Killing Random Merchants

[ProtagorasEmber]

Is there any penalty for killing merchants from random encounters?

Will future merchants attack me? Will there be fewer merchants that show up during random encounters? Will there be none?

I'm just getting started out playing the game on a friends machine, I don't own it myself yet, but I'd like to be able to get a good amount of loot as quick as I can without resorting to console commands and having my savegame marked as using cheats and shutting off achievements. The only mobs that have decent loot and that I can survive a fight with is a merchant and his one or two bodyguards. Running into monsters that use melee attacks usually just carry meat, and the party of hostiles that carry a mix of melee and ranged weapons usually kill me pretty quickly, although I would love to be able to loot an entire party's assortment of energy weapons plus the ammo they'd drop.

Thanks for any help in advance

[The Lone Wanderer]

As far as I've seen no penalties. In fact I killed just about everything in the game and it didn't really seem to matter beyond quest stuff. There are plenty of vending machines around to facilitate both buying and selling.

Although, I don't know how common those encounters are and only saw one on an entire playthrough even without killing them.

I could be wrong, however I wouldn't even worry that much, there's so much "stuff" around it doesn't make a difference even if killing the merchant excluded him from further encounters, plus the stuff you can get from vending machines is better anyway. Plus the loot you get from them isn't really any different from the godhunters drops so it's much of a muchness.

Find Buzzer. Win Game.

[ProtagorasEmber]

Originally posted by The Doctor:

As far as I've seen no penalties. In fact I killed just about everything in the game and it didn't really seem to matter beyond quest stuff. There are plenty of vending machines around to facilitate both buying and selling.

Although, I don't know how common those encounters are and only saw one on an entire playthrough even without killing them.

I could be wrong, however I wouldn't even worry that much, there's so much "stuff" around it doesn't make a difference even if killing the merchant excluded him from further encounters, plus the stuff you can get from vending machines is better anyway. Plus the loot you get from them isn't really any different from the godhunters drops so it's much of a muchness.

Find Buzzer. Win Game.

Yeah you're right it's kinda pointless to kill them. I just played for about 4 straight hours (or 5 or 6 I dunno I lost all sense of time) and I've been plugging along on quests and nothing seemed all that overwhelming to where I needed an edge or a weapon that I didn't already get from just playing the game without acting like a total psychopath, or with cheating. I have 2 different handguns, 2 different shotguns, and a rifle. Ammo is kinda sparse but I switch between the guns, and like most RPG's, I haven't had to use up the most recently earned ability or skill points, which I usually like to hang on to so that I don't end up mad at myself upon running into a quest I can't complete or an item that I really want to use but can't or NPC interaction that I wish I could make use of but can't, etc.
I know one thing, I'm definitely glad that I put 2 points into Lockpicking from the start as this has come in handy moreso than Empathy even. Lockpicking always seems to be one of, if not my number one favorite RPG skill no matter what game it is I'm playing so when I saw that while making my character I made sure I maxed it and have been keeping it at max. Maybe that's a real life skill I should pick up? Seems like the gift that keeps on giving. Except in real life it can end up giving you 5-10, maybe 20 years behind bars so maybe not so much on the IRL for that one.

Thanks for your help, and yeah, I don't think I'll be whacking any merchants.

[The Lone Wanderer]

Yeah lockpicking is pretty handy, although with the new mini game I don't even think you NEED lockpicking skill to attempt so you can save scum through it, but I need to retest and double check.

Don't worry about being stingy on points, there's a guy in tauris that can reset your stats and skill points for 100 gold. The dude hanging out around outside the vending machines where you can get the mind upgrades.

Ammo becomes so cheap later on, you can craft most basic ammos with just metal and trash once you get the recipes and they're everywhere.

No problemo.

[ProtagorasEmber]

Originally posted by The Doctor:

Yeah lockpicking is pretty handy, although with the new mini game I don't even think you NEED lockpicking skill to attempt so you can save scum through it, but I need to retest and double check.

Don't worry about being stingy on points, there's a guy in tauris that can reset your stats and skill points for 100 gold. The dude hanging out around outside the vending machines where you can get the mind upgrades.

Ammo becomes so cheap later on, you can craft most basic ammos with just metal and trash once you get the recipes and they're everywhere.

No problemo.

I just made it to Tauris actually. I took a good long while getting there, I went south first and walked around the map getting rid of a lot of the fog on the map before I went up and back past The Crossroads and then up to Taurus. I saw the blueprints or formulae for bullets and shotgun bullets. They didn't have the one for rifle bullets, but it doesn't matter, I can't afford to buy ANY of them anyway.
That's the one thing I don't ever see myself NOT being short of, GOLD. I get items like Gems or a painting or something has no other use than being sold to a vendor and I get like 9 gold. I sell a gun I have multiples of and I get like 10 gold. I don't see myself ever being able to afford to buy any of the cool things that I see the vendors have have but who knows, maybe I'll start getting luckier with the drops.

Thanks again.

Side Note: No matter what, it's a really fun game and I'm enjoying it WAY more than my last indie game purchase, which was Hades. Everyone was raving about it, and this was just recently so I waited until way after the original release or original Early Access release, and even still with the 40% off discount I had on it, and even though I initially liked it, overall I ended up with a negative feel for the purchase. I watched gameplay videos, read reviews, and I although wasn't feeling it in my gut, I went against my gut because of that Overwhelmingly Positive score on Steam. For there to be so many reviews with it still having such a high score, it HAS to be good right? OR so I thought, but really that still didn't mean I was gonna end up liking it myself. I made the same mistake with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and got REAL mad at myself for it, two Augusts ago, because I had purchased it when it was on sale at Fanatical or some other third party site an so it was not something I could refund to my Steam Wallet and so I hated it and was stuck with it and hey, yeah it wasn't a 60 dollar title even at full price so not the biggest loss in the world money wise but it was the point of it, and I swore to myself that I would never do it to myself again, that I would never go by reviews over my guy instinct again without thoroughly testing the game out for myself... and then I went and did it again with Hades when I should have gone with the game I added to my wishlist at first site which was Death Trash.

Sorry if anyone put themselves through the pain of reading all of that whiny garbage. I just needed to vent somewhere.

Games like Bloodstained and Hades are the reason why I have been fed up with gaming entirely for the last couple of months. Games like Death Trash are the ways in which my love for games is rekindled and brought back to life. I missed being able to pay for my Steam Deck reservation in time, like plenty of people I'm sure, seeing as how it's kinda hard to plan over a year in advance for when a disposable 600 bucks needs to be on hand, at least in this economy, and at least for people like me who live paycheck to paycheck (or rather from paycheck to non-existent, injured on the job and unfairly-fired, better call Saul Goodman no-check). I'm supposed to predict that far ahead of time? Or somehow know that by the time my number comes up my back would be broken and I'd be getting screwed out of both unemployment and workers compensation, that my pure evil "we're all a family here" job would go from smiling to my face to stabbing me in a back that most of the time already feels like it has a knife in it and trying to deny that I ever reported the accident when I have proof of the workers comp form from the emergency room being sent to HR?

Okay yeah sorry I had to vent about the whole ridiculous Steam Deck process too. Thank God I still at least have a working cell phone, so I can keep receiving a news feed full of articles telling me just how great the thing that I tried to buy before my life fell apart is. Sure would be nice having it now, especially during all the times that it hurts too much to crawl to the bathroom. Oh who am I kidding, it would hurt WAY too bad to crawl, I just have to granny walk and I can cover 20 to 30 feet in 10 minutes tops so no big deal.

okay really sorry about crying about that too

please stop pitying or even fake pitying me, unless you are laughing at me, in which case I have plenty of other whiny posts out there too.

sorry and thanks for your time.

[The Lone Wanderer]

All good, we all need to vent from time to time.
Indie games in my experience are either really really good and a unique fun concept or just poorly constructed garbage, not a lot inbetween, however with the state of corporatism in the AAA areas I don't mind taking chances on supporting indie devs, especially ones with good ideas. Someone needs to support them so they can get off the ground and grow. This is a game you can tell the dev cares about the game and has a lot of potential so I'm looking forward to it's further development.

Sidenote: I'm helping another indie dev playtest a game called we who are about to die, the demo was just released, I highly highly recommend trying it out, it's a love project and AAA quality from a solo dev and very addictive. If you join the discord mention DT and I'll say hello.

Back on topic.
You can sell a lot of the random resources you find as well as stuff, the only things you really need to keep are med supplies and hexaweed (for nano heals) trash and metal for bullet ammo, zircon for energy ammo, and mechanics for lockpicks, the rest you can sell freely for the most part. you can grab and sell fleshworms too, they sell for a decent amount, booze you can give to a few randoms in the puke bar other than that, sell. most of the other gear you can sell, essential items are on your quest items tab and the rest can be easily gained. Once you're up a bit in level and have some decent gear you can farm random encounters for xp and items, just roam about ont he map looking for the red circles. guns sell for a good amount. Oh and if you run out of inventory space and there are weapons lying about you can deconstruct them for resources and then sell those, haven't found a use for wood yet and you don't need that much in the way of mechanics unless you're REALLY bad at the minigame, even then if you're not running permadeath you can just savescum through it. There's also mushrooms which don't have a use, so sell away, same with the notes you get from memorizing the various lore bits you find around.

Sorry to hear about your situation. I'm not really the type of person to laugh at someone's misfortune so I hope things pick up for you. Maybe you can turn it to your advantage somehow, like creating youtube or twitch content, start with this game or something if it works out could be some extra funds for you especially if you're immobile and have a lot of time. Might work out and help fund your endeavours. The game itself doesn't hog a lot of system resources so is an easy one to stream or record. As for steam deck, I don't bother with that sort of stuff, if I was inclined I'd buy a switch or something.