Tips for finding traders?

[FoShizNat]

I'm Looking for a new location to settle and found a decent place that is between 3 nearby towns, but what matters more to me is that there are a few traders close by.

Any tips for finding traders fast? Sometimes I would make my way up to tall buildings and look out into the distance to see if I could spot any in close proximity. Otherwise I would drive around on the minibike along roads, paths, and to tall mountains to then look around. I feel like there's a minimum distance from each other that they spawn, but I've also had it that where two traders were really close together, but seperated by a river.

Also, anyone ever had 5 or more adjacent biomes? This was my first time seeing quadruple touching biomes and 2 more very close by. Would make for a bizzare place to settle. https://imgur.com/a/iw8c7

[Unorganized Crime Mob]

Traders are often close to towns, Check all the dirt roads branching off all the roads leaving those towns. I often save my starter quest also for when I find an interesting spot to settle. That will atleast point you to the closest one. I always look for atleast a coal/nitrate/desert biome close enough to where I can mine all 3 easily from the same mine. I would bet there is atleast 2 traders on the outskirts of those towns on your pic, maybe 3 within that 1.5k or so.

[FRANK da TANK]

You can spot them from far - drive on hillpeaks, just look. You can find at least on trader a day if you want.

[FoShizNat]

Originally posted by Tenzen Shadow:

. I often save my starter quest also for when I find an interesting spot to settle. That will atleast point you to the closest one

Ah thanks. Good idea for the starter quest pointing you to first trader. I never bothered with those quests and always just deleted them

I just drove around for an entire day and found three traders. Not too close though, probably all more than 1.5k away but doable on minibke.

The game i'm playing now i'm trying to do with as little mining as possible and minimal base setup. I will only mine for wood/clay and enough stone for forge, anvil, and a few basic cobble blocks. So I'm not too worried about potential mining locations. I will be relying more on scavenging and then trading, hence why i want to be as close possible to as many traders as I can.

[Unorganized Crime Mob]

Originally posted by FoShizNat:

Originally posted by Tenzen Shadow:

. I often save my starter quest also for when I find an interesting spot to settle. That will atleast point you to the closest one

Ah thanks. Good idea for the starter quest pointing you to first trader. I never bothered with those quests and always just deleted them

I just drove around for an entire day and found three traders. Not too close though, probably all more than 1.5k away but doable on minibke.

The game i'm playing now i'm trying to do with as little mining as possible and minimal base setup. I will only mine for wood/clay and enough stone for forge, anvil, and a few basic cobble blocks. So I'm not too worried about potential mining locations. I will be relying more on scavenging and then trading, hence why i want to be as close possible to as many traders as I can.

Ya, I play nomad (until late game) do alot of trading on playthroughs too. Thats why I mine. Wet concrete blocks and machete blades sell for a crap ton. Usually set up a route to visit 4-6 traders every restock. But thats Pvp so you need alot of backup gear and weapons so you need more $$$.

[Vlad the Mad]

You can tell where some of them are just by looking closely at the map seed you're using.

[darrylhs]

Originally posted by Mr.J:

You can tell where some of them are just by looking closely at the map seed you're using.

I find that takes the fun out of it. I am day 54 on my current game and have only found 3 trader but have found 5 separate towns and city’s

[FoShizNat]

Originally posted by Mr.J:

You can tell where some of them are just by looking closely at the map seed you're using.

What do you mean by looking closely at map seed? Like reading into the files?

[FoShizNat]

Originally posted by Tenzen Shadow:

Ya, I play nomad (until late game) do alot of trading on playthroughs too. Thats why I mine. Wet concrete blocks and machete blades sell for a crap ton. Usually set up a route to visit 4-6 traders every restock. But thats Pvp so you need alot of backup gear and weapons so you need more $$$.

Yea concrete and blades sell really well it seems. Altough personally i think selling huge stacks of concrete or any other mass producible item is kind of cheese though :p leather dusters, puffer coats, guns/parts seem to sell decently too.

With that in mind, quick question about trader restock, I think i remember reading before that traders restock a random amount of items (about 20?) each 3-day retock. So does that mean if I sell them a variety of stuff, he will then have less chance of cycling through new loot because essentially his stock is being diluted from all the crap I sold to him? If so, this makes it inadvertently a really bad idea to sell a whole bunch of crap compared to just selling him huge stacks of the same item (i.e. concrete and machete blades) :(

Does the secret stash stuff count with the rest of his stuff for sale in terms of restock? or does it restock differently?

[Kara]

Originally posted by FoShizNat:

Originally posted by Tenzen Shadow:

. I often save my starter quest also for when I find an interesting spot to settle. That will atleast point you to the closest one

Ah thanks. Good idea for the starter quest pointing you to first trader. I never bothered with those quests and always just deleted them

I just drove around for an entire day and found three traders. Not too close though, probably all more than 1.5k away but doable on minibke.

The game i'm playing now i'm trying to do with as little mining as possible and minimal base setup. I will only mine for wood/clay and enough stone for forge, anvil, and a few basic cobble blocks. So I'm not too worried about potential mining locations. I will be relying more on scavenging and then trading, hence why i want to be as close possible to as many traders as I can.

Why do you delete the quest? You are wasting points you could use straight away...

[FoShizNat]

Originally posted by Kara:

Why do you delete the quest? You are wasting points you could use straight away...

I thoguht they don't give anything? I never noticed, like the ones craft a bed roll, stone axe etc... Do they actually give something skill points and I've been missing out?

edit: Oh the find the nearest trader quest gives 1 skill point according to wiki. Never knew about that

[Kara]

Originally posted by FoShizNat:

Originally posted by Kara:

Why do you delete the quest? You are wasting points you could use straight away...

I thoguht they don't give anything? I never noticed, like the ones craft a bed roll, stone axe etc... Do they actually give something skill points and I've been missing out?

edit: Oh the find the nearest trader quest gives 1 skill point according to wiki. Never knew about that

I believe finding the trader now gives 5pts. The challenges also now give 3-5 depending on you finishing them in time.

[Ch53dVet]

There are two ways you can do this, start game, do the tutorial and find the quested trader.
Now, you can either save the game to a folder on your desktop as your main game, or, you can jot down the co-ordinates of the trader and exit the game, go back into the continue game selection and delete the game, go into start new game selection, your seed name should still be listed so just hit start and you'll be spawned into another location on the same unchanged map (it also helps turning off the zombie spawns that way you can get throught the tutorial pretty fast).

Now, once again, breeze through the tutorial and find the trader in the quest, he will most likely be a different one than the first so jot down his numbers and exit the game.

Now, it's up to you how many times you want to wash, rinse and repeat this option.
I, usually, get five different traders in about 6-7 times, I've never spawned in the same location twice. When I'm ready to play for keeps I restart the game and keep my trader gps co-ordinates handy and off I go to find a base to lay down with as many traders I've located near me.

Also, every restart has always spawned me in close proximity to all my other spawn points but neither of them were on top of each other.

Also, It seems to me that if your seed map has a pretty good sized city or large town in a distant but, not more than a day or two away from your central city 0,0, That's where the game will, usually, spawn me, near a trader that's on the outskirts of it and if its a good sized municipality you can bet that your game has 3-4 more traders out side of the municipalities perimeter.

I'm using the seed name of Megatropolis and I have yet to get bored of it.

Best of luck I hope this is what you were looking for.

P.S. doing the tutorial gives you 5 skill points.

[FoShizNat]

Thanks for adivice Ch53d

[Ch53dVet]

Originally posted by FoShizNat:

Thanks for adivice Ch53d

Np, always, glad to lend a helping hand.

P.S. since nobody mentioned it here play wack a mole with them roadside tires the traders pay very well for them.

[FoShizNat]

yea at 30% chance to get wheels, it's like swing your axe, 30% chance to get $400-700 $.$