some recipes, like armor and weapons, have multiple outputs. like when you reverse engineer the green you could get a blue version for a dps, or a blue with tank stats, and so on. the dps blue would reverse engineer into the purple blue, and same with the other versions. Its just a way of making the items better for different Advanced Classes. As for the superior thing, that just shows whether the item itself is a crit. Green/blue/purple just shows the quality of the schematic, and has nothing to do with whether the item itself critted.

um... so you dont suck on the way to level cap? pre end game crafted stuff is almost always the best gear you can get at that level. I've got 400 in every single skill with purple schematics of every recipe i can find, and with the exception of a few prototype purples with slightly better stats, all my gear on all my toons that arent at level cap yet is crafted stuff. And tbh, this is a Bioware game afterall, its not about racing everyone to level cap just to prove to others you have no life, its about enjoying the game. So if he likes working with the crafting system, he should be able to. Just cause you have different priorities doesnt mean you should beat down others experience of the game.

you'll get access to the next tier of missions every 65xp, give or take a few xp.

Check the reward size for the mission you are attempting. Moderate/Abundant missions pretty much never produce crits. Bountiful have a small chance of crits. Rich and Prosperous are the best, though i dont remember which order they are in, the lower of them of has a good chance, and the higher one will always crit and produces a fairly large amount of every single resource from that tier. But yeah as the above poster said, you need a mission discovery off another player or the gtn to access those highest yield missions.

those "sit back and wait for your crew to bring you a box of money" gathering skills were never truly meant to be peoples main form of profit cause theres no real effort involved, hense all the nerfs lately. However, production skills are highly profitable if you actually take the time and effort to produce blue/purple schematics. There are plenty of people out there willing to pay large amounts of money for upgraded gear. Consumables are always the best money maker in every mmo i've ever played, so Biochem would be your best bet, logically. But remember, this is a brand new game, there arent that many people out there yet with maxed craft skills and blue/purple schematics for every single recipe, so really any production craft skill would be good. Just pick something that interests you, or that would produce gear your class could use.

Honestly at this point, at least on my server, there doesnt seem to be much demand for consumables. Everyone seems to be under the impression all we can make is medpacks, and that they are useless cause they think its the healers job to heal you. I've put tons of stacks of all types of consumables on the gtn, for prices lower than it takes to make them, but they rarely sell. The main issue is the fact that so many people dont know how to make money, so they dont have the money to buy your products. I personally just sell/trade all my biochem stuff to friends and guildies without care for profit, as i've got more than enough money just siting there from quest rewards and vendor trash.

I personally chose Biochem on my main. Those reusable medpacks/stims/adrenals are just awesome. I make more than enough money questing and selling those consumables i make, that i can buy pretty much everything else my toon needs.

50 seems more than enough, for me at least. In fact i had no idea it was that high to begin with. I rarely get the opportunity to sell items on the gtn though, as i trade almost exclusively with friends/guildies.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=5432 That post has a spreadsheet showing what to craft at what level. So far i've only 400'ed Biochem and Armormech, but that spreadsheet was invaluable in efficiently leveling both. I cant say for sure about costs though, cause i've never had an issue having enough money laying around.

Reverse engineering just breaks down the item, destroying it. In the process you get some mats back, and a chance at figuring out a way to improve it, giving you the next tier schematic for that item. Doing that even if only for the returned mats makes crafting faster/cheaper in the long run. And since your companions do everything there's no real effort involved, you can continue leveling while they provide you with new gear. And of course you wouldnt just stop crafting once you got some purple gear. As you level up you'd replace it with higher level purples as you craft them. As for choosing gathering skills though, it really doesnt matter, cause you'll make so much money as you level up that you can always buy the mats you need.

But its not true. There are tons of ways to make money. People are just being lazy and wanted a way for the game to just hand them free money, so Bioware nerfed it. If you are really that sorely in need of money, go actually do something, like another craft or maybe even a few quests. ************ about it wont get you anywhere.

As a tank its imperative to have good armor, so i'd recommend Armormech as your crafting. You'll want scavenging and underworld trading as your gathering/mission skills, to provide all the materials needed to make armor.

Mission skills also give you materials for crafting. Once you craft a green item you can reverse engineer it to get the blue schematic, and again for the purple. You need the mats provided by those mission skills in order to make those blue/purple items. As long as you keep your crafting leveled with you, those blue/purple crafted items are vastly more powerful than any quest rewards you can get at the same level, and in some cases are even better than orange flashpoint drops.