Firstly, thanks OP for this guide. I put one together a long time ago that is now quite obsoolete, so I know first-hand how much work it takes to do this. I'll just add a quick tip. If you have a new companion at level 1, and don't know what their favorite gift is, take them to fleet, go to the lowest level gift vendor and sort by price to organize his wares a bit. Then with that companion active, if you hover the cursor over each level 1 gift, it will say "no influence" or occassionally "small influence" for all but one, and that one that reads "large influence" will be the class of gift you are looking for. There are a couple companions that favor multiple gifts, but only the ones that give max points will show this way. Beats having to keep or decipher a chart.

Sounds like a conflict. If you aren't using the on-board sound card on your mother board, be sure to disable it. Also, if you have a sound card, but the sound is being run through your video card, disable the sound card also. (Not many new computers have separate sound cards these days). You want your primary sound source to be the only one enabled. USB headphones act as another separate sound card via software when they are plugged in, and conflicts there can be a little trickier, but not near the pain in the keister they used to be. Depending on your system, you may have to disable on-board sound for the motherboard in BIOS, the other can be disabled in device manager. Plenty of guides online. Edit to add: I also don't let my screen go to sleep, I have found that the "power saver" settings save very little power, if any, and cause more issues than they are worth. Speaking of a desktop system of course, but on laptops, you can choose to have them disabled if the laptop is plugged in, as you aren't going to have to worry about conserving battery life.

Quick "cheat" I use all the time for new computers or putting a game back on my system from an archive. 1. Run the installer, and let it do it's initial thing if the game isn't a re-install and doesn't already have it's registry entries, etc. 2. Stop the download, copy all the old files into the file folder. Then let it update instead of downloading everything from scratch. 3. I then do a "repair" or "verify" (depending on the game, they all do it a little differently). to make sure there aren't any missed or corrupted files. If this is just a re-install, I skip step 1 and just transfer files, then create a desktop shortcut. For a new computer, my old hard drive gets installed as a secondary drive, so the transfer goes rather quickly, and the old drive becomes an archive, as it will have everything from my old computer on it. I also keep a data drive for all my pictures, videos etc. that gets transferred to the new computer (plus the usual backups for anything I value) It is quite possible to run games from the old drive once the registry entries are in place, and some games don't even need the registry entries. But I prefer to keep an archive to make it easy to remove games if I no longer play them and keep my main drive tidy. Some games are also hard coded to look for files on C: so it's easier to just move them than to change pointers, etc. I used to just clone the old drive, and give Windows the new credentials to activate it if needed, but Win 10 does things differently now, and requires an install to check chip ID's etc. so it isn't nearly as practical as it used to be.

That's the right order. Corrosive grenade spreads both dots when AA tactical is in play so pre-loading both before CG is the way to go for max dot damage. Then alternate between cull>takedown and lethal shot spam (2-3 shots depending on your alacrity rating) for max AOE on targets within range of the boss, or just spam lethal shot for general AOE work with in-range targets when there is no boss. Best tactical in the game for virulence IMO. Splash damage range is the same as corrosive grenade from what I can see, so if CG hits them, lethal shot splash damage will, too. Series of shots does not trigger dots, so don't bother unless you need a timing filler or fast finisher. I also only bother with suppressive fire now when mobs are too spread out, or am just goofing off soloing a heroic. Just be aware that when the target goes down, the cast time for lethal shot is reset, so I usually pick the highest rated mob as my main target when I can to maximize shot rate. Depending on the targets, group makeup, etc. you can adjust the dot load, too, you don't always really need all dots on garbage mobs, so you can speed things up in some cases, by just going straight to CG and lethal shot, or CD>CG>LS etc. Some practice in heroics and experimentation will give you the feel for it, and speed up your runs. Also be aware of your aggro, I have pulled mass aggro off the tank, especially in PUGs where you have a tank that doesn't taunt, or adds that haven't been taunted yet, etc. It can make life "interesting"

That passive hasn't worked to prevent pulling/leaping to since I started playing the game years ago for either smuggler or sniper. It is broken, and likely never to be fixed. Hunker Down / Entrench with the right utilities is the much better, and working, option. Later on the utilities and armor set bonus will make Hunker down by far the better ability anyway.

IIRC Shae is recruitable only if you were a subscriber at the time she was rewarded. It is a choice to either use the item to have her right away, or wait to recruit her via story, but you still have to have been a subscriber in the time frame of the award. There are other companions that are similar. They did make Darth Hexid available later on via an achievement if memory serves, but that is not the case with Shae at this time. I personally don't object to these companions being made available, as those of us who received the reward have had the enjoyment of them for a while now, but it's not up to me. If she does become available again, I'd recommend getting her. I find her to be great DPS and decent at tanking, but after the companion healing nerf, she's not so good as a healer, but are any of them now?

At $20 for this expansion, that would be about $19.01 more than it's been worth. They recently admitted that they have generated over 1 Billion dollars with this game. Yet they have laid off staff, and won't even pay some kid minimum wage to sit in general chat and play whack-a-mole with the gold spammers. Increasing revenue even further won't get us a single improvement in game play or quash a single bug, it will just go into EA's pockets. I quit EQ2 after being in both EQ's from the beginning due to over priced "expansions" and other money grabs. I would leave SWTOR in a heartbeat if they charged for one. Frankly, looking at the grind to balance out my gear on my main, and the penalty I will pay in not even being able to get through a heroic without a slog due to over clamping, I am having serious doubts if I will keep playing as it is, unless some very serious changes are made, and soon. Don't even get me started on the crafting debacle.

Forget about getting a drop higher than 278 in a heroic. My main in full level 306 gear still hasn't gotten a single item above that rank in any heroic. I suspect it's to prevent you from getting any gear that can vendor for more than 800 credits, rather than to keep you from gearing up from anything other than the FP grind. But it certainly has that effect. It's not "play your way" it's "grind our way". Once you get to 306, the grind continues to get specific gear sets using fragments and credits (lots and lots of credits, which are now much slower to obtain, don't want us catching up to the whales or the cheaters too soon y'know). Don't worry, once you complete the multiple grinds, you'll be weaker in heroics and flashpoints than you were at 70 due to over-clamping, so you can do all this work to regress your character from where you were before. What a deal!

While some of it is going to depend on the particulars of the computer on client side, I agree that server side is having a good part of it as well. I run SWTOR on a flight sim capable rig (that can keep 60 FPS in DCS World multiplayer) and I am also seeing a real slow down in the new planets. They aren't becoming a slide show for me, but there is definitely a frame drop and some server delays, enough to be noticeable. Once the populations spreads back out it should improve, and the devs may want to take another pass at optimization when they get a chance, but I would think that 10+ instances running at once is the biggest part of it.

Yeah, got it sorted out. Patch notes had me looking for "Preparing the Way" not "Hearts and Minds".

Acording to the patch notes, my character, who completed Ossus a long time ago, should have a mission in their log to start the new quest line. No mission, nothing on mission terminal, no e-mail. Is there a mission terminal, other prereq, or something somewhere I have missed? Checked others who also completed Ossus, and they don't have the mission either.

Help me to understand why this seems to be such a large issue for some. I fully agree it needs to be fixed, but it seems to me that especially for scavenging nodes. you know what you are going to get before you even click on it. Unless they are mixing levels now, or something. The type and yields are pretty standardized.

Thank you! I am kicking myself for forgetting to add the other important aspect of this, which is: “At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” ― Dr. Maya Angelou One should always remember that when setting the tone with their writing, speech or actions. (OK, feel better getting that in, even if a bit late.)

Not just this game, but about every game I've ever played. I make it a point to not do anything I don't want to do again, or earn anything I wouldn't want to lose until a few days after the drop, if not a week in some cases. But yeah it's just so tempting to start getting those new shinies......

I seem to recall reading in the pre-update discussion that the 228 augments stayed the same but the later augments lose most of their tertiary stats until you get back to the max level ones. It was suggested to stick with the 228 until you could get your armor levels maxed before spending the time and coin for the max level augments. Struck me as odd, but apparently is intended.

You need to understand that people can only judge a post by what you actually write, and it will be taken literally. (Literally is a term taken from "literature" and reflects this fact quite well.) They do not have the context of your thoughts to judge it against. When your post sets a negative tone, it will get replies based on that. It would have been much different if you had written something along the lines of "The new materials tab is great, but I would like to suggest that at some future time the devs could add these options to make it really awesome!" Adding something along the lines of "And those other improvements are great, which makes this even more apparent" helps create a more neutral tone to your post, and show that you aren't coming down on the update as a whole. And yes, when you set a negative tone about a new game feature, your readers will naturally assume you are negative about other aspects of the update as well. Any good criticism will include positives as well as negatives. (Which is why even product reviews will list pros and cons, rather than just bash everything, unless the item being reviewed is total junk.) As in other matters in life, how you say something is equally, if not more, important than what you say. You may find it helpful when posting, especially if saying something that can be taken negatively, to take a moment to step away before posting, then re-reading it with the mindset of a third party, who is seeing it for the first time. I personally tend to over-write things due to this phenomena, but feel it's better than being misunderstood. Having a lighter tone helps in all aspects (other than maybe a eulogy) but do be careful, as the literal reading of a piece loses the tone and inflection found in speaking, so a joke can not only fall flat, but come across as hateful or sarcastic when it's not meant to be. I wrote what I did in response to not only your words but your tone, as have others. Nothing illogical about it. Why am I taking the time to write all this? Because I think you are actually a pretty decent sort, and not as negatively minded as your writing style suggests. I also get the impression that you are young (easily younger than me, I'm an old codger who certainly isn't getting any younger) and intelligent enough to really succeed in life with a few pointers from us old curmudgeons to help you along the way. So learn to take criticism, take nothing personally (other than physical attacks of course), don't take differing opinions confrontation-ally, and you'll go far.

I can't attest to the neon green, as I am shade blind (which has both it's drawbacks and it's advantages) so to me it's just light green. I do find it easier to see some things with the new icon changes, such as the bolder exclamation mark when I have mail waiting, for example. The new border helps a lot, and adding the border helps it stand out against the background much better. I will take your word about the color. It may be possible to adjust it in preferences, but haven't looked as it wouldn't make much difference to me. Flashing makes it easier for folks like me to spot among the other colors in crowded situations. For the normal sighted, being able to turn it off may be a nice option. Trouble is, with such a large expansion, there is only so much development time to add in options like that, maybe in time they can add it, who knows? Few games have disability options or considerations in them, and as a former advocate for the disabled, I was pleased to see some of the new changes being disabled friendly. (Intentional or not) For the item screen, having things like the armor rating in larger bold letters right on top means I don't have to juggle between the different powers on my bifocals so much to read the stats anymore. It's rough getting old To me the overall layout is more logical as well, but to each their own, maybe I'm just an odd duck

To OP: Seriously? All my mats now go into their own bag, automatically while harvesting even, pre-sorted by harvesting discipline, and all characters can access them anywhere. No more clogged inventory out in the field, trips to the bank, or calling up a field bank, no more remembering which page has which mats, no more hand sorting each by category and level and taking up multiple bank slots. It took me less than 5 minutes to pull my mats from the bank, and mass transfer them to the holding bag. (And I had a lot of mats.) In fact it took me much longer to re-organize my armor pieces, cartel market gear, etc. in all that glorious glorious newly opened bank space than it did to pull and dump mats. BTW do you know it's not just harvested mats that will go in the bag? Reactants, sub-combines, etc. will go there too and go to a misc. tab. It's an all-inclusive holder. From what I can tell, if it can be used to make something else, it will go in, including prefab components, augment slot components, etc. It's outstanding. Since it bothers you so much, I have a solution for you. Keep them all in the shared bank, and keep doing it the old way. While you do that, I'll be happy to just pull up my mats tab and see what I need while I'm out running around instead of beaming up to my house or hunting/popping a legacy bank to see what I'm getting low on. I'm getting old, but I can still keep track of which character has which harvesting discipline for a quick mats check. Wow, I guess you don't like the new stats layout that gives you the armor rating and stats at a glance, or the new easier to identify merchant bank and mail icons either. I suppose the Superior Renown boosts now being stackable is just dreadful to you too. And to top it all off, along with all that newly opened bank space we can buy an additional tab for us pack rats to fill up as well. Of all the things to possibly complain about, you pick the huge QOL update? While we're on the subject of QOL improvements, thank you devs for that new item screen, it makes it so much easier for these old eyes to see the armor rating, set bonuses, etc. at a glance. Much better layout IMO, and very much appreciated! I for one am very happy with all the QOL changes you made, but that one is a real improvement for me!

My main's name contains a non-standard character, which while it hasn't eliminated the spam completely, it certainly has diminished it considerably. My alt who does not have an non-standard character in their name gets at least one spam email a day, and can get buried in them if they go to fleet or a starter planet. Something to consider if the spam really bothers you.

Sorry, I misunderstood that, guess I was a bit more tired than I thought. So far as building comp influence through conversation, I can get a comp to max so quickly and cheaply through gifts that I don't even worry about it at all. With the changes it can't go down now, so it's pretty much a non-issue these days anyway.

I prefer the peace and quiet. It gets old hearing the same catchphrases over and over in combat.

Which is why I run a full ad blocker on my browser. I don't even let ads load. In over 40 years of working with computers, and online since the early days of BBS, IRC, Archie, and the "World Wide Web" (yeah I'm old,) the only time I have ever gotten a virus on my computer was 1. An infected disk sent out by a corporation (thanks, WIRED), and 2. Malicious coding from an ad in the days before anti-virus software was able to detect them. I just laugh at the pop-ups that complain about my ad blocker, as in my experience, they whine about revenue, but the moment you get malicious code from an ad, suddenly they "aren't responsible for what third party ads do on their site". It used to be you had to actually try to get a virus on your system, clicking E-Mail links, going to shady sites, authorizing popups, etc. but now it's much more pervasive. Use an ad blocker, and make sure whatever anti-virus software you use has an active browser component. I still scan as well, and always scan any file download, no matter how trusted the site is. Never use a password based on personal information, such as a pet's name, your own name, or a relative's, etc. I have seen some amazingly stupid passwords over the years. A strong password can be made from an easy to remember phrase, modified further with capitols and numbers. Even something as simple as a phrase alone makes it infinitely harder for a hacker using a dictionary program to break it. As usual I admonish anyone reading this to never give out their password to anyone, no matter how trusted, and to never use the same password for multiple sites. For that matter, never allow software to store your passwords off site, like in the "cloud" etc. You are trusting your passwords to a third party at that point. If you need to know why this is a bad thing, look at how many breaches of corporate security there have been even in companies that should be the most secure, like Equifax and other financial institutions. I won't even trust password vaults on my own system, but perhaps that's just me. In a nutshell, security starts with you, and ends with you. Take a look at your habits and make the changes you need to make yourself more secure. It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you!

Since the beginning of the new "expansion" I have gotten 1 usable relic, and one belt. My desire to even log in has dwindled significantly. Was that the intent of this new gearing system? Is this some round-about way of getting us to quit the game and go play Anthem?

My wife is retired from IT management in the banking industry. I concur

I am showing 3 uses left on mine: http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/2vqfl6 However tried to share it with someone earlier, and they reported that it didn't work. Don't know if it an issue they are having or on BW's side.