I do not know if this has been mentioned, but why is there no 8/31/2 PvE Shadow spec?

I whole heartedly agree that orange gear aka blow all my commendations on upgrades for the same set of gear since lvl 12 ruins this game. In fact, until I hit 50, I will probably be using the same 6 slots of gear for 38 lvls. I bought the whole set for about 2K creds from a vendor on Coruscant. Since then, i vendor everything, and just buy the mods I need from gear on the GTN via extract. All my commendations go towards gearing my companion, whose gear I also bought for practically next to nothing, either from the GTN, light side vendors, fleet vendor, pvp vendor, etc. I've never played a P2P mmo that made acquiring gear SO easy. But it might also have a thing or two with items on the GTN selling for next to nothing. Buy item for 25K creds and be good for 2-3 lvls or spend 3-4 hours grinding for commendations. Not a hard decision at the moment. Like I said, all my commendations go to my companion artifact gear. Something doesn't seem quite right. Either that or BW is planning the next tier of gear to be insanely difficult to get. PvP gear is also stupid. We had our guildy lvl from 42 to 50 doing PvP. By the time he dinged 50, he had like 1000 merc and 1000 wz saved up and got pretty lucky and got his whole set. ***?

Running around at only lvl 38 opening boxes on the ground nets me 20K an hour, easily. I only imagine this amount increases with level. Exceptions being in areas that are completely barren of anything at all. Some parts of Hoth I'd spot maybe 10 boxes per hour, yield on average for me, about 600 credits per box. 6K creds an hour on a relatively desolate planet is still better than nothing. I find so many boxes that literally I run out of bag space because I dont remember to open them and move onto another box on my map right next to it. Since the slicing nerf, seems like everyone and their mom dropped it as a crew skill. Which probably inflated my income. In 3 days, I've come across 1 other slicer that stole my box while I fought the trash. Before the nerf, I was usually competing against 2-3 people at a time for each box. I don't mean 20K a hour running the missions, you'd have to be retarded to still run those at all, at any level or yield. I play 5 hours a day, @ ~20K a hour fro slicing boxes on the ground. That yields about 100K total income from slicing in that time period. What is hard to grasp about that? You're just outright stupid.

I make probably 5-6x with TH than Slicing. But I could stumble into a area with 10x the normal lockboxes and then it evens out. If you are sending out companions on slicing missions for lockboxes then you are stupid. That has been proven to yield no gains, even losses. The thing with TH is, whenever they come back with a lockbox + green vendor item, it's a guaranteed income gain. Usually netting you double what you put in. If they come back with a blue, then it is a 4x gain. If epic/orange, then 6x gain. ( rough estimations ) I've rarely had a TH mission that I regret sending out. If they come back with just a money box, it's usually breaking even. Maybe a little gain on the side. But not much, killing a few mobs and vendoring would net the same results. However, I think Slicing + TH together is a great combination. Slice everything you come across for some steady income while grinding mobs and vendoring their trash/greens. TH brings in a very dependable rate of greens/blues/epics/oranges along with cash on the side.Just stop by the GTN and list everything that would be something people would want, vendor the rest. It's great income with none of the hassle aside from having to stop by the GTN once or twice a day to relist things. You must also have a alt, because the sheer quantity of stuff you need to sell at one given time can be staggering. I've had up to 13 pages of blues/oranges/low lvl greens/epics up on the GTN after a full day of playing. I login the next day and find about 200k sitting in my box @ lvl 38. Another 100K didn't sell. But it's ok, I'll just relist it because the cost to list things on the GTN is frankly, broken.

I had slicing pretty decent level before the nerf, and decided to keep it in the hopes that it would get unnerfed. It didn't, it got nerfed slightly again. That being said, I make about 30K/hr with slicing just grabbing the lockboxes laying around, if I choose to stop and pickup every single one at lvl 38ish. But I dont bother with about half of the ones I see, so I net maybe 15K/hr from slicing boxes. I don't run the missions at all, unless I have a million relics from TH, and already have a ton of relics on the TGN. That being said, slicing is still a decent gain to my income. Total income being close to 100K/day, playing about 5 hours a day. Slicing still makes decent money. Less than some gathering or non-gathering skills? Probably, but it does still make money, with next to no effort to get it. The only Slicing requirement to generate income is that you have to be actively leveling, and mostly in city/urban zones. Once I hit 50, it becomes useless. I will probably take the money I've saved/made from slicing, and use it to level a different crew skill to 400. My friend was the one who told me to get slicing at launch because it was free money, and for the most part it was. I didn't abuse it like he did though, and he dropped it the moment it got nerfed. His daily income is lower than mine, and now has to compensate by questing/pvp/etc. Whereas I can pick and choose what I want to do, because I am not dictated by income. He quests to get better gear and money. I just walk to the TGN and buy what I want and usually end up getting the same gear and money. But life is definitely easier. Slicing may be a ghost of what it was at launch, but it is still very useful, if you can figure out what is worth slicing, and what is not, what your time is worth, your income per hr/min/day/etc. And finally what to do with the extra income ( as miniscule as it may be ) to generate more income, or create a better playing/lvling experience.