I have never spent real money on CC with the intent of buying packs with it. I'm a sub for gameplay reasons; the game at Preferred status just isn't fun for me. I sub for the full experience and don't regret that. I also have a security key so I'm getting 600 cartel coins per month for free. (That's how I look at it. YMMV) Most of the time, I find a decent-looking bronze quality armor set on the GTN and use those coins to unlock it for alts. The Collections tool has been really handy for finding those ahead of time, BTW. My biggest disappointment with this pack was the removal of those bronze armor sets. I get that RNG means I won't pull a lightsaber in 4 packs. I didn't expect it. Really, I'm not out anything at all. But part of what I enjoyed was seeing the 'less valuable' armor sets, and being able to pick them up. Things like the Overwatch Enforcer set. I don't like the helmet, but you know what the set has to recommend it? A really sweet cape. Not many sets have a good cape. When I throw the dye mods into things, it really expands the options. Sets that previously I had discounted, now take on a whole new life. And part of it is, I don't want to spend a ton of CC unlocking a super rare armor set; I did it for Revanite Vindicator and a couple silvers, but most of them have been bronze. Much more economical.

More chapters will be coming out after the new year, periodically (like episodes.) I'm loving just the general changes - crafting, leveling, etc and I haven't even started on the new storyline. Bravo Bioware!

Skimmed the first few pages. Now that we have Solo flashpoints thanks to KotFE - the components for HK-51 in flashpoints, are they attainable in Solo mode? I suspect 'no' for the second one, since it allegedly needed heroic, but i was hoping for 'yes' in False Emperor. Anyone gotten the part playing through on solo?

Thank you both for the detailed responses. I have very little interest in operations so class overabundance doesn't concern me; nor am I willing to delete my Launch toon. If anything I can roll another one, and try a more gradual relearning as mentioned. I'm also not fond of the idea spending real money to get in-game money, but I have a fair number of cartel coins from my subscription/ security key, so I can put those to some use, it sounds like. Most of the other choices require me to a) remember how to play the character (dailies on Ilum, otherwise i spend more on repair than i make) or b) have money to start with to sink into crafting. That's why I wasn't sure exactly where to get going; it sounds like some of the cartel packs would be best for seed money, then moving over to crafting. Thanks again for the responses!

Some background - I was one of the chuckleheads who pre-ordered the collector's edition way back when. I played my heart out for quite a while and then ran into the issue with the launcher not updating - this was well before the streaming launcher. I physically could not play so I cancelled my sub - this was not long after the game went F2P. 6-8 months later, I found they'd created a new launcher the Streaming one. I deleted all my files and let it download/install what I needed and could finally play again! This was shortly after the Galactic Starfighter expansion was live for all, and I got to play for a few weeks before RL called me away again. I resubbed for Galactic Strongholds and am finally getting to try playing again. The problem I'm running into is my Sentinel, lvl 50 is a) apparently woefully undergeared for Makeb and b) a completely different class than I remember. Even the groups of 3-4 weak enemies would wind up reducing me to ~10% health, and if I had any of the moderate enemies involved I was as good as toast. (this was with Doc out and healing - healing stance and all heals set to trigger at his discretion) I have a Bounty Hunter at 42 and a Consular at 41 but my Sentinel was my favorite character (for RP and for class quest reasons). As it stands I can't even do the dailies on Ilum anymore without getting pieces of my ***** handed to me repeatedly. My question(s) are multifold - a) How do I re-learn Sentinel? And apparently it's likely to change within a few weeks due to a class change, how much will that affect what I'm trying to do? 2) What am I looking at for the best non-operations 'leveling' spec for high levels in Sent? The 'watchman' thread seemed to be the most popular and hadn't been updated in a while, with the OP indicating he was more or less done updating it. c) What is the best way to find a 'noob' guild on my server (Ebon Hawk after the consolidations)? I would like one ideally able to help with a) and 2) above. 4) What's a fairly easy way to make credits, regardless of or derived from professions? I'm loathe to change the ones I already have, but I found myself doing the intro Space Mission dailies just for fuel credits to get from one planet to another. I'm a fairly crazy altoholic so I have almost all of them covered on one toon, is there one I should focus on or are there lucrative recipes from all the professions? Any help is greatly appreciated

Evening, all. I've had an idea crystallizing in my head for a couple weeks now, and I figured I may as well post my thoughts on possible changes to the crafting system. The first is regarding crafting at endgame. I leveled a Sentinel up to 50 with artifice and was actually dismayed at how the crafting system seemed to just end. The first daily token items available outstripped the level 49 purples I'd worked to RE, and when I looked through the forums it seemed that consensus was to run dailies and RE the rewards until you learned the schematic. Given the issue with RNG and the upfront costs of these items, it seemed prohibitive to waste that much effort when it could be weeks before I learned the pattern - at which point I would need to not only get more of the epic mats, but also potentially the rare crafting materials. My proposal to address this is taking a cue from the Magenta lightsaber crystals. I think that for each crafting skill, it would be nice to have access to a rare galaxy-spanning mission for a rare, and powerful, item. I understand that BW has said they don't want crafting to be too easy to wind up in the top tier, and is more or less relegated to gearing alts and idle distraction. The suggestion is thus - have, for each skill, a weekly mission for a new item recipe. Artifice would be a new crystal, or focus/generator, or enhancement. Armormech would be boots, gloves, belt recipes, etc. The quality of the item should be no higher than the tier behind the current raiding season - say tier 2 out of 3 available. The mission could involve either a) a radiant-AI like system that has random mobs or world-present items or b) a simple strain of npc's/ mobs/ said world items. The mission would send the 50s to each of the 'daily' planets - Balmorra, Corellia, Ilum - for the stages of the quest. And when complete, they would have a recipe for a piece of gear that should be pretty desirable. I would also suggest that no stage of it require more than 2 players (with companions) to accomplish - I'm hesitant to involve world bosses, but that might be because I started on a ghost town server, and nobody tended to run them. This would give the players who've hit 50 a reason to continue to play once they've exhausted the alts story lines. It would also give raid-equivalent gear a bit more prevalence for those who don't have the time to raid - but commensurately, they wouldn't have access to the highest tier gear, leaving that reward to those who do dedicate themselves to raiding. It might also help with the gearing curve for alts, though I'm not sure if I would want them bound to character, legacy, or on equip. My second suggestion ties into the Legacy system - it would be nice if on our crafting menus, we had an option for each craftable to display whether it was usable or an upgrade for our alts. Perhaps key it by primary attribute so that we don't see whether the Cunning blaster would do our Bounty Hunter alt any good; this would cut down on the required coding significantly, I think. Any suggestions, especially with the first, would be welcome; I only have a grain of an idea, it'd be nice to have feedback to help polish it into its best form. Thanks for reading!

I'm okay with this. It'd also basically let them remove the base crafting materials missions from the available list, which should help cut down on the griping about only the wrong missions being available, to boot.

I'll throw in my thanks as well. I followed this game for years (starting when it was a rumour based on a hiring advert for Bioware Austin) and have been incredibly happy with the way it turned out. Even at launch, my experience was very smooth, with few issues - and no significant ones. I bought the Collector's edition with only a slight grimace - the statue of Malgus hasn't yet grown on me - but the experience of playing has not just been Star Wars to the core, but finally captured what I was looking for in a game, to boot. I play for story, and this game has 8 - and by the time I spend all the effort going through those 8 I'll be ready for replay value. Y'all have also made a significant effort to be present for the community. Working in customer service myself, it's easy to get bogged down by the negative complaints, because few people say something when they're happy - but so many say something when they're unhappy. Popping into yet another angry thread about how 'hood toggle means BW doesn't care about anything but money' to reiterate it's in the pipe shows that you care about us as players - not just as subscribers. Especially with the new F2P option, and committing to continue development based on an uncertain revenue stream shows you have as much faith in us as many of us have in you. Boards full of rage threads that 'you changed my helmet color everything is ruined forever goodbye cruel world' aren't any fun to wade through as a player, and must be even less fun to folks who've poured so much time and effort into working on the game. Know that plenty of us DO appreciate all the hard work you do, and are here to stay, support, and enjoy.

The lower tier augment slots are great for people to stick on a purple they spent two days REing for that didn't crit. You won't keep it forever, so it's a waste to do an mk-6 augment, but you may want to eke a bit more out of the gear, so it will last you to the next tier. Most of these threads seem to use custom gear as the default assumption, and should remember that isn't necessarily the case.

Kiffar Zeltron Togruta

Are you serious? This gentleman (or lady) went to the effort of tracking the relevant data points for a hundred tries, and you say this is a stupid idea? Admittedly, the sample size could be larger, but this is the sort of behavior that should be encouraged, not scorned. And it wasn't just him basing his findings off the data - he thought that the missions were behaving a certain way, and so he performed an experiment to confirm that with hard data. I say bravo to the OP.

The only orange saber crystal schematic I know of, from the trainer, requires level 50 (maybe 49). You get the orange crystals from treasure hunting (gemstone) missions - same as the yellow.

I, too, desperately hope that Artifice gets some attention in the next couple of patches. I would love to see us with craftable lightsabers - other than the Custom or Elegant - that Artifice can craft while leveling, like the Primal Champion green sabers that drop all over. Beyond that, increasing the colors of crystal available while leveling - instead of just RBGY - would be great for folks who don't want to wait for 50 to have their desired saber color (like my Sentinel's orange). I don't have the experience with the other crew skills to say that there's an imbalance, but I definitely see less utility out of my Artificer than my Cybertech (who is only at 350, and already making more parts for my gear).

Don't forget the forum's search function - there was a thread collecting all the details about it a while ago. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=470513

From what I remember, there was a dev post saying that it applied to all crafting - either to get an augmented result, or double the results of a part. I believe it only applies to crafting, however, not the gathering skills (which is a shame, if true) but I could be wrong.