Nodes are an essential factor in trading and other life skill activities.
The world of Black Desert is divided into a determined number of nodes that every Adventurer has to discover on their own. These nodes can be connected between them, and once connected allow for a variety of interconnected features.
This network of connected nodes lets you trade between distant lands with no penalty, send workers to gather natural resources found in each area presided over by a node, and increase the item drop rate of valuable loot from monsters.

In order to connect nodes, you need to invest contribution points to activate them. These points are obtained by assisting the inhabitants of the different territories of the world.

➤ You can read more about contribution points and how to obtain them in the [Contribution] page.
 
When different towns are connected via a node network, the silver cost  of transporting items between is reduced. If you transport items between unconnected towns, the silver cost is tripled.
In a similar manner, you can sell trade goods to trade managers throughout the world regardless of nodes being connected or not, however, you will suffer a penalty reducing the sale price of the trade good for 30% of its value if the nodes between the area you obtained the trade item in and the sale area are not connected.

Additionally, when you are sending your workers to craft items in your acquired town workshops, you can see that certain workers have "Not Connected" in red after their town in the list. For a worker in town A to take the materials from town A's storage, go to town B, and craft an item there, both towns need to be connected via a node network.

➤ You can read more about workshop crafting in the [Crafting] page.

Nodes are largely divided into two categories: exploration nodes and production nodes.
 
An exploration node is the first type of node you see in your world map, and depending on the features of the area they are classified into one of six categories: City, Town, Trade, Gateway, Danger Zone, and Node.
Cities and towns are always safe zones, while the rest are usually combat zones.
In a safe zone you are not meant to be attacked by other Adventurers, and nearby guards will quickly dispatch any that attempt to. Opposite to them are combat zones, in which as the name indicates you are vulnerable to be attacked by others, both Adventurers and monsters.
 
A production node is a satellite node tied to an exploration node. You can view them as subnodes.
There are 5 types of production nodes: Farming & Gathering, Mining, Lumbering, Production, and Excavation. Each type lets you send workers to them to extract resources that are then deposited in a town storage. For example, a farming production node might specialize in potatoes, while a production one might specialize in chicken meat or fleece.
 
The following is a list of the 6 types of exploration nodes and their uses:

Node	Type	Features
	City	Urban centers where trade, storage, housing, transport, and many other facilities are available. Examples of these towns are capitals such as Velia and Heidel. Central towns can be used as base nodes upon discovery, and their leaders, usually a Chief or Lord, will show you the Lordship Menu.
	Town	Compared to a central town, some services may not be available (for example, some may not have a storage), but most merchant NPCs can be found in them, in other words, most basic features of a town are available. Some are activated by default, will others such as Florin require you to invest in them to be active.
	Trade	Trading, housing, and node production options may be available.
	Gateway	These are frontier areas near a border or a hostile area. Trade facilities are available at certain camps, and night raids from monsters are frequent. Occasionally there are useful NPCs such as general goods vendors.
	Danger Zone	Dangerous areas surrounded by monsters. Occasionally you can use affiliated production nodes.
	Node	In these, usually a node manager NPC is alone, or an object serves as replacement for the node manager. Node production options may be available.

In order to invest in exploration nodes you need to form networks. These start from any of the main cities and towns, such as Velia, Heidel, or Glish.
All city nodes are unlocked automatically. Many town nodes are activated automatically, though some will require you to invest in them. All other nodes require contribution investment to be activated.

All nodes possess a non-player character (NPC) node manager that possesses the node management interface for you to interact with the node. For danger zones and simple nodes, there are cases where an object plays the role of the local node manager NPC.

You can invest in a node via its node manager.
However, in order to invest in a node, you need to have discovered it first, and have it connected to an already active node, such as a city node or a node part of an existing active network.
 
If you have not discovered the area, even if you meet the node manager the Node Management button in the interaction menu will not show up.
Node areas can be discovered in one of two ways: Either by simply exploring it until the game rewards you with its knowledge entry and unlocks its visibility in your world map, or by finding and interacting with the node manager of the area. In some cases the node manager NPC will ask you to consume energy to unlock the area's knowledge entry and discovery.

If you select an unconnected node icon in your world map and press the Previous Node button to the left, light pillars will indicate all the nodes you can invest in and connect to the corresponding node you have selected. The nodes you have already invested in will not show up.
 
At this point in time, if you have not discovered the nearby nodes, the indicated light pillar will not be the location of those areas' node managers, but the location where you can discover the area. After this, navigate to the location and discover it, and then find the node manager near the point.

Press Previous Node on the left to indicate the surrounding nodes you have not invested in.

If you have already acquired the knowledge entry about a node and know its location in the world, but you do not know the correct order to connect it to other nodes because the white line does not appear, select the node and press the Previous Node button on the left side of the screen.

If you want to activate the Western Guard Camp, what should you do?

Select the Western Guard Camp Node, then press the Previous Node button on the left.

The surrounding nodes that can connect to the Western Guard Camp are all displayed with light pillars. Trace the way to an already connected node and you will be able to connect the guard camp with no problem.

A production node is a satellite node, or subnode, that belongs to an exploration node.

If you invest in a production node, you can send workers to gather resources at the location.
From the example above, if you invest in a potato farm node you can obtain potatoes, while investing in a chicken meat production node will yield you chicken meat.

Invest contribution points to activate a production node, and then you can command your hired workers to travel to the location and gather resources.
 
You can hire workers through contracts in a town with a work supervisor, and the initial number of workers you can hire per town is one. You can increase the number of workers that can be employed in a given town by purchasing houses and using them for worker lodging.

Items gathered and crafted by workers are deposited in the town storage the worker is from.
Example: if you send a worker from Velia, in the territory of Balenos, to gather fleece in a node in the territory of Serendia, the gathered fleece will be stored in Velia's town storage.
When a town storage is full, a worker will stop working, and you will not be able to send them to gather more to any node unless empty space is made in the town storage.

Once workers reach Lv. 40, you can decide in which town storage they will deposit the items they harvest from the production node, allowing you to better organize space.

Additionally, note that the luck of certain types of workers may allow them to bring back not only the expected listed items from a production node, but also extra items, depending on the type of production node. For example, a worker laboring at a farm might bring back a farmer's sack, which when opened will reward you with a fruit, a useful ingredient for alchemy.

➤ You can read more about this feature in the [Workers] page.

You can retrieve your investment from nodes easily. Open your world map, click on an invested node, and press the Withdraw Contribution button on the left.
However, if a node is part of a network and is not located at an end of it, it will not be possible to disconnect the node. The Withdraw Contribution button will not appear in this case.
In situations like this one, you will need to find the closest end of the network and start disconnecting nodes from it until you reach the node you want to retrieve the investment from.

In the image above, you cannot retrieve the investment from the Forest of Plunder node. You will only be able to do this when you have disconnected the node at the end of that network, in this case the Goblin Cave node.

The text highlighted above will warn you that either the node you want to disconnect is tied to two or more nodes in a network, as explained above, or that you have production nodes invested in on that node. In those cases, first retrieve the investment from a production node and then you will be able to retrieve it from the exploration node. If a worker is on the node at the moment, either wait for them to finish or cancel their activity there.

On the world map, pressing the icon will show you the most efficient way of connecting between Nodes that you have unlocked. 

* The content of the game guide may differ from the actual game content, depending on the update and content changes.