It depends what you want in terms of cool armour. Some comes from flashpoints, yes. Other items come from Heroics - there's a rather nice chest piece from Trouble in Deed on Coruscant. And some can be bought with planetary commendations. There's a web site Tor-Fashion that has pictures of a lot, along with information on where to get them. It might help you get hold of what you want.

I use Akaavi almost constantly with my Sawbones and have never regretted it. And I managed to persuade a friend to use Yuun with his Combat Medic, who he's now very pleased with. I'm always surprised how few of either I see around the Fleet or on planets. I almost never see either.

If we're going on pure ground combat, I'll take the Imperial Marines from various iterations of Traveller. Their small arms demolish walls, heavy weapons include nukes, and their vehicles are flying APCs with long range nuclear weapons and fusion guns that turn everything within 50 metres of the impact to liquid - except that the armour on the vehicles can survive that pretty well. They're supported by meson artillery that can fire through a kilometre of rocks and set off a small nuclear detonation inside a target. Their space technology is not so powerful.

I do remember thinking that a 'Republic Commando' game would be a good fit for the system, but that never really appealed to any of the people I've played tabletop RPGs with. Though as I mentioned I've used the system for other SF settings, and a Mass Effect game I played with it worked out very well - admittedly, one with a heavy emphasis on tactical combat. I suppose the fairest thing I can say about Saga is that it's excellent at the things it does, but that the things I want to do in the SW universe aren't as well served.

Once I've got all the companions I often use Tanno. He gets in close and grabs aggro, I kill things from distance and throw an occasional heal on him. If I was more of a healer I might try with Yuun, melee DPS plus healer works very well on my Scoundrel (with Akaavi).

Because it isn't? I'll take the Lensmen universe of EE 'Doc' Smith, with interGALACTIC travel, mobile planets, negative matter bombs, primary beams and powered armour over Star Wars any day of the week.

I agree with this. SW Saga is one of my favourite versions of WotC's D20 system, but I don't think it works well for Star Wars. The emphasis on tactics is one I really don't like that much. I've actually modified Saga for a few other SF games, but for Star Wars I would rather see a different system. Possibly FFG's new one, although I suspect I could something rather nice with a version of Fate.

Explosive Surge. Especially after Storm, where you can talent it to get two free uses.

My Vanguard was on the mission with his current girlfriend, and disposing of the woman who he'd been previously involved with and could point out his infidelities was not against his interests. Light Side points was just an unfortunate side effect.

What story spoilers are they (Gaider and Chee) giving out? Are SGRs story content? Is there a conclusion to be drawn from this?

And while I see a lot of people not too happy from the point-of-view of a DPS Scoundrel, the Sawbones is a rather good healer. Not something I'd like to see changed. Smuggler = some good, some bad, overall.

Yes, well. Bowdaar gets affection with Courting gifts from the Smuggler, and I don't think he's going to be a romance option.

I don't think they'll say "Who" before the patch comes out. That's Spoiler territory, and while they might say something will be there, they aren't likely to say what or how.

Underworld Trading seems to do well for me. People always seem to want to buy Underworld Metals.

For me it's Akaavi and my female Smuggler. There's something there, imo, which is more than friendship.

I'll add one other thing. If you type LFG then hold the Shift key and click the name of the quest, it'll put the quest name into the text automatically without you having to type it. Or mistype it, as I seemed to make a habit of.

If I was to suggest one for the Trooper, it would be Armormech (with Scavenging and Underowrld Trading). All your companions except the droid use Heavy Aim armour, so if you RE gear or pick up schematics they'll be useful to most of your team. You can save on Commendations to spend on your Orange weapons that way. Though honestly, the Trooper can do well at Cybertech, Armstech, and Biochem, or can concentrate on making money - in which case I'd suggest Scavenging, Slicing, and probably Diplomacy.

Each time you RE an item, there's a 20%(10%) chance that you'll get the improved schematic. Cumulatively, it becomes more and more likely that you'll have the schematic, but that doesn't increase the chance that it'll pop up this particular time. Sometimes you'll make twenty-four attempts to RE a particular piece of Armouring, still not have it, but it's still only a 20% chance that the next attempt will get it. And sometimes you'll get two in a row, like I did REing a particular type of helmet yesterday.

It looks quite like a piece that dropped on Hoth for my smuggler. I don't have the name but the colour scheme was very similar.

I think it's actually a week between Respecs rather than a day. The first one is free, the second costs, and the price goes up for each one after that.

What you have to "even things out" with the Sentinel's second weapon is our generator, which is pretty useful and essential for a Tank. I'd suggest trying Esseles, frankly, since armour drops aren't rare in that and you might get lucky.

Some people will do anything to pull aggro off the tank.

I'd suggest Mercenary/Commando or Sage/Sorceror. You get ranged combat and healing with those ACs. A Vanguard/Powertech is very tough, but spends a lot of time at close quarters. Sniper/Gunslinger are great ranged DPS - and that's all they do. A Scoundrel might be an option and is typically more mobile than a Sage or Merc, but the range is a lot closer than Merc/Sage/Sniper.

Luxury Fabrics are used in Synthweaving. Underworld Metals are used for a lot more things, of course. I believe that there's a limited number of missions, that once you've sent a companion on one that mission won't come up again till the list is refreshed. I think there are a couple of ways to refresh available missions, returning to your ship being one. That will give you a new selection.