AP Crafting (Crew skill / Tradeskills) / Who can make what

[noobas]

thanks for the heads up. I'll make blues for sellign then I guess and purples for myself - they may be bind on pick up anyway.

[Chrisax]

- I wear purple implants if I recall correctly and I don't have biochem. I'll check.

- It's clear to me for a while that, after a week or so from the launch:

• • . green items do NOT sell on the market except for some Offhand / earpiece / implants because those are rarer than armor
    . you get often a better price from NPC's for green items than from players on the market
    . blue, orange, and purple sell, and still... not all blue
    . Good Offhand, Mods, Enhancements, crystals, and all modifications parts for armor and weapons are always out of stock, implants and earpieces too. Finding a good one on the market, especially at high levels, is just about luck.
    . Modifications parts do so much for a weapon or armor that the armor itself doesn't matter a lot (it does matter of course but not that much)

That's why I moved to Artifice, to be able to make a lot of those parts, for my own use, for the Org, and of course to sell them. My feeling is this will be the most important market for people looking for high quality stuff. (Note that even orange or purple items do NOT come with full purple modification parts; actually, most parts are blue, statistically, and some are even green.)

That said, it is clear that people will look for the best items. So being able to make a ton of blue items unfortunately doesn't make a lot of sense. (IMHO it's a design flaw.) So you need to be able to make the best ones, not necessarily always the top of the top, but still close to that. And due to the way tradeskills work in SWTOR... this means you have -at least for a while- to focus on only some lines of products as mentioned by Noobas at some point.

Here I must say that Croke (Pure) sent me several schematics (recipes) that I have in my bank, for the org.

I need to find a simple way to post them and, then, we'll see how we can allocate them for the best of AP.



Now, to be honest, I do hate the way tradeskilling is implemented in SWTOR. There is a nice, wonderful idea: Reverse Engineering. But the problem I see is, finally, it's all about random rolls.

Random roils to find the items on the planets. (And it seems some can only be found in raids, meaning bye bye soloability.)
Random rolls to get schematics from Reverse Engineering.

It's a grind, plain and simple: no skills, no intelligence involved, no challenge, just time, and also money at some point (companion missions in mass, for example) which could be a reason for "gold sellers" to have some good business in SWTOR . Basically, a clicking monkey could do it or almost.

The only strategy is about what to investigate FIRST at the time being, as explained above, BUT sooner or later, all tradeskillers will have most of what they need in all domains because it's about clicking.

[Chrisax]

Fuze, don't expect to make money with tradeskilling before you get very very good schematics or rare ones in high demand. For the speeder, quests, quests, quests, loot everything and sell in general to NPC's if it's anything but blue and above (possibly try to sell green if they belong to things like earpiece, offhand, implants... but check).
You can also possibly try to find a champion (not a planet one) you can solo quite easily and farm some orange / nice blue / purple. I found one on Tatooine that make acceptable credits for a moment for me.

[Hyde]

For what it is worth, I let my tradeskills break my bank until 21 or 22 ... then I stopped and saved credits until I was 25. I had enough to buy my speeder at 25 and in a couple of more missions had enough to pay for my L25 abilities. The amount of credits you get from quests/missions scales quickly. I'm at over 50K again at L29 while keeping my skills trained.

That said, I'm finding Slicing a decent skill to level up with. It doesn't provide MUCH of a cash boost, but it does end up being a net positive on cashflow while providing some useful Cybertech schematics. Definitely nerfed compared to what it originally provided though.

In the end, I'm afraid Bioware may have made a game that is even more attractive to credit sellers than WoW was. It is too easy to get credits from basic actions and too hard to find a market niche that sells.

[Hyde]

I can build some of your mods if you send me a list. I mostly have greens but if you toss me mats (I think you are also Scavenging) then I can research some blues for you, too.

Also, I've just realized one of the reasons I am staying above water on cash is I do my space missions religiously. Once you open up more space missions they are a decent income for levelling.

I also invest almost purely in Commendations when given the option. It makes stocking up on good mods (less important for me), hilts, etc easy at the end of each planet's arc. Orange gear and mods make skipping some tiny upgrades in green equipment worth it.

[noobas]

The BIGGEST payoff I've found so far is warzone.

It's absolutely the best way to make money that I've found so far.

You make money, XP, and warzone commendations.

The PVP armour available at 20/40 is incredibly good, I mean, outstanding.

I geared up with a full set of PVP gear at 20, and honestly, I wasn't able to replace a few pieces until level 30+. I've now just re-geared with full PVP gear again at 40, and on rudimentary comparisons of HP (a reasonable metric), I'm at LEAST 100 endurance higher than most other people at my level (9700 HP @ lvl 40 vs most in the 8000-8500 range.)

But the obvious benefits are:

1. CASH CASH CASH CASH
2. PVP commendations --> buy your PVP armour, then, you can sell all the crap you pick up for the next 10 levels
3. XP is very good. Faster than doing quests by a long shot

The only problem is that if you're not interested in PVP it may be a significant burden.

Remarkably, though, SWTOR seems to be made to really provide a challenging environment for all specs, with all specs having a method to produce extra awards through natural gameplay. For example:

As a tank spec, you may feel that you ability to kill is extremely limited. Well, yes, but, you can also put someone on guard, taunt their attacker and RAKE in points in protection. similar for healers.

So, theres many ways to amplify your rewards. Also, the warzones launch very regularly, so theres many opportunities to play.

Finally, the daily PVP mission is one of the biggest rewards available at any level range.

As a second option, I fully agree with hyde, I do space missions religiously for cash: any that is green or yellow/red is A-OK for XP/cash/commendations

[Bredin]

purple implants seem to require biochem to wear, so a bit nerfed for selling

I stand corrected, this is not the case. I just crafted a purple implant, does not require biochem to equip

[noobas]

purple implants seem to require biochem to wear, so a bit nerfed for selling

I stand corrected, this is not the case. I just crafted a purple implant, does not require biochem to equip

How did you get the schem?

I've been crafting as many green implants as I can, and REing all of them but i haven't seen a single blue schem yet. (I'm doing the QL 41 implants, with about 350ish biochem)

just bad luck? or is there another way?

[Bredin]

I just RE everything. So far I have only made one purple implant. It took a ton of REs. I have a number of other purple schemas, all from RE.

[Chrisax]

I confirm I have purples implants in, and my sweet Nadia too. No need for biochem.

I'm leveling Artifice (my Archeology is at 400) and, to be honest, this is just a royal boredom to me. Last night I fell asleep while doing it: send companions to craft, wait, RE-ing the results. Buy supposes from the NPC. ... Sleep.

Space combat: you'll hit a brick wall with the last 5 ones roughly, even with all the ship upgrades. Otherwise, they are great, especially when you do them in ship missions.

I have to work on my keyboard to program keys and then I'll go PvP. I currently have MORE functions than there are available slots in hot bars!

@Noobas: what do you mean the daily PvP mission?

[Grehndel]

Grehndel
Armstech, Scavenging, slicing.
I'll have an alt for investigation.
I've maxed one character to 400/400/400 before hitting 40 and now he can barely afford skill upgrades at 45. Won't be making that same mistake but he will have all purple barrels for his level as he progresses.


[edit]Lordy lordy, looks like someone is going to have to do something about that sig.

[Hyde]

[edit]Lordy lordy, looks like someone is going to have to do something about that sig.

I've saved the image, just in case it strangely disappears. I'll make sure I replace it for you if it ever does. Consider something done

[Chrisax]

Ding artifice 400

So now I'm Archeology 400 and Artifice 400

But no good schematics for artifice. And none being sold.

I really wonder if I should stay Treasure Hunting or go Slicing to get schems.

[noobas]

make an alt to get schems chris.

I'm 400 biochem+400 bioanalysis.

Still working hard on REing for blues... none yet, only ones I've got so far i bought off GMS.

[Elrojo]

Elrojo

Underworld Training + Slicing + Cybortech