There's already nothing to spend money on at endgame. Bad plan. They should all just be about crafting things you want to use, hence the term.

TL;DR: Bioware severely underestimated the number of people who enjoy crafting and/or the endgame utility that crafting provides in other games. The level 45 offhand has crit and surge. The level 48 offhand has crit and.... alacrity. There are more variations at lower levels, but the level 48 craft from the trainer is crap. Also, it's level 48, and so i'm guessing it's just filler until you get an op drop. Even if you purple crit it, there's that alacrity taking up space where a useful stat can be. I got a blue of the level 45, which I've been using while leveling 45 - 50, which is +82 crit and +21 surge, with an aug slot. (Side note - i RE'd these things for 3 days, no purple proc, not sure if it's broken or my RNG sucks). Conceivably, with a well-itemized Level 48 purple crit, it would stand up to endgame gear for a little while unless or until I got the same stats I wanted in a higher-level item. But even that doesn't seem to be an option, so it's useless and will never be used. It's clear there was no thought put into what people were supposed to be doing with these crafts at endgame; or rather, I feel like there was an assumption we'd all happily "graduate" to raidgear and not care about having these unused useless skills around.

I RE'd a level 45 focus into a Blue without too much trouble; however, after I don't even know how many REs of the blue - been at it 3 days now - not a single purple, of any variety. Is this consistent with the crap rates they're talking about retuning, or are there simply no itemizations for this, like Vibroknives...? Edit: why isn't this a sticky? It's broken, there are bugs, everyone knows it. If a new person wanders in here looking for info, shouldn't they be able to find it without making yet another thread on the same topic, and getting yet another copy of the same answers? People are wasting time and mats on what they have no way of knowing is broken. Not cool.

Cool, thanks for the update. That's the one at the wrecked transport?

Hmm, you sure? 'Coz I'm wearing the headgear right now, and I never did the bonus series...

I think it's the "go kill the escaped prisoners" quest given from, errr, something up near the NW area... it's the same quest hub that you came to with Andronikos as a guest, to search the various desert waypoints. Questgiver is one of those near the tents; he tells you about escaped VIP prisoners, and he activated their shock collars so they're probably not happy, etc.

Just a quick thought / feedback on this: The speeder that has a chance to drop from <redacted> is a nifty model, and was cool to get - no idea what he had, so all loot was a surprise, heh. However.... Foundry is mostly done in the high 30s, at least... and the speeder is Rank I, 90%. So it will see little, if any, use. Maybe it could be relocated to Boarding Party or something, or be made a "speed depends on your skill" mount? There's *cough* another game that uses this method, which lets people continue to use their favorite mou- uh, forms of transportation. Even if not, the way things stand now this will hardly be used by anyone for more than a level or three, which is kind of a shame. Side note on spoliers: commenters, please remember, not everyone likes knowing ahead of time, and we should respect that.

Do you realize what you're saying is "we're giving you stupid stats on purpose, to force you to go change them?"

Where <x> = <pretty much any one skill>* I like how the first person to throw "noskill glass cannon" stones is a Smuggler? I think, somewhere in all the trolling, retrolling, metatrolling and facerolling, this thread wandered off into the Limbo of Rawrlol and got lost. ...i would also posit there are no such things as "emergency cooldowns." They provide zero benefit if they're never used; and if you wait for "an emergency," it's probably already too late anyway. Use them. All. The time. *except maybe grappling people into fire, cuz that never gets old. Happens to me all the time, it's still funny.

Rebump. Coming up on two months since release and a great many of us seem to have gotten screwed out of a title, following a path that turns out to be broken.

Angry jawa is angry xD. Note to the OP: "max zoom out" is a max distance your camera can be, not a command to zoom the camera to the max . The first thing I do on a new toon is go into prefs and set this to 100%; otherwise, especially in pvp, you won't know 75% of wth is going on. Mousewheel is also really, really dippy. Frequently moving one way will suddenly zoom it the other, like 5 steps. -.- This doesn't happen in any other app, so it ain't the mouse. I'll go to zoom in a little more, and ziiiiing all the way out. Preset camera positions: something a little more analog would be nice. A single step in our out is REALLY far. Also, minor side note to that: 2nd closest step is pretty far from your toon if you're trying to see wep or gear or face detail. 1st closest step is inside your toon . Not teribly useful, and since we can't zoom in on the wardrobe at all....

Great guide. Minor minor notes; some some clarification, some just my NSHO if you agree: "You know if you are going the right way by bringing up the map." Actually, there are arrows on the minimap too; don't stick your face in the M map during a match! If you meant the minimap, maybe reword that line? Fire pits / acid pits: it's actually trivial to cross these with some abilities; where you say "never cross these" maybe it should be noted that Static Shield / Force Speed, or leaping/pulling abilities, will trivialize them. Bad mistake: if the EBC is getting near your goal, DON'T STAND ON IT! You're going to feel pretty dismayed when he force leaps to you and instascores. Stay away from your goal line when defending. Rescue Pull: says Consular, but of course the Sorcerer has it as well. I forget the real name. Force Yoink? Various pass the ball to near-death enemy: really, really risky. You mention this a couple of times, but a watchful opponent will pull his teammate's butt out of the fire (literally), bubble him, heal him... an aware target of this manuever can also simply pass the ball to a full-health teammate... it's a nifty idea but I can't imagine trying it over any other trick. General tip: Look up! The map is 3D. Many times I've seen a player slow deathmarch his way out of the pit on the sides, and try to take the long way back around to the ramps... when there is a teammate right above them open to receive. Look up, look around! A final word on exploits: An exploiter will repeat, loud and long, that it's "okay" to exploit, for various reasons. He's saying this because he wants it to be true; sayin' it, however, don't make it so. Don't exploit. This isn't a legal court; you're not a lawyer; you will not "prove you're right" in any capacity. Bioware determines what is or isn't, and - like every MMO company ever in the history of ever - defines "taking advantage of weird or buggy mechanics" as an exploit, period, end of story. Don't do it. It's pretty stupid, anyway, and the few benefits *really* don't outweigh the negatives. Maybe concentrate on being a more skilled player, instead, since I think a couple matches have been won here and there on skill, without exploits .

Did anyone else try mousing over his buffs in the screenshot for a second? It's blue bubble for mercs, but I don't see it in that screenshot. Can anyone see it in his row of buffs...?

Especially given the creators of this game, I will go by KOTOR far sooner than I will the silly prequels. Sorry, Samuel. Besides, as pointed out a dozen times, npcs all over the place are running around with them, including one in a pretty low-level quest on Dromund Kaas.

Cool story bro. Hey when you're done being a jack***? He never said he got the schematic. That's a screenshot of a crystal. A single, lone, BoP purple crystal that was looted to him. Instead of yelling "DON'T TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD BECAUSE HE SAID SO, TAKE ME AT MINE BECAUSE I SAY SO!!11!!1!," maybe we could try, I don't know, examining the facts. The purple crystal that can be yoinked from Imp Columni gear; is it the exact same level and stats as the one shown? If so, there is still room for doubt; if not, that proves pretty conclusively that that ain't it.

This, and also the prefix changes every level. This is ridiculous and makes looking for the right one impossible... why call something that's +crit a different name at every level? Is it really helpful to decide level 10 is Critical, but then level 20 is Lethal, then level 30 is Homicidal... and that, at least, is halfway logical progression. Battle Enhancement? Adept Enhancement? Force Wielder? These are arbitrary names that tell you nothing. Aside from the design, there are, as mentioned, plain ol' errors. Diff name, same stats (I've seen this on plenty of gear, especially commendation gear, as well - I believe one of them was meant to be the flip of the other. This kinda screws people who would prefer the flip stats....).

No, because you need Crit for it to even be a factor. So now you're stacking Surge *and* crit for it to make a difference, and congrats you just became DPS, because there's no way to do this without sacrificing proper defensive stats. I'm sorry, but this doesn't pan out in practice, even though the idea makes sense.

Okay, some digging, poking around, peering through the GTN interface (blecch) and mucking about with my toons' skills gives the following (this is not the actual crafting skills, but gather and mission skills): 1 - 59 Rank 1 - Mission Levels 10-16 60 - 119 Rank 2 - Mission Levels 17-24 120 - 189 Rank 3 - Mission Levels 25-32 190 - 269 Rank 4 - Mission levels 33-40 270 - 319 Rank 5 - Mission Levels 41-48 320 - 400 Rank 6 - Mission levels 49 and 50 One thing to note is that there are no Companion GIfts of Rank 6. So both Rank 5 and Rank 6 missions will provide Rank 5 Companion Gifts. If you're looking at a Mission Discovery, find what range the number appears in above, and that's the rank of the results you'll get. Mission Discoveries get you one of every available mission type in that rank, so an Investigation 175 will get you both Rank 3 Researched Compounds *and* Rank 3 Companion Gifts. For Underworld Trading, you'll get Metals, Silks, and Gifts. The mission level ranges have nothing to do with when you can run the mission. You can, with the cash, level right up to 400 at level 10 if you want. The level bracket after the rank determines who can use the result. For example, if you want to craft a purple-quality barrel with a min level requirement of 35, your Armstech will need a Rank 4 Purple-quality Researched Compound to craft it, since level 35 is in the 4th tier bracket. A Rank 2 Slicing mission for Augments will never get you an Augment with a min level requirement of less than 17, nor more than 24. Normally, you'll only see Moderate, Abundant, Bountiful, or Rich yields in your missions (from least to most). Mission Discoveries will provide Prosperous or Wealthy (blue and purple respectively, I believe, but I'm not 100% sure if that's set in stone). Hope this helps - maybe the next time Goshee wanders by he can add the Rank table to his guide. He can leave out my rambling .

Nice guide - one thing that could be added to the original post, tho.. I don't see anywhere a table of what skill level corresponds to what tier. You basically have to grind up until magically the next rank missions appear, for gathering and mission skills. Nowhere googling around do I see a definitive list. Since the "Mission Discovery" items list a min skill to use, and not a Rank (sigh Bioware), you have no idea what they'll get you until you use them a few times and have more general familiarity with the system (Cool, I found a 175 Archeology discovery! What the honk will this get me??). A guide showing something like "1-119: Rank 1" will let a player know, ok, this 115 discovery gets me rank 1 items. It also helps when you're cranking out items just to level - should I queue 4 more orange items to get to the next tier, or is that a waste of mats? If someone has this info hidden somewhere, please show it to Google

I don't know how to phrase this as a short question, but... When will we see a market overhaul? The GTN interface is a limited mess, and the player economy is doing bizarre things due to most items having a default value of half to a tenth of their stabilizing "real" value. Since the interface makes mass-posting and price checking so time consuming, many people end up throwing items up at their default value. This is activating a Rank 20 Dirty Kick on crafters as well as doing weird things to mat prices.

Yeah, you wouldn't believe how many green Vibroknives I RE'd until i finally realized how long I'd been at it and thought, you know, i know they nerfed proc rates but this just seems wrong... Yeah, there is no possibility of a proc for the 'knives or scatterguns. Cool. Thanks for the warning. Can I have all those mats back now bioware?

I must be doing something wrong. Some folks see improvement with just the arena moved, some with that and the fx file; i did all that *plus* all the dynamic art assets, and it's still horrible. Other than looking and seeing, yep, there's the files and there's the links, is there a good way to test if I've somehow b0rked this all up, in the setup? Edit: Alienware m17x quad-core with 8 gigs ram, win7, radeon 6900m series... runs Skyrim with the hires texture pack smooth as silk, and usually i have that and a browser open and vent and steam and sometimes more... i reeeeeeally don't think it's my system, Bioware

DUH, gotcha. Right. Makes sense. Yay math Well, i did all this - altered the batch script to include "move all the _dynamic_ and _fx_ files to the disk and link them too" - and zero effect. The game loads, it runs, i see textures and effects. I've nerfed all settings to crap and turned off shadows, AA, Bloom, etc. No change. If anything it's worse; I noticed a low of 7 fps earlier today, now I see it tank all the way down to THREE. The assets folder contains only the renamed, original files, and the links. So the game *must* be using the files on the ramdrive. And the rest of the batch I left intact, to move the diskcachearena over... so... This is really, really frustrating. 15 seconds of 3-5 fps when you come under attack does not make a fun pvp experience. Questing or doing heroics out in the world when you suddenly stutter down to 10 fps isn't enjoyable either. This needs to get sorted, or I'm going to have a hard time justifying next month's sub fee.

Yes, that's what I'm using now with just the original suggestion. What I meant was, in what I quoted it's recommended to use a 4GB ramdrive to get everything else to fit; since my sys is 8 gigs, is that a good idea? I imagine I could just take the batch script, place in additional lines for all the extra files, run it, and see if anything explodes o_O

With 8 gigs total and therefore a 4 gig ramdrive, d'you think the remaining 4 gigs is enough to keep Windows happy and the rest of the client smooth? Or is this a solution only 12 and up should consider? I moved _fx_ and the cachearena to a ramdrive as per your howto, and that seems to be functioning, but I see no change in performance. Zipping along at 50-100 fps then suddenly, splat, 7-10 fps any time a fight breaks out, or a new person walks by, or a Kath hound sneezes . Huttball is nearly unplayable. The constant, just going-around the-world-and-questing stutters and hiccups and freezes and choking are incredibly frustrating. I'm about ready to let my sub run out until they release a real client.