Great guide, very helpful!

 

Wouldn't you recommend sith warrior for synthweaving, because of Jasea's +5 crit. Isn't critical crafting the only way to get the 'mastercrafted' pieces (therefore making it more important than efficiency in the long run)?

 

Also, no companions have a crit on artificing? That would come in handy for mastercrafting lightsabers (although I haven't gotten that far yet on artificing, so I don't know for sure it works that way).

 

There are no craftable lightsabers except in very special conditions at the end of the game, so I guess they figured it was meaningless. I'm inclined to agree. Either way there are no companions that crit it, nor are there any that crit cybertech.

 

The +5 crit on synthweaving is definitely worth considering, some of the things people have been saying is definitely worth noting. The crit does make a big difference and would make it not such a bad choice. I'll get back to you on this.

Update on the Guide

 

I've done some thinking, and I consider slicing a viable alternative to underworld trading for cybertech.

 

Cybertech only uses underworld trading for metal, and would be forced to sell or overlook bountiful and rich yields on cloth.

 

Slicing provides credits (you can argue the value of this), but it specifically provides cybertech schematics which I had not considered. This makes it more useful to it than initially.

 

I am going to go over my guide after this and edit some things.

 

First of all, I am going to change all profiteering to include the 3 highest yielding gathering/mission skills (not slicing + whatever + whatever), and I am going to include slicing as an alternative to underworld trading for cybertech should the player consider that viable.

 

This is going to mix up the ratings a bit, so help me watch for mistakes and typos.

 

Other plans:

 

Color coding the guide. I am not sure how or what I will do here, but I am thinking of highlighting efficiency and critical bonuses in different colors. What else I will do is undecided.

 

Offering an additional chart to show all of the crit bonuses, since some players prefer these (and I am now convinced +crit on crafting is undeniably better).

 

I am also considering giving +5 crit a 4 rating as opposed to 3, because it's just too big a bonus to overlook. Give me your opinion on this.

 

If you guys have any more suggestions, related to this or otherwise, I'd love to hear it. Help me make this guide as great as I can!

Edited January 12, 2012 by TheRealBowser

Excellent guide!

 

Regarding slicing you might want to take into account the fact that it provides crafting missions for all the other professions (besides the cybertech schematics) which can be sold for a pretty penny.

 

The cybertech schematics (as is now implemented) are not that valuable because there are only VERY few and the GTN is flooded with them for very cheap. The crafting missions you crit with slicing are more valuable.

Excellent guide!

 

Regarding slicing you might want to take into account the fact that it provides crafting missions for all the other professions (besides the cybertech schematics) which can be sold for a pretty penny.

 

The cybertech schematics (as is now implemented) are not that valuable because there are only VERY few and the GTN is flooded with them for very cheap. The crafting missions you crit with slicing are more valuable.

 

You're probably right but nonetheless it gives you cybertech schematics and cybertech only uses half of the underworld trading. I consider that good enough to have slicing as a viable alternative.

+Crit is far better than +Eff for crafting as it gives you better/more stuff on a crit, eff just means less time taken.

 

As such I would of put Smugglers a head of Troopers for Armstech more Crits better than faster crafting.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Kotli

Hi, thanks for the guide. It's really helped me plan out my characters. I've dedicated a server to the empire and one to the republic letting me cover all the crafting skills and utilizing the best crafting bonuses for each class. I chose the crit bonuses over efficiency in the 4 non bulk crafting skills as seemed sensible, and I chose 2 mission skills to go with slicing as per your suggestion. And in the end I found things to work out nicely with 2 of each class covering all my crafting needs and allowing me to try all 8 advanced classes to each side. Thanks again!

 

Empire

 

Artifice - sith inquisitor - 15 eff, 5 crit arch, 5 eff treasure

Synthweaving - sith warrior - 5 crit, 5 eff arch, 5 eff under

Armstech - bounty hunter - 1 crit, 10 eff scav, 10 eff under

Armortech - Imperial agent - 2 crit, 10 eff scav, 2 crit under

Cybertech - sith warrior - 10 eff, 10 eff scav, 5 eff under

Biochem - Imperial agent - 15 eff, 5 eff bioanalysis, 5 crit diplo

Slicing - bounty hunter - 15 eff, 2 crit treasure, 10 eff under

Slicing - sith inquisitor - 2 crit , 5 eff treas, 2 crit under

 

Republic

 

Artifice - Jedi Consular - 15 eff, 15 eff treasure

Synthweaving - Jedi Knight - 5 crit, 10 eff arch, 5 eff under

Armstech - Smuggler - 5 crit, 10 eff scav

Armortech - Trooper - 5 crit, 5 crit scav, 1 crit under

Cybertech - Smuggler - 10 eff, 10 eff scav, 5 eff under

Biochem - Trooper - 10 eff, 10 eff bioanalysis, 2 crit diplo

Slicing - Jedi Consular - 10 eff, 15 eff treasure, 1 crit under

Slicing - Jedi Knight - 2 crit, 5 eff under, 1 crit treasure

+Crit is far better than +Eff for crafting as it gives you better/more stuff on a crit, eff just means less time taken.

 

As such I would of put Smugglers a head of Troopers for Armstech more Crits better than faster crafting.

 

I agree especially with crafting armor & weapons.

You receive exceptional or mastercraft items only on a successful critical roll. Considering how low the base change is, it seems a +5 crit bonus already doubles your chance.

Usually you only care about mastercraft items once you unlocked high end artifact equipment which are very expensive to craft. A +5 crit bonus becomes mandatory to conserve nerves and resources. Otherwise you are just throwing away lots of money, blue and purple mats. It even worse when crafting items with resources only acquired in hard mode flashpoints.

However I'm unsure if a crit bonus also increase your chances when reverse engineering.

 

For scavenging I find a high efficiency bonus more beneficial than a crit bonus.

If you are crafting a lot because of reverse engineering to unlock schematics you have a high demand inmaterials. High end stuff obviously requires high end mats obtained by high level scavenging mission that takes a really long time to finish. When a mission takes 40 minutes +15 eff beats +5 crit by a mile.

If you are going for pure resource gathering I recommend to prefer high eff. If your focus is on schematics, missions plans, slicing etc. crit bonuses precedence.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Dragoon-

Huzzah finally got stickied. And I have to agree that crit is much better than eff in all cases other than when crafting mods,hilts, enhancesments, and that stuff. Only reason is that they can't crit. At one point in beta they could and you'd end up with two but im 99% sure that has been removed sadly.

Awesome Guide. Thank you for putting the time on this. Just what I was looking for! Kudos!

Just wanted to thank you.

Why are you assuming that buffs from multiple companions stack? It makes more sense that the only buffs that apply are the ones related to the companion you assign the task to. The companion does all the work, not you. Edited January 15, 2012 by Nickter

Why are you assuming that buffs from multiple companions stack? It makes more sense that the only buffs that apply are the ones related to the companion you assign the task to. The companion does all the work, not you.

 

I don't really understand what you are asking.

I just updated the guide! I hope you find the additions useful.

 

I've put my current thoughts into this (particularly about critical crafting), and I've also added colored text and critical crafting (not gathering or missions) charts at the end of the summaries.

Why are you assuming that buffs from multiple companions stack? It makes more sense that the only buffs that apply are the ones related to the companion you assign the task to. The companion does all the work, not you.

 

Where is that mentioned, can you quote it? Maybe you got confused with something you read somewhere else?

 

 

Edit:

I just updated the guide! I hope you find the additions useful.

 

I've put my current thoughts into this (particularly about critical crafting), and I've also added colored text and critical crafting (not gathering or missions) charts at the end of the summaries.

 

 

I like the improvements. Btw I think you forgot the add the +2 crit bonus in diplomacy of the trooper Companion or mixed it up with +2 treasure hunting.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Dragoon-

I like the improvements. Btw I think you forgot the add the +2 crit bonus in diplomacy of the trooper Companion or mixed it up with +2 treasure hunting.

 

Where's this? I'm pretty sure Arik is listed as +2 crit diplomacy, and there are no treasure hunting bonuses whatsoever.

 

Thanks, by the way!

Edited January 15, 2012 by TheRealBowser

Where's this? I'm pretty sure Arik is listed as +2 crit diplomacy, and there are no treasure hunting bonuses whatsoever.

 

Thanks, by the way!

 

e. Republic Side Summary

 

Best at crew skill combos:

 

Artifice: Jedi Consular (6)

Synthweaving: Jedi Knight & Jedi Consular (6)

Armstech: Trooper (7)

Armormech: Trooper (7)

Biochem: Trooper (6)

Cybertech: Jedi Consular & Trooper (6)

Profit: Trooper (7)

 

Best at Crew Skills:

 

Artifice: Jedi Knight (+10 eff) (only option)

Synthweaving: Jedi Knight (+5 crit)

Armstech: Smuggler (+5 crit)

Armormech: Trooper (+5 crit)

Cybertech: Jedi Consular (+10 eff) and Smuggler (+10 eff)

Biochem: Jedi Knight (+5 crit)

Archeology: Jedi Consular (+15 eff)

Scavenging: Trooper (+5 crit)

Bioanalysis: Jedi Knight (+10 eff), Trooper (+10 eff), & Smuggler (+2 crit)

Slicing: Jedi Knight (+2 crit), Jedi Consular (+10 eff), & Trooper (+10 eff)

Treasure Hunting: Trooper (+2 crit)

Underworld Trading: Jedi Knight (+5 eff), Jedi Consular (+1 crit), Trooper (+1 crit), & Smuggler (+5 eff)

Investigation: Trooper (+10 eff)

Diplomacy: Smuggler (+15 eff)

 

Under e. Republic Side Summary it list the trooper for treasure hunting.As you noticed yourself non of the Trooper companions have any bonus at all for treasure hunting.

Thought you mixed it up with Aric Jorgan +2 crit diplomacy. Which I suggest you should add to the side summary.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Dragoon-

As a Vanguard i took armormech. Recently i was doing some Flux quests just thinking it was cheaper. Conductive flux sells so 10 creds, my scav had me pay 215 creds (i think) I got 15 flux three times doibg this, that is not cheaper.

 

The next lvl flux is 50 creds per, i did a few quests of them.. missions went for500ish creds, i got 6 to 8. I will recheck tonight when i get home but i think its just cheaper to buy in bulk than mission for the flux.

Under e. Republic Side Summary it list the trooper for treasure hunting.As you noticed yourself non of the Trooper companions have any bonus at all for treasure hunting.

Thought you mixed it up with Aric Jorgan +2 crit diplomacy. Which I suggest you should add to the side summary.

 

I think you're right, thanks for pointing that out. I'm gonna go check now.

 

I can't imagine why I made this error. Either way it let me edit that the Jedi Consular was by far better. I think I meant to say that the smuggler was +2 crit, but that wasn't the best either. Either way I appreciate that you pointed this out, thanks!

Edited January 15, 2012 by TheRealBowser
Message after I editted my mistake

As a Vanguard i took armormech. Recently i was doing some Flux quests just thinking it was cheaper. Conductive flux sells so 10 creds, my scav had me pay 215 creds (i think) I got 15 flux three times doibg this, that is not cheaper.

 

The next lvl flux is 50 creds per, i did a few quests of them.. missions went for500ish creds, i got 6 to 8. I will recheck tonight when i get home but i think its just cheaper to buy in bulk than mission for the flux.

 

I'm not sure what this is in response to but my opinion is to only take rich missions for vendor bought items, if at all. I haven't measured whether they are worth it but they appear to be. Still, it's time spent for a slight discount when you could be getting better materials.

 

Edit: Also, I think you should not bother with the earlier vendor bought materials because they cost pennies. Whether you do it for bulk missions of rich yield items that cost 250+ credits per item is up to the individual.

Edited January 15, 2012 by TheRealBowser

very nice guide, thanks for doing this

very nice guide, thanks for doing this

 

Same, Great guide bro!

 

Keep it up.

I could definitely go for a sticky on this!

 

I've got exactly 6 characters on each side specifically so I can have all of the crafts covered.

 

Since I'm having so many crafting alts, though, I'm kind of thinking of gaming the system a bit and having characters that are exceptionally good at gathering/mission skills do those exclusively, then feeding the finished bits to those that are exceptionally good at pure crafting.

 

Actually, I'm totally going to do that now. This guide is awesome!

 

I was actualy thinking of something along this line with pure gatherers thrown in. I don't want all the crafting skills so I was thinking about picking 3 or 4 crafters and have them do all the missions for rares. For my other alts, I want to go pure node gatherers. Seems to me that I often see nodes clustered, especially Bioanalysis, Archeology, and Scavenging. I think this might save lots of time especially when running quests.

 

Anyone care to post any recommendations for this scenario?

Edited January 16, 2012 by Owsley

Thanks so much for this guide! This is my first playthrough as a Consular sage, and I had no clue as to how to pick crew skills. I had picked up scavenging, armortech, and treasure hunting, then switched to bioanalysis and biochem but the items crafted seemed irrelevant to what I needed. I guess Qyzen gets to be retrained (again!)

Forgive my ignorance, but when weighing which class/companion are best suited for a particular crewskill(s) shouldn't critical be of far more importance than efficiency? Especially in the case of crewskills that follow a non linear model of reverse engineering ie..arms/armor/synth

 

As I understand it, efficiency only effects the length of time it takes to produce/retrieve "X" item/material. Whereas +critical can potentially effect the actual return of the item or material. Now I realize that endgame patterns and missions take a fair bit of time, but the end result is the same.

 

It seems to me, if for example I need to send a crew member out to craft an epic pattern piece of armor that was going to take 2 hours to craft and I had a choice between getting the item back in 1h 45mins or +5 critical chance, personally I would prefer the crit chance as it potentially can effect the end result of the finial item.

 

One place I could potentially see the benefit of a +efficiency is a profession like Biochem where you would be more likely to mass produce stims and medpacs for your own consumption, but to that end the epic version of all those patterns are not consumed on use. So who knows....

 

Just my two cents...

Man... I love this guide but now it makes me a bit sad that the Empire got screwed on crafting crit chance...

 

Reps get +5 on the 4 crafting skills that have a crit... Imps get +5 on 1 of them. Ouch.

 

Regardless, great guide and very helpful if not a little depressing