Currently Empire has one Companion with a crafting crit +5 (Jaesa, synthweaving)

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/empirecraftingbonuses.jpg

 

Republic however, has 4:

Corso: +5 Armstech crit

Tanno: +5 Armormech crit

Doc: +5 Biochem crit

Kira: +5 Synthweaving crit

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/republiccraftingbonuses.jpg

 

Why no love for the Empire BW?

 

Also, many of the droid sensors are fairly gimp without a crafting crit mod at all..

 

Medical Droid Sensor

+10 Biochem Efficiency

+2 Diplomacy Critical

 

Scout Droid Sensor

+10 Artifice Efficiency

+2 Treasure Hunting Critical

 

Security Droid Sensor

+10 Armormech Efficiency

+2 Underworld Trading Critical

agreed.

 

 

+crit crafting isn't "flavor". It's end-game. it's permanent. it's forever.

Also agreed.

 

And as far as flavor or "realism" goes. Which makes more sense? Two crew skill bonuses that each companion apparently had with them from birth. Or one preset crew skill bonus, which is more or less their "natural talent", and another bonus chosen based on the crew skills the companion actually uses that also scales with level.

 

Say for example I have a bounty hunter with armstech, scavenging, and investigation. Mako starts with her +15 slicing bonus, and then I choose armstech crit as her second bonus. At 0 skill she has +1, at 80 skill she has +2, etc. up to 320 where she has the full +5 bonus, and for efficiancy bonuses it would go in increments of 3.

 

This way Bioware keeps their preset background story vibe for companions, but still allow us to customize them in a way that makes perfect sense.

Also agreed.

 

And as far as flavor or "realism" goes. Which makes more sense? Two crew skill bonuses that each companion apparently had with them from birth. Or one preset crew skill bonus, which is more or less their "natural talent", and another bonus chosen based on the crew skills the companion actually uses that also scales with level.

 

Say for example I have a bounty hunter with armstech, scavenging, and investigation. Mako starts with her +15 slicing bonus, and then I choose armstech crit as her second bonus. At 0 skill she has +1, at 80 skill she has +2, etc. up to 320 where she has the full +5 bonus, and for efficiancy bonuses it would go in increments of 3.

 

This way Bioware keeps their preset background story vibe for companions, but still allow us to customize them in a way that makes perfect sense.

 

So are you saying each companion would have to reach 320 seperately for the max bonus on their second skill? You would then have the ability to get a +5 crit for each of your three skills (Mako for arms tech, companion 2 for scavenging, companion 3 investigation)

The OP has a point, up to a point. Just to play devil's advocate and look at things in a slightly different light, here's a thought: The OP's complaint is based upon the assumption that crit bonuses to crafting skills are by far the most desirable bonuses, and that +5 is by far the most desirable of these. Largely I agree with him, except this: 1.3 will introduce the ability to craft augment slots for any item, the new augment kits. IMO, an overlooked effect of this change is that crit crafting bonuses will no longer be the most important, since any item can be augmented after the fact. Yes, the cost of doing so may turn out to be significant, but we don't yet know exactly where that's going to shake out yet, and I'd argue the fact it can be done at all has to significantly impact crit crafting's primacy as the most desirable bonus. If one can augment any piece of gear after the fact, then which bonuses are now the most valuable? IMO, augment kits should shift that honor to mission skill crit bonuses, which up the rate at which one gets purple mats, something very relevant to endgame crafting.

 

If this is the case, then it turns out empire side has two +5 bonuses of this type: Vette's Treasure Hunting and Vector Hyllus's Diplomacy Crit, to none on the Republic side. Moreover, Empire side has 4 companions with +2 mission crit bonuses while Republic side has only two, both Diplomacy. Looking at the overall big picture, Empire side has at least a +2 or better crit bonus for each of the 4 mission skills, while Republic can only crit Diplomacy at +2, and nothing else. As a side note that is perhaps a subtle indicator of how important the devs may feel mission skill crit bonuses are,since they increase the supply of rare mats, none of the purchasable droid sensors provide a +5 mission skill crit bonus, but 3 different +2 bonuses can be purchased, investigation being the only odd man out.

 

A further observation might be that perhaps an argument could be put forward that Diplomacy crits are less important than the other 3, since alone amongst the crafting skills, endgame crafting for Biochem relies heavily on blue mats rather than purple. Going back to the only two +5 mission skill crit bonuses in the game, one of them just happens to be for diplomacy, which leaves me at the interesting place of suggesting that perhaps Vette's Treasure Hunting bonus might be the single most valuable comp crafting bonus in the game, made all the moreso by the fact it comes on an intial companion and is therefore easy to access early and often.

 

As to where this leaves the notion of faction balance when it comes to crafting, as someone who feels neutral in the sense that I play both republic and imperial toons with equal enthusiasm, I'm inclined to say Republic has the advantage in crafting bonuses, Imperial has the advantage in mission skill bonuses, shrug my shoulders and declare it all comes out in the wash. Thoughts?

Edited June 20, 2012 by HumanPirhana

Crit crafting may still be top if...

When crafting an augment kit a crit will give you 2 items for the mats of one. I imagine the top level augment kits will fetch a nice price and if you get 2 for the price/mats of 1 there is tidy profit to be had.

 

I'm primarily a Republic player and 4 of my 6 crafters are "pubs" exception being Cybertech and Synthweaving is done by imperial characters. I think both factions and all classes have advantages that, in the end, balnce each other out.

I think it was made this way as a poorly thought-out & badly realised attempt to counteract the imbalance between factions, perhaps to encourage players to have 4 Republic characters & 4 Imperial Empire characters.

 

I think 1.3 with the changes to Augment slot creation will negate the bulk of the bias, though a tiny benefit will remain, with the occasional "free" augment slot creation occurring slightly more frequenty for Republic toons, no big deal in my view.

I really don't think there's any kind of bias going on, it was just a lack of forethought before assigning skill traits to companions. Something that probably should have been addressed in beta, but no one bothered.