Probably Stolen Bargaining: Prices, Budgets and Faction Reputation

Use this reference to find the bargaining controls and understand what each offer changes. Buying and selling always refer to your shop’s direction.

Finding and unlocking the bargaining panel

Click the current customer to open their trading tablet, then click the speech-bubble button at the top right. Click again to close the bargaining panel. Finish the current dialogue and let the customer reach the counter before making an offer.

The normal opening introduces bargaining on day 8. Skipping the introduction enables it directly. If the button is missing, check that bargaining has been introduced, the current customer permits it, you are inside the shop, and you do not have the Awful Negotiator perk. That perk disables bargaining.

Jackson’s regular shop visit explicitly disables bargaining, as do some supply and task visitors. A trading customer can therefore have no bargaining button even after the introduction.

Ordinary bargaining does not require finding a counterfeit. Magnifying-glass confrontation uses the inspection tray and has its own conditions.

Four offers and one opportunity per direction

Each ordinary offer has 10%, 25%, 50% and 75% buttons. A customer buying your stock exposes selling options; one selling to you exposes buying options. A customer who does both can have separate offers in each direction.

Option	Item quote	Buyer budget
Selling: Offer Discount	Lower	Increases
Selling: Add Markup	Higher if accepted	Decreases if accepted
Buying: Demand Discount	Lower if accepted	Unchanged
Buying: Offer Markup	Higher	Unchanged

Hover over a percentage to inspect acceptance, refusal, departure and the buying/selling reputation preview before clicking. Each direction gets one offer per customer, including a refused offer. Closing and reopening the panel does not restore it. You cannot try 10% and then escalate to 25%. A new customer resets the choices.

Customer-friendly offers are accepted, but trade reputation requires a completed transaction. A successful demand changes the relevant prices. Refusal leaves those prices unchanged. An angry departure ends the visit and applies a base −3 faction-reputation penalty, subject to the usual modifiers.

Prices and customer budgets

For buyers using a budget, a sales discount increases their spending budget; a successful sales markup reduces it. The budget is the total they will spend, separate from each item’s price.

Offer	Discounted price	Budget after discount	Marked-up price	Budget after markup
10%	×0.90	+20%	×1.10	−10%
25%	×0.75	+50%	×1.25	−15%
50%	×0.50	+100%	×1.50	−20%
75%	×0.25	+150%	×1.75	−25%

For example, a 25% discount turns a 100-credit pre-bargain quote into 75 and a 200-credit budget into 300. A successful 25% markup turns the quote into 125 but reduces that buyer’s budget to 170. Choose stock using both demand and remaining budget.

Bargaining combines with other item-price adjustments, including Retail Markup. Relevant goods added to the counters during the visit also receive the selected adjustment; it is not limited to one highlighted item. Check the actual total before trading. Use the item catalogue for reference values.

With only Normal difficulty’s 15% Retail Markup, a base value of 1,000 quotes at 1,150; a 50% bargaining discount then makes it 575. The percentages are multiplied at different stages, not combined as +15%−50%.

Which customer’s faction receives reputation?

Trade reputation belongs to the current customer’s faction. Find a member of the faction you want to improve who permits bargaining and ordinary trade. Occupation and appearance do not uniquely determine affiliation: ordinary and criminal mercenaries can belong to different factions.

Faction	Trading visitors to check	Factor
Lower Level	Lower Level residents, scavengers and spacers	0.66
Upper Level	Upper Level residents	1.2
Security	Security procurement/surplus traders	1
Black Market	Thieves and criminal mercenaries	1
Revolution	Revolution Quartermaster and Raiders	1
Tourists	Tourist customers	No independent reputation track

Tourists have no independent reputation track; discounting their purchases does not build Upper Level reputation. Check identities in People and factions and procurement visitors in Security.

Some special visitors have no tracked faction at all: for example, the Mid-Level Nurse. A numeric preview alone does not prove that a faction will receive reputation.

Faction rewards, penalties and recovery: Faction reputation.

Reputation multipliers and worked examples

Buying and selling use the same calculation for each item. On Normal difficulty, with legal non-stolen stock and no reputation perks:

Reputation change = pre-bargain item quote × trade multiplier × faction factor ÷ 400

Choose the column that matches your action. Buying and selling have separate multipliers.

Offer size	Friendly: sell at a discount / buy at a markup, base 1	Demand: sell at a markup / buy at a discount, accepted
10%	1.65	−0.5
25%	2.2	−1.5
50%	3	−3
75%	3.9	−5

An ordinary customer’s base trade multiplier is usually 1. Friendly offers add their bonus to a positive base multiplier. Security requisition and surplus traders start at 2, so their 25% friendly offer uses 3.2. These are trading visitors, separate from police who only inspect the shop.

To use the formula:

1. Take the item’s full quote before this bargain, including other price adjustments such as Retail Markup. If you only have the adjusted quote, undo this bargain’s price factor: a 625-credit buying quote after a 25% markup gives 625 ÷ 1.25 = 500; a 300-credit selling quote after a 25% discount gives 300 ÷ 0.75 = 400.
2. Use the buying or selling multiplier for your chosen offer. Apply the budget rule below if the buyer pays less than the full quote.
3. Multiply by the customer’s faction factor from the previous table, then divide by 400. Difficulty, perks and special stock have the additional effects in the next section.

For a Lower Level seller with base multiplier 1, offering to pay 10% extra changes a 1,000-credit quote to 1,100. The friendly buying column gives 1.65, so the trade adds 1,000 × 1.65 × 0.66 ÷ 400 = 2.7225 Lower Level reputation.

For an Upper Level buyer, a 25% discount changes a 400-credit quote to 300. If the buyer pays the full 300, the friendly selling multiplier is 2.2: 400 × 2.2 × 1.2 ÷ 400 = 2.64 Upper Level reputation.

The game rounds to integers when undoing the price factor and applying the trade and faction multipliers. Small item values can therefore differ from an unrounded calculation. Reputation itself retains fractions, so the displayed integer may stay unchanged after a small trade. The resulting faction reputation stays within −200 to 200.

The panel shows the multiplier after × and converts the bracketed reference to a 1,000-credit item. Hovering previews the proposed choice. Actual trades still settle item by item with the formula above; difficulty and the remaining modifiers are applied at settlement.

When the buyer cannot pay the full quote

An over-budget sale opens a confirmation showing the buyer’s remaining credits and the money you will forgo. Choosing Yes sells the eligible counter stock for at most that remaining budget. Remove stock you want to keep or be paid for before confirming; see budget and refusals.

For each item paid below its full quote, the selling reputation multiplier gains 1. Its reputation value is still recovered from the item’s full quote, even though you receive less cash.

For example, a successful 10% markup changes an Upper Level buyer’s 1,000-credit quote to 1,100. If the buyer pays all 1,100, the demand multiplier −0.5 gives 1,000 × (−0.5) × 1.2 ÷ 400 = −1.5 reputation. If this is the only item on the counter and you confirm the sale with just 600 budget remaining, you receive 600 and forgo 500. The settlement multiplier becomes −0.5 + 1 = 0.5, giving 1,000 × 0.5 × 1.2 ÷ 400 = 1.5 reputation. The budget changes the cash payment and this multiplier, rather than replacing the 1,000-credit reputation basis with 600.

Difficulty, perks and special stock

Difficulty or perk	Positive reputation	Negative reputation
Cozy	×1.5	×0.5
Normal	×1	×1
Hard	×0.75	×1.25
Challenge	×0.5	×2
Diplomatic	×1.33	—
Sycophant: Upper Level	×1.25	—
Blabbermouth: Black Market / Revolution	×0.5	—

Normal difficulty uses 1 for both gains and losses. Black Market reputation losses are doubled. The Upper Level Petition penalty doubles Security losses while active. Buying stolen goods or serious contraband adds item-dependent multipliers to the signed trade amount. Check crime and storage before using that stock.

Acceptance, refusal and departure

Sales markups and buying-discount demands use the same ordinary-offer probabilities. Larger demands reduce acceptance and increase departures. Current faction reputation, event customers and bargaining bonuses change the result. Some special customers always refuse or stay after a refusal.

Demand	Accepts	Refuses and stays	Leaves
10%	80%	8%	12%
25%	50%	20%	30%
50%	0%	40%	60%
75%	0%	10%	90%

The table assumes faction reputation 0, an ordinary customer and no bargaining bonus. Positive reputation contributes one percentage point per complete 6 reputation; negative reputation uses the same integer division and doubles the penalty. Event customers add 15 points. A Deal Maker bonus improves acceptance. Hover over the current offer for this customer’s actual displayed chances.

Augs directly refuse ordinary unfavorable demands, even if the generic tooltip displays a success chance. A refusal alone does not identify an Aug.

Blackmail and threats

Blackmail (Criminal) checks whether the visitor is wanted, not whether they look like a thief. It is a separate one-time action for trading visitors who are not Security officers. Success gives 20% better prices in the applicable directions and sets the trade reputation multiplier to −6; a successful ordinary demand in the same direction adds its negative penalty. Failure against a wanted visitor applies base −5 faction reputation.

Threaten (Aug) appears after the Aug introduction. Against a real Aug, success gives 20% better prices and sets the basic directional trade-reputation multiplier to 0; the budget-capped sale adjustment described above still applies.

Using either action on an innocent customer fails: 50% stay with base −7 reputation; 50% leave with base −10. These penalties receive global reputation modifiers. Attempting either action blocks reporting that visitor; attempting a threat also blocks equipping the shotgun for this visit, regardless of success. Check wanted identity and Aug identification and handling before acting.