I hate them. For many reasons. Mostly because they look identical, offer no planetary flavor, and are a tedious step that I have to repeat over and over and over.

If they sold a legacy unlock that put you on the planet (skipped hangar and/or orbital station) every time you left your ship I would buy it one way or the other (yeah, I know there are quest givers, move them). I already prize the flashpoint shuttles that double as fleet transport and use them whenever I can to avoid the huge hangar bays, spaceports, and OS treks of tedium.

/frustrated rant

ignorable bonus question: what is up with the weapon/armor vendors that sell only/mostly grey items? Why do they exist at all?

ignorable bonus question: what is up with the weapon/armor vendors that sell only/mostly grey items? Why do they exist at all?

I have no idea, I think they were just meant for cosmetic purposes, RPers might use them, it's like the Jawa cloak you can get on Tatooine (might be only the consular that can get it...) it's completely usesless white(standard rating) armour, but looks sooo coooooool!

I dont like the orbital stations too

but I hate the air locks even more.

I dont like the orbital stations too

but I hate the air locks even more.

Everything about travel is a pain in the game. It's the one glaring quality of life issue they have, and have very slowly been mitigating it to a minor extent with legacy travel perks (with insanely long cooldowns). They could just do a much better job and fix it much faster.

Traveling requires you to:

1. Cross a huge starport

2. Watch a useless cutscreen of you taking off

3. Load

4. Run around your ship

5. click a map

6. run around your ship

7. Watch a low rez movie of you approaching a ball that looks remotely like a planet..

8. load

9. run through entirely empty airlock

10. run through entirely empty orbital station (baring a single non-repeatable quest giver)

11. load

12. finally arrive at your planetary destination.

13. If it's Black hole, there's an extra load screen just for fun.

Everything about travel is a pain in the game. It's the one glaring quality of life issue they have, and have very slowly been mitigating it to a minor extent with legacy travel perks (with insanely long cooldowns). They could just do a much better job and fix it much faster.

 

Traveling requires you to:

1. Cross a huge starport

2. Watch a useless cutscreen of you taking off

3. Load

4. Run around your ship

5. click a map

6. run around your ship

7. Watch a low rez movie of you approaching a ball that looks remotely like a planet..

8. load

9. run through entirely empty airlock

10. run through entirely empty orbital station (baring a single non-repeatable quest giver)

11. load

12. finally arrive at your planetary destination.

13. If it's Black hole, there's an extra load screen just for fun.

^^^ haha And if you did the gree event quest were you go to all those planets to just talk to a droid it was like really an hour of doing 1-11 over and over and over and over and over .. just nuts...

^^^ haha And if you did the gree event quest were you go to all those planets to just talk to a droid it was like really an hour of doing 1-11 over and over and over and over and over .. just nuts...

Yes, that mission was horrendous as it was just a massive wasted time sink. They were also kind enough to (generally) put the droids in the furthest corner of the maps. Despite being almost entirely (very) grey foes on every planet and not more than 4 per planet to defeat, it took over an hour.

^^^ haha And if you did the gree event quest were you go to all those planets to just talk to a droid it was like really an hour of doing 1-11 over and over and over and over and over .. just nuts...

Oh god, yes. Totally horrible. Especially since the game crashed 3 or 4 times because they game always crashes when I enter a lot of new instances. Definitely my favourite quest.

But yeah, those orbital stations are dumb. Don't notice them as much with my main.. got the black hole transport and use the shuttle to go somewhere else or the fleet pass to go back, but while leveling.. soo annoying. I'm spending so many minutes in the week just walking through them.

Many of the orbital stations are used in the planet/story quests for their respective planets, which is why the devs have not wholly removed them. However, they have at least given us the ability to go directly back to our ships now.

Except they don't really do anything to advance the plot other than "Planet X is dangerous, here, take this cold-weather-gear/antidote/warning-about-taking-weapons-onto-a-prison-planet", IMO, a completely irrelevant step, especially since you could get that info during the holo call on your ship where you get sent to the relevant planet (& told to pick up any gear/antidote/etc when you get there). If they gave you a mission or two I could understand it, but even then, you get all the other quests on the planet (with the exception of the Belsavis bonus quest line).

I think the stations were put there for a couple of reason.

1) so you didn't deal with the exact same spaceport on each and every planet.

2) to create a handy way to expand the planet later - just by adding a new zone to the orbital shuttle

Not that I like the stations.....

As for the vender with the grey and white items ~ that's just the minimum gear level for the planet. You can actually complete all the content on a planet with that pitiful gear. Some self hating players actually do this on purpose, and post online video to prove that they did it ~ it's called "white knight(ing)". It's difficult & boring to do, but if you can pull it off ~ you're certainly raid ready.

Except they don't really do anything to advance the plot other than "Planet X is dangerous, here, take this cold-weather-gear/antidote/warning-about-taking-weapons-onto-a-prison-planet", IMO, a completely irrelevant step, especially since you could get that info during the holo call on your ship where you get sent to the relevant planet (& told to pick up any gear/antidote/etc when you get there). If they gave you a mission or two I could understand it, but even then, you get all the other quests on the planet (with the exception of the Belsavis bonus quest line).

I could be wrong, as I tend to get stories mixed up from time to time, but I was pretty sure that one of the classes actually has a story mission or two ON the station. I think it was Operative...or maybe it was Smuggler. Anyway, I just remember thinking, "OOooooooh....THAT'S why this station is here!"

I rotate through my characters fairly often and I have 1 of each class/2 of each role....so...I do get a bit confused on specifics from time to time.

I think the stations were put there for a couple of reason.

...

2) to create a handy way to expand the planet later - just by adding a new zone to the orbital shuttle

this. like how they added Section X on Belsavis. you can also use the orbital station shuttles on planets with lvl 50 dailies to travel between other planets with lvl 50 dailies. don't even need to jump in your ship anymore.

I could be wrong, as I tend to get stories mixed up from time to time, but I was pretty sure that one of the classes actually has a story mission or two ON the station. I think it was Operative...or maybe it was Smuggler. Anyway, I just remember thinking, "OOooooooh....THAT'S why this station is here!"

 

I rotate through my characters fairly often and I have 1 of each class/2 of each role....so...I do get a bit confused on specifics from time to time.

i think there are missions that are on orbital stations but they aren't on any of the ones that are around a mission planet they are either companion missions, or they are between planet missions. The stations look almost the same as the ones around destination planets but i don't think there are any actual missions on the orbital stations around destination planets

this. like how they added Section X on Belsavis. you can also use the orbital station shuttles on planets with lvl 50 dailies to travel between other planets with lvl 50 dailies. don't even need to jump in your ship anymore.

I would think there's a better way to accomplish those things. Just because they used the stations for this, doesn't mean that's why they are there or even a good use for them.

My complaint is that 99% of the time they are just a dead flavorless spot, maybe with stim vendor (even though 99% of the time there will be another stim/medical droid vendor on the planet near where you land). I notice on one of them they stuck a companion customization vendor on it...why? No reason. Could have been in the cantina on the planet but then people would never use google I guess.

I am fairly certain that they sounded like a good idea that solved the problem of planets that had no business having a spaceport having some way to dock your ship, but in reality they are just tedious and inconsistent dead zones of wasted time that need to be revamped.

Like I said, a legacy unlock that put you on the planet immediately would get my credits/coins the first day. I mean, even modern airports have systems in place to keep people from having to run the whole way from plane to taxi. They have buses, moving sidewalks, trolleys, but not in TOR. Just run through an empty/mostly empty hallway to a shuttle two football fields away. It would be one thing if there were a shuttle in the hangar bay or something that you could just hop over to quickly. Anything would be better than running through a flavorless orbital station, like instead of landing on a station, you couple with the landing shuttle, run 20 feet through a small airlock, and straight down to the planet. That would feel more sci-fi than landing on a dead space-mall, make it zero g and I would unf a little every time I got to a new planet.

It's what's known as a "time sink". LIke horribly slow taxis. And making you walk to a location before you can access said taxis to slightly reduce your travel time between points. LIke making you wait till level 15 (originally) before you can "sprint" and 25 (for everyone, originally) before learing Speeder Piloting 1.

The idea is to deliberately make things take more time, so people don't blow through the levels from 1 to 50 (or 55, or whatever the next new cap will be) even faster than they already do. It's a common "feature" of MMOs along with the equally (un)popular "money sink".

Don't expect either of them to go away. Time sinks and money sinks are forever.

The orbital stations look the same? So do the palaces, the spaceports, most cantinas, double entrances, mobs, vendors, caves, warehouses, and the list goes on. There are very few unique places or buildings in the game. I don't mind the orbital stations at all. In fact, they are a welcome change to the usual identical spaceport found on most planets. "Travel" is part of the game.

Not that it's perfect, mind you. I've always wondered why, when I get on my ship, it immediately takes off. Maybe I was told to go there to use my ship's hologram. Maybe I wanted to visit my storage locker and there isn't an access point nearby. Maybe I just wanted to conduct a little private flirting with my companion. Really, I should be able to initiate the take-off, or get back off the ship and go my merry way without the damn thing taking off just because I get on it.

Waste of fuel, I say.

Please do not devote any development resources to getting rid of orbital stations. I'm much more interested in:

+ Cross-server GroupFinder

+ New Character Story

+ New Planets

+ New Flashpoints

+ New Operations

+ Ability to manipulate/turn off Red Error Text

Thanks.