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

Node commodity types

Commodities

Commodities are types of cargo that can be transported by caravans and merchant ships.^[5] There are two types of commodities in Ashes of Creation.^[6]

Node commodities are node-specific commodities that are used to construct, upgrade, and maintain node service buildings.^[1]^[2]
Player commodities are one of the main ways for players to make gold in Verra.^[7]

Buy orders

Alpha-2 Buy orders.^[1]^[8]

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.^[9]

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.^[9] – 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]^[10] 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.^[11]^[1]^[2] Final goods are not used to complete buy orders.^[11]
- 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.^[12]

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.^[12] – Steven Sharif

Node citizens participating in buy orders will generate mandates for their node.^[13]

Players will be able to view buy orders that are listed at nodes around the world.^[14]

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.^[14] – Steven Sharif

Buy orders are distinct from mayoral commissions.^[15]

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.^[15] – Chris Justo