Scavland Traders

Traders are the quiet endgame of every Scavland session. You loot, you live, you sell, you eat, you leave. Early Access lists crafting, looting, traders, and contracts in the same breath. This page is the counter. Reputation is the number the counter can see. Factions are who owns the counter.

Who buys your junk

Demo footage shows farmers taking scrap, townsfolk buying rags, and specialised windows for guns. A red cloth for 1,500 of some currency felt like a lot until a cleaning kit sat at 6,000. Those numbers are folklore. The lesson is not the digit. The lesson is: vendor trash is real, tools are not trash, and you should not sell the kit that keeps the rifle alive.

Sell:

• Duplicate broken pistols
• Cloth, rags, and decorative junk
• Calibres you will not feed this week
• Parts for guns you do not own and will not own

Do not sell:

• Cleaning kits until you have a spare
• Medkits down to zero
• The only magazine that fits your S-tier rifle
• Quest objects because a window looked hungry

Starting loadout is the shopping list. This page is the discipline.

Ranked stock

NoShadow says raising rank adds limited items to shops. That is why a trader is not a static list. Come back after jobs. Come back after you did not shoot the owner. Come back before you strip a bunker for a part that was going to appear in town anyway.

If two shops exist, compare. If only one shop likes you, that shop is now part of survival. Food gated behind standing is a harder check than a mutant.

Prices versus weight

A high-value item that fills the pack is a bad trade if it costs you the medkit you left on the floor. Sort on the ground. How to play already described the rummage animation. Use it at the stall too. Buy calories first, ammo second, attachments third. Builds are a town hobby, not a field emergency.

A slow legendary rifle with five rounds can sit in a window looking like a personality. It is a personality you cannot feed. Walk away. The weapon tier list exists for this moment.

Jobs are shops that pay you

Contracts and jobs pay in money, standing, and sometimes gear. Distance raises reward. Distance also raises the chance you never collect. Nearby rat hunts and local retrievals are the beginner trader loop. Far squad hunts are how you fund a magazine and also how you fund a funeral.

Turn work in before you go shopping so rank and coin arrive together. The journal on J is part of the stall. Getting Started said so in fewer words.

Crafting, repair, and the stall

Crafting exists. Repair exists. Traders do not replace workbenches; they feed them. Buy materials if the recipe is real and the walk is shorter than a hatch. Do not buy a crafting dream when you are bleeding. Combat jams are fixed with kits and benches, not with a shopping montage.

If a vendor sells a bigger backpack, that is a progression flag. Demo play treated extra capacity as a mission carrot. Pay for space only when space is the thing killing your loop.

Manners

Stealing from a stall because the RPG allowed a pickup is a reputation decision. So is dumping a corpse in the street and then asking for bread. The Life system will keep NPCs moving. They do not have to like you tomorrow.

Talk. Buy. Leave. Come back heavier. That is the trader meta. It scales from the scrapyard to whatever Act II eventually does to the map. Until 4 September 2026, practise it in whatever demo or launch build you have, and keep the beginner checklist next to the buy button.