Nice. I like the way you arranged a lot of the chairs and pictures.

I've heard some people say besides the overall stronghold decoration limit and the 25 NPC limit there is another limit to the amount of "NPC purchased items" you can place. Has anyone run into this, and if so do you know what the limit is (50, 100, 200, etc)? Also I'm wondering what counts as NPC purchased items, for example are cartel market items included? What about drops from flashpoints and ops (the name suggests they would not but does anyone know for sure)? Do personal purchased through vendors count against both the NPC limit and this one? CS/Dev clarification here would be GREATLY appreciated because I will be very unhappy if I spend cartel coins (real money) on things I cannot use.

Do you know what the limit is and what counts against it exactly?

I'm in favor of voting. While there are of course ways to cheat at the very least it would force people to specifically do that for no other reward then having a highly rated stronghold. Right now I suspect there are a lot of people with very high prestige scores that only got them as a byproduct of rushing to get the conquest bonus from a 100% completion score. And that many of them would not go through the effort of gaming a voting system because they would not care that much.

Nicely done.

I've run Red Reaper a total of 10 times over the last two days and no drops. I'd be running it again right now if the servers were up....

Things are broken! ALL. THE. THINGS. In some of the places are BROKEN. In ways. Now, now, now, NOW! Fix!! I demand this!

Dromund Kaas. .

/signed

This is my biggest frustration with Strongholds as well.

It's not night yet, tomorrow will be like Dawn of the (Economic) Dead. Seriously there will be no crash because there is no debt and every purchase is a luxury to a large degree. No character will ever die due to lack of food and shelter. At most prices will be adjusted, many thing will cost less and a few more.

I'm fairly disappointed with Strongholds but maybe they will improve on them if they are successful.

The best theory I have heard for the limit is that it is not a display problem but that they are worried about spawning to many NPCs at once. For whatever reason pets/animal mounts/humanoid NPCs have health and probably a lot of other seemingly useless details which put a bigger strain on the servers.

This came up a lot on the test server and the only semi-official response was from Dulfy that they may look into raising it in the future. Personally I find the limit very disappointing and it greatly diminishes my interest in strongholds, but for now at least it is what it is,

Honestly I'd just be happy is Jeelvic would stand still while I'm trying to view his inventory! Having said that yes there should be some way to buy the things he sells outside of the events.

I do understand that and how threat works etc. I only started using saber throw on that pull to test different things after the leap --> reflect or smash failed a couple of times because the dogs jumped the healer instead of me. Again most of the time these tactics work there but on occasion I've had the dogs totally ignore me at the start of the fight if I try to leap to the dog and the guy. Every time it has happened to me they have gone after the healer instantly (which is how I know it is not DPS throwing out to much AoE damage to quickly, otherwise they would be the targets) and it has always been with a healer with some sort of HoT or reactive heal running. So I suspect that it is some combination of timing and latency where I leap and start the fight, gain agro on the target I leap to. If I am lagging sufficiently then there are fractions of a second where I have started the fight but the client and server do not agree on my location so so I cannot immediately follow up with a Smash/AoE threat gain. In that time if a heal goes off the healer gets a very small amount of threat on all the enemies and they jump him or her. While I am not 100% sure that is happening it fits what I see. So I've started LoSing by running just around the corner and then stepping back when the first red dot reaches it. I can smash and catch one to three of them and then hold Crushing Blow for when the rest of the pack arrives. I then step back around the corner and the dps goes to town. Even if I am lagging slightly they have no other target so they cannot leap past me to avoid the Smash, It takes a few seconds longer but I have not had my healer jumped by 5-6 dogs at once since I started doing it. Not saying anyone else needs to just pointing out that I do it and I have a reason.

The problem I have is sometimes the dogs don't jump me. I saber throw or leap to the guy in the middle and the dogs jump the healer in the back. Then I have to Intercede back to the healer and gather up the aggro. I suspect latency in my connection plays a part too but that is not something I can control. Where as if I LoS them I can always gather the agro as they come around the corner and it adds 5 or 6 seconds to the pull at most. I'm glad you've never had this issue but I have and so far LoSing has been an effective work around. I'm talking about the trash pull right before that one.

I've recently started to LoS that pull and a few of the other dog ones in Mando. I've found that with Merc and Op healers that if their HoT or Kolto Shell ticks right after I attack the guy in the middle the dogs will sometimes leap over me and hit the healer in the back. It does not happen every pull or even most but it has happened to me enough that it is something I now watch for. Where as if I LoS it I can Smash the dogs as they come around the corner before they have another target to leap to.

I'm going to have to disagree. Over-gearing makes it possible but it is still an accomplishment. Because no matter how good your gear is you cannot just walk in there hit random attacks, make mistakes and live. This is an MMO, everything besides the first few planets requires a minimum level of gear, and obviously the minimum level of gear for soling a FP is going to be higher then doing it with three other people.

50 Dark Projects as per this thread.

Nitpick, that is a listing of revenue not profit. Still it is good to see that SWtOR appears to be financially healthy.

I too am very disappointed that we cannot place characters and actual companions (not sometimes holo companions) in our strongholds. I realize it is almost certainly to late to add this before it goes live but I would love for it be something that is added.

You certainly can in tank spec even at level 50 (although you and Quinn need decent gear to do so). I've never tried using Vengeance although I would imagine it is possible. Big thing is to use your cool downs, especially if you do not over gear/level it, I generally use Reflect when i jump in and save Saber Ward and Enraged Defense for if my health drops below 50%. You can use Intimidating Roar to shut down the organics for 6 seconds, Interrupt Heat Laser whenever possible. Also by attacking the elite humans in melee range you can get them to switch over to their swords which I find helps reduce the damage they do a lot, although that may not be true for a DPS character, you will have to test it. If it does help you hit them each once or twice before focusing on one. Also try to keep things off Quinn, which is admittedly much harder without an AoE taunt.

At lv25 I would suggest Focus. It gets its key mechanic, buffed Force Sweep, earlier then the other two trees and utterly destroys small/mid sized groups of normal enemies which is what you will see the most throughout your missions. It also has much better Focus generation at the lower levels due to Zen generating Focus. Once you can fill out a skill tree respec and try out all three. As for a rotation always use Force Leap or Zealous Leap before Force Sweep. When Zen is up Leap + Zen --> Force Sweep. Use Blade Storm and Slash as your main fillers. There is more at higher levels but that will serve for leveling.

Do you have access to another companion yet (I know they come late for the sniper but I forget how late)? On my dps characters I will usually run with a healer companion. On my tank character I'll run with a dps companion for most things and switch to a healer to solo heroics. Past lv 20 or so I only ever use tank companions if I am playing a healer (and even then only rarely) or if I have no other choice.