I've been healing spec all the way to 50 Used Aric pretty much the whole journey, he primary dps and me mostly healing with dps if healing not needed. Used M14X a bit on tat but it was too slow, a fully geared Aric tanks just as well because most mobs are ranged anyways - switched to Tano for some of the big ugly monsters on Voss, he seemed to take the melee much better. Once you get a decent rotation going of heals/dps you will down mobs pretty quickly with relatively no down time. I only died when I wasnt concentrating or experimenting with how many mobs at once i could handle (or when i was drunk haha:p)

I've looted 1 TH 340 purple mission from random mob when I was level 48

How about this: once you max out your crafting (so skill 400), you get the option to craft items yourself at a crafting desk. This would then give you a few more options that you wouldnt get if letting a crew member do it. One of these options could be an optional 'skin' slot, where you could choose the appearance of the crafted orange item.... these skins could be lootable items. This would boost economy for looters and also crafters - also it would allow people way more variety in looks while retaining the ability to mod items

I love PVP - losing doesn't get to me as long as it's a decent match i.e. our team is working pretty well together but we are just getting beaten. I like it when people see what needs to be done and start clicking and working together - the feeling of being able to turn things around and push it to the end is what makes PVP so exciting for me. Medals etc are needless trinkets. If I leave a WZ having done a few good deeds then I have a smile on my face - I'm a Combat Medic, so keeping someone alive until back up arrives, or facing off against certain death but preventing a plant until the rest of the team turn up are a few things I consider to be my own 'medals'. I'd like to think if you play well it gets recognised by another player even if only for a few minutes, then that's what its all about.

essentially yeah - I did a quick play earlier after reading similar posts. I forget the exact name of the auto cannon i did it with but this is what happened: (I had already RE'd the blue and got an Artifact pattern, I then made 1 more of them and the RE popped first go for the veracity prefix. I compared this to the First Artifact (purple) one I could make and it had an extra stat, in this case i think it was defense. I then had recipes for both purples in my craft list auto-cannon RE to: auto-cannon [superoir] RE to: veracity auto-cannon [superior]

I took Armstech because I thought it would be cool to make weapons for myself, especially being trooper and using a big cannon! It is financially crippling to start with but once you get going and have a few companions to run missions I found it got better. I've had purple name weapons since my 20's and when I see other troopers and examine them it always surprises me to see how bad their guns are - im talking almost twice as much dps on mine for similar level guys running round with green gear. I've had moderate success selling - just find which weapons people are willing to spend creds for the upgrade. Do this by trial and error mostly... I've found a few niche markets. You have to keep at the REing too, some times its brutal and sometimes it pops straight away. I've made loads of augment slot weapons (actually I find Elara has way more chance of critting for me than Aric, and he has the armstech +. Also i have hardly any affection with Elara so go figure). I'd say it isnt a money maker though - but is great if you like having the best weapons for yourself. I like to inspect people I group with and just make them things for free if I like grouping with them

if you aren't levelling up any more then you need to craft higher level things. Visit your craft trainer for new recipes, the most expensive ones are the higher level ones. When looking in your crafting window, use the drop down menu to arrange by level - this helps and as someone has mentioned, there is a coloured circle next to the pattern in your crafting window - grey = no xp, green = 1, yellow, then orange is the most (not sure how many points for each)

You can always keep an eye out for blue or purple crafting missions - in this case you'd want Investigation ones...not sure on the level for grade 2 researched stuff, maybe 110? These will return blue materials or purple and usually a companion gift. Rarely you get a random schematic too. I've also found that as you level your gathering skills, doing lower level missions yields more and more materials as you go. IE once you are running level 4 Investigations missions, if you do some level 2 ones you'll get a better return than when you first did them early on (if that makes sense)

If you fought your way through instead of trying to speeder around all the time maybe you wouldnt be ''a level and a half'' under levelled for the place you're in... I do agree though about the mindless travelling from one palce to another - everytime i get sent back to Coruscant to run through the Senate for like 10 minutes I almost cry

ahhhh I've noticed this too! Was killing mobs in a Heroic area on Tat (near saarlac pit) - decided i'd just grind a few out and see what drops. Also was hitting the final boss guy from the bonus there, and grabbing the chest. After killing the same groups a few times i noticed some totally empty mobs. I carried on though and the drop rates picked back up after a while. Wasn't as fruitful as I hoped so maybe this is an anti camping/grinding mechanic? It made me move on anyways...

Unfortunately due to the MM part of MMO you can't stray from the usual blueprints to create quest/missions. Single player games have more scope as usually its a 1 play through type game and more of an experience. Imagine if the following were somehow worked into MMOs as mission types and think if they would work for the masses: Puzzle - be faced with a mechanic that you would need to solve to get a result. Example, activating terminals in the correct order to lower a bridge. Or place mirrors in the correct way to bounce light onto an object. It could be instanced and would need to be dynamic so it isn't the same everytime it is played. Timing - semi skill based. Maybe some kind of 3d platform type instance. Could be speeder racing, avoid obstacles or NPCs etc. Easily scalable for difficulty. I think you'd soon find people complaining if they couldn't just grind out missions quickly and if things weren't the same eveytime so they could rush to max level.... cant please eveyone

I'm close to 300 in Investigation - maybe got 1 schematic, and that was early on

use right click instead of left

surely this doesnt apply to scavenging? when i scavenge a node it auto loots from it, it doesnt open like a container where i can choose to leave the stuff in there or am i getting confused as to what a node is? im referring to the piles of junk dotted around that can be scavenged for materials