Many players go through most of the game without even knowing how Nodes and Trade work. I’ll explain it to you so you can be ahead and start making high amounts of money.

Check my Black Desert Online Beginner Tips and Tricks for anything else related to the game.

This guide will go over everything you need to know about setting up Nodes and trading goods in Black Desert Online, including:

What are Nodes? - Everything you need to know about Nodes and how to set them up. Trade System - How trading goods works in this game and how to make money doing it.

What are Nodes?

Let’s talk about Nodes, and I don’t mean the kind in your body. Nodes in Black Desert Online are locations all around the world that you can invest in.

You get Contribution points from many quests and you use these to invest in Nodes. To invest, talk to the Node Management NPC in the area. If you don’t know if an area has a Node, check the world map by pressing M. The circle icons are Nodes.

There are 2 kinds of Nodes:

Adventure - These are Nodes you must set up first. They unlock trade routes, give higher chance for enemies in the affected area to drop items, and offer access to nearby Production Nodes. Production Nodes - These are Nodes that produce a certain material that you can send workers to harvest. Check out my guide on How to Craft Gear for more info on Workers and why they are important.

Once you set up a Node, you can also invest Energy to increase the drop rates. You will not get Contribution points over time like energy, you must do quests to get more.

You can also take back your points from Nodes you have invested in by opening the map and selecting the Node you no longer want. The Node will no longer be available to you when you do this. You will lose any extra levels you have invested in when you do this.

If you want to use the Trade system effectively, you’ll also need to connect certain Nodes to get the full price when selling. More on that in the next section.

Trade System

You can start using the Trade system as early as when you reach Veila.

The simple explanation of the Trade System is buying Trade Goods from one Trade Manager NPC and selling it for a profit at another Trade Manager.

Trade goods are only used to sell to other Trade Managers. If you carry them yourself, you also are weighed down and can’t do any other action except movement.

If you have a Donkey, Horse, or Wagon, you can put trade goods on them and move much faster.

When you talk to a Trade Manager, select Trade to bring up the available goods for sell. When looking at the goods, you will notice a percentage on them. This is how much higher or lower the good are from the normal price. Below 100% is cheaper, above is more expensive.

When you go to another Trade Manager to sell, it also displays the percentage they are buying it for. This is the most important thing to look at because you want to sell the goods for a higher price than you paid for them, or it was all for nothing.

Bandits

Whenever you are carrying trade goods, you are open to bandit attacks o the road. Look on the map for the red and black hooded icons, these are bandits.

If they are in your path to the next Trade Manager, they can attack you. You will want to find another route, or wait for them to move.

Trade Routes

You might notice that if you try to sell a trade good the price will be 30% of the selling price. This means that you do not have the required Nodes set up.

You must set up Nodes at both locations before you can sell them at the full price. Example: If you have a good from Veila that you want to sell in Heidel, you must set up the Adventure Nodes that run between Veila and Heidel.

You will see lines connecting each Node when you look on the map, so invest Contribution points in all the Nodes that connect the Trade Managers where you want to sell. The lines turn yellow when you have established the route.

Fishing

Fishing is a great way to make money and use the Trade system. Freshly caught fish can be sold to Trade Managers and it is an easy way to make money without spending much. You can Auto/AFK fish by casting, then letting your character sit there. They will automatically catch whatever bites after a few minutes, then cast out again. You can check the box to “Throw away useless items caught during auto-fishing” to make sure you only keep good items and save inventory space.

That’s all for my guide on Node Management and the Trade System in Black Desert Online. Let me know if you have any questions!