Trading

= Introduction =
Trading is a mechanic in Creatures of Sonaria that allows players to exchange items in the Trade Realms. Yes, you read correctly, Trade Realms - both Legacy and Recode modes have their own functional Trade Realms and Interafces, so it is imperative to keep knowledge of both.
Fortunately, things like going to legacy mode, go to legacy trade realm, and from there leaving trade realm and moving to recode should not corrupt your legacy nor your recode data.
= Legacy Mode =
== What to Trade ==
All game items can be traded within the Trade World. Players can offer species, stored versions of creatures, Shooms, Tokens, Color Palettes, and Plushies. Each item has its own purpose and value, so it's important to understand the difference between them before participating in trades, with tokens and storeds being usually the least valuable and species being the most.
Shoom trade area.png|Where Shooms are found in the Trade Menu
=== Shooms ===
Shooms () are one of the game currencies alongside Tikits, however, Tikits are not tradable. Shooms are the most widely-accepted offer in the Trade World because it is the main game currency in Creatures of Sonaria. 
In a trade, there is a limit of 12,000 per slot, for a max of 36,000 for all slots. This means the highest Shoom amount someone can offer in the Trading World would never exceed 36,000. It is only possible to exceed this limit by engaging in a Trust Trade, which is where the trade is spanned across multiple transactions. Trust Trades are extremely dangerous as the other person can leave the game and steal your side of the offer. It is not advised to perform these. This max cap is there for an important reason, to prevent people from over-inflating the prices of creatures.
To offer Shooms, players must click on the top left of an active trade window, click "Coin amount," enter a desired amount, and click "Confirm" to offer that amount in a trade.
Shooms are obtained by:
* Actively playing the game to earn 5 Shooms every 2 minutes.
* Daily Rewards.
* Buying Shooms from the Shoom Shop with .
* Collecting them after a disaster.
* Trading with other players.
Species trade area.png|Area where species are located 
=== Species ===
A species allows a player to create unlimited stored versions of a creature, or 'saves'. Species are guaranteed to appear in the "Find a creature!" section of the Main Menu after clicking "All Creatures" to view all of the species that a player owns (w). When trading, only one of a given species can be added to the trade at a time. That is, if a player owns three Ikoran species, they will only be able to add one of those three to the trade.
Information on the number of species of a certain creature that a player owns is available in the Main Menu on the left where tab buttons for Storage, Tokens, and Species appear. Clicking the 'Species' button will display all owned species and the number of copies of each species that a player owns.
A species will always stay in a player's inventory unless they choose to either trade away or sell a species they own. If a player owns multiple copies and chooses to trade or sell a species, they will still own the species to create infinite copies in the game as long as they still have one species left. This makes having more than one of a given species useless for standard gameplay purposes, but very helpful for trade purposes. A good analogy to describe a species is that it's a "factory" for the given kind of creature.
When trading, species will display with green text, prepending "Species" to the name. For instance, if someone adds a Buukon species to the trade, it will show with green text and specifically say Species Buukon. Hovering over the item will explain the purpose of a species.
Species are obtained through:
* Rolling Gachas.
* Using the Random Gacha Spin Token.
* Using the Rotation Store.
* Trading with other players.
* Exclusive event interfaces (only during events)
In the trade window, species can be found in the box just below the 'coin amount' area.
Stored trade area.png|Area where stored creatures are located
=== Stored ===
Stored versions of a creature can be thought of as a specific specimen, one-time use versions of a species. Owning a stored version of a creature allows a player to play as a species that they do not own. If a stored version of a creature dies, players can choose to revive it using the Revive Token. All stored versions will appear under Creatures or in the Storage on the Main Menu. A storage slot is best compared to a "save slot" in that it is a single creature that already has progression.
* Customizable stored versions are tradable. This means a player can take an untouched, uncustomized stored version and trade it, and then the receiver can customize it themselves.
* It should also be noted that all non-regular Gacha stores can only be traded as female if the recipient owns the species. If the recipient does not own the species, they can only receive male stores.
* Female "Robux" creatures cannot be traded at all. Despite the fact that Developer and Robux Gacha creatures are the only creatures that cost , many event creatures also count as "Robux" creatures and cannot be traded as a female even if the recipient owns the species.
When viewing Stored Creatures, a number of attributes will display when hovering your mouse over them:
* The name of the creature, written in white, will contain its gender, elder, and glimmer attributes, examples being Male Ani, Elder Female Cantapodi, Male Glimmer Kiiwin, Elder Female Glimmer Miik
* Below, the basic survival stats of the creature are displayed, including its health, food, and water.
* On the last line, the estimated value of a non-glimmer version of this stored creature is displayed.
** This value may not reflect on its real trade value, since some storeds are worth more than others.
** It is specifically calculated by (ShoomShopValue / 10) * (Age / 100). 
** The main intent of this value is to prevent scams. To get the real accepted value of something, it's a good idea to ask in the community Discord server (and to a minor extent, the wiki, specially towards those members who are in the community Discord central too).
* Apart from that, following that line it'll appear if the stored carries any extra, such as special/material palettes or plushies. DO NOT FORGET THAT WHEN TRADING A STORED YOU ARE ALSO TRADING ANY SPECIAL PALLETES, PLUSHIES (if the creature didn't got out of storage before the 9th December 2022 update) AND POSSIBLE DEATH REWARDS PROGRESS APPLIED TO THAT SPECIFIC CREATURE.
To contrast them from species, stored creatures display in white text and are always prepended with Stored before their name.
Stored versions are obtained through:
* Creating a new creature in one of your three save slots.
* Getting nested (actually this replaces one stored with another).
* Buying stored versions from the Shoom Shop.
* Using the Random Trial Creature Token.
* Trading with other players.
=== Tokens ===
Main Article: Token
Tokens are game items that can be consumed to modify the attributes of a creature, or to redeem some game item or items. They see a wide array of use. Similarly to Species trades, only one of a given token type can be added to the trade at a time, even if the trader owns more than one of that token.
=== Plushies ===
Main Article: Plushies
Plushies are a feature only seen in the trade realm and sometimes on event shops. Plushies are small creatures which can be equipped (without being consumed, unlike tokens) or traded, and mostly serve a specific functional purpose. These also function like Tokens in trade in that only one of a given type of plushie can be directly added at a time, regardless of how many of that type the trader owns. However if you trade plushies carried by storeds you can give a max of 6 plushies of the same type at any time. However after the 9th December 2022 that last one is extremely limited to older creatures that didn't get moved from storage, so once again for most situations only a single plushie of a type can be traded.
=== Color Palettes ===
Main Article: Special Color Palettes
Secondary Color Palettes are a feature which allows your creature to have different colors and textures outside its common palettes. They serve a mostly cosmetic use on a stored. These also function like Tokens and Plushies, with only one of a type being directly tradeable at a time unless you carry the palette on a stored (in that case you can carry up to 3 special color palettes).
== How to Trade ==
=== The Trade Realm ===
Players cannot trade in the main game and must instead go to the Trade Realm, a separate game which can be accessed by clicking the button labeled ‘TRADE WORLD’ in the bottom left of the main game’s menu. Once in the Trade Realm, players can begin trading.
Trade Realm servers are locked/limited by regions (Examples: US, Asia, Europe), but you are able to trade with someone who is operating from a different region than you as long as you are friends. If the region you are trading from is Europe (essentially meaning you live there) you cannot trade with a non-friend from the US. VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) normally allow you to establish connection in different regions than yours. This is why many people asked if you had a VPN, since it can allow trading between different people in different regions when you cannot friend them for one reason or another.
The realm itself is composed of one small swamp forest with a huge tree on the center and both permanente and event ornaments. Each island holds a function: one is for gachas, another for spawning and other to reach the center of the trading hub; where an interactive NPC Ikoran called Mylo appears. The central tree can be climbed and holds several platforms for people to trade. A few easter eggs can be found on the realm as well.
While on the trade realm some music is being played. The music can be turned off by pressing the mute music button.
=== Checking Inventory ===
In order to check what creatures a player has, they can access their ‘inventory’ by clicking/tapping the book icon in the bottom right of the screen. This will bring up an alphabetically ordered list of all the species a player owns, how many of them they have, as well as a list of their stored creatures.
While this list is open, players can click the icons under the ‘unlocked’ section to say they are “Trading [Creature Name]!”. This can be useful for a quick broadcast and keeping chat clear, but is less useful for more specific trades.
=== Starting Trades ===
To initiate a trade, players must walk up to another player and press E or click on the player when a prompt appears over their avatar (the only way on mobile). This will send them a prompt to accept or decline the trade. If they accept, as long as the other is not in a trade, the trade menu will appear (or even change if you are in a trade menu, but this is not advised since it can lead to buggy behaviour), but if they decline nothing will happen. Similarly, if a player asks another player to trade, a message at the bottom right corner of their screen will appear asking them to accept or decline. Accepting will bring up the trade menu, and declining will remove the offer.
=== The Trade Menu ===
There are 2 main parts of the Trade Menu:
* On the left, a player will have tabs for things they can trade away, like Shooms (top). Also you can navigate between different items with the buttons at the bottom of this section: 
**Species & Specimens (AKA Stored) sub-menu: for species (middle) and stored creatures (bottom), this tab appears by default or when clicking at the Species button (bottom-left).
** Tokens & Plushies submenu, with Tokens in the middle and Plushies on the bottom, when clicking on the Tokens button (bottom-middle). 
** Colors submenu (middle), where Color Palletes are displayed, when clicking on the Colors button (bottom-right).
* On the right displays what a player and their trade partner are offering, who accepted and if the trade has been accepted. The top row with red squares represents what a player will be giving away, and the bottom row with green squares represents what a trade partner will be giving that player.
Once a player has finished adding what items they want to trade, the trade will be finalized when both parties hit the submit button. Keep in mind that trades can be canceled if one party accepts and hits the accept button again (or decides to cancel or re-add items after accepting), exits out of the menu, or crashes before the trade is complete.
== Countering Scammers ==
With the implementation of Trade V2, an update done by Eti in an attempt to both improve trading and to entirely remove all previous system exploits, utilities have been added to trades. Some of these have been mentioned above. Among these countermeasures are:
* Against hackers/sackers:
** All trade item data is incredibly strict, preventing hackers from sending malformed or meaningless information to the server to attempt to interfere with trades.
*** However changing username/nickname mid-transfer may still cause a visual bug where the trade window doesn't close. As such, it's recommended to get the other's user profile and user ID before trading to avoid those type of scams.
* Against "stored-is-a-species/species-is-stored" scammers.
**Species will display with green text and say "Species" before them. Hovering your mouse over it will describe what owning the species allows you to do.
** Stored creatures will display with white text and say "Stored" before them. Hovering your mouse over them will display their key attributes.
* Against "underpriced/overpriced" scammers
** For stored creatures, the estimated value of a non-glimmer version of this stored creature is displayed, as already mentioned.
** Token trades display token information when hovering your mouse over them.
** Plushies will have their rarity color in their name. This reflects on the color scheme used by most games across gaming as a whole, but to reiterate: White = Common, Green = Uncommon, Blue = Rare, Violet = Epic, Gold = Legendary.
* Against LAG scammers:
** If the other trader un-accepts their trade after both of you have accepted, the server will unaccept on your behalf. This prevents them from swapping an item out and re-accepting quickly to try to swap something out without your knowledge, as you also must accept the trade again. If you see your trade has been canceled, review the items in the trade before clicking accept.
* Against trust trade scammers
** The Shooms cap has been increased from 3k per slot to 12k, to fit the prices needed for some of the most expensive creatures without risking a trust trade at the time (with several creatures above the 12k threshold).
** It is HIGHLY reccomeneded you do not engage in trust trades not organised on the official discord server, and even then caution should be exercised. 
**Cancel-Last-Second scammers used to be an incredibly scary (but fortunately not very well known before the scam was exposed) thing that could only be pulled off using a trust trade. This was due to a major oversight and the little cancel menu having used to be in the little corner where friend requests and the like would show up. Due to it being so hard to notice, the few scammers who knew about this capitalized on it. An example follows (First-hand account from a victim); The victim gets offered four Boreal Warden species by the scammer for the victim's Hellion Warden species. The scammer offered to trade the victim two of the Boreal Wardens first, with the Hellion Warden in the third trade along with another Boreal Warden, followed by the final Boreal Warden species. The trades "go through", and after the third trade, the scammer said he had to go eat dinner and left. The victim opened their inventory to have only one Boreal Warden species. This was because the scammer cancelled tenths of seconds before the trade completed the first two times, and the only Boreal Warden species the victim received was the one in the third trade. This has since been patched with the menu that shows up whenever a trade is cancelled, and this is here for archive purposes.
At the moment, due to how Roblox translation system works in COS, non-English speakers must be careful of another type of scammer: the incorrect name scammer. Those use the mistranslation errors to their advantage, usually the "Trading K" mistranslation bug, which transforms the name of every species which starts with "K" to just "K", to deceive new players into believing they are trading one species when in fact they aren't. For example:
* Scammer: "trading Koipise" *due to the mistranslation bug, it's read as "Trading K" *
* New Player: accepts.
* Scammer *trades Koipise* this creature is very rare, it's Kyiki/Kohikii/Keruku (all of them again become mistranslated as *K* in both chat and sometimes at Trade Menu too).
* New player, who has heard about that rare creature in main game and sees it's a species: "Ohhhhhhh! How much?"
* Scammer: "I don't really want it since I already have a dupe, so I'm selling it for a bargain, 1k shooms!"
* NP: *Accepts, goes back to main game, only to notice it's another creature called "Koipise"*
The best measures to counter these scammers are changing your Roblox Settings in menu to switch your language to English. and having access to the wiki (Official creatures page being a good start) and Discord for a reference in what a creature looks like.
= Recode Mode =
== What to Trade ==
All game items can be traded within the Trade World. Players can offer species, trial versions of creatures, Shooms, Tokens, Color Palettes, and Plushies. Each item has its own purpose and value, so it's important to understand the difference between them before participating in trades, with tokens and trial versions being usually the least valuable and species being the most.
Placeholder.png|Where Shooms are found in the Trade Menu (Recode)
This section is a work-in-progress and will be filled over time.
Unlike Legacy, in Recode a female specimen of a creature can be traded if the one with that trial creature has the species.
Category:Gameplay
Category:Legacy Gameplay
Category:Locations