💸npctrade💸: Remove item locations from trade window

[pjf]

Summary

SUMMARY: Interface "Item locations are no longer shown in the trade interface"

Purpose of change

This change removes item locations from the NPC trading screen, with the following assumptions and rationale:

• Survivors don't care if they're buying the toaster pastry that's on the table, or in the trader's inventory
• If items in the trade interface are sorted (which greatly improves usability on large inventories), then showing the location makes the screen very busy, and means we can't collapse individual items down into stacks.
• The colors mean we can't show items using colors that players are used to (eg: colouring books by read status).
• No other interface shows locations in this way, so it's unexpected. (I first thought it was a bug!)

However I'm not familiar with the npctrade design decisions, so my assumptions may be wrong.

Describe the solution

This just removes the code that adds item locations in the npctrade interface.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Not doing this.

Testing

Happily played with this change on a trans-pacific flight, and made trades with multiple traders.

Additional context

1. 💸npctrade💸: Sort trade results by category and name. #38254 adds some basic sorting to the NPC trade interface.
2. I made this change while on a redeye flight from Australia, so it's entirely possible I've missed something.

[anothersimulacrum]

Survivors don't care if they're buying the toaster pastry that's on the table, or in the trader's inventory

I do care about this when trading with my companions, but not with NPC traders.

[pjf]

Aha, that's what I've been missing. Since I've been unable to make friends in-game, I've never had a buddy to trade with. So we should show location on friendly trades, but not on merchant trades?

[pjf]

Updates:

• We now only remove location and colour when trading with merchants. It remains in place for trades with allies.
• Adjusted npc_will_accept_trade to use np.will_trade_items_freely() instead of np.player_ally(), so it's consistent with the rest of the code. (Currently both methods are the same, but this future-proofs us somewhat.)

[Shibimon]

Why don't we just remove from the list the items that don't belong to the faction vendor while at it.
Now that we have the faction flags, they can sell only things they actually own, and will stop trying to sell player things dropped on the floor, that looks really wierd and like a bug.
It could be even better making merchants sell things in a bigger radius, so player could buy things from a "settlement" like the Refugee Center but maybe will need some kind of "not tradeable" flag too, and all this will be miles away from the scope of this PR.

[pjf]

@Shibimon :

Why don't we just remove from the list the items that don't belong to the faction vendor while at it.

I can't reproduce this. I haul a bunch of stuff to my local merchant, drop it on the floor next to them, and never see it on their side of the trades.

Do you have steps to reproduce?

[Dacendeth]

Wont this cause a problem with the free merchants at at the hub, the merchant there sell things that are elusively on the tables around him.

[pjf]

@Dacendeth : Oh, they still sell the items from those locations, they just won't add them to the item name.

Paired with #38254 , this means you get items in sorted (category, then name) order, which I've found makes it much easier to find what you're looking for, especially when the merchant has a large inventory.