Disclaimer: all of this is just my opinion, I tried to think about it as a starting player but my preferences do show. I would say tank is a bit easier general, depending on class. But for example a powertech tank does still decent damage, gets healer comp right from start and isn't terribly complicated to play. I'm assuming you prefer imp side since you had a marauder, although on rep side vanguard is good too because you get the healer companion relatively early. Since you probably can't toss tons of gear on your characters as a new player, having a healer companion helps a lot. Juggernaut tank is also fairly sturdy and jugg gets healer also pretty early (guardian however has to wait a fair bit). It is a bit more advanced from powertech(/vanguard) though. Out of healers merc (/commando) is also pretty ok: you don't need the healer comp as much but at least you do ok damage and mercs are pretty sturdy. It's also pretty straigthforward to play on basic level. Main thing is to keep gear relatively upto date. Don't forget companion gear either, it's pretty important for them to have decent gear as well.

It also adds it to any new characters you create.

1. The statless armor is moddable gear. That means that you can put in modifications that will give the stats. Mods can be upgraded, so you can basically keep the look you like and improve your stats as you get better mods. You can buy those from GTN or for basic comms or craft yourself with cybertech for mods (same term just in this case refers to one of the modifications) and armorings and artifice for enhancements. 2. If it's your first time, I would stick to leveling + the occasional flashpoint, Kuat Drive Yards = KDY is the most popular one since you can run it at any level and doesn't require tank&healer. If you find yourself underleveled for things despite that, maybe run a xp boost and join a guild with a nice xp bonus. 3. Flashpoint is the dungeons of this game. There are tactical flashpoints = doesn't require tank&healer, story mode flashpoints which are easier and then hardmode flashpoints (from lvl 50 up... although I doubt many run the lvl 50 hm fp's much now). Operations are the raids, there's storymode which is the easiest (but not a faceroll unless you are in a good group), hard mode which is obviously harder and the hardest is nightmare mode. NiM isn't open yet for the lvl 60 stuff though. 4. Crating and/or selling materials seem to work for me. Lower level/midlevel mods, implants and earpieces sell for decent money but honestly as you level you don't need a lot. Then there's the dailies you can run when you get to lvl 50+ which will net you credits. They are boring but some dailies are fairly fast to run. 5. I found cybertech to make the most money for me. Armorings and mods for lower levels sell nicely + there's the earpieces. As a bonus you can save basic comms for lvl 60 by crafting your own stuff. People better at making money can chime in here though as it also depends on your server I'd imagine. Armormech crafts bounty hunter armor but honestly I'd stick to moddable gear. 6. You can enable combat logging in settings and then you can run a parse which you can upload to a site. I am not sure which is the goto site atm since I just run Parsec which gives accurate enough info for me. Parsec = dps meter you can run as you play, mainly used in ops to see what your dps is. I wouldn't run it as you level much because if stuff dies in a timely fashion, you are probably doing enough dps for leveling purposes. DPS meters are a bit less important in swtor than they are in WoW I think, although for hardmode ops it starts to matter depending on fight. I don't know about really hardcore raiding guilds on pve servers but I am yet to meet one that asks for a dps parse to show how you do as you apply. I play on a rp server though.

Well, at 60 you can buy a starter set for ops with basic comms. The problem with that set is that especially the enhancements are bad, so you would be best off buying/crafting better ones + you can't buy a mainhand (then again buying a barrel/hilt is cheap if you go for 186 rating). Anyway: a starter set of 186 rating gear at 60 will cost you about 700-800 basic comms. Then again basic comms are very easy to come by: IMO just upgrade your gear every now and then with the comms while leveling and maybe grab some stuff from GTN if you see it for a good price. I think the most important thing for a dps toon is to keep your weapon updated, the rest of the gear is good to have of course (and needs to be updated sometimes) but the hilt/barrel should be upgraded regularly.

There is a slave girl outfit you can buy at social II (I think) on Nar Shaddaa Lower Promenade cantina.

1. I think you can need on schematic if you can use it on the toon you are on. Crafting materials is a bit different thing, usually the polite thing is to greed but I always wait until others have rolled to see if someone rolled need (and in pugs someone always does). 2. Greed on those IMO, although I am not 100% sure what you mean with this. Do you mean items that come from boxes in the world? Usually greed on those items unless it's a clear upgrade for your current character (for companions = greed). 3. Sure you can greed everything, it gives everyone a fair chance to win. Pass is only if you really don't want something, even for selling.

If you get separated on a planet, you can indeed see the other group member(s) on map. I'm not sure I understood you first question though: you don't need to go on other players ship, other than for class missions that are in special locations (= not on planets). You can always use your own ship and travel that way. When you land on a planet, the game automatically puts you in same instance if there is more than one.

There is an utilities vendor (a twi'lek) close to the droids selling stuff for prefabs.

Not entirely true: at least the Thana Vesh set got opened to me via collections when I bought it from the cartel vendor (you need to buy the whole set obviously).

The one you can get from bounty hunter event is pretty nice too and probably a bit cheaper to buy unless they made the legacy level based set cheaper. Also the event set is nice because it's not class-based so any character can equip the armor without having to rip the mods off. And you don't need certain legacy level for it. How to get it? About once every month there is a bounty hunting event up. You participate by doing bounties that you can get from the Cartel Bazaar area in the fleet. You can do one bounty per day per character but if you got alts at Coruscant/Dromund Kaas level (I think... I don't have any toons that low level anymore) you can use those as well. Doing the bounties every day for the week the event is up should get you to newcomer and that's the reputation level required for the first legacy bound set. Someone with better knowledge of the event can correct me here, I didn't really bother with it.

I can't answer all your questions (because I don't play on US server for one) but will try to answer some of them. 1) Paying sub opens up all content now since you get RotHC for free with sub now. Also the upcoming expansion is free. All coins buy you is stuff you could buy for credits (like inventory unlocks and the like). The credit cost can be quite high though in some cases. 3) Both are fine tbh. Operative and Marauder are a bit more complex than juggernaut and sniper (IMO obviously) but it's nothing too difficult since warrior gets their healing companion fairly early and operative gets stealth that helps to bypass some stuff. 4) The best gear is earned/bought. You can craft some gear but it is either expensive to make (and atm you can't craft even close to the best stuff) or just not worth it. The good side however is that commendations are pretty easy to get so you can gear up fast enough once you hit 55. Upto lvl 55 the cybertech crafted gear is nice for the moddable stuff though and at least on my server the lower level armorings make me some money. As for which profession to get: biochem is good for the reusable stims, medpacs and adrenals (even if you make a healer those are useful... all my raiding toons are biochemists). Cybertech is nice for the armorings and mods you can make, with the above disclaimer though. The other crafting skills are not really worth it. If you want to make more money I would skip those and grab some gathering skills + maybe slicing instead. 5) Never played KOTOR 2 so can't help there. IMO the game isn't pay to win... sure you can buy stuff from cartel market, sell it and then buy mods but the gear you buy for credits isn't any better than the gear you can buy for elite comms. And those are easy to get even if you never do anything else than solo and the occasional flashpoint. I keep capping my comms but I do ops as well.

Nope, you don't have to complete that questline.

No, you won't lose the unlocks.

N takes you to crew skills window unless you have changed the keybindings. You can't equip items through that window. You need to press C, select the companion tab at the bottom and then put the items on.

Those items are only useable by Vette, you can't equip them. You can put them on Vette by going to your character sheet (click c) and then putting the outfit on Vette just like you would equip items on your own character either dragging them to the right slot or right clicking them item... it goes straigth to the right slot.