There are 2 separate bonuses: +efficiency and +critical. Efficiency reduces the amount of time it takes to finish a given task. It has no bearing on mission success or critical result. Critical adds to the chance to get a critical success for extra mats. Both of these are increased behind the scenes by the affection your companion has for you .

Some people just prefer having a dedicated companion healer. I like her, too, but usually Aric's DPS allows me to cut enemies down faster and more reliably than relying on Dorne's heals to prolong a difficult fight. I'm also a commando though, and have heals of my own. I imagine vanguards lean more towards Dorne. Back to M1-4X, he definitely needs some love. Aric and Dorne both have better armor/damage reduction at ~21-22% versus his measley 17%. I understand that Aric and Dorne are usually well-geared from being part of the crew longer, but it's not like that can't be factored in. M1-4X should be a better tank right out of the gate with at least enough intrinsic armor to be at 25% damage reduction. After the build-up in the cutscenes on how epic M1-4X was, he was a bit of a letdown .

Thank you!!!

I'm not a slicer, but I'm guessing they mix in a bit of direct, world map slicing, which is free.

So I've read that all characters get to choose their Legacy names after the completion of Chapter 1 of their class quest series. I'm playing a Commando and I've done all my class quests up to gaining M1-4X, my third non-ship droid companion. Am I still in Chapter 1, or did I somehow miss the prompt to choose my Legacy name?

Yup, that's correct. I have biochem and can confirm that the reusable items require biochem to use.

WHAT?! That's awesome!!!!

Yup, that would be awesome. Maybe a crafting table in our ships if BW doesn't want us to craft on the run.

Only send companions with high affection on higher level missions (yellow and above). Save ship droids and companions who don't really like you for green missions .

There are even times when people ninja things by accident! Either a slip of the button or someone mistaking a Power Generator for a Shield. I've been in several groups where mistakes like this have led to one player apologizing profusely for something they can't use. To make matters worse, these items are usually BoP, so they can't trade them away even if they want to.

I know exactly what you mean! It would be really nice if, in the future, they have a few companions that can be hired by anyone regardless of class. However, don't lose hope! Even if you don't have any companions with bonuses in skills, the more they like you (ship droid is exempt from this) the faster they gather and craft. Not ideal, but as you ramp up the affection, you really do see a difference.

Ideally, crafting should be something that is enjoyable throughout a character's journey and not solely a max level pursuit. There's something wrong when more and more people are considering amassing massive amounts of credits and materials for a Level 50 crafting splurge. However, that said, perhaps instead of nerfing Slicing, the other skills could be tweaked. I hesitate to reference other MMOs, but really, there's no other way around it. As another post above mentioned, EQ2 had a great system where every tier of crafting (it's been a while, but I think it was every 10 levels) had great gear that was highly sought out. I don't think borrowing a bit of that philosophy would be a bad thing. Let the slicers keep their credits. It's a cool idea that has a place in the game. It would just be nice for crafters to actually make the sort of gear that would appeal to all these rich slicers at multiple points in the game and not just level 50. Don't nerf slicing, boost crafts =D!

Has anyone had any luck selling green craftables made from personally gathered (rather than crew mission) materials for a reasonable profit? I know I can always make a Slicing alt, but I'd like to explores other alternatives first.

Diplomacy medical supply missions have a chance to drop purple ingredients. It's very rare, though. I'm up to 100+ in diplomacy and I've only seen a total of 4 Alien Blood Samples and 2 Mechanical Symbiotes drop.

As far as I can tell, we don't have any true non-Force user melee class. However, are there any Advanced Class / Skill Tree combos that might let me effectively mix in some melee combat on a regular basis?

During my one weekend of beta access, I sometimes grouped with people 5 levels higher or lower than me. I never really noticed much of a difference in xp gains, but then again, I was concentrating on other things. What's the max level spread for a party where the lowest member can still earn xp?