Sep 7, 2011

Posted by in Zlatto's Bazaar | 41 Comments

Zlatto’s Bazaar: Choosing Your Crew Skills

Zlatto’s Bazaar is the one-third Wall Street, one-third criminal empire and one-half gossip rag. You need to keep up on the Bazaar if for no other reason than to keep an eye on your competitors. Don’t be a Ho-tah and visit often.  Your comments are encouraged, especially if they make me credits…

I’m fairly certain that it’s not against the NDA to state I had more free time this past weekend than I had “hoped” I would.  In Hutta terms I got krolped.

So I’ve decided that it was time to sit down with all the information we have seen/read/heard about the crafting opportunities in Star Wars: The Old Republic and finally pick my path. Since I have set aside so much free time and nothing to spend it on, of course. (See reference to getting krolped above).

As many of you know I am Toydarian. By default, my hope is to cheat off of someone else.  So I will go ahead and outline some of my thoughts and hope that someone who has done more homework than I have will post something I can put into play when the beta weekend invite I SO RICHLY DESERVE arrives in my gmail account come next Wednesday.

Now, my decision making process may seem counter-intuitive. I do recognize it might be seen as such, but I will explain.  Without access to schematics, I find it very difficult to just select a Crew Skill strategy, and then back fill the options.  That would be the easiest way right?  I mean once you choose a crafting path you are locked into your options, but I wanted to take a different approach.  So here are my thoughts.

Gathering

I believe this is easiest (at least for me) to select as I always plan to utilize what I craft.  So is Zlatto going to be a Force user or non-Force user?  This questions defines itself as is it Archaeology, or is it Scavenging?   “But wait Zlatto you are over simplifying it!” And to that I say yes, I am.  Will I be a space aged flower picker?  Sure eventually.  Will I be a slicer?  Sure eventually.  So far Slicing has not piqued my interest except in a raw credit potential, and my hope is that SW:TOR will become my crafting game and not just a rush to acquire credits. (Shhhh don’t tell the wife as Toydarian women have big issues with their men not setting thier priorities right.)   As for Bioanalysis, its an interesting concept for me to eventually use for an alt but just does not have an ‘it’ factor.  So at launch, I am selecting Scavenging as I have decided on a non-force user as my first character.

Scavenging – the art of recovering useful materials and parts from old or damaged technology

Crafting

So once the gathering skill has been selected, the choice narrows, but not as much as if I had selected one of the others.  I mean, choosing Bioanalysis you get one crafting path, Archaeology gives you two.  See there is a method… I swear.  So if for some reason the crafting path I select is lamer than a Gungan rap song, then I have two other options to choose from without out  loosing any of my knowledge/experience in gathering, or the need to adjust my Mission skill.

Armormech, Armstech, Cybertech… that is a lot of ‘ech’ I know.  Cybertech seems like a sci-fi engineering path, and even though I love gadgets I have not been bale to beg/borrow/steal enough information to determine if it will be interesting enough.  Its not like I am proposing it will be sub par, its just too nebulous for me.  Now Armormech seems pretty straight forward, who doesn’t want to be a blacksmith of the future.  I bet your blacksmiths hammer has a  built in comlink.  But lets all be serious, can a brother get a PEW PEW?!  Once I knew my first character was not going to using a glow stick of death, I have focused on the way of the gun, Armstech it will be.   But again, if it turns out to be a sub-par path I can easily move to sci-fi-Macgyverism or start making lightsaber and rust resistant pants.

Armstech – the skill of constructing blasters, blaster rifles and upgrades


damn cool
Mission Skills

Even though the two steps above have been defined, I’m still in quite a pickle.  I prefer to just rely on bits I have gleaned from respectable fan sites that have solid people making comments and assumptions. But without more solid information, this one is a crapshoot.

Now Diplomacy and Investigation might give some great rewards… hell I have no clue.  But I do like to have some sort of character continuity, though its not really up to the level of role playing Sa Chi covers ever so clearly here. But it just doesn’t seem like efforts I’d want my henchmen … ahhh crew members to be doing.  So its Treasure Hunting or Underworld Trading it seems, but as of now I need more input.  This is where you all chime in.  What do you think?  What have you heard?  What do you think best matches up to my Scavenging and Armstech selections?

Or better yet, what path will YOU choose?

  1. Well as said you can have only one crafting selected, and the other 2 can either be a combination of gathering, mission or 2 of one of them.

    I will be going for Scavenging, armormech and slicing.

    It will go well with my being a Bounty Hunter.

  2. So you will drop the Mission skills totally? I had heard that Mission skills is the pipeline seen to more of the rarer materials. With slicing is your idea to buy them, or just level up with slicing and migrate to a mission skill later?

  3. I think you should go Underworld Trading. Give your guy that slimy feeling :D

    I will be going archaeology and synthweaving and for RP reasons either slicing or investigation.

  4. I find myself torn for my consular – I’m pretty sure artifice will be an extremely popular choice, and synthweave second. I’m trying to figure out which might benefit me more, and I keep finding synth winning in my head – I would think armor would have more mod slots (and thus more potential sales) while lightsabers / off-hands would have less (and thus less sales).

    Like you, I didn’t get the Beta invite that I deserved. Too much free time meant I had to spend it sharpening my economic prowess elsewhere…

  5. I know it does not have to be Force User | Non Force User for Biochem but the others do seem pretty clear in a division.
    Also the recent talk about Datacrons relates to Relics, and how they will impact the crafters.

    @Loy – that is a good point. I mean the game should be fun and challenging and something about the posts on Underworld trading interest me.

  6. Lord-Maknoe says:

    For me, it all depends what is required of the crew skills. For example I hope to get armormech, so I can create powerful armor for my sith juggernaut. But does the armormech skill require you to have scavenging, archeology (being that it’s sith armor), or even slicing so I can get the schematics in the first place. As a fact, I realize I want archeology, and in any MMO I always wanted to be someone who could create weapons and armor, but what is required to create these weapons and armor? If I could find out what skills link to which, then I will have my full decision :)

  7. @Lord-Maknoe – the lack of specifics trouble me in my decision process also. If I get into beta my efforts will be less on pre-learning my main class skills and more towards learning the mechanics of crafting/gathering and some of their dependencies.

    I now place a task on all you …. anyone that gets some beta time on the crafting mechanics you get you arse back over here and share with the group.
    in fact lets make it a Toydarian CURSE ! Poor profit to those who do not share :)

  8. Devoralmas says:

    There’s an interesting topic about skills in the Force Heal website that may be of interest, with a great graphic (made by “abinning”) relating the different Crew Skills and the suggested classes.

    http://www.forceheal.com/forum/m/2217286/viewthread/1240526-crew-skills-aka-professions-info-graphic

    • this is a nice image, I look forward to testing this image out.
      http://abits.biz/swtor/SWTORCrewSkills.png

      thanks for the insight.
      What are your thoughts related to the mission skills versus slicing discussion?

      • I looking at this I see Slicing as possible support role for CyberTech. Has anyone seen/read/heard specifics on this? I had heard things like @thebountyhunter on schematics and credits. The image discusses generators and droid pieces.

        • Devoralmas says:

          The image is completely based on the info gathered in this article:

          Personally, I think slicing and missions skills are still too clouded to relate them to specific classes or what their roles may exactly be.

          Same with Cybertech… droid parts, ok, but… what kind of droids? Droids as consumables for every class? Seriosly? Non-force armor mods? Shouldn’t this be in Armorsmith with the rest of armors for non-force users?

          Guess we won’t have full info to decide until the drop of the NDA…

          • you are right on Devoralmas, its all just various intellectual what if-ing right now.
            But… again you beta ppl can share opinions and not specifics.

  9. Great article! And I’ve got to tell you that crew skills are killing me already (and we’re months from game launch).

    The main reason, as you touch upon, is that as a role-player I’m driven by the character. My main is a Jedi Sage. He’ll be taking Diplomacy and from what I’ve read light/dark side rewards will be available there. Want to max your morality? Diplomacy is where it’s at. Archeology then comes next. However, my main is also a technophobe! From a crew skills point of view this is disastrous! Underworld Trading is definitely out. So that leaves me with Treasure Hunting or Scavenging as options. Both are gathering skills (in a way) so inventory management would be interesting. But the killer – I’d love some artifice for shield generators too. Oh well, just as well I joined an RP Guild.

    I’m not decided yet but I did appreciate your approach. However, the good news (and I touch on this in tomorrow’s ATGAS article) I can always fall back on RP to make up for the character driven gaps.

    Whatever the case, as a player (and setting the RP elements aside) the more I read about crew skills and crafting the more I like. This is shaping up to be a solid system.

    • I know, the need to ‘feel’ like my character is doing what he should be doing for how i want to play him versus how to craft successfully is a nebulous concept for me.

  10. well isnt it possible to have all the crew skills among you and your companions? there is you plus 5 companions so thats 18 crew skills spots right? and only 14 crew proffs. so does it really matter wat you have? i’d personally let my crew have more gathering and crafting skills and i take mission skills so i can actually use them on the missions and let me crew go gather and craft thier stuff.

    if i am hugely misinformed please let me know

    • this is a grey area for me. In the video http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/crew-skills
      has both the player (seen as trooper) gathering what looks to be metal parts. Scavenging? But … in the same video I see a companion (maybe Elara) picking at the body of a creature just killed. What does it all mean?
      It means Zlatto needs a beta invite for the good of the game….hell maybe even the good of the galaxy!!!!

      • Ah yes…you know, perhaps there’ll be a karmic twist, and those that volunteer such extensive time to the community will luck out with invites? I shall keep fingers crossed and keep giving my time and energy as a contributing editor regardless :D

      • Devoralmas says:

        Maybe it has Scavenging + Bioanalysis…

        As I understand it, your companions will have the same 3 crew skills that you choose.

        This 3 crew skills can be any skills, but just one of them can be a crafting skill. Combinations?

        3 Mission/Gathering

        2 Mission/Gathering + 1 Mission/Gathering/Crafting

        1 of each.

        So, the trooper (and his companions) could have armorsmith + slicing + bioanalysis for example.

  11. As far as I was aware, you had only access to three trained abilities at a time (and only one of them crafting)…If that’s the case, I’d be tempted to try align some of my choices against the companions abilities…

    I’d probably go the scavenging, slicing and either armsmech or armormech route…To make the best use of the bonuses…I don’t mind as those kinda interested me in advance anyway…

    • Hi Verbus! Appreciate the comment, but please take care to not post any NDA-breaking material, or links to it… ! Thanks for understanding! :) Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

      • Hi Lethality! I hadn’t realised it was NDA…Thanks for removing…

        I think my plan is to have the above for my main, but to create an alt that can perhaps focus on the interesting mission abilities…

      • Devoralmas says:

        I recall reading someone from BioWare stating in the forums (or in some interview) that the companion bonuses were gone.
        So you didn’t choose your skills and/or active companions based on this

  12. like you I am torn. I have the same problem, I can not make up my mind what to do with the third skill slot.

    I have picked my crafting skill based on my experience for the last 13+ years in crafting systems, I know what will be the most profitable skill hands down.

    Now with that skill I almost have to take the corresponding gathering skill that goes along with it, so thats choice 2.

    now for the third I am stumped. yeah i want a mission skill but from what I am hearing running missions is hella costly and you will go broke fast if you dont watch out.

    with that said I am tempted to take another gathering skill until such a time as I can afford to do anything. Not sure if we will be able to switch skills or not now.

    I know from an interview I had with damion schubert in the past that he said that we would be able to change what skills we had but at a cost of not being able to access your recipe book for that skill until such a time as you change back to it and rise the skill level back up again.

    so with that knowledge I am tempted to say that I might just have one crafting skill at the start and then two gathering skills, and then switch one of them out for s mission skill that I can then afford to use from the proceeds of my gathered materials sales.

    I dont know, its all a guess based on what I have heard so far, it may have all changed by now for all I know.

    great article Zlatto! :)

    • The more I ‘hear’ the more my inclinations spin as I cannot ‘see’ much to make a good decision. This is why we need a Crew Skills Fan Friday Update!

    • ok .. what are your thoughts on the nebulous ‘re-spec’ question? I know the class respec has been hashed out but any info from past interviews on the crew skills?

  13. PreBecause oftnerfed says:

    The choices of Crafting skills are all interesting and THAT’S the problem! Many of the Mission skills look interesting at first, but I think they’re going to all feel very much the same, i.e. pay a CC to go out farming, wait awhile and hope they got the one exceptional material you need, rinse, repeat. If you choose the wrong Mission skill for your Crafting skill choice you could waste a lot of time and credits learning that you made a mistake. They need to clear up the skills and exactly what each one provides, you got that right!

    The ambiguity between the various skills won’t stop with a Friday update though; it’ll be a few months after launch before we know which skills are truly the most valuable. If one Mission skill provides a truly useful material or items (like maybe something that can help add stats or mod slots to your crafted armors and weapons, or something that makes your BioTech products extra potent) it will be popular paired with that Craft. But it may take awhile before most people figure out which one they need to provide the best synergies with their Craft.

    Knowing this, and not much else, about the systems right now I’ve decided to go full farmer mode: Archaeology, Scavenging and Slicing. I was going to take BioChem but it only provides materials for one Crafting Skill, whereas the others provide for multiple skills so demand for those materials should be higher. I’ll buy or trade for whatever crafted items I need until I either decide to pick up a Crafting (unlikely) or Mission skill that feeds a need that’s under-served on my server, or for my guild. Ultimately though my goal will be to make credits, because with enough credits you can usually find whatever else you need.

  14. The problem with all of this for me is respeccing. I want to roll two gathering and a mission to level 50 for credits and then pick a crafting once i see some of them in action. I’d like to then drop one gathering skills, pick up my crafting skill, and, using mats from gathering alts, level my crafting on my main. all this falls over though if I can’t respec my crewskills, which no one has commented on as yet…WE NEED A CREWSKILLS PROGRESSION VIDEO!!!!!

    lol…just some randoms

    • and out of left field here comes Fellis with a right cross :)
      thanks for the post, the concept of dropping A for B has not yest been discussed. Maybe …. just maybe someone who has seen something or heard something could give us a shout out. I mean running 3 gathering till 50 (no cargo limitation right) then changing based on need could work but only if it makes sense in credit cost.

      • it is all about the credits me friend :-)

        Thanks for this article it’s awesome. I think you can respec, but you just start from scratch. I don’t care about that. By the time I get to 50 with three gatherers, then I’ll know which ones are generating the most credits, and I’ll see some cool crafting skills as well, and be able too discern which ones are for me. Heck, in 200 hours, you will have posted at least 3 times on gathering, crafting and missioning in TOR ;-)

  15. My character is going to have an irrational fear of dirt and germs so my options are quite limited to what can keep my hand clean. All the gathering skills seem like too much manual labor and touching unclean things and the mission skills aren’t much better. Possibly diplomacy as long as I can only interact with other germaphobic species. I don’t even want to be near crew members that might fail ISO 14644-1 cleanroom Level 1 standards.

    Bio-analysis might not be so untenable if we are allowed to gather samples in Level A Hazmat gear, but if you have seen some of the specimens across the galaxy even the though of touching them will leave an unclean feeling that a decon shower and a brillo pad wont be able to dent.

    I guess I will stick to what I do best, killing all the unclean creatures that stand in my field of vision. Kill them with the cleansing fire until nothing is left.

    • Well luckily you could do 3 mission skills, and wow would that be a treasure trove of materials but what it seems is that you would not be able to afford it.
      So for a germophobe like you there is still slicing …. doesn’t that sound clean?

  16. Intense_Dragon says:

    Even though I hate all this uncertainty with the crafting, I have to admit that this is also what I love about crafting. The question, what is the best thing to do? Because when I get my answer I know I will have so much pride for all the work and attention I put into finding the answer to this problem.

  17. i will do scavenging and underworld trading but im not sure for ethier cybertech or armstech{prob.will end up picking cybertech for gadgets for my powertech BH then buying wepons off a friend}

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