Note there is also a menu option to stop the automatic crouch quickbar coming up when you crouch so you keep the same quickbars visible weather standing or crouching. I personally find this easier for me when managing my quickbar abilities to keep it consistent. Remember to lock the quick bar back up after you change you slots around otherwise you end up accidently dropping abilities of the bar while in a fight most annoying.

You have to go back to fleet advanced class quest giver to get your advanced class, never to late. I think there should be an in-game option to Opt out of double XP periods if you want to.

There are 9 kits graded MK1 to MK9(Highest) . The grade of Kits just mean you can install a higher grade actual augment with better stats. The Kit is just used to install a graded slot for an equivalent grade augment . The augment itself adds the extra stats bonus. There is no player level requirement installing Kits and you don't have to go from 1 to 2 etc you can jump up from a 3 to a 8 No problem (There is a level requirement for buying the augments themselves though) and you can add augment slot just about in any piece of gear green, Blue, Purple or custom, It does not have to be a moddable piece to install a slot. However having said all that, while levelling there a few very little point adding augment slots to non moddable gear as you out grow any standard gear too quick. You should only add augment slots really to moddable gear that you like enough to keep until the end. The cost to benefit return of augments at lower levels is just not worth the credit cost of buying or making(Lost of RE 'ing gear to get components) a kit cost of installing (There is a cost to that aswell with higher ones having higher level ones having higher install cost) and finally the cost of the augment, but the time you do all that any standard gear will be outdated anyway. Augments are really only end game additions once you have good moddable gear and want to add that bit extra when you have a good credit funds to do so.

1. The most important basic point about gear is that the gear or mods you buy must be based to your classes main primary stat, Strength, Cunning, Willpower, Aim. Each of the 4 base classes for each faction fall into one of the 4 primary stats and the codex will tell you what stat. Each gear piece or Mod piece will only have one of these 4 primary stats so you must pick gear that matches you classes primary stat. This is maybe why that now you reached onto lvl17 That you are suddenly having hard time if your are wearing gear with the wrong primary stat. It may look a cool but wearing a cunning piece of gear on a Jedi Gaurdian will do you no favours when their main stat is strength. It is actually very hard and costly on your first toon to keep gear level the same as character level as you level so quick early on, but that is not a problem you can get by easily enough with gear level lagging 5/6 levels behind your character level without issues like I say as long as you use the right stats in your gear. A full adaptive set of gear is the way forward but on your first toon you will not have the credit cash to buy the all the shell gear and early mods straight way but don't worry about it standard gear is fine for a while as you level up then as you earn commendations and more credits slowly build up adding adaptive gear one by one to your slots. Every mission earns you planatary comms generally 1 on standard missions and 3 on heroic's and you use these comms once you finished on each planet at the fleet to buy mod upgrades for you adaptive gear or adaptive gear itself (the fleet comms merchants sell better rated mods than the ones on the planet themselves). Some missions also offer custom pieces of gear but most of the time it is just standard gear that is not a lot of use to you in the main. Flashpoints are a good source of gear though and you usually get good custom gear or purple(The best rated standard) gear on boss drops on these. So good advise is to try a few flashpoints early on and its a good way to learn group play Don't worry about getting all adaptive for your main companion stick with standard green/ pref. blues for him her. As it cost too much in comms. 2. Emotes like Flirting have no effect on light/dark side balance, there just for show, only your decisions during conversions with NPC's have a baring on this. 3. Most likely like someone has mentioned you are using the 'usable by' filter. Don't it does not work and always returns zero results. It's just one of them silly bugs in the game. 4. From the my account section.

If is your first char I recommend like btsr mentioned to do Ilum first as story wise that is next naturel progression stage after finishing your main story on corellia, also the chance to pick HK51 starter mission. Ilum as a decent story and leads to battle of ilum flashpoint at the end of it. The missions give classic comms to get classic gear which fall somewhere between 58 rated makeb rated gear(Best you can get with planet comms) and basic gear 69. While your finishing off at Corellia you can also pick up the Black hole weekely set of dailes, dead quick to do and again offers classic comms on the missions and weekley bonus also offers some basic comms, good credit boost aswell for a short time frame. The problem since ROHC classic coms gear is now not really needed since by the time you get enough classic comms to uprade from 58'S you already looking at earning basic comms to start you of in end game ops. So my view is do Ilum for the first time but on future alts don't bother as you outgrow the rewards too quick. You could start Makeb at 50 if you wanted but ideally you need a near full set of makeb 58 rated gear well at least the armourings and barells/hilts to start else you may struggle a little depending how well your compaion is geared aswell, so it depnds how many planet comms you have after main story. Makeb I warn you is grindathon as the mob groups are squeezed togther more than any other planet. It is good in terms of building up basic comms and credits (you get reputation poinst aswell) but it is rather a chore. The story is decent but it not the sort of planet you want to repeat over and over on each character in my book. Infact because I overleveled my story (I was 50 at Voss), I hit 55 before even touching Makeb just from doing Ilum, black hole, section x and a few GSI missions. Section X takes longer than Blackhole but it is better in way as missions offer both classic and basic comms aswell as the weekly bonus, it does not take that long you can still smash it out within a hour hour and half or so. Also at level 52 you can pick up GSI, seeker droid and binoculars mission which kind of coincide with each other as GSI uses the seeker droid and binoucluars gear, so pick them up togther. This Another way of picking up basic comms GSi has weekely which offers 20 Comms for 10 missions inc. 1 heroic and there is very little fighting envloved it just a bit of time grind in terms of travel but sometiems a nice break from teh ever ending grind. GSI also gives rep points aswell. The best dailes in terms of bang for your buck are CZ-198 ones dead quick (The solo set can be done in around 20Mins) quicker than blackhole and offer basic comms and the weekley bonus which also includes two +2 flashpoints you also earn czerka rep poinst aswell. You need to be level 55 for this though. Oricon is like the final solo planet if you like in terms of story about the dread masters before you take on Level55 ops the story leads you to, but you need to be decent geared up for it 148/68 gear bare min. all round really before you start it and your companion needs to up to speck aswell. So to summerize as 1st character, Black hole weekly as quick to do as main story ends at Corellia, then Ium story, then section x after thsi you may well be at level 52/53 so Makeb will be easier then to do. Dont forget too spend all remaining planet comms with Makeb comm vendor on fleet until you earn enough comms to start upgarding to basic comms gear. Do classic opps story and Hard mode to break thinsg up aswell as HM 50 flashpoints, and pick up GSI,seeker droid and bincoulars missions aswell. Future cahrsaters you can basiclly bypass Ilum if you want.

Not if they on same server all character weather Imperial or Republic will be under same legacy on same server. Are you a sub or F2P because by standard i think F2P can only learn speeder level 1 at level15, did you have a speeder unlock previously that allowed to learn it at level10?

Some may argue the other way is there any reason to Subscribe as basically you can play all the fuatures in the game as a F2P player it just that it will take you a bit longer and cost more that is all. Although I think F2P helps fill out population my personal opinion is that it should have been done as a proper trial, thus no restrictions in terms of access content still but limited in terms of the story only going up a certain level say the end of chapter 2 and with no legacy and legacy perks while you are still F2P. To me that is a proper free trial were you experence some of the story to get a feel of the solo game get to access group play in flashpoints and warzones but only get so far in main story. The trial should in effect leave you with a good taster and leave you wanting to discover more and encourage you to subsribe, also on the other hand if you find you don't like the game you have had chance to expericence things without having to pay for unlocks so have commited no money in your trial of the game. The way Bioware have done is with the cartel market is to try and force F2P to spending real cash on cartel market unlocks for ops etc.. with the ultimate goal being that F2P players see the extra time and cost it takes to do certain things in the game too much of restriction and encouragce subbing. You need to see figures and trends as to how many players are dropping down to prefered from sub compared to how many subbing from FTP or going back sub from preferred over a longer peroid of time to see if the F2P model that has been implemented been done been a success. It is perhaps too early to tell yet but ultimatly the game needs a good number of persistant core sub players to keep the game going and develop it further as it is relaible regular source of income.

Yes it is annoying but some GSI/seeker droid/mircobinoculars mission do force you into PVP zones. I no one forced me into outlaws den in tationee. To be hoenst very few players go into that outlaws den area for PVP so you can usually just bear it out. Also some ask you to look at something in a opposite faction base the mircobinoucluras have a good range so you can usually just stay outside the PVP flag zoen and still see the item with a zoom if you are careful.

Yes it would be cool if could repeat you're own class stoy missions on hard mode basically where all mobs are set at level55. No drops needed but perhaps just basic comms as rewards for each mission as a alternate way of getting comms for end game gearing. Are all class missions for each class in instanced area's then, because if they are not it would be kind of awkard to drop level55 mobs on earlier planets for other players just leveling normally?.

Yes by default the left mouse button click will perform the ability that is the first number 1 slot in your quickbar, whatever that might be. By default it will bethe basic attack flurry of bolts. Your quickbar or bars depending on your preference setup is where you can move abilities to and from. To use these you either have to click these manully to use them or key bind then to keys on your keyboard via the preferences option. Remember to lock your quickbar especially if your are manully clicking the toolbar for your ability moves else you will end up accidently shifting the abilities around. I recommend key binding the crounch in place ability and the main interupt ability (when you get it) if nothing else. I persoanlly use the two quickbar setting at the bottom of screen and a couple on the side for ad hocs and group the quick instant abilities attacking options together on the left side and longer channeled ones or ones with longer coolldowns on the right. I also group the stuns and kockback togther(which also act as interupts) and any defensive ones togther like hunkerdown and defence screen. I try and keep abilities that work toether well next to each other on the toolbar so like I have my trickshot follow up move next to my channelled spray of bolts ability. I use the ad hoc side bars for long cooldown like the heroic ability and also medpacks and stims that i might use rarely. Also remeber with gunslingers and snipers alot of the abilities will not work unless you are in cover, and by default the quickbar will alter in cover to when you are standing up. I have disabled the crouch toggle of the quickbar so it is always the same standing or crouching to avoid confusion. Just keep in mind that you a limited to what abilities you can do when standing/ running around as a gunslinger/sniper. You first move before engaging mobs as gungslinger is to crouch in position ready.

Agree^^. What you have to remember in any market something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it at the end of the day. For the vast majority of players these sums for these items does seem silly, but there are always those select few fanatics that will make it their mission to get a certain set of gear just for bragging rights no matter the cost. Alot of these very expensive items don't actually benefit you anymore for combat over gear you purchase with comms etc. infact alot of them are just cosmetic. but because they are rare they have a high value, players like to be one of few wearing these rare items. To use anology many people have Levi jeans not so many have Gucci jeans, they both jeans do the same job but people still have desire to buy that rarer jean. Dont forget here it is only fake virtual currency in a game afterall. It's about competition aswell the more players that sell a particular item the more the price will come down as each one will just undercut the last one a little bit more to try and get their item to sell first. What you have to do as a crafter is find that gap in the market where nobody else is selling a certian item type at a certain player level range to make decent bucks. Aswell as some players overpricing item alot underpice items but it is only their own fault for not reading the market first/and or not taking into consideration to cost of making that item if it's a craft. Alot of players will buy undervalued items just to re-sell at a profit it just is just clever thinking, if you take time out to learn the market big easy credits can be had.

As per the other comments generally you upgarde every4/5 levels basically if you do class, faction line and most side quests every main planet is approx 4/5 levels worth of XP (without xp boosters). So basically you finish that planet with all your comms and spend them at fleet before moving on. You average out at around 70-80comms if you just do most solo and heroic missions once on a planet by the time you finsh it to get to the 100 cap you usually need to add a flashpoint to the mix or repeat a few heroics, but I would be too concerned about getting the 100 each time. Genrally in standard solo play you can easily get away with your gear on average being 6/7 levels below the level content without it starting to effect you, ofcourse you must keep your abilities up to date and skill points applied. Anymore and you may start to notice it when fighting gold elites. The comms vendors on fleet offer better blue/purple grade mods than the planet side comm vendors and each one of the planet vendor on fleet tends to be 4 levels higher in requirement than the last. The planet side ones tend to offer just green value mods at the base level of the planet, so ok to fill the gaps if you start to struggle a little but use fleet vendors first. Note there is also a vendor selling mods for credits at each planet aswell again offering greens but ok to fill the gaps and fine for your companion upgrades if you are low on comms and yoru compaion is mega out of date. Priority should be main hand barrell or hilt first as that is what increases your base min-max damage rating, then armourings (with head chest and leg offering a little better armour increases over the other slots), then offhand barrle/hilt if you have duel wield then any other mods. Dont worry about cystals too much low prority. To be honest you dont need moddable gear on your companions as you can get by with up to date greens and blues for him/her, certianly no need for a full set of moddable for companion. I tend to just have the main weapon head, chest and legs as moddables the others just standrd green/blues. This is more than sufficent. As other have said especially on your first character credits can be burned away all to easily if you start going rash on the GTN, so as a rule of thumb only use the GTN for stuff when it is your last resort. Always select comms as quest rewards, because you will find anyway that your player level will exceed the content level so the Bind on pickup quest rewards will have little use to you on the whole, now and again you will get earpiece or implant that is worth having though so look out for these as these peices are only standard. Cybertech is the best crew skill to get first as you can make your own armourings and mods and earpieces however on your first charcater it can be a real credit drain to try and keep the cybertech level up with your player level as you level so fast in this game. So yes take cybertech but do not get too concerned on your first character keeping this up to your player level. On your first character it is all about saving credits. Crafting becomes more useful the more alts you have furtehr down the line. It is better often to level three gather skilsl and sell half keep half of the mats as you can gather tehse for free from planet nodes and make a bit of cash on the side

Agree with the above really especially if it your first character at 50 it is worth starting Ilum story line once your finish you main story at Corellia as that has a story line that leads into the flaspoint battle of iIum. The side quest at Ilum are repetative once per day like dalies and offer 1 classic comm each and there is a heroic 2 for 3 classic comms aswell. Its kind of nice to be able to continue that story abit further here as Ilum used to be the last plant before Makeb and basic comms came to be, you will notice it is classed as the interlude when you log in. Black Hole at Corellia and Balsavis section x area's offer pretty straight foward solo dailes and the weekly bonus also includes one group heroic for each. The weekly bonus gives out both classic and basic comms. The Black hole one is really quick espically if you group up as it a small area the Balsavis, section X weekly takes a bit longer but can still be done in one play session no problem. Story mode classic ops (Enternity Vault, Karraga's Palace and Explosive Conflicts(Longest and hardest of the 3 apprantly)) will also offer classic comms aswell, level 47+(Blues) or lvl 50 gear is fine for story mode ops when in a group. I have just leveled my first to level55 without even touching Makeb just doing the section x and black hole dalies and Ilum story line. Some players like Makeb but many find it a bit of a grind with mobs in every spare space, although like above has said to get basic comms and Xp between 50-55 quicker Makeb is the way to go and skip out Ilum as a alternative. You should be fine to start Makeb with 140 rating armourings and barrles/hilts from Makeb planet comm vendor on you gear items you dont need a full mod upgrade to 50 incluiding mods and enhancments but just focus on the barells/hilts and armourings with what planet comms you do have.

If you are getting battered by standard mob groups a few levels below your level something is seriously wrong, either you own gear must be in the wrong main stat even is it is on level (A Jedi's knight main primary stat is strength) or your companions gear is way-way out of date. It is around 30+ level mark that such gearing issues will become most apparent and also were keeping you companion up to date more essential. Show us a screen shot of your gear. Also are actually allocating your skill points and buying your ability updates as you level, I know may be a silly question but you would be surprised what mistakes are made by new players and what they miss?

After finishing your main class story on Corellia there are a few routes you can take really to gear up for end game. By the time you have ended your main chapter 3 story you should have have enough planet comms to spend them with the Makeb comms vendor on fleet to get the best mods you can get with planet comms, you may not have enough for a full set but providing you can update your barells/hilts and armourings the item rating will be at 140, which is sufficent to start Makeb if you wanted to. Makeb missions offer basic comms to get basic gear which you can start to use from level 53 as is the start point for end game ops. Also as you at Corellia you might aswell pick up the level 50 weekly at the black hole district which is also at Corellia. This set of missions is pretty quick to do with the daliles offering classic comms and the weekley bonus offering both classic and basic comms ontop, so it is a good reward to time ratio on this set. After you end chapter 3 you get a continuation class mission (It classed as the interlude)to go to Ilum for a story line there there are also dailes there that earn you classic comms, this also opens up a flashpoint I think. So this is another option if you want to go here before Makeb(Makeb is classed as chapter 4 but its not really part of the main class story just a faction line add on). You can start IIum from level 50 and this used to be the end game planet before Makeb came about to earn campaign gear for older ops. Note Ilum is also where the gree event missions are aswell at present this ends 1st of Jan. Classic comms now get you this campign level style gear, which is a notch above the makeb vendor standard gear(Rakata level) which can be worn from level 50 onwards but not as good as basic comm level gear so is inbetween. You can also go back to section X on Belasavis for dailes there again offering classic comms, and there are some other random bonus level 50 missions in one area aswell, can't remember where though exactly. At level 52 you can also pick up GSI, microbinocluars and seeker droid missions, these offer basis comms aswell but involve a fair bit of travelling around and are more of a time grind than combat grind in searching for stuff. If you want you can do some Hard mode story flashpoints aswell or story mode level50 ops aswell. So in short finish story spend all planet comms at Makeb comms vendor then take it from there up to you.

Agree. Heroics should be marked as such and also marked say with little tick or something to show if you have done them before both in game view and on map. Also there should be a preference option to allow you to turn off/disable questmarkers for grey misssions so you not wasting time especially like you say on fleet picking up (weather it's a standard, heroic or flashpoint mission) missions you don't really need anymore. Have it as a preference option as some players do farm grey heroics for planet comms, although personally I would not do grey missions.

Sure I understand about the overpriced blue gear from crafters and some are a bit clueless as to what is a fair price. I think its just a case because there is only a small demand for standard gear mainly for your're companion's it is causing crafters to be being squezzed out of business as such by relative low demand. Thus there are less armourtech and synweathing crafters willing to make gear to sell and hence less crafters means less competition which we all know means higher prices even if the demand is not as high as getting moddable gear and mods which most get via comms, CM or rep BOL vendors anyway. While there is still some market for standard blues the crafters that remain will try and squeeze as much credits as possible with this small demand to make crafting a least a little worthwhile. Green crafted gear is practically worthless in a sense and purple schematics are too much of a effort to obtain so focus and demand is on the middle ground blue gear. I have put some blue stuff on GTN myself for fair prices but the lack of competition for blue gear for certain items is alarming so you can see that there are not many armour gear crafters making stuff to sell anymore and also why some players that still do will try and milk those opportunities. If there is nobody else selling a blue level 30 Cunning belt or whatever then naturally you are going to try and push that price up a bit more even to beyond what you may call fair to see what you might get, greed is human nature. Ultimatley though something is only worth what someone is willing to pay. My point to the OP was if that companions gear automatically scaled say at a middle blue rate standard gear would be made as good as redundant in the game because there is so much easy to get moddable gear from CM, GTN, BOL rep vendors social vendors etc.. If we go this route we might aswell get rid of all standard gear drops and all standard gear vendors(although standard gear vendors are redundant now to be honest), what woudl happen to armourtech and synweathing crafting then. If standard gear had higher demand there would be more crafters of it higher competition with more players like yourself selling at fair prices meaning the greedy ones would have to start selling fair aswell or lose out. It all about supply and demand because there is so much easily availble moddable gear (also the fact planet comms are not locked to certain planet vendors now like they used to be making it easier to upgrade with comms, maybe this was a mistake) demand for crafted gear is limited so less crafters of it.

Crafting in general needs a facelift no doubt to make it more useful and rewarding, one of my previous suggestions which I copy below is a re-vamp of the crew skill system into a crew skill tree system, on a companion to companion basis like you have skill tree for your own combat abilities. ******************************** I would like the crafting system re-vamped so that rather than choose a specific set of three crew skills for all your companions each companion has his/her own crew skill tree that you allocate points in. As you allocate more and more points in the tree more and more gather missions for higher level materials and more higher level item schematics open up to craft. These skill trees could branch off into different specialisation sectors and you can re-allocate points within that specilisation sector but not accross to another sector without a full re-set a loss of all points back to basic missions. So therefore you no longer just tied to one set of skills and each of your companions can have different skill sets to cover all sorts of specialisations. How this would work would be that at the start every new companion has a set of simple lets say base scavenging type gather missions that return low level mat items and are rated yellow which your companion can do but is not profficent at it yet hence there is still a chance of failure (no item returns) until profficent. After say 5 succesful returns the companion earns a skill point that can be allocated in the skill tree. Each skill tree item that you allocate a point to will just essentially open up both new gathering missions and/or new schematics at a higer level than before and will be yellow, capable but not profficent hence chance of failure. The orginal mission that earned you that skill point will become green from yellow meaning you are now profficent at it and can no longer earn a skill point from doing that same mission again but you will no longer have any failure chance(No returns) at doing that mission because you are profficent at it. You can continue to do green profficent missions up until a point you become adept at that mission (the mission becomes grey) and then that increases the critical chance of that mission to a point that there is decent chance of a rare purple return at the level of the mission that the companion has become adept at. So Bascially so on and so forth learning new gather and craft missions in particular specilisations at a higher level than previous becoming profficent at it earning more skill poinst to get higher grade materials and craft higher grade gear and so on. Therefore no pre-set missions for all companions levels 0-50 and no need for buying pre-set schematics from trainers, and no pre-set static efficiency or critical ratings on companions for certain mission types as efficency and critical ratings as on a misison to misison bases and are improved through doing that mission repeatably. It may take longer to level up all companions as they each have their own skill sets and missions will still have a credit cost and a little time sink naturally (Higher the level of mission higher credit cost as always, although time still decreases more with efficency through repeating missions)but ultimatly it means you are more flexible and can cover most if not all current mission types on a single character with his/her companion having different specialisations. Once you reach top level it would be cool then to open up adaptive gear schematics for armor and arms in those specialisations as armortech, synweathing and armsech need a boost more than most ******************************************************************* What do you guys and girls think?

Agree as it's part of the challange and a needed credit sink aswell to also keep your companion up to date with gear aswell as yourself. Also standard non mod gear is used pretty much as it stands for companions while leveling so having auto scaling up armour means standard loot gear and crafted armour gear will be even nore worthless, what would be the point in having dropped standard gear. As it stands it is almost at the point of being worthless but still has some use because of the amount of comms you need to upgrade a full set for both you and your're companion makes it a real grind so alot of players still use some standard gear to save time more than anything.

Yes sorry about that, yes surge increases your critical multipler bonus above the base multipler of 50% there is no actual surge rating fiqure but basically more surge points = more increase in multipler = more critical damage when you do succesfully crit.

Surge increaes damage when you have a succesful critical hit, So say your basic attack deals 500 damage if you succesfully crit that attack with a surge rating of 50% damage will be 750 as a basic example.

It depends on your class as each class will have its primary stat that should always be first priority, Strength, Cunning, Aim or Willpower. You must only use gear that has the appropriate primary stat a willpower piece on a smuggler / agent will add next to nothing the way of your DPS stats. Endurance is always a secondary stat on all gear so this kind of looks after itself anyway as you upgrade. More Endurance just converts to higher health point capacity so is extra useful for a tank role but you should Not sacrifice attack or defence stats for extra endurance when choosing comprative gear even if your are a tank. The third,forth and fith stats depend on your role really DPS, heal or tank. Power tends to have better returns than critical for bonus damage and critical rating after a certain points nerfs its increases. Surge is usful to go alongside power so when you do crit you crit harder with more damage. Critical rating is perhaps more useful for healers over power for DPS. Defence rating and absorb ratings are best suited for tank roles, damage mitigation basically alongside basic armour value. Defence increases you chance to dodge, parry or absorb attacks with no damage done. Absorb increases damage reduction when you do get hit alongside shield chance if you can equip a shield. Shield rating and sheild absorb are sperate stats in addition to standard defence and absorb. Accuracy is useful for all as above 100% you reduces the targets defence rating they work against each other. So if your accuracy is 110% and targets defence rating is 10% you will always never miss and cause damage of that attack type force,tech range or meelle that you have 110% on. Each attack falls into one of these categories, but non force users will just have tech and either ranged or melle types and froce users do not have tech just force or melle or range. Alcricity lowers activation/channel times of abilities and global cooldown times and is lowest priority but useful if you do have a lot of channel type attacks. I Cant quote on this as I have no tried all classes, maybe be sueful for certain healer classes. Presense increse your compaions damage rating, handy but again never sacrifice your own stats for presence. Expertise on gear applies only in PVP and when your in non bolsters warzones at 55, has no effect in PVE.

Even if you do not plan of doing much group play it is still very much worthwhile joining a guild with the full 10% XP reputation bonus as that will aide leveling no end. Many guilds are just casual guild that not serious end game raiders or role playing guilds and just group every now and then and offer help and advise. If you want to level quick you can maximise XP with the regular xp boost consumables you get throughout the leveling, also space missions are a decent source of XP aswell as a time put in / xp benefit ratio, even if they are a bit naff being on rails. I would not worry too much about credits while leveling up to 50 you get enough to get by. The key while leveling is not so much the amount you get but ensuring you don't waste credits on stuff you don't need from GTN and vendors. Use Planatray comms that you earn to upgrade moddable gear as you go along which will save credits. Like others have said once you get to 50+ that is when the credits start rolling in with all the repeatable dailes you can do.

Agree by nature smugglers and bounty hunters work for themselves and have no loyal alliegence to either imp or republic and as such from when this game was designed for the outset they should have had these as netural classes with class stories that are not statically tied in to either side. It maybe would come down to the dark light choices you make and your own personal morals as to what side you fall from a moral standing and hence depending on your current alingment certain mission would open up as availble but at the same time some would close down to you if you are more light aligned more side missions from republic NPC would be available less imp ones and vice versa. These two clasees should be allowed in essence to to go to both Imp and rebuplic bases to get side missions from both sides depending on curent aligment with their main story quest being soley independent to side. I guess that is difficult as the overall mission balance and numbers needs to be same as other classes, but it would make perfect sense to do that from a class perspective in batting for both sides. I dont see it being too hard to creat a SIS agent class as the SIS are mentioned alot in the Imp agent class stories and other class stories aswell in general so it would make sense to have such a class as a opposing story to the imp agent. Both side should have basic infantory classes both sides aswell.

I think the only planets without cargo holds are the starter planets. They tend to be at the home base outpost location somewhere where you start the planet off, look for green key on map and on building entrances.