Exploit - overloaded traders

[Saiko Kila]

Since introduction of limited carry weight for NPCs, there is an exploit with foreign traders. When you sell them a fur stack they can't carry, they will dump it, and you can pick it up and trade again, to this same guy or others. Normally it happens only to heaviest stack, or least expensive, but if you use only one stack, they dump it anyway, instead of splitting it, for example.

The best stacks would be elk and bear furs, with fine or superior quality, and winter variety. Because the stack needs to be quite big, it isn't exploitable by early characters, since it needs an investment in furs, pack animal (you need a pig at least), and optionally hideworking skill. Once you have so many furs, you probably don't need it, so it's more for fun of thievery than for anything else. The foreign traders came here to exploit you - you can exploit them instead!

The minimal usable stack seems to be 5 elk furs, but it's not safe, many traders are not encumbered enough to be unable to carry it, plus if you buy something heavy they are encumbered less. Stack of 6 furs is much more safe, still there are guys able to carry it. Stack of 7 can be carried only by exceptional strongmen, who need to be lightly armoured at most, and you probably won't meet them. I use stack of 8 to be sure they can't carry it. The bigger the stack the more you can buy, of course. Stack of 6 fine elk furs of winter variety (easily achievable with even mediocre skills) will buy you the most expensive weapon of masterwork quality, for example.

This exploit is not possible with villagers, because the things they drop are considered village property, even if dropped outside of village borders. It is possible with woodsmen of any sort encountered, though.

[Sami]

This actually hasn't been the case since introduction of limited carry weight for NPCs since that's been active for a decade or two, or who knows for how long.
I believe this came along with the current version (3.52). Previously there was a bug which caused excess items obtained in trade to disappear, but now they are put on the ground.

The exploit will be taken care of in the next version where foreign traders simply refuse to accept player trade proposals they actually can not carry.

[PALU]

Hm, that may cause a problem, since jewelry is expensive and hides are heavy (and heavier than armor and weapons as well, value wise). To buy some of the more expensive things I've had to resort to moving up to the trader, cow of burden in tow, offload a sizable part of the cow's inventory onto my character, rooting it in place, and then trade a large pile of (piles of) hides for a couple of trinkets. Unless care is taken, there's a risk traders won't be able to sell their expensive stuff because they can't carry the payment in the only currency they accept, perhaps with the exception of superior hides, but you don't get those that often even with top skill and tools.

[Mati256]

I tough Foreign traders didn't accept Elk furs.

[PALU]

I tough Foreign traders didn't accept Elk furs.

I haven't had any problems with that (and this is the first time I hear about such a restriction). I've never tried to sell leather to them, but furs have worked well.

[Ara D.]

 What if we give traders cows or bulls

[PALU]

The problem with traders having beasts of burden is that it requires the implementation of logic to handle the "inventory", so there's an implementation technical issue. In addition to that, I'm not sure the ships of the era were suitable for transport of cows/horses, so there might be an issue with historical accuracy there. On the other hand, Scandinavians definitely used their ships/boats on water ways.

[Saiko Kila]

This actually hasn't been the case since introduction of limited carry weight for NPCs since that's been active for a decade or two, or who knows for how long.

By "limited carry weight" I mean the solution that was introduced in 3.52 - that they drop down excessive stuff (allowing PC to recover them - hence the exploit), instead of trying to stuff their pockets and "disappearing" items (which technically was giving them unlimited carry weight, i.e. they could take everything, but did not allow for this exploit to happen).

This "disappearing" was not an issue to me, because I didn't care about sold furs, and peasants were destroying only things like stacks of meat, which also would be not that interesting to re-buy.

If you fix it in the next version, could you please keep things as they are for peasants? This is not exploitable (dropped items are considered village property even if the villager was outside the village anyway), but allows to quickly identify the villages where my PC sold stuff (because there is a pile of meats somewhere in the centre square, or in the house).

Actually, since the traders won't sell the furs back, the solution could be just destroying the excessive furs, as it was.

[Ara D.]

The inventory logic would be the larger problem, my role play answer to beast of burden would be to buy one on site and then resell or butcher it before returning home, thus removing the need for ships capable transporting animals

[Tom H]

I tough Foreign traders didn't accept Elk furs.

I haven't had any problems with that (and this is the first time I hear about such a restriction). I've never tried to sell leather to them, but furs have worked well.

Palu- I've offered them leather for trade and their reply was laughably condescending, something like 'We ONLY trade for quality FURS, preferably WINTER furs', with the implication that I have offended them with my meager offering...lol.

[d2shr6o8av]

The exploit will be taken care of in the next version where foreign traders simply refuse to accept player trade proposals they actually can not carry.

If foreign traders are part of the same trading group/organization (sort of how there are village owned wares) it would make sense that they would distribute the load of the newly acquired furs from the player among themselves.

Actually, since the traders won't sell the furs back, the solution could be just destroying the excessive furs, as it was.

I think this would be a very easy solution but it would still allow you to buy everything that the foreign traders are carrying with a huge pile of furs. I expect coding a max carry group load from which to decide whether a trade is refused would be harder to implement.

[Ara D.]

My opinion without regards to functionality is that they should be willing to trade all their available goods as that is why they brought them to our lands; as opposed to villagers who may want to reserve their resources for later. Traders life goal is get rid of arms armor and jewelry and bring home furs