Are there any plans to introduce new high level gear sets that actually look good? I recently hit 50 on my BH Merc, and was severely disappointed when I saw the armor sets available to me. They look so ridiculous that I feel compelled to use lower level gear that looks passably decent instead. Fins/Ridges on top of the helmet... sticks coming out of the back... I'd look like the Power Rangers villain-of-the-week, only more ridiculous.

I concur.

What's a good build for solo pve?

The Bonus Series is not the same as the Bonus Quests you get regularly. The Bonus Series is usually started by an NPC at the planet's Spaceport, and most often is started after you've just about finished all the other quests on the planet. This conversation will set you out on a new quest chain, and in some (if not all) cases will send you to quest hubs that you had not visited before. As long as you aren't too tired of the planet by this point, it's a good and easy way to grind XP and credits. The down side to this is that most times when you get this quest, you had already finished the planet and were excited to be finally getting off that rock, and then BAM! Gotta spend a few more hours dirtside...

Personally, I enjoy skipping the Flashpoints and Heroics so that I can just level solo. Once I'm high enough, I'll then go back and do the FP's by myself just so I can view the story. Even if you are too high to get XP from a Flashpoint, you can still get a good amount of Lightside/Darkside points and Affection from your companion.

They are just symbols. The meaning of each is determined by the players at time of use.

I find that credits are fairly easy to come by. I've bought speeders for two of my toons, and am back up to probably around 500k spread out among my multitude of alts. There are a few easy rules to follow that will help bring in the credits. 1. Loot EVERYTHING!!! Be sure your preferences are set to loot the area so you don't have to do it mob by mob. 2. Vendor all your grays. Don't destroy anything...there's no reason to when you can just send your companion off to sell them for you. It only takes 1 minute. 3. Don't vendor green's or above. Check the vendor to see what they'd sell for, and then place them on the GTN at a reasonably inflated price. Gear is easy to get in this game, so don't mark up a green at 500% and expect it to sell. I'll normally mark up my greens about 200 credits and sell them. Not a big price hike, but they sell quickly which is what I want. If you put up a green and it doesn't sell right away, try lowering the price a bit and relisting it. If the price wasn't much higher than the vendor amount in the first place, go ahead and vendor it. 4. The GTN is your friend...get to know it! Similar to #3 above. When you have blues, oranges, purples, or special items like mods, missions, schematics, check the GTN for similar items and use those prices as a guide to what price you should be setting. 5. Don't play the GTN. We've all heard the stories about how some people rake in the credits by buying and selling on the GTN all day. While this is tempting and may seem like easy money, it is a difficult skill to master and would be more likely to drain your credits instead of increasing them. 6. Don't buy gear on the GTN while leveling. If you are just leveling, and don't worry about pvp, then most of the time, that cool chest piece you are drooling over that is only 10k credits, would just get replaced by a quest reward in a couple levels. Only buy gear on the GTN if you are seriously focused on specific status (such as for pvp'ing), or you have money to spare. 7. Do the quests. Questing alone will provide a good and steady amount of income. If you just focus on your class specific quests, you will miss out on a lot of opportunities to gain xp and credits. Crew Skills 1. Take Bioanalysis, Scavenging, and Slicing. Don't take missions and don't try crafting. You can do that later. 2. Most silver (tough) creatures and droids can be harvested via Bioanalysis and Scavenging. Be sure to do this to all of them. 3. Don't send your crew on Bioanalysis or Scavenging missions. Just loot nodes and mobs that you come across in the world. 4. Sell your gathered materials in stacks on the GTN. Check the GTN first to see what the average stack size and price per stack is before listing. 5. Send your crew on Lockbox Slicing missions. Don't bother with the Augments. Always pick yield levels in this order (best to worst): Rich, Bountiful, Abundant, Moderate. Choose Moderate ONLY if no others are available and the title of the mission is orange (so it will give you points). The real money-maker in slicing are the Mission Discoveries. Slicing missions have a chance to return you a lockbox AND a Mission Discovery, which will unlock a Prosperous or Wealthy mission for a crew skill. I've listed some Mission Discoveries for 28k, and they barely lasted 20 minutes before someone snatched them up. That should be enough to give you some ideas. Credits really are easy to come by in this game, so as long are you are careful and clever, you shouldn't have any problems. Good luck!

Trust me...you'll use them. I LOVE my Naga. It took me a while to get used to the buttons, but I use all of them.

No vendors should ever sell an item of better quality than what can be crafted by a player with the appropriate skill level. I've no problem with the occasional rare drop that is better, but it defeats the purpose of having a crafting system if you are going to let NPC's sell better items. I believe (and fervently hope) that this is something they will address and balance out in the future.

I don't have the breakdown handy on my tablet, but once you get the skill up to 65 you can do the next level of missions, then around 130 (not sure exactly) you can o up to the next tier, and so on... Just keep plugging away. Also, for gathering skills (slicing, archaeology, bioanalysis, scavenging) be sure to loot the nodes you come across in addition to sending companions on missions. You will increase the skill level faster that way (not to mention acquiring more materials).

You could also ask in General if anyone has a dropped saber they'd be willing to give you. I usually end up vendoring most green drops and would be happy to mail one to somebody to help out.

I echo Darrklore's statement. In spread out groups sometimes I miss one of the mobs with Death from Above.

Has there been a new stealth nerf to slicing? Even after the first major nerf, I was still doing okay on my mission, usually getting at least a 10% gain, but now most of my missions end up with at least a 10% loss or more instead. Out of the past 20 missions I ran, only 2 actually resulted in gain, and each of those was less than 10%. These were the 41 - 48 Bountiful or Rich missions too, not the 49-50 ones.

That's because females don't flirt, they tease.

I've had some purple mission discoveries drop for crew skills that I plan to eventually pick up, but don't currently have. Are the rewards from these missions great enough for me to hoard these discoveries, or should I just sell them?

I agree with your post, but would suggest that games are not made worse by a few subscribers complaining and requesting things. Instead, games are made worse when developers choose to make changes to things based off of a few complains/suggestions, and fail to take into account side effects and long-term affects those changes would have.

If Ilum is high level, there needs to be (and prolly will be in the future) a level lock on it. That being stated, it seems to me that (if this is real....that "email proof" was laughably bad) the banned player was exploiting by going to a planet he had no business on to circumvent certain restrictions. The OP is clear that the only reason this player was on Ilum was to slice nodes in an area that he was not appropriately leveled for, which is a clear exploit for (in-game) financial gain, even if access was not restricted by the game mechanics yet. The player's toon should have been returned to the fleet along with an email (both in and out of the game) warning that this behavior would not be tolerated, but let's face it...there's nothing to show that this player hadn't already received (and ignored) such warnings before. On top of that, although GM's can catch offenders red handed, many times exploiters are caught only after being reported, so it stands to reason that this person was camping a node in a safe area, and got reported for it. Tough luck about the ban (if t's true) but the OP's friend shouldn't have been cheating.

Wind Crystals are a material used in some crafting recipes. Artifice uses them, and possibly Synthweaving.

I thought that this troll post was VERY good up until that point. He had it going nice and subtle, with enough points thrown in to start some good back and forth arguments, but dropping a "the end is nigh" statement in the week after launch when numbers are still climbing just makes it too obvious.

Completely agree! The notification window making us "accept" the results is ridiculous.

No, Juggernauts can only wield a single saber. They can hold items like a shield generator in the offhand though.

I"ve noticed this same thing on my toon as well. The GCD may need to be tweaked, but animations should definately be looked at. I like them, but not when they take so long as to make me miss. Does that help? I thought that this merely allowed you to queue up an action to be performed after the current action...

Is appearance the only difference between mod-able (orange) lightsabers? In other words, do they pull all stats only from the components you put in them, or is there an actual reason to upgrade from one orange saber to another?

Yep. My first blue drop was a failure. Potentially good rewards if they succeed though.

You may want to hold off underworld trading and pick up slicing instead just to give you a larger initial credit base.