This guide is geared towards a New to a Moderate player experience level with SWTOR and MMO’s in general and is designed to help those players find a crew skill, crafting skill combo that will support the needs that their character will have and to create a good synergy between what they can make and what they can equip and use.
Helping people pick what they want to take to make what they want to make. 🙂
There are many approaches to playing this game and making crew skills work for you. There are people that will play and use crew skills as a way to help them generate income via specializing in three gathering skills and their luck on the Galactic Trade Market, and then there are other methods like this guide talks about and that is gearing towards a self sufficient play style.
Bioware in my opinion it seems, is designing this game around the thinking that most people will choose a crew skill combo that supplements the class chosen and is supported by itself in its structure.
That structure being
- one crafting skill that supports the class
- one gathering skill that supports the crafting skill with materials collected that are used in the crafting process
- one mission skill that supports the crafting skill with materials collected that are used in the crafting process
You can have a total of 3 crew skills trained for your main character. You are the Boss you know the schematics, your companions are your workers, they are the “crew” in crew skills. You cannot craft in this game unless you have at least one companion that you acquire around level seven or so, it varies for different classes the level at which you get your first one.
As you level in this game on your way to max level at fifty, you will be given the ability to send out more companions to do missions with or to assign crafting or gathering tasks at various intervals in the leveling process. For example I got my second companion “2V-R8” as a bounty hunter at level 15 when I acquired my ship.
The crew skills are broken down into three different categories at this time, each category is its own special type and have different features for each.
Crafting Skills
- Armormech
- Armstech
- Artifice
- Biochem
- Cybertech
- Synthweaving
Gathering Skills
- Archaeology
- Bioanalysis
- Scavenging
- Slicing
Mission Skills
- Diplomacy
- Investigation
- Treasure Hunting
- Underworld Trading
Each of the three categories have different roles to play and many possible combinations that they can be taken in. As of right now the choices you can make when selecting your 3 to train in are the following:
Crafting Skills
These are taken to select the type of items you and your crew will be able to make in game, this determines what kind of schematics will be sold to you from your crafting trainer, what types of schematics you can use and learn from drops as loot, and this will also be the choice that determines what type of other missions or gathering skills will have a good synergy with your crafting choice.You can only choose ONE of these Crafting Skills per character.
Gathering Skills
These skills are specifically designed to allow you or your companion to gather materials to either support crafting skills or to be able to provide resources collected to the Galactic Trade Market for sale or to other players in trade or another of your characters on same server, same faction, as mail deliveries. They also have the possibility to return a “critical” mission reward as a high quality item or schematic as loot.
You can choose one to three of the Gathering Skills in what ever combo you wish.
Mission Skills
These skills are specifically designed like gathering skills, to allow you or your companion to gather materials to either support crafting skills or to be able to provide resources collected to the Galactic Trade Market for sale or to other players in trade or another of your characters on same server, same faction, as mail deliveries. They also have the possibility to return a critical mission reward as a high quality item or schematic as loot. Some of them can reward light and darkside points as a way to help you manage your characters morality path progression.
You can choose from one to three of the Mission Skills in what ever combo you wish.
So in theory there are many possibilities that you could mix and match with, but for the purpose of this guide we will stick with the idea that Bioware is designing these skill and certain class choices to have a synergy and be able to work together and support each other and the class.
For example here is a solid choice that a character that would be playing a bounty hunter might choose to be able to support their needs.
He is a heavy armor user as a advanced class Mercenary so he has decided that he wants to be able to supply his need for heavy armored gear and related type items. He chose:
“Armormech” crafting crew skill to make the armor he can wear
“Scavenging” the gathering skill that returns components need for the crafting skill, and lastly
“Underworld Trading” as the mission skill that also returns components needed for the crafting process.
So depending on your class choice and the needs they might have, like a Jedi needing lightsabers, or a Trooper needing big guns, you might want to pick a synergy like some of these to make sure that you are able to provide yourself with the items that you will be needing to equip and constantly replace as you level.
Blasters: Armstech, Scavenging, Treasure Hunting
Droid Armor: Cybertech, Scavenging, Slicing
Force equipment Items: Artifice, Archaeology, Diplomacy
Force Armor: Synthweaving, Archaeology, Diplomacy
Gadgets like grenades etc: Cybertech, Scavenging, Treasure Hunting
Heavy Armor: Armormech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading
Lightsabers: Artifice, Archaeology, Treasure Hunting
Medium Armor: Armormech, Scavenging, Investigation
Stims or other medical enhancers, consumables: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Underworld Trading
This is not a all inclusive list but it is a great start that steers the New to Moderate player experience level in the right direction. I hope you have found some help from this guide in understanding crew skills combos that make sense and have a good synergy to your characters needs!
Please leave any and all comments, questions, or reply’s to this guide. Your time and thoughts are appreciated.
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The other thing that you have to take into account is companion bonuses. Unless Bioware removes them, there are specific bonuses that companions had towards certain skills that are a kind of advantage to that skill. For example, Troopers will make the best Armormech crafters, because they have a companion that has +5 to crit on Armormech recipes. They also have a companion with +5 to crit with Scavenging. And if that isn’t enough, there is a +1 bonus to Underworld Trading. Those are the ideal pairings for Armormech, so any dedicated crafter would obviously have to make their Trooper an Armomech. This is why I hope they’ll change that.
You are very correct! That is one of my next guides subject that I am working on now. There are definitely perks to choosing the right companion for the job as I will show in my next guide, stay tuned 🙂
p.s. sorry about the messed up format of this guide right now, I messed it up doing some editing and am unable to do anymore editing at this time, I apologize to readers trying to make out the info in this until I can get it fixed.
Stims or other medical enhancers, consumables: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Underworld Trading
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Are you sure that need underground?
In another fan site they say that the biochem need diplomacy and have photos with medical supplies.
You are correct there have been some changes since I published this I am working on updating the info, thank you for pointing this out I appreciate it. So many things have changed and are changing all the time with this client, it is so daunting to try to keep up with it all. Where is the photographic memory when you need it! 🙂
heh changes, im still confused if its necessary to get diplomacy or take scavenger or slice as 3rd skill, and the game starts in 2 days
you know what I am discovering the farther I delve into these type of decisions? that even if you make the wrong choice on which mission skill to take and etc, you still will be ok and the skill you chose will still be useful because in the grand scheme of things they are designing this crew skills system to be very interdependent. You have one of two options when you get to the higher levels of the craft either level up alts to help supply your needs or go to GTM or other players because they have made the higher levels of your crafting skill be dependent on goods from several skills in a attempt to foster interaction between the community. So even if you make the best choice for a gathering or mission skill to tack on to your crafting skill as support you still are going to have to hunt for mats from other skills to make your higher level crafts.
Me personally, I have planned to furiously work my main and 3 alts and I will be set for what I want to do in game, I may never sleep but at least I will have what I want until the GTM gets settled down. 🙂
First of all, appreciate all the hard work that has gone into this site.
Now, If I plan on leveling via PvP (well, probably 90% will be PvP) I will benefit more from gear earned via commendations. I don’t dislike or like crafting in games but always looks to find ways of making in-game money supplying ingredients or items that can be acquired with little to no actual physical work.
My questions are as follows:
What would your pick if you were only going to PvP to level up (I am not asking so I can have someone make a decision for me, but because I value educated input)?
What skills would you forecast to make the most credits on the GTM?
FYI I’m going BH: Merc.
If my understanding is correct, I would choose either 3 mission skills or 2 mission and 1 gathering to earn max credits on the GTM.
If I went for the 3 mission skills then I would choose:
Diplomacy, Investigation, and Underworld Trading.
This way you cover all the mission related mats for all armor types. You also can affect your DS/LS points, gain schematics, and various other crafting items.
The other alternative would be:
Diplomacy, Investigation, and Slicing.
Look forward to seeing some theory crafting on the crew skills when it comes to PvP based gameplay.
Cheers
if you was going to use crew skills to make credits and not worry about crafting I would suggest 3 gathering skills. You will make a killing selling mats on the GTN for a long time after release until the market stabilizes.
i would forcast that straight gatherer builds will have the most earning potential at first and then after a while when people have a chance to get the elite schematics I would say one of the craft skills will have greater potential at that point as a truly rare item is going to be worth a ton.
You can only have one of each, you cannot have 3 gathering, you have to choose 1 of each. Also Your best bet is to go with the recommended things in the codex. If you look in your codex for say armstech it recommends you take scavenging and investigation. I took underworld trading at first thinking i would get shit I could use but never, so I cant imagine treasure hunting adds anything worthwhile for blasters. Investigation is needed because its the only crew skill that gives you certain components for things that you can only make after you reverse engineer.
Also my suggestion is that you will not be able to make anything better than what already comes on the weapons/armor you pick up or buy… UNLESS you reverse engineer. After about 5-6 times of reverse engineering a certain item you will get a higher level of that item, with better stats. So if the first lvl is green you reverse engineer it and you can craft a blue one. I havent tried it but i assume if you make a bunch of the blue and reverse engineer those it may give you a schematic for an orange and so on… I havent seen it in action but it seems like the logistics work out that way.
You can only have one crafting… you can have 3 gathering or 3 mission if you choose.
“Force Armor: Synthweaving, Archaeology, Diplomacy”
you can replace diplomacy with underwold trading :p
Change your Armstech gathering choices to
1. Scavenging
2. Investigation
Several adjustments you might want to make to skill sets, Diplomacy returns Medical supplies used in Biochem, Artifice pairs with Archaeology for basic Materials, and Treasure Hunting for advanced materials. Synthweaving keeps Archaeology, but switches to Underworld Trading for Luxury Fabrics. Heavy Armor and Medium Armor share Scavenging and Underworld Trading.
in your final section i believe you mixed up the diplomacy for force armor with the underworld trading from stims and medical enhancements