Darth Hater

There are a large number of crew skills available in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and choosing those that best compliment your class, guild and goals can be daunting. In an effort to point players in the right direction, we have compiled a list of crew skills along with their strengths and weaknesses after the jump.

Crew Skill Combinations

Players can choose three crew skills, but only one of the six crafting skills. The other two can be any combination of gathering or mission crew skills. Each crafting skill has a complimentary gathering skill used to obtain the materials for crafting Premium (green) quality items and a Mission skill to obtain Prototype (blue) or Legendary (purple) materials.

Even though a player’s crew does the crafting, the same crew skills are shared by all of the player’s companions. Players are limited to a total of three crew skills, not three skills for each companion.

Armormech: Crafts medium and heavy (non-force) armor
Scavenging: Gathering materials for premium (green) quality items
Underworld Trading: Missions for prototype (blue) and legendary (purple) quality materials

Armstech: Crafts weapons and barrel mods
Scavenging: Gathering materials for premium (green) quality items
Investigation: Missions for prototype (blue) and legendary (purple) quality materials

Artifice: Crafts hilt mods, shields, enhancement mods and crystal mods
Archaeology: Gathering materials for premium (green) quality items
Treasure Hunting: Missions for prototype (blue) and legendary (purple) quality materials

Biochem: Crafts consumables and implants
Bioanalysis: Gathering materials for premium (green) quality items
Diplomacy: Missions for prototype (blue) and legendary (purple) quality materials

Cybertech: Crafts droid mods, grenades, earpieces and mods
Scavenging: Gathering materials for premium (green) quality items
Underworld Trading: Missions for prototype (blue) and legendary (purple) quality materials

Synthweaving: Crafts light and heavy (force-user) armor
Archaeology: Gathering materials for premium (green) quality items
Underworld Trading: Missions for prototype (blue) and legendary (purple) quality materials

Deciding which combo is appropriate depends on a player’s goals:

Crew Skills for Maximum Profit

Players interested primarily in profit may choose to forgo a crafting skill, instead picking up only gathering and/or mission skills. Slicing is not required for any of the crafting skills, however, it does provide rare schematics for all professions. Slicing nodes will also provide immediate cash and is quite profitable, and is also the only way to get augments. When a crafter critically creates an item, the item gains an augment slot.

Archaeology materials are more difficult to come by than Bioanalysis or Scavenging. Bioanalysis can gather from dead animals as well as nodes. Scavenging gathers from dead droids and nodes. Archaeology can only gather from nodes, so archaeology materials will likely sell for more on the Galactic Trade Network.

For the third skill, choosing another gathering skill (Scavenging or Bioanalysis) that provides basic materials will not demand high prices, however, they will be very easy to sell, meaning all encountered nodes are a guaranteed profit. Mission skills generally cost a substantial amount of credits for each mission a companion is sent on, meaning players will need to sell the mission rewards in order to make those credits back — which is a bit of a gamble. Companion gifts will not sell, so avoid those missions altogether.

Consider taking all gathering skills to start. Slicing is defined as a gathering skill, but its missions can be quite profitable. Players should start sending their ship droid on slicing missions as soon as he becomes available. Upon obtaining a third companion the player can drop a gathering skill and pick up a mission skill to begin sending their companions on.

Alternatively, players interested in quickly manipulating their alignment should consider taking diplomacy missions. Each successful mission awards not only items, but dark side and light side alignment gains as well.

Crew Skills for Leveling: Armormech and Synthweaving

Some players may not pay much heed when it comes to keeping their armor updated as they level, hoping to find replacements from quest rewards or drops as they progress. However, this can occasionally leave players with armor well below their level. Filling in the gaps with crafted armor will cause the largest overall stat gain of all the crafting professions.

Mods: Cybertech, Artifice, Armstech

While you can sell crafted materials from any of the crafting professions; implants, earpieces and mods appeal to a broad market. Players might wait to upgrade a specific piece of armor, but they abhor empty slots, especially if that empty slot is in a piece of newly obtained gear. For example, near level 16 there is a quest reward for a nice purple chest piece with an enhancement and armor mod slot, yet both slots are empty. Players can either use commendations or purchases from the Galactic Trade Network to fill them. They can then continue to upgrade the mods in the item as they level, as opposed to searching for a whole new piece of gear. This allows those with the Cybertech, Artifice or Armstech Crew Skills to easily profit from this demand.

Biochem

Biochem might be one of the best crafting skills for end game. SWTOR is fairly easy in the early levels, and consumables will likely sell very poorly. However, biochemists craft implants, which sell well on the Galactic Trade Network, but these items cannot be equipped until level 21. Biochem can make some reusable consumables, exclusive only to those who can craft them, but again these are not available to early level Biochemists.

Reverse Engineering

Crafted items can be reverse engineered, providing raw materials or potentially a rare recipe. To reverse engineer a crafted item, click on the reverse engineering button in your inventory screen, then right click on the crafted item. Each time an item is reverse engineered, there is a chance to obtain a new recipe. It is likely better than a one in ten chance, but players should plan on reverse engineering at least ten before expecting a new recipe. Regardless, players will receive some of the basic materials used to craft the reverse engineered item.

This method is used to obtain many blue quality or better recipes. Players will need to be selective about what they reverse engineer. A blue recipe is roughly equivalent to the green recipe above it. For instance, a blue Might Armoring 2 usable at level nine and a green Might Armoring 3 at level 11 both provide five strength. There is not much value in a blue if players will be out leveling it in the very near future, so it may be best to wait until higher levels when crew skills become both slower and harder to level. The real bottleneck is the time it takes to get blue materials from missions. It might be a good idea to get enough materials to make several items before reverse engineering them to get a new recipe.

Companions and Missions

There are four mission skills: Diplomacy, Investigation, Treasure Hunting and Underworld Trading. There are four gathering skills: Archaeology, Bioanalysis, Scavenging and Slicing. The only way to use the mission skills is to send crew members on missions. However, gathering skills not only allow players to gather from nodes, but also to send companions on gathering missions.

Missions cost money and gathering missions will only reward green materials, which is much more expensive than gathering the materials directly from nodes. However, there are a couple of exceptions where it is indeed worthwhile. When a player maxes out their gathering skill for the planet they are on and are able to craft and use items that require materials from another planet, companions should be high enough in the gathering skill that missions will net these higher level materials. It is still expensive, but may be worth it. Additionally, players who fall behind on gathering skills and encounter nodes that are too high for their level can level their gathering via gathering missions. The other exception is slicing. Slicing missions can usually net more credits than the missions cost.

Conclusion

Whether you are simply looking to earn cash or a reputation for crafting a specific type of item, the crafting system in SWTOR should appeal to most players. While the system maintains the familiar feel of past MMOs, the ability to delegate crew skill duties to companions, as well as the ability to critically craft items, provides a unique and satisfyingly rich experience for those who wish to use it.