Off to Market — Trading Deluxe

"May your coffers overflow and your trade routes prosper!"

⚠️ Work in Progress This mod is a work in progress. Features are incomplete, bugs are expected, and things might be weird (but should not break). Thank you for your patience as development continues!

Off to Market transforms Minecraft into a full merchant experience. Build trading posts, establish routes with unique towns, manage your reputation, hire workers, and grow your trading empire — all with a dynamic economy that reacts to supply & demand.

Whether you're running a solo merchant playthrough or loading a 300+ mod modpack, Off to Market fits right in — automatically discovering items from other mods and generating themed markets around them.

Currency System

Forget emeralds. Off to Market introduces a three-tier coin economy:

A Coin Exchange tab lets you convert between tiers freely. A Gold Only mode is also available in the config if you prefer a simpler economy. IN ALPHA — subject to change based on player feedback.

Trading Blocks

Trading Post

Your merchant headquarters. From here you can:

• Browse goods from multiple towns and cities
• Send shipments to distant markets via caravan
• Track active shipments through all phases: In Transit → At Market → Returning
• Accept diplomat requests for premium-priced orders
• Complete quests for bonus coins and trader XP
• Hire workers to improve profits and reduce travel time
• Monitor your merchant level and reputation across towns

Trading Bin

A wall-mounted storage block for items you want to sell. Set a price per slot and let passing caravans handle the rest.

Market Board

A wall-mounted board showing:

• Live market prices from nearby towns
• Available town quests
• Your standing and reputation

Towns

Trade with 10+ handcrafted towns, each with unique needs, surpluses, and specialties. Prices fluctuate dynamically based on what each town needs and has in abundance.

Quests

Towns generate trade quests based on their current needs. Head to the Quests tab to accept them and deliver on time for bonus rewards and rep.

• Standard Deliveries — Bring goods a town is requesting
• Bulk Orders — Large quantities for bigger payouts
• Rush Deliveries — Time-sensitive for premium bonuses
• Specialty Requests — Unique items for rare rewards
• Charity Missions — High-reputation quests with modest pay

Up to 5 active quests at a time. Quests refresh each dawn and expire after 2–4 in-game days.

Workers

Hire workers from your Trading Post to improve your operation:

Workers level up through completed trips (max level 10) and display XP progress in the UI.

Diplomats

Send diplomats to towns to request specific items at a premium price. Great for sourcing hard-to-find goods on demand.

• Requests go through: Negotiating → In Transit → Arrived
• Premium pricing by town tier: Village +50% · Town +65% · City +80%
• Travel time is 1.5× standard (reduced by Trading Cart bonus)

Animal Trading

Trade livestock using Animal Trade Slips — redeemable vouchers for live animals. Purchase slips from the specialized Peenam Animal Market.

Supported animals: Cows, Pigs, Sheep, Chickens, Horses, Donkeys, Llamas, and more.

Dynamic Mod Compatibility

Off to Market automatically integrates with your modpack. When other mods are installed, the system scans them at runtime, categorizes their items (ingots, gems, foods, weapons, armor, magic, etc.), and generates themed towns specifically for those mods.

Tested in a 300+ mod RPG modpack with no conflicts.

Key Items

Crafting recipes viewable in-game with JEI/REI.

Configuration

Highly configurable via config/offtomarket-common.toml. Notable options:

• Global price multiplier — Scale all prices up or down
• Gold Only mode — Disable silver and copper coins
• Dynamic towns — Toggle auto-generated mod-compatible markets
• Supply & demand — Tune market dynamics
• Debug mode — Instant travel and free purchases for testing

Getting Started

1. Craft a Trading Post — your gateway to commerce
2. Craft a Trading Bin — stock items you want to sell
3. Earn some coins via initial quests or selling goods
4. Build reputation to unlock more towns and better prices
5. Hire workers, send diplomats, and grow your empire!

Requirements

• Minecraft: 1.19.2
• Mod Loader: Forge 43.x+
• Optional: JEI/REI (for viewing recipes)

Roadmap

This mod is still in active alpha development. Below is a look at what's planned across short, medium, and long term. Priority and timing may shift based on feedback — your comments genuinely influence what gets built next!

💡 Have an idea not listed here? Drop it in the comments — great suggestions get added to the list!

🔧 Near-Term (Alpha Stabilization)

These are the immediate priorities before moving to a beta release.

• Economy balance pass — Pricing, quest rewards, worker costs, and diplomat premiums will all get tuned based on real player feedback. Numbers are placeholder-ish right now.
• Shipment tracking edge cases — Some edge cases exist where shipments can get stuck or not return properly. These need to be hunted down and squashed.
• Quest expiry bugs — Quests occasionally don't expire or refresh correctly at dawn. A full audit of the quest lifecycle is planned.
• Trading Bin UX — The current click-to-select price system works but is clunky. Planning a cleaner approach — possibly inline editing or a dedicated price input screen.
• Guide Book rewrite — The in-game Guide Book is outdated and doesn't cover all the newer systems (workers, diplomats, animals). A full rewrite is planned with proper diagrams and examples.
• JEI/REI integration — Show proper crafting recipes, coin exchange rates, and item categories in JEI/REI overlays.
• Config validation — Better error messages when config values are out of range or misconfigured.
• Crash hardening — More null checks and graceful fallbacks to prevent crashes in edge cases or unusual modpack environments.

🏘️ Towns & Economy

The heart of the mod — expect a lot of growth here.

• Datapack-defined towns — Create your own towns entirely through datapacks. Define the name, type, specialty items, lore, reputation thresholds, and more — no Java required.
• Town reputation tiers — Reputation currently affects prices, but the plan is full tiers (Stranger → Acquaintance → Trusted → Partner → Honored) each unlocking perks: exclusive items, lower fees, access to rare quests, and special diplomat options.
• Town events — Random and triggered events that shake up the market: a surplus of iron after a mining boom, a food shortage after a bad harvest, a festival driving up luxury goods prices for a few days.
• Seasonal market cycles — Prices and available goods shift by season. Frostholm stocks more firewood in winter. Silverbrook's fish supply peaks in spring. Makes trade feel alive.
• Town backstory & lore — Each handcrafted town will get a brief history, notable NPC mentions, and flavor text visible in the trading post UI.
• More handcrafted towns — Aiming for 20+ unique towns total, including desert bazaars, underground trading posts, and island markets.
• Town growth system — Towns can grow over time if you trade with them consistently. A village becomes a town, a town becomes a city — with new goods and better prices as they grow.
• Rival merchants — NPCs that compete with you for good deals, potentially undercutting prices or locking up quests you wanted.
• Expanded mod-compatible town generation — More mod themes supported, with richer item selection and better category detection.

🚢 Trading & Logistics

Making the actual act of trading feel more tangible and exciting.

• Caravans as world entities — Instead of invisible shipments, actual caravan entities will travel across the world. You'll be able to see and follow them.
• Caravan encounters — Caravans face random events on the road: bandit ambushes (lose a portion of goods), helpful travelers (small bonus), or weather delays. A Caravan Guard worker reduces risk.
• Trade routes — Establish permanent routes between your base and a town. Invest resources to upgrade roads for faster travel and less encounter risk.
• Shipment insurance — Purchase insurance for high-value shipments. Pay a premium upfront; if the shipment is lost or ambushed, you're reimbursed.
• Multi-stop routes — Chain multiple towns into a single caravan run. Higher risk, higher reward.
• Trade contracts — Lock in a standing order with a town: deliver X items every Y days in exchange for a guaranteed price and rep bonus.
• Black market — High-risk, high-reward trades with shady contacts. Better prices, but chance of confiscation or reputation hit with legitimate towns.

👷 Workers & Progression

The workforce system has a lot of room to grow.

• New worker types:
  • Accountant — Reduces the per-trip tax/fee on sales
  • Scout — Discovers new towns and reveals town inventory before committing to a shipment
  • Caravan Guard — Reduces encounter risk and loss from ambushes
  • Appraiser — More accurately values rare and modded items
  • Courier — Speeds up small, single-item diplomat requests
• Worker traits — Each hired worker has a randomly assigned trait (e.g., "Experienced Traveler" for faster trips, "Haggler" for better prices, "Clumsy" for occasional mishaps). Adds personality and replayability.
• Worker fatigue — Workers need rest between trips. Push them too hard and their performance degrades.
• Merchant guild system — Join a guild (Traders' Union, Merchants' Circle, Free Traders, etc.) each offering different passive bonuses, exclusive workers, and faction-specific quests. Guilds have opposing interests, so you can't join them all.
• Merchant leveling expansion — More levels, meaningful milestone rewards (permanent price bonuses, new town unlocks, exclusive worker hires), and a visible merchant title displayed in the UI.
• Worker housing block — A new block where assigned workers "live," providing small passive bonuses even when not on a trip.

📜 Quests & Diplomacy

More ways to interact with the towns you trade with.

• Escort quests — Accompany a merchant NPC from one town to another. Combat encounter along the way; success earns big rep and coin.
• Timed collection quests — Gather a specific set of items within a Minecraft day or two. Fail the timer and lose the quest.
• Town construction quests — Donate resources to help a town build something (a new market stall, a storage warehouse). Permanent bonus once complete.
• Reputation recovery quests — Made a town unhappy? Special quests to earn back their trust.
• Chained quest lines — Story-driven sequences across multiple towns with a narrative payoff and a unique reward at the end.
• Diplomat skill tree — Diplomats level up with use and can specialize: better prices, access to restricted goods, or faster negotiation times.

🤝 Multiplayer

The full multiplayer experience is a longer-term goal but absolutely planned.

• Shared marketplace block — A new block where players on the same server can post items for sale and browse each other's listings. Think a player-driven auction house.
• Player-to-player shipments — Send items directly to another player's Trading Post via caravan (with transit time).
• Shared town reputation — Option to pool reputation per server or keep it per-player (configurable by server admin).
• Trading guilds for players — Groups of players can form a guild, pooling reputation and splitting quest rewards.
• Server-wide economy events — Events that affect all players: a global surplus crashing a commodity's price, or a rare demand spike making one item worth a fortune for a limited time.

📦 Content & Polish

Filling in the experience and making everything feel complete.

• Sound design — Market ambient sounds, coin jingle on sale, caravan departure/arrival sounds, quest complete fanfare.
• Ledger overhaul — Charts for profit/loss over time, per-town breakdown, best-selling items, total coins earned lifetime.
• Expanded animal trading — More species, baby animal vouchers, exotic/mod-added animals, and a dedicated animal market UI.
• Collectible currency — Rare commemorative coins, antique gold pieces, and high-value trade artifacts that serve as both currency and collectibles.
• Market decorations — New decorative blocks themed around trading: market stall canopies, hanging lanterns, coin display cases, barrel carts.
• Achievements/advancements — A full advancement tree: first sale, first quest, first diplomat, first level-up, and lore-flavored milestone advances.
• Villager integration — Optional bridge between Off to Market towns and vanilla villager trading. Reputation with a town could give discounts with nearby vanilla villagers.
• Visual caravan customization — Name your caravans, choose their banner colors, unlock cosmetic upgrades as you level up.

💬 Feedback & Bug Reports

This mod is actively being developed and your feedback genuinely shapes it! If you run into a bug, have a suggestion, or just want to share your experience:

• Drop a comment on this page — all feedback is read!
• Report bugs in the comments with your Forge version, a description of what happened, and any crash report if applicable
• Suggest features — town ideas, new trade mechanics, mod integrations, you name it

The more feedback received, the better this mod gets. Thanks for trying it out during alpha! 🙏

Author: Scotty Venable License: All Rights Reserved © 2024–2026