Carbonite Nodes, Routing, and You
 

Right, there's been a lot of questions regarding this lately - or rather, overall throughout the history of Carbonite... or at least since Carbonite Nodes was first implemented... but you get the point. So, here's a little 101 on how to use this.

Table of contents:
-Part 1: What's Carbonite Nodes?
--What does it do?
--How do I use it?
--What's different?
--This addon is wrong, I went to a spot marked on the map, but there was no mineral / herb there!
-Part 2: What's routing?
--How do I access the routing function?
--I tried to Route Current Gather Locations, but it doesn't do anything!
--What if I don't want to go to one of the targets? Maybe it's misplaced, out of reach, or too close for comfort to an outpost of the other faction?
--How can I route only one or a few nodes? I only want some herbs or minerals.
--I've found some mining nodes don't contain what Carbonite says.
--What options can I adjust in routing?



Part 1: What's Carbonite Nodes?
Carbonite Nodes is a database of most - say 98% - of the possible spawn points for herbs and minerals in the game. Using it is completely optional, Carbonite runs fine without it, and you only need to use it once.

What does it do?
Simply put, it updates your Carbonite map with the location of possible gathering spawn points, including Frostchip, gas clouds, and those kinds of things. It's a one way process, mind you, but there's of course nothing to lose by using it.

How do I use it?
First, like any addon, you need to activate it in the Addons section when you select your character, like so:


Next, you import the nodes via the Carbonite options menu. I assume you know how to get it up.


After that, you're good to go. The import can take a while, depending on how fast your computer is, but it generally takes less than a few seconds. And you're done! You can now log out and deactivate CarboniteNodes if you wish, or leave it running. It's only a database accessed on demand by Carbonite, so it costs no resources whatsoever, nor does it do anything without your specific orders.

What's different?
Right, so let's open up the right-click menu on your map. Select Show... and then check either Show Herb Locations or Show Mining Locations, or both if you want.


All of a sudden, your map could look like this:


This is with herbs being shown.

This addon is wrong, I went to a spot marked on the map, but there was no mineral / herb there!
This is something that often comes up. The truth is, Carbonite doesn't know where the actual nodes are in the world. No addon does. All it does is show you where they can be. Not all icons marked "Plaguebloom" will have a Plaguebloom node there once you get there, but Carbonite shows all the known locations where the game can spawn them.

See, the game has a fixed place for all possible spawn points. When a herb spawns, one of those spawn points are chosen. A Plaguebloom can spawn on any of the Plaguebloom spawn points, but it will NEVER spawn on a Silverleaf spawn point.

As for knowing whether a herb or mining node has spawned, you'll have to travel there and see for yourself. Tedious, I know, but that's the only way you'll know. And that's what routing is for.



Part 2: What's routing?

Routing in Carbonite is, simply put, the addon calculating the most efficient* way of visiting each and every one of the selected places.

*Most efficient is a relative term. Carbonite calculates on what would be the shortest route (in terms of yards traveled) to visit all places it routes you through, from a bird's point of view. In other words, what looks shortest on the map. This does not take into account lakes, mountains, settlements of the opposite faction, or anything else terrain-related. Implementing such an advanced algorithm would be difficult and time-consuming, and hopefully you're not too lazy to use some common sense while wandering around. ;)

Carbonite can route three different things. Gather locations, which is what we will talk about, goto targets, and unexplored areas in your current zone.


How do I access the routing function?
By right clicking on your map, then select Route... and what you wish to route.


I tried to Route Current Gather Locations, but it doesn't do anything!
Do you have any gather locations on the map? Follow the above instruction on the Show... menu to show either herbs or mineral nodes. Then try routing again.

Once it's done, it'll look something like this:


You'll also have the HUD arrow pointing you in the direction of the next route target.

What if I don't want to go to one of the targets? Maybe it's misplaced, out of reach, or too close for comfort to an outpost of the other faction?
There's a hotkey you can set for that in the Key Bindings section.


When Carbonite tells you to go to a node that you want to skip, hit that hotkey and Carb will instruct you how to get to the next.

How can I route only one or a few nodes? I only want some herbs or minerals.
That's fairly easy as well. You begin by deselecting both mining and herbalism locations in the Show... menu we talked about earlier. Then you click the Guide button on your Carbonite map, go to Gather, select if you want herbs or minerals, and then pick the one you're looking for. OBSERVE, you need to click on the icon, clicking the text won't work. If you look on your map, icons for that herb or mineral alone will pop up. You can hold the SHIFT button and click more icons if you want to include them.
((--Image yet to come--))

After that, you right click the map, select Route... and Current Gather Locations. Viola.

I've found some mining nodes don't contain what Carbonite says.
You've probably found a rare spawn. The way the game works when respawning nodes is that there's a small chance a rarer mineral will spawn on a certain other node's location. This is the complete list:

Silver is a rare spawn from Tin nodes.
Gold is a rare spawn from Iron nodes.
Truesilver is a rare spawn from Mithril nodes.
Eternium is a rare drop from all Outland veins.
Khorium is a rare spawn from all Outland veins.
Saronite and Titanium share spawn points.

Simply put, if you want to farm Silver, track Tin and route through them. If you want Titanium, route through both Saronite and Titanium spawn points.

What options can I adjust in routing?
Well, all of them are in the routing submenu. Note that each of these are calculated at the routing itself, so if you set Target Radius to 30 from 60 while following a routing, your current routing will still require you to get within 60 yards, but the next one you do will be 30.


Recycle Reached Targets - this tells Carbonite to spin you right round, baby, right round... like a record, baby. Right round, round, round. Ahem. Well, say you route through all the Mining nodes in Elwynn Forest. Once you're done, Recycle Reached Targets will send you around the cycle again, and again, until you right click the map and clear the goto targets.
Gather Target Radius - this is the distance, in yards, you will need to be within before Carbonite considers you to be at the currently tracked node and sends you on to the next. Default is 60 yards. NOTE: When tracking minerals or herbs, they appear as the yellow dots on your minimap at 80 yards or below. But don't forget to take into account latency and map update frequency. I recommend 60 if your latency is usually fine, as in 100 or less, and 40 if you often find yourself with a latency of about 500-600.
Gather Merge Radius - tells Carbonite at which radius it shouldn't route you to a node close to an existing target. Having it at 20 means that if I route Mining nodes, and there's a possible Tin spawn 15 yards away from a possible Copper spawn, Carbonite will only tell me to go to a spot right in between those (thanks to faatal for that info).



End of guide, so far. Hopefully this will answer most of the community's question about Carbonite Nodes and routing. There's one picture I still need to update with, but it will be done as soon as humanly possible.

Feel free to use this thread to ask questions you feel have not been answered, correct any misinformation that could have snuck aboard, or suggest improvements to the guide.

[Reserved for future additions.]

Gather Merge Radius actually averages the 2 node locations, so you would end up in the middle, giving you the best chance to spot either.

Nice job!

Thanks for that correction, updating with the new intel. And thanks for the praise as well.

Is it possible to have elevation info on the nodes? Especially around the Icecrowd citadel I always see live nodes that I can't find.

I'm not really qualified to answer that question, but I'd guess no. It would require a map that is in 3D in order to record it, which would put extra strain on CPU and GPU, not to mention being one mother of a hassle for any coder attempting it...

The game provides 2d coordinates for map locations to addons. The height of you or anything else in the game can not be accessed by an addon.

I'm really hoping that I am not adding this in the wrong thread.

First, I want to say that Jigain has done a very good job of presenting information that can help clear-up confusion for many users. His graphical approach works for me, since I'm a now-retired Commercial Artist/Technical Illustrator.

Here's why I'm writing. It's basically a question.

-- My Carbonite mini-map shows my route to nodes.

-- I use my flying mount to travel between nodes. (It's not a FAST flying mount, either).

-- HOW I USE ROUTING: The only place I can see if a node actually exists is on Blizzard's (round) mini-map, therefore I have to keep looking at it to see if any "yellow" dots show up. The Carbonite mini-map or full map doesn't display "real" nodes... only previously-reported node (possible) locations.

-- PROBLEM: By the time Blizzard's mini-map displays the "yellow" dot for an active node, I have already flown past it! It's "range" is apparently too narrow to display the node long before I approach it. It's really frustrating to have to circle-back continually after each node is found.

Is my problem caused by a slow internet connection (or, something else), or do any of you notice the same thing when flying from node-to-node?

I'd love to be able to "see nodes further ahead" instead of after I've passed them by. Heh heh.

The biggest factors in that would be your internet connection or your computer. Lag has a big impact on what data goes to and from your computer and then the computer also has to process that data to display it to you. Just so you know for reference also, I believe the max range you can actually "see" an active node on the Blizz map is 75yds.

Thank you. At least I feel better knowing that the rest of you probably don't have this irritating issue.

Thank you for replying to me so quickly!

EDIT: I suppose Blizzard expected every player to walk from node to node, or else have a Super-Computer and a T1 line! Ha ha.

Hey, was wondering how i get the gas clouds tracking and routing to work, the herbalism and mining parts work perfect for me, but i just cant figure out how to make it show, track, or route gas clouds.

How do i get it to track gas clouds?

Vis, I can say after extensive testing that the radius for Blizzard's tracking system is 80 yards. No more, no less.

Fenix`, first you need to right click your map and deselect the Show Herbs and Show Mining Locations. Then, you open your Guide, select Gather, and pick one of the two, or both, outside of the Herbs and Minerals subsections. After that it's the same as before, right click the map and Route... Current Gather Locations. Please note that, due to lack of collected data as to where gas clouds and everfrost chips spawns, the database does not contain these locations (to my knowledge). Thus, it'll only route you through places where you have previously found gas clouds and/or everfrost chips.

Question on Nodes
 

Sorry if this has already been asked but I don't see it elsewhere...
I am wanting to know if I can track active nodes in Carbonite... and if so, how??
It's saves the waypoints for all of the mines/herbs I collect but I cannot find an option to track with it so that the "yellow dot" appears when the node is actually there.

The only way I have been able to do this is to move the mini-map into carbonite and dock it always. However I cannot re-size the mini map to my liking when I do this and would prefer to just track the active nodes nodes in carbonites mini map. Can someone tell me if this is possible to do?
Thanks in advance!!! :)

I'm not quite sure just what you mean...

If you mean make Carbonite route you through only nodes that currently exist in the world, that's impossible. For obvious reasons, Blizzard doesn't allow addons access to that kind of information.

If you mean overlap the Carbonite icon for the herb/mine with the yellow dot Blizzard shows when you're within 80 yards, then that can only be accomplished by merging the Carbonite map with the Blizzard minimap.

I meant within 80 yards :) If I have to merge the maps, is there any way to be able to add an option for resizing the blizz mini once it is merged? What I'm wanting is that when I load Blizz's mini map into cartographers, that it takes up the whole area with the same resizing capability.... Is that possible? hope I'm making sense because I'm not sure of a better way to explain it... once again thanks for the help =D

You mean Carbonite's. ;)

Actually, if you right-click the Carbonite map, I think there should be settings for scaling the merged Blizzard minimap.

Yes I ment carbonite ;) sorry was a very late night :p I could not find scaling options as to height or width separately... I took a Screen shot of My carbonite in my NUI with the Blizz mini docked set to square and scaled to size... Blizz mini is left and carbonite is right.... but I still cannot find a setting that allows it to take up the entire space; rectangularly... having them side by side is nice as well but would be nicer if carbonite could re-center itself to its viewable area. any ideas?
Merging does at least allow me to track active nodes within the 80 yds now.
Thanks Again!!! :)

You talk about setting options to mine TIN only for example. How do you do this? How can you display only tin nodes and set routes for only tin?

"Simply put, if you want to farm Silver, track Tin and route through them. If you want Titanium, route through both Saronite and Titanium spawn points"

You answer that in your own quote, actually:

Well, first off, there's no such thing as a Tin ONLY node. In fact, there are very few nodes that are ONLY one type (copper nodes are, I think). Most nodes can pop at least two metals, if not three (not sure about three, but very sure about two).

A possible problem...
 

.. or maybe I just don't have the settings set correctly, but for some reason when I merge the mini-maps together and use the mining and herbalism node gathering options, the possible nodes and the flashing nodes don't properly overlap. They seem to be offset for some reason and it makes them hard to find. If I goto the possible spawn spot, the flashing (actual) spot is off some distance and if I goto the flashing spot.... well it's not as it should be... Can anyone tell me what I'm doin wrong and how to correct it?

Gas Cloud Locations
 

I use Carbonite for everything but Gas Cloud locations, for that I use GatherMate Addon. I would prefer to continue to use Carbonite for a variety of reason, ease of use being one of them. Will there be any chance of adding that into the program to help track them?

I love using the routing feature to farm herbs, but as I'm now working on the Insane title, I would love to use Carbonite to search for Blood of Heroes in the Plaguelands. I have a long list of cords for each of these spawn points. Is there a way to import these locations without using the point and click one-at-a-time favorites method?

People who use TomTom add the list to the .lua file, how do I do that with Carbonite?

Lost all nodes for minerals
 

unable to see any mining nodes and my own map location entries as of about 1wk ago.
went as far as reinstalling all of wow and carbonite to new folder, importing both herb and mining locations.
even picked up several ore but none ever appear on the map now.
i have to fly around and look for the flashing dots when near or by visual only now.
ideas on how to get it back?

Have you tried right clicking on the Carb map and choosing the "Show" option?

yes sire
but fig'd it out.. java was Fukd so i reinstalled and BAMM there they are.
had the latest version, guess something got whacked. :D

I, too, am interested in the idea of "Blood of Heroes" nodes mentioned by Maeby.
Could this be added to as an additional set of nodes, similar to mining and herbing?
Possibly even a third node set (called "questing"?) containing this plus any other such nodes that exist or may be created in future expansions.

Also another question. Are new nodes discovered by ourselves only added to our local copy of the database, or does the information get returned to carbonite to make the main database more extensive? If it is only local, is there any way we can share the new nodes with carbonite?

What I did was send in a file from my Carbonite SavedVariables to the authors, who then extracted the information from it to make the very first version of the herb and mining database. ;)

Unfortunately, it was so long ago I don't remember which file it was or which email I sent it to, so that info will have to come from the authors themselves.

Blood of Heroes
 

Is there a way to add Blood of Heroes spawn points from EPL and WPL? Would help a ton for the achievements I am hunting! If there is, where do I find out how to route them?

carbonite nodes
 

hey, excellent addon!!
I was wondering if you could add a feature to show the Netherwing Egg spawn locations? I would assume that it wouldnt be that different from the mining/herbing aspect but you know what they say when you assume :P
Thanks for the addon, its helped me a lot!

Hope I'm posting this in the right place. I finally got Carbonite up and running... minerals are on my map, have a route to follow. The problem I'm having now is that when I get close to a node spawn point (yellow node) the node actually follows me on the map making it impossible for me to find it on the ground. I've noticed this is the same for quest givers and mail boxes. How do I get these objects to stay affixed to the map instead of following my toon? Thanks for any help you can offer.

Do you by any chance have Blizzard's minimap set to rotate around you, rather than being fixed?

Removing line of arrows on the minimap/map
 

When using routing, I love the hud arrow. The line of arrows on the map usually shows some place off in the middle of nowhere if the distance to the next node is great. How do I simply remove the line of arrows so the map stays centered on me. I just want the HUD arrow with direction and distance.

Thanks.

Right click a non icon area of Carb map, select Scale and make sure Auto Scale Min is set to .01.

You can also uncheck Auto Scale in the box on the top right corner of the map window.

How do I turn off routing?

I mean, say I've been farming mining nodes for a while and I want to stop and I don't want to see the little arrows anymore? How do I make them go away?

Right click the map and select Clear Goto.

Wonderfull but...
 

What a perfect addon! I used the addon route before carbonite et carbonite routes is better than routes by far! Very easy and optimized. Just a thing un can suggest to add to a future released is to add the possibility to select the node you want to farm in your route. I've just found the skip command and for this it is really usefull but filter the node could be really great!
Thanks for all carbonite!!

I really should get around to getting that screenshot some day... I keep forgetting it!

Would it be possible to add a check on your current mining/herb-skills before creating a route? It's annoying if you follow the route and find ores you can't mine.

If i have a skill of 35, why should i bother with Tin Ore? If i have a skill of 95, how could i collect iron ore? It's not possible. So please let us choose the ores we would like set a route to and have a look at this one:
http://almostgaming.com/wowguides/wo...-300-with-maps

It shows which mining skill you need for which ore until you can mine the next one.

There you go.

<-- I'm with stupid

List of things I have done.

Exactly in that order.

1. Imported the nodes.
2. Pressed "Show mining" on the minimap.
3. Did not see any nodes.
4. Reloaded the UI.
5. Did not see any nodes.



Any ideas?

Unless I am mistaken (which I could be) the node data was removed due to the new patch and the whole shattering thing. Hopefully the locations get remapped soon and reupped into the addon :)

You are correct. Most of the herb & mineral node locations changed with the last major patch and were removed. We are rebuilding these and they will be repopulated soon.

Hopefully really soon. Sadly though, I know it takes time to build a DB that large. You and your team are doing a helluva job though.

Question i have used both the herb and mine database and they have worked wonderfully, however, i have a question. when you did add the nodes back did you delete the ones for eastern kingdom and kilamadar? i rarely see any on the map but when i go working on getting low level stuff i find them all to add to the data base.

my other question cause im not sure i saw this, if you have gather can you import the data it has gained into carbonite?

on a side note this addon is very great and i have gotten rid of a lot of other useless ones since this has more or less combined them into one. you have done an excellent job on this.

All Kalimdor and EK nodes were deleted from CarboniteNodes. Your nodes don't go anywhere. CarboniteNodes gets added to what you have when importing. When the files are submitted to us, I add the user nodes back into CarboniteNodes.

So yea, I've done a little bit of mining in the old world and nodes has worked quite well. Was wondering how I could go about getting the data to you so that you can add it to the next release?

Where did they go George?
 

You folks have a huge amount of work ahead of you. I will help by sending you my data weekly here, but I have a question about the way Carbonite works on ore nodes that are newly found.

My question is how do I get them to show up once I find them on my client so I can at least head to the ones I've already discovered for farming?

I have the Show Ore checked, and in Outland/Northrend I have no problem seeing the nodes already loaded...

Thanks, and keep up the good fight!

In all likelyhood you were trying to track herbs released with cataclysm. None of the new herbs had icons/data in Carbonite to represent them at the time. Im sure this problem is solved since the release of Carbonite 4.032 where support for the new nodes was added.

I downloaded the newest version of carbonite and I'm not seeing any of the cata herbalism or mining nods. I did the import for both to and still nothing. Any help would be great thank you. :confused:

So, the reason I'm not seeing the nodes that I am finding myself is because 4.031(the version I am using) simply does not know what they are and has no way to represent the new ore types...makes total sense. I don't know what the authors are adding or what their priority is with all the new content coming screaming at us.

I'll upgrade to 4.032 and see how it goes.:banana:



The reason you are not getting anything from the databases is because they are empty. That has been said in previous threads...the population of the resource databases is a fairly low priority considering all the quest data that needs to be added for basically the entire game.:eek:

The only areas that don't require much more to them is Outlands and likely most of Northrend. Previous expansions left the world as it was and just added new areas, Cataclysm changed most of the whole world.

Peace

*edit to fix quote block*

hello i am new to your addon
 

I used your addon last week no issues me and others downloaded the newest version yesterday and it was infected with a worm that killed my boot sectors of my hard drives just wanted to give you the headsupp I realize your product is free with donations if liked
take care

I doubt that. I've been using every single version released for the last two weeks and have had no problems.

Come to think of it, that post looks bot-like.

It was certainly crafted by someone who is unfamiliar with punctuation. :eek:

Heh... Yeah.
I can confirm that there is not, nor has there ever been, any 'worm' or virus in Carbonite.
It can, however, cause severe sleep deprivation and extreme addiction to WoW.

Be warned. :P

lol
 

No, you can't get a 'worm' from this add-on. You need to stay away from "auto-mining" or 'mining-bots' Get your facts straight.

At this moment I am flying around in MH and DeepHolm on my hippy priest to collect herbs and that way I found a lot of nodes.
Is there a simple way for me to extract those nodes out of the DB and get them to you?
I think a lot of people will love to get them as well.

1 minus point I discover.
Some nodes are only visible after you get to some special quests done and not before due to the fase shifting stuff.

To everyone asking how to submit your gathered nodes and info, please refer to this sticky in the Database/Quests forum:
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=21607

How do I get the minimap to show the gathering flashing icon over my character location instead of in the upper left hand corner of the minimap?