I'm sure that most of this is a "DUH!" to the more experienced players, but...

I've been playing the game since beta and there IS a formula to have an enjoyable experience without dying every 20 minutes... I personally play it solo.. I only use groups when i have to do Heroics and Flashpoints/Operations. If you want to play it with buddies, go for it.. I'm sure it's great that way too..Here are some tips I've discovered from personal experience for the new solo player...

Pick a class you like and learn your class abilities... Study it, memorize it, live it, breathe it... There are so many guides on the forums here and other sites.. Youtube has lots of video footage of the class in action... Know what abilities your companions can do and take advantage of this..

Get your self a set of Orange equipment as soon as you're able. There are PLENTY of styles out there... These are modable through out the game..Don't worry about PVP equipment (if you're into that) until the higher levels (45-55) You can get the mods with planetary coms at the Fleet.. Use the Collections in the Cartel Market to your advantage.. Buy them with Cartel Coins. When you hit the appropriate level you can get your equipment over & over again for alt toons and not spend anything on new stuff (unless you WANT new stuff..) Get weapons, armor, rides and account unlocks through there also..

Stay ahead of the leveling curve... I found out being 5-8 levels above where I'm supposed to be makes it INCREDIBLY easier to play. This means keeping up with equipment too!! the only thing I've had trouble with are the Heroics.. Play EVERY mission you can, including Flashpoints and Operations.. According to some people you should be able to make 3million credits (maybe more) by level 55... This is completely plausible if you don't spend credits on unnecessary stuff.. there is also a way to make credits in the game regularly...

To make credits in the game take advantage of the item crafting and the GTN... it takes a bit of a knack to try and get the hang of it but it DOES work.. Craft items that are needed and sell them on the Galactic Trade Network. This is the lifeblood of the game's economy. Some people will tell you that it will make millions of credits, some people will say that it doesn't work... there are guides on YouTube to help with this.

Unlock as much as you can in the Account Legacy Unlocks.. You may have to invest a bit of real cash for Cartel Coins to do this, but it is WELL worth it.. The cool thing about it is that no matter how many toons you make they will ALWAYS be there when you reach the appropriate levels. .Unlock the Legacy companions (Treek and HK-51).. they will be VERY helpful. Unlock the Starship unlocks (mail, repair and GTN and if you're in a guild Guild Bank).. Unlock the alignments to get your alignment buffs.. Get yourself a holographic statue trainer from the GTN when you're able. This will help you engage your available level skills.

There is SO much to do in this game, it'll take a good while, if you want to enjoy the experience and not power level and be a content leech.. Post-55 cap you can do dailies, do Legacy achievements, PVP, Galactic Starfighter Flashpoints/Operations... If you are achievement minded hit up your Legacy and see what needs to be unlocked... There's ALOT!! I personally like going back to planets I already did, at a higher level, and completing planetary maps and doing all of the Heroics and Flashpoints (story mode) solo... If you're a high enough level (Level 55) you can run everything solo with no companion. some people have run the Flashpoints in Hard Mode solo also. I haven't actually done this..

One last tip... don't fast forward through the cut scenes anywhere if you haven't seen it the first couple of run throughs. This is particularly relevant for Flashpoints and Operations. getting the story behind the mission you're going to run is more enjoyable than going through something as fast as you can. If you run something more than twice, then go ahead. But remember, there are people that haven't seen the clips too.

Please feel free to add tips..

30 mil by lvl 55?

Hmm... Maybe farm every daily every day for a few months before you hit 55? Use the GTN loads? Otherwise no.

30 mil by lvl 55?

 

Hmm... Maybe farm every daily every day for a few months before you hit 55? Use the GTN loads? Otherwise no.

Agreed. More like 3 million

30 mil by lvl 55?

 

Hmm... Maybe farm every daily every day for a few months before you hit 55? Use the GTN loads? Otherwise no.

Agreed.

I recently leveled a new self-sufficient toon (i.e. no support from alts). I picked three of the "money making" crew skills -- Scavenging, Slicing and Underworld Trading.

I gathered every open world node within reach, had every available companion running UT missions at all times, and sold everything I got on the GTN. Between level 10 and 53, I made approximately 4.5 million credits. The bulk of the money was from the weirdly rare mid-level scavenging mats (e.g. Electrum) and UT materials.

I would say that 3-6 million this way is feasible. 30 million (as the OP suggests) would not be, unless you spent a lot of time actually working the GTN (buying and selling) instead of leveling.

As someone who came to the game very late, as the game was mature, I think a lot of things that seem 'obvious' to an early adopter, is different for someone who just starts up.

GTN pricing depends very much on the server. The servers with old and established populations with a high % of subscribers will not be in a hurry to buy your crafting. Everybody already got their own 6 crafters they can load whatever they need.

Loading Green Items on GTN is basically a waste of time, apart in the week or so preceding the 2xXP. You will spend more time loading and reloading it on the GTN than anything else. Unless you like having 20 pieces of 'Listing Expired' in your mailbox. My rule of thumb - if it doesn't sell on one round at 50% of the suggested price - treat as junk, sell to the vendor.

The Raw Mats pricing, like any Raw Mats on any market is unstable and volatile. For example, on my Server, the Therenthium and Laminoid Prices are 2-4x higher than the higher end Metals (in other words, a Terethium or Laminoid sheet will go for 800-1000 creds, while Xonolithe or Titanium - for 250-350 a sheet). Laminoid trap is horrid in this game, because you need it to craft the Level 13, Level 15 when people normally start crafting, and Laminoid and Aluminium are rare, plus missions are weighed towards Silica. BUT! Ever since the Nightlife event, the markets collapsed, because people started selling the stacks. I can see the same people listing 10-20 sets of rare mats. As a new player with a low amount of credits per character, it is hard to play the pricing war.

It takes credits to make credits on the GTN (duh!).

Crafting is a horrible gamble, because there are virtually no items you can sell infinite quantities of. You can maybe sell 5 or so of the same item. If you price it right.

I think it is actually easier to equip via planetary comms and materials farming rather than try to stay on top of the crafting game. Which means revisiting planets once you overlevel them by a good 10-15 levels and doing a few rounds of heroics and gathering. While at it, have whatever companion you want to gain APs and save on presents.

It's a real boring way to do it, but I think I am about to engage into it, because otherwise, I have no clue how to correct my credits shortages.

My biggest advice is to start this game thinking in terms of Legacy, rather than a single character. Running at least a Cybertech, Artificer and Armstech in parallel imo is a good idea, as between the crafts and the comms, equipment will be Okay.

Understanding RE (for about 1-2 months I had no clue one has to RE to get schematics) and the simple math (such as it costs LESS to get a companion to 4000 AP with Level 1 Green gifts than using Level 2 or blue gifts) will help as well. Always run the cheapest gift missions ONLY because the pricing does not correspond to the AP return, and companions often run crits and bring a better gift back anyway for the same 95 creds.

Splitting the companion achievements between an LS/DS or Male/Female version of the same toon will be helpful as well, particularly for characters like Risha, Quinn and Ashara who do not have gifts they love unless they bed the PC.

Normally, it is a wise investment to get the companion's AP to 4,000 with green L1 gifts, then see how naturally the Approval come to the companion. If it is hard, add gifts to 6000... Treasure Hunting will net a lot of L5 Gift pieces, so it is the dire stretch between 4000 and 8000 that you want to cover by the convos.

And yes, the APS are important as it milks a LOT of bonuses.

30 mil by lvl 55?

 

Hmm... Maybe farm every daily every day for a few months before you hit 55? Use the GTN loads? Otherwise no.

/shrug

Made my first 10 million before I even hit level 20...

Guess you guys are just doing it wrong

/shrug

Made my first 10 million before I even hit level 20...

 

Guess you guys are just doing it wrong

Was this on your first toon? Did you spend time working the GTN? How much time did it take?

One of my early crafting alts has sat on the Imperial fleet (at level 12) for about 52 hours of in-game time (according to /played) and has made me quite the tidy sum of money over a 2 year period. But it would be somewhat disingenuous to say "I made x millions before I even hit level 13".

Just sayin'

I made a million around level 20 on the Progenitor when I first started a new character on that server, yeah. On my main server, I wasted millions and millions buying 168 armorings and mods(and then 180 armorings came out! argh! don't repeat my mistake, people!), but I still have close to 30 million.

You can make money. Some peope make it fast, I personally take it slow(and believe me, I wish I knew of a faster way, myahaha!). Just be prepared that

1) people will outbid you;

2) people will continue outbidding you;

3) you'll have to spend about twenty-thirty minutes on GTN every day.

Unfortunately, quite a few people don't know or follow some simple rules:

1) do not set your price too low. If you're selling a crafted item, and the raw mats for this item cost 8K on GTN, don't sell it for 9K, sell it for 19K! Otherwise you're cheating yourself and dropping the market value.

2) If you priced your item for 19k, and some other player priced the same item at 18.999, don't set your price to 17K! Set it to 18.998, or something close to it. Otherwise the prices will drop really fast.

I don't know. The ability to make Credits in this game always eludes me. I am going to scavange for mats on low level planets now, because I simply have no idea what else to do to get any kind of credits. Nothing really sells. If I add up all my purchases in the past 4 or so months I made at most 3 mils between my 3 elder toons (Lvl 50, 48 and 39) with Cybertech, Artifice and Armstech and that 3 mils includes the adventuring. And some 6 of the ones that are now at level 19-22.

I made the following mistakes:

-I never played with the character who had UWT & therefore never had access to metals on the Cybertech;

-I did not understand RE for about 2 months and used all greens;

-I changed crafting skills a few times on the first three toons having to build them up;

-I did not know about the crystals, so I wasted my time crafting weapon crystals up to about level 31;

-I never did Heroics 4+, Bonus Series and FPs on my first 3 toons

Crafting is a horrible gamble, because there are virtually no items you can sell infinite quantities of.

Like in Real Life. One day all our natural resources of raw materials (ore, for example) have become emnpty, and THEN future generations have to turn towards our current waste. And I predict a much, much, much, much higher recycluing rate than it is today. Our "throwaway society" will be fully gone, because at one point mankind will realize that there is simply npothing to throw away, because "mother nature" has only so much of natural ressources like coal or ore.

But things like recycling of materials aren't yet reflected in *any* game. One day in the future, if future generations might maybe able to run our current games, they will point towards them and say : "They reflect their contemporary society".

DomiSotto;7488356]

Recycle: Legacy Gear shipped around the toons (for the lucky folks who got those pilot suits)

There is more legacy gear than just the pilot sets. There is four vendors (one for each class) on each home planet (Coursant and DK) that have legacy vendors that have legacy gear. There is two sets of orange gear, but I know it requires a set legacy level to get it.