Node commodities

Node commodities are node-specific commodities that are used to construct, upgrade, and maintain node service buildings.^[1]^[2]

Node commodities exist solely within a node's inventory and do not exist in player inventories.^[3]

The node generates these things we call node commodities, which are functionally node resources. Node resources are used- we spend them on buildings: to build them and upgrade them, on maintenance. You can trade them with other nodes.They're super useful to the node and increasing its quality.^[1]^[2] – Chris Justo

Node commodities can also be traded with other nodes (via mayoral caravans) in exchange for needed resource types.^[4]^[1]^[2]

The node can use these resources as well to trade with other nodes that might have resource types that you need available to them.^[4] – Steven Sharif

List of node commodities

Item	Type	Rarity
Alchemic Concoction	War material node commodity	Common−Common
Alchemic Extract	War material node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Arcane Object	War material node commodity	Rare−Rare
Basic Furniture	Industrial node commodity	Common−Common
Beer	Luxury node commodity	Common−Common
Books	Luxury node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Bricks	Industrial node commodity	Common−Common
Building Resources	Industrial node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Construction Materials	Industrial node commodity	Rare−Rare
Cotton Textiles	Luxury node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Distilled Spirits	Luxury node commodity	Rare−Rare
Enchanted Gemstone	War material node commodity	Common−Common
Enchanted Weapons	War material node commodity	Rare−Rare
Exotic Foods	Industrial node commodity	Rare−Rare
Heavy Armor	War material node commodity	Rare−Rare
High Quality Furniture	Industrial node commodity	Rare−Rare
High Quality Tools	Industrial node commodity	Rare−Rare
Light Armor	War material node commodity	Common−Common
Linen Textile	Luxury node commodity	Common−Common
Magic Jewelry	Luxury node commodity	Rare−Rare
Magic Potion	War material node commodity	Rare−Rare
Magic Talisman	War material node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Medium Armor	War material node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Preserved Foods	Industrial node commodity	Common−Common
Quality Tools	Industrial node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Quality Weapons	War material node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Silk Textile	Luxury node commodity	Rare−Rare
Silver Jewelry	Luxury node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Standard Tools	Industrial node commodity	Common−Common
Standard Weapons	War material node commodity	Common−Common
Sturdy Furniture	Industrial node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Tomes	Luxury node commodity	Rare−Rare
Travel Rations	Industrial node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon
Trinkets	Luxury node commodity	Common−Common
Wine	Luxury node commodity	Uncommon−Uncommon

Buy orders

Alpha-2 Buy orders.^[1]^[5]

Buy orders are instrumental in the activities that a node participates in.^[3] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 Node treasury work-in-progress UI showing a buy order for a node commodity used in building a Smithy.^[6]

We're gonna build a Forge today, or a Smithy- we renamed it: it's not a forge anymore- and we need bins of stone for it.^[6] – Chris Justo

Buy orders are the primary way for a node to generate node commodities that can be spent on construction, upgrades, and maintenance of node service buildings.^[1]^[2]

Mayors initiate buy orders using gold from the node treasury.^[1]^[2]^[7] The mayor can adjust the parameters of buy orders:
- How many commodities are being requested.^[1]^[2]
- How long the buy order is active.^[1]^[2]
- The raw materials or crafting materials required to complete the buy order.^[8]^[1]^[2] Final goods are not used to complete buy orders.^[8]
- How much players are rewarded.^[1]^[2]

When selecting specific types of buy orders that require certain material components in order to fulfill, you will have a wide array of material choices to make: either those that are relevant locale to your node placement or those that are across the world; and there is a variable in payment that the mayor has access to in setting and how they'll be rewarding players. So you need to make sure that you're incentivizing players who are making those large transits across the world to actually take that risk and bring those materials to you.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Players are rewarded with bound node currency and node reputation for fulfilling buy orders.^[3]^[1]^[2]

Once a material gets sunk into the buy order, the player receives the benefit of the node currency, which right now is a bound currency that's used to purchase a number of different types of vendorable items that exist within nodes.^[3] – Steven Sharif

If a mayor does not create buy orders, they will auto-populate after a set period of time based on node activities.^[9]

If the mayor is not making these decisions, buy orders will populate based off of activities that the node have available to them after a set period of time. So that the bad faith mayor is not depleting the node potentially of its resources that players can still interact with.^[9] – Steven Sharif

Node citizens participating in buy orders will generate mandates for their node.^[10]

Players will be able to view buy orders that are listed at nodes around the world.^[11]

Those of you who are traders and are interested in actually capitalizing on the supply and demand of nodes and their competing interests and what they're trying to accomplish will have an opportunity to move those goods around the world: Take that risk potentially, but receive a high reward as a result.^[11] – Steven Sharif

There are some safeguards and clamps that limit how much Mayors can manipulate the buy order system.^[12]

Q: What prevents a mayor from manipulating buy orders to offer very high rewards for very low returns?

A: The mayor does have the ability to influence what those purchase prices and buy order types are. That's a power that comes with being elected or winning the election result. Now, what you do is going to determine if you stay in office, probably depending of course on the election type. But there are some safeguards with regards to how much the player can manipulate options- and there are also clamps on setting purchase prices and whatnot.^[12] – Steven Sharif

Buy orders are distinct from mayoral commissions.^[13]

A buy order is strictly material-based and you don't accept a buy order and then go do it. It is something that you can just check your node UI or you can check the nodes around you to see what they have active and you can just go do it and come back; and participate or fulfill these buy orders. Whereas, a commission is- a mayoral commission is more like a quest. It's something you pick up and then it tracks your activity while you have it.^[13] – Chris Justo

Mayoral caravans

Pre-alpha quest to launch a mayoral caravan.^[14]

Mayoral caravans (also referred to as Trade caravans, or Node-to-node trade caravans) are launched by Mayors to trade node commodities with other nodes in exchange for service building upgrades and bespoke buffs.^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[14]^[19]

Just wait until the node-to-node trade system becomes available for Mayors, where you can now use your treasury to purchase node-specific commodities that can be traded on the node-to-node trade network and in return give you necessary resources from successful trade completions, where you can then spend those resources on bespoke buffs and upgrades for the buildings you have. So there's going to be a need to utilize that treasury of yours that you've accumulated to purchase these commodities that then can be traded on the node-to-node trade house.^[15] – Steven Sharif

Nodes answering node-to-node trade requests must have a trade agreement or alliance with the requesting node.^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[14]^[19]^[20]

Node commodities are traded with other nodes via mayoral caravans.^[4]^[1]^[2]

Once the mayor initiates a node-to-node trade order with another node, a system driven caravan is spawned to transit the goods. These caravans will have a unique appearance specific to the node (of origin) and may appear on the map when they are launched (as a world event).^[15]^[16]^[17]^[14]

Those caravans that... are taking those trades will be very unique looking to the node; and we are considering the idea of showing the trade caravan on the map when it's launched from the node, if it's a part of that node-to-node trade. So, just thinking thinking about how many people are going to try to destroy that caravan to take the goods inside.^[15] – Steven Sharif

Players can participate in attacking and helping to defend mayoral caravans.^[15]^[17]

Trade agreements

Trade agreements are established by Mayors to trade node commodities between nodes via mayoral caravans.^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[14]^[19]^[20]

There are a limited number of trade agreements that a node can have.^[17]
Mayoral caravans may only be initiated between nodes with trade agreements or alliances.^[17]^[14]
Trade agreements affect reputation between the nodes.^[1]^[21]

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Guilds may enter into trade agreements within a guild alliance.^[22]

Mercenary guilds will be a viable way forward for different organizations. I think there will be a lot of business to be had with that; and one of the systems in our trade agreements is creating an escrow for those particular type of arrangements that we're looking into.^[23] – Steven Sharif