Merchants

Khajiit has wares.... if you have the coin...

The Inventory module comes with a powerful Merchant system that allows to quickly define which items should a vendor sell and how many of them.

The Merchant asset

First of all you need to create a Merchant object. To do so right click on the Project panel and select Create - Game Creator - Inventory - Merchant.

Once you have created your Merchant definition object, all you need to do is to fill the Title and Description fields. These will appear at the top bar of the Merchant UI skin.

Wares

Adding wares is as easy as clicking on the little + button and select which items you want. You can limit the amount of items the Merchant will sell to the Player.

If the Merchant has 50 Potions to sell and Player purchases 20 of them and then sells back 10 potions, the Merchant will still only be able to sell 30 potions.

Selling items to the Merchant doesn't add them to their wares and are considered destroyed.

Discounts

Each Merchant can apply a percentage-based discount for purchasing and selling items from the Player.

By default, the purchase value (an item goes from the Player to Merchant) is set to 0.75 of its value. It makes sense to have a lower value since the item was in possession of the player and is considered as a second-hand item.

On the other hand, the sell value of an item (an item goes from the Merchant to the Player Inventory) has a default value of 1. This means that the Merchant will sell its items at their full price, which is specified by item in the Catalogue.

You can create a dynamic discount system by binding the discount to a Variable. This way, the Player could take Quests from the Merchant, who in returns applies better discounts on their products based on how well the Player solved the tasks or its reputation.

The price of the product is calculated as follows:

Purchase Price = Item Price * Purchase Discount

Sell Price = Item Price * Sell Discount

For example, a Steel Sword that has a base price of 100 coins and a Merchant that has a discount of 0.8 for selling and 0.5 for purchasing will result in:

• Player Purchases Steel Sword: 100 * 0.8 = 80 coins

• Player sells a Steel Sword: 100 * 0.5 = 50 coins

Merchant Window

To open a Merchant window inside your game all you need to do is to call the Merchant UI action and drop in the Merchant object.

You can customize the Merchant window the same way as the Inventory window. For more information, see Custom Inventory UI.