I have a few characters that I have been using for the sole purpose of being a crafting mule. My main has the 3 gathering professions of archeology, bioanalysis, and scavenging. The problem that I am running into is that my main cannot seem to keep up with the demand of just the regular green items that I find when questing in the world.

1. With that said, is there a real benefit for me to have one of my crafting mules run scav/arch/bio missions or a waste of time?

2. Are there mats that can only be obtained when running missions for bio, scav, arch? Or are all materials found in the missions available in the world?

3. What happens when you crit these missions?

4. Would I be better off running UT missions and using the profit to buy these green mats instead?

Thank you in advance for your insight.

Los

I have a few characters that I have been using for the sole purpose of being a crafting mule. My main has the 3 gathering professions of archeology, bioanalysis, and scavenging. The problem that I am running into is that my main cannot seem to keep up with the demand of just the regular green items that I find when questing in the world.

 

1. With that said, is there a real benefit for me to have one of my crafting mules run scav/arch/bio missions or a waste of time?

 

2. Are there mats that can only be obtained when running missions for bio, scav, arch? Or are all materials found in the missions available in the world?

 

3. What happens when you crit these missions?

 

4. Would I be better off running UT missions and using the profit to buy these green mats instead?

 

Thank you in advance for your insight.

 

Los

1. if you have extra cash, always have your companions on missions. this gets you more materials, which you'll always need.

2. sure, stuff like Flux (scavenging), forget what the other professions need. solutions, cortosis (archeology). sure it can be vendor bought but it's FAR cheaper to get them via missions.

3. using Thermo Flux as an example..rich mission will bring in about 25-30. a critical will bring in 40+ flux

4. i almost never buy materials on the gtn, simply because the prices are usually stupid. sure you can pay 90k for a stack of Aluminum or Bondite, or you can get it free by farming in about 30 minutes. send companions on missions while farming, hoard what they bring in for crafting or sell on the gtn.

My advice is your mules are the wrong way around, while crafting isn't complicated, it's somewhat time consuming. So your mules should be gathering, your main doing the crafting.

That way all you're doing is relogging to collect mats, not relogging to collect an item, buy a schematic, reverse engineer and so on.

I'm an advocate of slicing lockboxes, crit results achieve gathering missions which can give you bumper volumes as well as purple mats depending on the skill.

I'm an advocate of slicing lockboxes, crit results achieve gathering missions which can give you bumper volumes as well as purple mats depending on the skill.

I have three alts that have slicing. I usually have them running to crit slicing tech parts, but I keep seeing the above suggestion pop up. I might have to give it a try for a few days and see how it pans out.

1. if you have extra cash, always have your companions on missions. this gets you more materials, which you'll always need.

2. sure, stuff like Flux (scavenging), forget what the other professions need. solutions, cortosis (archeology). sure it can be vendor bought but it's FAR cheaper to get them via missions.

3. using Thermo Flux as an example..rich mission will bring in about 25-30. a critical will bring in 40+ flux

4. i almost never buy materials on the gtn, simply because the prices are usually stupid. sure you can pay 90k for a stack of Aluminum or Bondite, or you can get it free by farming in about 30 minutes. send companions on missions while farming, hoard what they bring in for crafting or sell on the gtn.

#1 I agree completely and in all candor running the daily HM FP will more than cover running your companions on missions while you are running that HM FP.

#2 at the lower levels it can be a wash (buying from vendor or running the missions yourself. At higher levels it pays to take the time and run the missions.

#3 dead on.

#4....

If you are willing to spend a little time checking all the stacks of materials you can find some REALLY good deals - I have found stacks of 99 going for 15000 credits (that's 151.51 per unit). When I am searching the GTM I immediately go to the last page of items and go forward because it is usually the stacks of 99 that have the best pricing per unit, but are often on the last pages because the GTM sorts by total cost not by cost per unit (something I wish they would change).

Further, in MMOs time and money are interchangeable commodities. If you are willing to spend the time going to a planet and gathering then you save credits. If you are willing to pay someone else to do the gathering and/or missions for you by buying off the GTM you save time. Sending your own companions on missions you save a little of both - you save money by not paying a premium for someone else to do the work for you and you save time by having your companions do the "gathering" while you do other things (HM FP, daily quests, etc).