This is what I assumed, but it helps to see it confirmed. Thank you for doing so! This might seem like a minor change, but I think it would enhance player experience for all Troopers and Powertechs (whether they care for role playing or not), buff Armstech (which appears to really need that) at minimal cost to Artifice, and it would vastly improve my life, as I would never again mistake my shield for my generator and vice versa, unless I was playing at 4:00 am on New Year's Day after indulging in way too much Champagne (though that would be entirely my fault and the Devs are in no way obligated to do anything about it). Furthermore, I can't imagine this change being particularly difficult for the Devs to implement, although as I said before, I am not a programmer. I can see no reason not to do this.

This is why I suggested that Powertechs need not gain any benefit from a vibroknife beyond passive stats, and also why I thought it unnecessary for troopers to use vibroknives. More generally, introducing mechanics that consider offhand item damage output for Powertechs and Troopers would be a complex and largely unnecessary change that could also cause all sorts of balance issues, It's probably best to avoid rocking the boat on this particular point. I do have a few thoughts on allowing Troopers and Powertechs to use anything with Tech Power in their offhand. Agents also have a pistol they use in cutscenes, but given their reliance on the vibroknives to enhance specific abilities, they don't have a slot available to add a custom skin to that pistol. Also, considering how MMO communities behave in general, I can predict with near-certainty that many Agents will get cranky if Troopers and Powertechs can use a custom skin for their cutscene-only pistol, but agents cannot. Adding a cosmetic gear slot just for cutscenes, from which only Agents would benefit, seems like a difficult change that offers little enhancement to player experience. It would also be required to modify existing cutscenes, which could be quite difficult, depending on how the animation of the cutscene pistol used by Agents/Troopers/Powertechs is coded, but only the Devs would know the degree of that problem. The change I propose would incidentally be a huge buff to Armstech at the cost of a minor nerf to Artifice. The only high-level items crafted by Armstech that have any significant market value on the GTN are Barrels, three Augments, and offhands for Agents and Scoundrels. Armstech is obviously more profitable for Imperial players than Republic Players, as there are two Imperial advanced classes that use vibroknives, and only one Republic advanced class that uses scatterguns. Based on this list of schematics, Armstech appears to be the least profitable crafting skill: https://swtorista.com/articles/crafting-in-onslaught/ Artifice can make a bunch of other high-level stuff that has significant market value on the GTN, and I would guess that players with Artifice make a comparatively smaller proportion of credits specifically from the sale of "generators," especially Imperial players with Artifice, as the "generator" market in the Empire is the same size as the scattergun market in the Republic. The Devs have removed schematics from one crafting skill and moved them to another skill before, so there is precedent from the removal of "generator" schematics from Artifice, and players with Artifice could be compensated for their loss of schematics if people feel that such a remedy is necessary. I would guess crafted blasters, rifles, and cannons don't have significant market value on the GTN because players have so many more cosmetic options for those items (e.g. from the Cartel Market), and stats can be easily equalized across the board with mods. Even if crafted main-hand weapons do command a decent price, lightsabers made by Artifice probably sell equally well.

DPS Powertechs, DPS Vanguards, and all Commandos equip a "generator" in their offhand, just for the stats. "Generators" appear to serve no purpose beyond passive stats. Agents and Scoundrels use vibroknives (Empire) and scatterguns (Republic), which have identical stat budgets, are are considered for certain special attacks. Before Strength/Willpower/Cunning/Aim were replaced by Mastery, it made sense to have separate offhand items for Troopers/Powertechs and Agents/Scoundrels. However, "generators" are now completely superfluous. A Trooper could get the same stats from a scattergun, and a DPS Powertech could get the same stats from a vibroknife. Obviously, Troopers and Powertechs have no need for the special attack benefits provided by scatterguns and vibroknives, and I'm not suggesting they should get such benefits, but considering that they would lose nothing by switching from generators to scatterguns/vibroknives for passive stats, they should just do that. "Generator" offhand items no longer have any reason to exist. Beyond simplifying loot tables and whatnot, carrying a vibroknife or a scattergun, even if it not "used," might have more value to role playing enthusiasts than carrying a "generator," which is a generic-sounding item and most obviously a cheap excuse to make up for otherwise missing stats. I'm not much of a role-player, but I do have some conception of my characters' personalities and histories inside my own head, and my Powertech would most certainly carry a vibroknife rather than a "generator," even if she never "used" it in a way that was depicted in the game. Shields would obviously remain unchanged, but switching between a "generator" and shield is no more onerous than switching a between a shield and vibroknife/scattergun. In fact, using a vibroknife/scattergun instead of a "generator" would make lives easier, as the icons/tooltips of shields and "generators" are similar enough to be confused easily, while a player would need to be quite inebriated to confuse a shield with a vibroknife/scattergun. Vibroknives should remain Empire-only and scatterguns should remain Republic-only, given the unique needs of Scoundrels and Operatives. So Troopers get scatterguns and Powertechs get vibroknives, which incidentally makes sense given the themes surrounding the relevant classes. All "generators" owned by players can be automatically replaced by vibroknives/scatterguns if/when this change is implemented, taking player faction into account. I'm not familiar with the looting system currently used in Flashpoints and Operations, but even if players "roll" against each other for gear drops, vibroknives/scatterguns can simply have their drop rates doubled to make up for all the Troopers/Powertechs who would be competing for those items. If a personal loot system is now in use, or if players buy BoP gear from vendors using points or tokens acquired from Flashpoints/Operations, then loot competition is a non-issue. This change would be easy to implement (or at least it strikes me that way, but I'm not a programmer), and it would be all benefit with no cost to players. I doubt anyone is going to miss running around with a generic "generator," or particularly care what item does provide those passive stats.

Interesting. My highest level character is 64, so that must be why I'm not seeing medpacs at vendors. I wonder why BW is blocking lower level characters from buying medpacs. Perhaps a bug? Thanks much for the response!

I recently returned to SWTOR after not playing for a few years and I noticed that the medical droids on the Republic and Imperial fleets no longer sell medpacs. I visited Belsavis on my Powertech and the medical droid at the Imperial landing zone doesn't sell them either. Is there a vendor that still sells medpacs? Are they something that I can only buy on the KOTFE/KOTET planets? Or are medpacs now restricted to Biochem and I need to buy them on the GTN or craft them myself?

I think EA's logic might be "It costs money to convert SWTOR into an offline game, and even if we turn a profit doing that, we still could have spent that money making a different game that is even more profitable." However, I do agree with your logic over what I just wrote. The amount they would need to spend converting SWTOR into an offline game would be so small that the opportunity cost of doing so would be minimal, and they could then milk the finished product for a decade or more without putting any additional work into it. Big companies love hearing the phrase "milk a product for years with no additional work" so it makes perfect sense for EA to do this. Of course, we're thinking pretty far ahead here, given that the game is healthy and EA is already milking the Cartel Market, and I'm more than happy to be milked in the meantime for a chance to continue playing this great game. But as I mentioned in my original post, I don't have a lot of time or energy to play games right now, and SWTOR is a gem like no other that I don't want to miss out on. Other gamers may have had different experiences, but EA has given me no reason to hate them and I would love to throw money at them for an offline version of SWTOR if/when the servers shut down, even if it means I install Origin.

I would actually be fine with them releasing an offline version of SWTOR on Origin. GOG would be ideal, Steam would be great, and while Origin would not be ideal, it would be much better than nothing. I have an Origin account, though I have never actually installed the client or bought any games through it. Offline SWTOR would give me a reason to do both, and while I was at it, I would probably buy all the Mass Effect games too. I would imagine that there is much resistance among many people to installing yet another game store client, so releasing a niche game on that platform might not be good business sense. In fact, Origin's existence might not be good business sense for the same reason, but EA would know better than I would, because they know how many copies of Mass Effect 3 they've sold. In any case, if EA releases offline SWTOR someday, I will throw money at them, even if I have to do it through Origin.

I love this game. I've been playing since January of 2012. However, I have a lot of health problems and I haven't been able to play hardly any PC games in recent years. I want to experience all the content this game has to offer, but no MMO lasts forever, and I fear that I won't get around to finishing every storyline. I'm not suggesting that SWTOR is going away anytime soon. The game and its community appear healthy. But I don't know when I will get around to playing this or any other game, and I don't want to miss out. If EA makes an offline version of SWTOR when the servers go down for good and they sell it on Steam, I will eat nothing but canned beans for two months so I can pay $500 for it. If EA makes an offline version of SWTOR and they sell it on GOG, they can have my $500 and my left kidney.

I was running in true fullscreen mode. I just tried Fullscreen (Windowed) mode and my warzone FPS was about the same.

Trolls posting one-liners, "I do fine, it's your computer" is not helpful. On my machine, Windows has been running at the "High Performance" power plan all along. But I did just go into my UEFI setup and disable everything relating to power saving. Then, with my settings on "very low" I proceeded to get 25 FPS during combat in a warzone. I don't particularly care what others with bad FPS have to say, what I want is a thread where Bioware tells us when they'll fix the engine, because it's clearly broken, perhaps not for everyone, but for enough people to warrant it being fixed.

^This.

Interesting. Both my cousin and myself run Windows 8, and you precisely described the exact problem we both have in SWTOR.

All of my drivers are up to date (Catalyst 13.4 video drivers) and I have 32 GB of RAM.

I don't have a bit torrent client because I don't believe in piracy. I also don't have a Steam account, nor do I have the Steam client on my machine. Just SWTOR. While running, none of my CPU cores reach more than 60% load. Same for GPU load.

If that were the case, I could get 60 FPS in warzones by lowering my graphics settings, but that does not work.

This is nonsensical, because my machine grossly exceeds the "recommended" system specifications for SWTOR. The fact that I get 25 FPS on "very low," and someone with a radically different yet equally powerful machine has the same problem, indicates a software issue with the game.

Oddly, reducing graphics settings to "very low" has no effect on FPS for either my cousin or myself. The engine just can't put out more than 25 FPS in combat.

"Recommended" hardware for SWTOR: Phenom II x4 @ 2.5 GHz Radeon HD 4850 I have an FX-8350 and a Radeon HD 7850. My cousin has an i5-2500k and a GeForce GTX 560 Ti. We both get 25 FPS in heated warzones. (Phenom IIs have slightly better IPC than piledriver chips, but still, piledriver @ 4 GHz > K10 @ 2.5 GHz.) We've both tried reformatting, as well as many workarounds, but no dice. We should both get 60 FPS at all times. Obviously the game engine is very far from perfect. People keep insisting that the "significant graphical upgrades" planned for 2.3 in August are simply artwork changes. So, Bioware, when are you fixing the engine? Edited to add: Oddly, reducing graphics settings to "very low" has no effect on FPS for either my cousin or myself. The engine just can't put out more than 25 FPS in combat.

Obvious Troll is Obvious.

So, one day recently while waiting in a queue for a warzone, I was bored, and my head unwittingly produced the following: TAKE ME OUT TO THE BATTLE, TAKE ME OUT TO THE LINES! BUY ME SOME BLASTERS AND VIBROKNIVES, I DON'T CARE IF I GET OUT ALIVE! ROOT, ROOT ROOT FOR THE IMP SIDE, IF THEY DON'T WIN IT'S A SHAME, FOR IT'S ONE, TWO, THREE CRITS YOU'RE DEAD AT THE WAR-ZONE GAME! I know, it's really tacky, but I thought people might get a laugh out of it. I think you all can guess what class I play. Happy pwning!

Just to clarify, when I made my last post, I was not suggesting that any regular poster on this forum or change their course of action in any way. The only entity that needs to change its course of action is EA/BW. In addition, Natashina, I do not think your efforts are or will be fruitless. You, and everyone else involved, seem to be making significant progress toward getting EA/BW to issue an official word on SGRAs, and you're all awesome for doing so. One thing I have noticed, is that you all seem very frustrated. Perhaps what I'm picking up on is just productive righteous indignation, but some of you guys seem to be very upset about this, rightly so, and not surprisingly. My goal with my last post, was not to suggest any alternative course of action of any kind, it was just my (apparently lame) attempt to reduce everyone's overall level of frustration by shedding some light on what's probably going on within EA/BW, and thus make life ever so slightly more pleasant for all of you in the meantime, until your efforts succeed (which I think they will) and EA/BW issues an official word on SGRAs. I sincerely apologize if I said anything that offended you or in any way appeared to devalue your efforts at getting EA/BW to issue an official statement on SGRAs. That was certainly not my intention. Quite the opposite, in fact. While I only started posting a few days ago, I've been reading this thread for months and it's hard to see so many good people clearly unhappy with a a clearly bad situation. You all have every right to be unhappy about this issue, but I felt that I might have a decent shot at making your lives a little bit easier in the meantime.

Natashina, thank you very much for your reply to my post earlier. You are really on top of this issue, and I greatly respect you, and many other posters in this thread, for your hard work, thorough research, and dedication. My purpose in making this post, is, and I know this sounds corny, to make you all feel a little better about this issue. I have an additional point that may (or maybe not, but I thought it was worth trying) be helpful in alleviating some of the frustration we're all facing. Let me make sure I have my facts straight; please correct me if anything in the following paragraph is incorrect or wrong in any way. All the evidence that we have so far, is that SGRAs are, in fact, being implemented with Makeb. Natashina said in her reply to my post, as well as numerous other times throughout this thread for the past several months, that she personally believes that it is true that SGRAs are being implemented with Makeb. The reason that we all are upset with EA/BW, is the fact that they are refusing to announce SGRAs, and they have been completely silent about the entire issue, presumably due to a company-wide gag order, instituted for unknown reasons. I believe we are all completely justified in being upset with EA/BW for this reason. We have a right to know what we're paying for before we pay for any new content. But having studied business in college, I may be able to describe some vague generalities/nuances of the business world that might explain (but NOT justify) EAs actions or lack thereof. I have a highly intelligent and very eloquent cousin, who, after graduating magna *** laude from a prestigious university with a double major in philosophy and psychology (he's also a SWTOR player), summed up this exact problem we're having right now in the most sophisticated sentence he could muster on the subject: He said, "All big companies are stupid." His larger point was that publicly-traded corporations are not logical or sensible beings the way intelligent humans are. They all operate frequently without rhyme or reason or meaningful direction, mired in a tangled mess of for-profit bureaucracy that stretches from janitorial regulations all the way up to the executive offices on the top floor. It was for this reason that the first management class I took in college single-handedly convinced me to change my major from management to economics. In essence, Dilbert cartoons and the TV sitcom "The Office" are 100% realistic depictions of corporate America - I'm not kidding about that. I have never read a book more nonsensical or idiotic than my first (and only) college Business Management textbook. That book was 300 pages full of text, yet it managed (no pun intended) to say absolutely nothing. My previous paragraph may explain why EA/Bioware is not behaving rationally about this subject. Some time ago, for whatever reason, somebody on the top floor at EA said "Gag order about SGRAs for SWTOR" and after being covered with red tape, the order never got changed. I believe (though all are welcome to disagree with me) that SGRAs are, in fact, coming with Makeb, and it's gravely unfortunate and UNFAIR that EA/BW isn't saying that, but it pains me to see so many good people (such as all of you) get so upset just about not having advance notice, when we're dealing with an entity that, despite being made up of many very smart people, has the collective intelligence of a tapeworm. If you've ever worked in the middle of a large, publicly-traded company, you've probably encountered lots of rigid rules and regulations which very quickly become nonsensical when applied to many common situations that the rule-writers weren't paid enough to think of when they were told to sit down and write the rule-books. Large companies eventually reach the point when they have nothing left to guide them but an autonomic nervous system governed by poorly-written rule-books full of ill-conceived rules, with no meaningful feedback making it from the bottom (or middle) to the top of the company. I think EA has been brushing that point for a while, despite it's small size (relative to, say, Exxon-Mobil). Something else I would like to point out, is that while EA/BWs gag order about SGRAs is both unfortunate and unfair, it's not the only spectacularly stupid thing they've done with SWTOR. For example, patch 1.4 was pushed too early and it wasn't ready for live. The graphics engine got so royally messed up that I couldn't play for a month - it was bad. There are many other examples, you can all probably think of them. So, as you pointed out, Natashina, they are singling us out on the forums when it comes to redirecting all our threads to one or two places, but in a more general sense, they are indiscriminately stupid, making irrational decisions left and right about this and that. In conclusion, I applaud any attempt to make EA/BW come clean about SGRAs. You're all great people for pursuing this the way you have. But we have ample evidence to lead us to the conclusion that SGRAs are, in fact, coming with Makeb, and while it's not right for them to be silent on the issue, I would hope that my fellow posters take solace in the fact that SGRAs are coming, and that EA is not deliberately trying to wrong us, it's just too stupid to know the difference, presumably compounded by intra-company breakdowns in the chain of communication. I hope this helps. Hugs to all!

Hey everyone, I've been following this thread for quite some time, as I'm eagerly awaiting/hoping for SGRAs. I believe that if a game features OGRAs, it should also feature SGRAs, period. I see many posts in this thread that seem to be very reasonable, well researched, and well informed; I presume the regular posters here know much more about this subject than I do, and I feel like maybe I'm missing something important; allow me to explain my reasoning, and you guys can tell me if there are holes in it. I've been getting the impression that many of you are worried about SGRAs being scrapped or delayed, but given what I've read, I would think the evidence would point to other, less tragic outcomes. I could be wrong, and please feel free to poke holes in the following few paragraphs if there's something I don't seem to understand. Bioware employees have said that SGRAs are coming, and no EA/Bioware employee has said anything to indicate that SGRAs been scrapped or delayed. The last word we have from Bioware was a tweet from Hal Hood, which confirmed that SGRAs were coming with Makeb, and was quickly deleted, presumably after Mr. Hood was reprimanded by his superiors. It's obvious that anyone with any information is under some kind of gag order from EA/Bioware, but any information that has slipped out has been good news. They did break the promise of delivering the full story before the end of 2012, but they haven't released any more story content yet, and Bioware did say that SGRAs were coming with the full story. I believe that EA/Bioware should be more open about their plans for the game in general, but I see two plausible reasons (which could both be true simultaneously) why EA/Bioware would issue a company-wide gag order on this subject. Reason #1: They don't want to reveal anything that they believe is a story spoiler, and they have a different definition of what a story spoiler is than we do. It's possible they have a great big manual of company policy that is difficult to change without cutting through a great deal of red tape, and that manual has a strict definition of "story spoiler" that isn't based on common sense. Reason #2: They want to wait until the last minute to reveal SGRA content, because they want to avoid taking preemptive flak from bigoted activist groups; it's possible they're keeping SGRA content secret until the last minute specifically to protect SGRAs - imagine if hate groups found a way to influence EA's stock price, causing investors to put pressure on EA's top management to scrap anything "controversial" - I think such a basic issue of human rights shouldn't be controversial in the first place, but EA investors might consider anything that affects stock prices to be "controversial." If my last sentence is true, then EA's top management is simply doing the best they can to make sure SGRAs make it into the game before EA gets targeted by hate groups. EA's top management must know that once they add SGRAs into the game, they can't remove them without taking even more flak from reasonable people, so they want to get SGRAs into the game, because they know it's the right thing to do, and they want to do it "under the radar" so the investors can't cry for their removal in the event that hate groups find a way to target EA financially. If my reasoning holds true, then SGRAs are coming, and we can all rest easy about this issue. But, as I said before, I could be missing something big, and there are a bunch of posters who are active in this thread who seem to be very well versed on the details of this issue, so please correct me if I'm wrong about anything.

If the Devs don't already know this (though I'm guessing they do), I hope they see this thread. After running in circles around the Taris Imperial orbital station with various settings and my companion dismissed, I found that enabling shadows on my machine does NOT cause much stuttering; a little, but not nearly enough to ruin my experience. The moment I target an NPC or summon my companion (thus, cause a nameplate to appear on the screen), I get some hardcore stuttering. My machine: Toshiba Satellite S855-S5268 Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit Intel Core i7-3610QM AMD Radeon HD 7670M 16 GB of RAM Native Resolution = 1366x768 (The game suggests I run at the "Very High" graphics preset) I hope this helps.

I had a character with only one companion to start a romance with, and I unwittingly "missed" my opportunity to start a relationship with this companion, presumably because I clicked the wrong responses in the conversation which was supposed to start the relationship. I was so disappointed that I rerolled the character so I could try again. To start a relationship with a companion with whom I am given the "flirt" option, do I just keep flirting and stuff happens? Or is it more complicated than that? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!