[sLICING SECURITY] 0%.....................................................100% [iNSTALLING PROGRAM: "SCORCHED EARTH"] 0%.....................................................100% [DECRYPTING FILE] 0%.....................................................100% Manager Courtney Woods, it has come to my attention that Czerka Security Division has several positions available within your security detail. I have decided you will be hiring my team of specialists. While you may wish to refuse, please note the red dot of my sniper rifle is clearly visible on your temple. It may seem unprofessional to use a targeting laser, but I assure you I use it only when I wish to make a point. However for the sake of formality, I will answer your questions. This is purely an exercise in etiquette, as I know I already have the job, as well as positions for four additional highly trained operatives, one mouthy HK-[REDACTED] [REDACTED] droid, and my personal assistant droid. 1. I am an Ex-Imperial Intelligence officer with a weapon aimed at your brain case and a predisposition towards cruelty. I believe that is enough to suffice. 2. My three greatest accomplishments in order of least impressive to most are as follows. First, I killed the previous holders of these security positions to allow myself and my team to get hired. Second, I obtained enough information to slice your network and install my own code to show this message on your personal datapad, thus showing I can get to you anywhere. Three, I showed a lot of restraint not pulling the trigger while you read this. Hint, scroll to the bottom of this message and click "Hire Immediately". 3. The better question is would you do "whatever it takes" for your own life? 4. I'm afraid I don't have much of a moral compass. That gets trained out of you in Imperial Intelligence. As for doing something questionable, I will let you answer that Manager Woods. 5. I would order my team to evacuate while I set the timer on the explosives I conveniently installed in the building, much like the ones in yours currently. Thus the entire building would be destroyed, hiding any evidence of the escape. I hope all of this satisfies your desire for information and survival. To hire me and my team, tap the "Hire Immediately" button at the bottom of the screen. Otherwise, tap the "Suicide" button. If you really must tap the suicide button, be warned I have already transferred your savings to my own accounts, and changed your life insurance policy to pay to one of my aliases upon your death, so you won't be doing your family any favors. <[HIRE IMMEDIATELY]> <[sUICIDE]> [RUN PROGRAM: "SCORCHED EARTH"] 0%.....................................................100% [MESSAGE ERASED] >SEkgQ3JhaWcsDQogICAgIFdoZW4geW91IGFyZSBpbiBCbG9vbWluZ3RvbiwgbWF5YmUgeW91IGNv dWxkIHN0YXJ0IHdvcmtpbmcgb24gcGxhbnMgZm9yIGEgcmV0aXJlb mIGNsZWFuaW5nIG91dCB0aGUgc3RpbmtpbmcgdHViYXMhKSAgV2UgY291 >bGQgYWxsIHBsYXkgYSBsb3Qgb2YgbXVzaWMsIGdvIGZpc2hpbmcgaW4gSm9uZXMgTGFrZSAoUG9u ZD8pLCBwbGFudCBsb3RzIG9mIHJlZCBhbmQgd2hpdGUgZmxvd2VycywgYW5kIHJ1biBhIHJhZGlv IHNob3cgQU5EIG5ld3NwYXBlciBmcm9tIHRoZSBwcmVtaXNlcy4gTmFtZXMgZm9yIHRoaXMgc2hh bmdyaS1sYT8gIlRoZSBHcmV5IEd1aW5lYSBQaWd >1DQoJcmVmZ

As far as I know, Armstech (which I use on all my chars so far) is Armstech, Scavenging, Investigation. Investigation gives the blue mats for making blue/purple/orange gear, scavenging gives metal, and armstech makes the end product. If Treasure Hunting worked with Armstech at all, it's news to me. The reason they made the crafts with slicing involved this way was to promote trade. If everyone is self sufficient, there's no need to spend money or sell items. If they are self sufficient, but only in one craft (like Armstech), they have no reason to purchase materials unless they are lazy, or the mats sell for under the cost of using missions to gather them. By making slicing an integrated part of the game instead of just a money farming tool, Slicing now allows players to sell mats to everyone. People who generally don't want to make stuff and just want to have money can take Slicing, and maybe 2 other skills, and make money selling augment mats and getting lockboxes. It makes players more interdependent to gear up, but not in a debilitating way. If you want an example of this done in the past, in WoW crafts such as Smithing and Engineering required both metal, and in many cases Leather. You could not be a totally independent Smith or Engineer, as with only two crafts you had to pick from gathering metal (your primary ingredient), and skinning to gather leather (which is a secondary ingredient). Some items in these skills even sometimes used herbs, normally used for alchemy. However despite this the WoW economy, bolstered by cross uses of mats, had increased demand for materials. The economy thrived. That said, if you REALLY don't want to have to buy from the GTN for the odd part, make a level 10 alt. Once they hit 10, take Slicing and mail it money. You can have the character doing missions for parts on the side to feed your main, and when not gathering parts just passively making you straight cash. Or, you can participate in the general economy, make friends, work with guildmates, etc.

Actually, as far as I know the items are BoE that you make from Synth/Armor. So if you raid, you can always take mods out (as normal) and drop them in other Orange pieces (as normal). Crit crafted oranges will start showing up on the GTN as soon as the crafters have their own sets (they will want to kit themselves out first after all), then it's just a matter of buying whatever look you want, with the augment crit crafted slot. So really, you can be ANY craft in the game and raid. The only reason you'd want to be a specific craft is personal preference, or possibly variations of profit on the GTN dependant on sales.

You can take an item from T2, and RE that T2 to get an empty version as a recipe. So if you get say a Tier 2 item, you pull out the mods (armor mods have the set bonus), then RE it to get an orange recipe for it. Then sit and craft it to get an empty orange version, which you can put mods into (including the ones you just took out). If you keep crafting said orange you can crit and get one with an augment slot. In this way you can (after potentially a lot of work, money and/or time) make a copy of the original Tier 2 piece, put the mods you got from the original in it, AND add an epic augment to make it better than the original Tier 2 piece. So as an example: I go to an operation as a Smuggler and get a smuggler tier 2 chest piece. I decide to pull the mods out of it, and set those aside for now. Now I Reverse Engineer said smuggler chest piece to get a recipe for an Orange grade Tier 2 Smuggler Chestpiece. Said piece is empty (no mods), but I have the mods from the original piece I can put in. So I craft said piece and put the mods from the original in it. I am now no better off than I was originally, except NOW I can keep crafting said chest piece, potentially selling the empty (unmodded) chest on the GTN for people to buy the "look" and drop in their own mods, AND I can hope to critical craft for the Augment Slot. Once I get a crit craft, I can drop in mods (including the ones from the original piece I started with) AND an augment, making it a more powerful version of the original by virtue of the augment slot.

Currently you can't really get augments on items. With this, you'll see augments on items with T2 level stats and set bonuses, in the custom look you want. That's 5 items (minimum) that will have increased stats over drops.

My understanding is that for armor and weapons, REing it gets the orange. For everything though (including stuff you don't get the orange for) you get mats including raid level mats. So the idea is you can get the look of tier 2 gear, and get the mats to make T2 and under gear via unused items. However since droprates for mats will be lower, and getting items people don't need isn't so easy right now, we won't see top level content items in the GTN so much until basically the raid guilds are flooded with said items anyways. Basically, when T2 items start being readily available, people will be on T3.

In the item list there are several colour types. Item colours are based on quality. White/Grey are basic (vendor trash) items. They do not nromally get crafted. Green are "uncommon" items. Blues are "Rare", Purples are Prototype. Orange items just mean they are fully customizable with Mods. Purples are better than Blues for stats, and Blues are Better than Greens, and Greens are better than Whites. For crafting, there is also several levels of crafts based on your level in the craft. Orange crafting recipes (orange text, not item) mean the craft is difficult. Missions for these things have the highest chance to fail. You however can't fail at making an item. Doing a mission that is orange, or making an item that's an orange craftable yields 2 points in the craft. Yellow crafting recipies are normal level. They give you one point per craft (sometimes 2). Missions of this level sometimes fail, but rarely. Green crafting recipes are easy level. They always give 1 point, and have a very low chance of failure. Grey crafting recipes are "very easy" level. They give no points for making them or doing that mission, and rarely if ever fail (missions). To advance in a craft, you want to do Green, Yellow or Orange level crafting recipes/missions. The relative level of a mission is represented by the colour of the number beside the item in the crafting list, and the colour of the dot to the right of the item. The Number represents how many of said item you can craft at this time with the materials you have on hand in your backpack and bank combined. Clicking on an item will show on the right the materials you require, and how many of each you have. The goal is to collect enough items to make an item of Green to Orange level, then make that item. For Space Missions, they act just like normal Missions. Grey means little to no XP reward, Green means it's lower level than you and easy to accomplish. Yellow means it's your level (approx), so moderate challenge. Orange means higher level than you and presents a difficult challenge. Red means extremely difficult and much higher level than you. I hope this helps. Also feel free to check the stickied threads for more info.

The reason I suggested Armormech is you already have a biochem. Since they are phasing out reusables (they will still be there, but the better items will be greens and blues released later) you only really need one character with biochem. You can buy/farm mats for that character and send your consumables to your other character. Having two is just redundant. That said there is no benefit of one craft over another aside from (possibly) saving money on that particular craft's items. The benefit comes in for certain aspects of the game. People who like controlling how they look might go Armormech. Others might like having certain mods, or (like me) prefer having the best looking weapons. On my Sniper I was absolutely picky over my sniper rifle, and now on my Gunslinger I am picky about my pistols. I love Armstech, even if currently people call it useless (it can crit oranges currently as far as I know). It comes down to personal preference. The people not interested in crafting and such and are willing to spend money, will likely take up Slicing and other gathering crafts, and make straight cash and sell mats, then use the money to buy the items they want. Everyone else will pick what appeals to them personally. I might on a healer or a melee character for example want Cybertech for the slowing/immobalizing grenades.

Well, they also stated in another post that you can RE items from raids and such for materials, that the special mats would stack and not be BoP, and that the drop rate would be lower, and that REing raid level items would give the raid level mats. So the idea might be to RE unused items to get mats to make other items.

You can RE a tier 2 piece, for the pattern to make the Orange Item of it. The Orange item may have starting mods, may not. But likely not tier 2 level mods. So you get the look of tier 2 by buying the item, but still need to get the mods from the raid to fill it with. The person making the items can pull the mods out, RE it for the look, crit craft it, then put the mods back in for an augment slotted version, and then sell the new orange pieces on the GTN, while those people will need to do said raids still to get the mods.

Your major profit will be.... dun dun dun... consumables! Think about it. All those people pissed off at Biochem and jumping to other craft for shiny crit augmented gear. Suddenly come raid night they have no biochem consumable items anymore. Their reusables are useless now. Where do they go? Vendors or the GTN for the best possible buffs for raid night. You could potentially undercut vendor costs on green buff items and medpacks (especially if you farm the mats personally instead of using missions) and spam those out (enjoying the bonus items from crits for free profit), or you could make the blue level items for those after that extra boost to their abilities come raid night. Or both.

Bioware stated previously (check Developer Tracker) what they mean by phased out is no new ones will come out. So what reusables you have now is it. They won't create any more, but will create better stims/adrenals/medpacks going forward that aren't reusable.

Armormech can make (in 1.2) augment slotted orange pieces, and can have armor mods from set pieces installed to transfer the set bonus. So armormech orange items are now Best In Slot items come 1.2. They can also make augments for half of the stats. This makes Armormech very good. Trooper's companions are almost uniquely suited to Armormech (see the Guide sticked at the top of the forum for info). So you can take Armormech, and mail blue level Biochem items from your other character to your new one, giving you the best of both worlds. Only downside? The biochem items mailed this way won't be reusable, and you'll have to log on that char to buy/farm (likely via missions) materials occassionally, and make the biochem items.

Sadly all you've done is show a lack of interest in handling your own problem, that is entirely your problem. Your entire argument seems to stem from the idea that new players need, or should be able to buy, gear. If this reseller is making a profit, he is indeed selling this gear. This sale is either to ANOTHER reseller, or new players. If he wasn't making a profit, his practice would end quickly. As to the new players being bankrupted, that was their own bloody choice. The game is an extremely easy leveling experience. With 4 Level 50 characters, I have not once bought gear while levelling, aside from orange bracers and belts for end game and only because the person who had them sold them via chat and didn't know what they had. The notion that their play experience is diminished by not being able to purchase possibly the top of the line gear, or get gear beyond what the quests give, is silly. If that were the case the first people to play this game would have been so frustrated it isn't funny. Players buy items for low level characters because they think it will give them an edge. And they are willing to pay said price that this reseller is offering in exchange for the perceived benefit. They weighed the pros and cons of the purchase (even if quickly so), and chose to buy at this inflated price. They can vote with their wallets as I often do and say "Naw, I'll wait for prices to go down" or "I can go without that". If they don't, they are giving him a profit, and proving that his so called interference in the market is acceptable to them. If you wish to offer goods at a lesser rate, and be a sort of charity where you don't feed this reseller's profits, use the Trade channels. Sell your wares at your own price. Then you sell the items, and to the people you want it to go to. Do not expect the game to change to suit your individual morality.

I've played Gunslinger (twice), Scoundrel and Sniper to 50 (I really love IA and Smuggler but my IRL friends keep jumping server/faction to find what they like). Each time I tend to play Armstech. At level 400 you unlock several blue patterns for BoE weapons. Most of these are Orange items, but there are also some blues for slots that normally can't get customized weapons (Vibroknife and Scatter Gun for example) and some greens you can reverse engineer up to purple level. For weapons that can be dual wielded like Blaster Pistols, there is an Aim Main hand and an Aim Offhand, a Cunning Main Hand and a Cunning Offhand, and more. They cater to each specialization and AC for Bounty Hunter and Smuggler. They are specific to main and off hand for some reason I think once linked to balancing issues such as altering material cost to account for it being an offhand, or to be able to balance things like augments. However I am only guessing in that department. Once you reach 400, armstech weapons become the top weapons in the game. Toss in an epic barrel (crafted by you), and then grab heroic daily epic mods to toss in (or buy off of auction hall). Then keep crafting those weapons until you Crit. I recommend a companion with full affection and an armstech crit ability. This requires you to run hard mode flashpoints, and possibly operations, fairly regularly. However if you're doing the daily/weekly hardmode quests this isn't an issue, and the upcoming patch is making it so the blue mats from hard modes no longer bind (which will make this easier). Keep making your weapons until they crit, and feel free to auction any you make that don't. Once they crit they have an augment slow, allowing you to exceed the stats of any weapon in the game aside from like PvP weapons, simply by moving the mods from said weapon to this one, and then having the augment on top. You can also reverse engineer purple weapons for your companions if you wish to fit them out. The mainissue with Armstech is that there is no endgame schematics (or any at all that I have seen as drops), and it only covers up to two slots on any character (on some only one) while other crafts can do more. This makes the craft fairly unprofitable and unfulfilling to most. The only way I think to fix this issue is to make it so Armstechs make the top barrels in the game (via a schematic drop), and possibly up the crit rate on orange weapons a tad.