It's one thing to have friends who are willing to carry you a bit until you're properly geared. To expect strangers to carry you at 55 when you don't care enough to have better gear than thirty-something greens first is just rude, IMO. How hard is it to have at least most of your gear slots filled with 50+ purples by the time you hit 55? Not very hard at all. Those guys must've been earning comms as they leveled; what were they doing with them? Actually, it just occurred to me that they might've been F2P players, and may not have access to purples. Maybe that was the issue?

When I first got to 55, I spent a couple of weeks working my Gunslinger's type 1 tuches off to get both myself and a guildie geared up in all 66s (through Cybertech). During this time, I did a few HMs with my guild. They understood that I was still gearing up, and they were okay with carrying me a bit until I could pull my weight. I didn't even try a random until I was fully geared with 66 purples in every slot. That's just to put it in perspective for you. There's a certain amount of work you should put in before going to the random queue. I probably put in a bit more than I needed to. The two randoms you carried through did significantly less than they needed to. You would've been well within your rights to give them the boot on first sight, IMO.

Also, with the Collection system, scooters are gonna be even harder to sell in the future. I had an Aratech Nethian on one character, then Collections went live, and I was able to spend (IIRC) 60 Cartel Coins to register it and make it available to every character on my account. I'll never have to buy a scooter again. No reason I'd want to, either, since the Nethian is pretty spiffy-looking.

IMO, the best-looking Smuggler chestpiece is the Synthmesh Battle Jacket, obtained from an easily soloed Heroic 2 quest on Tatooine (no combat necessary if you choose your path to the objective carefully). You'll need to be somewhere around level 25 for that, though. Here's a good thread right here on these forums with lots of pictures of Smuggler gear... http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=234058

It's called something like Confiscated Mercenary's Headgear. It's Legacy-bound, and you buy it from a rep vendor on the Republic space station above Makeb. Requires Champion rep and costs 25k credits.

I've had instances of my graphics card overheating, causing me to disconnect and my screen to go blank. I only know I disconnected from the game because a guildie once texted me to say, "That was fast! I barely said hi before you logged out." I then always had to do a hard reboot to get my computer working properly again. The solution I've found to work is to remove the side panel from my case, to allow more air to flow in while I'm playing. I lean that panel against the side where it goes, because I have cats who'd probably find all those little wires coming out of my power supply delicious if they were fully exposed. It still greatly improves airflow, and I haven't once had that heat issue with my case open.

Still, it is one of the blousier (is that a word?) looks in the game. There's space between her clothes and her skin (well, fur) in several places. The cloth has some thickness to it. The skirt certainly isn't tight. Like anything else in the world, it's not without its flaws. Personally, I'd prefer some sort of loafer or ankle boot with it. But I also know that pants in this game don't go down past the top of the shin, so we won't be seeing any footwear that doesn't extend up to that point. So, I make do within the constraints of the system. I was just looking to share an outfit I like in the hopes that you might like it as well, RC. Sorry it didn't work out that way.

Derelict-Purple doesn't have a black core. It's actually a little lighter in the center than in the aura. As for the rarity, keep in mind that purple lightsabers didn't even exist in Star Wars until Samuel L. Jackson made it happen by insisting on purple for Mace Windu's saber.

Cybertech is a really good choice. I took it on my Gunslinger because I figured she'd know how to make repairs and modifications on her own ship. You know, story/RP reasons. Even though I haven't actually bothered with the space missions, I've gotten a lot of good use out of the skill. I've used it to help gear up myself and a couple of guildies at 55, greatly speeding up that process, as everyone can use the stuff Cybertech makes, specifically armorings, mods and earpieces. Even though I haven't made much stuff specifically for my companions, Guss and Risha benefit from my hand-me-downs when I get better gear from flashpoints. The one drawback of Cybertech is that you can't make cool-looking stuff that you can see on your character and companions. Well, there's a couple of scooters you can make, but that's about it. And that was pretty much obviated the day I pulled an Orlean Fortune Hunter out of a cartel pack. But substance-wise, Cybertech is really hard to beat for sheer usefulness.

Have you checked out the Collection system? It can make pretty much all Cartel Market stuff accessible to all characters on your account. You can even get multiples of all the equippable stuff for your companions.

The fact that this outfit isn't adaptive is the main reason I made my female Knight a Sentinel instead of a Guardian.

I recently put together this look primarily using Cartel Market stuff. The only thing not from the Cartel Market is her hat (and it's also the only thing that I've color-matched). I'm pretty happy with it. It's neither revealing nor (for the most part) skintight. It's even made up of multiple layers. It's fashionable, but quite normal. http://imgur.com/znh7LLC

Based on your recommendation, I got a pale brown secondary dye pack for my Gunslinger, who also wears the Synthmesh Battle Jacket. I agree; it is a nice look!

Here's my kitty again, with a couple of full-body shots added so you can see her whole outfit... http://imgur.com/znh7LLC

I was asked to spacebar through a FP once by a random teammate. I was running it for the first time, though, so I told him so and he was fine with letting me watch the cutscenes after that. It probably helped that the tank and healer were my guildies, though.

Yeah, I have red hair and brown eyebrows. All natural. I wouldn't object to a "match eyebrows to hair color" checkbox, though. Seems like a pretty good idea.

My eyebrows don't match my hair color in real life, so this isn't a big deal to me.

Here's my kitty-cat Commando showing off her new hat. Rar. Hhssst. http://imgur.com/scZRkIb

Covert Energy Pants is coming, I'm sure. Remember how recently there was a little bit of a glitch with the newly introduced Covert Energy Boots? They were assigned the wrong icon. The icon depicted boxer shorts. So, yeah, the pants of that set must be in the works.

I wouldn't say my Sage was inspired by Stana Katic (Kate Beckett from Castle), because I created her before I started watching the show, but the resemblance is pretty uncanny... http://imgur.com/eiNZYGK Similar face, similar build (type 3), similar hair, similar voice. I pretty much copied her entirely by accident. She's awesome, though, so I'm not complaining.

Yes, it does. Which is why I expect others to respect my Need rolls, just as I respect their Need rolls on gear for their characters.

Even in governmental institutions, your speech can be restricted. Try to avoid using the word "bomb" when you're going through airport security, for example. If the freedom to cuss in a game is important to you, I'd recommend checking out The Secret World. Cussing is allowed there, as long as you're actually communicating and not just spamming general chat with nothing but the F-word over and over again. Oh, and I'm pretty sure racial slurs are forbidden, as are threats. But, yeah, you can get a little salty with your language there.

I think he's making a pretty good point. The fact that F2Pers can't trade does make it more of a problem when they click Need on something it turns out they can't use.

A Sentinel's right to take my Gunslinger's gear for Doc is trumped by my right to choose not to associate with that player anymore.

^This. It's the basic principle of "my house, my rules". They do indeed have every right to limit what you're allowed to do on their private property.