You misunderstand. I'm not in game so can't check the schematics I have but fairly sure 'seeker' gear schematics (not sure what the prefix to seeker is to make sure it's the right set) do come back from grade 6 missions, but these are blue items. I would assume OP needs orange but thought I'd mention this.

Aren't these blue schematic drops from investigation/UWT missions? To the OP - do you need to state your server?

I would hope Bioware would ticket action as the logs would show the advert and then no item being mailed. Surely it's only a one off opportunity, any victim(s) would sit take every opportuntity to tell general/trade they had been scammed by the individual?

Yes, this depends if the original poster meant for 50s or at 50. My latest alt I crafted tier 2 for all slots he could have available and breezed through the first few planets, it got so easy I decided to stop doing it.

With 26 and 27 hilts I would expect. To the original poster, you can make yourself a relic as a 400 artificer then change to something else and the item is still usuable. Only biochem needs you to have some skill for those rakata reusable stims etc. They are also still BoP. I'd say for people to roll an alt with a new crew skill rather than dump it. There are lots of biochems who can supply prototype and exotech stims, my guild bank is bursting with the bloody things.

I've thought about this subject a lot. Overall, I'm in favour of this being kept in the game. My guild is a medium sized social guild - our core team of raiders could pretty much handle any PvE content, we were progressing in HM Denova. A few people have left the game as can happen and our frequency of tackling HM Denova has seriously reduced. We're back to running KP/EV HM to help our newer 50s improve. I can accept all that as part of the social aspect of the guild. We are running a risk of our raiding activity completely tailing off as we're just not able to complete content, if people can improve the chances of success by getting some improvements (and in my guild they are much more likely to simply buy then try to RE) cheaper, it'll help keep us together. While I don't like the intended coding has been worked around, it's already happened. Hopefully Bioware will learn the lesson and stick to proper schematics being dropped rather than the RE approach.

Not quite clear on what you're asking. Generally the grade, rating or level is the best indication of what's best in slot. Black hole is grade 26 for example. People running around in PvP gear without expertise are probably either one of two types, type one is they are really PvE players but like the look of the armor (or retain set bonus) or type two, they've analysed all the various stats and decided to drop the expertise in favour of something else. I use Noxxic.com for guidance on what are the best stats for me to have for each character.

I get additional molecular stabilisers from RE on BH items - most of the mods are useless anyway and with legacy items, I can send mods to cyber and enhancement to artifice and so on.

Yep, you've pretty much understood droid parts. You can either make or get upgradable droid parts so that seems the way to go. The thought of burning away mando iron on wasted RE is pretty unthinkable just for droid parts. It's easier on a trooper, they share aim so looking at end game, surplus dailies rewards can be used to get droids to a good state. If you have cybertech you might as well make upgrades instead

Buying them is for people who don't want to spend the time doing the things to get one. That also means if you want to do those things you should be able to do them reasonably. Pretty sure there are people leaving toons sitting on the spawn points and just log in every couple of hours. On purples, I like something being rare but no one seems to have proven if purple crystals are craftable on either faction.

I think theres some confusion between the grade of the item and the level required to use it. There is no grade 47 item, that is the character needs to be level 47 to use it, so it was probably grade 21 you saw. As per previous poster theres a gap between your vendor schems at grade 22 and then what is learnable i.e. you can't learn or craft between 23-25, but you can learn the 26 grade that drops from Kephess on hard mode (but not any Black hole armorings that are tied to a specific slot).

Yup, some database sites can tell you which heroics will drop some items. Check the commendation vendors, armor vendors and speciality vendors just in case. I spent a whole day killing the same mob on Balmorra trying to get a merc RD-15A chest and then found two were listed on the GTN. It's a very random way to try but theres a broad range of orange items that can drop from treasure hunting lockbox missions.

Rotation is essential on Operations boss fights. My main is a gunslinger - I rotate around 4 effective attacks to keep my energy at the maximum rate of recharge. Over time I can keep up a higher rate of DPS because I never end up in the position of having to just throw out the free attack. Same goes for my vanguard DPS, I've learnt the skills that increase damage when the target is on fire, it's just common sense to start with the fire then go onto them, then attacks not dependant while it's on cooldown, then repeat.

I took Cybertech on my first character shortly after launch. Everyone thought Cybertech was the most useless skill available. Because people now think of this of Armstech there are less of them, on my server the top end barrels go for much more than armoring or mods.

Schematics for 'standard' color +41 stat crystals can be purchased at daily comms vendors (20 each I think). The unusual colours are world boss or lucky totally random drops.

I believe Mercenary Elite is one of the craftable sets by armormechs, you cannot craft ready made prototype versions though, you will be able to make a standard empty orange set and fill it with whatever upgrades you can get your hands on. Either check your GTN or start grinding any of the correct grade UWT missions - think they're level 34 so it would be grade 4.

It's a well known issues for the cybercrafting community but not one likely to get fixed because of the availability of better versions - Columi ears drop often on the first EV boss in HM, and rakata/BH are not hard to get with dailies and BH comms - theres simply not a demand to make Tionese earpieces tradable to make it worthy of changing.

All the above is correct. Just to add there is no alternative story line for dark/light. My gunslinger murdered his way around the galaxy throughout his unmistakenably light sided story. Even with dark maxed the interlude refers to me as gallant

Well, if you mean you want to make a light sabre you can upgrade - you'll need the artifice crafting skill and get yourself a schematic for one - either by buying one from the market or by doing some treasure hunting missions, grade 2 I believe, schematics will drop randomly from these missions and do so very frequently. It's usable at level 20. This will give you an orange bordered item with no upgrades, an empty shell. With artifice you can craft enhancements and hilts to put into it. You'll still be missing a mod, you'll need to buy these from the market, get one as a mission reward or trade in some commendations. You could of course, with artifice start upgrading your hilt and enhancement slots in any orange bordered sabre you already have.

Unless you're like me - and I don't like looking like everyone else in the same class. Don't get to hung up on any look while levelling your character. When you hit 50 and start buying tionese/columi/black hole/rakata, unless you're willing to pay extraction costs (potentially multiple times if you drop columi then later rakata/BH) you're going to be swapping your items out for better ones. My guildmaster likes to laugh at me, I have a consular in pilot gear, gunslinger in sand people gear, a commando in hutt cartel, a guardian in 'mercenary' orange items and a vanguard in 'colossus' orange items. It's cost me a few hundred thousand credits to keep 'the look' while improving gear, however, there is a little side benefit of I can happily augment my armor slots straight away rather than doing this either multiple times or waiting until I get rakata or BH.

I would link it but it's taken 2 minutes just to get to the reply screen with my employer's shoddy internet, there is a good guide to end game reverse engineering in the crew skills forum, it's worth a look. A quick summary though: Tionese - there are tionese schematics and equivalent level schematics that drop from Hard Mode Flashpoints (these are bind on pickup though) Columi - you can drop columi level schematics from story mode operations - (columi earpieces and implants, exotech armor pieces which are the same level as columi but with different stat distribution) Rakata - other than your BoP schematics from vendors, there is no rakata crafting schematics Black Hole/Campaign/Dread Guard - no schematics as such, you will need to earn commendations/go on operations to get these items, then it's taking your chances in reverse engineering. e.g. you buy a black hole item strip out the upgrades and try to RE them (but as last poster this excludes any slot specific armoring, you can only learn an armoring schematic by reverse engineering the grade 26 armoring that Kephess drops). If you're willing to pay the extraction costs you can transfer upgrades around your toons via legacy gear e.g. buy an item with a cybertech to RE the mod, extract the enhancement, attach to legacy item, send to artificer, extract and RE. In short you need to think about going on operations if you aren't already.

It's probably not annoying to other players, and after all, they can simply leave a group if they don't like it before you start. It is a big waste of time though and the stories attached to the missions are rarely interesting. If you want to do them for doing's sake then either wait to you're very over levelled to make them very quick or make sure you do them with the next alt character.

The only thing with ignoring crafting is that you miss out on some relatively cheap gear boosts, I quite liked sending my synthweaver some materials so he could equip rakata belt/bracers as soon as he turned 50. I'd say go with slicing, treasure hunting and diplomacy.

Every crafting skill crafts something which is end game but bind on pickup, so for Cybers, this is ours.

I have taken new 50s with poor gear along in FP HMs when the rest of us are strong, if they're a PUG and acknowledge either they feel under geared or don't know the simple ways of immediate gear improvements any new 50 can achieve, quite happy to point them at dailies etc. What is getting quite irritating is the alt new 50 who is just being lazy and hoping to get carried through on Group Finder.