Casual crafting----should I save? Keep going?

[Darlgon]

Ok.. first.. OP.. I did a lil research and with your artistic background, you definitely want to do crew skills because you like making stuff. (Your drawings are pretty cool. I like the Tiger and the Butterfly best on a quick lookover.)

 

However, since you were showed to do them a little late in game, (I start doing crew skills at level 10 or whenever I first get to fleet) you probably missed out on some of the basics. Please bear with me if you know some of this.

 

Crew skills are four different categories.

Slicing is for credits only and if a person does not want to worry about making or crafting anything.

 

Gathering skills, like Scavenging and Archaeology

On these skills, you CAN send your companion on missions, but... frankly,, only do this if you have tons of credits to blow or want to craft that certain item that you dont want to fly from Alderaan to Coruscant to make for sale in the Galatic Trade Market (GTN). You skill up as you harvest nodes that you run across in-game. Eventually, you will stop seeing the green, "you skilled up in crew skill", meaning it is time to move to a higher level harvesting node area. Please note that crew skills are independent of your XP level but higher level crew skill nodes are found on planets that require you to have a higher level toon. Unfortunately for you, the first nodes you need to do are back on Coruscant in the Market. Even the nodes in the Temple require you to have done the skill ups in Market and Justicar territory. When leveling up, if you are spending credits on these, you are wasting credits. The one exception to that is, when you log out over night, always send every companion you can so you land to skill ups and materials.

 

Mission Skills

The ONLY way to skill up on these is to send your companion out on missions. These are missions like Diplomacy or Investigation. However, for most non-green (read that as above basic level) items, you have to have a component from a mission skill to create a blue, purple or orange level item. These seem to skill up faster than the harvesting, but that may be because harvesting I am not spending credits. However, these also grant the companion gifts. Giving the right gifts to your companions will make the do their skills better and make it more likely that they will crit on stuff, giving you even more stuff to craft with. Gifts also make your companion like you more, so they will do missions faster and give you the special conversations based on your faction with them faster.

 

Crafting Skills

This is where you make stuff with the materials provided by both of the other skills above. It includes Synthweaving, Armstech, Armsmech, Artifice and others. You can make gear for your guys to keep them geared up. You can make colored crystals for your lightsaber, mods so you can keep the orange gear you like up to date as you travel planets, weapons for your pet, like poor Qyzen who is so ignored by the devs, or replacement gear if you dont like the look of what orange you have. Stuff you make comes in levels, green (basic), blue (better), and purple (best crafted except special stuff). On these, the C2N2 robot is a good goto, unless you have a companion that specializes in that craft. (I use Corso to make everything Armstech, as he gets a plus skill in making things.) C2N2 is your crafting droid, from what I read, so is has a small plus in all crew skills. If one of your items crits, it gets an aug slot to make it even more powerful. This is another one of those.. do as you log out things. Get your companion to craft five items as you log out and you will have them in your bags when you get back in-game. If they are not purple, you have the option of hitting the RE (Reverse Engineer) button at the top of your inventory. From REing items, you learn better recipes to make the gear more powerful. Each green apparently has 15 different possible blue and purple recipes, but I only look to make one purple of them. Purple items sell for a premium in the market, even if they are not level 49s.

 

Which, brings us to your money situation. Frankly, you should not be broke in this game, EVER.

The daily space missions will make you minimum 7K per day at your level, once you get the level 1 arms from the spaceport guys. The Fondor mission, does not even require those, even if it is grey, which just means you get no XP, but you still get credits at the end. The investment in ship arms is worth it.

If you pick up everything you can as you play, repair what gear you have and ignore the speed leveler who say you will just out level it before it wears out. You do not seem to be going very quickly so make that gear last.

Sell ONLY the items to vendors are common and not gear or weapons. The gear and weapons, burn a few credits to travel back to Coruscant or to the closest Galatic Trade Network node and list those items for sale.. not what they suggest, but 50% over. People who are.. umm.. careless for a lack of better term... will always shop in the GTN and buy gear for them or their companions. If they do not sell, you get your credits back plus the item. Sell it then for 10% over what they suggest plus the listing fee. If you end up with 50 items listed, you can always just vendor the ones you dont think are selling. Also, remember that stuff that has no value to you can be very valuable to others.

Sell EVERYTHING you craft unless you are using it. That green Synthweave belt for light armor may be only level 9, but someone is running around without one. If it has an aug slot a person could put a Presence aug in it and make his companion more responsive. Personally, I will make Green items, RE the ones without aug slots until I get a Blue recipe, sell any I have not REd, make blues in fives and repeat until I get a purple recipie. Then I just make purples and sell for 100% or more. On those, you may want to look at what others are selling for in the market before listing a price.

 

Some websites you may want to check out are:

 

http://www.starwarsmmolevelingguide.com/crafting-guide/

 

and

 

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/feature/19836-guide-companion-gifts

 

Hopefully this will help some.

[Darlgon]

Hell I don't even know how to "subscribe" to this thread, even. I'm so lost in this SWTOR world. I know it's KINDA designed for casual players, but for this casual former-WOW player, I feel like I'm always struggling.

 

Ok.. when you reply to a post, below the Submit button, you see a box that says "Additional Options." Included in that box is a dropdown that offers to subscribe to the thread.

 

If you forget to do that, click on your name after you log into this website. Under the second tab, it offers you the opportunity to search for posts based on your name, so you can always see threads in which you have posted.

[ColorOfGrey]

That definitely helps, and thanks for the compliments. Painting keeps me away from SWTOR, among other things

 

 

I'm so apprehensive about bailing on my crew skills. I don't think I will bail on scavenging just because everywhere I go (alone, at least) I can scavenge something, it seems.

 

But underworld trading, ugh, I want to keep it so much just because I have seen that later you get a JAWA companion?! I can't wait.

 

That's a long way from now for me, but I have been stockpiling companion gifts (I have almost 20 now) to get the Jawa on my side when I get him. I also give companion gifts to friends.

 

But still, great advice---------I'm going to think about the rest, but for now I'm definitely keeping scavenging but not spending a dime on it anymore. Thanks again!

 

 

 

[Darlgon]

First, I'm casual. I'm a kickstand for guilds----most of the people I've talked to in the game, you have to be able to contribute at a high level----one of them said they are always the first guild to complete things as soon as they launch. Besides, I don't necesarily want to rely on a guild----I just want to be able to craft on my own and it felt like I was doing it wrong, but I think there's simply not much of a market at all, especially for crafting (although I hope it will change). I might be able to find a guild that's suited for me, but I never know when I'll be able to get online due to traveling so much, and really I don't know of any casual-style guilds? Do they exist?

 

Stay away from any guild that says they raid. You want a casual guild. Do not give up. They are out there somewhere.

 

Second, for gathering materials, that never seems to work either. If I'm alone, it's ok, but I die a lot.

However, when I'm with a group, I can tell I'm the casual one because I don't notice the stuff to gather until it's too late-------I can't tell you how many times I've tried to "race" to gather materials only to lose to the other guy in my random group. You snooze, you lose?

I suppose I could go back to "easy" planets I've been to already, but then I'm doing it JUST to craft and I'm not leveling up, which is already slow enough as a casual player-----I'm always finding PLENTY of missions for my level, so I just want to keep doing them when I have time to play SWTOR, rather than gathering materials back on Hutta.

 

Young padawan, you must learn to seperate your XP of your tune with the XP of crewskills, as they are not the same. Being in an area below your level to get trade skill items, or even to just kill mobs to get credits is not a bad thing, as long as you are not stealing from people doing quests in that area.

 

I was casual in WOW too, but one of the things I did a lot was the auction house-----I made a fortune AND owned every pet I could get my hands on. I don't necesarily think a market is worse than an auction house in SWTOR, but I do miss those days.

 

I too made a fortune in EQ, LOTRO and now this game with the GTN. You appear to not be leveraging it yet.

 

Side note------I LOVED pets in WOW, and I search every day in the "pets" category of the market in SWTOR------how come it's always empty?

 

They have not implemented them yet. You get companions through the class story line progression, but I have yet to see a pet. I bet they will be cosmetic tho.

 

BTW, grtz on having your own little section here.

[Malleable]

Honestly, the boxes you gather while playing aren't nearly as impressive as the ones you get from the missions.

 

I dont even bother to pick up boxes as I level unless I am passing by it and dont have to fight anything near.

Scavenging and Bioanalysis are ones I grab if they arent grey so I can level - but given that mobs and droids are so plentiful I dont grab everything I see.

Now Archaeology I do grab any time I see one.

 

My four guys all have Slicing; and then I spread the rest of the gathering and mission skills across them so I have everything covered.

And I use all the blue/purple bonus mission items I find off Slicing.

 

I have one free slot for a yet undecided crafting skill, or maybe whichever gathering/mission skill pays the most.

 

I honestly wouldnt do a crafting skill while leveling. They are still trying to balance and improve them. Who knows if they will ever be worth taking as a casual player.

I can live without the best items (BOP), so as long as I have the gathering/mission skills I should be able to farm up the resources and find a crafter to make decent items.

 

Once you are rich enough you could always drop something and pick up a crafting skill and level it fairly easy if what you end up wanting is high end gear.

 

Mal

Edited March 1, 2012 by Malleable

[Kiphere]

Slicing is misleading.

 

I send a companion on a 'rich yield' mission that costs me 1200c to do I get 1500 from the box he brings back. that means I made 300.

 

I pick up a box in the wild it has 800credits in it. That's 800 credits I made.

 

 

Crafting should be 'cheap' to level. Don't send your companions on missions for anything except the blue/purple mats from things like Underworld Trading, etc. gather your other mats manually.

 

Craft gear you'll wear or you'll put on your companion. Selling lower level gear on the GTN is hard at best impossible at worst. I make a bunch of anything i want to wear. I'll make 1 of everything I need to upgrade that I can craft and put it on, then I'll make one more of everything I'm wearing and RE it, if I get a blue recipe I'll make a blue version then keep crafting till I run out of materials. When I run out of materials I stop. I don't run missions for more (aside from the blue/purple mats) I never intentionally run missions for purple mats while leveling I just enjoy em if I get em.

 

As far as upgrading gear... quest. You should never be at a loss for gear whether you craft or not and you should never need to 'buy' gear. Do all your quests on every planet and you'll be swimming in level appropriate gear for you andy our companion.

[moman]

I waited to do the bulk of my crafting once I hit 50, because then I could run the dailys and use the money from that to fund my crafting. Also, you can make money from crafting and the GNT if you do it right. I'm sorry to say I cannot give away my secrets, but look on the web and on the forums and you'll dig up some stuff.

[ColorOfGrey]

I waited to do the bulk of my crafting once I hit 50, because then I could run the dailys and use the money from that to fund my crafting. Also, you can make money from crafting and the GNT if you do it right. I'm sorry to say I cannot give away my secrets, but look on the web and on the forums and you'll dig up some stuff.

 

I'm sure I could, but it's not worth it for being a casual player.

 

On one hand, I don't understand a lot of the lingo even here. I don't know what slicing even means, and I could look it up but I think the bottom line is crafting anything istn't really going to get me the gear I really want anyway until much later in the game, a stage I might never reach regardless.

 

If I am going to reach higher levels, that needs to be my priority. I always have gear that's "good enough" and that's fine. I forget about my companions' gear, but that's my own fault------I also forget to spend skill points and level up at a trainer when I get enough XP.

 

Money IS a problem for me. Crafting doesn't sound like it would help enough for the next 10 weeks to be worth it really for me. I could figure out the market more like I did in WOW, sure, it's just that there really isn't anything I want for myself in there---in WOW I was always after bag deals or rare weapons but especially pets----the pets did nothing, but I had dozens of them. I loved them, and I got them at great prices or otherwise made enough money in the house to buy them outright for crazy money, and I never made it past level 60 even after 3 years (or more?).

 

But one thing SWTOR does better is give you better gear. I'm sure I could get better gear than what I have, but I don't think I'm dying because of my gear alone, I think it's usually from bad decisions or playing alone too much, etc.

 

[ColorOfGrey]

Also, regarding finding new recipes...from reverse-engineering?

 

I don't think that's ever happened for me.

 

I've crafted dozens of things in armortech, and I reverse engineer them all since someone said you should always do that. I get some materials back so I can spend more on crafting, but I can't make anything really useful to anyone.

 

It's probably more imbalanced than it should be, but I think the bottom line is if it wasn't there, I wouldn't notice, and I wouldn't complain about it missing.

 

It's fine----I think I came here to see if someone would say, "yeah, you're missing out, it gets way better and at your level you'll soon be making purple and orange gear for level 30 that's better than the random chest you found on Cadamimu," but that's not the case and it's not worth it with how little time I have in SWTOR to begin with is all. I JUST got to Alderaan---can't wait to find my next bounty!

[haliy]

Slicing is misleading.

 

I send a companion on a 'rich yield' mission that costs me 1200c to do I get 1500 from the box he brings back. that means I made 300.

 

I pick up a box in the wild it has 800credits in it. That's 800 credits I made.

 

^ this ^

 

When i was leveling artifice, i used the profits i had from treasure hunting and archaeology to level it. when i was picking treasure hunting missions, i would only the lock-box missions that had a rich yield and they would normally return me the credits i spent on sending them plus a piece of blue or orange gear that i would sell on the GTN. Also when leveling artifice, the pieces of gear i made, I ended up RE'ing to save on the mats that i needed so I could make more pieces to level.

 

With archaeology, i very rarely run missions for mats. i would just stop at every single node i found and grabbed the mats from it. if i had out-leveled the schematics for those mats, i would still pick them up and sell off what i didn't need.

 

With the profits i had, i was able to max out and grab every schematic and still have enough to train all the skills from my trainer.

 

My biggest advice i could give is don't buy upgrades for your gear if you don't have too when your leveling up. for the quests that offer commendation medals or gear, grab the commendation medal and use those for gear upgrades. the gear will level up itself as you change out the mods/enhancements for better ones..

 

I would offer you a spot in the guild i will be starting up later on this month however, I will not be getting home until the 25th so invites wont be starting until then.

[ColorOfGrey]

^

My biggest advice i could give is don't buy upgrades for your gear if you don't have too when your leveling up. for the quests that offer commendation medals or gear, grab the commendation medal and use those for gear upgrades. the gear will level up itself as you change out the mods/enhancements for better ones..

 

I would offer you a spot in the guild i will be starting up later on this month however, I will not be getting home until the 25th so invites wont be starting until then.

 

 

I was told to gather commendations until I have enough for the purple lockbox--------it's the only way I've gotten any purple gear. Mind you it wasn't gear I could use and I had to sell it on the market, but still.

 

It also sounds like some of the skills are WAY better for not draining your pockets, but ALSO for making profits each time. CREDITS explicitly from a crew skill?! That's awesome. I wish I had never started armortech and underworld trading, lol.

 

Bottom line, crafting's not for me--------I think for the hardcore, people WOULD be upset if crafting was altogether left out of the game. For me though, crafting wasn't a problem until I started actually crafting. The game was fine for me beforehand, and if I'm not getting purple gear anyway, it's just not worth it. But thanks for the tips, nice work. What's your new guild's name? Is it for casual players?

 

[Battilea]

I was told to gather commendations until I have enough for the purple lockbox--------it's the only way I've gotten any purple gear. Mind you it wasn't gear I could use and I had to sell it on the market, but still.

 

Not the way I'd do it.

 

You're better off getting orange gear and using the commendations for mods. 7 gets you an armor mod. 2 gets you a regular mod. And 2 for enhancements as well but you can mostly ignore those due to poor selection. So, for the cost of one box, you can essentially upgrade 3 armor/weapons with a new hilt/barrel/armor mod and a regular mod.

 

Although, given just 1 weapon (and some people use 2) and 5 armor slots, well that's a lot of commendations. You'll want to upgrade the weapon(s) each planet. Armor you can stagger a bit.

 

It also sounds like some of the skills are WAY better for not draining your pockets, but ALSO for making profits each time. CREDITS explicitly from a crew skill?! That's awesome. I wish I had never started armortech and underworld trading, lol.

 

Well, slicing is a gathering skill. And it can make money the same way other gathering skills do, by doing missions and by gathering nodes. But it does so by mostly cutting out the middle man of using the exchange, though at the cost of making you less money.

 

Bottom line, crafting's not for me--------I think for the hardcore, people WOULD be upset if crafting was altogether left out of the game. For me though, crafting wasn't a problem until I started actually crafting. The game was fine for me beforehand, and if I'm not getting purple gear anyway, it's just not worth it. But thanks for the tips, nice work. What's your new guild's name? Is it for casual players?

 

Purple gear while leveling is mostly not worth the effort involved. You'll outlevel it quickly enough. If you happen to get some, yay. But chasing after it? Nah. Just go blue or orange with blue mods.

[Counterintel]

I...but... when you...

 

nevermind.

 

---Real Answer---

 

The real answer is, are you having fun with it.

 

Money is hard to come by in the 30-40 range. You have lots of expenses and income does not increase as much as your expenses increase. This is a temporary issue, but if you're 'super casual' this will be the case for some time.

 

IMO, crafting serves only 2 purposes: Help while levelling (armormech/synthweaving were awesome while levelling), or money making by reverse engineering epic items to sell. High end gear is not really available from crafting, as high end gear is better from PVE content (like ops and daily commendations from daily quests)

 

My guess is youre anti-crafting at this time, feeling its not worth it.

So stop crafting would be my initial reaction.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Counterintel

[irishcreme]

Is there a website that tells you which planet has the nodes.. like Copper ores in WOW

[Crunchyblack]

If your not going to stay up on crafting, and want to do it casually with some benefit, you have one option.

 

Slicing/Treasure Hunting.

 

Ignore a ral craft skill (kkep the one you already have).

 

Just send unused companions on lock box missions, you will never be short on credits to buy whatever you want.

 

 

All the other crafting takes a serious investment of time to keep up with. I did bio on my main, which helped since he was marauder and sucked down medpacks. I did tons of node farming and maxed out everything related to it. I still cant make much of value, other than what i can use.

 

I have several other character where i try to keep crafting up to par with me, and its a forever losing battle as i easily out level the gear i can make, can buy better with commendations, and the stuff thats better than what i can buy (purples) takes a whole lot of resource farming, crafting, reverse engineering, and crew missions for rares...

 

 

My latest character i just did slicing/treasure hunting, deleting spellwaving and related skills. 20 levels later im flush with credits, able to buy over priced purples, gear all my companions, and best of all...i dont need to farm any mats and im never behind on it. Also the slicing nodes seem to be placed at every mob spawn i need to go to. Also treasure hunting has benefited me with not only the same cred return from lock boxes but some decent gear, gear i dont need i can auction, and crap i can npc.

 

it is truly the casual crafters dream. i now just buy what other people craft and have money left over. Every alt i keep up on crafting im nearly broke all the time. Even my lv50 main with max bio has less than my lv36 slicer/treasurehunter

[Blackardin]

I send a companion on a 'rich yield' mission that costs me 1200c to do I get 1500 from the box he brings back. that means I made 300.

 

I pick up a box in the wild it has 800credits in it. That's 800 credits I made.

 

Absolutely. If you are slicing, pick up every box you see. Its free money and sometimes you get lucky. I've made 5000 credits in a matter of moments doing so. There are places, especially on the higher level planets, where you will run by 4 to 5 nodes in a minute or two. They usually yield anywhere from 800 to 1300 credits each.