Barter (skill)

Skill
Barter
ID	barter

The "Barter" skill helps you to negotiate with all sorts of merchants in the Wasteland to get better goods and services for lower price.

• Each invested skill point decreases prices for purchasing and repairs by 3%.
• Each skill level expands selection of merchants` goods and allows you to access some exclusive deals, that can`t be found anywhere else.

Usage

The main use of barter is to get the most out of the caps you have, letting you buy more for less and save considerably on the costs of repairs.

Each skill point invested in Barter will lower the price of buying and repairs by 3%, up to a maximum of 60% discount (40% base price). Selling items and healing using doctors are unaffected. When selling items to merchants, they are usually sold at around 10%-20% of their base price.

Additionally each skill level will increase the maximum number of items every merchant will have by 20%, up to a maximum of 100% more items. Every time merchants get new items (such as reaching an EXIT door), they will gain up to 25% of their maximum number of items, which means more items at higher Barter levels.

Items

Every item has a base price assigned to it (price with 0 skill points invested in Barter). Price is calculated according to formula:

$p=(1-0.03s)p_0$ 

Where:

• $p$ is the result price
• $s$ is the amount of skill points invested in Barter
• $p_{0}$ is the base price

Example: Military surgeon's bag costs 600 caps. With 5 skill points (giving a 15% discount) it will cost 510 caps:

$\begin{array}{lcr} p_0=600\\ s=5\\ p=(1-0.03\cdot 5)\cdot 600=510 \end{array}$ 

Note: prices are rounded to first decimal place.

Various items available at certain Barter levels

At certain skill levels, new items will become available to you. These items are marked with with a symbol, depending on what level they were unlocked at. 1-4 marks for levels 1-4, and a star for level 5.

Repairs

Here the situation is a bit more complicated, as the cost to repair is based not only on Barter skill, but also on the item's condition. The formula is as follows:

$p=\lceil(1-0.03s)(1-c)p_0\rceil$ 

Where:

• $p$ is the result price
• $s$ is the amount of skill points invested in Barter
• $c$ is current item condition (0 to 1)
• $p_{0}$ is the price of repairing an item from 0% to 100% at $s=0$

Example: fully repairing Spear at $s=0$ costs 180 caps. With 5 invested skill points (giving a 15% discount), repair from 34% to 100% will cost 101 caps:

$p=\lceil(1-0.03\cdot 5)(1-0.34)\cdot 180\rceil=101$ 

Unique items

Some merchants have unique items that can't be found anywhere else, or are rare and valuable.

Name	Skill requirement	Equipment type	Notes
Schematics for the chitinous armor	Barter-1	Scheme
Extremely valuable key	Barter-4	Key	Used to unlock the door to the Mysterious Cellar
Schematics for the "Big Frickin Gun"	Barter-5	Scheme
Treasure hunter' clothes	Barter-5	Armor	Enemies killed while wearing this may drop a precious stone
Potion of life	Barter-5	Magic potion	Limited to 1
Memory orb	Barter-5	Equipment	Limited to 1
Mysterious essence	Barter-5	Ingredient	Limited to 1

Perks

There is only 1 perk that is associated with barter:

• Wasteland economics (Barter 3): Increases the maximum amount of items merchants can have for sale by 40% (Stacks additively with the boost from skill level, for up to 240% items). Additionally a new merchant appears in the "Prancing pony" camp, selling random weapons, ammo, explosives, medicine and materials.

Barter alternatives

While you can save big with the barter skill, there are alternatives:

• Explosives: Some explosives can be made instead of being bought.
• Repair: Higher repair efficiency lowers how many resources you need to buy to repair things yourself. Also the Scavenger perk lets you find weapon fragments much more often.
• Medicine: Better healing efficiency lowers the amount of potions you need to buy, and lets you use medical instruments instead of doctors for fixing wounds .
• Survival: Zebra potions sold in Covertsign can be made instead of being bought.