Merchant Empire

 

Template:Quest

Merchant Empire refers to an unmarked quest in Fallout 3.

Through discussion with Uncle Roe, in Canterbury Commons, you can ask if the traders could become a unified group. You can proceed with either the Master Trader perk, a high barter skill, the Black Widow perk, or if you are carrying at least 250 bottlecaps. He offers you a map showing the paths of the merchants and their various trade stops, and the option of investing into any of the caravans. Investing in a caravan allows that merchant to sell a wider variety and higher quality of items. It also raises their repair skill, allowing them to restore your gear to near perfect condition, as well as the number of caps they have available for trading.

An initial investment of 200 caps can be made in each trader, followed by a second investment of 500 caps (totaling 2800 caps for all upgrades). The Master Trader perk discounts each investment by half to 100 caps for the first and 250 caps for the second.

The first time you speak with a merchant after investing fully in their caravan, you will be presented with a gift of gratitude. The gift differs for all four caravans, one of which includes the rare helmet, Crow's eyebot helmet.

Caravan Merchants

Main article: Caravan Merchant (Capital Wasteland)

The following merchants correspond to the investments:

• Armor: Crow
• Food/medicine: Doc Hoff
• Misc: Crazy Wolfgang
• Weapons: Lucky Harith

Reward

• Improved caps-on-hand total for caravan merchants
• Improved inventories for caravan merchants.
• Improved repair ability for caravan merchants.
• The next time you meet him, Crazy Wolfgang will give you between 2 to 6 stealth boys (depends on your level).
• The next time you meet him, Crow will give you Crow's eyebot helmet.
• The next time you meet him, Doc Hoff will give you between 3 and 7 stimpaks (depends on your level).
• The next time you meet him, Lucky Harith will give you a mini nuke.

Merchant chart

Amount of caps available depends on the player's level and is random to a certain degree. Caps replenish every 72 hours, but they are also retained, for example: players who routinely use Crazy Wolfgang for repairs will end up seeing higher available caps totals, (in some cases extremely high).

Merchant	Ref ID	Goods sold	Initial		First investment		Second investment
			Caps	Repair	Caps	Repair	Caps	Repair	Max condition	Investment gift
Crazy Wolfgang	00063c07	Junk	≈61-249	15	≈222-648	50	≈483-1197	75	85%	2-6 Stealth Boys †
Crow	00063c05	Armor	≈61-249	15	≈222-648	40	≈483-1197	65	79%	Crow's Eyebot Helmet
Doc Hoff	00063c06	Chems	≈161-399	15	≈322-798	40	≈483-1197	65	79%	3-7 Stimpaks †
Lucky Harith	00063c08	Weapons & Ammo	≈161-399	20	≈322-798	45	≈483-1197	70	82%	Mini Nuke

† depends on player's level

Notes

• If you have the Master Trader perk, all of the investment amounts will be halved.
• Be wary about investing in the various caravan merchants, as they have been known to die in the Wastes.
• If you cannot make the traders appear through waiting at a frequent stop, they are most likely stuck at the tree in Canterbury Commons. Physically go there and stand next to them, then wait 1-2 hours. This should reset them and make them wander around the Wasteland again. NOTE: It is perhaps preferable to keep the merchants in their frozen, non-circulating state, whereby they don't risk death by wandering the Wastes.
• When asking about the traders' locations, if any are dead, Uncle Roe will tell you that he hasn't seen them in a while or "they must have fallen off the map." (Note that a glitch in the unpatched version of the game makes the latter quite literally possible.) A merchant may be counted as "dead" by Uncle Roe if simply separated from his pack brahmin and/or bodyguard.
• If one of the caravan merchants accidentally dies and is resurrected via console, his inventory and repair ability will revert to pre-investment state.
• If you don't want to risk the traders' deaths, reverse pickpocket better armor and stimpaks on them. Do this in front of Megaton, then go back in and out again to check if they put the armor on. (Alternately, on the PC, use the "bat" / "setessential" console commands to make them unkillable.)
• Agatha mentions all of these merchants during her radio broadcasts.
• When investing in all merchants in one conversation, it may result in the merchants' inventories and caps staying the same, but still giving rewards and higher repair skills.
• When you talk to each of the merchants for the first time, they might do their normal introduction. Ending the conversation and speaking them will produce the correct reward dialog.
• Repair Notes
  • After fully investing, the caravan merchants are the traders with the largest amount of available caps in the game. They also have the highest repair skills, with Crazy Wolfgang being the very best at 75 repair (allowing him to repair items to a max of 85% condition).
  • Haley can offer the highest repair skills through the use of a glitch (allowing him to repair items to a max of 100%).
  • Wolfgang's and Hoff's repair skills can be improved by another 5 or 10 points by reverse-pickpocketing a Red Racer jumpsuit, workman's coveralls, or RobCo jumpsuit with better than 75% condition. However NPCs are immune to S.P.E.C.I.A.L bonuses and no headgear can improve repair.
  • Somah from the Mothership Zeta DLC sometimes has a repair skill of 100, so she can repair your equipment to 100%. The drawback is that it will cost you a hefty fee and she does not possess any selling options, meaning you'll have to pickpocket her to get your money back. You can also use alien epoxies for your repair needs as they come in an unlimited supply. You can get these by talking to Sally on board the Mothership once you complete the quest every 24 in game hours.

Behind the Scenes

• Both the name of the quest and the itinerant, missionary-like ideology of the merchants may be a subtle reference to the merchant-princes in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series: a science-fiction anthology in which traveling merchants played a critical role in the resurgence of civilization and technology after the total collapse of the Galactic Empire.

Template:Canterbury Commons