Swtor Tips & Tricks

Here’s a compilation of small tips and trick that we hope will help both novice and more experienced players starting their first adventure in Star Wars: The Old Republic. We will be updating these on a regular basis so make sure you check back once in a while.

General tips

  • Group loot: There is a handy option that will let you loot all the enemies you have killed and that are in your vicinity. Press Escape, go to Preferences, go to Controls, in the window with options on the right check the Area Loot option. You will loot ALL things now.
  • Fast Travel: When you start on Hutta remember to click on the fast travel droid station located right outside the cantina you start in. It will help you get back to this quest hub faster later on.
  • Bind Points: There are bind point terminals scattered all over every planet. You can bind to each one. Using your Quick Travel skill you can travel to any of the terminals you previously bound to, not just the latest one.
  • Both factions can talk to each other through “/say”. There’s no cross-faction mail or socializing between them (no tells, no trading or grouping). The only way you’ll be able to send items to the characters of the opposing faction is through the neutral auction house on Nar Shaddaa, since it’s shared by both factions.
  • Once you pick your spec you cannot change it.
  • You can respec your talent skills at any time for credits.
  • At level 25, you can get your first Speeder (vehicle or mount) for a total price of 48000 credits. 40k for the skill and 8k for the vehicle
  • To link an item in the chat simply press SHIFT + left mouse click on the item
  • If your UI freezes you can reset it by pressing CTRL + U twice.
  • You can create new chat tab by right clicking on any existing tab.
  • You can trigger some bonus quest by attacking monsters on your way.
  • If you are in a dialogue with someone and you lead the conversation in a bad direction and want to repeat the conversation to see how your options effect someone, you can hit ‘esc’ and that exits the conversation. Once exited, it resets the conversation.
  • If you want to have White Lightsaber there is a World Boss Ulgo Siegebreaker who drops Advanced White Resistance Crystal. Note: He doesn’t drop the crystal every time you kill him.


Companion related tips

  • Your companion can sell trash (gray) items for you. Just right click on the companion icon and choose the option Sell trash items
  • Being a dark-sided Sith Warrior gives you 2 romance options: Vette and Dark Jaesa Willsam.
  • Your gender has no effect on companion’s gender and you cannot change it.
  • There are level restrictions to how many companions you can send to craft at the same time. You can send 2 companions up to level 25, 3 companions up to level 35, 4 companions up to level 45, and 5 companions at level 45-50.
  • You can customize your companion’s appearance, so it looks different from other companions, by adding look modification “item” to a special slot in companion character sheet. Press the C key on keyboard and choose companion tab. Appearance modification slot is next to the weapon slot. Look modifying items can be purchased from vendors or earned as quest rewards.
  • Your companion will never leave or attack you, no matter how low is your affection with him.
  • You will reduce the time for crafting by increasing affection with your companion. Also, the success rate on missions is increased with higher affection.
  • You can talk with your companion in private in your ship or cantina rooms
  • You can finish some group content like Heroic quests or Flashpoints with your companion (the group size can not exceed 4), but you cannot take them in PvP Warzones or Raids.
  • All mission-based crew skills have the option of granting companion gift based missions (ONLY the mission-based ones though, not gathering ones).
  • There are only 5 tiers of gifts, and so the gift-based missions on the 6th tier will always be “Rich” tier 5 missions.
  • There are 5 tiers of affection divided into 2000 points each (so tier 1 is 0-1999, tier 2 is 2000-3999, etc).
  • A gift WILL work for a tier above it, but it’s value will be halved for every tier you go up. So a tier 1 gift that is worth 24 affection on tier 1 will be worth 12 affection on tier 2, and 6 affection on tier 3.


Crew Skill (Crafting) related tips

  • As of 1.1 update you get 225 exp for each crew skill trainer you visit (there are 14 trainers).
  • As of 1.1 update characters need to be level 7 to take the shuttle to the Fleet. (Thanks rocdog)
  • After gathering, you can leave your crafting materials in Cargo Hold (bank) and your companions can craft even though the materials aren’t in your bag.
  • If you are unsatisfied with your crew skills you can easily unlearn it. Just press “n” key button, and then click the little x button beside the crew skill points.


PvP

  • Once you hit level 10 you can join a PvP “arena”, or warzones as they are called in TOR. You can do this by clicking on the Republic/Empire logo near the mini-map to enter the queue.
  • In The Old Republic you can be matched up with higher levels than you in a warzone, but that does not matter, because all your abilities and healtha are scaled so that none has a distinct advantage base on level of the character, just skill.


Space missions related tips

  • Upon getting a star ship, you will have daily quests for space combat.
  • You will gain huge experience by doing Space mission quests at your level. The difficulty and the level of the missions does not change, thus, as you level up the space missions become harder and the lower ones grant far less experience.
  • Space missions are highly useful to alts

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31 Responses to Swtor Tips & Tricks

  1. Comment by MTKtor made on November 27, 2011 at 2:25 am

    There’s a pretty funny typo on the PVP section where you say PvP arenas are called “warzone ass”.

    Also, awesome tip on the Area Loot option. I turned it on.

    • Comment by Mikro made on November 27, 2011 at 9:44 am

      LOL. Fixed. Thank you.

      • Comment by Botwa made on November 29, 2011 at 9:13 pm

        The lvl restrictions for sending out companions has changed as of this last beta weekend. I was sending all 3 out at once. I believe I tried at 25 and it said I can only send two, then I tried again at 27 and was able to send three.

        • Comment by LokiDelphoric made on December 26, 2011 at 8:31 am

          I’m currently level 26 and have been able to send out my companions, all 3 since lv. 25. I’m taking a screen shot of lv. 26 with all 3 out doing archeology just in case we’re interested in that.

  2. Comment by Zaadar made on December 4, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    It’s really the best idea to match together all lvl in PvP warzones. Finally we’ll have more pvp players and much less queue. Yeah!! Extra point to Bioware 🙂

  3. Comment by Seam made on December 5, 2011 at 10:38 am

    “The only way you’ll be able to send items to the characters of the opposing faction is through the neutral auction house on Nar Shaddaa, since it’s shared by both factions.”

    How is that done exactly?

    • Comment by Kalyn made on December 5, 2011 at 12:23 pm

      This idea is essentially for money transferring – all you have to do is to put some trash (gray) item on the neutral AH by your character that needs money, and then log in as a character with a lot of money and buy it. The same thing is for transferring items. The main disadvantage of this idea is a very high AH fee.

      • Comment by kissakias made on December 11, 2011 at 7:03 pm

        Don’t care about the high fee, as long as i can transfer items to my other faction chars.
        the most disappointing thing in the game is the NO cross faction chat.
        At least they should make it ”PLAYER PREFERENCE” with a toggle ON/OFF

        • Comment by Genius made on December 12, 2011 at 11:46 pm

          Maybe Bioware will have this as a surprises for us at launch 🙂

      • Comment by Cruzr made on April 18, 2012 at 8:44 pm

        This has been made alot easier with the new legacy system. Just add your opposing faction character to your higher characters legacy tree, and you can effectively send money or items through in game mail, even bound items.

  4. Comment by Starry made on December 18, 2011 at 7:30 am

    “In The Old Republic you can be matched up with higher levels than you in a warzone, but that does not matter, because all your abilities and healtha are scaled so that none has a distinct advantage base on level of the character, just skill.”

    This is not really true fellas. While, yes, abiltiy tier and base stats will ‘scale up’ – a lower level player is still at a tremendous disadvantageous as they lack a great many skills.

    This is even more prevalent at different ‘important’ levels. Things such as when you get your first CC ability, when you get ‘force speed’, and the list goes on.

    Not to mention 1 VERY VERY large thing you forgot to mention is skill trees. A level 40 SI will WIPE the floor with a level 20 Sage if both are traited DPS; with equal skill due to the trait bonuses giving an enormous amount of advantage(things such as instant cast time, extra damage, etc) that the lowerlevel has 0 chance of having.

    While it /is/ possible for a player to kill someone 5, 10, 15 levels higher then them – it’s highly unlikely just due to the fact they lack the necessary skills to back up the stats.

    This is without even noting the ‘disadvantage’ some classes have in the earlier game(such as operative/scoundrel whom won’t have enough abilities to alow them to play a specific way).

    • Comment by Genius made on December 21, 2011 at 5:09 pm

      It wasn’t a nice expirience when I (15 lvl) ran into 30 lvl jedi knight.

    • Comment by Skyeplus made on January 18, 2012 at 9:44 am

      Add to this level 50 PvP gear. It is very hard to compete with fully armored player even at lvl 40-49. For lower levels confrontation with such players is a 2 seconds wipe.

  5. Comment by Kenneth made on December 20, 2011 at 1:15 am

    You may wish to add a section about general leveling tips.

    Space missions: Upon getting a star ship, you have a chance at some daily quests for space combat.

    The difficulty of the missions is static, and as such can be treated as enemy npcs in a zone.

    You will suffer reduced experience gain upon outleveling the content.

    As such, doing the quests early on will help greatly when leveling (just as getting the crew skill codex helps with early level starter planets).

    So, at level 13 or so when you get your star ship, doing the space missions before logging off the night will aid the leveling process (as at said level they accounted for nearly half a level).

    This, while not entirely useful for main characters, is highly useful to alts, as for 15 minutes work you can gain a considerable amount of experience. If you do buy the level 1 upgrades they can aid in missions, but realize that as you level up the space missions will become harder and the lower ones will grant far less experience. (Reulting in 5 xp for the mission and no xp during).

    • Comment by Mikro made on December 23, 2011 at 11:19 pm

      Space mission section added. Thank you for the tips.

  6. Comment by D Miller made on December 23, 2011 at 9:56 am

    A tip for your website…

    If you are in a dialogue with someone and you lead the conversation in a bad direction and want to repeat the conversation to see how your options effect someone, you can hit ‘esc’ and that exits the conversation. Once exited, it resets the conversation.

    • Comment by Mikro made on December 23, 2011 at 10:33 pm

      Thank you, nice tip

  7. Comment by Danaan made on December 26, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    Note that when you play female Sith warrior, you cannot flirt with vette or jeasa, instead you get to flirt with the 2 male companions. Clearly homosexuality is a no go with bioware.

    • Comment by CrazyJAT made on January 12, 2012 at 12:40 am

      Not true about Bioware. Mass Effect had some “lesbian” action.

      • Comment by dj kling made on January 17, 2012 at 1:47 am

        no homosexuality? have you not played Dragon age? there were male-male, and female-female romance options from flirting to… a lot more… Bioware isnt homophobic, they probably didnt have the time to do ALL the options and just picked a standard.

  8. Comment by Totality made on January 16, 2012 at 7:36 am

    Yes, its all skill in pvp! /sarcasm

    Tell that to a level 10 who gets killed in one shot by a level 50 with sith lightning or jedi rock-throwing (whatever that’s called).

  9. Comment by rocdog made on January 24, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    As of 1.1 characters need to be level 7 to take the shuttle to Republic Fleet. Also speaking to trainers to unlock codex entries now awards only 225 XP.

    • Comment by Mikro made on January 24, 2012 at 9:17 pm

      Thank you. I changed the tip.

  10. Comment by name made on March 20, 2012 at 10:33 am

    sweet tips, thx… but what’s an “alt” (last line)

    • Comment by Cruzr made on April 18, 2012 at 8:47 pm

      alternate…basically secondary characters you make aside from your main.

  11. Comment by Vema made on May 1, 2012 at 9:30 pm

    is SI sith inquisitor? cuz i am.
    and ya know how rude it is to drain your Force?
    stupid paladious

    • Comment by Vema made on May 1, 2012 at 9:31 pm

      is darth zash really have other apprentices

  12. Comment by Kisponyi made on October 1, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    “Both factions can talk to each other through “/say”. There’s no cross-faction mail or socializing between them (no tells, no trading or grouping). The only way you’ll be able to send items to the characters of the opposing faction is through the neutral auction house on Nar Shaddaa, since it’s shared by both factions.”

    I was just curious is it still this way. Today i tested it. I tried to send 1 item from my Republic Soldier->Sith Warrior. And it WORKED. So no more need to use the GTN to send items cross-faction. Its possible to send items/cash through MAIL. Atm i tested this with characters on same account, dunno if its working if u send mail to another player, but i think yes. Enjoy.

    • Comment by cyonfax made on October 5, 2012 at 8:19 pm

      you are wrong…. I don’t know when bioware change it but I have characters on the republic and empire side and not only can I send money but I can also send items through the in game mail system. you DON NOT HAVE TO HAVE YOUR LEGACY OPEN IN ORDER TO DO THESE THINGS. you also don’t have to use the GTN on Nar Shadda.

  13. Comment by CannBarr made on May 1, 2013 at 1:53 pm

    thanks for these tips – I have been playing for quite some time and I learned quite a bit –too bad sw doesn’t have a guide so newbies could learn faster

    • Comment by Illithius made on December 30, 2013 at 5:58 am

      Excactly, but then again, I guess that if you’re level 50 – about 20% of the players, you’ll forget about it. Only around 19% are newbies.