Yahoo Finance has confirmed that the deal includes LucasArts (George's game company), along with Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic. Whatever comes next, Disney will have as much say as Lucasfilm used to.

The Vanguard that I'm leveling right now has Cybertech, Scavenging, and Slicing. He and his crew have a lot of moddable armor already, because I still play dress up with my dolls, and every Armoring piece that I craft is seven fewer commendations that I have to grind. I'm not likely to use the M1-4X droid companion, because my Vanguard is already a tank, but the Cybertech skill would be an excellent set of droid parts if I wanted to use him. None of the crew skills represent a true path to self-sufficiency, though; they were designed with the intent that players would trade with one another. A healthy game economy is one where goods and Monopoly money are flowing back and forth. If I had to single out one skill that you would get particularly little out of, I would say Synthweaving, since neither the Trooper nor any of his companion are Force users. Even Aritifice has some use; it will make Enhancement parts for your moddable gear and color crystals for your guns, shields, and generators.

Conversation cutscenes for playable Wookies would be amazing.

DPS always have 100% control over the amount of threat they generate. Always. They can always stop pushing buttons for a second. Two seconds, even, in the case of heroic and exceptionally disciplined individual DPSers. They have much more control over their own threat than healers do.

For Force-using tanks, it's almost worth turning around just for the behind-the-back lightsaber parry. It never gets old.

At low levels, Endurance and your class-specific primary stat will do. That's Aim for Bounty Hunters and Troopers, Strength for Sith Warriors and Jedi Knights, and Willpower for Jedi Consulars and Sith Inquisitor. When secondary stats like Defense (chance to dodge/parry), Shield Rating (chance to block), and Absorption Rating (amount of damage blocked) become available at higher levels, the exact balance you want between those stats will depend on which tanking class you are. There are folks in the class specific forums who can give you more detailed answers than I can.

If you tanked in WoW, you won't have to start learning how to tank from scratch in SWTOR. I think you'll find that the option, in Preferences, to make your character automatically turn to face the target is a godsend, as is the ability to level as a tank with a DPS companion, so you can practice pulling, taunting, and timing your defensive cooldowns while doing solo content. I was a WoW player for six years; it was SWTOR, though, that taught me to love tanking.

For gameplay, I've become extremely fond of deceptively simple movement fights, like Boarding Party's engineering room encounter and the final boss fight of Hammer Station. A lot of the challenge and the fun comes from teaching those fights to new players, and success or failure hinge on the party's ability to work together. It's metagame, but I feel like those fights have given me a real education on the interpersonal aspects of MMO gameplay. They've brought me out of my shell.

It's a case of gameplay trumping any other considerations. In this case, having as few people as possible argue over who gets melee weapons when they drop off of bosses. I like the way ranged tanking works now, personally. I don't mind being close to the boss for most of the fight, and the ability to hold threat once I have it with Hammer Shots and Ion Cylinder gives me the freedom to move that melee tanks wish they had in fights that require a lot of movement to avoid damage.

My No-Prize answer: The traditional hierarchical structure between Squad Leader and Commanding General is dispensed with due to the classified nature of each squad's operations, minimizing the number of people who "need to know." The promotions you receive are pay raises. Alternate answer: a lot of spots were left open in the chain of command by the many defectors who followed Tavus' lead. Your promotions reflect you growing into the role that Tavus occupied before his departure. Maybe it's a little of both.

In addition to Happysister's excellent advice, I would suggest choosing a target that is separate from the rest, when the environment layout allows it. If the rest of the mobs are standing close together and one is kind of on the outside, that's your cc target. It's a small thing, but it will help enable your party to use AOE damage without the risk of accidentally catching your cc target in the damage and setting him free.

If you're looking for full kilt-like leg armor for a Bounty Hunter, the Warbringer's Greaves from the Hammer Station Flashpoint or the Warrior's Pulsing Greaves that Synthweavers can craft might be of interest. In the case of the Hammer Station kilt, you would need to replace the +Strength doodads with +Aim Armoring and Mod pieces. For Troopers, screenshots of the Outcast Prototype (from Taris Heroics) and Outcast (from Armormech) can be found at the links. Hammer Station also has a chest which uses the same model for Troopers.

This one is particularly interesting. I'm under the impression that the astromech droid sells parts that give C2-N2 or 2V-R8 bonuses to your choice of crew skills, putting him on par with the rest of your companions in terms of mission turnaround time and chance to score an exceptional result. I've never bought the astromech for myself because there are other things I'd rather do with a million credits, but there's a ship feature that can't be had any other way.

As you said, you've got options. If you're sporting a growing collection of orange customizable gear, those Heroics can be a great source of extra commendations to keep those items up to date with, but otherwise they're just icing on the cake.

Rotations can easily emerge naturally as you get the hang of how your class plays in its group role, and what moves serve to set up others. For my Juggernaut tank, it's really more of a priority system where I renew the different damage mitigating effects as they fall off.