Little tips and tricks that you didn't know..

[Spyderloa]

- You can turn companion skills in battle off by clicking the plus sign on their name and then left flicking the skill so the green light goes away. Corso however turns his stupid harpoon back on whenever he wants.

 

- DO NOT DELETE email with money. You don't get asked you can't undo. Easier and safer to use the check boxes.

 

- if you get killed near a green zone(group or story quest) you can stealth in, but you can't go in during combat.

 

-Commendations can buy gear in the fleet. Make sure to check your money. (third tab in the bag)

 

-if you can't figure out how to activate a quest objective, it might need you to use the item in your mission gear.(second tab in the bag.)

[LordHartigan]

- I have heard that that some commendations are worth more on the 'next' planet or something like that. That is a commendation from Korriban is worth 2 to 1 on Dromund Kas. Can anyone confirm this?

[Lagerfiend]

- I have heard that that some commendations are worth more on the 'next' planet or something like that. That is a commendation from Korriban is worth 2 to 1 on Dromund Kas. Can anyone confirm this?

 

This was taken out as people were easy hoarding earlier meds to exchange....

[Haladini]

Great post, should be stickied

[rocdogg]

You can't go to Fleet at level 1 as of the 1/4/12 patch. I did it before and can't now.

[DarthSublimitas]

I'll start off the list, here.

 

1. Escaping from a conversation before it's done allows you to redo pesky moral choices.

 

2. Most ui issues can be solved by hitting Ctrl-U twice.

 

3. Each companion has a codex entry which will explain their likes and dislikes, and appropriate gifts.

 

4. Searching the /who window by 'lfg' will show everybody in the game utilizing the system.

 

5. You can learn a profession before level 10, by taking the shuttle to the fleet. You can not do crew skill missions without a companion, but you can gather straight from level 1.

 

6. You can click on stairwells/entranceways on the map to browse through them.

 

Continue on, folks?

 

Number 5 is incorrect since the last patch. BW made it so you CAN'T travel off-world until lvl 7. They dumping this game yet moreso in the toilet...

[Broberg]

Number 5 is incorrect since the last patch. BW made it so you CAN'T travel off-world until lvl 7. They dumping this game yet moreso in the toilet...

 

This was added to remove what was in essence a cheat, to stop people from using the experience of codex gathering at fleet to level past the starting zone without getting into the story.

[Zsaizsai]

I have seen a lot of posts in other threads that if you don't bind your keys using the keyboard that there may be delays when you try to use an ability. I have never been a fan of using keyboards for gaming. I use a Belkin Gaming pad and mouse. My main, frequently used abilities in SWTOR are bound to keys on the gaming pad and my lesser used abilities I use a keyboard short cut. I have experience no issues at all with using my gaming pad in SWTOR.

 

It makes PVP much easier for me and with the side button controlling movement coupled with the mouses ability to move, I have a very fluid, 360 degree movement range just using my left thumb and my left mouse button while still having instance access to my main abilities. Anyone else use a gaming pad?

[Davloc]

When you fumble trying to press enter and press the \ key instead it takes you to the "open ticket" screen so you die from pvp combat

 

Binding the "\" key to scroll chat window down will prevent pvp death when fumbling whilst trying to press the enter key.

 

Or, at least it will stop the ticket window from opening

[Teche]

I didn't see it listed, something I learned this last weekend:

 

• You can queue up to 5 crafted items per companion.

 

With 4 companions (at higher levels) you can literally have 20 items being worked on by companions at any given time! This is VERY nice when trying to level something like Armorsmith. Note that this doesn't work for mission oriented trade skills, like Slicing.

 

This also works when you camp out, send your companions out to craft before you camp and they will continue to craft.

 

Camping in a "Rest Area" gives you an EXP bonus when you log back in the length of the bonus depends on how long you camped I believe.

 

Don’t buy every Schematic available at low levels, you will go broke. Just buy the ones you think you will use. That way you are also deconstructing items that you will use so the schematics you get will be useful to you.

 

Once the little dot next to the item in your crafting book turns Grey you no longer get EXP for crafting that item.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Teche

[Owsley]

1) If you pick a dual wielding advance class you will receieve a bag in your invenrtory that contains your 2nd weapon. If you pre ordered, you can buy a 2nd crystal from a vendor on the fleet. Don't forget to upgrade BOTH of your weapons. Remember dual wielding is TWICE as expensive to upgrade weapons because you need to upgrade two weapons.

 

2) Many gaming devices (keyboards, pad, mice) as well as Ventrilo are required to run in admin mode to work correctly.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Owsley

[Frakthefriendly]

 

3. Each companion has a codex entry which will explain their likes and dislikes, and appropriate gifts.

 

 

 

appropriate gifts?

 

I don't see that

[jtzako]

appropriate gifts?

 

I don't see that

 

It doesnt actually indicate what gifts they will like directly. It eludes to it to some extent though.

[WutsInAName]

Convos:

 

You can turn on light/dark enabled on choice, so you dont have to mouse over to see which points you get.

 

You can actually press 1,2,3 etc for the choices. Useful for if you UI bugs out and you cant click em (happened a couple times to me).

 

 

Pets:

 

Think your DPS pet sucks? did you turn on all his AOE abilities? Try them off and see what happens. Was a big improvement on mine.

 

 

Space Combat:

Your shields do NOT regen if holding down fire button. This is somewhere in loading screen tips but notice quite a few people mention they just fire like mad.

[Razyr]

Here's nearly everything up to this point. I tried to consolidate some of the tips, and only left out a very few that were literally paragraphs of explanation. If I missed your tip, my apologies.

 

If someone wants to categorize these tips it would be appreciated.

 

Hit [ESC] to exit a conversation before it's done allows you to rechoose moral choices.

Hit [Ctrl]+U twice to reset the User Interface.

Companions have their own Codex entries explaining likes, dislikes, stats and gifts.It does not state directly, but read this thoroughly.

Searching with "/who" shows who is "LFG" (Looking For Group).

You can learn a profession at level 7 by taking the shuttle to the fleet, if you have completed your class quest.

Clicking on stairwells and entrances on the map allows you to browse those areas.

[spacebar] makes your ship do a barrel roll in combat.

[spacebar] allows you to skip dialog scenes with NPC's.

While chatting, use the up and down arrows to scroll through what you've previously written.

Your focus may clear during a conversation. To get it back, hit the focus swap button twice.

You may craft with materials stored in your ships cargo.

Static barrier yourself before mounting your speeder helps prevent being dismounted from attacks.

The 'Emergency Fleet Pass' is located under the 'General' tab in your 'Abilities' window ([Ctrl]+P). You may use this once every 18 hours to travel to the fleet. Your ship will travel with you and be docked there.

You may buy single use Fleet passes from the Security Key vendor at the fleet for 1,000c each.

If you have used a Fleet pass and cannot leave the fleet, relog to regain the ability to leave again.

You do not need a mod station to modify your gear.

Your companions can use PVP gear at level 20+.

The 'N' key opens your companion window when you are on your ship. Use the arrows next to the companions name to browse all your different companions.

[Alt]+Z hides / shows the User Interface.

Galactic Republic and Sith Empire characters can communicate, but only in local (/say).

There is a cross-faction Republic / Imperial Galactic Trade Network located on Nar Shaada.

There are 3 Datacrons per starter world that give permenant stat bonuses. There are other Datacrons throughout every other planet.

If a companion wants to talk in private, visit either a cantina or your ship.

Companions seem to have a built in level, begin earning affection as early as possible.

The /stuck command teleports you backwards a few steps, but has a cooldown.

The official game manual is online. Good for digital owners: http://www.swtor.com/gamemanual/how-to-play

You may turn the nameplate tags of various mobs and player types on and off in your preferences.

You can open your companion's skill tab by pressing ` (tilde).

Your companion gains new skills with levels, but sometimes forgets to use them. You have to enable them manually.

Remember to check once every couple levels if there's something new.

All heroic quests are daily quests.

Going into 'Preferences' and then 'Controls' you can change the max camera distance.

You may split stacks of materials by holding [shift] and dragging the item with your left or right mouse button. Using the right mouse button also links the item in chat.

You may purchase multiple amounts of an item from a vendor by holding [shift] and dragging the item with your left or right mouse button.

Dismissing a dead companion and summoning them back restores them to full health.

You may regenerate you companions health quickly by mounting then dismounting your speeder.

In the BG with the three turrets there are boosts (speed boost ftw.) under the middle turret.

In the preferences, you can enable the tooltip comparison for equipment/gear for your active companion.

[Ctrl]+[shift]+F shows your frames per second. It appears as very small green numbers in the bottom left corner of your screen.

Preferences -> Controls -> Combat: Adjust your Action Ability Queue Window time to meet your playstyle.

In the fleet, there are elevators going directly to your classes starship hangar.

To set keybinds, look for the tab at the bottom of your Preferences window.

You can turn on auto loot/loot all in same area via the options. The Area loot option is amazing.

The /stuck command will kill you when in a flashpoint.

Do NOT jump while moving down on an elevator!

Right click on your general chat tab to open up chat options. Then you can select chat options, click on the chat channel color box to open up the color scheme window.

You can quickly exit a flashpoint using an icon on the top of your minimap.

You can quickly target your companion (for healing etc) by double tapping F1.

[Alt]+F sets your focus target.

[Ctrl}+F targets your Focus Targets Target.

Gear bound to you can also be used by your companions (if they meet the other requirements such as Armor type, etc.)

Companions can craft and run missions when you are logged out. Send them out to work for you before logging out of the game!

/clubdance is cooler than /dance.

When using your companions to craft, you can queue up to 5 crafted items per companion.

If you want to cancel any of the 5 queued up actions, clicking the X to the right of the progress bar will cancel the action currently being done, while right-clicking the tiny icons underneath will un-queue those particular actions.

Logging out in your ship gives rested XP. Rumor has it reduces login times.

Static barrier yourself before conversations with NPC's. Ability timers seem to freeze during interactive dialog.

There are commendation vendors for every planet at the fleet.

You can filter the GTN by adding keywords to the filter textbox then clicking search.

Using an alternate character parked at the GTN and the mail system can help reduce travel time.

[spacebar]+W allows you to perform a short, controlled jump. Useful for acquiring Datacrons.

The droid you get with your ship is a healing companion. Remember to gear it up.

You can upgrade mods in Orange and Purple gear. Useful if you like the look of an item.

[Ctrl]+Left Click an item allows you to preview how it looks on your character.

[Ctrl]+Left Click a customization mod allows you to preview how it will look on your companion.

Reward windows that dissapear are waiting for you in the upper right hand corner of your User Interface (Pending).

If your inventory becomes full while crafting, items will be mailed to you and sent as attachments.

To keep from getting a bad reputation when grouping, only choose "Need" on an item if your character can use the item. If your companion can use the item, choose "Greed". Thanks.

While crafting, you can sort by "Difficulty", how much experience you'll get from the craft, or you can sort by "Rating".

When using the GTN, right clicking item in your bag moves it to sell window and inputs a "suggested" price; does not change default length of sale from one day.

Reverse Engineering your crafted items has a chance of learning the "Blue" version of that item which is better than the normal version and has a higher threshold of leveling your profession.

When sending items by mail, you can just right-click on them in your inventory to have them added as attachments. You do not need to click and drag.

Under preferences there is an option to set advanced tool tip information.

There is an option you can uncheck to stop auto-target on nearest enemy.

You can check an option to click ground to remove target instead of [Esc].

There are fleet shuttles on many planets that instantly send you to the flashpoint transfer area on the space station.

Low level orange gear is priceless. It has a base level restriction only viewable with empty mods. Otherwise it's level is altered by the level of it's mods. Only it's armor type or class restriction information stops you from using it.

Save your old lower level commendations on planets. You can instantly gear up your alts and even your new companions.

If you have a companion out and you see a gatherable at any distance, you can right-click on it and your companion will go over to it and loot it so long as he can walk over to it.

You can also gather another node yourself while your companion gathers theirs.

Right click - companion gathers

[shift]+Right click - your character gathers.

A Sith Inquisitor can jump slightly higher and farther by using the ability 'Overload' while jumping.

You can create a new channel by typing "/cjoin channelname".

Dont roll a size 3 or 4 character if you want all the datacrons. Size of body affects hit box and can prevent you from making it through some gaps.

RP servers tend to do a lot of RPing on the RP channel which can be joined anywhere by typing /cjoin RP.

When you select your advanced class, you get a gear bag. Open it, use it.

Warzone commendations max at 1000.

Warzone commendations can be converted into mercenary commendations at fleet pvp vendor. 30 warzone for 10 mercenary.

Once you reach light/dark side lvl 2 you can buy artifacts from the light'dark vendors on the fleet.

You can activate gear with "Use" bonuses by dragging the item into a quickslot.

Pvp gear at lvl 20/40 can be better than regular gear early on.

You can get "slave/dancer" armour from Nar Shaddaa cantina, it requires soc lvl 2. (HOT TIP)

Old companion gear can be reverse engineered with appropriate skill.

When crafting the colour of the little circle next to the item determines if it will give a skill gain.

Don't spam lfg every 30 seconds and everyone won't ignore you.

You can swap gear with your companion.

When reading maps, the lighter blue areas are higher than the darker blue areas.

Open the crew members screen, and you can send crew members you don't have with you out on crafting and skill missions.

Prototype (purple) items with only mod and enhancement slots can have an armor mod added to them. If you open the Customization window of the gear and right click the armor mod it will allow you to add it to the piece of gear. The only thing you cannot do is view the current armor mod or remove it but you can add a new one to it.

Higher level speeders lowers the risk of being thrown off when aggroed.

You can [sHIFT]+LEFT CLICK to link an item into whatever active chat channel you have selected.

You can LEFT CLICK an item that has been linked in chat to view its stats.

To find out the class/level of someone that is for instance looking for group in the General Channel. Type /who, then in the Search field of the window that pops up, type their name. It will return the class and level of the person.

There's a button at the top-level of the mailbox window to loot all items and credits from mail.

Running SWTOR.exe as an Administrator fixes many issues with moice and keyboards.

If stuck and nothing else seems to work, try opening fire on a mob. It will turn on your combat stance animation and sometimes unsticks you.

A critical craft will yield an item with a mod slot. The item is labeled (Exceptional).

Press z to run with weapon out.

Fleet Commendations (those tokens you get from completing space combat missions) are turned in for ship upgrades at the same place where the starship upgrades vendor is on your fleet.

To move the chat window: Mouse over the General Tab at the top left corner of the chat box. Left click, hold and drag to anywhere on your screen!

Med Units not only heal both you and your companion, but will revive your companion in combat.

Don't forget Command Stims. They really boost the effectiveness of your companions.

In Settings you can set tab targetting to select the enemy in the center of your screen.

If you cancel a crew skill mission midway through (including crafting), you get a full refund.

If you dont' want to anger your companion, send them on a mission before dialogue.

The party leader can place marks on targets.

There is also a social item you can buy (I think in the Kaas City cantina) that lets you put a mark on your enemy target.

You can change the rotation speed of your mouse in preferences.

When taking cover the vertical angle of the enemy also counts, not just horizontal.

You can solo Flashpoints that are grey in your quest log (below your level range) to easily obtain Orange gear, now simply replace the low level mods with some that fit your current level.

DO NOT DELETE email with money. You don't get asked you can't undo.

If you get killed near a green zone(group or story quest) you can stealth in, but you can't go in during combat.

If you can't figure out how to activate a quest objective, it might need you to use the item in your mission gear.(second tab in the bag.)

You can turn on light/dark enabled on choice, so you dont have to mouse over to see which points you get.

You can actually press 1,2,3 etc for the choices in conversations.

Think your DPS pet sucks? did you turn on all his AOE abilities? Try them off and see what happens.

 

Space Mission:

You can use the W,A,S & D keys to manually pilot your ship instead of your mouse.

You can fly around using BOTH keyboard and mouse. Helps navigating while shooting.

You can and absolutely should buy a power converter module (cost: 30 commendations). It allows you to switch between more firepower and more regeneration.

There are a lot of bonus missions in most of the missions, but in order to see them you need to destroy the first objective.

Remember to shoot one of all sorts: special ships, capital ship turrets, capital ship shield generators, capital ship engines.

You can shoot enemies you don't see even through obstacles (like meteors or whatever). All you need is your crosshair to turn red.

You can shoot objects outside your range of vision (especially capital ships). Point your guns towards the enemy ship and wait for the crosshair to turn red, then fire.

Hold down the right mouse button to 'paint' multiple targets, release and fire on multiple targets simultaneously.

Shield regeneration speeds up when you are not firing at targets.

Upgrade your ship! You can buy parts at the Starship Upgrades vendors, found on most planets.

You get fleet commendations for completing space missions, which can be spent for some ship upgrades as well as orange pilot's gear.

Fire your blasters in short bursts of three to four shots. That's usually enough to take down a small ship and lets your shields recharge.

Blaster shots will travel through solid objects, but missiles will not. When firing missiles, make sure you don't target something on the other side of a ship or asteroid, as your missile won't reach its target.

Try to take out capital ship turrets early. Most capital ships will show up multiple times in a given space mission.

If you take out a capital ship's engines, it'll veer around and won't be able to fire at you as readily. Sometimes the ship will even wander off course and plummet in flames, though you can't outright destroy capital ships yet. Plus, hey, it's fun.

As you level up, you get new space missions, and you also get new optional objectives in your old missions. Try destroying one of everything early on to see what has bonuses attached.

Missiles do more damage than blasters, so you might want to save those for harder targets until you get a larger missile magazine.

Combat fly text has different colors and sizes. White is normal weapon damage. Yellow is tech damage. Grey is companion damage. Green is healing. Red is damage taken. Small text is damage over time. Medium text is a regular hit. Large text is a crit.

All the enemy fighters have red trails.

You can rotate the galaxy map with mouse2 button pressed down / move.

There is no secret cow level.

[ylaenna]

Holy wall of text, Batman! LOL

 

Thanks for consolidating all that. You do need to edit that bit about the party leader putting marks on targets, since everyone in the party (not just leader) can do it.

[Razyr]

It does need to be broken up by categories and have another set of eyes look over it. I will be working for the next few hours, then home, which means in game playing! I'll probably look this thread over on my other monitor, but the wife is close to 50 so I'll be running around with her all weekend - no time for working on this.

 

Everyone's contributed to it, let's have more hands and eyes cleaning it up and getting it out there. Lheim (the OP) started something good here, I'd like to see it take off!

 

And keep those tips coming!!!

Edited January 6, 2012 by Razyr

[Zukel]

Dont know if it came up allready, but i found yesterday that you can separete items if you shift click on them and drag it a little. Not just shift click but with this moving^^

[richardya]

If you have a companion with an ability you want to turn off, (Example, an AoE ability the breaks mezz) you can. I just forgot how.

[Elladan]

With regard to the 'painting' of missiles, the 4 missiles in your missile bay are added to the total number of missiles shown below the box. So if you have a missile bay holding 50 missiles, there'll be 4 lit missile icons in the 'ready to fire' window at the bottom right of the screen, and 46 shown below the icons. This means you can only fire off 4 missiles (I thought I had read somewhere that 3 is the max though), and the icons will slowly 'reload' to show how many missiles are locked and loaded. It may sometimes be better to slowly fire off one missile at a time which you can pretty much do continuously until you're out.

[Owsley]

Correction: "All the enemy fighters have red trails"

 

Not true.

Imperial are red. Republic are yellow.

[Lomerell]

You can jiggle the camera in convos with the WASD keys.

 

WHAT? Seriously? That's awesome! If not particularly useful, certainly entertaining!

[GROBERTS]

Hello all, noob to MMO's in general (just started playing some in March of '11) here talking at'cha. Just wanted to say thanks to all who have posted tips here, there's at least a dozen things I've learned that I'm definitely using from now on. PLUS I've gotten to show off to my wife, who is a total ace at these types of games, lol!

[gwyneira]

bumping for awesomeness

[perato]

Not sure if these have been mentioned:

 

1. You can have a maximum of 1000 warzone commendations at a time, so you need to spend them when you get close to 1000 or you will be wasting them. Check your "Currencies" tab in inventory to see how many you have. If you don't need/want any of the PvP gear then you can choose to spend them on lockboxes which have a random item in them that can be sold on the GTN, or (what i do) spend them on Mercenary commendations (it's a 30:10 trade) which will be useful at endgame. I wasted countless warzones getting 0 commendations before I found this out!

 

2. Might be obvious to some, but I levelled 3 crew skills to 400 before I found out you can queue up crafting jobs. just keep pressing the "Craft" button on various items while that companion is crafting, you can queue up to 5 items per companion.

 

3. Crafting missions that you find or buy can only be used once, but provide great rewards. They take a lot longer than normal missions so it's good to save them until you are logging off, then send your companions on the (sometimes 2-hour) missions.

 

4. You can expand your companion's skill bar by pressing the little "+" symbol near their skills. This will make their skill bar temporarily inhabit one of your quick bars. From here you will have access to many more skills, the most useful one of which is to toggle their static skills (which are often both off by default or sometimes turn themselves off) between things like defensive and aggressive stance.

Edited January 8, 2012 by perato