Black Desert Online Nodes and Workers Guide

A basic guide to node management and hiring workers in Black Desert Online (BDO) to help you get started.

Node Basics

What are nodes?

Nodes are basically locations on the map you can invest your contribution points to establish trade routes and resources that your workers can gather for you. To be effective, Nodes must be connected to each other and connected to the nearest city. Here are some examples of how nodes looks like in the world map. Nodes won’t show up until you have explored the area.

Nodes are represented by various icons and you can see what they all look like on the top left of your world map. Don’t be confused by the fact that the first icon is named Node, it is simply a generic icon for node and is not the only icon for nodes. Cities (but not towns) are automatic nodes that require no investment but other nodes need to be manually invested.

When should I worry about nodes?

You don’t really need to start worrying about nodes until you arrive in Velia, your first city. Once you are in Velia, check on the top left corner of your UI to see how many Contribution Points you have.Contribution XP are earned solely via questing and are used for node management and housing. For me I have 14 available contribution points out of a total of 48 earned. Contribution points are never lost, you can invest and withdraw them freely without any penalty.

In Velia you should see your first node location just south of the city. It is the Bartali Farm. This is the first node I pick because it has access to Potatos resources that I can send workers to gather. Potatoes are really good resources to gather first because they allow you to make Beer cheaply, which are what you can feed to your workers when they are exhausted and stopped working due to no stamina.

Setting Up Your First Node

The first thing you will notice when you click on any node in the map is that it will open up the area of the map specific to the node. Then on the top left it will say visit the Node Manager to invest and the amount of Contribution Points required for investment.

What you want to do is press Esc to return to the world map and right click on that node This will draw a line from you to that node’s manager. You can then use either auto run or manually follow the direction lines to run to the node manager.

When you arrive at the Node Manager, press R to interact with it and you will get a conversation window with the Node Management button. Clicking on it will open up the Node map again and allow you to click on Contribution Invest to invest 2 contribution points (in this example) to the node.

Now that you have invested in this node, you can uninvest it as well whenever you like. Investment must be done by person face to face with the manager but uninvesting it can be done remotely over the world map. Note that if a node is connected to two or more nodes, you must uninvest in the connected nodes first before you are allowed to uninvest.

You do not lose your contribution points when you uninvest in a node so feel free to uninvest them whenever you decided that you do not need that node anymore. Just keep in mind that if you want to invest in it again you must visit the node manager in person again.

Leveling Up Nodes

Something to note is that you can invest energy to level up a node. Nodes can be leveled up to level 10. This will just give you better drops if you are killing mobs under the node influence area. There are also reports that leveling up the resources next to the node by putting in energy can increase the amount of drops that your worker can gather from that resource each time. For town/cities nodes some people have reported better merchant prices, more quests etc but you may need to level it up quite a bit for it to work as people have reported no change in merchant prices with just a few levels.

Node Connection

Nodes cannot exist alone, they must be connected to one another and to a City. You always start your first node next to the city and find ways to connect to the next node and so on. If you try to talk to a Node Manager on a node that isn’t connected, you will be direct to the previous node to invest and connect it.

Example Connection

For this example I am going to do a Velia –> Olvia connection. The first node you need to invest in is Coast Cave just to the left of Velia. Remember to open up the world map and right click on the node if you can’t find the node manager. Nodes also won’t show up until you explore that area.

The full connection is Velia –> Costal Cave –> Coastal Cliffs –> Balenos River Mouth –> Wolf Hills –> Casta Farm –> Olvia. The Nodes you need to invest in are the following. Oddly enough you don’t need to invest in Olvia even though it is a town and not a city.

Coastal Cave

Coastal Cliffs

Balenos River Mouth

Wolf Hills

Casta Farm

An Alternate connection marked in purple is Velia –> Loggia Farm –> Imp Cave (underground) –> Western Guard Camp –> Western Gateway –> Wolf Hill –> Cast Farm –> Olvia

Connected nodes have a yellow line connecting them while possisble node connections are represented by white lines.

Node Benefits

Once you have setup your nodes correctly, you can enjoy trading and send your workers to gather resources off the nodes you have invested in. You can buy wares from any connected Node and then sell them to another connected node. The longer the distance between the node you are buying/selling, the more potential you have to make more money as there is a distance bonus when selling wares. Always check the market price of the item to see where it is more profitable to sell as other players trading the same route as lower the prices. Note that Node Mangers are also Trade Managers in some areas.

The other thing you can enjoy with Nodes is Worker Production, which I will explain below.

Workers and Nodes

Hiring Your First Worker

By now you probably have your first node setup in Bartali Farm. It is time to hire a worker so you can have him farm potatoes and make beer via cooking. The person you want to find in Velia is the Worker Supervisor. You can use the NPC button to find him by clicking on the Worker Button.

Clicking on the Contract Workers button (costs 5 Energy) will roll a random worker for you. This worker can be either Giant/Goblin/Human and is usually the lowest rarity but sometime you can get lucky and get a Skillful or Artisan worker. You will need 1 Lodging to hire the worker, which you should have per city by default. Goblins are usually the best workers if you play actively as they work fast but deplete their stamina quicker. Giants are more for those who log once in a while as they have more stamina but work slower. Humans are in between. If you don’t like the worker, you can reroll for 5 more energy. In addition to lodging, make sure you have the silvers to purchase the workers. Lowest tier workers costs anywhere from 2-3.5k silvers to purchase so don’t waste your energy to reroll unless you have the silver and lodging to hire one.

Getting More Workers

If you want more workers, you have to purchase lodging in Velia. You can do this by opening the world map and clicking on Velia. This will show all the houses that are available.

Blue houses are the ones you can purchase

Greyed out houses have other purchase requirements

White houses are the ones you own.

What you want to do is use the filter at the top for Lodging and purchase any house that is highlighted. It should cost you 1 Contribution Point and a bit silver (500ish) to purchase one for the purpose of Lodging. This will allow you to hire an additional worker after the construction has finished (5 minutes).

Getting Your Workers to Work

Now that you have hired your first worker, it is time to put him to work. Go to the Node manager again next to the node you have invested in. Talk to to the Node Manager and select the Node Management button again. Click on a resource you would like to gather (i.e. Chicken Meat or Potatoes) and you will get the button to invest your Contribution Point on the resource. So you need to invest in the node and also the resource you like to gather via face to face with the Node Manager NPC.

After you have done that you can click on Start Work button and your worker will start gathering and put the stuff he gathered in the storage which is next to the docks in Velia.

You can have only one worker on a node so plan your workers accordingly and put your best workers on the resources you want the fastest.

Worker Stamina

You can view all your workers on the pickaxe icon on the top left of your UI. This shows all the workers you own. The yellow bar is their stamina, which is how many times they can work before they stop. To refill their stamina, you need to make food for them. Generally Beer is the easiest and cheapest to acquire and is sufficient for their needs.

Making Beer

To make beer, go to the Tavern next to the Chief in Velia. You will find a Chef there named David Finto that will sell you the stuff you need to make Beer.

You want to purchase Cooking Utensil for 1000 silver and then purchase the following per Beer you want to make.

1 Sugar

6 Mineral Water

2 Leavening Agent

Now go climb the stairs to the houses above the tavern and purchase one for Residence. Use the Place Mode once you have purchased and entered your house to place your Cooking Utensil.

With your Cooking Utensil down, it is time to wait for your workers to farm Potatoes to make Beer. It takes 5 Potatoes per Beer and the Potatoes are deposited in the storage near the docks. Press the storage button when you are viewing Velia map to see how many Potatoes are currently in your storage and retrieve them once you have enough to make Beer.

If you want to make a bunch of Beers. Put down the ingredients for 1 Beer in the cooking utensil. If you put more, it will consume it all and only give you 1 Beer. The you click on continuous production and you will get a pop up asking how many you want to make. The ingredients per Beer is

5 Potatoes

6 Mineral Water

1 Sugar

2 Leavening Agent

Once you have produced the Beers, you can feed them to your workers when they have depleted their stamina or stopped working on clicking on the recovery button in the worker list.

Workers in Another City

Once you finish with Velia and want to move onto Heidel, the next city, make sure you deposit a couple thousand silvers into your warehouse. The reason is that the workers in Velia will only deposit to the Velia warehouse and if you want to move your stuff from Velia to Heidel for example that the workers have gathered you will need to transport them from the Velia Warehouse to Heidel. This takes silvers only from Velia warehouse and it can be a pain to run back to Velia and deposit silvers there.

Workers in Velia can travel to a node near Heidel to work if it is connected to Velia but this will add to their travel time and they will only deposit their stuff in the Velia storage.