A brief guide for whoever needs it

[Bigdaddyjug]

Recently, I've seen a few people talking about how they don't have the credits for their speeder or whatever else they need. I've levelled 4 characters to speeder range so far and I haven't had any problems putting together the 48k credits needed. This guide will also give you some tips on making your levelling life easier.

Step 1: The Gear
As soon as possible, get your self a full set of moddable gear, including weapons. It shouldn't be difficult to collect this either from quest rewards, flash point drops, or even buying it relatively cheaply on the GTN. Doing this means you'll never be coming to the GTN hoping to find an upgrade for a piece of gear that is 10 levels out of date. The second half of this is that you do every quest you can on every planet and always choose the commendation as your reward, unless they offer an upgrade for your regular companion. For most planets, you'll earn enough commendations to fill in every slot in all 8/9 pieces of your moddable gear.

Step 2: How to Level
First, do the PVP daily quest every day. It doesn't give you a lot of experience, but it takes maybe half an hour to do 2 matches and you get a decent amount of experience and credits just from the War Zones themselves.
Second, do every flash point at least once while levelling. This is pathetically easy now with the LFG tool. The daily LFG quest rewards 5 level-appropriate commendations which will help you with part 1, and you also have a chance to get some nice gear drops. You might get a piece that you like the look of better than your current moddable set, or you may get an ugly piece that has better mods in it than one (or more!) of the pieces you are currently wearing.

Step 3: Crew Skills
The obvious thing here is to choose a crafting crew skill that benefits your class. If you're a Force-user, don't take Armstech or Armormeh. Conversely, if you're a tech user, Artifice and Synthweaving will have very little to offer you. I highly recommend that all new players choose Biochem on their first character, because that character will then be able to craft some nice Medpacks and Stims for future alts. I also do not recommend running Crew missions until you get your second companion. This will give you a chance to develop a nice little bankroll before you start blowing through it running your Diploamcy/Treasure Hunting/Underworld Trading/Investigation missions. The last obvious tip is to gather every node you can. There are more crafting skills than gathering skills and if you roll enough alts you will collect extra mats you can send to them to ease their crafting journey.

Step 4: The Alts
Yes, I know the game is new and exciting and you want to try out different things. However, Bioware has designed this game where early altoholism is a bad thing. You don't want to roll any alts until your "main" character has completed Chapter 1 of their story and unlocked your Legacy. The reason for this is, any experience gained by any of your characters on the same server all contributes to your LEgacy level, and there are some pretty cool things you can get with a higher Legacy level. Optimally, you won't roll any alts until you get your "main" to level 50 and have a large bankroll to fund alts with, but credits are easy enough to make in this game that it's not really necessary.

***

If anybody has any questions, please ask. I am frequently on the forums here and would be happy to help.

[mouseno4]

If your strapped for cash and dont have any wealthy/high level/max level alts to leech off... dont level a crew skill. Simple as that.

Only level one via gathering nodes in the world. Doing missions and crafting is a credit sink, and pretty big one too.

I keep every single blue/green i loot for distribution to my various crafter alts - you should vendor these to gain the few extra credits you will need at 10/25 for your speeder. Dont buy any gear off vendors, gtn or from other players. You really dont need them to level a character, unless your skipping content to attempt higher enemies. Only buy things with commendations as they dont cost credits.

[Lucious]

I pretty much do what you do. Except the pvp stuff. The thing is, it is how I play all mmo's. I am methodical and love to clear all quests in a region/area before I move on.

However, it seems that the many VOCAL people skip all the extra content and only do class missions. I saw a clown in a class mission area 4 levels below the mission in the start area (tython). He couldn't do it solo (no shit). So he was spamming general chat "I need help killing the chief," for help. Nobody would help the idiot. Basically, he wanted someone else to do his class mission for him.

Lotsa people are like that. I'm not knocking it cuz everyone has their own playstyle. I just can't see shelling out the 50 bucks for the game and 15 a month to do nothing but pvp. The cool factor in this game is the depth of the storylines, IMO.

[SoulBender]

Nice write up Bigdaddy...

[mouseno4]

I actually started a credit making guide on this forum.

I got a few paragraphs before i realised how small the member size of this forum really is. Would be pointless if 10 people view it. Gave up.

[Cethron]

Yes very good starter. I myself am a fairly slow player I started in Jan and it took me to the end of April to get my lvl 50 and yes I focused on only one character played all the storys now I am hammering my way through my jedi and from that point to now he is almost 40. He was doing all quests too however I am noticing a trend with most planet side quests being the same so he is more pvp now and following story quests.

[mouseno4]

If you do a search on google for my user name, you will no doubt find the guides i have previously written - and they are quite lengthy. 30k plus words.

[Eide]

On the subject of gear while levelling up.

The game does a fairly good job of giving you plenty of possibilities to upgrade your gear along the way. Even with slightly underlevelled gear, by and large the content should not pose any significant challenges you cannot overcome. The key is to quest all the way through planets to get to a sufficiently high level for the next planet and pick up all the gear you need. If you play it like this there should be no need at all to buy gear off the GTN while levelling.

The added bonus, especially with moddable gear, is that you get to sell most of the greens and blues you find. That should make it quite easy to reach your credits goals for speeders and such.

[Bigdaddyjug]

I'm glad you found the post useful and I hope it helps people, especially new people or re-rolls. I wanted to flesh it out more, but I was posting it as I was about to run out of the door from work yesterday. Maybe I'll flesh it out and turn it into a full guide at some point.

Eide is correct. One of the benefits to having a full kit of moddable gear is being to sell any drops you get. I usually just vendor greens, but any blue with appropriate stats I'll throw on the GTN.

The reason I recommend PVP is that there is some nice gear you can get at level 20. The PVP earpieces and implants are better than most other blues of a similar level and should last you quite a while. There is also a 5-piece (head, chest, hands, legs, feet) set of moddable gear available, and some of it looks really cool.

That reminds me, another advantage of having your "main" on a server be a Biochem is that you can implants for future alts. Implants are rarely given as quest rewards and even rarer to find as FP drops. Having a main that can make them is very handy, even if you only make the green version and never do any reverse engineering to get better versions.

Edit: Edited out the Earpieces from Biochem thanks to Zarath's post after mine.

[Zarathud]

Nice guide. There are some good pointers in there. Another simple option for credit-making is to take slicing. Gathering the nodes makes a nice supplement to the cash you make from drops, and the lockbox missions usually turn a profit over time, in addition to the schematics and mission discoveries you can sell via the GTN.

One minor correction to your follow-up, though: earpieces are crafted with Cybertech, not Biochem.

[StealthyChicken]

A little tip. I level all toons with cybertech. That way i craft all my armorings and mods. Then when i finish the planet i only use my comms on enhancements and maybe a barrel/hilt. So one item that costs 7 comms and 6 that costs 2 comms each. Very easily attainable if you do the planet missions no heroics. Then just vender everything.

Then when i get to 50 i just change crew skills cuz u can make 240k doing dailies. But usually keep 1 toon with uwt to acquire metals for the toon thats lvling and possibly work on a skill that toon would be taking when changing at 50.

[Bigdaddyjug]

A little tip. I level all toons with cybertech. That way i craft all my armorings and mods. Then when i finish the planet i only use my comms on enhancements and maybe a barrel/hilt. So one item that costs 7 comms and 6 that costs 2 comms each. Very easily attainable if you do the planet missions no heroics. Then just vender everything.

Then when i get to 50 i just change crew skills cuz u can make 240k doing dailies. But usually keep 1 toon with uwt to acquire metals for the toon thats lvling and possibly work on a skill that toon would be taking when changing at 50.

I don't like this strategy. I think you're better off just levelling the prof you want to have while levelling. Skipping the planetary heroic missions means you miss out on a lot of extra exp, a good number of social points, and some really nice gear options as rewards.

[StealthyChicken]

Well this was before the mergers. You know when the planet average was you and maybe someone else

[mycroftxxx]

it seems every third planet or so they give you the option to buy a weapon with the planetary commendations.

I ALWAYS buy the weapons when the option is available.

the barrels or hilts are 7 commendations alone (one of the more expensive mods out there) plus you get a crystal that is more your level. throw in the cost of buying the mod and enhancement and the 12 or so commendations you shell out for the weapon is well worth it.

[SoulBender]

I actually started a credit making guide on this forum.

I got a few paragraphs before i realised how small the member size of this forum really is. Would be pointless if 10 people view it. Gave up.

10 people? Where did you get that number? We have hundreds of registered viewers and plenty more that lurk.