SW: The Old Republic Part 5

[Gorth]

My "main" toon is sort of my guinea pig and fall guy all in one package. He gets to do all the errors and the suffering you possibly can through the game so other toons following in his footsteps can benefit from it

 

I've always had an obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to maps and fog of war. I can't resist clearing out every last black spot no more than a cat can resist a ball of string. Sad but true.

 

I noticed in the patch notes that you can now spend your bounty contracts on more than just more kingpin contracts. Now accepted as currency for a few new items at the reputation vendor. Nice idea. Not sure how it works out long term, but interesting anyway.

[Spider]

They kinda had to do that in order to keep the event somewhat relevant. It was easy enough to max reputation after only two cycles of the event, so a lot of players no longer had any motivation to run it. And if they're going to activate that even every month, that problem will only escalate.

 

Of course, the two items added are a bit lackluster for me. The pet is fine I suppose, but nothing really special. And I personally don't like the design of the Praxon speeders in general, so even if this one had a nice paint job, it's of no interest to me.

 

But they should add things to that vendor on a fairly regular basis I think.

[Hassat Hunter]

I've always had an obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to maps and fog of war. I can't resist clearing out every last black spot no more than a cat can resist a ball of string. Sad but true.

They've made achievements for us

But I kinda happily forgo it for Hoth or Tatooine.

 

Anyone I was planning to play ops, and do the BH-event, but seriously can't be bothered launching TOR. Maybe I'm fed up a bit. It's still fun once in a while to do ops with the guild, but getting tired of the gear grind.

[Gorth]

Did a pair of bounties so far. Way less excessive than the last time around. Just to give some xp and credits to a pair of low level toons. Easy money and xp really with the fast travel to capital world and then the "limited edition" fleet pass back.

 

Got a kingpin head to my trophy collection, which was what I sort of had promised myself to focus a bit more on this coming weekend. Now need to get him alive too (the Ord Mantell kingpin).

[Gorth]

Managed to get a second kingpin in the closing hours of the event. No more Tattooine kingpins for Gorth, thank you very much (between last month and this, got him both dead and alive). Got some help from guild members.

 

Just for kicks, tried to have a go solo at the Nar Shaddaa one to see what the fight was like. Got my rear anatomy royally kicked. Next month I'm going to make it my goal to gather a group and humiliate the bastard.

 

I figured since I love my old black "Combustion" armour (bought way back at level 30 or so from the reputation vendor in the old space station store), it's time to upgrade it with augmentations.

 

Figured out I could "create" slots by adding level 1 kits at a workstation and assume I can upgrade the slots by going through the steps from 2 - 9.

 

Do you need to actually install an augment before upgrading the slot? I'm out of stock of level 2 kits, so I haven't been able to try upgrading it.

 

I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it silly that I need to create and then break stuff to get the kit component. I mean, if I created the thing in the first place, why the heck do I need to do anything other than just build the component that I put there in the first place?

 

Yeah I know, it's a game mechanic and an abstraction at that. Silly none the less.

 

Edit to add:

 

In general, a lot of the crafting mechanics seems "counter intuitive" to me. It would make more sense if you had a chance to learn a new schematic by the crafting process, not the destruction process.

 

Just imagine this technical genius in the team. He designs and builds from scratch this nifty little blaster pistol. In my world, it would make more sense that he took a look at his work and then had an Eureka moment. If I tweak the trigger and cook the battery, I can improve the speed and output!

 

Instead, he puts the shiny new blaster on the table and takes a hammer to it. *Smash!* and then studies the debris on the floor for clues how to improve it

[Gromnir]

Managed to get a second kingpin in the closing hours of the event. No more Tattooine kingpins for Gorth, thank you very much (between last month and this, got him both dead and alive). Got some help from guild members.

 

Just for kicks, tried to have a go solo at the Nar Shaddaa one to see what the fight was like. Got my rear anatomy royally kicked. Next month I'm going to make it my goal to gather a group and humiliate the bastard.

 

I figured since I love my old black "Combustion" armour (bought way back at level 30 or so from the reputation vendor in the old space station store), it's time to upgrade it with augmentations.

 

Figured out I could "create" slots by adding level 1 kits at a workstation and assume I can upgrade the slots by going through the steps from 2 - 9.

 

Do you need to actually install an augment before upgrading the slot? I'm out of stock of level 2 kits, so I haven't been able to try upgrading it.

 

I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it silly that I need to create and then break stuff to get the kit component. I mean, if I created the thing in the first place, why the heck do I need to do anything other than just build the component that I put there in the first place?

 

Yeah I know, it's a game mechanic and an abstraction at that. Silly none the less.

 

Edit to add:

 

In general, a lot of the crafting mechanics seems "counter intuitive" to me. It would make more sense if you had a chance to learn a new schematic by the crafting process, not the destruction process.

 

Just imagine this technical genius in the team. He designs and builds from scratch this nifty little blaster pistol. In my world, it would make more sense that he took a look at his work and then had an Eureka moment. If I tweak the trigger and cook the battery, I can improve the speed and output!

 

Instead, he puts the shiny new blaster on the table and takes a hammer to it. *Smash!* and then studies the debris on the floor for clues how to improve it

 

creating parts for augment kits is ridiculously time consuming, and wholly stoopid. that said, we not get what you mean about going through steps 2-9. to add a rank 9 augment slot to a piece o' gear, you need an mk-9 augment kit, over 30k credits and a mod table. doesn't matter if piece o' gear has a rank 1 slot already... or no slot at all. you still need a kit, credits and a table.

 

the resources and time needed to fully augment a toon is annoying. need to reverse engineer 10 earpieces or focus or whatever to get the 10 parts needed for ONE kit... and to full augment you need 14 kits. is simply a pain in the arse to reverse 140 pieces of gear to be able to be making the 14 kits you need... which is why most folks is willing to pay ridiculous prices for the kits. cybertech earpieces is probable most economic to make at this time: 2 tricopper flux, 2 mythra, 4 turadium. re to get a couple resources back, but rarely the tricopper. so, you is sending folks out all the time to get tricopper, 'cause otherwise is 600 credits per unit. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorth]

creating parts for augment kits is ridiculously time consuming, and wholly stoopid. that said, we not get what you mean about going through steps 2-9. to add a rank 9 augment slot to a piece o' gear, you need an mk-9 augment kit, over 30k credits and a mod table. doesn't matter if piece o' gear has a rank 1 slot already... or no slot at all. you still need a kit, credits and a table.

Yes!

 

Thanks. I was just worried that it had to be a "gradual" upgrade process, like can only install mk3 kits if you had a mk2 slot already etc. If I can go straight to mk9, then it saves a lot of pain (got more of those than you can shake a stick at).

 

cybertech earpieces is probable most economic to make at this time: 2 tricopper flux, 2 mythra, 4 turadium. re to get a couple resources back, but rarely the tricopper. so, you is sending folks out all the time to get tricopper, 'cause otherwise is 600 credits per unit.

 

My main guy is a cybertech guy, who has created purple versions of just about every re-engineerable variant of (crew skill trainer, not special drops) ear piece schematic  Hence the fair sized stockpile of mk9 kits (actually, I think my trooper probably generated the most from RE'ing armour)

 

My commando is pretty good at providing raw materials from scavenging and underworld metals. With the ship droid upgrade giving it +2 underworld critical, Tanno's +1 underworld critical and MX4's +5 scavenging critical skills, I get all the level 9 materials in abundance, including the previously elusive Beryllius (I think every second time I send the ship droid on 'Secret Recipe' he gets a crit and comes back with the rare stuff). Troopers were made for armourmech/scavenging/underworld trading.

 

I "re-educated" my armstech smuggler girl late in the process and replaced her otherwise maxed out scavenging skill (already having my Bounty Hunter and Trooper doing it) with Slicing. Seemed essential at the time if I wanted to do augments in general without taking a mortgage and shop on the GTN for parts. Can I just say "Whoa?"... slicing is like a license to print your own credits.

 

Now I just need to get my Sith Warrior going and beef up his Artifice. It's maxed out actually, but he's hopelessly behind on the schematics and crafting materials, as I don't currently play other force users *) (nobody to share the burden of archeology, treasure hunting etc.)

 

Damn you Bioware... I really really want a legacy bank very badly for sharing crafting materials. Maybe if I dangle my credit card in front of them?

 

*) I have other toons, but they are all in cryostasis. Two toons at or close to level 55 and my smuggler/sith warrior past level 40 is already getting more than the proverbial lions share of my spare time. Besides, if I have to visit the Okara Droid factory again any time soon I'll probably lose what little sanity is left.

 

Yes, just me rambling on, blogging on my life on an MMO

 

Edit to add: Just some impressions of the planets so far... I really like Hoth and Taris, Tattooine is good, but could do with less sandpeople. Alderaan felt too long and Balmorra felt more than twice as long as it needed to be. Quesh was too short and Corellia I haven't spent enough time on yet to form an opinion on. Haven't seen Ilum or much of Makeb yet (ended up there by mistake at level 47 and promptly left again). The jury is still out on Belsavis. I like the old Rakata (sp?) areas, not the contemporary prison areas.

[Spider]

For augment kits mats, the best you can craft is one of the droid parts for cybertech. Think it's parts that uses 2/2/2.

 

Also for me slicing is the most profitable crew skill by far, though needs to be used in combination with a crafting skill to maximize it's potential. The lockboxes are actually a net loss (when you run missions for them), but the mission discoveries you get on a crit makes up for that. But the real money is in Thermal Regulators, especially when you use them to craft augments.

 

Also, the lockboxes you can dig up when questing are a nice bonus. I have slicing on all my characters and have never looked back (of course I have enough characters that I've got all other crew skills covered anyway, but even if I didn't I'd run slicing)

[Gorth]

Yes, agree about slicing missions. I needed to do it in the beginning though, as when I changed crew skill, most of the resources on the map required minimum 165 and most required 205 (Republic Balmorra) or some such in skill, so running missions were necessary to get a running start so to speak. Unless I fancied visiting Coruscant and Taris again, running around searching for goodies to boost the skill level (not!)

[Hassat Hunter]

I got some crafting skills, but... I really don't bother with it (except for Biocrafting to get myself stims). Too much not fun. Let the other people handle it, I'll play the GTN and get money to buy it all

 

Mk-9 kits are pretty cheap, not worth the hassle of making them yourself.

Slicing for me too is the best skill around. Can't say no to free money, can I? The rest is far more hit or miss.

[Gorth]

I had a sniper (still have, but his put aside for an indefinite period) which has Biochem. Started creating all the nice purple reuseable medikits and stims before I realised only he himself could use them

 

I might actually "thaw him up" for a bit, as my Bounty Hunter sure could use some better stims and medikits than what he currently got (a motley collection of packs from level 30 to 45 and he himself is 55).

 

Personally, my favourite is Cybertech. If for no other reason that is almost entirely frees up my planetary commendations for other things (still needed the enhancement mods at 2 comms a piece and the odd barrel). Mostly indulging in purple artifact boxes which gives occasionally nice items for the alts. Got some fancy armour and gear that way. Some of it sold quite well on GTN, some got equipped by alts or their companions.

[Gorth]

Getting a bit long this thread is.

 

More SWTOR here