She's Crafty!

[Merusk]

If you are trying to min/max crew skills, is +critical the companion bonus to go by or is there some cutoff where +efficiency is "better" than +critical?

I wasn't aware that +critical affected companion missions.  Hm.. guess I should gear-up the robot when sending him out.

[sam, an eggplant]

It's not from gear, each companion has different tradeskill bonuses that you can see after pressing 'N'.

[tmp]

Nah, you just do what I posted earlier, make lockbox missions break even over time, so slicing is more about gathering lockboxes in the world and augment missions.

This means slicing produces less money, which reduces the level of wealth in the playerbase, which reduces to profits of other crafting specializations. But since the slicing still produces free money without a need to sell anything to anyone (it's just now profits are lower across the board) what makes you believe that's going to stop anyone from crying how unbalanced it still is?

[Merusk]

It's not from gear, each companion has different tradeskill bonuses that you can see after pressing 'N'.

Ooh.  Mako only has +5 and +15 skill so I didn't think those applied as crits and what not.  Galt has UT bonuses but who has UT?

[kildorn]

UT is cybertech and armortech, at the very least. I think synthweaving as well.

So I'm a tad sad that it seems you can only vendor buy up to level 49 armor patterns, and the rest are heroic mode random drops? QQ.

[sam, an eggplant]

But since the slicing still produces free money without a need to sell anything to anyone (it's just now profits are lower across the board) what makes you believe that's going to stop anyone from crying how unbalanced it still is?

Huh? No. Read it again. I said lockbox missions would break even over time. Not make a profit.

Gathering lockboxes would be slightly profitable, but that's not a big deal. I probably found like 20 of them total so far.

[Thrawn]

Before this nerf (maybe still if it breaks even and still finds recipies/missions) slicing was begging to have someone write a bot for it that just sends your companions out on lockbox missions over and over.  Even if it's only maybe  1 - 6k profit per mission, if you leave that running on all of your companions, overnight every night, would add up fast.

[tmp]

Huh? No. Read it again. I said lockbox missions would break even over time. Not make a profit.

Yes, but that still leaves the person with slicing capable of harvesting nodes in world for direct money, whereas other specializations only get resources they have to peddle either to NPC or to another player. Even such simple difference is likely to be enough for some to cry imbalance, with charts to prove the point et al.

Gathering lockboxes would be slightly profitable, but that's not a big deal. I probably found like 20 of them total so far.

My early slicing profits came largely from these nodes -- the missions would more often than not break even over time (3-4 instances of pay 95, get 80-90 back with occasional solid 40 credits of profit, that sort of thing) while each node in world was fully free 100 or so credits with no cost attached (and having the companion with me meant i could cull through stuff faster, making more money from foozles in the same time) With the bug affecting the nodes allegedly removed it should get even better now.

[Draegan]

I'm hoping for option number two, but I question how augment missions will match up to the other gathering tradeskills, since crafters actually need those materials. I guess we'll see. Either way, I'm glad I made my half a million credits per character pre-nerf.

That's not a lot of credits.

[sam, an eggplant]

My highest character is level 32. It's not a game-breaking amount for me personally, but if everybody else did the same thing, that would be a different matter entirely.

[Lantyssa]

I was getting thousands of credits per quest leading up to the initial 40k purchase, I was easily able to do it, without slicing. You just have to have some discipline about not sending someone off on a mission skill every single time it comes up.

[kildorn]

I was getting thousands of credits per quest leading up to the initial 40k purchase, I was easily able to do it, without slicing. You just have to have some discipline about not sending someone off on a mission skill every single time it comes up.

Seriously, fuck that noise! If you're on my ship while I'm getting shot at, your ass has chores to do! <3

[amiable]

Why are you reading MVP award threads? ;)

I have absolutely no idea.  I have never even been to that thread before, i thought i was linking the patch notes.  Weird. 

[Ingmar]

I was getting thousands of credits per quest leading up to the initial 40k purchase, I was easily able to do it, without slicing. You just have to have some discipline about not sending someone off on a mission skill every single time it comes up.

I mostly have them craft stuff to raise the actual crafting out of all the enormous piles of crap I scavenge while leveling.

[kildorn]

I had a phase where I had four underworld trading missions running at a time to try and catch that up to my crafting skill. I found it lags behind a lot if you don't keep up with it.

[tmp]

You just have to have some discipline about not sending someone off on a mission skill every single time it comes up.

I normally leave the companions idle because i'm too lazy to queue a mission every few minutes, plus the UI has this horrid preference for closing your currently open AH window and whatnot whenever the mission reward window pops up, which is direct chute to the dark side with the hate it generates, tbh.

edit: on the subject of making money without slicing and how it's impossible to buy speeders etc without it, couple hours of Tatooine questing later i'm at 35k cash from yesterday's 20k, again pretty much just from grey foozle drops.

[Lantyssa]

Selling relics is the only reason I could afford my speeder and training.  Probably by selling to all those people who took up slicing so they couldn't get their own.  Without the auction house and a lot of patience though, Underworld Trading is a money loser, even if all you do is go for treasure boxes.

[rattran]

Treasure boxes from UT? I assume you mean Treasure Hunting, I've got ~340 UT, just missions for toys, metal, and cloth.

Mostly missions for toys and cloth. Makes me sad when all 6 tiers only have companion gifts or fabric missions available.

[Lantyssa]

Er, yeah, Treasure Hunting.  My bad for posting between client builds.

[rattran]

UT tier 6 missions were returning the occasional synthweave recipe. I think the same orange chestpiece recipe.

[kildorn]

UT hands me pretty random patterns regularly for synthweaving and armormech. What I'm having issues getting are epic rare metals. 

[luckton]

Would be nice if UT gave me Cybertech schematics..you know, for the craft in which I'm running UT missions for in the first place 

[Sky]

Gault brings me steady blues with UT, maybe 2 or 3 purples a tier; almost no schems. I think I may have gotten one. I strictly run the metals missions the few times they're available, usually abundants.

[kildorn]

I run metal -> fabric -> gifts as my priority. Given that I'm trying to farm up metal for my armor set, I've pretty much got all five of them out finding me stuff all day. I get maybe 2-3 schematics a night?

[Lucas]

I had a phase where I had four underworld trading missions running at a time to try and catch that up to my crafting skill. I found it lags behind a lot if you don't keep up with it.

Same thing happened to me with Treasure Hunting with the combination Artifice-Archaeology-Treasure Hunting; at around lv 17-18, I was around 95-98 with the first two, but lagged behind with the third at around 35-40. Problem is, before that level range you don't really need grade 2 mats from Treasure Hunting (mats that you can access in the late sixties), and if you are like me and just craft stuff for your character and companion (along with unlocking prototype-blue schematics), and also you don't want to outlevel the gear you are crafting, you can't just keep "adventuring away" and keep a natural flow, or at least that's the situation I found myself in.

So, to keep it short, yesterday night and today's early afternoon was an exercise in frustration waiting for the 6 and 8 minutes TH missions to finish, with only the last Class mission to do in Coruscant :P .

[Sky]

Since I only run better than moderate missions unless I just unlocked the tier, even with Gault out most of the time (since there's usually only one appropriate mission), my UT is lagging behind my armormech and scav, like maybe 225 UT to 280 for the others. I guess I should just grind it up on lower missions, I have enough gear myself up and have a few things for mako this tier.

Really, the scavenging holds me back from doing a lot of RE. I just don't come across enough nodes of a type until I don't need them. Metric shit-ton of phlobium and bondite on Taris...seems like the materials are slightly out of sync with gear levels.

[kildorn]

With UT, I just spammed it for a day to catch up about 200 points. And used all those companion gifts to cap two companions out, which was by far the most annoying part of it (give present... waiiiiiiit.. give present.. I wonder if she figured out I was buying her affection when we'd stop every 15 seconds while walking to the next quest location to give her something pretty)

[Lantyssa]

What I do with Treasure Hunting is send my guys out for Lockbox missions.  I slow down if I'm going broke near 25, but otherwise they're always going.  Basically my priority list is to only run Rich and Bountiful missions.  I'll drop down a tier or two if none are available before taking an abundant.

This makes it out-level my crafting skills by a lot.

[Sky]

With UT, I just spammed it for a day to catch up about 200 points.

Well, I only have Gault and the ship droid to send out :) Mako is busy keeping me patched up.

[Fabricated]

Hmm, question regarding Armormech; obviously reverse engineering crafted greens can get you a random blue-quality plan for the same item. Can you reverse engineer blues to get artifact level plans?

I took armormech fully expecting it to be useless since in every MMO I take armorcrafting and it turns out to be largely worthless, but I appear to have lucked out as a trooper and it is awesome. Minus the droids, all of your companions wear heavy armor, which means I can keep all of them completely kitted out in at least semi-respectable gear as I level. I plan on just grinding out a gigantic pile of the level 49-50 armor sets (Armormech has a full set of heavy armor for healer-types, tanks, and DPS) and reverse engineering them until I have a set of all blues to throw at my companions.

[Lantyssa]

Yes, you can get purples by reverse engineering the blues.

[Sky]

And you want to RE the proper blue, as well. Sure, I might get a quick blue schem out of RE'ing stuff I ground out or whatever...but I tend to shoot for specific blues. End>Aim + defense is my general ticket. So I RE greens until I get one of those, and then if I have resources (I generally don't) I'll RE that into a purple. Haven't done that since around level 22 or so, just takes up too much time and resources to bother with.

Armormech is great for BH, too. Though my companions thus far have used medium armor, they're both non-force agent types so I can make medium armor for them. Way more limited than if I could make them heavy armor, since that's what I focus on for yours truly. I tend to hit a new planet and use crafted blues until I get enough commendations for the mods, which generally only makes the oranges slightly better...until the next tier.

[Mrbloodworth]

Something I have not been able to put my finger on. What items can and cant be DE'd, and why.

I know anything I craft can. But it seems to be hit and miss with drops.

[Sky]

Almost no drops can be. Not sure there is any sense to it, might be a holdover from one of the many revamps to the system.

[Mrbloodworth]

I have gotten many drops that I can Dcon right in the N.G.P window, as well as my inventory. That's the confusing part, I can't figure out WHY they can.