So, the crafting system here in SWLOR can be pretty intimidating, and materials can be frustratingly hard to source if you do not know for certain what you are doing. Luckily, I decided to put this guide together, which should see you easily getting into gear levels that at least allow you to deal with mobs easily and move towards the next big step of Advanced Gearing.
If you want to be entirely or partially self reliant in terms of gear, you will need to work on one or more of the following skills:
Engineering (Blasters)
Armorsmith (All armor, this is the -big- daddy crafting skill, if you’re tossing up between these three TAKE THIS ONE)
Weaponsmithing (For the Melee specialist)
Lightsabers (Currently not recommended due to a lack of craft bonus properties)
These are the skills you will use to produce gear and gradually improve.
If you -only- want to refine materials to pass to a dedicated crafter, you will only need about 20 ranks in any of the top 3 skills (Engineering/Armorsmith/Weaponsmith) and a bit of gear to ensure full transfer (+100 across all your gear is plenty)
Next you will want a workshop, you can create a workshop on land that you own through the Fabrication skill, or in an apartment you rent in the instanced housing system. I will likely write another guide on that and link it here in future. A workshop helps with property transfers as detailed by this guide: [Crafting Guide] Advanced crafting - property transfer
Next you will need a Re-assembler, this item is produced with Fabrication, but is essential to easily making gear with the minimum of frustration.
Finally you want a refinery to break down ores into usable metals and your workbench of choice, also sourced from your local fabricator.
Got all that? Good. It seems like a lot, but reach out to the community and you’ll get a lot of help, the more crafters, the easier it is for everyone else to gear up too.
Once you have that all set up and looking good, you can start refining and reassembling!
IMPORTANT RULES FOR GEARING
Never throw out +stat ore. It is -always- useful.
Do not reassemble Materials that are already +3 as all you will do is give up durability at best and raise the level of the material at worst. For example, +3 Jascioclase (+3 Levels/piece) is as good as reassembled +3 material, but with free durability.
How do I decide what materials I should refine?
The idea behind refining is pretty basic, you want to get a material that gives a bonus equal to its level increase.
Refined materials are always +1 level per +1 stat on the material. (With the exception of BAB which is 6 levels per +1)
Mined materials are always the level of the material, not the bonus.
Veldite/Scordspar: Level 1
Plagonite/Keromber Level 2
Jascioclase/Hemogite Level 3
So, a simple rule is, if the bonus on the material is -less- than the level of the material, refine and re-assemble it, so +2 Jascioclase/Hemogite and +1 Plagonite/Keromber should always be recycled.
If the level of the material is 2 or below and the bonus is equal to that level (Is also 2 or below) you -may- want to refine and reassemble it.
To make this clearer, if you have +2 Keromber (level 2), it is better to recycle it because a Level 3, +3 item has a better transfer chance in any final item you make and takes less transfers to reach the same total bonus, even though It looks like you are getting a 1:1 level to property return.
An exception to the above rule is if you simply do not have many materials and the crafter has a high crafting bonus, so it does not matter so much.
Words can be confusing, so I did a thing:
When to reassemble your materials, a chart:
How do I actually do all this, though?
Real simple. Refine your materials into their metals. Use multiples of that metal to create a dagger/pistol/armour piece with an equivalent of +3 from your material.
For example, if you put 3, +1 materials of the same property into a dagger, when the dagger is made, they roll together into a neat +3 bonus.
Then you put that item into the re-assembler and collect your tasty +3 re-assembled material.
This process will allow you to create, or supply a crafter to create weapons and armour around the +30 mark with a minimum of frustration.
Thank you for reading this, and for a little sneaky tip, crafted heavy armour always re-assembles an extra +3 ac material, and Blaster pistols always re-assemble an extra +1ab material. If you have any questions, DM me in the discord and I’ll add an answer to this post! 
