You're probably not high enough level. I ran into that same issue. The next step is to talk to someone in the cantina. Since your class quests all take place pretty close, it'd be hard to miss them.

Cunning doesn't compete with Power on gear anyway, so why does it matter? There isn't a place to trade Cunning for secondary stats. This discussion only matters when you're replacing lower level gear with higher level gear, where secondary stats might be different. This isn't an issue at endgame (while yes, you're replacing gear, you wouldn't think of putting on a piece of gear with def and shield on it over DPS secondary stats).

That's very odd. I'm a Powertech, and I was able to take the Mercenary set (and I did, because i like the color scheme better). Seems like it should go the other way. The about The Last Pirates quest? I believe that one gets you the legs, do you get the Powertech option there?

Make is your only romance option as a male BH. Female BH also only get one option as well. So in short, if you're a DS BH, send Mako away before convos and/or be prepared to give her a lot of gifts if you want to romance her.

Can you fly to the Tyrant directly from your space map? That's where the escape pod takes you anyway. After you finish up your quest, somehow your ship is there and you fly away on it. Other than that, I'm not sure what else you could do. If you can abandon the quest, you could try that. Maybe you can pick it up again at the holorecorder?

Honestly, if you hate merc that much, reroll powertech. It doesn't take nearly as long on the second play since you can skip all the dialogue. If you don't want to do that, absolutely do all the side quests you can now. Going the way you're going, you risk finishing the quest content before hitting 50. At that point, there's no way to earn exp except space combat, pvp, and dailies. Going back to do grey quests doesn't help, because grey quests don't give exp anymore.

Here's a rough breakdown of the abilities you'd have as a Merc: Bounty Hunter Baseline Skills: Rail Shot: 15 second cooldown, instant cast. (pyro uses this more often because it can reset the cooldown) Missile Blast: Due to its high heat cost, hardly ever used once you get better abilities. But it's instant and ranged, and is an option when you need it. Unload: 15 second cooldown, 2 second channel. Fires from both blasters. Arsenal Mercs get talents to buff this skill's damage and reset its cooldown. Pyro Mercs use it to reset Rail Shot. Explosive Dart: 15 second cooldown, instant cast. Causes AOE damage after 2 seconds. Incapacitates weak and standard targets (not players). Merc skills: Power Shot: 1.5 second cast, no cooldown. This is the Merc filler move, used when everything else is on cooldown. Arsenal Mercs get Tracer Missile at 20 to replace this. Fusion Missile: 1.5 second cast Sweeping Blasters: Channelled AOE skill. Very expensive, can't spam. Arsenal skills: Tracer Missile: 1.5 second cast, no cooldown. Replacement for Power Shot. Synergizes with many Arsenal talents, so it is cast frequently. There's a lot of hate for this skill which I think is mostly due to its animation. It draws attention, so it becomes a scapegoat. Heatseeker Missiles: 15 second cooldown, instant. Buffed by Tracer Missile stacks. Pyro skills: Incendiary Missile: instant cast, no cooldown. Causes a 15 second DoT. Handy for preventing capping, but expensive to use on multiple players. Thermal Detonator: shares a cooldown with Explosive Dart. Does not do AOE damage, but does more single target damage. 2 second delay on damage. Ok, so basically an Arsenal Merc is a pretty stationary beast. Rail Shot and Heatseeker Missiles can each be used every 15 seconds, but other than that the primary DPS skills are Unload and Tracer Missile, both require no moving. A Pyro Merc gets a bit more mobility in the form of more Rail Shots from the cooldown being reset, as well as Incendiary Missile and Thermal Detonator to add to the Arsenal. It sounds like Pyro Merc is closest to what you're looking for. There's a thread on Pyro Merc in the Mercenary Forums here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=171953

No, there's not a difference in gear stat selection. Crit and Surge are popular options due to the increased crit damage on Rail Shot and Thermal Detonator, especially with the extra crit on Rail Shot from the 4pc Eliminator bonus.

First thing is please don't pick your AC based on current balance. If you do, there will be a patch that's going to make you regret your decision. Pick it based on playstyle. I'm going to talk about the DPS aspect of each AC, since if you want to tank or heal your decision is simple. Mercenary DPS is done from range. For DPS, you can select from Arsenal or Pyrotech. Arsenal Mercs need to stand still to do most of their DPS. Their primary spell is Tracer Missile, a spell which gets a lot of flak due to it's very loud and visual animation. Though Mercs wield two blasters, the second blaster is mostly a stat stick and for aesthetics, due to a severe reduction in damage and accuracy from your offhand weapon. In short, Arsenal Mercs are often described as mobile turrets, in that they can move around the battlefield, but stand still when it's time to bring the pain. I'll compare the differences in the Pyro trees below. Powertech DPS is done from close range. The Advanced Prototype Powertech has great mobility with access to passive speed increase and an on demand 8 second Sprint with snare immunity. Advanced Prototype is closest to a true melee spec, with Retractable Blade and Rocket Punch requiring the player to be within 4m. There is some freedom to back away when those skills are not being used (on cooldown, DoT applied), but you can't get further than 10m away without losing access to your main filler, Flame Burst, as well as your tree's top skill, Immolate. AP suffers right now from a perceived lack of damage. Without meters it's hard to say how much it suffers, but most players feel that Pyro does significantly more damage. As for Pyro, both specs have access to it. The Pyro tree focuses around resetting the Rail Shot cooldown. Powertech does it with Rocket Punch and Flame Burst (instant close range skills), while Mercenary uses Unload and Power Shot (30m range, cast time skills). It's my opinion that if you want to play Pyro, Powertech synergizes much better. There are Rail shot boosting talents in the bottom of both Shield Tech and Advanced Prototype for Pyros to pick up, as well as boosts to fire damage and tech crit. That's not to say that Merc Pyros are ineffective. Merc Pyros get increased mobility due to picking up some extra instant skills, and can do respectable damage as well. As for other skills, Powertechs get access to a tanking stance, taunts, and Guard, allowing them to offtank in PvE, or get protection points in PvP. Mercenarys get healing spells, allowing them to offheal if needed, or get healing points in PvP. There are hybrid specs for both classes that leverage these benefits for medal farming or just trying to maximize utility. Mercs also pick up some decent additional AOE skills in Fusion Missile and Sweeping Blasters, while Powertechs have to rely on the shared skills Death from Above, Flamethrower, and Explosive Dart for AOE. As you level up in the starting zone, ask yourself how you find yourself playing. Do you engage your enemies from range or do you run in? Do you move around a lot while you fight? Is your favorite skill Rocket Punch or Unload? What have you enjoyed playing in other games? If you've played a ranged caster before, you're probably used to needing to stay stationary for DPS. If you've always tended toward melee classes, Powertech might be a better fit. Good luck with the decision. Both specs are capable of good DPS and have viable PvP specs. And once again, you shouldn't choose your Advanced Class based on current balance anyway, as you can definitely expect that to change. Take the one that fits your playstyle, and enjoy yourself.

It's like that so that after you get to the top of your tree, you have interesting things in the others trees to grab. It also allows the Shield Tech tree to have some options to pick from a few threat talents instead of having everything based on survival.

Honestly, I wouldn't use Carolina Parakeet for leveling, because it doesn't function well until you have both Prototype Particle Accelerator and Flame Shield, first achievable at level 44. Until then, you're probably better off sticking to one tree or the other, then respec if you want to later.

I had trouble with Tyresius as well. Both my Merc and Powertech ended up doing the same thing. I killed the droid, died, rezzed, reset, then fought Tyresius 1 on 1. First off, use the Ion Gas Cylinder and put on a shield generator. You'll lose some DPS, but you'll be able to take a lot more hits. Turn off Mako's DPS abilities to make sure she focuses on healing. Use Electro Dart, On the Hunt, Electro Dart again when it wears off, followed by Energy Shield. Use Electro Dart on cooldown. I don't remember if I had Kolto Overload back then, use it at half health if you do. Use Quell to interrupt any casts you can. Other than that, just keep your DPS rotation up. You'll need to keep IM up for the burn effect since CGC won't be there. I fought him at 27, and he's a 28 elite. If you finish Tattooine's quests then go back to him, you might have an extra level or two. Spend your Tattooine commendations to get a better barrel if you need one.

Carbonize breaks if you have the Combat Tech 2 piece bonus. Supercommando works fine.

I'd also mention that it's not essential that you hold aggro on everything. You need to collect the big hitters, but DPSers can take a few hits from Strong and under without dying. If your DPSers are all hitting different targets, that's a communication issue. I prefer pull kill order to go from weak up. The DPS will be able to quickly take care of weak and standard enemies while I grab Elites first, then grab strongs, focusing on whatever the DPS are currently hitting, or will be hitting first. Flame Sweep is too expensive to spam. Hit it once when you've got some mobs gathered and that's it (but don't go over 40). Generally overheating as a tank is caused by trying to do too much at the start of the pull. I honestly had issues at the lower levels until I got Heat Blast. It also gets better as your shield chance goes up, as Shield Vents will proc more consistently. Fortunately, with good use of CC, and a clear priority, anything can be handled at the lower levels.

Cunning gives a bonus to tech attacks. But Aim gives the same bonus to tech attacks, while also buffing ranged attacks as well. Therefore, mever choose cunning over aim.