This is what I've been thinking. The Armor to Mitigation formula isn't linear, so a reduction in armor does not directly lead to the same increase in damage. Since shatter shot does such poor damage, I'm not sure it pans out in the end. Giving up a snipe for a shatter shot already puts you in the hole. W/o a log, it's been too much of a hassle to try to figure out what the break point is for me at this point.

Biggest issues are that 1. Survivability is generally based on longish cooldown abilities that rely on cover and cover is easy to negate by LOS or CC. Leaving cover cancels the abilities. 2. Many of the defensive abilities only work against standard damage, but PvP has very little of it. 3. The CC abilities are sort of weak. Many break on damage (legshot and flashbang) and DOTs are common in 2 of the 3 specs. Cover pulse is buggy and often cumbersome. 4. Cover itself is buggy near ledges, which prime spots to setup for limiting LOS issues. (I use the sniper names, but issues are the same)

Not sure if you have it yet, but there is a marksman skill that knocks 1 sec off ambush after a snipe crit. This makes leading with laze for your first snipe, followed by a faster ambush the best rotation. I usually don't play marksman though so I can't help anymore than that. Distraction is a key power. The optimal use of it (and other interrupts) really separates the good from average PvPers. It requires a lot of knowledge of other classes and what they're trying to do.

IME, that is a bit of a rough stretch. As you said, it gets better with SoS as you then have a better single target rotation w/o leaning on snipe so much. Really, I don't think snipers are bad at PvE at all. Especially after Lokin, it's not hard at all unless you're always against +3s or more. It's not trivial, but it's not overly challenging either. Normal mob packs just get torn up. You can ambush one (and use ex. probe if you really want to drop them right away), then rotate frag & suppressive fire to tear the pack up.

I'm not sure how that was a major issue. It already was something like that for the newbie zone comms to the end game ones. It was a 2:1 ratio to go from a planet's comms to the next planets ones. As there are at least 10 planetary comm levels from the newbie zones to the late game ones (Korriban, Kaas, Balmorra, Nar, Tat, Ald, Taris, Quesh, Hoth, Bel, Voss...and I'm sure I missed some more planets), that's 1024:1 at least. Even 1-shotting lowbie guys, it'll take so many comms it can't possibly be worth it to farm newbie zones to trade in for high level loot.

Personally, I wouldn't get hung up on soloing 2+ heroics. Even those classes that are able to, usually can only do the earlier ones. It's not really worth the time/effort, other than to say you did. They're much faster as a team. The rewards aren't anything great in that you're sacrficing a lot by teaming (and not keeping it all for yourself...the real reward is the quest complete reward you'll get regardless of how you finish it).

I tend to agree. The only issues are in PvP where players will exploit your weaknesses. For PvE, there are no issues of note. The class plays fine. Sure, some tweaks would be beneficial but it is just as viable as anyone else. Evasion works fine since most mob powers are ranged/melee attacks, nothing in PvE uses LOS effectively (or at all), your interrupts are very handy, the lack of tech/force defense from cover isn't critical as you shouldn't be the focus of the enemy to begin with (tanks should be), the immob/no cover issue largely is irrelevant as very few mobs use immobs and even fewer use AOE ones. I could see if for some reason they didn't have a AC yet with a long term CC power, a sniper wouldn't help but that would be an odd situation as it's hard to get a balanced group w/o one.

Combine that with the fact that aim and cunning are mutually exclusive (you never see both and you must take one or the other...both don't appear on 1 item), and aim is the clear winner.

It varies a little bit between classes and how fast you progress but it's usually around L30.

I think you're conflating sorcs and assasin specific powers

Marksman is the default tree for most people. It's good single target burst. Ballistic Dampeners are a good skill to pickup for any sniper as well. Least mobile of the specs as the powers are mostly cover based as is the energy regen skill. Lethality is a DOT heavy focused tree. The entire tree really requires Cull and good crit % to be viable on its own. I would use another tree until at least until the 30s. It has the best mobility and is preferred for PvP. Least dependent on cover. Engineering is more defensive late game (especially if you grab ballistic dampeners). It's more AOE focused than the other two with decent single target damage after electrified railgun. It's not as closely tied to cover as marksman, but the key powers of explosive probe and electrified railgun/series of shots require cover so you do use it most of the time.

SWG certainly had the best, most complex, and rewarding crafting in the genre. (If only the rest of the game was so deep and polished) The thing is, it really fit the game well and the game was really built around it. All the professions and players were interdependent, and basically everything was crafted. Even at "max level" crafted goods were in high demand using rare materials. I really liked how the mixture of materials would determine the quality, and it wasn't just a plug and play recipe to get X item identical to all others. For pretty much every game since, this style of crafting just wouldn't work well. It (in it's purest form) unfortunately requires the game to be designed around it. You can't just tack it onto a theme park game as it just isn't thematically right. It'd be nice if the crafting was a little deeper in TOR, but it won't ever be to the level of SWG. The only drawback of the system was that it was a real time sink. The constantly moving resources meant you were always fighting to get as much as you could before they reset/changed and moving harvesters around.

I think these are all bigger issues. Range really won't fix what's holding the class back. Even 10m is only 1 extra GCD worth of attacking on someone who notices you. People say how many CC powers we have, but the CC powers are actually so-so in terms of effectiveness. Flashbang is just an interrupt for Lethality and Engineering. It's worthless as a CC power. Both those specs rely on DOTs (corrosive gren, dart, and int. probe), so flashbang naturally gets canceled almost immediately. Legshot takes too long to actually immob someone and is very short lived. Cover pulse is buggy but effective enough when it works. Debilitate is great, but you really want people to stay at range so it's mechanically less than optimal.Headshot & the melee version don't work in PvP. Armor mitgation seems to be hitting us pretty hard.

I always found that around Tatooine, tank companion's effectiveness really starts to drop off. Before that, they work great with little issues. After that point, they're near death in every fight or dead (I've yet to make a heal spec'd character out of multiple above L30). Often DPS companions will work better simply b/c they clear the foes out further and have comparable mitigation. Heal companions let you tank the fights just fine and can keep themselves standing longer.

You can only have 25 missions. Either turn a few in, or abandon some in your log.

Suppressive fire should be able to be targetted during the GCD period before you can fire it. As it stands, you don't get the targetting reticle until you're off GCD, then you can target and fire it. It makes it cumbersome to use and messes with the flow. Evasion should work against force, ranged, and tech damage (but not melee) and it wouldn't hurt to have a 5 sec duration. Leg shot immobilizes at the start of the animation. As it stands, the target can run a good 10m between the button press and before actually being immob. Better armor penetration against heavy armored targets.

A little more mobility than marksman, but you're still reliant on a number of cover-based skills. The single target attacks revolve around railgun and explosive probe so you'll be in cover more than not IME. Ambush and snipe are still key filler abilities. It has better AOE than marksman, which can be used out of cover. A bit more cooldown dependent than marksman (int probe and explosive probe both have moderately long cooldowns.) In my marksman experience up to mid-game, it's near the same at least until followthrough.

Any new computer with 6 Gb RAM (4 GB will work, but is a little low) and a descrete graphics card that does share system RAM will work fine. You may not be able to run at max settings, but you can run it at a high framerate.

Somewhat depends on spec. For Lethality, critical is more important than the other specs b/c of the energy regen talent requiring critical hits. You really need to get a high critical rating for sustainable energy regen.

There is a huge thread on this buggy fight. Basically send in a companion, then once they get aggro, put them on passive so they run back to you bring him to you. You need to get him off the "platform" area. You can then set your companion free. Interrupt him as much as you can to prevent the strong casts from landing. You can also kite him around the consoles to break line of sight.

Just to be clear, MM is not the only viable choice end game. It's just that it tends to be better at lower levels with ballistic dampeners IMO and the other trees not getting their signature powers. Speaking late game: Lethality is really good for PvP, mobility, and taking down heavily armored targets. Damage tends to be more back loaded and good crit rating is needed to proc the energy regen talent. It really focuses on maximizing Cull damage. Engineer has the best general survivability with some nice defensive talents. Mobility is average of the sniper specs. It has a very predictable, on demand energy regen that can also be talented to give some health regen. MM is the least mobile with it's energy regen talent requiring cover. Followthrough is very energy efficient damage. It's more a classic sniper tree.

To do it purely for the LS/DS alignment points, sure it's expensive and time consuming. But it is still needed for medical supplies for biochem.

MM is the best leveling spec IMO. The other specs require L30+ skills to really come into their own. Lethality needs cull, and engineer for most PvE is basically just a MM w/o ballistic dampeners until you get to cluster bombs, EMP, and railgun. After you get to around L35, you can swap skill trees if you want. The respec is free for the first one (and for the first each week?) so you're not married to any choice. For any of the trees, it's best to just pick one and go all the way up. There are some hybrid builds that are potentially viable end game, but hybrids typically suffer from energy management issues (most of the energy management skills are high in the trees).

Like Lethality, Engineering is a later blooming spec. It's not anything special until you get cluster bombs, EMP, and railgun IMO. Interrogation probe is also a key power for the snare and combo with EMP. Plasma probe is a decent area denial power in PvP to prevent objective caps. I think marksman is by far a better choice (in PvP and as a leveling build) until the 30s than either lethality or engineering. Lethality might even be later than that depending on how well you can stack crit. Engineers a little less mobile than lethality but a generally more predictable energy regen mechanic and a little more surivable. Lethality is really dependent on cull and is susceptible to that being interrupted/locked out. Lethality damage is more backloaded than engineering. Lethality benefits by rare use of cover, which prevents the giant "gank me" cover screen from being deployed.

Failed diplomacy missions can reward non-integer values for (darkside) alignment points. I recieved something like 2.2000000247 darkside points for one.