Crafting mods for my gear

[Cuttertam]

Hello,

 

I am an old man so forgive my fumbling unsuccessful attempts to find the information online.

 

But I want to craft the mods for my special gear and weapons myself because what the vendors have is too low power.

 

What steps must I take to accomplish this goal?

[SevusAmast]

Okay, so you want to get into crafting! This is good. Crafting mods is...moderately complex, so let me try to break this down for you.

 

Every crafting skill, except Biochem, can make some modifications.

 

Armormech makes Resistive (high Endurance) Armorings, and requires Scavenging and Underworld Trading.

Synthweaving makes Versatile (high Mastery) Armorings, and requires Archaeology and Underworld Trading.

Artifice makes Hilts for lightsabers, vibroswords (but not knives), and the like, and requires Archaeology and Treasure Hunting.

Armstech makes Barrels for blasters and vibroknives, and requires Scavenging and Investigation.

And finally, Cybertech makes Mods, which all modifiable gear uses, and Enhancements, which are used by all modifiable gear except belts and bracers. It requires Scavenging and Underworld Trading.

 

If you want to use strictly modifiable gear, but only dedicate one character to crafting, Cybertech offers the most bang for your buck. You'll need 7 or 8 armorings, 1 or 2 hilts or barrels, 9 mods, and 7 enhancements for a full set of modifiable gear, and Cybertech can cover both mods and enhancements.

 

However, a couple of notes. Crafting can be very credit-intensive. Crafting is very time-intensive. And if you're looking to do endgame crafting, you probably want to be in something other than Cybertech. If you're trying to craft while leveling, don't bother trying to reverse-engineer stuff, and get your materials from gathering nodes instead of crew skill missions. And always have all of your companions (other than the one you're traveling with) working on your crew skills.

 

If you've got any specific questions, let me know. Have fun!

[psandak]

Okay, so you want to get into crafting! This is good. Crafting mods is...moderately complex, so let me try to break this down for you.

 

Every crafting skill, except Biochem, can make some modifications.

 

Armormech makes Resistive (high Endurance) Armorings, and requires Scavenging and Underworld Trading.

Synthweaving makes Versatile (high Mastery) Armorings, and requires Archaeology and Underworld Trading.

Artifice makes Hilts for lightsabers, vibroswords (but not knives), and the like, and requires Archaeology and Treasure Hunting.

Armstech makes Barrels for blasters and vibroknives, and requires Scavenging and Investigation.

And finally, Cybertech makes Mods, which all modifiable gear uses, and Enhancements, which are used by all modifiable gear except belts and bracers. It requires Scavenging and Underworld Trading.

 

If you want to use strictly modifiable gear, but only dedicate one character to crafting, Cybertech offers the most bang for your buck. You'll need 7 or 8 armorings, 1 or 2 hilts or barrels, 9 mods, and 7 enhancements for a full set of modifiable gear, and Cybertech can cover both mods and enhancements.

 

However, a couple of notes. Crafting can be very credit-intensive. Crafting is very time-intensive. And if you're looking to do endgame crafting, you probably want to be in something other than Cybertech. If you're trying to craft while leveling, don't bother trying to reverse-engineer stuff, and get your materials from gathering nodes instead of crew skill missions. And always have all of your companions (other than the one you're traveling with) working on your crew skills.

 

If you've got any specific questions, let me know. Have fun!

 

Excellent summary!!!

 

My question to you Cuttertam is what you mean by

 

because what the vendors have is too low power.

 

?

Because the "power"/rating/level of a given item modification is based on the character level required to use it. i.e. a crafted item modification intended to be used by a level X character is not going to be significantly better (considering the investment) than what you can get from the vendor for a level X character. So maybe what you are looking for is not even possible.

 

Taking a specific example:

Lethal mod 15 required level 30 to use

rating 78 green from vendor 13 Mastery 10 Endurance 11 Power

rating 88 blue crafted by cybertech 17 Mastery 12 Endurance 13 Power

rating 94 purple crafted by cybertech 20 Mastery 14 Endurance 16 Power

Edited April 8, 2016 by psandak

[SteveTheCynic]

Because the "power"/rating/level of a given item modification is based on the character level required to use it. i.e. a crafted item modification intended to be used by a level X character is not going to be significantly better than what you can get from the vendor for a level X character. So maybe what you are looking for is not even possible.

 

Taking a specific example:

Lethal mod 15 required level 30 to use

rating 78 green from vendor 13 Mastery 10 Endurance 11 Power

rating 88 blue crafted by cybertech 17 Mastery 12 Endurance 13 Power

rating 94 purple crafted by cybertech 20 Mastery 14 Endurance 16 Power

The main for-crystals vendors sell only greens, except for the max-level ones. Crafters can make blues and purples.

 

So while you level, if you can keep up with your level, you will get better results by crafting than by spending crystals on Fleet.

 

Once you get to max level, though, it's a different story, because the level 65 common data crystal vendor sells purple 208-rated mods. At this point, you start to get into debates about min/max and fine-grained distinctions between exactly what stats are on a particular modification object when it is crafted versus bought for crystals versus bought for ops tokens.

[JediQuaker]

What steps must I take to accomplish this goal?

This may depend upon what "rating" of mods you want to craft. The above posts tells you who crafts what. These crafters can get schematics from the trainers on the fleet. Generally speaking, the schematics you get are for "blue" mods, and the highest rating is "200". You can craft a few "blue" mods and Reverse Engineer them, to learn the schematics for "purple" level - highest rating of "208".

If you want to go beyond "208" level, I'm not actually sure (yet) what the process would be. I suspect you have to get higher rating pieces from drops or vendors, and RE them to get the schematics, but others would know more about that.

You can also craft earpieces, implants and relics.

You can also craft some non-modable armor pieces at 216 rating. (And perhaps higher). They usually require you to RE a 200 or 208 piece.

Edited April 8, 2016 by JediQuaker

[sumquy]

Hello,

 

I am an old man so forgive my fumbling unsuccessful attempts to find the information online.

 

But I want to craft the mods for my special gear and weapons myself because what the vendors have is too low power.

 

What steps must I take to accomplish this goal?

 

edit: now that i think about it, i think they changed trained schematics to all blue grade now? is that right or is it just endgame schematics. that would change the calculus of some of what i wrote below, but i think the basic point stands.

 

i would suggest using your data crystals to buy green mods from the appropriate level vendor and using crafting to make the trainer available green level mods to fill in the gaps when you run out of crystals. crafting mods for a leveling character has never been worth the time and effort unless you already know the schematics AND already have the mats. for example, in the time it takes to craft the green, re down for blue, make the blue, and re down for the purple, you will have already gained 2-3 levels and have a higher tier of greens to start over again with available from the trainer. and then there is the problem of getting the purple mats required for crafting the purple mods and the fact that you need multiple crafting skills for ear, implant, relic, armoring, etc. you can run a crap ton of missions to get enough, or you can buy mats off the gtn, but both of those options are more expensive than just buying a finished piece somebody else listed on the gtn.

 

crafting in swtor has only ever been really useful for making credits by listing stuff you made on the gtn, and for filling in specific gaps in the gear you aquire from other sources.

Edited April 8, 2016 by sumquy

[SteveTheCynic]

edit: now that i think about it, i think they changed trained schematics to all blue grade now? is that right or is it just endgame schematics. that would change the calculus of some of what i wrote below, but i think the basic point stands.

Crafted mods are blue, REable to purple. Crystal-vendor greens are similar in strength, sort of, to pre-4.0 crystal-vendor blues, and 4.X crafted blues are correspondingly stronger.

[Cuttertam]

Hey thanks SevusAmast for that summary of needed crew skills. That helped a lot.

 

There are a lot of replies and I am trying to hang on with my understanding. From reading all the replies and getting a better understanding of what mods do, I see I worded my question horribly.

 

I guess I need to understand the "Rating" stat more.

 

And for full disclosure none of my characters is over level 25.

 

Also I recently found out that there are mod vendors for higher and higher level (or ( Rated/Rating?) gear on the Fleet and other places.

 

What is the Rating stat and how is it derived?

 

And thank you all for your input, the whole system makes far more sense to me now.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Cuttertam

[SteveTheCynic]

What is the Rating stat and how is it derived?

The rating of an item (current max is 224) is just a measure of its strength. All barrels with a rating of 140, say, are, crudely speaking, the same strength. A green 140 barrel, if such a thing exists, has a "minimum required level" (MRL) that is higher than the MRL of a blue 140 barrel, and the MRL of a purple 140 barrel is lower still. (This is the advantage of the higher-ranked colours - at a particular rating, they are usable at lower levels.)

 

The discussion is complicated by the "tier" of the item, the number after its name, e.g. the 20 in "Versatile Barrel 20". There are three kinds of tier: "plain", "A", and "B" - 20, 20A, 20B. They are, again, roughly the same stats-total strength, but they differ in the balance of stats that they give. (Usually a balance between Power/Mastery/Endurance for barrels/hilts/armorings, but mods and enhancements have their own ways to spice up the mix.)

 

In general, though, the higher the tier, the higher the rating, and at a particular tier, the higher the quality/colour rank, the higher the rating. (green < blue < magenta < purple)