to be added to the rest of the universe, such as a possible space merchant ship, but these would build the foundations for a healthy in-game economy and improve the immersion. Thoughts?
It seems people are far more interested in hypothetical, almost-certainly-not-getting-added-to-the-game new race suggestions than something much simpler and realistic like a discussion on improving village Merchant NPCs. Can't say I blame anyone, but it's rather frustrating spending an hour and a half typing up a post only to let it sink to the bottom of the second page...
I would also like more interesting merchants, and I'm glad you mention including other races in a village. It's a big universe with lots of peoples. Someone needs to be going around selling them stuff.
Thanks for replying Piranha Moose! Variety is the spice of life! Too bad merchants currently lack in that spice. Any ideas that come to mind when thinking about making merchants more interesting? Mhmm. It just makes sense. Merchants look for prosperous environments, and those could be towns of very different people from the merchant.
The problem is, suggesting merchants doesn't really flex any of the creative muscles people come to these forums to use: Merchants are merchants. They sell things. Not exactly much you can do with that other than having different merchants selling different things. In terms of actual suggestions, Something I'd like to see is merchant ships that move from system to system and can be landed on similarly to planets and the like. It'd keep things fresh when people return to old systems and find someone new in orbit to say hello to.
I guess there are creativity limits when it comes to merchants in villages but there is surely more than enough wiggle room to make more than three merchants types that repeat indefinitely within one town. Still, other suggestions work. This thread could be changed to be about merchants in general... heck, you could discuss vending machines here if you want. I'll ammend the OP to reflect this change when I get a chance. I like that. It would be an interesting addition and could be used as a bazaar of sort, with all sorts of random, rarer stuff on sale that varies. Maybe it could depend on the pixel supply I brought up in the OP? Let's say, if any vendor hits more than 10k pixels, they have a chance to be replaced with another vendor next visit?
The OP has been updated to allow discussion on merchants outside of Villages. I did focus on Village merchants, however, so I'll need some time to think about non-Village merchant improvements.
Ummm... by default farmer sometimes do sell seeds, and rarely a recipe blueprint... More likely to see them selling seeds. You missed a merchant type that would be good. Furniture Salesman: A person to sell all the various furniture seen in the village, if not a rare thing seen somewhere else. The archeologist... Well could be sub as Antique dealer & Pawn shop, as at least 2 separate lists; unsure what some others could be. Junk Store: Find various broken things, and some small treasures. Like those flickering lights and broken cabinets you find in the asteroids; as well various simple things like plates, bowls, and of course certain blocks the fit the name junk. Junk tech being one, slime, sewage. Plumber/Engineer: Sells those pipe décor items, vents, and sometimes wiring stuff; even though you can craft them, it is just nice to be able to have choice to buy as well. I actually like the variety you have given and quite a few of the modifications. The outside town ones, all I ever find is racial merchants that sell default Human clothes..? Which in a way makes no sense that every race sells Human clothes when outside the city. Well in my experience. I have never run across anything beyond 4 types; the 3 you see in the cities, weapon/armor, produce, and clothing; & the clothing one I mentioned above. Been to 40+ planets over 10+ systems and that is all I have seen sadly. lol Variety would be nice, and the more there is the more like a market it will appear, especially when there are 20 of them in a single village; granted spread through out in small chunks. That was an avian desert/arid village.
Really? That's weird. I've been to a number of villages and found no farmer/ingredient peddler that sells seeds or blueprints. I'll check the merchant coding when I get home. My original thoughts on the Archeologist was that he'd be a cover-all for all generated structures. I guess he could split up, as there is a lot of territory there. Those listed would be cool too, though the Plumber could sell other things (if they are added to the game) like buckets, pumps, etc. Thanks! I'll add more when I get a chance, so check back later.
I am unsure about the blueprints since it has been a while and was only once that I saw that, but the seeds I have seen uncommon enough. yeah if those were added that would be nice for a plumber to sell. Can't really think of anything beyond maybe this last one: Painter/artist: sells various artwork from paintings to sculptures. Could be another division of archeologist.
You may or may not have confused village chests with merchant inventories. As soon as I get home, I'll check the merchant files in Notepad++. May or may not work better as a merchant you can find randomly inside a generated house on various worlds. Like it, though.
Okay, so I checked the merchant files in Notepad++ earlier, and found exactly what I said before. There are three village merchants: one sells Weapons/Armor; one sells Food; and one sells Clothing. None of the other merchants sell seeds of any kind (other than Beakseed, which is not a seed but a fruit name). In addition, the only people who sell blueprints are the Blacksmith. Onto some more interesting news: I decided to try my hand at modding today. So far, I have changed the Chef into an NPC which sells cooked food instead of ingredients, and have added another NPC Spawner which spawns a new NPC I call the Sous Chef, which sells food blueprints. Currently are only spawned through the Chef Spawner and Sous Chef Spawner. Both NPCs list 10 items for sale. Current Prices (subject to change): Random Generation Foods: ~100 Pixels (Food)/~1000 Pixels (Blueprint) Normal Crafted Foods: ~150 Pixels (Food)/~1500 Pixels (Blueprint) Uncommon Crafted Foods: ~300 Pixels (Food)/~3000 Pixels (Blueprint) Rare Crafted Foods: ~450 Pixels (Food)/~4500 Pixels (Blueprint) Currently limited to "Entrees" as found within /assets. I will add in others. I may also tinker with food recipes and food hunger sating values because I can. I am working on the Doctor and Stim Merchants next, though I need to do some more tinkering to see if I can do racial predispositions to sale listings without making separate race Chef NPC files. I also have found a way to modify NPC spawns in a village (within assets/dungeons/), but I have to find villages to test changes in... Probably with backup universes in-case I make mistakes which delete NPCs (I did that during the Chef/Sous Chef tests already...). With any luck, I might be able to set up an early version mod download/WIP thread in a while, as I try to do something that no one else seems to have done. I'm new to this, so I'll need to mess around quite a bit.
i guess they changed it then. Cause I know i have bought at least 1 seed, an actual seed, from one. I get all the versions mixed up sometimes in memory. It was that food merchant too. Now which version that was in, I can not say, but at least now I know it is not in this version. Well that is quite a task to take on though, as I personally have only messed around with recipes. Well good luck in that. Nice to see people learning the enjoyment of modding.
The only things annoying about modding Starbound is how long it takes to test changes (mostly due to game load times) and how NPCs just disintegrate if you place an additional space in their file somewhere. Anyway, I think I'll leave the docor and the druggie alone for now. I'd rather focus on experimenting with the Chef and then work on the Archeologist and his variants. If anyone has any suggestions, I'll see if I can implement them.
Another update. I have figured out how to do merchants with inventories that vary depending on the race of the merchant and it's not very clean. I can't make them spawn from one type of spawner, so I have had to add six new spawners into my modification, one for each Chef race. I have also added another merchant: The Drink Merchant. Sells drinks. All of them. Gotta work on him/her more, but I think it will lead to better integration of the rather extensive list of beverages within the game. So far, I have added the following NPCs: Apex Chef, Avian Chef, Floran Chef, Glitch Chef, Human Chef, Hylotl Chef Sous Chef Drink Merchant/"Bartender" I will try to add these next: Librarian Botanist Archeologist Tomb Raider Carpenter Scavenger Geologist Plumber If you have ideas for further NPC types or dialogue lines for these NPCs, please leave a comment. This is still a suggestion thread, but it is also my attempt to save Chucklefish some time and effort.
Here is a mod update. Still looking for NPC suggestions, I decided to finish refining up Chef, Sous Chef and "Bartender" NPCs before I moved on to the next bunch of NPCs. All Chefs select from the following lists to form their shop listings. Sous Chefs sell the recipes of the same items, with a price multiplied by 100. Sides = 150 Pixels Desserts = 200 Pixels Entrees = 300 Pixels If Candy, subtract 100 If Uncommon, add 50 If Rare, add 100 Entrees Vegetable Stew Sides Bread Corn Cob Toast Desserts Candy Carrot Cake Chocolate Lollypop Toffee Toffee Apple Entrees Bananacon Battered Banana Fish Fingers Roast Dinner Sides Ape Grapes Fruit Salad Lucky Dip Roast Banana Desserts Avesmingo Ice Cream Banana Bread Banana Cream Pie Banana Split Entrees Curried Beakseed Poached Avesmingo Spicy Feathercrown Wartweed Stew Sides Boiled Pearlpeas Cornpeckers Eggshoot Salad Pearlpea Parcels Desserts Candied Corn Carrotbread Pineapple Upside-crown Cake Pearlpea Pancakes Entrees Meat n' Marrow Meatwich Oculemon Stew The Special Sides Boneboo Marrow Eyebowls Fish In A Bone Offal Desserts Burning Eyeballs Hot Bone Puss Plum Pie Sweet Meat Entrees Automato Stew Bolt O's Piodia Pizzap Stuffed Automato Sides Corntent Nuts n' Bolts Smash Deserts Black Current Crumble Candy Automato Copper Key Pie Sweet Time Entrees Alien Burger Burger Chili Stew Fish n' Chips Soup Burrito Ham Sandwich Meatballs Pizza Pizza Slice Sides Garden Salad Mashed Potato Sweet Corn Desserts Apple Pie Cake Candy Apple Vanilla Ice Cream Entrees Coralcreep Curry Saltsalad Stuffed Dirturchin Sushi Sides Corn On The Blob Eggshoot Fried Rice Ricecake Soggysack Desserts Brineapple Candied Pearlpeas Reefpod Surprise Rice Pudding All Drink Merchants currently sell the same items. Basic = 100 Juices = 125 Small Alcohol =150 Fancy = 250 Alcohol Bottle = 450 Basic Bottled Water MilkSoda Juices Avesmingo Juice Carrot Juice Grape Juice Kiwi Juice Pineapple Juice Reef JuiceTomato Juice Fancy Automato Shake Battery Acid Bloody Puss Bolted Milk Cyanider Dirtea Pozest Reef Shake Tropical Punch Small Alcohol Whisky Flash Wine Glass Alcohol Bottle Meat Wine Rice Wine Wart Wine Weyene Whiskey Bottle Wine Bottle Introduced NPCs have their own spawners, one for each race. Can only be spawned when the Tabula Rasa mod is installed. Work perfectly, otherwise. Apex Chef Avian Chef Floran Chef Glitch Chef Human Chef Hylotl Chef Apex Sous Chef Avian Chef Floran Chef Glitch Chef Human Chef Hylotl Chef Drink Merchant In addition, the icon for Meatballs and Vegetable Soup has been changed from displaying a can to a bowl of meatballs or vegetable soup. Descriptions have been changed to signify this.
Looks like a pretty decent list of pricing... That makes good progress. I've not go any more ideas beyond the ones I suggested, but at least that long list is quite a handful to work with. Of course you could always separate certain things further just to have for show, like a brick worker; that will sell you bricks of all kinds. Also several other similar ones that relate to block salesman. But that might be a bit much considering the archeologist you have in mind. Either way I'll be watching, as I work on my recipe list for my own little project. (making it so I can craft the many things that are not at the moment.)
It seems quite large but I find it underwhelming. It's thirteen NPCs but only three different types. It may be good enough for an initial mod release, but is definitely not enough to be a final version. If I make into an initial release, I'll need to add crafting recipes for the spawners and check all the NPCs again. Yeah, that be a bit much. I think I've subdivided the archeologist enough with him, the Tomb Raider, and the Scavenger who I've decided will be the merchants selling structure blocks and items. Good luck! Maybe we can combine our mods later!
Download for the 0.01 version of my BetterMerchants mod. Requires the Tabula Rasa mod, and may conflict with a LOT of mods if they mess with merchant.npctype.
I'm just reading through your post today (I'd done a search to see if anyone suggested being able to sell to merchants) and I love your ideas! It is really easy to release this as a mod, even with a warning that it is an early release, without having to use external sites to store your files. Just go here and click on add mod under the search thing. You'll get more people seeing it, giving you suggestions and bug fixes. I'd rather not mess with spawners myself, but I really want to see different merchants too!
