Orange Weapon/Armor Question

[Cartooon]

Im a little confused as to how orange weapons work, obviously I know their modable but I found out just yesterday that the base stats of orange items scale with the mods that are in them.

 

So my question is, can I take an orange weapon I found at the start of the game and an orange weapon Ive found end game and scale the starter weapon up to the same stats as end game weapon?

 

 

If so, thats an interesting concept. Because I might go back to all the low level areas that I consider to have the best looking armor and weapons and scale them up to my level with mods.

[Aieny]

That is exactly what it means. Identical mods in a starter item and an end-game item make the items equivalent.

[DarthRilous]

the top mod of any piece of moddable gear determines the level. For example a Lightsaber, the hilt controls the level of the saber. Thats where the base damage, and such comes from. I am pretty sure even if you were say level 25, you could put lvl 50 mods in it, and still be able to use it..as long as the hilt is level 25.

 

For armor, its the armoring that gives the item its base characteristics.

[Cartooon]

That is exactly what it means. Identical mods in a starter item and an end-game item make the items equivalent.

So basicly, putting the looks of items aside. I could fill my character with orange items from koribban, the first flash points and low level planets and as long as I have the mods from high level weapons (Which are relatively easy to come by using the crew skills Ive chosen) I can have consistent top level gear.

 

I guess the next question is; what is there worth getting in the higher level areas? Apart from looks I can take any orange drop and it be top tier. Why even bother getting high level items?

Edited January 8, 2012 by Cartooon

[Eternalnight]

For those item slots that you have mod gear, you will be playing higher level planets to get new mods, or commendations used to buy mods, not so much new gear.

 

Also you can't get all your gear be orange gear at level 10. Only weapon and chest armor at most. You need to get higher before it even gets possible to other armor pieces that are orange.

 

And don't forget your companions.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Eternalnight

[Aieny]

the top mod of any piece of moddable gear determines the level. For example a Lightsaber, the hilt controls the level of the saber. Thats where the base damage, and such comes from. I am pretty sure even if you were say level 25, you could put lvl 50 mods in it, and still be able to use it..as long as the hilt is level 25.

 

For armor, its the armoring that gives the item its base characteristics.

 

This is partially correct. The hilt, barrel, and armoring slots determine the base damage/armor of the item. However, the item level is determined by the highest level mod in the item. So, putting a level 25 hilt and a level 50 enhancement would make it require level 50 to equip.

[Aieny]

So basicly, putting the looks of items aside. I could fill my character with orange items from koribban, the first flash points and low level planets and as long as I have the mods from high level weapons (Which are relatively easy to come by using the crew skills Ive chosen) I can have consistent top level gear.

 

I guess the next question is; what is there worth getting in the higher level areas? Apart from looks I can take any orange drop and it be top tier. Why even bother getting high level items?

 

High level orange items have mods that can be stripped and put into other orange gear. Also, sometimes too many orange items can be cumbersome to keep up, since you are now looking at 3-4x the upgrades over non-mod gear.

[Aieny]

For those item slots that you have mod gear, you will be playing higher level planets to get new mods, or commendations used to buy mods, not so much new gear.

 

Also you can't get all your gear be orange gear at level 10. Only weapon and chest armor at most. You need to get higher before it even gets possible to other armor pieces that are orange.

 

And don't forget your companions.

 

Actually, you could (if you got money from someone else or an alt) purchase a full set of orange at the security key vendor on the fleet ship as soon as you have access. But, most basic mods require level 10, so it wouldn't be worth it to get it before then.

[Eternalnight]

Well, ok the security key vendor, but not everyone can do that.

 

I was commenting the possibility of running the first Flaspoint at level 10, until you get full set of orange gear.

Doing that will not ever get you orange gear for anything more than main weapon and chest armor. Need higher level planets and Flashpoints for the rest.

[Cartooon]

EDIT:

 

My mistake, apparently it takes a few seconds after modding for the armor rating to scale upwards.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Cartooon

[Darthshnooky]

Actually, you could (if you got money from someone else or an alt) purchase a full set of orange at the security key vendor on the fleet ship as soon as you have access. But, most basic mods require level 10, so it wouldn't be worth it to get it before then.

 

True, but that is light armor, which is useless to 75% of the classes in the game.

[Eternalnight]

True, but that is light armor, which is useless to 75% of the classes in the game.

 

Is it really all that useless? While it might be useless for heavy armor using tanks, but if you're ranged dps or healer what do you need the extra armor from medium/heavy armor for? Even for soloing, if you can use your companion as a tank, I don't see much use for it.

[Darthshnooky]

Is it really all that useless? While it might be useless for heavy armor using tanks, but if you're ranged dps or healer what do you need the extra armor from medium/heavy armor for? Even for soloing, if you can use your companion as a tank, I don't see much use for it.

 

Because no tank is perfect. DPS and healers will pull aggro sometimes and that little extra bit of defense can make a big difference. Not to mention PvP.

[Draugathil]

So my tank can get a set of orange gear and just upgrade the mods? This will update its armour etc?

[Kamilumin]

So my tank can get a set of orange gear and just upgrade the mods? This will update its armour etc?

 

Yes, however the armor type still matters for custom gear. As in custom gear that is considered light armor will have a lower armor value than custom gear considered heavy armor, even with all the same mods used.

[Gobgrot]

Also you can't get all your gear be orange gear at level 10. Only weapon and chest armor at most. You need to get higher before it even gets possible to other armor pieces that are orange.

 

And don't forget your companions.

 

Ive just gotten my first toon to level 10 on the republic side. Ive ready to ship off the planet but never found the chest. Any ideas where I can get it?

[Darthshnooky]

Ive just gotten my first toon to level 10 on the republic side. Ive ready to ship off the planet but never found the chest. Any ideas where I can get it?

 

Custom chest piece can drop in the Esselles Flashpoint.

[Eternalnight]

Ive just gotten my first toon to level 10 on the republic side. Ive ready to ship off the planet but never found the chest. Any ideas where I can get it?

 

Get a group together and run through flashpoint Esseles and hope you get lucky and the bosses there drop one for your class. That is of course not guranteed they drop one.

 

If you did not do that, then forget about it, there are other ways to get one.

 

 

Anyway... the next chance in Coruscant is to do the heroic mission Trouble in Deed for which if you're same level as the mission, requires 4-man group. But the reward is moddable chest armor that you will always get when doing it.

 

If you want to get one from just doing soloable quests, you can do the Gree storyline, for which after doing some other mission on the planet, you go again to the senate tower and there are these robots that give you a long series of missions. After completing all of those you will also get a moddable chest armor.

 

And so on...

[Draugathil]

Ah I'd RE'd a set of orange bracers, wish I'd kept em now! I hadn't realised he armour value went up too.

[DarthDemens]

Ah I'd RE'd a set of orange bracers, wish I'd kept em now! I hadn't realised he armour value went up too.

 

Ouch.

 

Bracers and Belts are the rarest of Orange items.

 

Belts go for 25k+ on my server, and bracers can go for 100k+.

[swtonewbie]

So my tank can get a set of orange gear and just upgrade the mods? This will update its armour etc?

 

Yes, but like somebody mentioned on the first page this gets expensive. If you are going to have a lot of armor i would recommend getting cybertech as a crew skill. Cybertech makes the armoring and mod. The armoring costs 7 commendation badges each, so if you have say 5 pieces of orange gear without cybertech you have to spend 35 badges just for the armoring. Plus another 20 for the enhancement and mod slot.

 

If you have cybertech you would only have to spend badges to buy enhancements so for the same 5 pieces of orange gear you only have to spend 10 badges. That leaves you more badges to spend on barrels, and other misc gear. Another thing about armoring, if you keep up with leveling your professions you can have your next set of armoring and mods crafted and waiting, so as soon as you are high enough to use them you put them in.

 

Lastly if you do take cybertech and you have excess mats, take the time to reverse engineer your armoring. For the same level armoring a blue quality armoring will give you more armor then a yellow quality. And a purple quality will give the most, (although i dont recommend trying to RE for purple unless you are rich or something).

[DarthDemens]

It's really not that expensive. There's no reason to update your armor every possible time and you should get more than enough commendations to keep it functional. Then at 50 you can use the daily commendations to get the best armorings.

[SixtyNineEyes]

if you get to extract purple mods from any item it will be very expensive (25k at lvl 40)

in addition most purple gear only has two modification slots and some "hard stats" on the item itself

 

this is why in high end game you will have to prefer fugly purple armor drops over your fancy custom set :S

imo this needs to be changed..there is no point in keeping it this way

Edited January 22, 2012 by SixtyNineEyes

[riny]

Earlier in the game, during beta or prelaunch, there was some discussion about modding for heavy armor types. The idea was that heavy armor users were getting short changed because the mods did not keep up. Is this still an issue?

[Darthshnooky]

if you get to extract purple mods from any item it will be very expensive (25k at lvl 40)

in addition most purple gear only has two modification slots and some "hard stats" on the item itself

 

this is why in high end game you will have to prefer fugly purple armor drops over your fancy custom set :S

imo this needs to be changed..there is no point in keeping it this way

 

It will be changing in the not-too-distant future. It was just something that needed a bit more time to work out than they had for launch. Mostly because it needed to be done right to keep people for gearing up just off a single Operation boss.

 

Earlier in the game, during beta or prelaunch, there was some discussion about modding for heavy armor types. The idea was that heavy armor users were getting short changed because the mods did not keep up. Is this still an issue?

 

Not sure what you're talking about here. Mods keep up just fine for heavy armor. The issue is that social gear, like dancer or pilot outfits, are all light armor and therefore fairly useless for most classes in game.