Thanks for the fast, if disappointing, answer. I edited my original post to include a second question, but you responded faster than I edited. Are the level 50 color crystals the best ones? No upgrades since then?

I made it to level 60 and geared up with 186 rating gear, mostly through crafting but I also used some basic comms. Now I'm looking at upgrading to 192 gear. It looks like the only way to upgrade is by buying armor from the "level 55 elite gear" vendor on fleet, and then ripping the mods from it. The problem is then I have to buy 1 of each armor piece for the armor (since it is keyed to whatever slot it came from, so armor from boots will only go on boots), and then for each piece that didn't come with the mod and enhancement I wanted I have to decipher what is on each piece on the vendor, buy the piece, take the mod and/or enhancement I want, and basically trash the armor piece and the shell. For example, I'm currently running 3 accuracy enhancements on my 186 gear. Since only the chest piece of 192 gear comes with accuracy, does that mean I have to buy 3 chest pieces to get the enhancements I want? Is this really the way this is supposed to work? It seems incredibly complicated and painful to do it this way, not to mention all the extra commendations I need to collect. The PVP vendor looks like there are individual mods listed rather than having to rip them out of armor. Am I just missing where to buy the PVE ones? Second question - I don't see any color crystals after the level 50 ones. Are those the best color crystals you can get?

Thanks! It sounds like I don't need to do my class quests. Or any more of them anyway - I have done some and I do have my ship. I don't think I care about legacy. I'm not really sure what it gains you. I know I've gotten at least a few ranks of legacy though, so I have gotten some somehow.

From talking to a friend in game and skimming the forums, it seems the normal route to credits/gear when hitting 50 is to do daily quests on Belsavis and Ilum for commendations and money. It also sounds like you can't do the dailies unless you have gotten to some certain point in your class quest line, which I'm assuming is fairly far along. I don't like to quest. Last time I tried I lasted less than 10 minutes before I quit the game in irritation. Is it possible for me to gear up/get credits by pvp'ing or doing flashpoints and operations? I hear there are some gear changes coming soon in 1.2. Should I just wait until 1.2 comes out? I'm level 48 I think (it's been a little while since I logged in) so I'm pretty close to 50. I don't mind gearing up in other ways if it takes a little longer, but if there is no real alternative I guess I better start working on my class quests. I do have 1000/1000 pvp commendations as well as several hundred medpacks and adrenals (nothing else to spend commendations on), so I have a jump start on PVP gear if that helps.

So say you're level 10. You form a group and do Esseles, which takes 30 minutes. Maybe you're level 11 by the end. The next flashpoint is hammerstation (level 17 IIRC). So what, you're going to solo quest with a group for 6 levels? Yeah, that's great "group" content. The heroic quests are so easy most people either solo or duo them, but even if they weren't that's not 6 levels of content. Do you truly not understand that or are you just playing dumb?

It's not very well designed for group play, which I think is your main gripe (and mine). I've only played one other MMO, but in that one you could form a group and play together as long as you like, either running instances or dungeons until you're ready to log. SWTOR you form a group, do an instance or a couple heroic quests, and the disband and go off solo again. I'm finding it's mostly not worth the hassle of finding a group. There were a couple weeks where I couldn't even get up the motivation to log in, but I'm playing again and hoping once I get to max level things will be more group friendly. I see a lot of people advertising for hard mode instances in level chat anyway. And yes, the UI is awful. Not just buggy, but really feature poor too.

Too bad it's just the bonus ones. I stopped picking up any quests other than my class ones because of this.

Thank you thank you thank you. Not ideal, but I've been looking for a way to do this since the game launched. Setting tags to know who to kill next feels very noobish and wasteful, this is a decent alternative.

I've gotten most of my XP from PVP and space missions. I have a lot more fun doing that than solo questing. Not that the space missions are hard, but it's harder than "Run to point A and talk to NPC #1. Run to point B, slaughter 10 incredibly weak mobs on the way, and talk to NPC #2." Group missions are even easier, and flashpoints are few and far between.