I've been working my Gathering skills including Treasure hunting and Slicing up to a skill of 450 anticipating the day when I'd be getting the BEST treasures and Slicing benefits. What do I find? In treasure hunting I get a worthless gem and in Slicing I get a worthless circuit board !!!

 

What a terrible game design! They could have stopped giving missions if they wanted the gathering skill to end at 450. But no, they keep giving missions that return worthless product !! Shame on you SWTOR. Now I have spent over 100,000 credits accumulating a worthless gem and another near 100,000 credits getting some worthless circuits.

 

BAD game design SWTOR, shame on you.

The purpose of both the gathering and mission skills is to obtain materials for the crafting skills. For treasure hunting this is the gems used in prototype and artifact level schematics in Artifice and slicing it's the materials that Synthweaving, Armstech and Armourmech use to craft prototype and artifact level augments and the artifact level materials of slicing at least sell for a fair bit on the gtn. Edited October 20, 2013 by WooliestWorm

The point of all mission crewskills is to get the purple grade materials, aquired through a critical result in the crewskill. Gathering skills (Archaeology, Bioanalysis, Scavenging) reward additional results on a critical, but aren't needed for profit. Combined the right crafting crewskill you will get an item possibly selling for even more. If they'd stop giving missions crafters would have to keep leveling the gathering skills over and over just to get a few materials, that's quite brutal.

 

It's a good way of making money, accessibly for everyone, but does sometimes require some research to figure out what's worthwhile on your server and what isn't. Might be worth considering investing in some companion affection since they raise the critical chance.

 

Example:

It takes me between 340 and 560 credits per scavenging material and they sell for 800-1.2k credits on my server, how is this a waste? I crit slicing about once every 10 missions, the missions cost me about 34k but selling the purples a critical gave me wields about 60-80k (though due to bad luck streaks I don't end up doing these as much.)

 

Remember though that grade 9 (the 400-450 tier) mission crewskills (Slicing, Treasure hunting, etc) only return purple materials on a Bountiful and Rich mission. I personally only find Rich missions worth running, but that's me.

My money making crafting is done in items between 30-50. Run the lower level missions and sell that. Some of the Archeology power crystals are always in demand. Level 3+4 green items selling for over $1000 a unit.

Fact is you have chosen your crew skills poorly:

 

• Treasure hunting materials are only needed by one crafting skill - artifice. And most artificers are smart enough to take TH as a skill to feed their artifice. Lastly, the best results - purple quality materials - are rare, but even then are reasonably priced on the GTM because of low demand.
  
  
• Slicing is one of the most commonly taken crew skills. This puts an extreme stress on supply of the more common blue quality materials. And the materials are only needed in limited fashion - augments and augment slot kits. Lastly...again, the best results - purple quality materials - are rare.
  
  

If you are looking to make money off of materials, you are better off taking the three true gathering skills: Bioanalysis, Scavenging, and Archeology. Even just running missions (doing no actual gathering; going to a planet and looking for nodes or mobs), the materials are generally valued higher on the GTM than their cost to acquire.

 

If you have artifice as a crafting skill, then you should drop slicing and take archeology instead. Archeology feeds artifice with the basic crafting materials needed for all schematics.

Edited October 21, 2013 by psandak

Maybe I have chosen 'poorly' with my skills. However, the point i intended to make was that once I reached 450 in Slicing and Treasure hunting that the item/s returned from a Mission are near WORTHLESS ! Up until I reached 450 I was pleased with the results and profited from missions. Now at 450 I get only one item from a mission 'Rainbow Gem' from Slicing and some worthless circuit board from Treasure hunting, NEVER anything else. These cost me over a 1000 credits each and can be easily bought on GTN for 300 or less. In other words all Slicing and Treasure Hunting at skill 450 returns the SAME item and therefore the market is ALWAYS flooded with NO CHANCE of making a profit !!! If that is just poor game design or planned by SWTOR I cannot say.

 

I guess the only solution is to just dump ANY gathering skill once you achieve a 450 skill level. Very disappointing to work for a goal of top skill just to find it ruins that skill.

No, what you're saying is you chose your crew skills poorly. Yes, Slicing typically returns materials that are barely worth what you paid for the mission, but the thermal regulators typically sell for $25k+ on the GTN, so make sure your companions have a high affection to increase the chances of a crit. Like someone else said, your other skill was a horrible choice, TH is only useful for Artifice. If you want a profit, you should have gone with Underworld Trading. Even the blue mats (terenthium, I think) usually sells for a decent amount and the mats are used by cybertech, armortech, synthweaving, and armortech, so you have a much larger group to sell to. It's basic market strategy.

What the poster before me said.

 

 

Beyond that, OP, you have to understand that plain old Human Nature is at work when it comes to the blue mats from Slicing.

 

See, Thermal Regulators are needed for end-game content because everyone needs not just augments but artifact level augments which need Thermal Regulators- and, only Thermal Regulators can make those. Don't believe me? Wander on over to any of the Commendation vendors on the Fleet of your choice and try to find me an Augment for sale. Everybody needs them but no one sells them.

 

This means that anyone who wants to run end Flashpoints, Operations, high leveled PvP content- or, really, anything above level 50 has to have a bunch of Thermal Regulators at some point while they're getting their gear together whether they know it or not (about 50 per person- 100 if they want to gear their companion as well). Even if they just buy the Augments straight out off the GTN, it was crafted using 4 Thermal Regulators for each and every single one.

 

Since it is a very rare drop, this means that crafters and, really, anyone who can, is constantly running missions over and over and over in order to get those purple items. Net result? A bunch of people sitting on stack after stack after stack of those blues so they can get all of those Thermal Regulators.

 

Needless to say that anytime you get a lot of anything and no one needing them at all the price drops to almost nothing.

 

Now, with Treasure Hunting what you have is the other side of the problem- that is to say, very few people using it. Artifice is useful but it's also expensive and time consuming to learn. Net result? Not very many folks bother. After all, when doing End Content, not only are there countless other ways to get Enhancements and Hilts (pick a commendation- any commendation for those), but, also, anyone who does manage to go the crafting route only needs about 15 Mytags (30 for companion too) to call themselves done and ready for the next step. Toss in the fact that they drop far more frequently and, again, you have a recipe for low prices: very few customers and a lot of items.

 

As you can see, Human Nature does indeed play a role even in a game's market so what you obviously want to go for, OP, are things that get used up a lot and fast. Underworld Trading, Archeology, and Bioanalysis are probably your best bets. You might turn a bit of a profit from Scavenging depending on your server's market at the moment but everyone and their kid brother tends to go for that one because it's the easiest to build up while leveling.

 

That being said, I'd probably stick with Slicing as one of your three but only run the Bountiful and Rich Missions as a supplement (Thermal Regulators are automatic credits in the bank after all) and use whatever two others you choose to keep the rest of your companions occupied for a more steady stream of income. As for the blues from Slicing? I personally just vendor them out.

 

So, no. It's not the system, it's the market because this kind of thing happens in any game that has one.

 

Hope that helps OP.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Dallayna

Mythra is very rare in normal gameplay (haven't visited Makeb & the Czeska moon yet), but it is required for the high-end weaponbuilding.

Thank you all for the comments. Especially Dallayna for the in-depth opinions. I have dropped Treasure Hunting and replaced it with Archaeology. With both Slicing and Archae active it does return a lot of treasure stars on the map which I love to find! At least I'm getting something of value now.

 

I still believe SWTOR needs to 'fix' the problem of a gathering skill becoming near worthless at 450.

Thank you all for the comments. Especially Dallayna for the in-depth opinions. I have dropped Treasure Hunting and replaced it with Archaeology. With both Slicing and Archae active it does return a lot of treasure stars on the map which I love to find! At least I'm getting something of value now.

 

I still believe SWTOR needs to 'fix' the problem of a gathering skill becoming near worthless at 450.

 

They aren't worthless, they have value to those who are using them.

 

And I don't think archaeology is really a good choice, but to each his/her own.

 

I make mad credits from both Treasure Hunting and Slicing at 450. I don't make them off the blue returns that are normal, however, but from the critical proc's that return Crew Skill missions and artifact level components.

 

I actually craft augments and enhancements/hilts for sale because the value of those is greater than the parts at this time...but only because the GTN is overflowing with the materials and the price is getting driven down.

Only thing i see is a ***** that doesn't know how to use the crafting skill correctly and that has a problem with bioware because he is to much of a dumb *** thats using the skills incorrrectly Good JOB! now find out how to use the stills better and stop worthless crying like a little worthless baby

Only thing i see is a ***** that doesn't know how to use the crafting skill correctly and that has a problem with bioware because he is to much of a dumb *** thats using the skills incorrrectly Good JOB! now find out how to use the stills better and stop worthless crying like a little worthless baby

 

And you don't know how to read dates, and see this thread is two years old.