THe space missions help alot especially if you do them periodically or after each planet when i got my ship on my consular i was level 17 by the time i actually went to nar shadaa i was level 19 from doing the space missions like 3 times each. (EDIT:: actually now that i think about it i probably did them like 6 times each since it was my first character i got a ship with) Now after each planet i do the space missions that are yellow and orange and if you do them at the right levels the first time you complete it you get over 10,000 exp and around 3-5k after that along with the mission exp and the exp from destorying ships and turrets. Also, I did this on taris on my sorcerer and i may be the only one but, i didn't pick up the quest on the space station at first cause i didn't notice the guy so there was nothign but, my class quests on the planet. (I quickly realized i had missed that) Do all the mission do the staged bonuses and do the bonus series for each planet and you should be perfectly fine. Also, 2+ Heroics if you are 3-4 levels above it shouldn't be too difficult just require some skill.