I had one drop in the Works area on Coruscant, from a droid silver. It's certainly a rare drop. Hope it helps.

Overall, I've had good experiences with the crafting system, and have participated in all of the crafts. My likes are many. I only have one real complaint about the system. Which is the way it mangles the organization of artifact grade items other than the item mods. As far as improvements to the system I would like to see... 1) more orange modable recipes for armstech, armormech, artifice, and synth ~ it's been too long, and there havn't been enough updates. 2) more of the oddball mats from hardmodes & ops available for direct purchase with comms, a la the way baradium flux is sold. The price of those mats on the GTN shouldn't be controlled by how many people are raiding. 3) cybertech get a variety of new speeders added.

First... after returning from my wanderings I am very pleased to see that Masters Nala & KBN have done such a wonderful job with this thread. We've lost so many of the old masters since launch..... Kudos to you both, but esp. Master Nala. As for the questions ~ they look great. Possibly the only thing I'd like to see brought up is the idea that maybe our melee attacks should be given an execute ability type of damage buff from force speed. Possibly as a stack of buffs, consumable by our melee attacks. Project is probably the most common ability used in place of an execute. But it would be of great benefit to the class if we had an option that did not consume any force. It makes sense that melee attacks would benefit from force enhanced speed. The value of such a buff would depend entirely on how players used it, so it can't be considered an outright buff to the class. Using this buff would complicate the player's decision about how they should (and if they should), use force speed in their current situation. And adding decisions for players to make is almost always good. In short... Yes. More than any other class I've played, sage/sorc is very much a "tool box" spec. I can select the abilities and gear for how I would like to play, and make a solid contribution to a group ~ I can't really say that for certain about the other classes I've played. The possible variations are quite staggering. I use concentration (from TK), as a force management tool, in heal spec. I also stack skills and gear to get my bubble lockout down to 14 seconds, and play to maximize the uptime of my bubbles. Both are somewhat unusual, and because of the way this class works ~ I can play that way if I choose. For most of the other classes, cap stone abilities seem far more important, and low level skill points seem far less effective. I do feel that the sage/sorc trees certainly have their "taxes", but the worst taxes are in T3 & T4, where many other classes are just starting to get to their more impressive skill points. In other classes, specs and rotations feel much more "fixed". While sage/sorc depends a great deal on a more reactive style of play. The downsides to sage/sorc being structured this way, is that our capstone abilities end up feeling lackluster for class balance reasons. And it leads to a lot of passionate argument about "what is optimal" for a class where the difference between "optimal" and "everything else" is actualy pretty narrow ~ and performance depends a great deal on how it's played.

My first & favorite flight sim will always be the original Elite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)

I play with the same weapon load out on my FT-8. I noticed the same problem...... It would be fun for a while if they did increase the range of the ion cannons. For a while.... The problem is that if we got to start our burst any earlier, it would be so OP ~ nobody could fly anything else. And then every match would be a head to head burst fest with 12 strikes vs 12 strikes.

I didn't find bombers all that enjoyable to pilot during beta, and returned to flying my strike after flying an upgraded bomber. They caused some problems, but I don't feel it's because they had OP DPS. It was because they had massive shields. They were so large, that even with all power diverted to weapons, a strike couldn't take them down with blasters. Instead you had to score several missle hits & bypass the shields altogether ~ or you had to be armed with an ion weapon. If the dogfight went on too long the bomber's mine would come off CD, and they'd drop one. That mine would instantly lock on and pretty well one shot a scout. So downing bombers by dogfighting, was a strike fighter pilot's job. And at somepoint in the dogfight, the bomber would likely have either a shield or hull health defensive CD come up. Scouts can dogfight bombers, but they need to do it from a range over 2000m. This will give them about half a second to shoot any mine that the bomber deploys. Any closer, and they're courting fate. It's also suicidal for a scout to go head to head with a bomber, as the scout will be unable to shoot the mine through the bomber, and the bomber's shield strength grossly outmatches that of a scout. The other problem with bombers specifically, was pilots deciding to tunnel the bomber....and flying right through a mine field in the process. With bombers in the theatre, it's imperative that pilots pick up their scans and destroy the mines from outside their 3000m range. At the speeds that scouts fly, it doesn't give a pilot much time to acquire the right mine as a target, shoot, and then turn away before aggroing a different mine. Again, it's a little easier to do in a strike. But once all the mines have been cleared, and the bomber's mines are on CD ~ bombers are pretty helpless targets. Any shot will one shot a mine. The ideal craft for clearing the mines is of course a gunship. Because a gunship can clear a hairy multi-bomber laid minefield in less than minute, from well outside their agro range. We didn't see a whole lot of it in the beta, but the bomber is intended to play support role with, deployable spawn points, drones to heal teammates, space for lot's of long range missles, the mine to supplement defense of stations until the turrets spawn, and the shield/hull to delay the cap longer than any other craft. Instead we saw whole wings of bombers, which created matches with massive dps numbers but few kill medals awarded. The gunship wasn't as popular to fly during beta, so I expect that wings of bombers will fail hard if the tactic is tried on the public servers.

I don't have a problem with facing premade teams, it's just the GSF hardcore mode. QFT. I'd really like to see a small hotbar added to the UI with 3 buttons that can be assigned hotkeys. button 1 = write string "incoming A" to the chatbox button 2 = "incoming B" button 3 = "incoming C" That would pretty well even up any potential pug vs. premade issues. It would provide most of the actually utility of PTT, without them having to deal with all the technical hurdles. If they wanted to be aggressive about it, they could add 3 more buttons to announce "A/B/C clear" in chat.

First req I spent was to replace my primaries with Ion & Quad. My recommendation is to pick which of the two stock weapons you like best & replace the other with Ions. The chief problem with the combination is that it draws down your weapon battery faster than any other load out. And if your not going to manage your power resources, you'll spend a lot of time out of gas. You're not going to down too many orbiting scouts with any strike loadout, but the Ion cannon makes sure that they are always ready for one of your scout wingmen to make an effective strafing run. Ions + Quads probably has the highest burst output of any loadout for the strike. So it is very effective for convincing gunships that they had better boost and scoot. And it's more effective for clearing station defensive turrets. Both of which are very beneficial for your scout wingmen. As for secondaries, Cluster missles are better for station defense, Torpedos for gunships & and turrets. I generally use Concussion missles as a not so happy medium. With secondaries, everything is a trade off. Just make sure you use which ever you pick. On a side note... If you're not comfortable hotkeying between your weapons ~ you'll contribute more by flying a scout.

I've had this happen on all sorts of surfaces in the game environment, it's not just the stations. The good news is that surfaces don't reach out and grab you, and you have to hit them first.

Quads are devastating at close ranges where the cursor fits inside the lead indicator ~ but you still have to aim for center.

That the hanger/ships/crew/unlocks isn't legacy wide.

/signed They need to implement this ASAP, before too many players go over the 1000 match mark. Eventually they could use this to create a GSF leaderboard.

Not that I'm aware of. But if they could institute such a limit ~ bombers could be added in without nerfing them half to death.

Gunships are inherently self limiting. Several things can be expected of their pilots. 1) They will locate somewhere within 15000m of an objective, or a common traffic path. 2) If they wish to perform well, they need a location with a wide field of view. 3) Their close range capabilities are poor. Their only real options are to turtle or to run. 4) The field of view for the rail gun weapon makes it progressively more difficult to track a target as that target gets closer. I counter gunships by closing on them in two ways. 1) Along a path that is at a wide angle from where they are facing ~ this can be seen in the target picture shown by the UI. 2) I approach head on along a path which zig zags across their field of view, at full boost speed. I employ both approaches with full power to engines. At 4250m I end my boost, begin firing ions, & fire a missle. As soon as the shield is down I switch to quads. If they run, I switch back to ions ~ to take down their rear shield. If they fire on me in self defense, at full health I am able to weather the first hit just fine. If they fire and miss, I throttle back and kill them before I pass them. My goal as a strike is to knock them off their perch, and remove their shields so that a scout will see them as a target of opportunity and polish them off. That said, if they don't quickly decide to make a run for it/ or I catch them without enough engine power, I am generally able to finish them off myself. I can usually take all of their forward shield and 3/4 of their hull in the first pass, without losing any of my own hull. But, I will use my shield CD if they turn & fire on me during my approach, my self heal if necessary.

The switch is your active ability 1. It doesn't seem to be obvious to quite a few people.

This is true. The shield upgrade was the very last upgrade I purchased, the regen reactor will be the next 6K req that I spend. I'll edit the original post to make a note of that. Once I've got that I can properly determine which option I want to stick with. For now I'll be running with it like it is just so I don't get attached to the short CD and spoil my objectivity.

They certainly had a "healer" feel to them. But seriously.... they were the tankiest ship as well. Players think it's difficult to handle an orbiting strike as it is....bombers were insanely hard to kill without ion weapons or help. Strikes & scouts just didn't have the weapon energy to 1v1 a bomber without using an ion weapon. Part of the problem was the shield boosting defensive CD that bombers had. If they had a mechanic that limited how many each side could fly at any given time ~ I'd say bring them back just like they were. It was fun to have such a hard target to shoot at. Without a limit though, GSF becomes "the drone wars".

Wouldn't call myself an ace.... my goals are defense, assault, & assists. Major Systems Primary One ~ Quads (cost mod in T4, plan to take hull damage in T5) Primary Two ~ Ion canons (plan to take engine & weapon drains in T4 & T5) Secondary ~ Concussion or Cluster depending on my mood (plan to take range & armor bypass in T4 & T5) Shields ~ Quick Charge (60% regen mod in T3) Engine ~ Koiogran Turn (turn rate mod in T3) Minor Systems Capacitor ~ Frequency Magazine ~ Regeneration Reactor ~ Turbo (Regeneration reactor planned) Thruster ~ Regeneration Crew Offensive ~ Qyzen Fess Defensive ~ Oro Wogawa Tactical ~ Kendra Novar Engineering ~ T7 (copilot as well) Pretty well taking the same loadout on my Pike except for these changes Primary ~ Quads Secondary One ~ Cluster Missles (Ammo Cap for T4 & double volley for T5) Secondary Two ~ Protons (Speed in T4 & range in T5) Armor ~ Lightweight Magazine ~ Munitions Capacity Extender

Yes. that is one of the bomber variants ~ the other variant was identical except it's missing one "wing". It was asymmetric in shape. The two bomber variants in the close beta were as follows. One variant was essentially a minelayer if running in completely stock configuration. The other was more of a support ship that was capable of healing allies with a repair drone. If memory serves me right both ships had the option to equip a hyperspace beacon that added a spawn point to the map. This allowed for more rapid reinforcement of contested areas.... it was the most underused and also game changing capability of the ships. But the capabilities of the ships were just too much to balance. Some of the mines/drones could one shot a strike. And the shield strength of the bombers was off scale. It was nearly impossible to destroy a bomber without ion weapons or a coordinated effort between multiple pilots. That said ~ they were very weak to ion weapons. They were very boring to fly, because they had a very slow rate of turn, and a slower boosted speed. This made them worthless in a turning fight. Essentially they just orbited the stations and mined up everthing. The game revolved around which team was better at clearing the mines, or who fielded the most bombers. I personally didn't feel that they were OP ~ but I also didn't feel that they added much "fun factor" to GSF.

right here... throttle & roll on the thumb stick active abilities 1 -4 on keys 1-4 F1/F2/F3 on 5, 10, & mouse wheel F4 = round thumb button Tab = 7 W = 8 Afterburner = 9 & 15 attacker target = 12 S = 13 reticle target = 14 6 & 11 are [Ctrl] & [shift] I changed the keybind for for reticle target to E and use exactle the same set up for PvE with a naga for 1-12 to keybind 3 bars. EDIT my bad it's the keybind for attacker target that I changed - to = Q.

yep.... basically the same model.

The kill medals are only a few of the medals. And the defensive medals are worth just as much req, if not more. Look at it this way, There are 3 roles to fulfill, and different medals earned by each role. Ship to Ship Fighter ~ supports the assault & defense floating between stations Station Assault ~ focusses on killing turrets, driving off defenders & capping Station Defense ~ stay close to the station & only come out to fight off enemy station assault(ers) If you switch roles each time you die, you'll earn the low level medals from each role before the end of the battle.

Well.... we saw this in Beta too. There's a pretty obvious skill gap between the new pilots and players and those that were in the beta or on the open PTS before. Most of the 'orbiters' seem to be beta pilots. I think the situation will straighten itself out as the fresh pilots earn their chops. I usually pull a vertical 180 degree turn around a fin and reverse my direction of orbit. After passing 2 fins I make another, and If they're making simple circles that will normaly bring me in right on their six. But it depends on what we're flying in, our throttle usage, and thus our relative speed when we're 'counter orbiting'. This keeps them from getting the cap and gets me in position to burn off their rear shield.....most of the time they run for it and I take the cap.

I love this expac ! And I'm already looking forward to new maps & game types. Here's some ideas I would like to see. Fleet Action Two opposing fleets of capital ships engage. Victory is achieved when all the turrets of the opposing fleet are destroyed. Prototype ECM ships are scrambling targeting computers on both fleets, and it is up to snub fighters to decide the outcome of the battle. Spawn points are in hanger bays aboard the surviving capital ships. Gravity Kills An interdictor ship is propelling asteroids toward an orbital defense platform (at a slow speed). These are the two spawn points, and the match is played in two rounds. The asteroids can be destroyed by the defending team. Victory is achieved by smashing the orbital station quicker than the other team. In a draw, the top medal earning team wins. Blockade Run Escort a slow moving armored landing craft from your team's capital fleet to the threshold of a planet's atmosphere while defending it from the enemy team and orbital planetary defenses. (Think of it as a fight to reinforce a ground campaign to restore order on a world in rebellion against it's original faction, while the other faction is attempting to reinforce that rebellion). Victory is achieved by the first team to deliver enough supplies to support a major ground offensive. Got ideas?

The utility of the ability is the +6% to evasion that the ability provides to the user. The accuracy buff is mostly just an added bonus. But it's a drive by...er...fly by buff.