Having played as a Sith Inquisitor all the way to Level 55, I've never had a problem with Khem. I know a lot of people find him squishy, but unless I'm fighting a boss I barely have to heal him. Keeping him geared in level-appropriate Guardian armor is a must, though, as is maintaining Static Barrier at all times. I've certainly never had trouble with him holding aggro. I normally use Ashara when fighting trash mobs because she chews through them faster, but Khem is still my go-to guy for tough fights. (I have no opinion about Xalek, since he was horribly under-geared when I got him and I've yet to get around to fixing that.)

I've never played a Trooper before, and since I forked out 600 coins for the species, I was thinking of making mine a Cathar. It seems like a class that would work well for them, but since I'm planning to romance Aric Jorgan I was wondering if the story makes sense if you play the same species as him? I don't expect my species to ever be brought up by the game at all except in the most general terms, but it would be weird if Aric started explaining things about Cathar to a Cathar.

Good to know, thank you!

Two questions: A) Is there any reason I can't pull the mods out of a lightsaber purchased with Classic Commendations and stick them in a vibrosword? Khem Val can equip the Heavy armour, but obviously he can't use a lightsaber. B) Is there a set bonus for doing so, or should I just buy mods for his vibrosword off the GTN anyway? (I'm currently working to gear my character with Basic commendations, but I have all these Classic ones lying around and I might as well do something with them.)

Do we have any idea how long it's likely to take them to actually turn Dalborra off? I'd love to be able to finish levelling my Inquisitor to 55 while I can still play. (Previous experience with the servers on the US West Coast suggests that I may not be able to once the APAC servers close.)

Thanks for the advice, folks. I have now finished the last part on Dromund Kaas. I'm not surprised - I didn't even do all the bonus areas or most of the Heroics (low population server) or spend any time in PVP. Or any space missions, for that matter. (Although I did finish almost every solo bonus mission in the game.) Oh, that's good to know. What level of gear do I need to start doing those?

I'm on Level 53 with my Sorcerer, and about to finish my class storyline on Corellia. I didn't mean to, but a complementary XP boost here, a bonus series there and running all the Flashpoints a couple of times each put me considerably over the intended level for players finishing Corellia. So now I find myself over-levelled and under-geared. (I've been buying mods at the Markeb commendations vendor, but I'm a fair way off having a complete set for all slots.) It's evident that I'm going to hit the cap before I run out of content, so I"m wondering if I should skip Ilum and go straight to Markeb? I'm primarily interesting in solo content, although I do Flashpoints with PUGs.

Best Parts: - The story. Or, rather, the stories. - Companions. - Full voicing for everyone, including the PC. Worst Parts: - A lot of the combat is grindy and boring. - The game suffers from serious ability bloat. Too many buttons! - The lack of female characters. Just for starters, only eleven out of forty-three currently available companions are female. (Counting Scorpio.) BioWare's other CRPGs average about a third female companions, so it's disappointing not to see more women in this game.

I had enough spare points saved up to make a few tweaks - changed my Consular's body type, my Smuggler's hair and my Mirialan Jedi Knight's tattoos. My main Sith Inquisitor got a more complete makeover, with new make-up, a new Twi'lek headband and a different eye colour. I can't see myself making many changes in the future, but it's nice to have the option if I decide I hate my character's hair thirty levels in.

Huh. That is weird - my guess is it's a Scunthorpe Problem with the word 'Saturday'. (Take off the first two and the last two letters.) Automated censor programs can be pretty weird.

Given that my main Sorcerer is already a pink Twi'lek with a pink-purple lightsaber, I'm not sure why anyone would care that she will now be able to wear a pink-purple outfit. (Not sure if she will or not - I might decide she's pink enough and stick with black and purple.)

I'm finally at the point in the story where I have a meaningful choice of which companion to use, and I'm having the worst time settling between Khem Val and Ashara. (It's not that I don't like Andronikos. It's just that I'm a healer and he's ranged DPS, so all of our dates end with both of us lying down. And not in a fun way.) Keeping both of them adequately geared strikes me as prohibitively expensive at this stage of the game, but I can't make up my mind. On the one hand, Ashara and I chew through trash mobs much faster together. On the other, she's (unsurprisingly) a lot less durable. I spend less time killing things, but that may be balanced out by the time spent worrying about crowd control and post-battle healing and the more frequent wipes. With a tank, as long as I keep Innervate and Lightning Barrier on him I don't have to concern myself with his health most of the time. If I leave the game mechanics aside and look at story, my Inquisitor is Light Side and Ashara agrees with her more. It's kind of neat having my own apprentice, and I like her fine so far. But I miss my monster when he's not there. I went through 36 levels of him giving me -1 every time I didn't kill someone! I miss his disapproval and his grudging respect and his sense of humour. ("Look, Master - more toxic waste for you to swim in.") And I miss being called 'little Sith' all the time. On a roleplaying level, I'm still torn. It makes sense for my Inquisitor to spend time with her apprentice to train her and help her see that the people of the Empire are worth helping, but leaving Khem on the ship doesn't seem like the best idea. It makes sense to me that my Inquisitor would encourage Andronikos to go off on Underworld Trading missions when she's working, but Khem is another matter. (Every time he fails a crew task, I assume he ate the contact.) And given his, uh ... situation ... in Chapter Two, supervising him seems like a sensible idea. All of which boils down to: even though it would be terrible design for an MMO, I spend a lot of time wishing that this was a squad-based game so I could take both of them and Andronikos as well. And I already feel the same about Talos even though we just met. I don't know what I'll do if I end up liking Xalek as well.

Bounty Hunter all the way. She'll show those Mandalorians who's the best Hunter in the galaxy.

Changing my Bounty Hunter to a Cathar right away - the only reason I made her as a human is that I wanted to be sure of getting the name I wanted. Other than that, I'm happy with almost all of my characters. I do plan to give my Mirialan Jedi more tattoos when important things happen to her in future, since that's how Mirialans commemorate stuff. I think I'll fix her make-up while I'm at it, since it looks a lot bluer in the game than it did in the character creator and clashes with her skin a bit.

I am actually sort of glad it costs cartel coins. If it didn't, I might never do anything but play with my characters' hair ever again. I've got enough coins to get the Cathar species option, and I'll definitely be changing my Bounty Hunter into a cat person. I like the idea of being able to change hairstyles or add scars - as BioWar said, it'll be great for roleplayers. I look forward to making my Mirialan Jedi's tattoos more elaborate when she achieves personal milestones!

Sorry, I phrased that badly - I just meant I hope that you can change your character's species immediately and at any time, and not have to wait until you get to the Fleet or something.

Yaaaaaaay, kitties! I'm hoping we can do a species swap at any point. Otherwise I guess I am going to be staring at the randomly generated human Bounty Hunter I made to reserve the name I want for a while.