From what I've read it's not profitable to send companions on missions for gathering skills to make money - net loss over time.

 

Can it be profitable to send companions on missions for mission skills and sell the items on the GTN?

 

Also, if it is.. is there any reason to take more than one mission skill for profit? As in, you can send all five companions (once you get them) on separate missions for one mission skill - such as Underworld Trading, correct?

 

I'm planning on playing multiple characters up and I can see the benefit of taking mission skills if this is the case.

 

Also, am I correct that you can no longer make profit on slicing missions?

 

 

Thanks!

-Ebilwon

I can speak to slicing as I used that in the last Beta Build.

 

Slicing missions can net you a profit, especially if your companion has a critical success on the mission.

 

I found the higher level ones gave you a marginal profit, and sometimes the lower level ones gave you a marginal loss.

 

However each time your crew comes back from a mission your slicing level goes up -- a high slicing skill allows you to slice high level slicing nodes which is just pure profit.

 

Of course I can only speak to how it was in the beta as I probably won't get early access for another couple of days.

 

Alodar

Slicing won't show much of a short term return but once you level it up you can still profit quite nicely from it from both the credits and the loot. Expect to lose money when first leveling though.

If you are basing any of your profit projections based on the Beta economy then stop.

 

When people play Beta you have one of two mindsets:

 

1. "Don't spend my credits on the GTN or don't bother with improving my character." - This is due to a number of reasons, the main one being the characters could be wiped at any time, so why bother spend credits or wasting time looking for upgrades when you can just level and do flashpoints and collect all the upgrades you need.

 

2. "Spend all my credits because I have nothing to save for." - This is due to a number of reasons, the main one being the characters could be wiped at any time, so why bother saving for anything, you cant take it with you if you dont spend it.

 

Also, populations on Beta servers were much smaller than acutal live servers, severely limiting the potential for these markets.

 

The bottom line is, wait until a week or two after launch, let the servers fill up, and let people revert to their normal MMO spending before deciding how cost effective these missions may turn out to be.

I don't understand companion missions at all. I have heard of companions gathering while the player is gathering.

 

I don't understand how to make him go on a mission, I trained him for 2 gathering skills but I was on the space station still (I imagine thats why I coudln't figure out how to send him out gathering) But how can you lose money? Does it cost money to send him out?

Personally i'd send companions to gathering mission in order to get my gathering to point where i can gather in next planet easily, then put them to crafting until i can't get crafting skill ups (reverse engineer and make more of an item i really want an upgrade of), and then send them again to gathering.

 

sure, not huge profit machine, but it gets you to high crafting with minimal effort and you can sell extra mats (and you will get extra mats if you gather every node you find if beta is to be believed).

 

Profits are for when you can make something people are willing to pay for.

For what it's worth:

 

If you're thinking about going Artifice or Synthweaving for your crafting skill, then go Archeology, Scavenging, and Bioanalysis to start.

 

Any other crafting skill go Slicing/Scavenging/Bioanalysis.

 

Here's my theory:

 

Gathering in the field costs NOTHING. The more you explore planets, the more free materials you are going to come across just lying around the battlefield. You can only aquire these goodies if you have the proper gathering skill. This combo covers most of your bases.

 

You end up with gobs of materials. Some will be related to the crafting skill you'll eventually select. Some of it won't be. You can sell that on the Galactic Trade Network for a tidy profit. You can also drop that gathering skill, and then pickup your crafting skill of choice.

 

To determine if you have enough material on-hand to level your crafting skill from 1 to 400, use this spreadsheet:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=5432

 

You may find you have some excess, or some material you don't need at all. Again, you can sell this on the GTN for profit.

 

In the end you'll end up with a mission skill, crafting skill, and a gathering skill that will become your bread and butter.

 

But while you're leveling up it MAY be better to play it cheap, collect materials for free and get credits for them until you have a better idea which crafting direction you wish to pursue.

I don't understand companion missions at all. I have heard of companions gathering while the player is gathering.

 

I don't understand how to make him go on a mission, I trained him for 2 gathering skills but I was on the space station still (I imagine thats why I coudln't figure out how to send him out gathering) But how can you lose money? Does it cost money to send him out?

 

Yes, each mission you send your companion on costs money. In beta, the early missions cost 95 to 135 credits IIRC. To send your pet on a mission, click on the crew pane icon (the gem looking one on the top of your UI). From there, you should be able to figure it out.

If you are going to level up your crew skills anyways, you can do one of two things. You can craft all your mats in the hopes of learning blues/purples for yourself....or you can only level your craft with the cheapest recipes and sell the rest of the mats.

 

If you sell the rest of your mats, you CAN earn a profit. There will be those that want to learn many blue/purple recipes for themselves, their guildmates and to sell on the GTN. These people will need LOTS of blue mats, thus you can make money selling these mats, and the purple ones as well, but perhaps not as much.

 

The blue mats, they need to burn through in the hopes of learning the purple. These will fetch the highest price right now, and eventually we will start to see the price normalize as people catch on and bring competition to the market.

 

Those that do learn the purple recipes will not likely earn enough profit right away to cover the cost of all those mats, but they can supply the best gear for themselves and their friends for that level. They will also be able to sell the purples, but at a price that won't make their money back until they sell quite a few over time.

 

Unless youre getting mats from friends, it may be best not to try to learn purples, as you may not have enough for speederbike training at 25. (~40k).

 

As your crew skills enter the higher levels, you can then go back to the lower level mission skills to get the mats for lower level crafts with higher efficiency (and relatively cheaper). You can then learn the purples to sell on the GTN, without incurring so much of a loss.

I'm mostly wavering between a few options.

1x Production 1x Gathering 1x Mission

2x Gathering 1x Mission

3x Gathering

 

 

Since I plan on maxing multiple characters eventually I lean towards having at least one mission skill so that I can hop on my alts and send out companions on the long ~24 hour missions once every day at try to make a profit on those characters while I'm not even playing on them.

 

I don't particularly care if I have a production skill or not - though I suppose it can be more fun sometimes. At the same time in most MMORPG's crafting is more of a money sink than it is a money maker and more work than it's worth, leaving the gathering skills to make more profit over time (though somewhat boring to run around gathering mats for hours straight).