Geez, I hate being so stupid. I'm fighting the Bad Guys with a touchpad. I have a high powered sniper rifle that uses a LOT of energy and another rifle that doesn't care, so I shoot the high energy piece until energy is low, then switch to my "other" rifle and let the yellow bar build up until I can whack 'em with Big Bertha again. Seems like an OK strategy to keep fire on target. So....

 

I lost my secondary rifle. How? I dunno. I had clicked on another icon and accidentally grabbed it and when it was all over but the crying I had that icon in my rifle slot, and no rifle. *** did it go? So I clicked up Inventory, grabbed another rifle and stuck it in the old slot. And then....

 

I'm fighting the Bad Guys and Big Bertha takes her toll so my yellow energy bar is low, so I switch to my new secondary rifle, and.....

 

it says, "You cannot switch weapons in the middle of combat."

 

Huh? I've been doing that for several levels. (I'm at my first ever 25, just started) So I don't understand why the rules just changed. What is it about my "new" secondary rifle that prevents me switching to it?

 

TIA. Geez!

Edited March 29, 2013 by MSchuyler

Well, for a start, your weapons aren't using up your energy bar - your skills are. If you use a different rotation, you won't feel the need to swap out weapons. There should be several Sniper leveling guides around.

 

Also, I have no idea what happened to your weapons. As far as I'm aware, weapon and armour switching has never been possible in combat.

From what I can tell from your post, you're confusing switching weapons for switching attack abilities. The weapon that you're equipped with has no effect at all on how much energy is used, but the ability you click to activate does. IIRC, the abilities for a sniper rifle user does indeed look like a rifle, which may be the confusion. It also looks like you said you accidentally dragged it out of your quick bar. What you need to do is open up you ability menu at the top. Inside this menu, you need to find your basic attack for your class and drag it back to your quick bar. This should solve your problem. In order to keep this from happening again, you can lock your bar. There's a little lock on the side that you can click to keep abilities from moving around and that you can unlock later when you get new abilities.

Abilities on your bars, you can find them if you open your Abilities window and drag them to the bars. The icons may look like a weapon, but they aren't the weapons you actually have in your hands. The energy used is based on what abilities you push / activate.

 

The two guns you can equip can be in your inventory and / or bought from the GTN auction house, and they have stats on them that may make your energy bar bigger or make your ability bars hit with more damage.

Sorry but if you really want help you should actually speak properly instead of referring to things as big bertha and whatnot, it's rather difficult to interpret what you're wanting help with...

Before you had a skill in the slot, meaning that clicking would activate the skill (and animation, which was likely the source of "big Bertha". However, what you have dragged to the quick bar is an inventory item, not a skill.

 

You weren't changing weapons before but using abilities. If you press the ability window key ("p" by default I believe) you should be able to see the icon you dragged and replace it on your quick bar.

 

To prevent this happening in future you can click the lock icon so that it is closed and you won't be able to accidentally take an ability off. The icon is to the left of the first icon on your first quick bar.

Thank you for the replies. It's back working "properly" for now. I've only been playing for three weeks now and have never done an MMORPG before. I had a complete conceptual misunderstanding of what I was actually doing. I had thought that an enhanced shot (which was the drain on energy I mentioned) was an actual weapon and the "rifle shot" was an additional weapon. It packs quite a wallop at the expense of energy.

 

What I somehow threw away was "rifle shot" which, I now know, fired the rifle assigned to my character. When that disappeared I moved a rifle from inventory into that slot and, of course, it didn't work. Now I'm understanding those icons are not things, but abilities. Got it. I managed to blunder to level 25 without understanding that. I still don't understand exactly why the enhanced shot uses up so much energy, but still, your explanation explains a whole lot.

 

I apologize for not explaining things "properly." It's difficult to do when you don't know what the issue is, don't know the language and definitions, and, indeed, have it completely backwards.

This may be a bit out of date, but the basic principles would be sound (the only thing different would be some of the talent tree balances and such): http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=134108

 

If you're 25 and - as you said - are quite confused about everything, be sure to check in with your class trainer to see if you have the updated skills and don't forget to use your talent trees Keep Kaliyo's armour up to date as well, if you can.

 

I'd suggest mentioning your sever (if you know it), in case anyone on here can help you in-game. If you don't feel like doing that, perhaps ask on Fleet if anyone knows any good Sniper players, and then see if you can get tips from them.

I'd suggest mentioning your sever (if you know it), in case anyone on here can help you in-game. If you don't feel like doing that, perhaps ask on Fleet if anyone knows any good Sniper players, and then see if you can get tips from them.

 

Thank you. That is a GREAT resource you cited. I'm on Harbinger because my grandkid, who got me into this, is there as well.