It's actually quite simple! You know those vendor guys who give you that IR 270 armor? They work the exact same way as the tech fragment vendors work, meaning that vertical (and horizontal) gearing practices apply.

For those of you who aren't familiar with how those processes work or have simply forgotten it, here's an extremely short summary of how it works:

The gear you get from the vendors is based on the rating that you've got equipped at that moment. Drops vary from being two IRs below to four IRs above your equipped rating. Buy gear, equip it, and buy new gear. If it's got a higher number, equip it. If not, sell it. Keep doing that until you're IR 306.

I only joined during the current iteration of the PTS, so I can't say if that was possible in the previous one as well. Judging by the fact that so many players complained about not having 306 gear, I'd say no. Still, good on BioWare to implement that here now. Would have been nice to actually say that anywhere, but whatever.

And if that gear climb actually was possible during the last PTS iteration, even the devs themselves probably weren't actively aware of this because then they most likely just took the tech fragments vendor and modified them a little. If that's the case, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed at my fellow PTS testers. I know we're supposed to be here to check out the PTS to get a feel for the new combat classes, but that doesn't mean we can't try to break a few things in the process.

Anyways, happy hunting!

You could do that last week too but not everyone noticed. It takes a silly amount of clicking to get to 306s, though.

Other notes:

If you want your ship and the class companions start chapter 1 and cancel it as the cinematics start.

And there's a clickable dais on Odessan in the open starting area that gives you all the money you can spend and some matts (left over from a prior test).

Thanks for this.

Any tips for augmenting? Or did i miss something? Not that I need augs or 306 gear for rolling my face across the keyboard on Onderon.

You could do that last week too but not everyone noticed. It takes a silly amount of clicking to get to 306s, though.

 

Other notes:

If you want your ship and the class companions start chapter 1 and cancel it as the cinematics start.

 

And there's a clickable dais on Odessan in the open starting area that gives you all the money you can spend and some matts (left over from a prior test).

Oh okay, then it was probably mentioned by some people and this is merely the first thread specifically about it. My faith in the PTS testers stays strong then!

The ship/companions tip is completely awesome, because that also means that we have easy access to infinite money to roll amplifiers (spamming the droid conversation gives 1 mil already but it's a tedious, boring process) and the golden gift seller to get our comp to lvl 50 (albeit slowly due to the lack of legacy perks).

I do wonder if you could actually make augments by deconstructing the unlimited amount of 306s (iirc the dais also gives 600 into all of your current skills in addition to the mats), or if crafting is even an option with the current build...

You could do that last week too but not everyone noticed. It takes a silly amount of clicking to get to 306s, though.

 

Other notes:

If you want your ship and the class companions start chapter 1 and cancel it as the cinematics start.

 

And there's a clickable dais on Odessan in the open starting area that gives you all the money you can spend and some matts (left over from a prior test).

Damn you! now they're going to remove the dial next phase! (I hope not)