Just wanted to say THANKS to everyone who has contributed a bit of knowledge to this forum. I wish I would've started keeping track of when I started getting really serious about crafting a month ago. I know that I've made at least 6-7 million credits in that time span. I also know that I've only gotten to the tip of the iceberg. The OCD in me wants to start keeping track of how many crew missions I've run, what they cost, and what was returned, as well as then what I've listed and what items have sold for.

I'd like to pay it forward some, even though I know that what I'm about to share might end up impacting my sales negatively. Except for Synthweaving, I'm 400 on the other crafting crew skills with my other toons. Below is what I've learned, but there are always exceptions and your mileage may vary.

1) Cybertech seems (to me) to be the best skill to start off with. Not only for crafting to make credits, but also for making mods, armor, and earpieces for yourself and companions.

Also, think of it this way: Each character and companion needs anywhere from 1-8 armorings and 1-9 mods. So starting off, you might as well craft the items that you (and others) will need the most. Artifice is good for your enhancements, but as others have posted, the color crystal market has been somewhat dilluted with the lvl 10 +41 stat crystals that you can get from cartel packs.

I'm not saying that you can't make money off of implants (2 per character/companion), hilts (1-2 per every Force character/character), Offhands (1 per character/companion), and Barrels (1-2 per non-Force character/companion). But with mods and armorings, you're filling a much greater need, and you're selling to the entire fleet (not every character/companion uses an offhand, hilt or barrel).

2) No matter your crafting skill, try to RE blues on everything. Purples are nice, but in many cases you can make more money selling the individual purple mats than the crafted item that uses them. And remember, F2P can not use purples (which lowers your # of potential buyers).

3) Low-level items (9-35) sell like hotcakes. I concentrate on selling only blue items, but when I have had listed green items, they sell just as well (but just not as much money). Also, how many folks are like myself, who get up to around lvl 40 and decide, "I wanna make a <insert-a-class-here>" and start a new character. (I just started a Trooper and just need to start a consular to have one character for each class.) I believe you've got a much higher buying population for characters from lvl 9-35 than you do lvl 36 and higher. (side note: I'd LOVE it if Bioware would share the breakdown of character levels on each server, or at least percentages)

4) If you see someone has listed something on the GTN's ridiculous low default price (or the person has just listed something extremely low): Buy it and re-list it at the appropriate price. I can't tell you how many times I've bought a $1k-$2 enhancement/mod/armoring and turned around and re-listed it and sold it for over $7k.

5) Get those companion affections up to 10k. I believe I read on here that for each 2k of affection adds a +1% crit chance on crew skill missions returning with purple mats.

6) After crafting awhile, you'll notice which materials you routinely run out of. You'll then notice that those mats are usually much more expensive than it would be running a crew skill mission or farming a planet or FP for the mats. I keep a list of certain mats and run through that list anytime I'm at the GTN. Jump on low-priced stacks when it makes sense to do so (i.e. - Doesn't hurt your profit margin too much.)

7) Speaking of farming planets or FP's - For my lvl 50 Guardian who is Biochem, I routinely run out of Genetic Anomaly (level 2 bioanalysis compound). So I go and solo Mandalorian Raiders and within 10 minutes, I've usually got anywhere from 10-20 of them. (At 50, you can pretty much walk by everything. Just make sure you kill all of the strong beasts and harvest them.) And I'm sure there's some low-level Heroics that you can also solo and farm mats that way as well.

8) Except for selling individual purple mats, I'd rather craft and sell items than try to sell individual green and blue mats on the GTN. As stated above, you can usually make more money selling individual purple mats than the item you would craft with them. But with green and blue, it's very rare that I find that selling the individual mats would net me a larger profit than crafting an item with those mats.

But I've read on this forum from many who all they do is sell mats. And that is perfectly fine to do. Different strokes for different folks. But in my mind, crafting a low-level green item with 2-4 Desh and/or Silica and selling it for +$1k is much more fun than selling stacks of 10 Desh for $200 (or whatever the going rate is). Of course, if you're selling individual mats, look for those that are most needed (usually because the scheme requires a greater number of them).

9) Always set your sell time to 1d. Unless you're not going to be logging in for a couple of days, set it to 1d. The market can fluctuate very quickly. Many times, you'll come back and notice that the items that you were initially listing at the lowest price (let's say $8k) are now being sold by other crafters for $5k-$7k, and there are 2-5 pages of items that will need to be sold before they get to yours.

Sometimes I've gotten lucky, and the lower priced ones get sold and no one has listed any cheaper items and mine will eventually get sold. But sometimes the going rate for particularly items will stay low, and you can't make any money if you've reached the max number of GTN slots and prices are too high. So listing at 1 day lets items expire and you can decide if you want to undercut everyone by 1 credit, or if you want to list other items and see if the market goes back to where it originally was when you first listed.

10) Whatever you are crafting, check the GTN for the going rates and inventory. I forget the exact levels, but there are some armorings that use the exact same mats (including the number of those mats). For example, (again...not exactly sure if these were the levels), lvl 17 and lvl 19 armorings have the same recipes. You go out on GTN and see that lvl 17 armorings are selling for $1k-$2k more than lvl 19, and that there is only 2 pages listed (and one page is all purples) for lvl 17 armorings, while there are 5+ pages for lvl 19 armorings. Which do you think you should craft?

11) You don't always have the be the lowest priced. If one item is listed at $7k and then the next 10 items are listed at $10k, I'll usually set mine at $9999k.

12) Ultimately, do what makes you happy (and hopefully a little bit of a profit).

I know some of the things I posted above are common sense to many. But hopefully somebody finds some of this information useful.

I will say that it also helps if you have more than one lvl 50 who might share a gathering crew skill. It's great to be able to send 10 companions on scavenging missions and mailing mats to each other who might need them the most. And the credits won't start rolling in until you're able to be sending 5 companions out either gathering or crafting.

I do not necessarily agree with #1. It depends on play style.

If you do a little bit of everything - solo questing, planet heroics, flashpoints, etc then what you said in #1 makes perfect sense because you will very quickly acquire a lot of orange quality gear and cybertech can fill two of the three slots (armoring and mod).

However, if one tends to solo a LOT (does every quest on every planet, and maybe does a flashpoint once in a while), then I would recommend that one pick up armormech or synthweaving (and the skills to feed them) so you can craft armor you can use.

the reason I say this is because I have played both styles.

When I first started playing SWTOR, the game had been out for a couple of months and by then a lot of players had left and there were a LOT of servers that were ghost towns and there was no group finder feature yet. This basically forced me to play my first character mostly solo. What I discovered is that if I kept my crew skills slightly ahead of my level I was able to RE my way to a purple item that would last me a LONG time (sometimes upwards of ten levels); no solo quest reward could compete. And by the time I hit level 50 and could get Tionese gear the level 49 purple crafted stuff was just as good (tionese was usually "optimized" better but not by much).

By the time I started really working my second character, server transfers had been enacted and the group finder feature was implemented, so I was able to do more flashpoints and therefore have access to a lot more orange quality modded gear. Cybertech would have been a better choice but I went with armormech and stuck with it .

My third character I did go with cybertech and yes every piece of gear was orange modded so it worked out well .

Everything else, I agree with.

I just created a Trooper (who I'm leveling as an Armormech), and was planning on crafting my own armor for myself and companions. But what I've found (and it's not ALWAYS the case) is that orange gear with blue item modifications (armor, mod, enhancement) seem to have better main+endurance stats and armor ratings than single crafted blue armor (and yes, I've RE'd a piece to get all of it's blue derivatives).

But, it does seem that the lower-level crafted (and dropped) blue gear carries secondary stats (surge, defense, absorption, etc...) sooner than you can get those stats via mods and enhancements. So maybe that's the trade-off? You can craft gear and get some secondary stats, but your main+endurance stats and/or armor rating might be a few points less than if you had orange gear with blue armor, mod, and enhancements.

*shrugs*

But you're right....it just comes down to your play style. Of course, if you know you're going to play as a tank, I would suggest Biochem for the reusable medpacks and stims. And with Armormech, Armstech, and Synthweaving, you can definitely make a good amount of credits just making augments.

I just created a Trooper (who I'm leveling as an Armormech), and was planning on crafting my own armor for myself and companions. But what I've found (and it's not ALWAYS the case) is that orange gear with blue item modifications (armor, mod, enhancement) seem to have better main+endurance stats and armor ratings than single crafted blue armor (and yes, I've RE'd a piece to get all of it's blue derivatives).

 

But, it does seem that the lower-level crafted (and dropped) blue gear carries secondary stats (surge, defense, absorption, etc...) sooner than you can get those stats via mods and enhancements. So maybe that's the trade-off? You can craft gear and get some secondary stats, but your main+endurance stats and/or armor rating might be a few points less than if you had orange gear with blue armor, mod, and enhancements.

 

Through armoring/mods/enhancements on orange you don't gain much of the secondary stats, but those are far easier and cheaper to research and keep up to date. Always only 1 option from green to blue, 1 option from blue to purple (if you bother with it) and always at 20% chance.

With the "wearable" crafted stuff the grind to get the right prefixes can a real pain, time and money consuming. Except for bracers, chest, legs, boots, etc have higher mats requirement to do research. Another thing, many people go for specific looks on their toons, even from low levels. Those pices armomech/synthweavers can make are no good for that. Lastly, there are sometimes big gaps between let's say from 1 headpiece to the next one so either keep that slot undergeared, or switch to orange shell with updated stuff

It's funny about cybertech, I got it on my first character shortly after launch and everyone thought it was 2nd place behind Armstech in the most useless skill ever category.

I'm not high volume but I do like to produce an orange item replete with purples for levellers, I've found the least frustrating method is to slice at all levels so you get a good volume of guaranteed purple mats coming in.

I wouldn't get too hung up on orange items if crafting for yourself while levelling, over time it'll be quicker to RE a single piece than separate mods which can't all be coverered by a single skill anyway.

The other thing I've begun to consider for credits is those levels where a slot first becomes available, level 19 relics sell for more than higher level ones for example.

Good post.

The other thing I've begun to consider for credits is those levels where a slot first becomes available, level 19 relics sell for more than higher level ones for example.

I've done this with my Biochem. I can't make enough lvl 21 implants.....mainly because it takes 6 Genetic Anomalies. Needless to say, I've ALWAYS got at least one companion running lvl 2 Bionalysis compound missions. If I'm really running low, I'll go farm Mandalorian Raiders real quick. I probably should go to Coruscant and farm any Heroics (and the rest of the planet as well) for strong beasts to harvest more mats.

Nice post and a lot of good ideas.

I approach the market in a different manner, but indeed always seem to have mods and armorng left over (love those crits) when I am leveling a character and those sell well and at good price.