I think the fact that it hasn't really stopped any of us from progressing because we just get a friend or use a lame workaround is what drives it down in priority. Do they care if you spend half your current funds in repairs trying to figure it out, not really, it's still beatable after all.

I finished Voss at lvl 44. Haven't gone to Corellia yet so don't know.

Yea, 2 guys jump out on Voss, it's like step 2 or 3 in an area quest. You click their large box and they destealth next to the wall and proceed to own you asap.

*** is up with these guys. They have so much dps output it's unreal, and they start aggro on you which is a double downside for snipers. I usually run with Lokin but eventually just swapped out Scorpio and burned down just the tech guard while she died and then ran to drop aggro on the shaman. I feel bad for not beating it the "real" way but even the elite at the end of this quest chain was so much easier than those 2. Did I miss a trick anywhere in there I should have realized? And yes I didn't sit on the plasma probes (another downside to snipers making us move so much).

Lvl 44 sniper in full lvl 40 pvp gear used Dr. Lokin took him down first try, like was mentioned earlier in the thread I just interrupted every other heal and eventually he died. Didn't realize until reading here that he has nasty melee, I never got close to him. His heals don't heal for half his life like previously mentioned, I'd say somewhere around 1k or so (5% of his HP).

Right, and my point is that the crit roll for a slicing adv. mission is above whatever it is for some of the other items. The bonuses you stack on yourself bias you to critting a certain type of schem/mission.

1. I'm the opposite of you and have a BH main with a Sniper alt, I've found that armormech blues are actually quite nice and have had some serious upgrades waiting for me when I get to certain level ranges. 2. All companions for BH use Armormech armor, no force users in the bunch. 3. I've used the things I make from Armormech way more than those from Cybertech (the only exception here is ship parts, but I've never tried to price the blue ship parts so they may be cheap in the GTN, I'm not sure) 4. For both cybertech and armormech I always found that I was gathering and crafting things ahead of my level, as in I couldn't use them for 3-6 levels from where I was now. 5. I haven't had any problems reverse engineering on cyber/armor but my characters are both sub 50. From what I've read it's the lvl cap RE that is having a problem. So if you're planning on being 50 asap maybe it will impact you.

I also seem to have a ton of Investigation patterns. And I've noticed as well that slicing seems to be the most rare mission I get. My guess though is that it's related to how they handle the crits. You get bonus to your crits either from companion skill, companion affection or crew skill level, and my guess is that these bonuses push you into the range for some of these crit items more easily while other things you still have a narrow chance at. For example I've gotten like 6 Kuat Missile schems while only 1 of the others.

Yes, the lower level ones seem to drop more, like I've gotten 5 of the purple missile system and a few of the armor but only 1 of the others, and I run alot of slicing missions.

Lvl 38 engineer spec, SoS was a good upgrade for me but I have never had a problem killing an elite 2 levels higher than me. Engineer with snare Iprobe is free kite, I've even killed melee champions my level solo by I probe kiting. Snipers need to kite, don't think you're going to sit in one place and just plow through all the enemies, be smart about it, use your 5 second roots, long ae mez etc.

Thanks for your work on this. I appreciate the cleanliness with which you conduct your tests.

While that setup would work for me my wife would not play it. I like the stumble upon a random person and size them up as a threat type playstyle. She hates getting griefed by some bored max level person while we're just trying to quest. A game like you describe would turn away casual gamers who the game needs for revenue. My wife and I have been playing since early play and are only 35 so far. While we play frequently we have kids and life responsibilities so we don't play as much as we'd like. We also have the need to go afk at random times to address an issue and it's frustrating to have some clown show up while you're afk and pk you for fun then you have to deal with a corpse camper when you get back. The game you describe is certainly one that will attract an audience, it just won't have the broad appeal WoW showed other MMO makers they need.

Heh it annoys me when the classes on my team who should be planting a bomb instead want to chase the guy with 5% hp instead of planting the bomb but I've planted my share, sometimes you just have to step up, we don't plant a bomb any worse/better than anyone else (we just usually get insta gibbed most of the time trying).

You like me probably use portable cover in 99% of cases, and I can't think of a 1v1 or 1v2(where I mostly use entrench) situation where I use hard cover. I too have never been knocked out of entrench but I rarely use hardcover and the subset of times I'm in hardcover and using entrench are extremely small. So I'll take other posters at their word as long as they're talking about hardcover entrench failures and not cover screen entrench failures.