Hey, I just started playing a few weeks ago and I love it so far!

I'm mostly Republic, but I've got a few Empire characters as well.

My question is how often do you get ship/cantina quests from your companions? On my level 30 Trooper, I've had roughly five each from both Aric and Elara, but on my level 19 Sith Warrior, I've had only one from Vette. Is it tied to story, affection gain, or both, or what?

On a more unrelated note, I was kind of surprised with how...lacking Wiki SWTOR is, especially coming from WoW / WoWpedia where there could be an article on a brick of a building. Is there anywhere where there's a wealth of detailed information about SWTOR?

Thanks in advance, dudes.

My question is how often do you get ship/cantina quests from your companions? On my level 30 Trooper, I've had roughly five each from both Aric and Elara, but on my level 19 Sith Warrior, I've had only one from Vette. Is it tied to story, affection gain, or both, or what?

Both; affection value and current story level. Some companions can't/won't talk with you any further until you see a certain specific story arch because their next convo with you may entail discussing that particular spoiler. So it is possible gain affectiion so fast that your convo's with them are 'put on hold' for a lack of a better term. Once you finish chapter I, II or what have you, they will have a bunch of convo's that you can access all at once in succession.

As far as info goes, searching in the class forums here helps though it can be tough to navigate if they don't title their threads with specific buzz words so you know exactly what the topic is about. Other than that, I never played WoW but I imagine their Wiki is more extensive because of how long the game has been out for. I'm sure in due time, and with the help of volunteers, the SWTOR Wiki will have more info added to it as well.

What Ridickilis said is right. when I get my companions I take them to the fleet and feed them gifts till they have 6k affection... Then I stand there talking to them saying the options that gain the most affection xD

for my starter companions that means I go through all of their Act1 conversations after leaving Dromund Kaas/Coruscant xD

Then I have to wait till Act 2 before I get any more which by then they have 8k+ affection and I go through most of their conversations (there didn't seem to be as many on my 8k+ affection companion, so I'm hoping some are progression based for that Act )

That said, if you were to get to Act 3 without gaining any affection with Vette, to then feed her gifts and max out her affection would unlock all of her conversations, not just the ones appropriate to your level of progression.

Listen to Ridickilis. He speaks truthfully. I've recently been messing about with my Bounty Hunter and went through quite a few missions, then went back to my ship to head off to another planet and was greeted with a funky triangle where Mako, your first BH companion, is stood. I spoke to her and got some XP and after leaving the conversation, was greeted by another triangle above her noggin. This carried on about four or five times in total, one after the other until she gave me some mission or other to do that I was a good 5 levels shy of.

She wittered on about some stuff that had happened during the previous missions so I assume that I'd got her affection up nicely, but too early in terms of the story and was made to wait till a certain time in the storyline before furthering the side stuff with her. It'll happen, but it might be all at once.