Trade and Barter
Provides many new, fully customizable variables to adjust the trade and barter rates in Skyrim, including merchant gold, trading perks, inventory respawn rates, and more.
Trade in Skyrim is oversimplified and uninteresting. A particular type of merchant always has the same amount of gold and offers you the exact same prices as the same type of merchant in another part of the country. Merchants in small towns differ very little from those in the larger cities, and the only factors that affect price are your speech skill and any barter enchantments you might have. This mod aims to change that. How much it changes is up to you.
FEATURES
Completely customizable – choose only the features you want to use. Each and every variable can be adjusted or disabled completely.
Merchant prices can vary depending on a variety of different factors, such as faction rank, relationship, and race.
Location will effect prices. Goods will be cheaper in smaller towns and more expensive in larger cities.
Merchants in major cities will have more gold than their small-town counterparts.
Investing in merchants will increase the goods available in their inventories.
Option to alter the number of days that it takes for merchant inventories to respawn.
Option to adjust the barter rates to control overall prices, as well as the degree to which your Speech skill affects prices.
REQUIREMENTS
Requires SKSE and SkyUI – These are required in order to use the Mod Configuration Menu to enable the mod and adjust features and options. If you are not using SkyUI, then install the optional “LITE” version instead of the main file.
INSTALLATION
Download and install the main file using your mod manager of choice. Once installed, you will need to activate the mod in the Mod Configuration Menu. The mod won’t start and won’t have any impact on your game until you activate it in the MCM.
UPDATING – simply install the new version of the mod and overwrite the existing files. There’s no need to deactivate the previous version prior to updating. If switching to the Lite Version, however, you will need to first uninstall the previous version, then install and activate the new file.
UNINSTALLING – While it is best practice to never uninstall mods mid-game, if you feel that you need to uninstall this mod, go to the Mod Configuration Menu and click “Stop Mod.” Once the mod is deactivated, you can delete the mod from your data folder.
LITE VERSION – This version does not require SKSE or SkyUI. It does not include the changes to the barter settings, merchant respawn times, or the VendorGold lists. When installed, this version will activate automatically and uses the mod defaults for its settings. Please refer to the included README for full description of what is and is not included in this version.
COMPATIBILITY
I have made every attempt to keep this mod as compatible as possible with all other mods, and it should be fully compatible with nearly every mod out there. There are a few features that may conflict, but these can be toggled off to maintain compatibility. The features will work just fine with merchants added by other mods (assuming they’ve been placed in the proper factions). In fact, while this mod does work very well on it’s own, my primary intention was to create a mod that would compliment and enhance existing mods that already overhaul Skyrim’s economy.
This mod alters the “VendorGold…” leveled lists that determine merchant base gold. It also alters the “PerkInvestor…” leveled lists. If you are using any other mod that alters these leveled lists then you will need to decide whether to load it before or after Trade & Barter. If Trade & Barter is loaded last, then it will overwrite any changes made by other mods to these leveled lists. If the leveled list changes from Trade & Barter get overwritten, then the merchant gold options & the “Inventory Changes when Invested” will likely not work.
I’ve designed this to be a very lightweight mod. It uses a series of carefully conditioned perks to accomplish nearly all of it’s changes. The only script included in the mod is the MCM script that controls the menu options, so the mod will not cause any performance hit or save game bloat.
Economics of Skyrim is fully compatible with Trade & Barter. However, if you are using Economics of Skyrim, it should be loaded AFTER Trade & Barter.
Trade & Barter introduces many optional factors that can influence the prices you’ll get when buying and selling items. Every one of these is optional. Any of the options can be set to zero or toggled off if you do not wish to use a particular feature.
STATUS – Use your status as Thane or Guild Leader to your advantage and get better prices when dealing with another member of your faction.
Thane – Applies to merchants in the primary city within any of the holds where you are Thane. Options: 5% or 10% better prices.
Faction Member – Includes Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Companions, College of Winterhold, Imperials, and Stormcloaks. Options: 5%, 10%, or 15% better prices.
Faction Leader – Includes Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, the Companions, and College of Winterhold. Options: 5% or 10% better prices.
RELATIONSHIP – All those silly little fetch quests and other tasks that people ask you to do? Now doing favors for merchants and winning their friendship actually has some impact and can have long-lasting benefits for you.
Friends – Any NPCs with a relationship rank of either 1 or 2. Options: 1-10% better prices.
Allies – Any NPCs with a relationship rank of 3. Options: 2-20% better prices.
Lover – Any NPC with a relationship rank of 4 (i.e. your spouse). Options: 5-40% better prices.
Not sure who your friends are? Listen for comments like “You’ve been a good friend to me” or “It’s a fine day with you around.” You can also check using the console, just select the NPC in question and enter: player.getrelationshiprank Be aware that not all favor quests result in an increase in your relationship with the person. You can use this mod to help fix some of those relationship oversights.
RACE – Racism is ugly, but it’s also an unfortunate fact of life in Tamriel. Most races have some inherent bias against one or more other races.
Default – These are preselected values. See the Race Relationships chart in Images to view what the default race settings are. There are also some locational differences. As the cosmopolitan capital, residents of Solitude express less racism than elsewhere in Skyrim. However, Nords who are residents of Windhelm or part of the Stormcloak faction express stronger racism. I’ve also built several exceptions into the default settings to reflect individual character traits present within the game. Also, your personal relationship with a merchant is more important than any general feelings they may have toward your race and will override any general racial bias.
Custom – You can also choose to set your own preferred racial settings. Use this option if you are using a custom race. Friendship will still cause the merchant to ignore any racial bias, however the custom settings will not include the built-in exceptions and will not distinguish for merchants located in Solitude. Options: -15% to 15% effect on prices.
LOCATION – Prices are lower in smaller towns, but merchants also can’t afford to pay you top septim for your goods. Cities are expensive, but there is more money to be made there. Merchants in cities charge higher prices when selling their wares, but they are also willing to pay more for premium goods in order to make sure that their shops stay well-stocked. The five major cities can now have their buying and selling rates set individually to reflect their size, wealth, access to supply and shipping routes, or status as a trading center.
Selling prices – Options: 5-15% higher prices.
Buying prices – Options: 10-50% higher prices.
KNOWLEDGE – It pays to know your merchandise. The more knowledgeable you are about the goods you’re selling, the better prices you’ll get when dealing with a similarly knowledgeable merchant. When you understand your product, you know it’s true worth and you can negotiate better deals.
Blacksmiths will respect your skill at the forge and give you better prices the higher your Smithing skill.
Apothecaries recognize your knowledge of alchemical properties and will give you better prices the higher your Alchemy skill. Spell merchants respect your knowledge of the arcane and will give you better prices the higher your Enchanting skill.
Fletchers recognize a fellow marksman and will give you better prices the higher your Archery skill.
In each case, you’ll receive 1% better prices for every 10 skill levels for a maximum 10% bonus at 100 skill level. For example, if you have a Smithing skill of 100, you’ll receive 10% better prices from when trading with other smiths.
STOLEN GOODS – Don’t expect any favors from Fences. Selling stolen items is going to cost you, so don’t expect to get top dollar for ill-gotten goods. Tonila is exempt (actually all Thieves Guild & Dark Brotherhood fences are exempt, but in the vanilla game this just applies to Tonila). Any mod-added merchants who have been made members of the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood faction will also be exempt. Options: -25% to -5% worse prices.
ETIQUETTE – Approach a merchant with raised fists, hide your identity behind a hood or helmet, or forget to dress yourself, and you may well discover that the prices you receive reflect the impression you’re sending to others. Once again, if the merchant is a friend, they will forgive your quirks and ignore these factors.
Naked – Nakedness is determined based on wearing a body item (clothing or armor). Options: -10% to 10% effect on prices.
Weapon Drawn – Applies if you have any weapon or spell raised or even just your fists. Options: -10% to 10% effect on prices.
Wearing a Hood or Helmet – The Thieves Guild hoods and the Masque of Clavicus Vile are also exempt. Options: -10% to 10% effect on prices.
MERCHANT GOLD – Trade & Barter gives you the option to set higher base gold amounts for each of the different vendor types.If you have another mod that alters the “VendorGold” leveled lists then you will have to decide if you wish to load Trade & Barter before or after the other mod. In most cases, I would recommend loading Trade & Barter after the other mod to take advantage of the flexibility and options provided by Trade & Barter. However, some mods, such as Economics of Skyrim, should be loaded AFTER Trade & Barter, so that this mod does not overwrite their changes.
Variable Merchant Gold – Adds more gold to select merchants. Merchants in major cities will no longer have the same amount of gold as their small-town counterparts. There are three levels with increasingly greater difference between the gold amounts for city & small town merchants. Personally, I would recommend leaving the Base Merchant Gold at vanilla values and choosing one of the Variable settings instead. You can stack the Variable settings by selecting multiple options in order to get even greater increases in merchant gold, but I really don’t recommend doing this as I haven’t balanced the values with this intention.
Base Merchant Gold – You will need to wait until the merchant’s inventory restocks again before these adjustments will take effect. Options: 1500 gold max for Innkeepers and Street Vendors. 5000 gold max for all other vendors.
Fluctuating Gold – This option will add an additional random amount of gold to merchant inventories so that merchants don’t always have a static amount of gold. This will be added to their base gold, so they will always have at least the base amount available. The random amounts have been set with regard to the vanilla gold amount and won’t increase merchant gold drastically above the vanilla amounts.
If you experience odd or unexplained amounts of merchant gold, even after the merchant has restocked, then you probably have another mod loaded after Trade & Barter which has altered the VenderGold leveled lists. To resolve the issue either: 1) Change the load order, and make sure that Trade & Barter loads after the other mod, or 2) Click the “Disable Merchant Gold Options” option from the menu. This will reset the Merchant Gold options and allow the changes from the other mod to prevail without further interference from Trade & Barter.
RESTOCKING TIME – You can choose how many days it takes for merchant inventories to respawn. Options: 1-30 days.
By default this option is turned off. When you load the mod menu, the value you see displayed is the setting currently in use in your game. The vanilla value is 2.0, so any other number indicates that another mod is already changing this setting. If you decide to turn this option on, than the settings from Trade & Barter will overwrite any changes to this value made by other mods. If at any time you wish to revert the settings back to those made by another mod, simply toggle off this option and reload your game. You will need to reload your game before the changes from Trade & Barter are fully canceled out.
PERKS – Trade & Barter allows you to adjust the value of the Investor and Master Trader perks. This should work even if you have another mod that alters the Speech tree. Options: set either perk to 5000 max. You can set independently adjust the amounts required to invest and the amount of gold the merchant receives. However, when you make the initial investment, this money will be available until spent. Trade & Barter also adds to the Investor Perk by providing merchants with increased inventories when you invest in them. Increased inventories are unique to each individual merchant.
Adjust barter rates to suit your tastes. Do you want to make it more difficult to accumulate vast amounts of money from selling items? Do you want to decrease the effect that your Speech skill has on prices and lend some extra importance to the Speech perks? However, this is one of the features that can conflict with other mods, so if you don’t want Trade & Barter to override the values set by another mod, simply make sure this feature is deselected. By default, it is already deselected.
BARTER SETTINGS – Trade & Barter allows you to customize the values for “fBarterMax” and “fBarterMin.” These two settings control how high or low prices are, as well as how much effect your Speech skill has on prices. The higher the numbers, the more expensive items are to purchase and the less you’ll get paid when you sell them. The difference between these numbers will control how much your Speech skill effects prices. If the numbers are close together, then your Speech skill will have little effect on prices. If the numbers are further apart, then your Speech skill will have a greater effect on prices.
By default this option is turned off. These two settings are often adjusted by other mods that overhaul trading and/or merchants, so if you don’t want Trade & Barter to overwrite the values set by another mod, then leave these settings alone.
When you load the menu option, the values you see displayed will be the values currently in use by your game. Vanilla values are 3.3 and 2.0. If the menu is displaying different values, then you have a mod installed which is already adjusting these two settings. If you choose to select a new setting, Trade & Barter will override the settings from the other mod. If at any time you wish to revert the settings back to those made by another mod, simply deselect this setting and reload your game. You will need to reload your game before the changes from Trade & Barter are fully canceled out.
INDEPENDENT ADJUSTMENT – One issue with adjusting the barter values is that these settings change both the Buy and Sell prices. This can make it difficult to find a nice balance if you’re trying to lower your selling prices without making the buying prices ridiculously high. Personally, I really like the challenge created by being forced to sell my gear at greatly reduced rates, but I dislike the extreme inflation that occurs when I then want to buy something. Therefore, the Independent Adjustments will allow you to increase or decrease the buying & selling prices independently of one another. This is something I’ve not seen in any other mod, and in my opinion, it’s one of the best, and most useful, features included in this mod.
Let’s say that you want to make it more difficult to make a quick profit from the items you sell. So you decide to increase the barter settings to 10.0 and 6.5. At these settings, you will receive only 10-15% of an item’s value (vanilla is 30-50%). However, you’ll suddenly discover that the cost to purchase items has skyrocketed to 1000-650% (vanilla purchase costs are 330-200%). Maybe this is exactly what you want. If so, congrats, there’s no need for you to mess with the Independent Adjustments. However, if you would like to reduce the purchase price to a more reasonable level, then you can use the Buying Prices adjustment to lower only the buying prices without affecting the selling prices.
SOME SUGGESTIONS – With all these different variables, you may be wondering what the best settings are to achieve a good balance in your game. Of course this will depend on what you want. Many people (myself included) like to make trade more difficult. I also like to set the barter settings relatively close to de-emphasize Speech skill and place more importance on the Speech perks.
Here are some suggested settings based on how difficult you want trading to be. The numbers refer to fBarterMax, fBarterMin, and the Buying Prices adjustment.
Easy: 5.0, 3.5, -40% This reduces selling prices (the reduction is greater at higher levels then at low levels), makes Speech skill less important, and makes buying things slightly cheaper than vanilla at lower levels and slightly more expensive then vanilla at higher levels.
Medium: 6.5, 4.0, -50% This reduces selling prices even more, makes Speech skill less important than vanilla (though about the same relative to the settings above), and maintains near-vanilla costs for buying items.
Difficult: 10.0, 6.5, -60% This further reduces the selling prices and makes Speech even less important. You’ll definitely find taking perks and/or using enchantments much more valuable at this setting. Items will be more expensive to buy, but not outrageously so.
Hardcore: 15.0, 10.0, -70% This drastically reduces the selling prices and makes Speech skill much less important. You’ll definitely want to use perks and/or barter enchantments if you hope to make much money. Items will be even more expensive to buy.
If you try any of the above suggested settings you want to pay more for items that you buy. Then simply reduce the Buying Prices adjustment or even return it to zero.
Perhaps you think your Speech skill should have a greater effect on prices, so that you’ll get much better deals as you level this skill. If so, then reduce the fBarterMin setting by 1.0 to 3.0 (or possibly even by 4 or 5 if fBarterMax is set rather high).
