It appears for sure there is anti-farming code of sorts on these mobs... after 3 kills in a row, they will cease to drop loot at all. Two things seem to reset this "flag" -- either re-log or come back after an unspecified amount of time. Not sure about the group flag on increasing loot drops... I scored some purples and a ton of blues while farming the mobs on DK, but on a subsequent visit, got a string of greens. RNG is RNG, imho.

It actually dropped for me when I duo'ed BT with another buddy on his BH way back when, so it does drop for heavy-armor-only parties... it's RNG as far as I know... Good luck!

I had slicing at 400 until recently. I personally tracked my results from about 320 skill to 400 and then for maybe a week beyond that when I ran missions. This was all post-nerf. While my data isn't nearly as detailed as some of the various spreadsheets out there, I showed my personal return on investment to be approximately +20% from lock box missions alone. Proceeds from sale of any crit discoveries (schematics, missions, etc.) are not included. Also not included are proceeds from manually looting slicing nodes (aka "money plants") out in the world. So, in the long term, I believe slicing still is profitable, as intended, but it's just a tedious way to make credits compared to other professions right now. Net profits during my couple weeks of study were maybe 120k credits, tops. After realizing that I wasn't helping myself much with Slicing anymore, I dropped it in favor of Underworld Trading to better support my Cybertech profession. PS If my raw data can be of use to any of the other people building databases for Slicing analysis/spreadsheets, please send me a PM and I can give you access to my Google Docs spreadsheet.

yeah i can't understand how this particular issue was not fixed for launch... crafting is like 3rd priority or something it seems (other than nerfing things like biochem items and grenades, of course...)

So this thread inspired me a little bit to poke at the headgear problem a little more... short of a "hide headgear" option, here are some bits: "Sunglasses model" - http://www.torhead.com/item/2p4bbGT/flak-helmet-mkii Doesn't seem available as anything but a random-stat item though, no mods. If this came as an orange item, it'd probably do nicely for most who want no-frills headgear. "Round Goggles look" - http://www.torhead.com/item/a6XK5FH/sniper-elite-headgear Seems these are crafted, so if you dig the weird, kinda goggles-like look then this might work. "Geordi Visor look" - http://www.torhead.com/item/3bnZcGA/laminoid-battle-headgear One of many variations on this one, the above ones are crafted and often on the GTN. Some of the PvP headgear looks similar. "Breather mask" - http://www.torhead.com/item/e7Ro0un/ablative-lacqerous-headgear or http://www.torhead.com/item/8OfVvnE/ablative-plasteel-headgear Crafted, so should be easy to find "Open face helmet" - http://www.torhead.com/item/aHWZ0Xw/lacqerous-battle-headgear Another crafted option... looks a bit odd, but won't hide her face. Problem is the weird light/powder blue coloration... there are variations on this theme though, with different colors available... surf the GTN! "Faceless Visor" - http://www.torhead.com/item/cpIV4Gn/rd-06b-eliminator-headgear or http://www.torhead.com/item/2sSpFDX/td-06b-eliminator-headgear I only saw the RD version on the GTN, but it's got reddish accents, so depends on if that color works for you or not. Not sure where the TD version comes from. Kinda reminds me of Cobra Commander or something. haha! "Destro look" - http://www.torhead.com/item/cQn4J5/marauders-foundry-hood More odes to GI Joe... I think this can be farmed out of the Boarding Party flashpoint, but I forget where I got it exactly. Anyhow, I'll keep at it to see what else items we may have missed along the way... I wish we had an external model viewer already!

oh wow, this is awesome info. so i went and made a quick run to DK and killed both champs... the one inside the dark temple, Valen Korik, dropped the TD-17A Imperator Belt on my first try... more farming to come on these for my alts for sure! these are pretty prime for farming... low traffic, 5 minute respawn... sheesh. edit: not sure if there is anti-farming code with these mobs... after like 3 kills, Tipton didn't drop any loot at all for me? weird. TBH, proc rate on augments is far too low unless you severely out-skill the item, which isn't possible for Rakata, obviously. the least bioware could do is throw crafters a bone and proc augment slots on Rakata gear by default as a perk...

This is excellent info! Time to go champion hunting in DK.... Any idea where/what the other class 4pc sets are named? Would be good to know for reference on all my alts. Thanks again.

Totally agree. I have the silly Geordi-like agent goggles on her right now because they're orange and the least dumb-looking of the medium armor pieces that I've found so far. That would be ideal... wish that headpiece came in an orange flavor. I've seen some Mako's set up on my server in medium Sith armor so that she looks like she's in a dress and such too, which is amusing. Some of the Sith Marauder armor might not be too bad I guess, as an option. My buddy set her up in the Imperial Agent L40 PvP set (I think) so she has that "Splinter Cell" operative-in-a-wetsuit look going on. My Mako has been wearing the Black Talon Operative trenchcoat forever now... I like that look. If that trenchcoat model came in a darker/black color and if I could find matching shoes and pants, that would be awesome. For the skanky look, you either need the Social II Slave Girl outfit or the security-key Imperial Dancer outfit to make it happen... usually though, the helmet and belt ruin those outfits (and they are Light armor).

This is great info. Thanks for sharing this. I have been struggling on my Arsenal Merc to survive most melee attackers... they just tear the crap out of me. Tbh, I think one easy fix would be to either give Rocket Punch a longer knockback or maybe a 1 talent point root or knock-down option. The short distance it knocks people back means that in the span of GCD they are right back in your face again, so it's sort of worthless in that regard. The only time it's good is to knock people off a ledge (if they are close enough...), which is way too situational. Left to my own devices, I do agree, our burst is a bit nuts if you pop the right cooldowns and fire off everything at once.

cool thread. i was wondering if someone was collecting detailed data on slicing returns, and of course, the internet never lets us down. just one thing i noticed... at 400 slicing, i've never seen the non-green mission "The Azure Databanks"... was it removed?

or, on the flipside, maybe they want to give us a reason to use the hutt trade network...

1st run of "A Test of Intelligence" for 3115 credits returned 3261 credits and an Advanced Command Augment (+28 Presence)... this was at 391 Slicing Skill. 2nd run of "A Test of Intelligence" for 3115 credits returned 3232 credits and an Advanced Resolve Augment (+28 Willpower)... this was at 400 Slicing Skill. honestly, I wish they'd return more credits considering how rare these things are to find... I seem to get a plethora of Underworld Trading missions on my crits... go figure. Maybe over the entire population of players the randomness is less apparent when you only have a small (personal) sample... the overall numbers we will never see as customers...

excellent. thank you.

oh, ok... just using different terminology then. e.g. when I "crit" an earpiece with Cybertech, it is "Exceptional" (Green) or "Advanced" (Blue) when it gets an augment slot. We should probably just universally call them all "crits" for sake of discussion since it prefixes differently even within one crafting skill.

What's sort of silly, is that at 400 Slicing, you have no choice other than two green missions for lockboxes... so in a way, they make the choice for you. Over the very long term, the profits should be positive, but it's at a rate of no more than 200-300 credits at a time, with the odd crit once in a while (very rare)... with both missions taking anywhere from 20-30 minutes to run. In fact, I think some of the crit returns I had in the 380-something skill range brought back over 5k credits (post-nerf), e.g. at 386 skill I ran "Taking Back Control" for 2025 credits and received 5659 credits and a purple mission as return, but I have yet to see anything remotely close from a L49-50 mission. Looking at my little list when I started tracking post-nerf Slicing starting at 320 skill, I have had a total of only *six* crit returns where I managed to receive double return on investment... I've had crits at 400 skill, but only one of them returned double returns... very odd. I kind of wonder if there is a sweet spot somewhere at less than the max skill missions where the potential returns are slightly higher?

correct... the hutt trade network on nar shaddah is cross-faction... but honestly, who goes to nar shaddah to shop for anything? i suggest wallpaper.

not sure why anyone would question this aspect of affection at all... it's been mentioned several times that affection affects crafting effectiveness. what i'm not sure about is how affection level translates into actual +efficiency (and possibly +crit) stats for crew skills? i want to guess that each companion affection level 1-5 might be the same as +1 to efficiency and crit, but i don't have any means to test this effectively.

i've only found two of these recently... while my Mako isn't 10000 affection, she's running the 2nd one currently and i'll update you later. i am currently at 400 skill. On Mako, the mission currently takes only 1h 45m with just shy of 8000 affection (i think). the first one i ran with 2V-R8 back when i had only about 391 slicing skill and he returned a purple augment and only 3261 credits. seems like unless these "epic" missions crit, they aren't really that great given how rare they are? kinda disappointing.

Just curious what you mean by "mastercraft"? Thanks.

This is my understanding too.... power/alacrity for a bodyguard healer, crit/surge for an arsenal dps (to a limit), etc. Is there more to it? From the discussion in the other posts, it sounds like power is not scaling as well as crit/surge for healers, but it seems odd if it is intended that bodyguards be a crit-heavy healing class... but not totally unheard of, either, i suppose... PS great post by the OP. this should be stickified in this forum...

I more or less paid for my L25 speeder by selling L15 ear pieces to the demanding masses... all of them literally sold within an hour of listing... repeatedly. So I'm not sure what the OP is talking about...

Running fine on my 3+ yo Q9400 quad core rig (4GB RAM) with a pair of ATI 6850 cards in Crossfire. This under Win7 x64. Make sure you are running the latest drivers... v. 11.12 as of this this writing (released on 13 Dec 2011): http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx Always update the CAP files regularly as well. In addition, always keep an eye on this page for hotfixes too: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Catalyst1111cperformance.aspx Looks like the 12.1 preview drivers are out, but I'm not going to bother there. If my old rig can run this game happily at "High" settings across the board (no AA) at 40+fps, anyone should be able to...

to the OP, if you really want to know, just look up ops-type descriptions for almost any major web service out there. everything is more or less a monster-sized database with a pretty front end (your client, in this case, labeled with fancy TOR graphics). all the backend DB admin and hardware maintenance has to happen like any other system of this sort... if not moreso to quell the raging geek hordes... optimizing and maintaining the database system that is behind the curtain of the typical MMO is not glamorous, but it's what you pay them to do.

7/27 pre-order code... just got in. wave 4 clearly opened up a bit wider. good luck all!