Crew Skills has retired! Keep reading me over at Siha Games!, my general MMO blog.
Just a quick post (I’m swamped in Christmas preparations at the moment, on the rare moments when I can tear myself away from the computer) to recommend Anexxia’s SWTOR Frequently Asked Questions over at Inquisitor’s Roadhouse. It’s a very handy guide to the common questions and problems that crop up a lot in-game, and even if you don’t get anything from it, odds are you know someone who will.
This is the third in a series of game guides I’ll be writing for Crew Skills, discussing various systems of game mechanics to help everyone get up to speed nice and fast. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
Moddable gear is equipment that can be improved by adding item modifications to specific “slots”. Not all gear is moddable; some craftable equipment has mod slots, as do some loot drops and quest rewards. There are several types of moddable items:
“Exceptional” gear is created when you get a critical success on a normal crafting schematic. The item name will say (Exceptional) at the end, and it will have one open mod slot: the Augment slot. If the crafting schematic was for a moddable piece of gear, the Augment slot will be in addition to whatever would normally be there. Exceptional gear is the same quality as the base schematic, just slightly better because of the Augment slot.
“Custom” gear is fully moddable. It usually doesn’t have any stats built-in; it’s a blank slate for you to customise with the stats you want. When it’s modded, it’s usually equivalent to Prototype (ie blue) quality, and will often show up as a Prototype item when looted from bosses. Properly, its designation is actually “Custom”, with an orange loot colour. Custom items come from quest rewards, crafting, social vendors, and so on.
Custom gear will usually have slots for Mods, Enhancements, and a type-specific slot (Armoring for armor, Barrels or Hilts for weapons). In addition, weapons also have a Crystal slot for a color crystal which affects the blade colour of lightsabers and the energy bolt colour of blaster weapons; you can buy colour crystals from vendors, but Artificers make colour crystals with stat boosts as well.
Other moddable gear also exists; it may have some of the mod slots open, but usually not all of them, and will also have some stats baked in as well. So far I’ve seen this mostly in the form of random artifact-quality BoE armor drops; I’ll add more details as I learn about other examples.
I’ve already hinted at the types of mods in the section above, but it’s worth going through them all in order here, to discuss how they differ and where you can get them from. (See my Stats Guide for more info on character stats.)
Augments come from Slicing missions, and go into the Augment slot of critical-crafted gear. Augments give a single primary or secondary stat. Examples: Might Augment 4, Advanced Alacrity Augment 25.
Mods are crafted by Cybertech, and go into the Mod slot of custom gear. Early mods give a primary stat plus Endurance; more advanced/higher-level mods also give a secondary stat. Examples: Reflex Mod 2, Advanced Agile Mod 25.
Enhancements are crafted by Artifice, and go into the Enhancement slot of custom gear. Enhancements give Endurance and one or more secondary stats. Examples: Fervor Enhancement 6, Advanced Acute Enhancement 25.
Crystals are crafted by Artifice, and can be added to weapons only. They give Endurance, Critical Rating or Power. Examples: Yellow Sharp Crystal, Advanced Cyan Eviscerating Crystal.
Armoring is crafted by Cybertech, and can only be added to armor, not weapons. (Which is logical.) Armoring gives Endurance and a primary stat; some Armorings also give Expertise, which is a PvP stat. Examples: Reflex Armoring 3, Advanced Commando Armoring 25. Note that the Armoring mod also dictates the overall Item Rating of the armor, from which it gets its Armor value.
Barrels are crafted by Armstech, and can only be added to blaster weapons: blaster pistols, blaster rifles, assault cannons, and sniper rifles. They give Endurance and a primary stat – and as with Armoring for armor pieces, the Barrel dictates the overall Item Rating of the weapon, from which it gets its damage range/DPS value. Examples: Skill Barrel 2, Advanced Commando Barrel 25.
Hilts are crafted by Artifice, and are the Force-users version of Barrels. They can only be added to lightsabers (both single- and double-bladed). They give Endurance and a primary stat, and also dictate the weapon’s Item Rating and thus damage range/DPS value. Examples: Resolve Hilt 1, Advanced Force Wielder Hilt 25.
First of all, it’s important to know that when you’re dealing with Custom items in particular, the only thing that affects the item’s overall stats are the mods you install. There’s no difference between a level 10 custom lightsaber and a level 30 custom lightsaber if you put the same mods into both. Choosing between custom items boils down to a stylistic choice: what do you want to look like?
This isn’t true, on the other hand, of other moddable items – they’ll have at least some stats ‘baked in’, and the mods are an additional boost to the stats.
Adding and Removing Mods
To add mods to a piece of moddable gear, control-right click it, and the interface will appear. You can drag mods into the appropriate slots, and then hit “Apply” to apply your changes.
If you drag a new mod into a slot with a mod already in it, you’ll get a warning that this will destroy the item already in that slot if you continue. You can remove the existing mod from the slot first, by dragging it out to your inventory – this will cost you a fee based on the level and quality of the mod, but will let you save the mod to reuse in another piece of gear later.
Note that there are Item Modification Stations dotted around various settlements in the galaxy, and in earlier builds of the beta they used to be necessary for adding or removing mods from your gear, and many guides (and beta players) will tell you you need to go to them to mod your gear. However, this is no longer the case; you now can change the mods from anywhere you like.
If you’re thinking about checking out SWTOR, and you’re not yet familiar with the game, you might find this useful: SWTOR for the WoW Player, a guide at Torhead, written by yours truly.
There’s some amount of argument within SWTOR’s fanbase about comparing SWTOR to WoW, and I do understand why people get frustrated with it – it does neither game any favours. It’s irksome to see people insist that “so, this class is basically a shadow priest then”, because it isn’t.
That said, there are plenty of points of similarity between the games, although there’s very little that’s truly identical. And comparisons are inevitable, because WoW is the 900-pound gorilla in the room, and a big fraction of SWTOR’s potential playerbase will understand WoW terms and concepts. WoW itself had to put up with the same thing when it first launched: many mechanics were described in terms of their Everquest equivalents, because EQ had been the big popular MMO before WoW – even though far fewer WoW players were familiar with EQ. I remember being very confused about what people meant when they said “medding” (sitting down to eat and drink, after EQ’s Meditation), “mezzing” (CCing, after EQ’s Mesmerize – I think), or even “rezzing” (since the rez abilities of the classes I’d played at that stage weren’t called Resurrection).
Gradually, as WoW’s player base filled with people who didn’t have Everquest experience, many of these terms died away and were replaced with WoW-related terms. Mezzing became sheeping, for instance. Other terms stuck around, such as “proc” (which originally stood for Programmed Random OCcurrence), or “mob” (for Mobile OBject, though this one’s from MUDs rather than from EQ).
I’m willing to bet that the same thing will happen to SWTOR. To start with, the jargon will be all derived from WoW – Quick Travel will be called ‘hearthing’, all crowd control will be called ‘sheeping’, and so on. This will make plenty of people grind their teeth, but I’m pretty sure it’s inevitable. As the SWTOR playerbase grows over the life of the game, though, and fills with people who’ve never played WoW before, I’m willing to bet the same thing will happen. Quick Travel will become ‘QT’, and if you say ‘hearthing’, people will look at you funny.
I know I said I’d have my Mods guide and the second half of my Crafting guide up shortly, and that was more than “shortly” ago, but I’ve been somewhat stymied — by the mods post, in particular. I took copious notes from all the beta leaks I could find, and then they changed the system. I played in a weekend beta, and took copious notes (and screenshots, and videos) of the mod system. They changed the system again. I played in another weekend beta, and took more notes, screenshots, and videos.
You’ll never guess what they did next: they changed the mod system again.
So! I’m no longer even remotely confident in the accuracy of any of the batches of pre-launch information I have, when it comes to mods. And other peoples’ information is similarly problematic, because the system’s been revamped so many times.
So, I’m putting the mods post on the backburner for now, because I don’t want to post a guide that’s full of placeholders, “I don’t know”s, or mistakes. Early Access begins in less than twenty-four hours (omg!) and the mods post will hopefully be the first major guide I post after I hit the live servers.
In the meantime, I hope to get the other half of the Crafting guide done and posted ASAP, but I have a massive to-do list for the next 24 hours (including finding some time to sleep!), so I’m running out of time. But I haven’t forgotten, and it will be with you shortly – honest!
I’m still planning a “guide to the item modification system” post, once I sort out the tangle of the flip-flopping mods changes in the last few beta builds. In the meantime, though, check out On mods: the building, salvaging, and picking thereof from Stop over at The Stoppable Force. It’s a great post and gives a good overview of the principles of the system rather than the specifics.
This is the next in a series of game guides I’ll be writing for Crew Skills, discussing various systems of game mechanics to help everyone get up to speed nice and fast. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
This post has been prepared based on my experiences in the beta, and relies on information from the various SWTOR beta tests. It’s based on the crafting system present in the big all-hands beta weekend, and the smaller final weekend test afterwards. I’ll keep the post updated as much as possible. Some of this material has also been revamped from my older posts, now that we have a better idea of how the system works.
And now, at last we get to the meat and drink: the crafting system and its mechanics! Please note that the crafting skills changed quite a lot before the big all-hands beta weekend at the end of November, and many guides on other sites present a much more complex crafting system. At some point in the last couple of months, that crafting system was simplified into what you see here.
“Crew Skills” is the collective term for the various crafting skills in SWTOR, and the other tradeskills that support them. Crew Skills are divided into three types: Gathering Skills (collecting raw materials), Crafting Skills (turning raw materials into useful items), and Mission Skills (performing ‘activities’ that give you gear and other rewards).
You can have a total of three Crew Skills, only one of which can be a Crafting skill (although it doesn’t have to be). Your companions will perform many of the tasks of the crew skills system for you; they use your skills to do this, rather than each having their own skills.
These are the skills that actually involve turning raw materials into finished products – armor, weapons, or other gear, depending on which skill you select. They’re performed by your companions back on your ship, and can be completed by the companion while you’re offline. Crafting generally takes at least a minute per item; complex, advanced, high-level recipes may take hours to complete. To mitigate that somewhat, you can have more than one companion crafting items simultaneously, provided they’re not busy with another mission or accompanying you. You can also queue up to five crafting projects to be completed before your companion returns.
Armormech constructs armor pieces for non-Force users. This uses raw materials from Scavenging, and rare materials from Underworld Trading.
Armstech constructs blaster weapons, melee weapons and blaster mods for non-Force users. This uses raw materials from Scavenging, and rare materials from Investigation.
Cybertech makes droid upgrades, offhand items for non-Force-users, grenades, and armor and weapon mods, and Earpiece equipment. It can apparently also craft some vehicles and ship upgrades. It uses raw materials from Scavenging, and rare materials from Underworld Trading. (Note: the offhand items may have been moved to Artifice – I’ll update when I know more!)
Synthweaving makes armor for Force users. This uses raw materials from Archaeology, and rare materials from Underworld Trading.
Artifice makes offhand items, armor mods and weapon mods for Force users. At high levels there are also craftable lightsabers. This uses raw materials from Archaeology, and rare materials from Treasure Hunting.
Biochem makes consumables (medpacks and stat-buffing booster items) and Implant equipment. It uses raw materials from Bioanalysis, and rare materials from Diplomacy.
This category is fairly straightforward. It involves collecting raw materials, which can then be used in crafting professions or sold for profit.
These skills can be performed by the player character or their active companion while adventuring out in the world. You can also send your companion out on a mission to gather resources without you; this costs credits and time, and they may fail, but it’s a good way of getting resources that you don’t want to (or can’t) hunt down yourself.
Archaeology – this involves acquiring “imbued items like lightsaber crystals and ancient artifacts”. It provides raw materials for Synthweaving and Artificing.
Bioanalysis – this allows collection of “genetic material from creatures and plants”. It supplies materials for Biochem. You can also Bioanalyse dead animals of Strong or greater difficulty.
Scavenging – this involves “recovering useful materials and parts from old or damaged technology”. It provides raw materials for Armormech, Armstech, and Cybertech crafting skills. You can also Scavenge dead droids of Strong or greater difficulty.
Slicing – this skill lets you and your companion hack into computers and other electronic devices. It doesn’t give any crafting materials directly – instead, it mostly gives credits, with the chance to acquire Cybertech schematics, Augment item modifications, and special unlockable high-yield missions for other crew skills.
If you take a Mission Skill as one of your three Crew Skills, you can send one of your companions off to another location in the galaxy to carry out a mission for you. These missions cost credits, but can reap big rewards. Mostly the missions are drawn from a pool of randomly-generated choices, but sometimes your actions can unlock special/rare missions with big rewards. Slicing can also open up special missions.
Diplomacy can provide companion gifts, rare materials for Biochem, and can affect your Light & Dark Side points for morality alignment.
Investigation can provide companion gifts, rare materials for Armstech, and schematics for all Crafting Skills.
Treasure Hunting can provide companion gifts, rare materials for Artifice, and the same lockboxes as Slicing (which contain credits and sometimes gear).
Underworld Trading can provide companion gifts, and rare materials for Armormech, Cybertech and Synthweaving.
The system of resources, who gathers them, and who uses them, used to be fairly complex and interlinked, and there have been guides floating around the net with complicated diagrams about how all the different skills interrelate.
BioWare has done away with all that (unfortunately, in my opinion), and now your skill choices are pretty simplistic. There are very obvious sets of three skills that go together, with no real variety in what’s a useful choice (unless you’re going to be purely a gatherer to make money or support crafters).
With that said, let’s look at some of the skill combinations:
Force Users
Non-Force Users
Anybody
Some have suggested just taking three gathering skills while you level, and then switching to a crafting skill when you’re near the skill cap. If you’re actually interested in crafting I’d advise against this, because unlike some other MMOs, crafted gear is extremely competitive with quest and flashpoint rewards as you level, and there are enough schematics that you can upgrade your gear every few levels. If you’re going to put in the effort to level your crafting skill, it’d be a waste not to make use of what you create.
With thanks to commenters Shikao, Agathorn, Matt and Stop for their input!
Coming in the next post: a guide to the crafting interface and mechanics, aka “how it all actually works”.
Let’s take a break from the big heavy content-laden guides so I can show you some of the pretty pictures that have been sitting in my bulging screenshots folder for a month or so! Click the thumbnail to see the full-sized wallpaper, or right-click to download.
This is Hutta. Pretty, isn’t it? If you’re thinking “over-industrialised toxic wasteland”, you’re not far off. But at least it’s a pretty wasteland.
The capital of the Empire is starkly beautiful, with skies full of omnipresent storm clouds as an appropriately atmospheric backdrop.
Poor Balmorra is sadly war-torn, with perennial conflict between the Imperial-backed planetary government and the Republic-backed rebels. They’ve been going so long there’s barely anything left to fight for.
I’m not going to tell you where this was — but it wasn’t pretty.
Nar Shaddaa fancies itself a cosmopolitan playground for the rich and powerful. In fact, it’s amazingly corrupt and crime-ridden, from the street to the clouds.
There are more stunning vistas in space than you’d think. Unfortunately, gazing raptly at them gets you shot down even faster than usual.
More to come, I hope, once I’ve sorted through more of my stashed images! I took waaaay too many screenshots, I can tell you.
This is the second in a series of game guides I’ll be writing for Crew Skills, discussing various systems of game mechanics to help everyone get up to speed nice and fast. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
Please note that this post has been prepared based on my experiences in the beta, and relies on information from the various SWTOR beta tests. Some parts of the game system have changed within the last few weeks, and may still change before launch, so please bear that in mind. I’ll keep the post updated as much as possible.
SWTOR gear is usually BoE or BoP, as is common in many MMOs. Niftily, you can equip bound items to your companions as well as your own character – so if you have a great gun but get an upgrade, you may well have a companion who can make use of it.
All player characters have 14 equipment slots: nine for armor, two for weapons and three for relics. Companion characters can wear the same gear you do, but they don’t have any relic slots. Note that companions have their own gear restrictions based on their ‘class’; even if you’re a heavy armor user, your companions might use medium or light armor.
Update: This diagram is no longer correct! There’s now two relic slots, and two implant slots.
This is the first in a series of game guides I’ll be writing for Crew Skills, discussing various systems of game mechanics to help everyone get up to speed nice and fast. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
Please note that this post has been prepared based on my experiences in the beta, and relies on information from the various SWTOR beta tests. Some parts of the game system have changed within the last few weeks, and may still change before launch, so please bear that in mind. I’ll keep the post updated as much as possible.
Like most MMOs, your character’s described by a series of stats, or attributes, that reflect their strengths and weaknesses. Gear you acquire will add bonuses to your stats; the quality of your gear makes a huge difference to your ability.
There are five base stats. Apart from Endurance, each base stat affects one type of damage and increases your chance to score a critical with that type of effect. Endurance increases your health rather than affecting your damage. Each character has one ‘primary’ stat that synergises with their abilities, and has greater effects for them.
Everyone gets the listed bonus from their base stats; your primary stat will also give you a boost to related effects. For instance, a Sith Warrior’s Strength will give them a boost to their force damage, as well as the melee boost you’d expect.
That’s what I get for checking my guild forums one last time before going to bed: I see the news that the SWTOR NDA has finally been lifted. Well, I can’t go to bed without making a post and sharing some thoughts, can I?
Over the next few days I’ll be making a series of posts full of crunchy info – guides to gear, crafting, and so on. However, please bear in mind that they’re drawn directly from my experiences with the SWTOR beta, and I know that Bioware have continued to tweak and adjust some parts of the game systems since then (such as mods crafting being reverted back to a more complex system, which is great).
So let me, based on my four days of beta play, kick off the series of Post-NDA Posts with my feelings about SWTOR:
It’s great.
The caveats: It’s not revolutionary. It’s an iteration on a successful genre, with some features that add a lot to their areas of gameplay and some features that frankly could use a lot more polish – and some features that are just plain missing. It is, fundamentally, “WoW in space” – or, arguably, “EQ in space” or “RIFT in space” or whatever. It’s a quest-based, class-based themepark MMO. If you are completely bored with that style of game, SWTOR probably does not vary enough from the template to keep you interested.
But personally, that’s enough for me. The gameplay of every class I tried was fun and engaging. The graphics are lovely, but not so taxing as to be unplayable for people whose computers are a generation or four behind. The combat is solid and the animations are great. The setting is huge, the stories are good, the instances are interesting, the system is transparent and comfortable.
And above everything, the characters are great: a lot of the time, I honestly felt like I was playing a BioWare single player game, just with a lot of company. The fully-voiced, fully-animated NPC interactions are as immersive as people say, but what there’s less talk about is the incredible choice. For the first time, I can actually choose different outcomes when I’m completing a quest – for every quest, pretty much. This is the key thing that I’ve never seen in an MMO before, and this is what’s going to keep me interested.
There are plenty of people for whom SWTOR won’t live up to the hype – because, as various people (like Dee) have said, everyone wants different things out of SWTOR, and it’s only going to meet a subset of those needs. But that’s okay: that’s why there’s different games, and no one game can (or should) be all things to all people.
But for me, SWTOR is good enough. It won’t be my perfect MMORPG, but nothing will, and SWTOR is going to be a hell of a lot of fun for a long time. That’s all I can ask for, and I can’t wait for December 15.
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