If youre really in a testing mood, try testing sleeping in 24 hour intervalls (preferrably starting at slightly after 12am since thats when the traders traditionally restock) and see when they restock (also, try doing it until the trader restocks a 2nd time).
Then you could try the same thing but without sleeping and just waiting.

aaaaaand, if youre REALLY in a testing mood, do the same, but check merchants not in your area (say, sleep/wait in goodsprings and check the merchant in Primm and vice versa).

My merchants, including roving traders are not updating their inventory either. It seemed to work fine at the beginning of the game, but ever since around the time I went toward novac, no more updates.
I did test some things; sold a trader lots of junk so he had no money left. And he does seem to slowly get new cash, but no new items. What i have also noticed, is that the traders do get a couple of cases for random ammo types. But that is not helping me much

Do any of the developers read these posts?

ive been thinking if it might be the same problem that there is with plants not respawning... for a plant to respawn you have to stay away from its cell/sector for 3 whole days without entering that sector... im thinking it might be the same but in reverse for traders... you must spend 72 hours IN that traders cell (or wherever his "traders chest" is located for travelling merchants)...

that would explain a few things since most of us rarely stay in one place in the game for 72 hours... and even if they are adding all the hours youre spending in that cell, 72 hours would take ages if youre running around the wastes alot and not staying in the same cells for long.

I don't know. I've waited 3 days outside a traders house, then went to a trader on the other side of the map, and no change for either of them. Also, in the beginning of the game, i bought items from one of the roving traders. fast-traveled to goodsprings, traveled back, and he already had a new inventory. So it would seem you don't need to spend that much time between inventory respawn.

*EDIT* Nevermind, still investigating....

well its a wierd bug thats for sure...

I think this might not be a bug.

Torres didn't refresh for me, and when I checked the GECK her container wasn't set to respawn!

It might be a bug in some cases, as I've definitely had this happen, but I think some merchants are outright not set to refresh by accident.

i play on 360, and i have noticed many merchants not restocking also-


I seriously wish the devs would not have stopped posting here, we need them in situations like this, they could at least say, "No, that's the way it's supposed to be" or "You're right, it is bugged, and we will look into fixing it in a future patch"


you see what i did right there?


how long that took to type?


now why can't the devs do this? are they under order not to interact with their fans / customers?


*sighs*


2 weeks after launch and we still know nothing..

Water is not as much of a problem since you can drink out of the sink. Managing the Food and Rads are kind of a pain though especially in the beginning where every bit of Food and Rad-Away (or caps to spend at the doctor healing rads) counts...

I only sleep a few hours in game, just enough to bring my sleep stat down to 0, then I drink purified water if I have any or at the Novac Motel Room sink if I don't then I go to the fridge and eat any -FOD food item that weighs 1.00 or more that doesn't have any weird status effects until that's down to 0.

I'm spending most of my time doing all the pre-vegas strip quests and fast traveling from place to place for those quests and vendor restocks, especially the convenient ones like Novac or the important ones like the Gun Runners or the BoS Quartermaster doesn't seem to replenish at a reliable rate. By the time me and my companions are full of gear and ready to sell off, the respective vendors are not always replenished, making it kind of a pain all around...

I have one traveling merchant that seems to be stuck and doesn't restock but every once in a while he will have 200 caps, at first he was stuck in Novac right by the fence entrance now he is just past the rockets trying to head out of town. He has been stuck in Novac for what seems almost since I got there. The other merchant that hasn't restocked is the gun runner merchant at 188, nothing with him has changed since my first visit to him. It seems others get additional money but their items never change. I haven't seen a new gun or armor on the lady at 188 for some time but at least her caps reset. I think I am about 55 hours played, not been into Vegas yet, just the burbs so to speak.

Ok some interesting facts...

when you WALK into an area interesting things can happen. Everything can be recombobulated.. thus soda machines restock mailboxes restock and so on.. and critter spawn points MOVE.

Even tho everything in the schoolhouse is set not to respawn.. if you walk in sooner or later you will find new items in the lockers. And every so often you will find new manti.. er intisisiss er bugs..

Some plants go dormant others can wake up.. ever notice some plants look like they should have food but dont?

For weeks on end a merchant can have the same stock.. refreshing it but not getting much new and then BOOM totaly new stock and refreshings of that new stock.

Dead boddies can stay around for quite some time.. piles of ash goo piles and them blamo GONE.

Also oddly piles of ash can sometimes.. restock. and no its not the same stuff as before either...

Also I THINK if you mess with timescale you mess all this up BIG TIME. And sleeping somehow I think processes some of these changes.

I'm not sure sleep matters at all.

I play exclusively on hardcoe and use Atomic Cocktails in lieu of actually sleeping, and I still have merchants restocking fairly reliably. One thing I have noticed is that they are more likely to restock if I spend at least 73 hours away from their cell entirely, however this is not always the case as the Gun Runners store always restocks after 73 hours for me and I am in that cell constantly as the store is outdoors in the cell that grants access to Freeside and the Caravan company.

That said, it may be equating any means of reducing the SLP meter with actually sleeping, so the premise might hold anyway.

I'll hop on the me too bandwagon, i was curious why the vendors struggled with new stuff.

Although cliff briscoe is okay, the travelling merchant didn't update and just stood in the same place forever.
strange

yeah theres definately something strange going on here...

Thanks for checking the Geck. Perhaps the traders refresh their stock a number of times, and then they get 'turned off', since that's how it happens in my experience. Let's hope a dev posts something.

In the mean time, i'm going to try not selling anything to a merchant i haven't visisted yet. Maybe there is a problem when you sell certain items to a vendor that causes their inv. to become stagnant.

I am currently level 10 t the strip and the gun runners stock is pitiful. It only had 1,000 cps and awful guns. Things like single shot shotgun and service rifle. Mick and Ralph's at lest had some hunting rifles. I watched my friend play the game nd Gun Runners had 8,000 caps and tons of guns. it must be level dependent/restock. Something. I was disappointed when I found Gun Runners. The only thing good they had was a lot of ammo and some combat armor.

Some merchants for me too seem to refuse upgrading their inventory. Others, such as Chet in Goodsprings, still have the stuff i sold at them at start (~40 gameplay hours ago), but have also new items and more caps.

yeah, i think its somehow sleep/wait related or at least cell respawn related, but its not respawning because we (the player) are moving around too much or something...

its like were supposed to be going along much more slowly and sleeping alot more than we are...

<- 360 player

I had similar experiences with vender not refreshing.
Tested several times by sleeping and waiting (3 days to weeks), in zone and out of zone, nothing worked.

I said screw it, just continued playing the game. Gained a couple of levels, then bam every vender had new stock.
Pre level 14 gun runners store had crap, then post lvl 14 they had AM, light machine, minigun ect.

So my conclusion, is that vender's change their store with respect to character level.

This was what happened for me, could be completely different for some else, as I've had no bugs or freezes in ~80 hours of gameplay.

In my game(PC) I noticed that the vendors only restock when I close the game down completely and reload a save made in the same cell as the vendor. I have only checked this for the vendors in exterior wasteland cells(gun runners, crimson caravan etc). Exiting to the main menu and reloading from there doesn't seem to work.

Gun Runners is definitely leveled - I thought it was pretty pitiful when I first got there considered the rep they have; but a couple of levels later, they had more caps than I could clear them out of and loads of great stock.

- Nearly all merchants have tiered lists, so as you level up, they offer better stuff

- Different systems (PC vs XBox vs PS3) seem to have different rules for respawn. I've never seen a container respawn that isn't flagged as such on the PC. Owners of PS3s have reported non-respawn containers that weren't flagged, as respawning after cell reset.

- Sleep/Wait/Whatever, the rule in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas is that the cell must lie unvisited for 3+ days. You can't travel through it, enter it, or even think about it for 3+ days. For outdoor cells, that's tricky, which is why people constantly tell you to go to a quiet, indoor cell, with no other NPCs, and wait/sleep for 4 days (3 days plus a bit of a buffer). Good places would be the Gas Station in Goodsprings, the Sheriff's house in Primm, or a motel room in Novac.

- If a merchant doesn't restock after 3+ days of waiting in a far distant cell, then either their container is bugged (Torres) or your save game is corrupted and something odd is going on. The normal process is that when entering the cell again after 3+ days of lying fallow, the cell resets and resets all the containers within the cell that are flagged for respawn. (Merchant inventory is kept in containers. Usually in the same room or a nearby one, but this varies on a case-by-case basis.)

No you dont have to stay away from a merchant for 3 days to get it to restock. I went to the merchant in goodsprings every day and on the third day he restocked. And yes im on pc.

I can confirm this. Saved the game standing next to a merchant (Chet and another merchant), quit the game entirly and restarted it. The trader had a new inventory. (And yes, i checked if the old crap was still there before quitting and reloading.) With this workaround, no more ammo shortages

I think something is up with this as well. It seems like npcs don't restock when they should.