[Reverse engineering bug post patch?]

I'd like to chime in on this as well. I'm the top cybertech on my server. Before 1.1, I had already RE'ed all the level 49 mods and armoring into epics. I already had reverse engineered all the level 49 green earpieces into ALL 30 different blue earpieces. Then, I had actually gotten 14 of the purple earpieces.

 

After patch 1.1 dropped, I have reverse engineered a total of 424 blue earpieces. The first one took me 201 to get the purple recipe. The second one took me 223.

 

I understand how things can be random and we could just collectively be having bad luck. The problem with people using the "you don't know what random means" excuse is...is that a bug COULD actually exist, and we would not have any way of knowing about it.

 

Something just seems OFF with my numbers regarding reverse engineering post 1.1. I was surprised to come here and find this topic.

 

I would agree with this, I understand random, etc. but in reading this thread and in talking to my guildies, other crafters I know and my own experiences it seems that there was a change, be it by bug or unannounced change, that the likelihood of learning a new schematic via R/E has been reduced since 1.1

[Is biochem worth lvling after nerf?]

If you are only looking for short-term profit then Biochem probably isn't for you. You can make good money just selling the mats and be done with it.

 

However the long-term profitability from Biochem comes not from money made in selling, it's in the money saved in buying. If you play long enough, and especially if you plan on raiding, then things like stims and such become much more important, most guilds expect/require you to use them during raids. If you are Biochem you get your handy dandy unlimited reuse purple stimpack that you made or bought and that's all you ever need. If you aren't Biochem then you are buying 2-4 stimpacks, per raid, every raid. And at what cost?

 

Personally I am gathering mats right now for my own Biochem grind for this very reason. I plan to raid and I plan to be playing this game for a good long time, and with the reusables I'm going to end up saving myself probably tens of millions of credits in stims and healthpacks over that time because of it, even if I never sell an item I make via Biochem.

[Commendations From Other Planets]

That feature was removed at the end of Beta. Sorry.

[400 Cybertech, Underworld & Scav - What do I make to sell at market?]

The jedi's in my guild keep ************ about how there are no +Str mods for sale on the commendation veondors for them in their early 40s, so making blue might armoring and mods versions 17-21 should sell well. I've had to research all those recipes for the jedi's in my guild and have been making those in bunches for them to keep them guild while they finish leveling.

[Trooper: Commando Gunnery Chain, what is the best?]

At 39 what I find myself doing for single target DPS on elites and champions is Grav Round x3, Cryo nade, Full auto, Grav Round x2, High Impact Bolt, Grav Round, Recharge Cells, Grav Round x3, Hammer Shot, Grav Round, High Impact Bolt, then if the fight isn't over (which generally means I'm fighting a chapion) I alternate Grav Round and Hammer Shot until I get 5 stacks of Charged Barrell then I throw in High Impact Bolt after the 5th Grav Round.

 

This is of course for soloing. When grouped I use FA on cooldown as long as the target has 4 or more gravity vortexes on it already because FA is your highest DPS skill for the ammo spent.

[So what's gonna happen to Slicing now?]

As someone above said I suspect as well they will buff it back up some, but not to where it was previously.

 

All the data right now that I've seen and gathered myself showed that pre-nerf it was about a 70% profit on average for missions. Now it's been nerfed to 15-20% profit, per mission, which on paper seems like a good deal until you realize that that profit is really only 350-400 credits for 30 minutes of your companions time for tier 6 missions.

 

My guess is they up it and split the difference to make it 35-40% profit so it'll still be profitable and that you won't have the issue you have now where a bad run with the RNG can kill your wallet because you got a bunch of missions in a row you took a loss on.

[Making money without a pre-slicing nerf main...]

One of the big problems I hadwith WoW was that you were screwed if you didn't take all gathering skills on your first char...

 

I'm currently working on a BH, level 15, and I'm alreadly running into credit trouble. My crew skills are cybertech, scavenging and underworld trading. Do I need to drop the crafting skill , or will I be able to make money? If yes, what strategy should I pursue?

 

With the info given what I would suggest is...

 

Don't send you crew on scavenging missions, only skill up scavenging in the real world, there are plenty of nodes out there in my experience to get and keep your skill up to or above when you need it to be. The only exception would be to get fluxes if you need them.

 

Sell any excess materials you harvest that you don't need to use to skill up on the GTN. That goes both for scavenging and underworld trading.

 

Don't buy anything except your skill and schematics from your trainers. You're going to be leveling fast it doesn't make much sense to spend money on items that you are going to out-level in a few hours worth of gameplay anyway, use your quest rewards and commendations gear while leveling and you'll be fine.

 

Don't forget to reverse engineer your crafting results while leveling up to get some mats back to either sell or lower the amount you need to harvest to skill up.

[What rotation do you use for Gunnery?]

Right now at level 29 for single target soloing I do

 

Grav Round

Cryo-grenade

Full Auto

High Impact Bolt

then spam Grav Round and use HIB off cooldown.

 

Thus far that has been working well for me, but once I get the grav round debuff boosting talent I'll probably change up my rotation to do 2 grav rounds prior to the Cryo-nade because 4 stacks will yield more DPS than the 1 I have now when I throw teh cryo, but I do it early so Elara will shoot during the stun timer as well adding a little DPS there currently.

[Slicing post-nerf, please look at the numbers BW]

My experience with slicing last night mimics many people here, where I had a number of negative results, and overall while I did profit, it was an insignificant amount. I ran 6 missions each with 3 different companions, none of them have slicing bonuses and my results were as follows:

 

Started with 351 slicing skill, ended with 371, slicing level 5 and 6 lockboxes

 

Comp 1: ran 6 moderate yield level 6 lockbock missions at a cost of 1415 credits each. Results were, in order: 1958, 1645, 1531, 2035, 1935, 1693

 

Comp 2: ran 6 abundant yield level 6 lockbox missions at a cost of 1485 credits each.

results were, in order: 3454, 1235, 1731, 1228, 1193, 1512

 

Comp 3: ran 6 rich yeild level 5 lockbox missions, 5 costing 1930 credits and one costing 2025 credits.

Results were, in order: 2269, 0, 6000, 2479, 1522, 2483

 

So over 18 attempts I had 1 failure, 5 other missions that lost money, 11 positive missions and 1 critical success. So 1/3 of the time I flat out lost money on the misson. Lets look at the overall numbers.

 

Credits spent on missions: 29075

Credits returned from missions: 35903

Total profit from missions: 6828

Average profit per mission: 379.333 credits

 

And that is with 1 critical result in a small sample size. There is 1 failure as well, which helps balance against the critical outlier, however the critical result was still more than double any other result so it is inflating the total and average profit to a degree.

 

So at the top end of slicing we are looking at a return on investment of about 400 credits for 30 minutes of your companion's time with a 33% chance of failure, failure being defined as any result that is not a positive cash gain. I'm not a business or math professional, but I can tell you that just looking at those numbers that the low rate or return combined with teh high chance of failure makes this skill practically worthless as it is currently and I hope that it will be readjusted in the near future.

[Server question.]

I'm sorry if this question has an obvious answer, but I need to know. I made my character on a west coast server by mistake, I live on the east coast, so will that really affect me to much? I mean, I know the lag and such are most likely as a result of the people flooding in due to the release of the game and such, but I just want to know if I should re-create on an east coast server before I get to far in with my character. Thanks in advanced for any answers.

 

The main effect that will have is a bit of latency and depending on your playtime and in-game goals it could effect things there as well.

 

What I mean by that is because it's a west coast server the "prime time" for that server is going to be later because most of the guilds and players are all going to be in the mountain and pacific time zones. What I refer to as "prime time" is the 7-10pm local window, which for you would be more like 10PM-1AM window would be when the server is populated the heaviest and the most events and raids are going to occur, because most of that stuff is scheduled during that server prime time. So if you have a job that has you working evenings, or you tend to stay up late or you don't mind playing when the server population is down some, then you shoudl be fine. Otherwise I'd consider moving.

[Server caps and those without EGA?]

A couple of my guildmates pre-ordered from various vendors and ended up not getting their pre-order codes from those vendors and such they are not going to be able to get into EGA. As EGA continues to ramp up and we did the math on how many accounts are already on the server from the pre-placed guilds my guildmates are starting to become concerned about the server cap being reached before they are able to login to the game on release day and create their character on the server our guild was assigned to. As they can't sign into the forums themselves to ask I'm asking on their behalf, are there any mechanisms in place, such as reserved slots or something else, that ensures that those who have an account in a prelaunch guild will be able to roll on the server their guild was placed on without worry of the server cap freezing them out?