I'm not sure what colors they could add, except a few black cores we don't have. I'd rather keep at one of each "defined color" of the raimbow, to keep things from being confusing. ofc I'm a guy so... *** is Fuscia anyway? let's review: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple plus White, Pink (a.k.a. Magenta of "Light Red"), and Cyan (or Light Blue) plus black cores: Red-Black, Orange-Black, Yellow-Black, Green-Black, Blue-Black, Purple-Black no White-Black, Magenta-Black or Cyan-Black, or pure Black yet That's 13 colors readily available, not including White and Green-Black where the source is no longer in game Personally i don;t want to see mix color in one crystal; Magenta-core/Green would be hideous... so what's left (besides the few black cores)? Indigo maybe? that would be pretty awesome IMO. Not very distinguishable from blue-black, but still different. Silver? Light Green? Clear? Blacklight (i.e. ultraviolet)? color-changing? (either changes every time you draw or timed cycle) On a side note, I support the idea that "lightsabers" are really plasma, i.e. columns of highly energized gas, so black core sabers aren't impssible

I've wasted sooooooo many credits testing the rumer that armorings can take the set bonus with them. I know for sure thet Tionese, Columi and Rakata armorings do NOT take the set bonus with them. I've heard that Capmaign gear does (and maybe the new Dread Guard?) but haven't tested it yet. Black Hole gear doesn't even have a set bonus; I usually take the mods out and put them in a Rakata shell. BUT, that still means that if you want the set bonus you're stuck with Columi and Rakata pieces unless you can get Campaign gear or better, and all that moddable gear out there is worthless. For Consulars especially this seems horrible; I don't know ANY players anywhere that don't hate the look of Consul gear, of any tier... On the other hand, with all the bind-to-legacy gear around I can see not allowing players to send Columi gear to alts (vie transfer of mods) with the set bonus and all. Rakata gear is still hard enough to get to (in my opinion) that we should be able to get the set bonus on the armoring. EIther way... I have all this orange gear I can't really use because I want to keep the set bonuses....

Speed of mounts in WoW should have no bearing on the mounts in SWTOR. Their MMO is fantasy/sowrd-and-sorcery. Our mounts in SWTOR have frakking jets on them! Regardless of the numbers, 110% just feels silly slow at max camera distance. I go to Hoth and I feel like i left a parking brake on. Furthermore, as it is, each tier of speeder piloting is barely noticable as faster than the others. As for the whole expansion thing, I would assume we might get flying mounts in some future expansion, but those don't have to go faster than Tier 3 ground speeders. I would much prefer that current Tier 3 not suffer because we might get faster or flying mounts later On the other hand, when we (hopefully soon) get Beast type mounts (Tauntaun, Dewback, etc) I would not expect those to be as fast as a hovering jet. I would rather make Tier 3 much faster, and make beast mounts Tier 1 or 2 (if we want to have some basis in reality). I don't agree though that systems can't handle the faster speeds. The Taxi speeders go much faster, and the systems handle those just fine. If they had too, we could add motion blur or less detail at speed. That's pretty much how the human brain handles moving objects anyway. 28mph to me is just rediculously slow for a hovering jet. By the way I think it's more like 13mph + 110% (i.e. 110% faster) = 27.3 but anyway... 300% faster seems like a decent number, and works out to 52mph so I'd suggest: Tier 1 speeder piloting = 90% faster = 24.7mph Tier 2 speeder piloting = 150% faster = 32.5moh Tier 3 speeder piloting = 300% faster = 52mph -OR- each new tier is 50% faster than the last: Tier 1 = 100% faster than Sprint = 26mph Tier 2 = 50% faster than tier 1 = 39mph Tier 3 = 50% faster than tier 2= 58.5mph just... let me finally take that parking brake off...

I don't think travel times are bad or out of place in an MMO at all. Load times for some planets are annoying but that's a seperate issue There are some things that help; Legacy perk to travel difect to Black Hole and fleet pass are examples. I do think the speeders are way too slow, but not because travel takes too long, but rather for their own sake. 90-110% faster than walking is just unrealistic. think of it this way: most fairly athletic people can keep up a 8mph pace, marathon lead runners go 12ish. 110% faster than that is only about 25mph. on my Speeder that has freakin' JETS on it.... going only that fast feels like I left a parking brake on... I understand that 100%ish faster is fairly standard mount speed in MMOs, but most others I can think of you're riding creatures (horses, giant cats or whatever). It would make sense for a Tauntaun or Dewback or whatever to go ~25mph, along with the starter speeders assuming they work something like a Segway. my top end, jet-propelled speeder should be faster than that, though. It should feel more like the ROTJ speeder chase. as a side note, when we eventually (hopefully) do get creature mounts, I'd be fine with tier1 speed on those if tier3 speeders can be a more realistic speed. another note, flying mounts when we eventually get those don't necessarily have to be faster.

It seems like you're missing something in your test: how much total Aim do you have? The big difference is that Aim adds to damage/healing and Crit, and Power adds slightly more to damage/healing but not Crit. From what I've read, there's a soft cap on Crit where it falls off in translating into damage. I've read it's 1600ish of the main stat and 35%ish crit but I have no solid numbers to go by. The rule of thumb that seems to work well is to use Power Augments in Rakata or better gear, and main stat in lesser gear.

Yellow (and orange) crystals are classed as Gemstones, and come from Treasure Hunting, not Archeology

there are two ways to get an Augment into an item: Crit or Kit. wearable pieces made by a craft can crit to get an augment slot; post-1.3 this slot will be of the same level/craft rank (1-6) as the item. This is now not really great unless it's a level 49-50 item. To add an Augment slot via a Kit: - Kits are made by Synthweavers, Armstech or Armormech. - Kit schematics are learned direct from the trainers. - to make a Kit you need 10 "augment kit parts" (and a few other materials of the same rank) - - Parts you get from reverse engineering crafted wearable items; stuff that would crit with a slot, not stuff that would give double on a crit (i.e. bracers but green augments; weapons not barrels from armstech) - - it's best to get Parts from the cheapest items to make, usually green bracers - - the kit parts you get depends on the level, so you'd need to make and RE level 49+ wearable stuff to get Mark 6 augment kit parts. - Once you have a Kit, take it to a crafting station (there's one in the section with the craft trainers on the fleet) and you can add a slot to an item there for a fee. Once an item has an augment slot you can add an Augment to it like any other mod (as long as the Slot level meets or exceeds the level of augment you're putting in.) You can also upgrade an Augment slot via a Kit, if the item had a lower level Kit in it before, or a lower level crit-crafted item

Basically I like to have each Craft covered once, and Biochem on the rest, and have the crafts appropriate to the class and companion bonuses. If you already have a Cybertech on your Legacy, there's no reason to have a 2nd one as there's nothing in Cybertech of specific benefit to the character that has it. However, Cybertech does fit well with a BH since your first companion, Mako, gets a +5 efficiency bonus for it.

specific rank UT missions have specific "sets" that go with them. Dulfy.net had a list of the helm/chest/legs sets and which UT rank, but you can also tell by the item required level. for example if you want the Traditional Thermoweave gloves you need to run rank 3 missions, and for Resilient Polyplast you need to run rank 6. This is assuming the new stuff follows the same patterns, but so far the few crafted oranges I've seen are of the same names as the old sets, and the couple of schematics I've gotten have come from the appropriate level of missions. SO far though I've yet to see a list of the new items, and which of the old sets may or may not have new items to go with them.

I spent a LOT of time getting the Helm, Chest and Leggings schematics before 1.3 and ran a LOT of UT missions to get them. I haven't confirmed but so far it seems the new stuff (Gloves, Boots, Belt and Bracers) follows the same pattern. The specific patterns are tied to specific level missions, but beyond that seems completely random. For example Traditional Nylite comes from Grade 2 (level 17-24) missions, but I've gotten schematics from all types (companion, fabrics, metals) and yields within those grades. I have to assume that higher yield missions have a higher chance of getting a schematic, but they're very rare anyway. Basically I send all my companions out until I have all the stuff from that grade of missions, sending my higher affection pets on the higher yield missions. The one thing i have no info on, is if any of the custom "sets" don't have any new items. Grade 1 stuff doesn't have any Helms; I don't know if the new stuff follows the same pattern but I'm not sending anyone out on grade 1 missions until I have a list.

I haven't done any Swoop races in SWTOR, but I have conducted races in WOW similar in concept with a PvP twist: - Race around Undercity as Alliance, and the first to make 10 complete laps wins - The route was the slime river that runs a loop around the underground part of the city - No flying mounts allowed; ground mounts only or you're disqualified - PvP is expected and part of the fun; part of the "race" is running back to your body after you die - the participants could only be on the described route while alive; if they're off the path they must be as a ghost. to make this work, we had a moderator in VOIP on the Horde tallying each person as they went by for each "lap" and another monitoring the map and group to make sure people were on the path and not cheating. for this type of event, having a moderator or two is important, and VOIP helps a LOT and makes things much more fun, along with having everyone in a raid/ops group (or several if there's more peoiple than one can hold). Translating this into SWTOR, we don't have to worry about anyone cheating on flying mounts, but I can't think of an area where we can bring the PvP aspect into it; we can't get to the opposite's home planets or fleets possibly Ilum has a good route in the PvP area but I haven't spent time there except to map it once per char. The danger and getting knocked off your mount makes the event much more dynamic and fun, in my opinion In the interests of a pure race though I do like the idea of having waypoints with a moderator at each one. As for moderators and waypoints, in my races the racer had to be "in range" of the moderator at the waypoint in the ops (raid) group interface to "check in". When I've been a mod I've made a list of the racers and made a tally mark on the name foir each lap. Obviously the mods have to be paying attention. Those races in WOW are some of the most fun i've had in game, and I'd love to do something similar in SWTOR

Right now at end game SWTOR is the same old formula that veteran gamers are already sick of: dungeons, raids, PvP that isn't much different from other games and the old dailies grind. I'd bundle space battles in with the dailies grind as they are now. I dunno about everyone else, but I burned myself out on dailies trying to get the Korrealis speeders and crystals pre-1.2 before they took those out... (that's a whole other discussion) what we need is different things to do, and there's a lot of potential in SWTOR we don't need more grindy stuff (WoW archeology is a good example of very grindy with too little reward) I want things to do and ways to make money that aren't just grinding dailies. Swoop Racing and Pazaak would bring a much needed boost - this should be obvious... we've had it in TOR (solo) before; it would bring a great dynamic into the game - - BUT! i think we could even add to it in an MMO setting by having Leaderboards and allowing players to bet on matches as well as compete! and sure... functioning slot machines in Nar Shadaa... why not? (i'd rather have Swoop racing first tho) and... more dynamic space missions. Group missions and space PvP would be fantastic! It's the major thing SWTOR has that others don't, but as is it's only a few missions and gets old quick. For starters at least, I would think they could add new paths and spawn points to things like the station assault missions, along with the mechanic to queue as a group. adding more customizable gear is all good... but I really want to have less grindy end game to keep interested. i mean... we aren't paying by the hour... I want things that keep me wanting to log in, and grindy doesn't cut it

making all the Augmented gear is all viable for now, except that they'll be leaving Artifice and Cybertech out of the loop in 1.3. one other side effect of the Augment Kits in 1.3, is that the BoP raid drop schematics will be even more useless than they are now. The only current advantage is being able to crit those with augments, and even then it's really not better than orange gear with Tionese+ mods in them. It would be good for the crafted gear to be better than the drops of the same raids, but that's not really worthwhile if we'll be able to get BH gear more easily. But if they're all BoE/bind-to-legacy, then the schematics are at least viable to the crafter for alts and guildmates, rather than vendor trash as they are most of the time now.

Except that... the Bind-on-Pickup recipes that create BoP items that drop in raids, make LESSER quality gear than what drops in the raids. for example, the "Energized" schematics make 126 rating items (same as Tionese) which is LESS than the Columi gear (136) that drop in the same story-mode raids, AND they won't have any set bonus. BoP and not as good as the raid drops to me makes that whole class of schematics pointless. What's the point of making gear that you basically need better gear than that to even get the schematic? Possibly being able to craft them with Augments, but with no set bonus that's not even as good as just using Custom gear. Customs are actually better, since you can put better mods in it. For any of the Schematics to be worthwhile, the crafted gear NEEDS to be either BoE, or BoP and better than the drops from the same raid, along with needing materials you can only get from raids. EDIT: since in 1.3 we'll be able to get Black Hole gear more easliy, all those dropped schematics still aren't viable unless they can make BoE/BoA gear. The idea of making crafted gear from raid drops is great, but Bioware does not have it right so far. side note: the special materials USED to be BoP but aren't anymore. I'm not sure if that's because someone realized how useless the system is... but that's going in the wrong direction. Side note #2: crafting as a whole is not useless, just the attempt at crafted gear from raids. As they are though Artifice and Cybertech in particular fall short of end game stuff.

I've only done half the story modes so far, but on those i've finished so far you never have to go through a PvP zone during the story quests, class or general questlines. There is a problem with the map where it sometimes tells you to go through the enemy camp on the way to your quests, if it's closer than your side's. That isn't the same thing; you just need to be aware of it and go thru the longer way. on the other hand... i'm greatly disappointed that the +41 yellow crystal schematics for PvE stats (endurance, crit and power) are only on the PvP vendor. I would be fine if it was only the Expertise version, but I hate that I would have to run PvP to get the PvE ones. EDIT: even trying to explore everything you can avoid getting flagged for PvP, but you do have to be careful and sometimes skirt the other side's areas until you find it on the map.