Yes. All Orange item shells are made up of an Armor slot, a Mod slot, and an Enhancement slot. When v1.2 comes around, the stats you've quoted will be split into x3 sub-pieces that correspond with those Orange part locations. This will allow you to remove those x3 slot locations out of your existing Rakata armor shell, then allow you to move them into any other Orange armor shell. Then if you move them into a critcal success crafted Orange armor shell, you'll gain access to an Augment part slot. At 50th level, you might be able to get a Purple grade +Cunning Augment. If that happens, then you can insert it into your new armor's Augment slot. This could potentially boost your Cunning value on the armor by another +30 pts or more.

Purple and Cyan crystals are now being sold at 50th by a NPC to each faction. You can purchase +Expertise PvP versions of the various crystal colors at 50th. Seperately you can buy White crystals at various level tiers for rediculous amounts of credits. Also the Magenta crystal recipes are being sold by the vendor, though their +33 values aren't as good as the +41 crystals sold by the vendor. Also on the Pre-Order crystal vendor, you can find the appropriate pre-order crystal colors at 50th level. All of these crystal sources are being removed from the NPCs as of patch v1.2. From what Bioware has said, the White crystal access is going to be permanently removed for the near future (which is why they cost so much). Based on what Bioware has implied, the other colors will likely be available through Artificers in v1.2. However Bioware has never really spelled things out beyond stating that Artificers will be able to create crystals that are superior to the +41 versions that Bioware is flooding the market with.

On a side note, the Consular's belt only has value from a visual appearance standpoint. You can buy Orange grade Light armor belts from the Space accomdation vendor, which inherently lowers the value of all Orange grade Light belt armor shells. Whoever is getting the Myrmidon belt is definitely coming out ahead in the deal since there aren't any sources of Medium or Heavy belts from NPC vendors until patch v1.2.

For the Orange grade armor pieces in the Waist and Wrist slots, there are no real differences between a low level piece and a high level piece. Assuming that we're talking about a Medium or Heavy armo piece, the value is subjective. Interesting enough, it's actually the lower level version that ends up worth more since it has a longer life span when used by a lower level alt character. At one point, it looked like high level versions of the same Orange slot and armor grade had more inherent Armor value as its starting point. It still does look like that at times. However if you equip both with the exact same Armoring piece and equip both Orange items, you'll find that the net Armor score auto adjusts them both to the same value. From my own observations, my server's Empire side only has IA pieces regularly for sale. Even then, I find that you can successfully sell them on our small server for about 100,000 credits within 24 hours. While you can probably get more out of them, there won't be as quick of a turn around time. Your friend is just getting greedy. Pound for pound, your exchange sounds like it's equal. However they mentally value their piece at a certain market price, which has resulted in them trying to make you pay for the difference based on their own pricing estimates. Some people are just like that. It sounds like they want a situaiton where the two of you privately sell your items to each other, which is much different then a true trade.

See the link below for the sticked thread about gearing up a newly 50th character (which is found in the Flashpoint forum on this site). http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=176836

1) Corellia has lvl 50 Blue armor component pieces that fit inside Orange armor. Doing the Daily repeatables on this planet can help give you a starting point if you're gear is lacking. 2) Belsavis and Illum repeatables are your next goal. (If you're gear is good enough, you can skip directly to this step.) They grant you Purple armor components that are the best around (outside of raiding) for Orange armor. Daily repeatables are a priority. Other key gear pieces from these vendors are the Implant and Ear slot items. 3) Once you've got a decent gear base, you'll want to start running group Flashpoints in their Hard Mode (HM) setting. The final boss of each HM flashpoint drops a specific armor slot location. These drops are the goal. Also the final bosses drop Biometric Alloy crafting components (which are current No Trade). These are used to make powerful 400 crafting skill gear items. Also make sure to collect the Daily and Weekly repeatable quests for these Flashpoints (which are from a quest terminal in your Fleet). The tokens from these quests will also be used to purchase nice gear. 4) Instead of HM Flashpoints, you could focus on the PvP side to grind for Battlemaster (BM) gear instead. Some people consider BM gear to be superior to Operation raid gear. Other consider a hybrid of PvP BM and raiding Rakata pieces to be the best. However don't PvP unless you find yourself enjoying it. It isn't wise to burn yourself out playing something that you find yourself hating. 5) The final stage beyond the HM Flashpoints are the multiple group Operation raids. These will drop your (Standard) gear versions and your Hard Mode gear versions.

So you just care about this from a PvP perspective? Then that makes it relatively simple. You'll want to either be a Jedi Shadow or a Vanguard. While I only play Empire side, the BH is the spike dps tanking class (which should translate into Trooper on your side). Trooper and BH are also known for having the highest Armor values of the tanks, which should help against some of the PvP class. From what I've read, Trooper is a straight forward class that's easy to play. If this is true, then I'd consider Vanguard to be a great starter class. However there's still something to be said for a very well played Assassin (or Shadow in your case). You get multiple different sources of self-healing, a good mix of melee & ranged moves, a speed increaser to close gaps or move around the map, decent Armor values from your tanking stance, and some really nice AoE dps output. More specifically, your end line tanking Talent tee ability is nuts. Getting some AoE dps, a 15 sec debuff (-5% damage output), and a 15 sec movement debuff are all very impressive for an ability with only a 12 sec cool down. Right now there are multiple threads whinning about Assassin and Shadow being OP from a PvP perspective. These class are just plain effective at anything they do. (Though with this in mind, it does make me question whether they'll get hit with the nerf bat due to all of the PvPers.)

There's too many variables that you haven't answered. While we could all give you a biased answer, you really haven't clarified the play style you're looking for. 1) Is being a truely Ranged tank important to you? Or are you willing to deal with being a Melee tank with some AoE capability? 2) Are you looking to fullfill the role of MT (Main Tank) in Operation raids? Or are you looking to take the OT (Off Tank) role? 3) If you're willing to be Melee tank, do you NEED to have a Leap ability to reach your enemies? Or is it acceptable to use a run speed booster to physically run to your enemies? 4) Are you looking to be a true AoE tank, a melee tank with nice AoE capability, or a dedicated melee tank that specializes in single targets? 5) What kind of casting mechanic are you looking for? A regenerating energy pool which you can't directly influence over the course of a fight? Or perhaps a Rage point activation system which forces you to take actions to increase your casting pool? Would a Heat system which forces you to remove casting pool penalties be more your speed? 6) Is it a requirement that you MUST have access to Heavy Armor? Or is it acceptable to wear Light Armor while getting an increase to your Armor value from your tanking stance? 7) Are you looking for a class which can have a high burst capability in terms of dps and aggro generation, which makes it superior for short fights? Or are you looking for a class with a more sustained dps output? 8) Is it a requirement to be a tank which is capable of healing yourself through multiple sources over the course of a fight?

If you're refering to Threat of Peace, that web comic series is based on almost an entire generation before the current events of TOR. A physically fit younger man can easily become a porty middle aged person. Yet if you're refering to the concept of having an over wenght Sith Lord, then that's another subject. While many people hate Baras because of his weight, I actually like him for it. His persona for a starting SW comes off like am indulgent older uncle figure, which fits his chubby body. Also Baras is an in-game example that shows people that a Sith doesn't have to remain in top physical condition to retain their power and influence. To be honest, that adds a level of complexity to the Sith that we don't usually see in TOR.

Based on the cliff notes information about the Legacy system that IGN posted in their most recent article, race unlocks are based on the player. If you have a Chiss character and you level it to 50th, then Chiss becomes a permanently unlocked race for every class and faction on your account (for that server). Eventually a person could theoretically unlock every since race in the game if they wanted to constantly make new alts and possibly delete characters after they had been used for the unlock slot. Lore aside, it's an interesting concept. These are really just cosmetic changes, which I'm normally all in favor of. Now people can have the Chiss Sith characters that they've been wanting. Or if someone is willing to play on both factions, then they could eventually have a Chiss Smuggler or something like that. From a visual concept, I think that this could have a lot of potential.

A BH's armor use is tied to their Advanced Class. At the beginning, you start in Medium armor proficiency. Then once you hit 10th level, your Advanced Class choice further influences things. If you choose to be a Mercenary, then you'll stay at only knowing Medium armors. Or if you choose Powertech, then you'll gain the Heavy armor proficiency.

You need to head to your faction's Fleet and look for the Space Commodation vendor. Amongst the vendor's items are a couple of Belt armor slot Social armor pieces. If you're a Light armor user, it's an easy source for acquiring an Orange belt. The issue is that the Armor piece values would be far too low for Medium and Heavy armor users to equip those Light pieces, which is why they need to grind mobs out in the game world (or get lucky on the random item roll Commodation boxes). Theoretically patch v1.2 is going to introduce some Medium and Heavy versions of Social armor pieces. People are hoping that this will give them access to Orange grade Belt and Wrist armor pieces in all types. However time will tell.

FYI. Bioware's v1.2 patch is supposed to increase the RNG rate for Blue and Purple recipe discoveries. At the higher levels, the proc rate for these things can get pretty horrible. Since patch v1.2 is theoretically supposed to go live some time this month, you might want to hold off on burning through a mountain of crafting materials for now.

Yes. You can fail the Discovery missions. It is certainly a subject of much fist shaking when your Companion fails one of these missions, but it is what it is. From what I've been able to observe, the failure rate is based on your Companion's Affection score and the difference between what your current Mission skill score is vs the Discovery skill score. (Therefore running a 340 skill mission at 345 skill has a decent failure chance. Yet running that same 340 skill mission and 400 skill has a very low failure chance.) I hate failing Discovery missions. The highest tier missions are at 340 skill. When you use a Purple grade version of this mission, it takes the Companion about 2 hours at max Affection to run this mission. Then after you've lost those 2 hours and all of th associated credits, they can still fail. It stinks! However it is what it is.

While I only used Jaesa on Hoth, everything that I've ever noticed in this game says that it shouldn't matter. While the story quest finale on Taris did force your Companion useage based on your previous conversation choices, that kind of situation is the rare exception to the general rule of how TOR seems to be designed.

As a Juggernaut, you've got a couple of easy options for an armor look with open robes over top. This style has a hood in a "hood down" position behind the character's head. 1) Black Talon: People have already stated that you can get a Blue version of these style. My only personal problem is that there aren't any other pieces in this set which are Orange pieces. You should likely be able to pull off a finished look if you mis-match Orange armor pieces for a completed look, but it's going to take some time and effort to figure things out. 2) Crafting: Similar to the Black Talon robed armor, there's a lvl 19 crafted version in both Medium and Heavy armor types. For the Heavy characters, it's called Warlord's ______. Synthweavers can potentially make Chest, Leg, and Head (mouth breather) armor pieces in this set. You can finish out the set if you're willing to mix and match other pieces for the Hand and Feet armor slots. (I've done this on my Marauder, but I don't know about the Heavy armor versions of those pieces.) The color style of the Warlord's ______ set is based on lighter red robes over maroon red armor. As a LS aligned Marauder, I can understand wanting to have more of a Jedi-esque appearance while still retaining some kind of Sith identity. While the red version felt Sith to me and it was a better visual match for my character, both versions should work nicely.

Like Hadoken, I'm also running double dps as an Anni spec. While I originally used Vette, I'm finding much better performance from Jaesa. To be honest, I'm not sure whether this is because she's in melee to eat some of the potential aggro or because I've been a bit better about keeping her gear up to date. Either way, it was a night and day difference once I switched over to Jaesa. I'll still use Quinn in specific rare marathon fights. However for most of the content, soloing with Jaesa is completely viable. Using the +Defense relic, Cloak of Pain, and Saber Ward on a rotation while soloing really reduces your down time. Therefore it isn't as bad as some people portray about how Anni characters "NEED" Quinn all of the time.

Yes, people just AFKed by the various access points. However that still adds something. When I joined that "old" game during the RoK expansion era, I could still see that the game wasn't "dead" due to the number of people running around and AFKing in town. From a psychological perspective, that's reassuring. Fast forward a couple of expansion packs and what would I find? You could run around Gorowyn's ultra condensed upper city (which was basically the heart of the city that had EVERYTHING) and still only see 3-5 players in the entire city. Really? Between 3 and 5 players at a given time? That's a real mind job for anyone contemplating EQ2 as their new MMO. Another thing I always found infinitely useful about those city campers was being able to Inspect their gear. If they were 80th, why did they still have a few specific lower level pieces when the rest of their gear was top of the line 80th? When I couldn't come up with a logical answer myself, I'd shoot them a PM and simply ask. The resulting conversations from these Inspections greatly increased my knowledge of the "hidden gems" of EQ2 as a player who joined mid stream. Also for RP servers, the Guild Hall movement squashed a lot of the spontaneous RPing opportunities that the cities potentially presented. Though I was never a big RPer myself, I could easily see just how badly my server's RP community had been affected by this change. But having said all of that, you are correct about the grouping situation. With level channel access that reached every instance in the game, you were connected with the world regardless of where you were. Guild Halls certainly didn't kill off the PUG groups in any way. However that isn't the only metric that I use for measurement.

Why don't we have ship mail access? The best way to describe the situation is with an analogy. In EQ2, the players eventually got guild halls. With a high enough guild level, they could have a mini castle for your guild. The members could decorate it using the various "housing" goods items that people used to decorate their EQ2 character homes. However a guild could also have NPC vendors and transport function services added to the hall. Or you could add access points to the Mail and Market / Auction systems. As if this wasn't enough, there were even specialized teleports that could take you back to your guild hall every 15 minutes. Then from the guild, you could take a portal back to your character apartment. Once done there, you could take a portal in your apartment back to your guild. Why is this all relevant? It's an unfortunate game of cause and effect. Because people could get Mail and Market / Auciton access points in both their personal homes and their guild halls, people had little reason to leave these instanced spaces. People use their guild hall to teleport to an area where they were going to quest or where they were going to enter a group instance. Once finished there, they teleport back to the guild hall. In effect, each guild became its own private city state. This resulted in the standard city zones of the game turning into ghost towns. When new people tried EQ2, all they could find were "dead servers". (They really weren't dead. People were just hidden from each other in their own insular guild cliques.) Bioware used to have Market access points on all of the varoius planets in Beta. Towards the end, they removed the access points from every location except the capital planets and their associated Fleet stations. Their stated intent around this change was to force players of all levels to converge onto these locations in order to promote meeting other characters and potentially provoking spontaneous grouping. In my mind, Bioware is trying to do the same thing with the Mail system. The only reason reasons that a person needs to leave their personal ships are to access the Mail and Market terminals. If we continually make it easier for players to hide from each other in single player instances, then we end up unintentionally fracturing our player base into countless tiny pieces. Having all experienced that path in EQ2, I would have to say that it was a mistake. For all that the EQ2 guild halls brought people together within their own guilds, it did far more damage by distancing everyone from their non-guildies. I don't want the same fate for TOR.

1) Hitting 20th changes everything. For an Anni spec, it means getting Deadly Saber. Up until that point, you're playing a DOT based class which mostly can't DOT. Until you reach 20th, going splat is common for a Marauder. 2) Also coming from EQ2, I have to say that an Anni spec reminds me of my own Brigand main. You need to keep your "debuffs" (aka DOTs) layered on the mob and you need to constantly use your Interrupts. Once you get high enough level, you start to gain the survivability aspect of a Brigand. Then you can upgrade Predation to have access to a pseudo-Bard group wide temp buff (though most people don't use Predation for PvE). 3) You won't get your 2nd real Companion until around 20th (depending on how fast you move through the worlds). Most people on Marauder use this healer Companion since it's great as a heal bot NPC and it can CC a target that you're not fighting. Having said that, I prefer to use our 3rd real Companion since it's based on a dps burst version of a Jedi Shadow. It's nice to have another melee character dps'ing with you to help absorb some of the random mob aggro. (I like Vette's AoE ranged dps output, but I've been having better results with the melee dps Companion.)

Really? 20th is really the 1st major break point for an Annihilation spec. Up until that point, you're playing a DOT based spec without having most of your DOT capabilities. Hitting 20th and gaining Deadly Saber actually makes your spec function, which is a world of difference. I had mixed feelings about my own Marauder until 20th. Leveling was far more difficult and just seemed a bit like a chore. Then after reaching 20th, it was like I was playing a different character. Deadly Saber really does make everything change.

1) Under Preferences > Social, there is a button which you could both enable to let other members of the same class share the same instance. If you go this route, you could easily have a healer Counselor and a tank / dps Counselor. 2) Marauder (and Jedi Sentinel) are often considered the hardest classes to master with their countless abilities. A well played Marauder is awe inspiring to watch, but a poorly played one is basically a human crash test dummy. I love my Marauder and it's become my main, but I wanted to give you food for thought. 3) If you don't want to be a "true" tank, you could still play a Jedi Guardian and take a dps spec route. This would grant you 1-hand lightsaber dps, heavy armor, and taunts from the Guardian archetype (which you could use to protect your wife as needed). This situation also applies to the Jedi Shadow route, though you'd be using a double-bladed lightsaber and dps'ing in light armor (while still having Shadow granted taunt access).

Sending out x5 Companions is at 50th. Or sending out x4 Companions is at 41st. If memory serves, the rest are at level multiples of 10. This would mean that you can send out x3 Companions at 30th and x2 Companions at 20th.

Mission skill recipes (such as Underworld Trading) only provide Schematics on a rare critical chance. It operates on a seperate crit chance table from the table which provides bonus crafting material on a critical mission success. From what I've been able to notice, you'll get a higher chance of receiving schematics if your Companion is at max Affection score. Having said that, they're still rather rare. Luckily Underworld Trading is also used by Cybertech for the rare metals. Therefore your Cybertech will place these unwanted schematics on the Market. Check it regularly to see if there are any recipes which you currently need. As a general rule, schematics that make Orange grade gear have value while those that make Blue items tend to be unwanted (at least in the Synthweaving world).

If you did a Search for this subject, you should have found my response to a copycat thread a couple of weeks on this exact title. But to answer your question, they do exist. Best targets are on Dromond Kaas. As you're moving up through the ruins to the Dark Temple, there's a catwalk to your upper right (based on facing the temple) about mid way through the ruins area. This named mob has a chance to drop one of the Orange slots. Then after killing him, hop onto your mount and drive it into the Dark Temple. Run to the back left corner of the Ground Floor area to access the small Heroic area of the temple. The named mob in there has a chance to drop the other Orange slot. Having said this, their drops tables are HUGE and you've only got a very tiny chance for an Orange drop in that slot. Even then, the Orange piece may be for the wrong armor category. If you're high enough level, you should be able to make a full circuit in 5-10 minutes (depending on your level and class abilities). Rinse and repeat until you either get the Orange drops you need or until you leave in disgust for wasting so many hours of your life.