Your analogy is the better one. I never revisited a crew skill after dumping it, so I've never had to consider that. Yeah, I remember taking Artifice specifically for the Rakata relics, then dumping it for Biochem. While it's nice to have the options of today, life was much simpler back then.

Yes. Let's say you had 450 Synthweaving and decided you wanted to have Artifice instead. If you click the "X" next to Synthweaving to unlearn it, when you pick up Artifice it will be at 0. You'll have to pick up the recipes from the Artifice trainer and work your way back up to 450. I imagine it's set up this way to prevent players from having all the crafting skills on one character. Each of the crafting skills is supposed to provide you with some incentive for specializing in it over something else. Biochem is the obvious one in that it's the only crew skill that allows stim/adrenal reusables. Cybertech gives you reusable grenades and the ability to craft armorings/mods (among other things). Armstech is probably the weakest in terms of "incentivizing" (barrels & non-main-stat augments) but some people like it. I liken the system to this: if you graduate from an undergraduate school with a degree in Psychology, you can't go back later and say "I can't find a job with this degree; I'd like to swap it for Computer Science." If you want the CS degree, you get to go back to school again.

That's an interesting perspective; I hadn't considered that. I read the linked article and didn't see any "official" comment from ABC speaking to it; has there been? While I certainly don't have a problem with the concept (I like how ABC has portrayed Mulan as the bada** that she is), I'm not necessarily convinced that her feelings were about Aurora. Now I'm very intrigued...and have to wait to find out. Curse you "Once Upon a Time"!! (no pun intended)

So, it doesn't really matter what you do with the two of them. Better to kill them all and let the Force sort them out.

I'd definitely roll with what NoFishing suggested. It sounds like you tried out the Carnage spec for Marauders; crazy fun to play but requires a lot of buff bar/CD watching and split-second decision-making in order to maximize damage output. It's fun for some people and an absolute chore for others. I recently switched from Carnage Marauder to Marksmanship Sniper because the team I raid on only had an opening for a rDPS. It's a night and day difference in play style. I still spend a bit too much time staring at my abilities bar since I'm relatively new to the class and have been getting more familiar with my skills. But you don't really ever have to check out your buff bar because you control when the procs pop. Followthrough, the single most used attack a MM Sniper spams, will always proc (CD immediately finished) after a successfully charged/channeled 2x Snipes, Ambush, Takedown, and Series of Shots (if the last hit doesn't kill the target). You never have to check to see if Followthrough proc'd off of CD after one of the aforementioned attacks, because it always does. In most fights, you're only using a handful of abilities in a fairly simple rotation and doing a ton of damage to boot. That, and Snipers look awesome in the Vendetta chest piece! But also like was stated above, the Sniper doesn't really shine until mid-way up the Marksmanship Tree when you get access to Followthrough.

I posted this in the first thread you started, but went ahead and copied it over here.

I've completed 3 SW playthroughs (1 light, 1 dark, 1 semi-neutral) and I can't recall Zylixx ever making a reappearance, either in-person or as a reference. I'll check the cut-scenes I recorded to verify (I doubt he would be referenced outside of the SW storyline.) LS Choice: I think the intent with the "LS" choice is to make both Jedi step away from battle. Zylixx clearly has some issues brewing, so he opts to press the attack rather than walk away as Uldin does. Once the SW defeats him, he/she offers the best advice that they can give (a "good" intent IMO) which is that the Jedi way is not the best path for Zylixx. The Dark Side is much more suited for his disposition and he can free himself from the shackles of the stifling Jedi code. I feel like it's a relatively "Light Side" thing to do in that my SW never viewed the Dark Side as an evil entity in and of itself. It's fueled by powerful emotions rather than evil thoughts or actions, so helping Zylixx understand that is actually encouraging him to accept who he truly is. However, I can't remember what Uldin does after he leaves. Does he relay your message to Nomen Karr/Jaesa? I want to say that Nomen mentions receiving news from Uldin in your next interaction (similar to the "LS" option at the end of the initial "DS" choice.) But without having access to the videos at the moment, I can't double-check. *shrugs* DS Choice: Even though I tend to play "good" characters, I've really come to enjoy the manipulation that Sith employ. In this choice, you goad Zylixx with the intention of getting him to and attack you (and violate his Jedi teachings). Essentially, manipulating him into abandoning his beliefs as opposed to convincing him that they're wrong (an "evil" intent). I think the difference here from the "LS" option is that your intent was to manipulate/destroy (DS) rather than rationalize/free (LS). Anyone else have thoughts?

This is pretty funny. Bravo!

True dat. Legacy of Crafting Clarification?

I kept track of my data on a tablet, so it was a little easier to log in the details; it would only take a few seconds to put a mark in the appropriate column and let Excel do the figuring. And since I was only tracking Slicing missions, there was less data to keep straight. However, I wanted to make sure that each companion ran the same mission each time to remove an additional variable. Most of the time, the runs would take 10 mins to get set up, but there were a few that took up to 20-25. About half of the characters are 50+, so if I didn't get "Unsliceable" and/or "Watching the Watchdogs", I only need to re-log once to get them both. About a quarter of the characters are in the low 20s, so with only 2 companions available to send out, it's taken as many as 4 re-logs to get what I needed. I was very cognizant of how long it took to get a run set-up so whenever I jumped onto the computer, I could let my wife know how long I'd be there. Me: "Hey, babe, I'm just going to jump on real quick...ten, fifteen minutes, tops!" Wife: "Uh-huh." *25 minutes later* Me: "Uhh...sorry, that took a little longer than I thought." Wife: "Uh-huh." *scowl*

I feel you on this. I had ambitions of getting around 100 rounds of Slicing data (~2,600 missions), but it really started becoming a chore after a couple of weeks. So I went ahead and posted what data had been collected thus far with the intent of updating in the near future. That is, whenever I can bring myself to chain-deploying 26 companions on perpetual Slicing missions again.

So, I saw this thread a couple weeks ago and decided I'd check to see what kind of results I would get if I ran a bunch of Slicing missions. I've loved this crew skill since just shortly after launch (too bad for the nerf...making credits hand over fist!!) so I'm always interested in better understanding this awesome gathering skill. Here's what I came up with: BACKGROUND - All missions run/documented were Slicing missions @ 450 Slicing - Total of 21 full rounds of mission deployment - All characters have Legacy of Crafting Level 3 - Missions run over the course of approximately two weeks - No real rhyme/reason to specific time companions were sent out; very random - All companions performed the same Slicing mission each time consecutively - Companions were selected for missions based upon individual bonuses, then affection level Companions with +Slicing bonuses were given “Unsliceable” Highest Affection non-Slicing companions were given “Watching the Watchdogs” - All missions were executed from the character’s ship - All missions were run then character logged off; never stayed logged in with character during missions Total # of Slicing Missions Run: 546 “Unsliceable” (“US”): 273 “Watching the Watchdogs”(“WW”): 273 Total Number of Characters Running Missions: 13 Agent: 1 Bounty Hunter: 2 Consular: 0 Inquisitor: 2 Knight: 3 Smuggler: 1 Trooper: 1 Warrior: 3 # of Companions at 10,000 Affection: 17/26 Lowest Companion Affection: 9291 Average Companion Affection: 9890 RESULTS Total # of Critical Successes: 102/546 = 18.7% # of “US” Critical Successes: 57/273 = 20.9% # of “WW” Critical Successes: 45/273 = 16.5% Total # of Critical Failures: 37/546 = 6.8% # of “US” Critical Failures: 17/273 = 6.2% # of “WW” Critical Failures: 20/273 = 7.3% Total # of Thermal Regulators Acquired: 320 Total Gross Cost for Missions: 2,084,355 credits Total Net Cost for Missions: 1,650,995 credits Adjusted for vendoring of all Bio-Mechanical Interface Chips & Augment Schematics Total Cost per Thermal Regulator: 5,159.4 credits/ea Calculated using Net Cost DISCUSSION Based upon numbers reported by others regarding critical success rates, it looks like I experienced a similar rate (~17-20%). However, it was interesting in that several characters carried more of the load for success, compensating for lower rates from other characters. For example, despite having a +Slicing trait on SCORPIO, my Agent saw only 1 critical success across 21 rounds of deployment for the droid with 1 critical failure as well. Ensign Temple was a huge disappointment with only 1 critical success to 5 failures. Compare that with Sentinel #2 who had T7 (also a +Slicing companion) that experienced 8 critical successes without a single critical failure. C2 on the same character had 4 critical success with 1 failure. All four companions across these two characters were at 10,000 affection. Sentinel #1 also saw a great deal of success with 7 critical successes (5 were T7) and no failures. The Guardian didn’t fair quite as well overall having 8 critical successes (5 were T7) but 5 failures (1 was T7). “US” appeared to see more success overall than “WW” did, with more critical successes and less failures. However, the difference wasn’t glaring and given the small sample size, no solid conclusions can be drawn from the finding without more data. CONCLUSION I don’t think anything is necessarily wrong with the critical success rate for Slicing and the acquisition of Thermal Regulators (a far cry from 2.0’s launch). While having affection maxed out, purchasing Legacy of Crafting perks and utilizing companions with +Slicing bonuses certainly can help boost chances at criticals, it by no means guarantees any level of success. (My Agent has jettisoned his entire crew out the escape hatch over Denova and is currently in the process of hiring new staff.) The only way I see to improve your chances is to pray that the RNG gods/goddesses smile upon you. Perhaps /yell something to the effect of “Oh, deities of RNG, I offer up these human/alien/cyborg sacrifices to you for your Slicing favor!” at the start of every PVP match?

Despite having 7 raid teams, the guild is still a pretty laid back/casual environment. Between them all, there's almost a perfect blend of progression, with one gearing up through HM EV/KP all the way up through one that's recently completed HM TFB. And even if the teams themselves don't have openings, there's still the Monday Guild Ops night that allows others to get into raiding as well. We're definitely interested in downing boss and getting sweet loot, but it's almost always done in a pretty understanding/laid back kind of way. My raid team takes a 15-20 min break both nights to allow me to put my daughter to bed. No one has ever been upset that we had to take a break; it just usually transforms into a semi-nude dance party. Don't want to raid? C'mon over to Mumble and just chat with fellow guildies while you do space missions, HM FPs, level alts, etc. Some...enlightening...conversations occur there.