This has probably been mentioned before, and I may be in the wrong section, but it seems mostly appropriate.

 

When I started out scavenging on the early planets I was finding the base metals used in every crafting I have, but now that I've moved further into ch. 1 I am finding that I'm getting the higher grade metals which is great since you need those; but also I'm not getting those lvl.1 metals anymore (i.e., desh, silica) and my reserves are starting to run out. aluminum is particularly an issue as I never seem to have built up stores of it.

 

Am I then relegated to buying base metals from the GTM unless I want to run around my starting planet at way too high a level looking for piles of trash?

Send your companions out on level 1 scavenging missions. There is a drop box on the upper right that you can select the mission level from.

This has probably been mentioned before, and I may be in the wrong section, but it seems mostly appropriate.

 

When I started out scavenging on the early planets I was finding the base metals used in every crafting I have, but now that I've moved further into ch. 1 I am finding that I'm getting the higher grade metals which is great since you need those; but also I'm not getting those lvl.1 metals anymore (i.e., desh, silica) and my reserves are starting to run out. aluminum is particularly an issue as I never seem to have built up stores of it.

 

Am I then relegated to buying base metals from the GTM unless I want to run around my starting planet at way too high a level looking for piles of trash?

 

Go back to planet where you were getting the metals. The further you progress the higher the level of the resource nodes.

Send your companions out on level 1 scavenging missions. There is a drop box on the upper right that you can select the mission level from.

 

This. Doing gray missions also seem to return quite a few more resources than doing green/yellow/orange ones.

Since you've already gotten your answer, I have to ask a question of the OP.

 

Why exactly do you need the grade 1 materials so badly? My cybernetic character was hurting for grade 2 materials long before I stopped seeing grade 1 nodes.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Greyfeld

Since you've already gotten your answer, I have to ask a question of the OP.

 

Why exactly do you need the grade 1 materials so badly? My cybernetic character was hurting for grade 2 materials long before I stopped seeing grade 1 nodes.

 

yes, I had that too and was buying the grade 2s in the GTM. But then once I started seeing the grade 2s on planet, I stopped seeing the grade 1s as well, and now a couple planets later I'm noticing that the 100-something grade 1s I saved up are now gone, and I can't craft things that require those, which seems to be most things. But it could be entirely possible that I'm mistaken.

 

I also did not know that you could redo the early missions, I just show missions for grade 2 metals and compounds, so I've got a decent amount of terenthium which doesn't do much without the desh needed also.

 

I also did not know that you could redo the early missions, I just show missions for grade 2 metals and compounds, so I've got a decent amount of terenthium which doesn't do much without the desh needed also.

 

First of all, terenthium is from underworld trading. You want scavenging.

 

Second of all, in th eupper left of the mission window you will see where it says what level range that mission is. It defaults to the highest level that you can run, but you can open a dropdown menu there to open up other level ranges.

 

It's real simple. Just count. The top of the list is tier 1, the second listed is tier 2, etc. If you want aluminum, open your scavenging mission list, select tier 1 from the dropdown, and find a mission that returns metals.

 

The nodes on a planet proivide metals for level-appropriate items, give or take a tier.

If you want to go scavenge the metal for yourself and save on mission or GTN costs, then yes, you need to go to a tier 1 planet to find tier 1 metal.

 

This is not a bad thing.

This is a normal gathering/crafting issue and is usually solved by lower level gatherers/crafters or profiteers putting your needed mats on the AH or GTN. It is good for the overall economy. Things might be a little different if BW allowed more than one crafting skills per player. I expect they will tweak the crafting skills to make crafting more viable.

 

In the meantime, either buy your needed mats from the GTN (or a guildie) or head back to a lower level planet. Most all gathering nodes in every game are laid out in a very similar pattern.