Am I the only one who has noticed that traders don't ever seem to actually trade with anyone but me? You would think that a traders supply, especially their amount of caps, would change periodically during the game so that I could actually trade with the same person more than once and get tons of caps for my stuff. But it seems like each trader starts the game with X caps, and certain randomly selected tradeable items and that's all they get. I've returned to Chet at Goodsprings or the scrapyard in NoVac (and plenty of other traders) multiple times but their amount of caps are exactly where I left them, which svcks when I have tons of stuff to trade but nothing to get in return.

Actually, they do. You just have to check in periodically, though it does seem like they never get new stuff.

I haven't quite figured out merchant inventory yet. But it feels like most of them renew their caps in about a game-week, sometimes more. If you don't "sleep" much (as I don't) that can feel like a really long time in terms of gameplay done.

And most don't change/renew their items (and amount of caps they have available) until you've gone up in levels, but I don't know what the formula is, if it's every time you level or every x-amount of levels etc.

Edit:Like Gunrunner robot at lvl 1 will only have (for example) 500 caps but by lvl 14-16 or so he'll start having 4000 or more, don't remember exactly.

That is not what I have been experiencing at all. I am about 40-50 hours into the game (on hardcoe so I need to sleep on a regular basis) and at level 19 and none of the traders seem to refresh their inventory or caps at all. Specifically I just checked with Chet at Goodsprings (soon after I made level 19) and I hadn't checked with him since I was at least level 10, possibly lower than that and he still only had about 100 caps and all the same useless stuff in his inventory.

It makes it a real pain when my inventory is maxed out, and both Boone and Ed-E inventories are fairly high and I can't find anyone to unload my stuff on.

Oh well, the game is still awesome (in spite of all the bugs).

Save in front of the Vendor, exit to the main menu, then reload...their inventory is new.

Hm. That does sound buggy. I think I've read a few other posts from other players that said they had trouble like that but I don't know why/if there's any way to fix it.

I just use the hotel in Novac to keep excess stuff in....guess you can periodically visit it and dump stuff there and hope at some point the vendors will respawn for you.

didn't think about doing that. instead i exited the area and slept for three days. it is either three or five days that their inventory will be reset.

I haven't been hit with merchants being as bad as the OP seems to have, but I've definitely had some of them take a couple game weeks, even when I exit/reload for the night/day. Sometimes they seem to get a little stuck....

Its a bug in the game.. when you start the game each session you start at sunday. So unless you go three full days in one session they wont restock.

BUT if you save standing in the same room as the merchant and exit the game and reload.. It sometimes takes exit the game itself and restart it.. the merchant will complretely refresh stock.

i think im goin to try that with the 5mm ammo. raul burns through ammo with the CZ57 Avenger like its nothin lol

Ahhh! Thank you very much, I had never noticed the always-Sunday thing, will have to check. I rarely Wait or rest so I don't notice what day is it, only go by the sun. Altho I'm pretty sure I often go more than three days per playing session. Very sure, actually. But it might at least explain some of the times merchants act oddly. Thanks.

yeah the merchant system is weird and some of the merchants like chet in goodsprings never have .308 ammo i notice, he does have some surplus .556 ammo, most of the merchants aren't all that great however there are a few who have a huge amount of rifle ammo or surplus type ammo, and one place is great khans armory, they have a huge amount of ammo, also the NCR guy at hoover dam has a lot, contreras at camp mcarren is pretty well stocked, gunrunners is a decent place especially early on in the game, i think those are the best ammo merchants, other than that trading post 188 is decent for stuff including some ammo, but yeah it seems to be a bit out of wack, i wish some of the lower level merchants had a least a little more ammo supply. i still manage to stockpile a lot of ammo, but i use all the good merchants and get on the great khans side early on in order to buy ammo from them.

That and the stationary merchants are notorious for taking forever to replensish their stock and caps stash compared to FO3.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. My guess is that I am suffering from the bug mentioned where every load restarts you on "sunday". In general I only get to play for an hour or maybe two here and there so I probably don't get much past "Monday" on most of my play thrus which would result in the traders never restocking. That svcks and I hope Bethesda/Obsidian are looking into fixing that, but at least now I know.