How to keep vendors frozen after restart

[money]

"My vendors were frozen before restart, but afterwards they are all freely walking around. How do I prevent this?"

I have seen this question asked many times in the forum, but I have not seen a clear answer and many people are still wondering how to do it. There are obviously many different ways to accomplish it, but this is how I did it:

In BaseVendor.cs, find the following code (around line 1256):

                public override void Serialize( GenericWriter writer )
		{
			base.Serialize( writer );

			writer.Write( (int) 1 ); // version

			ArrayList sbInfos = this.SBInfos;

			for ( int i = 0; sbInfos != null && i < sbInfos.Count; ++i )
			{
				SBInfo sbInfo = (SBInfo)sbInfos[i];
				ArrayList buyInfo = sbInfo.BuyInfo;

				for ( int j = 0; buyInfo != null && j < buyInfo.Count; ++j )
				{
					GenericBuyInfo gbi = (GenericBuyInfo)buyInfo[j];

					int maxAmount = gbi.MaxAmount;
					int doubled = 0;

					switch ( maxAmount )
					{
						case  40: doubled = 1; break;
						case  80: doubled = 2; break;
						case 160: doubled = 3; break;
						case 320: doubled = 4; break;
						case 640: doubled = 5; break;
						case 999: doubled = 6; break;
					}

					if ( doubled > 0 )
					{
						writer.WriteEncodedInt( 1 + ((j * sbInfos.Count) + i) );
						writer.WriteEncodedInt( doubled );
					}
				}
			}

			writer.WriteEncodedInt( 0 );
		}

		public override void Deserialize( GenericReader reader )
		{
			base.Deserialize( reader );

			int version = reader.ReadInt();

			LoadSBInfo();

			ArrayList sbInfos = this.SBInfos;

			switch ( version )
                        case 1:
				{
					int index;

					while ( (index = reader.ReadEncodedInt()) > 0 )
					{
						int doubled = reader.ReadEncodedInt();

						if ( sbInfos != null )
						{
							index -= 1;
							int sbInfoIndex = index % sbInfos.Count;
							int buyInfoIndex = index / sbInfos.Count;
 
							if ( sbInfoIndex >= 0 && sbInfoIndex < sbInfos.Count )
							{
								SBInfo sbInfo = (SBInfo)sbInfos[sbInfoIndex];
								ArrayList buyInfo = sbInfo.BuyInfo;

								if ( buyInfo != null && buyInfoIndex >= 0 && buyInfoIndex < buyInfo.Count )
								{
									GenericBuyInfo gbi = (GenericBuyInfo)buyInfo[buyInfoIndex];

									int amount = 20;

									switch ( doubled )
									{
										case 1: amount =  40; break;
										case 2: amount =  80; break;
										case 3: amount = 160; break;
										case 4: amount = 320; break;
										case 5: amount = 640; break;
										case 6: amount = 999; break;
									}

									gbi.Amount = gbi.MaxAmount = amount;
								}
							}
						}
					}

					break;
				}
			}

What we need to do, is to serialize and deserialize the frozen attribute of the npc. So we add a few lines of code, and the code becomes like this: (changes in red)

                public override void Serialize( GenericWriter writer )
		{
			base.Serialize( writer );

			writer.Write( (int) 2 ); // version

                        writer.Write( this.Frozen );

			ArrayList sbInfos = this.SBInfos;

			for ( int i = 0; sbInfos != null && i < sbInfos.Count; ++i )
			{
				SBInfo sbInfo = (SBInfo)sbInfos[i];
				ArrayList buyInfo = sbInfo.BuyInfo;

				for ( int j = 0; buyInfo != null && j < buyInfo.Count; ++j )
				{
					GenericBuyInfo gbi = (GenericBuyInfo)buyInfo[j];

					int maxAmount = gbi.MaxAmount;
					int doubled = 0;

					switch ( maxAmount )
					{
						case  40: doubled = 1; break;
						case  80: doubled = 2; break;
						case 160: doubled = 3; break;
						case 320: doubled = 4; break;
						case 640: doubled = 5; break;
						case 999: doubled = 6; break;
					}

					if ( doubled > 0 )
					{
						writer.WriteEncodedInt( 1 + ((j * sbInfos.Count) + i) );
						writer.WriteEncodedInt( doubled );
					}
				}
			}

			writer.WriteEncodedInt( 0 );
		}

		public override void Deserialize( GenericReader reader )
		{
			base.Deserialize( reader );

			int version = reader.ReadInt();

			LoadSBInfo();

			ArrayList sbInfos = this.SBInfos;

			switch ( version )
			{
				case 2:
                                {
                                        this.Frozen = reader.ReadBool();
                                        goto case 1;
                                }
                                case 1:
				{
					int index;

					while ( (index = reader.ReadEncodedInt()) > 0 )
					{
						int doubled = reader.ReadEncodedInt();

						if ( sbInfos != null )
						{
							index -= 1;
							int sbInfoIndex = index % sbInfos.Count;
							int buyInfoIndex = index / sbInfos.Count;
 
							if ( sbInfoIndex >= 0 && sbInfoIndex < sbInfos.Count )
							{
								SBInfo sbInfo = (SBInfo)sbInfos[sbInfoIndex];
								ArrayList buyInfo = sbInfo.BuyInfo;

								if ( buyInfo != null && buyInfoIndex >= 0 && buyInfoIndex < buyInfo.Count )
								{
									GenericBuyInfo gbi = (GenericBuyInfo)buyInfo[buyInfoIndex];

									int amount = 20;

									switch ( doubled )
									{
										case 1: amount =  40; break;
										case 2: amount =  80; break;
										case 3: amount = 160; break;
										case 4: amount = 320; break;
										case 5: amount = 640; break;
										case 6: amount = 999; break;
									}

									gbi.Amount = gbi.MaxAmount = amount;
								}
							}
						}
					}

					break;
				}
			}

And the trick is done