Trader Tutorials

Trading

Training trading is slow-going but there are a number of different techniques at your disposal through dr-scripts. Among them are:

1. Workorders
2. Selling Gem Pouches
3. Running Caravan Routes

Workorders

Workorder training is done through the workorders script. Trading experience is affected by the number of items delivered in the workorder.

Selling Pouches

This is by far the quickest and easiest way to train trading, limited only by the number of pouches you have available to sell.

Caravan Trading

Caravan trading begins to be useful for training Trading around circles 5-10 at a minimum, though you may have trouble locking it until later. It is not as effective as a full training regimen that includes selling pouches, but if you don't have a regular supply this can be a cheap way to level Trading and other skills.

Usage: Run ;trade in the same room as your caravan. If you don't have a caravan, ;trade will rent one from the nearest Trader's Guild. You can kill and restart this script at any time so long as you're in the same room as your caravan.

• ;trade closeup will deliver all remaining crates, then return your caravan to avoid fees.
• ;trade hunt -- will occasionally run a hunt defined in your charactername-caravanhunt.yaml file (see Quillith-caravanhunt.yaml) whenever you stop in your hometown and your Trading exp is high enough.
• ;trade duration will run for X minutes before locking down new contracts and closing up.
• ;trade roomid will take your caravan to a particular room.

Required Items:

• A feedbag, either worn or put in a bag (acquired from the Trader Shop in our guild, or from another Trader)
• Knitting Needles, if training Outfitting
• Shaping tools, if training Engineering
• Forging tools and workorder settings, if training Forging.
• Zills, or another worn_instrument if training Performance

Required Settings:

trade_contract_container: any container

Additional Settings:

caravan_coins_on_hand: 12345  # how many coins do you wish to carry with you for paying dues
yarn_quantity: 300 # How much yarn to carry with you during Outfitting training (restocked on arrival in any capital city)
lumber_quantity: 35 # How much lumber to carry with you during Engineering training (restocked on arrival in any capital city)
# Note that lumber is dumped when the script finishes.
caravan_interior: true # Only if you've purchased the Interior for your caravan (ASK MINISTER ABOUT INTERIOR - 750 PLAT)
crafting_container:  any bag to store items related to crafting inside

crafting_training_spells: # Simple spells cast without cambrinth.  Allows magic training during walking and crafting
  Utility:
    abbrev: NOU
    mana: 5
  Augmentation:
    abbrev: FINESSE
    mana: 5
  Warding:
    abbrev: NONCHALANCE
    mana: 5

caravan_training_skills: #All supported skills and default cooldowns in seconds. Comment out those you don't want.
  #Augmentation: 5 # set up crafting_training_spells 
  #Warding: 5 # set up crafting_training_spells 
  #Utility: 5 # set up crafting_training_spells 
  Performance: 120 # Zills
  Appraisal: 60 # worn pouches, pouches in your full_pouch_container:, zills, and bundles
  Mechanical Lore: 5 # braids grass on the trails
  Attunement: 100 
  Outdoorsmanship: 5
  Locksmithing: 30 # Have pet boxes in a picking_pet_box_source: or set up picking_lockbox: to work with the ;lockbox script
  Perception: 55
  First Aid: 120 # have either a compendium or a textbook set up for ;first-aid
  #Outfitting: 200 # set up a crafting_container: knitting needles, and a tailoring book
  #Engineering: 200 # Get shaping tools, crafting_container: and a shaping book
  #Forging: 1200 # runs a forging workorder whenever the timer's up and you stop in a town with a forge.

If you wish to get a bit of extra oomph out of crafting done on the road, find a shaping/knitting recipe that a Society master will offer a work order for and that works for you, then add it to your caravan_recipes: as follows

caravan_recipes:
  shaping:
    recipe: a wood crown
    difficulty: challenging
    workorder: true
  tailoring:
    recipe: knitted blanket
    difficulty: easy
    workorder: false

This will override the normal recipes chosen by ;trade, and if stated it will wait till you have 5 or more stored in your storage bin, then go and turn them in whenever you stop in a town with a crafting society.

Note that if you have lost your caravan and the ministers will not rent you another one, it is in storage at one of the stables. Most stables have been mapped -- go to the trade outpost closest to where you remember leaving it, then do <;go2 stable> and then RETURN CARAVAN when you get there. If they have it, they'll give it back to you.

Magic

Since Traders use lunar magic, they have most of the moon mage script functionality at their disposal.

Given that Trader magic is brand new to DragonRealms, developing support for all the spells is on-going. Below you can find a table to see if the spell is supported and a settings example.

Spell	Supported?	Example
Regalia	Yes	See Below
Avtalia Array	Yes	Add cambrinth_invoke_exact_amount: true to avoid nerve damage. See https://elanthipedia.play.net/Lich_script_repository#avtalia for more information.

Regalia

Regalia summons a set of armor using your starlight aura, and this armor becomes more powerful if you possess the appropriate armor-crafting techniques. Light Armor seems to use Bone armor techniques in tailoring -- the others use the relevant Armorsmithing branches. If you have Bespoke Regalia you can specify an armor type to summon and use it to train all four sets without clown-suiting or carrying around spare plate armor.

Combat-trainer will NOT support Regalia in buff_spells. To use it in combat, add a cycle_armors_regalia setting with each skill you would like to train and a regalia gearset that is missing only the armor you want Regalia to replace. As an example:

# REQUIRED SETTINGS

# If you do NOT have Bespoke Regalia, just put your highest-ranked armor skill here and nothing else
cycle_armors_regalia:
  - Brigandine
  - Light Armor
  - Chain Armor
  - Plate Armor

gear_sets:
  standard:
  - blue robe
  - brigandine sleeves
  - brigandine balaclava
  - medium shield
  - parry stick
  - walking cane
  - forester's crossbow
  regalia: # missing all armor -- ie. will summon a full armor set
  - medium shield
  - parry stick
  - forester's crossbow
  - walking cane

# OPTIONAL SETTINGS
cycle_armors_time: 400 # Check every 400 seconds to see if you need to swap armors. Default is 125.
default_armor_type: Brigandine # Set this to the armor skill to default to if all other skills are trained.

# Finally, a regalia waggle set will let you easily prebuff to your preferred armor type
# and if defined it will use your mana/cambrinth settings here instead of the default 15 mana

waggle_sets:
  regalia:
    Regalia:
      abbrev: REGAL
      mana: 20
      cast: cast brigandine all # this cast is overridden in combat-trainer. Only used by ;buff regalia

Combat-trainer will cycle through to train your armor skills, swapping regalia every so often as defined by the cycle_armors_time. If you only have one skill listed then combat-trainer will wait until it's about to expire before refreshing it. If you run out of starlight, combat-trainer will wait until it expires to swap back to the standard: gearset and continue hunting.

If you want to prebuff Regalia prior to entering a hunt, you can use your regalia waggle and add a before: to the hunt in question, eg.

hunting_info:
- :zone: eidolon_steeds
  :duration: 15
  before:
  - weararmor regalia
  - buff regalia

This will equip your regalia gearset and then cast the regalia waggle.

WARNING: Plate Armor is very difficult to retreat and maneuver in, especially with few ranks. Certain combat skills (PercMana, Collect, Pick, etc.) will force you to retreat before acting, and this may not be possible for you at first. Advise testing this in a back-hunt to make sure you can do what you need to.

Managing Starlight Aura

A trader's starlight aura is used to power certain spells, especially when out of direct starlight. In order to recover your starlight you must be:

• Outside at night with no clouds
• Outside at night with clouds and with a Noumena buff.
• Outside at daytime with a sufficiently strong Noumena buff (happened for me at 45-50 mana)

As a result, it is advisable to set your safe-room, crafting rooms, and ideally your hunting zones to be outside.

By default, every trader spell will cast as normal until you run out of starlight. If you want combat-trainer to manage your starlight, add:

aura_frequency: 180

This will PERC AURA every 180 seconds so that it knows what spells to cast. Each Trader spell that uses starlight aura has a starlight_threshold attribute that determines what level of starlight aura you should have to cast it. The levels are below.

Level	Message
0	The smallest hint of starlight flickers within your aura
1	A bare flicker of starlight plays within your aura
2	A faint amount of starlight illuminates your aura
3	Your aura pulses slowly with starlight
4	A steady pulse of starlight runs through your aura
5	Starlight dances vividly across the confines of your aura

By default all spells are set to zero, but you can change it per spell.

Example:

offensive_spells:
- skill: Targeted Magic
  name: Arbiter's Stylus
  abbrev: ars
  cyclic: true
  starlight_threshold: 2
  mana: 10
- skill: Targeted Magic
  name: Starcrash
  abbrev: star
  mana: 30
  starlight_threshold: 2
  min_threshold: 3
- skill: Targeted Magic
  name: Crystal Dart
  abbrev: crd
  starlight_threshold: 1
  mana: 20
- skill: Debilitation
  name: Fluoresce
  abbrev: flu
  mana: 30
  harmless: true
  min_threshold: 3
  starlight_threshold: 1
- skill: Targeted Magic
  name: Strange Arrow
  abbrev: stra
  mana: 18

At 'faint amount of starlight' and above, it will cast ARS, STARCRASH, and FLUORESCE, since those are the first TM and Debilitation spells on the list. When you drop below 'faint amount' it will cast CRD and FLUORESCE, and no longer cast the others. At 0, 'smallest hint', it will stop casting all offensive spells except STRANGE ARROW, and save starlight for any buff_spells set to starlight_threshold 0.

If you run out of starlight aura mid-combat it will stop casting all starlight-spells for the rest of the hunt. If you wish to override this and just keep casting regardless, set a spell to starlight_threshold: -1, as below.

- skill: Targeted Magic
  name: Crystal Dart
  abbrev: crd
  mana: 15
  starlight_threshold: -1
  cast_only_to_train: false

Note that this will mean you will continue to cast this spell even if it cannot be completed due to lack of starlight. Doing this to a buff may mean you don't cast anything else until you gain enough starlight to make it go through.

Running a Trader Shop

Restocking your shop wares can be done with the restock-shop script.