How To Get Your Crew Skills In SWTOR At Level 1

IMPORTANT NOTE: As of Patch 1.0.2 your character must be level 7 to take the shuttle to the Fleet. Bioware also reduced the amount of experience points to 225 XP per trainer.

I have tested it and documented it for you to reproduce on your Imperial Agent or Bounty Hunter character on the starting planet of Hutta to start with.  I would think this can hold true for any class on any starting world, but for now I only tried it with the characters that start on Hutta. I plan on updating this guide at a later time with information from other classes and their starting worlds as well.

Why should I do this?

There is one main reason why you might want to, and that is for you to acquire the ability to be gathering the resources you need for crafting before you are actually able to craft.  If you do this you can be gathering from level four until the time that you acquire your companion, which is somewhere around level seven. When you acquire your first companion you can immediately begin to craft.

Most people will wait because they do not know any better. They will find out about Crew Skill trainers when they go to the fleet from their class quest somewhere around level ten and then start to craft and start to gather resources on their next stop of Dromond Kaas (or Coruscant for the Republic).  They have missed quite a lot of resources and a big head start that you will have in the crafting game by doing this trick first thing after you create your character.

Why is this so beneficial? It is because at the time that you acquire your first companion you can start to make your crafting skills pay off by supplying yourself with the product of what ever skill you have chosen and have awesome gear for your level while others are struggling through with just sporadic loot drops.

For example, at level seven, when I acquired Mako, my Bounty Hunter started to craft immediately using the Armormech skill that I had chosen in conjunction with Scavenging.  Even the initial starting recipes I knew produced better gear than what I had on.  Most pieces I could craft were at least 30-50 armor value better than what I had through just loot drops and quest rewards.

I had been gathering from resource nodes and droids that I had killed, components like “Desh” and “Silica” which gave me the ability to craft armor for myself and it was very satisfying to me as someone who loves to craft to be able to outfit myself with something I created that was actually useful!

Let us get into just how it is done.  I hope you have 5 minutes in game to spare because that is all it will take!

(Please keep in mind this set of steps is for either Bounty Hunter or Imperial Agent that starts on origin world Hutta, and that this was done in beta so it could change after release.)

The First Step:
Make your character and you end up in the “Poison Pit Cantina” immediately leave the cantina and follow the route in the first map picture until you reach “Jiguuna Spaceport”.



Step Two:
Run to other end of that map and board the shuttle labeled on the map as “Shuttle to Hutta Orbital Station” by right clicking on highlighted door of shuttle.  you will then be presented with the option to go to “Imperial Fleet” select that and travel there.



Step Three:
You arrive at “Vaiken Spacedock” at the “Korriban and Hutta Departures” level



Run to the east to the elevator and use the controls and select “Main Level” and you will be taken to the level of the Imperial Fleet that houses the crew skills trainers and a whole lot more.  Get familiar with this place it has quite a bit to offer you for many aspects of the game!



Step Four:
You are now able to run around and talk to the crew skills trainers and scoop up the skills you want!

At this time it is wise to talk to them all because you will get +450 experience points per trainer and there are fourteen so that equates out to 6300 exp.  If you followed the guide from the start and did nothing else you will be level one at 120 of 510 experience from the codex location experience bonus awards you received on the run over to the fleet.

After you finish talking to all 14 of them you will be level four with 320 out of 5320 experience and ready to take the same path back to Hutta to begin your questing and scavenging and in a few levels your crafting!

*Note– Only “accept” the confirmations on the three skills you wish to have, for the others select “cancel” and you do not learn the crew skill but you still get the codex reveal and the experience bonus.

If during this process you choose to train a crafting crew skill you will at this time learn about 8 starter recipes and the trainer you learned from will now be your recipe vendor that has all the possible starting level schematics you can purchase.  There are a bunch of them too so be ready.  They vary in differing categories of produced items based on what skill you have chosen and also by ascending skill level in the crafting skill as well from a scale of 1-400 skill level.

Any comments or questions about this guide please feel free to leave them, I look forward to providing you with many more outside of the box thinking strategies that will help you excel in your crafting game!

Follow me on twitter for notification of new crew skill guides being posted and also for news about updates to these guides.

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45 Responses to How To Get Your Crew Skills In SWTOR At Level 1

  1. Comment by swtorcrafter made on November 27, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    This series has become so much fun for me I hope you enjoy it. Finding and playing with these kinds of mechanics are one thing I love about a MMO world. Let me know your thoughts!

    also as a side note, Jedi Knight on Thython will be the next addition as there is a neat twist to this I think…. 🙂

  2. Comment by Macpurcel made on November 29, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    Great post, thx. Hope they leave this in for launch.

    Just finished the beta weekend and only question I have (because I don’t remember) is what about the credits needed to learn those recipes? Instinct/past experience tells me we need credits to buy these.

    • Comment by swtorcrafter made on November 29, 2011 at 2:35 pm

      when you first learn your crew skill for a crafting type skill you will get like 6-8 recipes on average for free at that time and then yes you are right you will need to purchase all additional recipes you get from then on out unless you get them via a loot drop which is possible.

      The NPC that trains you on the fleet at this time has all the basic level crafting recipes the skill you learned can use and then it is up to you after that through reverse engineering to come up with the crit version.

      I am scared to tell you just how much some of the higher level recipes cost cause I don’t want to scare you!

      If you are serious about this game you will need an insane amount of credits from what I am seeing now.

      I actually am normally ok with that if it wasn’t for the one drawback of keeping gold sellers (or I guess they will be called credit sellers) in business, I hate that part because it is nothing but a vicious cycle.

      Thank you very much for taking the time to read and comment I appreciate it for sure 🙂

  3. Comment by Jayce made on November 29, 2011 at 10:54 pm

    Just to confirm that you can do this for any character though obviously the maps are different. Also worth noting (at least on Ord Mantel) that there is an NPC at the entrance when you get to the main level who offers a quest to learn a crafting skill for an additional 1k of xp. Also the main level shown in pic 7 is the same for all the classes as far as the layout goes.

    • Comment by swtorcrafter made on November 29, 2011 at 11:59 pm

      Thank you for this information! I have played through about half the classes trying this so far but didnt know they all could. I thought I had found a real neat trick with the Jedi Knight that allowed him to craft doing this at level 3 when he got his T7-01 companion as part of a early quest but they fixed that and now when you get him and open up the crafting menu he displays as “a guest” in the roster and wont allow you to craft anything.

      Thanks for taking the time to comment! 🙂

  4. Comment by Dwism made on November 30, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    Not that I took too much notice in beta, but I was under the impression that it costs credits to learn skills?

    • Comment by swtorcrafter made on November 30, 2011 at 5:56 pm

      yes you are correct it does cost credits to train skills. From what I have been told from players that have experienced the highest level content that it really does get expensive to train your late level skills so we will see, hopefully they will work out a good balance.

      Thanks for reading Dwism 🙂

      • Comment by Macpurcel made on November 30, 2011 at 6:18 pm

        First few recipes are free though. If you follow this strat and level Scavenging and/or Bio you will be level 4 in about 10 minutes and w/Armormech you’ll be hitting the low level heroic modes with best gear (other than rare drops) available

        • Comment by swtorcrafter made on November 30, 2011 at 6:29 pm

          that’s the path I took for my first attempt at this was my bounty hunter/armormech/scavenger/underworld when I spoke to the armormech trainer and learned the skill I think I got 8 starting recipes for free at the time of learning skill. If I remember correctly.

          The armor I could make when I was first able too was very good compared to what i had gotten via drops at that point so it was def an improvement than the gear I had on at the time.

      • Comment by dwism made on December 1, 2011 at 10:27 am

        What I meant to say was, I thought the initial training cost credits, and was therefor hard to learn at level 1

        • Comment by swtorcrafter made on December 1, 2011 at 3:42 pm

          oh I am sorry i misunderstood, when I tried this it didn’t cost at the fleet crew skills trainers, I bet this will change later though.

          If it does I will add a step to the guide to stop and kill enough rebels on the way over to pay the training cost, thanks for the idea 🙂

  5. Comment by Will made on December 2, 2011 at 6:16 pm

    This is really only useful if you’re picking up scavenging or bioanalysis and their respective crafting skills. There are no gathering nodes on the starter planets so the only way to level up the other gathering would be to send your minion off on missions. The only major benefit I see for everyone would be the early experience and level gain.

    This seems like the kind of thing they would not make possible come launch, but who knows.

    • Comment by JWB made on December 2, 2011 at 7:52 pm

      I believe you can salvage some of the droids on the starter worlds.

      • Comment by swtorcrafter made on December 2, 2011 at 8:11 pm

        Aye, this strategy is still very useful. You just have to think outside the box. 😉

        On the starting world of hutta I know for sure that salvaging for instance is very useful because don’t forget you can salvage droids, never forget to salvage the droids, people always forget to do that.

        Another thing that makes this strategy very viable is the fact that their are mailboxes everywhere and you can send components to craft to these characters from your other characters or other people can send you mats as well through the mail 🙂

        There are gathering nodes on starter planets for sure which makes this a very profitable technique

  6. Comment by Zaadar made on December 4, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    Nice guide. Is it passible to have some info to do the same as Jedi Consular in Tython? Thanks

  7. Comment by Seam made on December 6, 2011 at 8:13 am

    I am not sure wether I will use that posibility or not. But I, too, am interested to know where the spaceport on Tython is and/or if it is possible on that planet.

  8. Comment by Rasticles made on December 6, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    You can do this on Tython, and Ord Mantell on the Republic side as well.

    Spaceport on Tython is at the Jedi Temple, upstairs.

    Spaceport on Ord is at Ft. Garnik..

    No problem at level 1, definitely good to do if you plan on having any gathering skill..

    • Comment by swtorcrafter made on December 6, 2011 at 7:53 pm

      Yes you are correct Rasticles you can for sure do this on Tython and Ord, I am unable to do any editing on this guide right now but I have planned on adding that info for sure I have screens ready and waiting. Thanks for reading and adding to the discussion!

      • Comment by KidOnChristmas made on December 7, 2011 at 1:51 am

        Just curious as to whether or not you can change crew skills. For instance I wanted to take all gathering skills until I get my ship and can start crafting. Thanks for the help.

        • Comment by Swtorcrafter made on December 7, 2011 at 1:56 am

          hey thanks for reading and asking! yes you can train a different crew skill at any time, you can only have one chosen crafting style skill at any one time. but you can learn another in it’s place at any time. the only bad thing is you loose the progress you made in that skills rank and if you ever train that skill back you have to relearn the rank.

          • Comment by Shinehah made on December 9, 2011 at 3:41 pm

            Does anyone know what gathering skills you CAN do on Tython? I don’t recall too many droid battles…

    • Comment by Siriel made on December 31, 2011 at 1:40 am

      At launch version, my Jedi Consular was not allowed to take the shuttle to the fleet.

      So unless there is a crew trainer on Typhon…

  9. Comment by don made on December 11, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    Hey y’all,

    I love this guide but was wondering 1 thing. You said ” Most pieces I could craft were at least 30-50 armor value better than what I had through just loot drops and quest rewards.” What lvl did you start to craft armor? I was able to find armor values of 136 for lvl 11/12 that smugglers are able to equip from Armormech. My question is what value is the armor loot drops at lvl 10-12? I dont remember those values from loot drop armor pieces. I’m just trying to figure if Armormech or Bio would be the way to run at the start.

    • Comment by swtorcrafter made on December 11, 2011 at 7:40 pm

      I started to craft armor at about 6-7 when I got my first companion usually using this strategy with my bounty hunter that specialized in armormech. I spent a little time around 6-9 working the skill up after I got some materials built up. at that time I had basically just started to work my way through my class quest line specifically. After I got to the point that I had reverse engineered and gained my blue level schematic for everything I could craft I noticed that those items were 30-50 points in armor rating better than the gear I had on which was mostly greens from quest rewards and a few drops. as I started to level more I noticed the quest gear catching back up quick and then it was time for me to stop and try to go to the next level of reverse engineered schematics to keep the cycle going. As a side note I did have my other alts feeding me resources so that made it simpler to level up without having to GTM or rely on a guild or other players like you would normally do. I had to spend a lot of time on those other characters switching back and forth and constantly running missions and such to keep them viable, that was a ton of work to try and figure out this system.

      about armormech or bio, that will be a tough choice because from the success I have had with an alchemical skill in other games in the past I automatically want to say Bio, but honestly when looking back on my own play experience My characters that I tended to focus on were heavily dependent on having good armor and weapons so I focused on that more. the problem with bio I see at the current time unless they make some changes is that I never found myself in a position to where I felt I needed med packs or stims and would have stacks of those type items in my inventory unused where as armor, blasters, etc I was constantly looking to upgrade.

      There is one ray of hope for Bio and that is at end game, from what I have heard they can at max level make some pretty sweet things that might make it worth going through a situation where you might find yourself from 1-399 in skill level being unsure of the need for your skill and your product and then at max level of skill 400 being able to make up for it. Maybe I am wrong about that beings I didn’t really focus on the use of those items but right now that is what it is looking like.

      hope that helped, thanks for reading!

      • Comment by pete made on December 12, 2011 at 1:22 am

        can you sell the resources you gather? because would it not be best just to take scavenge, bioanalysis, and salvage, at first. Then switch when you get to a world where you can get the type of gathering nodes you want. That way you can have a little extra credits…. Of course if your toon plans to use those skills , then all the better. say for example i am interested in synthweaving. I really wont be able to start that until i get a companion, or another planet. I could always go to the fleet and change, when i get my companion right?

        • Comment by Swtorcrafter made on December 12, 2011 at 1:34 am

          yes you can when the game goes live you can either sell on GTM or you can sell to other players.

          taking all gathering skills is another option that is very valid, you can make money on selling your gathered materials as there will always be players buying those at first, then when the market starts to stabilize you can switch to your crafting skills.

          yes when you go to the fleet at any level 1-50 you can change your crew skills to anything you wish whether you have a companion or not.

          hope that helped.
          🙂

          • Comment by pete made on December 12, 2011 at 1:50 am

            yep totally helps. as long as i can take the shuttle to the fleet, once i get Qyzen-fess, so i can switch the skills around. Its not like i can do it right away or at level 10, right?

          • Comment by swtorcrafter made on December 12, 2011 at 2:44 am

            you can go to your fleet at any level on your starting world all you have to do is find the location that you enter your spaceport and take shuttle there, and then take your elavator to the main fleet level either vaiken spacedock for empire or carrick station for republic. you can get your crew skills whether you have your companion or not at any level 1-50.

  10. Comment by caeleb made on December 13, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    Confirmed to work starting as Jedi Knight on Tython. Didnt kill a single mob, already level 4!
    Nice tip!

    • Comment by prfella made on December 14, 2011 at 7:00 am

      Anyone know two quit a skill once you have learned it BEFORE receiving your first companion? I cant access the crew skills window without one :(.

      • Comment by prfella made on December 14, 2011 at 7:01 am

        I meant to say “how to quit a skill”*

        • Comment by Swtorcrafter made on December 14, 2011 at 1:43 pm

          once you learn a crew skill before you get your first companion you can get another crafting crew skill by just talking to one of the other trainers and the new skill will be learned over the top of the old crafting skill you first had. Not sure about if this works with the mission and gathering skills, but I know I tried it with the crafting skills. good question thanks 🙂

          • Comment by DonScorchio made on December 28, 2011 at 3:52 am

            I’ve just got the game and am using this tip, but, stupid noob that I am, I pressed to learn the armormech by mistake rather than cancelling, and now it won’t let me get the new ones without unlearning armorech first. Any tip on that.

          • Comment by DonScorchio made on December 28, 2011 at 3:58 am

            sorry, just checked. It will still let me get the codex and experience points, but won’t let me cancel the one I’m learning. But I guess that doesn’t matter till you have the companion anyway.

  11. Comment by Jem made on December 14, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    Hey, cool trick, i was curious as to how far you could focus on it before you need to level, e.g. could you do this trick at level 4 and stay at that level and max out your crew skills wihtout leveling intetionally? or will there be a point where you have to level up to continue your crew skills

    • Comment by swtorcrafter made on December 15, 2011 at 3:53 am

      you wont be able to level your crafting crew skill or a mission crew skill until you get your first companion as that is the function that they serve, you will be able to on your origin world to start to level your gathering skill if you have one.

      • Comment by Jem made on December 15, 2011 at 9:15 am

        fair enough, didnt realise that crew skills were completely dependant on companions. But from a profession horder’s point of view, say when you are 10 and have yoiur first companion, what is the crew skill level cap before you have to go out leveling your char again?
        (Was thinking of having 1/2 mains and the rest low level alts with all profs maxed out)

        • Comment by Johnbfilter made on January 7, 2012 at 8:39 pm

          Max is 400. No limit based on level.

  12. Comment by MobiousOne made on December 18, 2011 at 2:36 am

    On a side note, because i did not see it mentioned in the article here (thank you by the way) or the replys, if you choose the wrong skill by accident, or you want to try a different one, you can “unlearn” the skill by pressing “N” and clicking on the little [x] to the right of the skill in the list. This will delete the skill and allow you to get another in it’s place. You are ofcourse limited to only 1 crafting skill still and if you pick up the same skill you had before you will be reset to skill level 1. Just thought I would throw this out there as an FYI. Thanks again for a great website people!

    • Comment by DonScorchio made on December 28, 2011 at 3:55 am

      you can only access that menu if you have a companion. At level 1 it won’t let me.

      • Comment by swtorcrafter made on December 28, 2011 at 4:00 am

        you can just go talk to another crafting crew skill trainer and the new one will be learned over the top of the old one, you dont need to access the menu to do this. just go talk to another crafting crew skill trainer. The whole point about this trick however is that you can pick your skills up and if you are taking gathering skills you can begin to work them before you even get your companion putting you ahead of the curve. you will not be able to craft until you get your companion so dont worry about that.

  13. Comment by greymalik made on January 5, 2012 at 1:01 am

    As of patch 1.0.2 (and probably previously, but I can’t be sure) this doesn’t work anymore. As a Jedi on Tython I went to the shuttle at level 1, and again at level 3 and 5 and it would not allow me to use it. I’m guessing it’s not active until you finish up your main storyline on the planet.

    • Comment by Johnb made on January 5, 2012 at 9:53 pm

      I also ran into this problem, having done this trick on earlier toons. I did find that once I reached lvl 7, I was able to board the shuttle without having completed my class quest.

      • Comment by rocdog made on January 24, 2012 at 4:13 pm

        Yes, it’s level 7 now, even if the character was able to travel to Fleet prior to the change. Also the amount of XP to be gotten from unlocking crafting Codex entries has been reduced to 225 each.

  14. Comment by Sith Sniper made on November 30, 2013 at 12:19 am

    This dont work at all 🙁
    I came in on level 1, directly went to the spaceport and followed every step written.
    When i rightclick the door and select Hutta Orbital Station or The Imperial Fleet i get the notification: YOU CANNOT USE THAT RIGHT NOW!

    Any tips?