I do not remember the details but I believe that there is a ship droid you can purchase stuff from. ONe of the things you can purchase from that droid allows your droid companion to get a crit and any skill you may not have. I believe it was in the notes for 1.2. I will try to find and update...

UPdate: Bingo... Quote from 1.2 patch notes:

•The C2 Droid Corporation and their competitors, the 2V Droid Corporation, have developed a series of new sensors for their products, the C2-N2 and 2V-R8, that significantly improve the Droids' Crew Skill efficiency and critical success chances. These products may be purchased via the Legacy Repair Astromech unit on the player's ship (once unlocked).

You are incorrect. Yes, those items are available for purchase, but none of those items provide a crit bonus to artificing.

As to the OP question, all I can say is "I wish I knew."

My suspicion? Back in Beta there was almost no real reason to want a crit bonus for artifice.

I'll admit I only started artifice relatively recently, but as I understand it originally when the game came out the crystals, enhancements, and hilts didn't benefit from crits. only the focii and generators.

It has been rumored that the HK-51 droid had Artifice Crit +2% and Cybertech Crit +2%. That was in beta when he was still rumored to be on Hoth I think. As everyone knows he didn't make it to live.

Now that he will come in the new expansion no one really knows what his bonuses will be, but it could be they kept the original bonus. Or maybe they changed it, we won't know until more info about the expansion is given.

IIRC cybertech lacked any +crit companions until 1.2 The droid actually sells a +5 cyber crit sensor.

well, for cybertech, until 1.2 (IIRC when they added a second mod on a crit... it wasn't there at release) the only benefit cybertech got from critting was an extra grenade (I think).

Probably why nobody really cared there was no crit bonus previously. (and why there wasn't one)

why is it that there is no companion in the whole game that has a artifice Crit +, as all the other craft skill have a companion somewhere in the game that has a crit + for the craft skill....

Lord Scourge (Knight companion) has an artifice efficiency bonus.

i have to agree with the op on this one. even if the only thing that benefits is the off hands it is still comparable to the ear and grenade only cybertech which has one. btw who makes and uses grenades anyways?

the legacy droid items are very biased in my opinion as the crew skills that need a +5 dont but the ones that dont do. perhaps it is still incomplete and in the future more will be added. we can only hope.

Lord Scourge (Knight companion) has an artifice efficiency bonus.

Khem Val also has efficiency bonus but all that does is saves time (I.e. they do it faster) it does not affect critical rate at all. Its common for people to assume efficiency = crit. Sadly it does not.

There is no artifice crit in game for companions.

well, for cybertech, until 1.2 (IIRC when they added a second mod on a crit... it wasn't there at release) the only benefit cybertech got from critting was an extra grenade (I think).

 

Probably why nobody really cared there was no crit bonus previously. (and why there wasn't one)

They woul still get augment slots on earpieces. 1.2 did add that all items that coudln't get an augment would provide double on a crit.

My point was that out of 2 skills that lacked any crit, cyber got a +5 crit sensor from the upgrade droid, artifice got nothing. Artifice makes hilts/enhancements/sabers/offhands.... all of which could benefit from crit. Cyber got a hand, artifice shafted.

And yes, us cyber/artifice cared back then. I was making offhands for the guild pre 1.2... crit crafted lvl 50 offhands.

They woul still get augment slots on earpieces. 1.2 did add that all items that coudln't get an augment would provide double on a crit.

Yeah, you're right. Somehow earpieces had completely slipped my mind. (which is odd, since they're probably the most profitable item my cybertech sells right now)

Curiously, ship parts (and speeders) don't get an extra when they crit, and I'd argue they should. It's all percentages anyways. Critting 15% on a mod that takes 8 mats (or w/e) vs critting 15% on a spaceship 9that takes 35 or whatever) is still giving you the same % of extra "free" mats over the long haul.

Critting on crafting of speeders could refund some of the materials rather than an extra speeder.

Droid Armor has a few issues, for one thing any Armoring with a slot-restriction, e.g. Arm or Leg cannot be inserted into a Droid Armor of the comparable slot, that restriction is present for all of the high-level Armoring, which creates an imbalance between Droid & regular companions gearing upgrade options.

Critting on crafting of speeders could refund some of the materials rather than an extra speeder.

 

Droid Armor has a few issues, for one thing any Armoring with a slot-restriction, e.g. Arm or Leg cannot be inserted into a Droid Armor of the comparable slot, that restriction is present for all of the high-level Armoring, which creates an imbalance between Droid & regular companions gearing upgrade options.

I've brought this up before on the forums, and no one seemed to pay much attention to it. I was trying to gear out SCORPIO with some columi/rakata gear when I discovered that the armorings would not move over.

Lord Scourge (Knight companion) has an artifice efficiency bonus.

Kira max affection has crit crafted 49 enhancements I received 2 only had the mats for 1

Its only happened once sofar

I do not remember the details but I believe that there is a ship droid you can purchase stuff from. ONe of the things you can purchase from that droid allows your droid companion to get a crit and any skill you may not have. I believe it was in the notes for 1.2. I will try to find and update...

 

UPdate: Bingo... Quote from 1.2 patch notes:

 

•The C2 Droid Corporation and their competitors, the 2V Droid Corporation, have developed a series of new sensors for their products, the C2-N2 and 2V-R8, that significantly improve the Droids' Crew Skill efficiency and critical success chances. These products may be purchased via the Legacy Repair Astromech unit on the player's ship (once unlocked).

I specifically bought that on ship repair droid for 1 million credits so that i could give my 2v-r8 +2 artifice crit only to find out they only have +efficiency 0_0 . Hopefully when 1.3 is released they will add it to the repair droid but with my luck that probably wont happen. Bioware Please Please add +artifice crit option to my astromech repair droid!

Yeah it's a little strange that there is no +artifice critical companion. IMHO, Khem Vhal should be changed from efficiency to +5% critical bonus and the droid sensor should similarly be changed from efficiency to +2% critical bonus. Problem solved.

As it is, I currently have the following crafting setup:

Jedi Sage, Cybertech with +5% crit from droid.

Jedi Guardian, Synthweaving with +5% crit from Kira Carsen

Vanguard, Armormech with +5% crit from Tanno Vik

Scoundrel, Armstech with +5% crit from Corso Riggs

Armstech is the one I'm currently working on, the others are already at 400 with 10k affection and legacy crit buff to boot.

Something else too, Empire doesn't have equivalent to Corso Riggs or Tanno Vik - the only imperial critical companion that compared is Jaesa Willsaam who has +5 synthweaving critical, mirroring Kira Carsen. It thus seems fair to me, that if a +5% critical to artifice companion was available, it should be on the imperial side, with the logical choice being khem vhal.