Trading, and How to Get More Food

Trading

There are two ways to do this in pk: through a trade post (tp) or using the "drop" method.

Using the tp is safer

Using a drop is usually cheaper

When food is involved, it MUST be done through a tp, since food cannot be dropped or transferred.

Drop Trades:
This is where a player will literally drop the items for the other to pick up. The other drops their items in exchange or transfers the gold to the player. There is no guarantee that either player will honor their end of this deal. And the player dropping items can rush over and pick them up before the other players gets them. Or can kill the other player, or kick them out, or invite someone else to attack them, or any of a million other things. If any of these things happen to you, it is "fair" within the rules of the game, though I personally despise people who play that way. But it's the risk you take when you drop trade.


Trade Post Trades:
These are safe, but the buyer will pay a 10% fee for the purchase which goes straight to pk, so the seller won't make as much gold/food from the sale.
There are two ways to do a tp transaction: you can just walk into any tp and buy something or post your items, or you can arrange a buyer/seller in advance and finish the transaction using the tp.  If you don't have a buyer/seller already lined up, you want to use the tp with the most traffic.  The prices will be lower and the turnover higher.  When posting something for sale, you should first click "buy" and check out what that item is currently listed for.  Please note that the items you see posted have NOT sold.  Therefore you'll want to list yours for slightly lower.  And don't forget to calculate in the 10% fee.  You may also want to check the tp's average selling price for that item, though I haven't found that to be very helpful to me so far.  Once you have posted an item, you have a limited time (I believe it's 1 hour) to use your claim ticket in your Items List to change your mind and retrieve it.  Otherwise it will stay there until it sells or two weeks pass.  If it hasn't sold in two weeks, it is returned to you.  You'll get a notification that something didn't sell and was returned.  If it does sell, you are informed what sold, who bought it, and how much you made.
The mechanics of buying and selling are identical for a privately arranged transaction, but you're better off doing these at a tp that has little traffic.  Imagine: you post your item for 100 gold and your buyer accidently (or intentionally) buys someone else's item that is also posted.  Better to use a small tp where yours is the only one.  For these sales, the most common process is to go to Trade Chat at tell them you Want To Buy (wtb) or Want To Sell (wts) something.  For example: "wts 130 wood for 100 food".  When you find a partner for your trade, the seller will post in a small tp and invite the buyer... or sometimes the buyer invites to their preferred tp.  Either way, the seller posts the item and the buyer buys it and it's all done fairly immediately.  If you're in a hurry, this is the best way to buy or sell.  But if you're in a hurry you are unlikely to get the best price.  Everything is a trade off.

How to get more food
Things sold in tp's can be sold for either gold or food.  So if you want more food, and you don't want to pay real money for it, you'll have to sell something for food.  (Another way is to mentor new players, but that doesn't pay often enough.  And if you're new you have no business trying to mentor anyone.  So let's stick with what new players can/should do.)  How can you find out what to sell for food, and how much food you'll get for it?  Again, you need to ask in Trade Chat.  You can ask for a price check (pc) on something.  For example: "pc wood in food" will tell you the going price of wood in food.  Obviously since food is a valuable commodity that can't be gathered or hunted or planted, the things you need to trade for it will also be valuable.  Keep that in mind and don't expect to just be able to trade dropped weapons for food.  You'll have to trade something you worked hard for.
You can also trade gold for food.  Or vice versa  Food is currently selling between 280 and 320 gold each.  That price may change by the time you read this.  And which end of that scale you can buy for will depend on how big of a hurry you're in, so you really shouldn't wait until you need to level up before dealing with a food shortage.  If you don't have 80 food on hand, start trading until you have.  And if you're already level 5 or about to be level 5 you will also need some refined oil for caverns, which require food to refine.  So keep 100 food on hand at all times at a minimum.  I recommend you work to keep up at 150.

You can also buy food directly for gold.  This is more expensive than trading items for food, but if you have gold on hand you may wish to do this.  Gold is hard to come by for newer players, but as you get stronger you'll earn faster. 

Trading isn't difficult, but it requires a little patience.  Being in a hurry, or being mad because you posted a week ago and your stuff hasn't sold yet, or posting something for higher than the going rate and thinking it'll sell, are all losing propositions.