Probably Stolen buyer checks: water labels and counterfeit goods

Already bought counterfeit cigarettes: choose a sale route

Ordinary Upper Levels buyers and tourists do not check cigarette authenticity at the counter. They still need to want that product and have enough budget. Do not apply this ordinary-resident rule to every named or specialist Upper Levels visitor; the full customer table below takes priority.

If you want a sale without an inflated authenticity claim, use the red Labeler to declare counterfeit, then sell at the resulting value to an interested buyer. If you label it genuine and choose an ordinary Upper Levels buyer or tourist, that profile will not expose the cigarette feature during the counter check. The label changes the claim and quoted value; it does not repair lettering, colour, logo or seal.

Lower Levels, Security, Black Market and ordinary scavengers can expose fake cigarettes labeled genuine; Odin also can. Already exposed packs may need a new label before an inflated claim can be made again, which also permits another reputation loss. For a pack already purchased, the original seller’s confrontation is no longer available. These rules cover the immediate automatic inspection of this category.

Labeler guide: Blue Labeler names and red product labels · Customer requests: restrictions, variety and budgets

Reputation losses by difficulty

The original per-feature figures below use Normal difficulty. Multiply losses by 0.5 on Cozy, 1 on Normal, 1.25 on Hard and 2 on Challenge. Thus an ordinary −4 becomes −2/−4/−5/−8; the Black Market’s −8 becomes −4/−8/−10/−16. This applies to each newly exposed feature.

Reputation losses by difficulty

When does a buyer inspect your goods?

The check starts when you put goods on the counter, including inspectable goods inside a container. The game also checks again before completing a sale. A buyer who can expose an inflated label can interrupt that sale and reveal the actual condition.

For the tables below, the item has an unexposed label claiming a better condition than the real one. A matching label or a label ranking below the actual condition does not trigger this automatic label check. Water must also be present in its container.

Customer profiles determine these checks. The water and cigarette branches do not roll a fresh success chance for each item. A customer mentioning a scanner in their opening dialogue is useful information; searching their physical inventory is not part of the check.

Who detects overstated water and counterfeit cigarettes?

Find the customer’s identity or faction in this table. Scavengers use their own profile before their faction’s profile, and the named special encounters have their own rows.

Customer	Water labeled above its actual grade	Counterfeit cigarettes labeled genuine
Lower Levels, Black Market or Security	Detects all actual grades	Detects
Ordinary Scavenger	Detects actual Rustwater or Gutterflow	Detects
Ordinary Upper Level customer	Detects actual Rustwater or Gutterflow	Does not check this category
Tourist	Detects actual Rustwater or Gutterflow	Does not check this category
Other default customer profile	Detects actual Rustwater or Gutterflow	Detects
Water Stockpiler	Detects all actual grades	Detects
Story Scavenger who asks for Basewater before an outing	Detects all actual grades	This encounter’s override checks water only
Odin Haraldsson	Detects all actual grades	Detects

The Water Stockpiler belongs to the Upper Levels but specifically says he carries Water Testing Strips. Treat him as the full-water-check row. The story Scavenger opens by asking for Basewater and saying he is about to go scavenging; his water-check override also differs from an ordinary scavenger.

For Hemingway Cigarettes, a capable buyer checks the authenticity category. Making a printing, colour or seal defect less obvious does not change that customer’s detection profile. Use the Hemingway handbook to inspect the pack yourself before buying it.

How do you apply the water table?

The limited water-check profile looks at the actual water, not just how extravagant the label sounds. It recognizes Rustwater and Gutterflow; clearer Ghostwater needs a customer with the full-grade profile.

Actual water	Declared label	Result of the automatic label check
Ghostwater	Basewater	Full-grade buyers detect it; ordinary Upper Levels, tourists and scavengers do not
Rustwater or Gutterflow	Pure Water	Both full-grade and limited-water profiles detect it
High-Quality Water	Basewater	The label understates the actual grade, so this check does not expose it
High-Quality Water, tested at 99.2%	High-Quality Water	The grade matches; a different purity within the same grade is not a grade mismatch

Use your own Water Testing Strip or AquaScan on the container to establish its actual grade. After mixing or treatment, test the final batch. The water-testing steps explain reading the strip result and the tested versus labeled values.

Changing the grade with the red Labeler edits the declared condition. The Labeler guide covers the dropdown operation.

Which buyers expose an Immunivax label?

Immunivax has separate unusable, counterfeit, expired and normal conditions. Read the actual state and the proposed label together. These are the inflated-label combinations that enter the check:

Actual condition → declared label	Lower Levels, Black Market, Security, ordinary Scavenger or Odin	Ordinary Upper Levels or Tourist
Unusable → counterfeit, expired or normal	Detects, with the recall exception below	Detects, with the recall exception below
Counterfeit → expired or normal	Detects	Does not detect the counterfeit condition
Expired → normal	Detects	Detects

Other default profiles and the Water Stockpiler do not include this Immunivax check. A buyer who misses a counterfeit can still recognize an expired or unusable injector; use the condition-specific row.

Recall-only exception: an injector whose only fault is a serial-number batch on the recall list is skipped by both of these injector-check helpers. This exception requires no body, colour, label or indicator fault. Inspect serial numbers using the Immunivax handbook.

Which customers check chemical purity?

Chemical purity needs its own scanning ability. A customer’s water or cigarette knowledge does not grant it. The following arrivals have a specific chemical-scanning setting:

Customer name shown in the encounter	Chemical-scanning ability	How to recognize the relevant arrival
Merchant	Always enabled	Ordinary Merchant encounter, Lower Levels faction
Shady Merchant	Always enabled	Black Market trader
Dealer	Always enabled	Black Market street-dealer encounter
Upper Level Hospital Supplier	Always enabled	Hospital-supply encounter
Mid-Level Nurse	75% chance when the customer is created	The scanner-equipped version announces having a chemical scanner
Lower Level Doctor	50% chance when the customer is created	The scanner-equipped version announces having a chemical scanner
Odin Haraldsson	Always enabled	Odin’s appointment

The nurse and doctor chances decide which version of that arrival you get. A scanner-equipped arrival keeps that ability for the encounter, rather than rolling again for each bottle. Listen to the opening dialogue before offering mislabeled chemicals.

The Mid-Level Nurse uses the Lower Levels inspection profile despite the name. The Upper Level Hospital Supplier scans chemical purity but still uses the limited Upper Levels water check. Chemical equipment does not turn that visitor into a full-grade water tester.

Only a purity label ranking above the actual chemical grade enters this inflated-label check. Use the chemical guide to inspect and process the actual contents.

What happens when the customer exposes a label?

The actual condition is exposed, and the goods and bargaining interface refresh. Judge the offer again from the updated information. The immediate faction loss is counted for each newly exposed item feature:

Customer’s faction or state	Reputation change per newly exposed feature
Ordinary faction loss	−4 with that customer’s faction
Black Market	−8 with the Black Market
Security while the Upper Levels’ Petition effect is active	−8 with Security
Aug customer	This exposure path skips the reputation loss, while still exposing the feature

Two newly exposed features cause two losses. Picking up and replacing the same already-exposed goods does not expose that feature again. Changing a dropdown or applying Repeat clears the exposed marker, so a newly inflated label can be checked and penalized again.

These numbers describe the immediate counter inspection. For rebuilding a faction relationship through completed trades, use the bargaining and reputation steps.

What should you check before putting goods on the counter?

1. Establish the real condition using the appropriate test or inspection guide.
2. Read the customer’s faction, identity and opening request. Apply special-encounter rows before ordinary resident rows.
3. If the label is inaccurate, use the red Labeler to select the condition you actually established.
4. Put the goods on the counter and read any new dialogue before making the offer. If a condition is exposed, use the refreshed item information for the next bargain.

Where do food stamps and other appraisal goods fit?

The automatic label profiles above cover water, cigarettes, Immunivax and chemical purity. They contain no category check for Food Stamps, Ribwiches, bionic hands or plasma fuel cells. Your own pre-purchase appraisal uses the corresponding handbook and inspection controls:

• Republic Food Stamp Authenticity Handbook
• Ribwich Appraisal Guide
• Cybernetic Hand Appraisal Guide
• Plasma Cartridge Appraisal Guide

Use the Magnifying Glass inspection steps to compare visible faults and confront a seller before paying.