This reasoning behind this is so that they can give you Companion-only and self-only gear and not deal with disparities between classes. If, say, Aric Jorgen could equip 'Trooper' gear, it would be an advantage for Troopers compared to other classes while they're leveling up. Admittedly they really ought to explain this better in-game, because a LOT of people seem confused by the restrictions on class-specific gear.

Also sometimes demanding or turning down a credit reward gives LS/DS. But other than that and affection, no, there is no real effect.

Assuming you're just talking about secondary stats (alacrity, surge, power, crit) then it's hard to go wrong with Power, which improves your healing throughput (ie, HPS, how fast you can heal) as well as efficiency (since each heal costs the same amount but has a bigger effect). Crit makes you have more critical heals, which (when you're lucky) improves your throughput a lot, but it's hard to count on. If you're going to go this way you probably want to try to get a *lot* of Crit and combine it with Surge. Alacrity improves throughput but *not* efficiency -- your heals cast faster but they don't individually get any bigger. As noted above, this is more of a PvP benefit, at least right now.

This is on purpose, I'm sure. I've seen way too many WoW characters with names you can't type on a US keyboard because they're full of accented characters. Because it's against the current naming policy/conventions (names start with a capital letter, only one capital letter allowed). I think the idea is that it's supposed to be an actual 'name', not your personal handle, and in the SW universe apparently All Names Start With Capital Letters. I've never seen a direct developer response to suggestions, but I do know they read the forums, and if there are a lot of complaints they may change the naming policy. You might try over in the Customer Service forum as well.

Rusk is a pure ranged DPSer. It helps if you focus him as either AOE or single-target by picking a stance and disabling some of his other abilities. Scourge is designed as a tank. I've tried him as DPS and I didn't think he was as good as Kira in most cases, since she does better AOE, and his self-heal ability seems pretty underwhelming. (My JK is a Guardian tank, so I haven't tried Scourge for tanking, but he's clearly built that way based on the gear he comes with.) Re: Scourge:

Devs said it's coming, just not in 1.2. Patience is... I dunno, like a Jedi virtue or something.

The only thing you can do is toggle them into 'passive' mode (CTRL+2 by default, or their second hotkey slot), and then they will run to where you are. If you then toggle off 'passive' mode, they'll stand there and start shooting/healing from that location. If you tell them to attack something out of range, I *think* they will run into range of that enemy, but I haven't played around with this too much. There is no 'move here' command currently available for Companions.

'Orange' gear has its stats determined entirely by the level/quality of the mods in it. With all 'purple' mods, it's at least as good as 'purple' gear of the same level (as the mods). The general info I've seen is that 'blue' is about three levels above 'green', and 'purple' is about three levels above 'blue' in terms of gear quality. So, e.g., a L40-required green item would be about equal to a L37-required blue, or a L34-required purple. Same for mods in an orange item.

Most enemies have a 'class' or 'type' of some sort listed, and for humanoids you can see what kind of weaponry they're holding. e.g. if the word 'fire' appears in the enemy's type, there's a good bet they have some kind of fire-based special attack. If they are holding a sniper rifle, expect to get Aimed Shot or Snipe headed your way. If they are a 'medic', they probably have healing abilities. There's a particular build of mech that usually has the missile barrage attack. You DO want to interrupt that one if you can... hurts like a sonofa*****.

It's slightly 'cheaper' to buy just mods than whole orange items. Weapons are 14 commendations, but a barrel/hilt+mod+enhancement+crystal would only be 13. Armor pieces cost 12, but the three mods together are only 11. If you have a few commendations left, definitely buy loose for any extra orange pieces you or your companion have! They aren't good for anything else. Some planets also have a few orange or blue armor pieces available for purchase with credits.

Most enemy special attacks do 'elemental' or 'internal' damage that bypasses armor, so it can end up doing a lot more damage than you'd think. If you're specced for DPS, either use a healing companion (who can heal the damage), or use a tanking companion and send them in first -- then the enemies will use the DOTs on them rather than you!

You're not missing any storyline. The bonuses are just killing enemies or clicking objects in the game world. MOST of the time if there's a special enemy to fight, they're just hanging around that same area if you're really dying to beat them down. (In a few cases you have to do something to summon the 'final stage' elite, and if you turned in the main quest prematurely you can't fight them.)

*You* somehow took your basic focus-builder (probably 'Strike' if you're a JK) off your toolbar. I've seen a few people who have done this. Hit 'P' to bring up your ability panel, find your focus-builder attack, and put it back in the '1' slot on the quickslot bar in the bottom middle part of the screen. Now you can right-click enemies or hit '1' to do your basic attack again. You might want to make sure your other abilities are all there too. There's a little lock icon you can hit near your character portrait to make sure you don't accidentally move your abilities around when you don't want to. Not sure what the OP is going on about. If you're in Soresu form you generate less focus from attacks (but will auto-regen some focus every few seconds when you're being attacked). Otherwise your focus generation should always be the same.

Try the guide linked in my sig, but... basically, any elite that's four levels higher than you is going to be a very tough fight. You also don't have your interrupt ability yet, which is clutch against most bosses. It's not like Mass Effect where the game auto-scales everything to your level. It's quite possible to get in WAY over your head in SWTOR if you're in the wrong area or aren't leveled up, or your gear is subpar.

Yes, a bunch of headpieces interact badly with Miraluka masks right now. Hopefully BW will fix these in the future, but it's probably a low priority relative to fixing gameplay bugs and getting new content out.

You'll certainly make more money if you take Slicing. You can good gear and/or mods if you keep up your crafting skills, but it can get expensive to keep it leveled up. Other than a few times I made myself a shield generator, I didn't get much out of Artifice while leveling a JK. An armoring skill might be more generally useful because there are more slots the items you make can go in. Unless you invest enough to be able to make 'purple' mods or pieces all the time, the gear you craft won't be better than what you can get with Commendations. As you do missions, you get 'planetary commendations' that can be traded in for orange (customizable) gear and 'mods' that can go into any customizable pieces you already have. So you'll probably end up with some of it just from that. You can also find or buy 'orange' gear. And you can swap mods from one piece of gear to another. It's not as complex as it sounds. Orange gear is as good as the mods you put in it. So a piece with all blue mods of, say, level 30 is about as good as a level 30 blue item, maybe a bit better. It's certainly not mandatory, but it's really nice if you want a specific 'look' for your character. You can keep the same piece of gear forever and just switch out the mods. Flashpoints are optional instanced 'dungeons' designed for four players to go through together. They can be repeated as often as you want. Depends on the server, time of day, and level range. On lower-population servers it can be annoying, from what I've read. Not right now, no. Devs have talked about doing a more automated queueing system, but no ETA on that. Some of them have cool (IMO) 'storyline' stuff, but it doesn't tie into the main class storylines. You get good gear rewards relative to solo content, but you also need four people and at least an hour of time. Instanced PvP matches. There are Operations for 8 and 16 players at level 50. There are also 'Heroic' missions on each planet designed for either 2 or 4 players.

Many side quests also give you a choice of companion rewards, some of which will be armor/accessories for T7. Crafters can also make droid armor. And he uses normal blasters and shields/generators.

Well, there's improved UI customization coming in 1.2. That's likely to add some things that would be useful for raid healing. Full UI customization/replacement like in some other MMOs is going to be a while off, if ever.

Bounty Hunters get a healing companion very early on compared to most classes. This helps a LOT against tougher bosses. Heavy armor and good AOE DPS doesn't hurt either...

You can try my guide for suggestions (link in sig), but you should normally get plenty of gear from commendations and quest turnins to keep everything fairly close to your level for both you and your companion. Also check the market on each planet for any orange/blue gear you can buy with Credits. You can also buy pretty much anything on the Galactic Trade Network... if you have lots of credits to burn.

...once you have a pocket healer, yes. Until you get Doc things can be a little rough (though very doable). The guy who can't kill a single elite is doing something way wrong.

It's possible to get to Valis without having your interrupt yet, which makes him VERY hard to kill solo. Or people just don't realize that enemy special attacks slice through armor like a hot lightsaber through butter. The Sand Demon is a straightforward fight (a 'tank and spank' in MMO parlance), but unless you are well-geared and blow all your cooldowns you can't just stand there and beat him into the ground yourself like most enemies. If a healing companion was available sooner it would make things WAY easier for people who are having trouble.

They can actually use any item or mod that's bound to you (and vice versa), in case that wasn't obvious.

I have a Saitek keypad, and you have to use their programming software (downloadable from the Saitek website) to program it before it will do anything useful. I assume any programmable keys on their keyboard work the same way.

Was on vacation when this got posted, so bumping it. I wrote a very handy guide just for folks having trouble like this; try the link in my sig. There are also lots of good guides (including mine) linked in the sticky threads in the 'new player help' forum. The forum for your class usually also has guides and advice about how best to use your particular class/advanced class in combat. Some of the class quest bosses are tricky, or will require you to actually play smart if you're equal-level or below. But they're all beatable solo with reasonable gear at equal level. (The JK Sand Demon on Tattooine probably gave me the most trouble. It's straightforward but just a tough mofo, and you don't have a healing companion at that point.)