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Fastest Way to Max Influence on Companions


Chazcon

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I am a retuner, and leveled most of my toons after 4.0.

 

I use simple strategy to level influence: as soon as I got a new companion use green lvl 1 gifts to raise influence to 20. I am trying to avoid any conversation gains before that. Right after that I use all available at that moment crystals to buy gifts (typically I can get influence close to 30). All conversation are done only after that because your conversation gain does not depend on level, but gift gain drops significantly after lvl 10-20-30-40. By the time I have a third companion, my first companion is somewhere above 35, so I park him/her and continue leveling with third one.

 

With this strategy I have couple 40+ companions, three 25+ companions and one 20 by the time I finish class story - which seems OK for me.

On couple crafters I repeated Black Talon couple times, it gives ~ 7-8 K rep (only if you have not start KOTFE on the toon).

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This whole influence thing stopped me from starting kotfe on my main crafter characters lol

 

On my sorc (synth, i craft augments all the time) I had no idea what kotfe was about, so I got my talos, ashara, my droid and andronikos to level 30, then I decided to try out kotfe and.. surprise....

 

So yeah, I had to grind a lot to get 3 of the new ones to level 30.

 

I usually do the whole lvl 1 greens up to level 20-30 too, not sure if its the best way but it works out for me.

 

And I keep at least 3 companions at level 30 on my synth, armstech and armormech, since I craft a lot of augment kits and augments (10 65s in pvp). I use them to craft and keep the "Rich" crew skill missions for them

Edited by gogolgb
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This whole influence thing stopped me from starting kotfe on my main crafter characters lol

 

On my sorc (synth, i craft augments all the time) I had no idea what kotfe was about, so I got my talos, ashara, my droid and andronikos to level 30, then I decided to try out kotfe and.. surprise....

 

So yeah, I had to grind a lot to get 3 of the new ones to level 30.

 

I usually do the whole lvl 1 greens up to level 20-30 too, not sure if its the best way but it works out for me.

 

And I keep at least 3 companions at level 30 on my synth, armstech and armormech, since I craft a lot of augment kits and augments (10 65s in pvp). I use them to craft and keep the "Rich" crew skill missions for them

 

I agree that the "surprise" was a little upsetting. However in another thread another forum-goer points out that we are supposed to get all our companions back eventually, so the investment in influence is not wasted...just delayed for an unknown period.

 

That being said, my policy - with existing characters - has been (since day one) to never increase a companion's rank over ten until I know that companion is back in KotFE. Rank 10 is the same as max affection when it comes to crit chance and efficiency therefore one does not lose much by getting those companions to 10. With new characters I am finding it VERY easy to get (early companions) past 10 with little to no gift giving; just the story decisions I have made generate a lot of influence (and not always what the companions wants to hear/see either; I get plenty of X disapproves).

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If I run through the KotFE story, I normally get Lana up to 20 or so, so she chews through the mobs quicker.

On crafting characters I have at least 1 companion at at least 30+ for the crits. - Especially if crafting high RoI stuff, the extra item is nice to have. -

I have an Armstech, Artificer and Bio with at least 1 rank 50 companion, and with their additional gather/mission skills I have most things but Slicing covered.

 

- And I'll have a couple extra at rank 10-25 -ish, coz I'll be using one to run about with and one for creating Bonded attachments etc.

 

As for the hordes of companions, I'm leaving them at whatever they gain after their first convos or star fortress runs or whatever - If I need another rank 10+ I'll recall one of the old comps instead of leveling up a new one.

 

Best of all seems to be Blizz, if you've got that far - he seems to like every type of gift, so leveling him up is easy!

 

Every log-on I scour the GTN for companion gifts, and snap up any bargains. - I also have 1 character that gets all the random gift drops- and when I need a new companion leveling up, I turn to the gift collector toon and send a few over.

 

IIRC companions get a good chunk of influence during the 1-50 story - though buying gifts is probably quickest, so long as you have the credits. -To earn them, H2s, PvP, GSF, dailies or crafting are among the top ways of making quick cash.

Edited by Storm-Cutter
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IIRC companions get a good chunk of influence during the 1-50 story - though buying gifts is probably quickest, so long as you have the credits. -To earn them, H2s, PvP, GSF, dailies or crafting are among the top ways of making quick cash.

 

Just to confirm that your recollection is accurate or not:

I have a level 18 VG with Aric at rank 6, just doing class story content. She's at the tippy top of on level (just finished Coruscant)

I also have a level 32 Sorc with Khem at rank 11.5. On this character I have given Khem some grade 1 gifts (I have UWT on this character so I level that skill doing gift missions (when possible) but I do not always get gifts that Khem likes). This one is significantly over level, just finished Tattooine and got Andronikus in the story (level 32 is top end of next planet: Alderaan), but even Andronikus is rank 3 already (no gifts)

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If you can somehow stomach it, you can run Battle of Ilum, Taral 5, False Emperor, Maelstorm Prison, and Directive 7 for your original 5. These have conversation options in them that companions will approve/disapprove of. Obviously you have to have obtained them by that point - Nadia won't gain anything from Taral 5 of Maelstrom. Though she will gain from the other three.

 

A single run of False Emperor can get you around 3k influence with Nadia. And so long as she is your active, chosen companion (same with any other) you don't have to have her summoned. So you can just repeatedly run False Emperor in a group of four, and all of you grind influence if you want.

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Don't forget the 650+325 from Star Fortress bonus missions (the 625 goes to your active companion, the 325 to the follower from the appropriate planet). You still get it in solo mode, and if you're just farming influence you can exit/re-set after completing the bonus.
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  • 2 weeks later...

My Legacy perks, that I paid for with CC to increase gains from conversation, are not adding any bonus.

 

And that console to "get your companions back" in KOTFE isn't available. I mean it's dead, non-clickable.

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My Legacy perks, that I paid for with CC to increase gains from conversation, are not adding any bonus.

It's working fine for me. Tested just now.

 

Rank 10 Companion - about to give a pink rank 5 gift

 

Added 932 points of affection

 

A rank 10 comp with a pink rank 5 gift would normally give 717 points for a "love" gift.

30% legacy bonus would be: 717 * 1.30 = 932.1

 

So the questions are:

 

1. Which companion?

2. What rank are they?

3. Which gift did you give?

4. How many influence points did you gain from the gift?

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@Khevar, he was talking about affection gain from conversations, not gifts :p

 

In any case, the perk does work.

I tested this with two DS Jaesa, talking to Lord Shaar ( H2 Old Enemies in Belsavis)

 

[Don't get chummy with me] -> approves

[bet he isn't happpy about that] -> approves

[What's in this for you?] -> approves

 

This is the result: http://i.imgur.com/z2DSyaq.jpg

That's exactly the 30% boost advertised in the perk

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My Legacy perks, that I paid for with CC to increase gains from conversation, are not adding any bonus.

 

And that console to "get your companions back" in KOTFE isn't available. I mean it's dead, non-clickable.

 

I found the exact same thing in that war room, but found if i still right clicked on it, it would work just fine. So it's misleading that it doesn't even hightlight for you, you literally just have to run up and blind click it.

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  • 1 year later...

Can I add some material for feedback for 2017 players?

 

I've been a sub a long time and I skipped upgrading companions but I'm doing it now and I noticed these things:

 

1. When leveling companions, there are 4 levels in each grade:

 

Orange, Yellow, Green and White(In that order). Do you need to run the white levels? I noticed the rewards are almost double or triple when you go higher. Also, I noticed companion influence is given. Is this new?

 

2. What happens when delete a specific crew skill. Is it lost and count lost or do you get back something to apply to the replacement crew skill?

 

3. Do you get additional crew skills benefits once your character(s) hit 70+?

 

4. Is there a way to see the logs of what missions you run per companion? The reason why I ask this if you run these missions without keeping track of them couldn't you reach the cap( 600) before you run all the mission, right?

 

5. When you get an influence gift with no value, can you sell to a vendor for something? Edit: You get credits, lol!

 

6. Is there a limit to how many crew skills missions you can run per day? I'm running these missions but they keep failing and nothing new loads into missions window.

Edited by MDresidentx
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I answered inside your quote below.

 

Can I add some material for feedback for 2017 players?

 

Sure, fire away :D;):csw_yoda:

 

I've been a sub a long time and I skipped upgrading companions but I'm doing it now and I noticed these things:

 

1. When leveling companions, there are 4 levels in each grade:

 

Orange, Yellow, Green and White(In that order). Do you need to run the white levels? I noticed the rewards are almost double or triple when you go higher. Also, I noticed companion influence is given. Is this new?

 

There's even blue, purple and gold just like gear.

It matters but the rank of the gift matters even more : rank 1 to 6.

 

And what matters even more than that is what companions like or not: give Golden Grade 6 Weapons to Kira she won't care but she'll kiss you for giving her a 200 credit Small Gemstone...

Give Cultural to Bowdaar he'll rip your arms off !

 

Here's a link.

 

Watch out : the BEST gift category is LOVE, not FAVORITE. Favorite is second best.

 

The best bet (credit-wise, but time sink) is to go to fleet next to ship parts vendor or to capital market, companion gift vendor, buy rank 1 gifts of the LOVED category for that comp (ie Cultural for ship droid or Khem Val, weapon for Corso or Qyzen), all the way to rank 10 or at least 6. After certain thresholds lower rank gifts lose value. Then do dialogues, class missions and planetside missions (remember to bring up world map and tick show "side missions" bottom left for them to appear), farm flashpoints and crew skill missions...).

 

You'll get to rank 10 in under 5 minutes with about 50 LOVED rank 1 gifts per comp (10 k credits). Chose carefully which is which!

Bring up your companion, classify vendor goods per price, and mouse over the gift list to see what brings a low or moderate or large reaction. You need Legacy perks to unlock Large reaction.

Some "Medium" are almost "Large". Example with the droid T7, Technology and Republic both count as medium but he actually likes Tech twice as much as Republic. You can alway buy one and sample it to be on the safe side.

 

Also, you can increase the affection you get with gifts or dialogue via Legacy/ Personal perks (if your legacy is high enough and you invest the credits)

In the above example, with the legacy % increase on gifts, T7 goes from medium to Large reaction on Tech gifts.

 

2. What happens when delete a specific crew skill. Is it lost and count lost or do you get back something to apply to the replacement crew skill?

 

All lost, if you take it again you start from scratch.

 

3. Do you get additional crew skills benefits once your character(s) hit 70+?

 

You can send more comps (if you're a subscriber) with higher levels.

Character level 1-24 : 2 comps

25-40 : 3 comps

41-47 : 4 comps

48-54 : 5 comps

56-65 : 6 comps

66 -70 : 8 comps

 

4. Is there a way to see the logs of what missions you run per companion? The reason why I ask this if you run these missions without keeping track of them couldn't you reach the cap( 600) before you run all the mission, right?

 

You'll rinse & repeat hundreds of times before you hit that number... you can see what mission they are currently running (press B or N) but not what has been done in the past.

Watch out, if you summon a busy comp you'll ruin his mission (and will get refunded).

5. When you get an influence gift with no value, can you sell to a vendor for something? Edit: You get credits, lol!

 

Yup

 

6. Is there a limit to how many crew skills missions you can run per day? I'm running these missions but they keep failing and nothing new loads into missions window.

 

- nope, if you're a slave to crafting you can spen all day sending 8 comps at a time

- You can buy special one-time missions on the GTN or obtain them via slicing on a critical success

- the better our comp gets (= the higher your influence) the better and faster they perform. Press N and check their individual crew skill stats on top right of the screen. ;)

 

 

One last word of advice : you normally need to be subbed to have three active crew skills.

If you unsub - and become preferred - one of your skills goes dormant. You choose which, it's not deleted but it becomes grayed out.

 

HOWEVER there are ways to unlock this. :cool: And referral is one of them. There's a FREE complimentary crew skill unlock in the Referral bundle you'll receive on every char on your account. Plus added inventory space and other perks.

It otherwise costs hundreds of cartel coins or millions on the GTN. ;)

Edited by BenduKundalini
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Can I add some material for feedback for 2017 players?

 

I've been a sub a long time and I skipped upgrading companions but I'm doing it now and I noticed these things:

 

1. When leveling companions, there are 4 levels in each grade:

 

Orange, Yellow, Green and White(In that order). Do you need to run the white levels? I noticed the rewards are almost double or triple when you go higher. Also, I noticed companion influence is given. Is this new?

 

2. What happens when delete a specific crew skill. Is it lost and count lost or do you get back something to apply to the replacement crew skill?

 

3. Do you get additional crew skills benefits once your character(s) hit 70+?

 

4. Is there a way to see the logs of what missions you run per companion? The reason why I ask this if you run these missions without keeping track of them couldn't you reach the cap( 600) before you run all the mission, right?

 

5. When you get an influence gift with no value, can you sell to a vendor for something? Edit: You get credits, lol!

 

6. Is there a limit to how many crew skills missions you can run per day? I'm running these missions but they keep failing and nothing new loads into missions window.

 

1. Are you talking about the color text of missions? If so, the color indicate the difficulty of the mission. It is not really the difficulty that determines the influence impact. There is another descriptor of missions: the yield. Yield falls into five categories: Moderate, Abundant, Bountiful, Rich, and Wealthy (NOTE:

"wealthy" missions are also known as "discovered missions" and "crafting missions". Wealthy mission will NEVER just appear in your available missions interface. these are acquired through the slicing skill lockbox missions: If you run those missions and get a critical success you will get a random “discovered mission” for that grade (i.e. run a grade 6 slicing lockbox mission you may get a grade 6 discovered mission

). The influence impact is determined by the grade of mission and the yield descriptor. So a grade 6 Rich mission will have more influence gain than a grade 6 bountiful or grade 5 rich mission but less than a rich grade 7 bountiful mission and of these missions fall into the gray/white difficulty bracket when a character is at the crew skill cap.

 

The color text determines the difficulty of the mission which in turn determines the base critical success chance: Orange missions have a base 10% crit chance where the rest (Yellow, Green, and Gray) have base 15%.

 

Color text also determines how many skill points you can get from running the mission:

Orange = 4 skill points

Yellow = 2 skill points

Green = 1 skill point

Gray/White = 0 skill points

 

So in order to level up a skill quickly, you want to run as much Orange as possible. Mission success or failure has no impact on skill point award.

 

2. If you abandon a crew skill you lose it and all "memory" of it, and whatever you replace it with starts at level 1. This may not be "realistic," but for game mechanics purposes it is appropriate because what they do not want is a single character being able to effectively have all crew skills at that character's disposal; this is common practice in MMOs (yes there are some where you can pay a fee to retain some knowledge of previously known skills, but they are the exception).

 

3. the only benefit of being level 70 (technically level 66+) is that you get the ability to use up to eight companions for crew skills. As your character levels up, more companions can be used for crew skills, to a current maximum of eight.

 

4. There is no in game log for this purpose. If your only objective is to reach the skill cap, then when you hit 590 then slow down; only run one or two missions at a time so you do not "waste" missions. That said, the purpose of crew skill missions is to acquire materials for crafting skills, therefore the only reason I can think of that this is an issue is that you are leveling crew skills strictly for the achievements and do not wish to waste credits on unnecessary missions. But, you can always sell the materials you acquire to offset the cost of the missions.

 

5. different companions enjoy different gifts in different degrees. For example, the Jedi Knight companion T7-01 "likes" Republic Memorabilia but "Loves" Technology. You always want to give what a companion "Loves" For a detailed list of each companion and what they accept see dulfy's companion influences guide . If you get a gift that none of your companions want (AKA "no influence gain") then you can sell it to a vendor or on the GTN. and yes you only get credits. FYI there are gift vendors on fleet so you can pay credits for gifts and choose the specific gift you want to give. They sell...

 

grade 1 for 200 credits a piece

grade 2 for 600 credits a piece

grade 5 prototype/blue for 5000 credits a piece

grade 5 artifact/purple for 10000 credits a piece

 

The most cost effective are the grade 1, BUT they are the least time efficient because you need thousands of them and they are no longer effective at all after influence rank 40. the grade 5 blue generates EXACTLY half that of the purple (or reverse it: the purple generates EXACTLY twice as much as the blue) therefore there is only one instance where you could use one over the other (see spoiler for details):

 

at specific influence ranks the effectiveness of a given gift goes down. These plateaus are rank 10, 20, 30, 35, 40, and 45. The effectiveness is basically halved. However the gift that breeches these plateaus uses the previous plateaus amount of influence. As a VERY basic and INACCURATE example:

 

 

from rank 1 to 10 a particular gift to a specific companion generates 2000 influence. if rank 10 requires 49,650 total influence then getting the companion to rank 10 will require 25 of that specific gift and will get the companion to 50,000. HOWEVER, if you only use 24 of those gifts you get to 48,000. THEN you use a lesser grade gift (of the same type; again you ALWAYS want to give gifts that the companion loves) that only generates 100 influence, to get that companion to 49600 influence and then go back to the gift that gives 2000 influence, you will get 2000 influence netting 51600, and THEN the effectiveness goes down.

 

 

6. The only limitation on running missions is your time at the computer. Mission failure is always an option. There is a 5% failure rate for ALL missions regardless of your skill and the grade of the mission being run. Since no single mission influences the chances of any other mission it is a distinct possibility to fail multiple missions.

 

That said, I do have a superstition about crew skill missions: I never send a specific companion on a specific crew skill mission twice in a row. This stems from my experience like you where missions were failing at an inordinate rate. But when I changed which companion ran a given mission the failure rate appeared to go down. I have ZERO scientific/provable evidence of my anecdotal findings...but it makes me feel better :).

 

And new missions appear in the list as you level up the skill. But there are points in the process where you have all the missions of a given grade and you are not skilled enough to get new missions in the next grade.

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Best ways:

1. Play heroics, get crates, turn crates to specialists, get gifts.

2. Do not buy stupid cosmetic overpriced items on GTN, one lightsaber is like 2-3 level 50 companions.

 

I'd advise against grinding for conversations, you're more likely to be bored of playing before you hit influence 20.

Edited by Vercundus
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Best ways:

1. Play heroics, get crates, turn crates to specialists, get gifts.

2. Do not buy stupid cosmetic overpriced items on GTN, one lightsaber is like 2-3 level 50 companions.

 

I'd advise against grinding for conversations, you're more likely to be bored of playing before you hit influence 20.

 

Vercundus, I am bored of this game but I'm at a point that I'm trying to play with "understanding"

All of your advice has been very helpful. I don't mind the grind as long as I learn something because this game has subtle complexity.

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This has absolutely nothing to do with the thread topic, and just smacks of butthurt.

 

He may not have gotten the point across, but the point is valid: keep your eyes on the prize. If you want influence rank 50 companions then you need credits. If you buy that new shiny on the GTN then you will have fewer credits and it will take longer to reach your goal of influence rank 50 companions.

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  • 2 months later...

BenduKundalini,

 

Thanks for your comments. Your comments piqued my interested and I bought out time to apply the guidance you gave.

I'm back but have a few questions.

 

Here's my status -> All 8 of my characters are at 600 on all three crew skills but these are my questions:

 

1. How do I get to the purple, gold, etc missions you mentioned? Do I have to use xp and just run through all the missions again and again? This potentially could a massive amount of time.

2. How do I get to last few missions at level 10 to move forward? Once I hit 600 they run but the colors don't change.

 

Influence Questions:

 

I have worked on this directly. Indirectly all of companions are making progress but I have these questions:

1. How can you tell what type of gift the reward is. Do I have to load each companion to see? I never see amount of influence or type of gift details. Maybe I'm not doing this right? I will try to work on this on Saturday.

2. Can I buy companions? If I'm going to run missions I'm going to need more companions. I say this because I skipped the story to get my characters 70+ and ran flashpoints to get them there during the XP/CXP weekends.

 

I'm running the base story now that my characters are 70+ and I'm getting companions but I can't wait till I run all these stories to get the companions.

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BenduKundalini,

 

Thanks for your comments. Your comments piqued my interested and I bought out time to apply the guidance you gave.

I'm back but have a few questions.

 

Here's my status -> All 8 of my characters are at 600 on all three crew skills but these are my questions:

 

1. How do I get to the purple, gold, etc missions you mentioned? Do I have to use xp and just run through all the missions again and again? This potentially could a massive amount of time.

2. How do I get to last few missions at level 10 to move forward? Once I hit 600 they run but the colors don't change.

 

Influence Questions:

 

I have worked on this directly. Indirectly all of companions are making progress but I have these questions:

1. How can you tell what type of gift the reward is. Do I have to load each companion to see? I never see amount of influence or type of gift details. Maybe I'm not doing this right? I will try to work on this on Saturday.

2. Can I buy companions? If I'm going to run missions I'm going to need more companions. I say this because I skipped the story to get my characters 70+ and ran flashpoints to get them there during the XP/CXP weekends.

 

I'm running the base story now that my characters are 70+ and I'm getting companions but I can't wait till I run all these stories to get the companions.

 

Hey MDresidentxn glad to see my input was appreciated! So many pay no heed or don't even bother to reply.

 

so:

 

- Special Missions are missions that you get on a critical success on a slicing mission, lockbox type. And/or the GTN.

 

For instance I run the level 6 mission "Data Race" on my slicer. The companion commes back giddy with a crit success, I get 2123 credits and a purple level 6 Treasure Hunting mission, Proper Prospecting. Perhaps next time it will be a purple Archaeology mission if it crits?

I can either send it to a char that is a Treasure Hunter (has attained rank 6 to unlock it), or sell it on the GTN. You can of course use legacy bank to swap that stuff between chars.

 

Seeing that you can sell them, many slicers sell them on the GTN. Personnally I often check the GTN for them but won't pay the high prices most people ask for them. All my mules or secondary chars have slicing and so I get A LOT of those missions anyway for "free" (ie included in the lockobox mission cost which yiels credits anyway). Exception : there are no rank 1 special missions.

 

- level 10 crew skill level is the last level so there's nothing left to move on to. For the moment. (if our chars get to level 75 with game version 6.0, they will probably be more mats and a new crew skill level)

 

- each reward says what type it is. For instance small gemstone is green, level 1, and Luxury. Check it out, it's written on it. Underworld Rumor Sheet is also level 1 and green but it's Underworld Goods.

What you can do is go to the gift vendor on fleet, classify goods per type or price (dropdown menu on the vendor top right) and then pull out each comp and hover with the mouse over each gift to see reactions : small influence, moderate, large, none.

 

Here, I just found this great guide which lists all companion tastes - and which does a much better job of explaning it all than I do !

 

- lastly, about unlocking more comps before the whole KOTFE/KOTET/Star Fortresses content, well, you can unlock beasts and droids via the Cartel Market or the GTN (for millions of credits) but THESE GUYS ONLY FIGHT. NO crew skill missions with a Nexu or K'lor'slug Soldier !

 

- all that's left then is HK-51 which you unlock with a series of quests that start on Section X (advanced instance of Belsavis) in the hidden ice valley in the northwest, and the Ewok Treek. Treek however requires a Legacy Rank of 40 and you don't get that in a few weeks... she'll also set you back 1 million credits to unlock the first time. Then 300 K on any other char.

 

Going to Section X requires character level 50, and the quest series is tedious (you will need to scour a few planets with a metal detector !) However once you have acquired HK-51 you can unlock him for 1 million on a new char of the same faction even at level 1. By the way you'll need a char of the other faction of at least level 7 and preferably level 15 as you need to dig up parts both on Coruscant AND Dromund Kaas. Plus Taris and Hoth.

 

- there were also special promotional characters given as rewards for subscribing once upon a time, such as Darth Hexid very recently, but if you didn't get them then you won't have them as a "reward in the mail". You can still unlock those three during Fallen Empire however.

 

Hope that's usefulto you and others ! ;):cool:

 

:ph_use_the_force:

Edited by BenduKundalini
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By the way just like Slicing crit yields special one-time missions, other crew skills yield schematics on a crit: Treasure Hunting, Underworld Trading, Investigation. Slicing crit gives special one-time missions, Bio and scavenging and archaeo crits just give more resources, and item crafting crits give an enhanced wearable craft or double dose for consumables and moddings.

 

Check out the links in Psandak's signature above, he explains it all.

Edited by BenduKundalini
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