Perhaps I can take up Cantina dancing to pay for my speeder?
I ended my SWTOR adventures today at level 20, and no closer than 1/3 of the way towards the speeder I’ll want to purchase at level 25. This vexes me because in that other MMO I play, I’ve never had a character be unable to purchase their transportation at level, even with keeping my professions leveled up with my character.
/cry
This is a symptom of my crafting affliction. I absolutely *HATE* to have my crafting not keep pace with my character’s leveling. Why? Because it sucks to not be able to make items I might actually want to use, that’s why! I’ve made a solid dent in my crafting thus far, and can actually make a few items my guildies might want to wear (see my crafting rare patterns list for details on what I can make.)
But as of now, I am going to have to hoard my credits until 25 to see if I can make it to being able to purchase my speeder training and my speeder. Most unfortunately I think I will just be fast walking my way around, getting the smackdown handed to me.
This really should not be the case. But I have had to spend cash on archaeology missions due to the sheer volume of bugged archaeology nodes I’ve seen in my travels. I get excited about a node on my map ,clear my way too it, then find it’s not able to be collected. Rinse and repeat for about 60-70% of the nodes I saw today on Balmorra.
I do have an evil plan for how to address this gap. I plan to make some sacrificial alts this weekend, and funnel all of their earnings to my main. It’s cruel, but I am going for maximum dark side points, now aren’t I? Which reminds me I shall have to track down that silly woman who was responsible for those 50 light side points. Truly unacceptable…
For those of you crazy enough to follow in my synthweaving leveling footsteps, I do have a few tips:
1) Skip out on the Underworld Trading missions unless you are dead set on making yourself one of the low level fully moddable clothing items and need the special materials.
2) Stock up on the fibrous nylite solution when you visit your first crew skills vendor. You are going to go through this stuff like mad, so buy 20-30 the first go round so you have it on hand.
3) Go out of your way in search of archaeology nodes whenever one pops up on your mini map. Yes, many of them are bugged, but you will need every mat you can scrounge up, so worst case scenario, you’ve gotten a few more credits and a smidge of XP.
4) If you get stuck, use your archaeology missions judiciously. I suggest saving them up for when you need the artifact fragments, or when you are in the transition phase between level 1 and level 2 crystals.
5) Free up your bag space by storing your crafting materials in your cargo hold. Your companions can easily access them for crafting but they won’t keep you from picking up all the grey trash you can find to finance this little venture.
I have to also note that companions are supposed to be able to go and sell your greys for you, but it has been my experience that more often than not, my companion will not, in fact, toddle off on this task. The request seems most likely to fail when underground or in a special quest area. I believe that is a known issue so cross your fingers our little minions are back on taking out our trash soon.
And now for a poll…
Inquisitor's Roadhouse 
I find it a lot easier to level my professions as I level up. In addition I am spending my early levels maxing out my professions with what I can gather. And already I am building upgrades for my lightsaber.
I don’t usually run into crafting obstacles but with Synthweaving, the lack of functioning archaeology nodes has been my downfall. Have had to do a number of archaeology missions to keep that skill at level and have materials to make new items. I am hoping to have better luck as my levels go on.
I can’t stand having to go back and pick up my professions later (especially gathering ones, there’s nothing that bores me more than grinding gathering professions) so I ALWAYS do it while leveling up. I expect this to be no different. The character who’s looking most likely to someday be my main is taking Cybertech, and since Scavenging nodes don’t seem to suffer from the same bugs as Archaeology, it’s going alright so far.
Actually I like crafting so much, but hate grinding it after the fact so strongly, that I think it’s one of the reasons I never leveled a Death Knight in WoW. Too hard to backtrack for the profession leveling.
I agree with you completely on this. Professions leveling is a big incentive that keeps me excited about leveling a character. I love to be self-sufficient in at least one profession by the time I reach max level.
And as for Death Knights– the only time I leveled their professions was when I was rolling on a new server and would exploit their talents for gathering for my new primary character’s crafting power leveling… heh.
You know me and professions. And you know me and alts.
So yeah, I’m leveling ALL THE THINGS!
My biggest suggestion is to get your professions at level 1. You can’t do mission quests or craft until you have your companions, but you can gather from level 1. From the starting zones that I’ve seen, which is now all but the Jedi Knight/Consular, only Archeology has gathering nodes in the starting areas. Bio is especially common, as is Scavenging with most starting planets having a lot of droids to fight.
A general rule of thumb for farming nodes from mobs is that you can only farm the ones that aren’t common mobs. So if there’s an icon of any type after the name then you can most likely use some form of gathering skill on them as long as they are non-humanoids.
For any who aren’t already aware, taking your level 1 character to the Fleet to learn their professions will get you up to level 4 just from taking the quest to pick up professions, talking to all of the professions trainers, and then talking to at least one of the trainers of a profession you actually choose a second time (the quest objective).
My first character is a Biochemist, and I’ve run him completely out of credits twice from sending my companions out on frequent quests to try to farm mats that I needed. I didn’t just use his profession to level though, I specifically farmed for all of the purple versions of everything I use on him. The purple version of the Biochem stims and such are infinitely reusable by a Biochemist, so I invested extra mats and credits to make them for him.
Most of my other characters that have gone with the basic set of skills (1 gather, 1 craft, 1 mission, all related), and I haven’t pushed them to the same extent as Psynister. I didn’t mind pouring extra mats into Biochem because I was making a version that had infinite uses, which is a big deal for someone like me who enjoys PvP and doesn’t want to blow tons of mats/creds on versions that last only until death. I have a harder time justifying the craft/RE/craft/RE/craft mechanic for gear that I’ll use on a leveling toon knowing that quest rewards are frequent and sufficient.
I made my first money alt over the weekend. She’s a Sith Sorcerer with Scavenging, Bioanalysis, and Slicing. She exists to kill things, gather from their corpses, and send all of her companions on Slicing missions every time they’re available. I got her professions for her at level 1 and after leaving Korriban she had 7,000 credits and 20-30 of four different items she got from the two gathering professions which I then auctioned and immediately sold.
If you’re struggling with credits, go queue for PvP; 750-1,900 credits per match isn’t bad for 20 minutes worth of killing Rep’s.
WTB edit button!
Archeology nodes are the only ones that I *haven’t* seen in the starting zones.
Um, I probably will say something obvious, but you you most probably can level profession on greens without mission skill for it and take slicing instead. It works for my with biochem so far. Yes, I will make reusable medkit only if I’ll be lucky enough to find mission items on GTN. But slicing gives me credits for it at least and for everything else too. After two days of sending two companions on slicing missions I have 80k credits, 400 slicing, and 100ish biochem and bioanalysis. Green biochem items are very close to blue and purple, so I almost not losing anything. And on level 50 I’ll drop slicing for diplomacy and will level it again on alt. Or not, time will tell.
You can’t re-engineer greens that are not of the type of item you make. So overall, have gotten pretty few craft mats that way. But every little bit helps. The big issue with leveling the synthweaving has been the lack of working archaeology nodes.
It does seem that Biochem is one of the easier crafts to level. Definitely plan to check it out on some alts!
Fyn’s leveling her Synthweaving and having a blast RE’ing her quest rewards and items that dropped in Black Talon. My Artificer was able to RE a lightsaber that dropped in BT as well, even though I can’t make that light saber. There are at least some items that aren’t tied strictly to your crafting list that you can RE.
I am not sure what the exact reasoning is behind the what you can and can not RE, however I rarely can RE quest rewards even if they are something I can wear. I think the exception is KV gear from quest rewards. While in BT I didn’t get any loot, but seem to recall in BETA I was able to RE flashpoint drops. I would love if it were more consistent/bountiful!