Right. Since I’ve seen some grave misconceptions about gearing, the concept of it, how important it is in the current state of the server and how to go about it I felt the need to put up this thread that will be continually edited. I’ll leave detailed explanations for the advice I give to the bottom of it, so please don’t scream at the top section going “but why X instead of Y”. If you have valid corrections/criticisms on anything in here shoot me a Discord message (Arrow#6154).
Do I need crafters to provide me with gear?
For anything past Viscara (Mon Cala is doable, but painful depending on build) you will most likely need some crafted gear in order to survive. The painful truth is that the easiest way to acquire gear that will allow you to survive up to Tatooine (a max DEX set for AC with maybe some off-stat if you don’t use DEX for damage) is with materials from Tatooine. ASK OTHER PLAYERS. They are generally happy to help either for free, or something arround 5-10k Credits which is easily acquired by scanning + harvesting ore/trees/crystals and then selling the Gemstones you get from it! (Don’t sell greens, more on that later, they are the +AC ones)
How big is the impact of crafted gear?
Given that I just said you need it to reasonably progress past the second planet in the module (Mon Cala) huge. Stat caps on SWLOR are +55 from whatever the base of your character is (so try and start at uneven numbers for your stats and probably at least 15 DEX for AC reasons). A crafter that knows what they are doing can easily max 3-4 Attributes, get +8 BAB(non Martial-Artists) and a significant amount of extra HP on there.
Suffice to say the answer is: Huge. A non-geared, max Skill character will get absolutely slammed into the ground in half a combat round by a geared, max Skill character.
To look at some baseline here:
Vendor bought, max Skill Light Armor wielding Blaster character:
Damage on hit: ~20 (Baseline, Crit chance + half Dex mod)
BAB: 12 (At Blasters 90 with the correct Background)
AC from gear: 1 (if they found Light Boots from outlaws)
Total AC: Probably arround 40-45 at most
DEX: Probably arround 40-ish
HP: ~120-150
Max crafted gear, max Skill Light Armor wielding Blaster character:
Damage on hit: 50+ (Crafted amage on blaster, Baseline, Crit chance + half Dex mod)
BAB: 20 (22 if Martial Artist Gloves)
AC from gear: 28
Total AC: In the high 70s depending on build
DEX: Capped at 70 or 72
HP: Above 500 if max crafted with +HP on gear
Okay so how do I get that stuff?
I will outline 3 “upgrade levels” of crafted gear here to put the information out there on how to progress.
Level 1: Max Dex, some off-stat or CON through Gemstones
Materials required: Sandswimmer Legs (+5 DEX each per Component slot), Stat Gemstones (in whatever Stat you want, +2s are decent enough here). No reassembly recquired (I won’t cover reassembly here), all the stats are gained by straight components/gemstones being added.
Armor level required to wear: Probably arround 40-45
Wear it even if you don't have the skill level yet, you'll get there and making a lesser set really ain't worth it
Helmet: T2, +10 DEX
Chest: T3, +10 DEX, 2 Slots for Gemstones
Belt: T3, +10 DEX
Boots: T3, +10 DEX, 1 Slot for Gemstones
Amulet: T3, +10 DEX, 1 Slot for Gemstones
Gloves: T3, 3 Open Component Slots for STR/CON/INT OR +4/6 BAB from Tusken Aiming Modulators (expensive)
Total "market" value at initial thread creation: 10-15k Credits
Level 2: Mod Slot AC, 2-3 Attributes maxed, No Perfect Greens, Yellow Coonlank or Regvis Gemstones for AC
Armor level required to wear: Probably arround 70-80
Tip: You can train a second weapon skill to unlearn later to push your armor skill without killing harder enemies
Helmet: T4, 1-2 Yellow Coonlank (adds another Yellow Modification Slot for +3 AC), fill with regular green Gemstones to cap, +10-15 DEX from reassembled material
Chest: T4, 1-2 Yellow Coonlank, fill with regular green Gemstones to cap, +10-15 DEX from reassembled material
Belt, Boots, Amulet: Stat pieces made from reassembled material (see below)
Glove: +8 BAB, unless Character has 67 Martial Arts, then +10 BAB Gloves (honestly recommended for Force Sorcs aswell)
Total "market" value: Probably at least 50-60k, but most players don't care about credits.
Level 3: Perfect Green AC, 3-4 Attributes maxed, + HP on free component slots
Armor level required to wear: Initially less than Level 2 because +3 yellow modifications add 11 skill levels required to wear
Helmet: Reassembled stat materials as neccesary, 4 perfect greens
Chest: Reassembled stat materials as neccesary, 4 perfect greens
Belt, Boots, Amulet: Same stat pieces as Level 2
Glove: Same +BAB piece as above
Total "market" value: Somewhat priceless, but easily into the 200k+ range
Okay but uhh, where do I get all of that stuff?
Reassembled materials are gained from basically crafting components onto an item, then shoving them into the Reassembly Terminal with some Reassembly Fuel. You then decide what material you want it to print out, the result will look something like this:
Reassembly Terminal Output Confirmation ((In this case a Heavy Armor item with lots of DEX on it was reassembled into a lot of +3 DEX leather, that can then be used to make better items at lower level requirements)
Some base components that can be used to make intermediate gear that is then reassembled are as follows: (The /Levels only matters in how many you can cram into an item if you use them for reassembly)
STR: Sand Demon Hide (+4STR|CON/10 Levels), Sandswimmer Fins (+2STR|DEX/9 Levels)
DEX: Sandswimmer Legs (+5 DEX/10 Levels), Tusken Leather (+3DEX/8Levels) Tiger Blood (only +2, don't), Sandswimmer Fins (+2DEX|STR/9 Levels)
CON: Sand Demon Hide (+4CON|4STR/10 Levels), Womprat Claws (+4CON/6 Levels)
INT: Amphi-Hydrus Brain Stems (+2 INT/5 Levels), Sand Demon Claw (+2INT|WIS/8 Levels)
WIS: Amphi-Hydrus Brains (+2 WIS/5 Levels), Sand Demon Claw (+2WIS|INT/8 levels)
CHA: Gemstones?
Where are these acquired?
Mon Cala: Amphi-Hydrus Brains and Brain Stems
Hutlar: Tiger Blood
Tatooine: Sand Demon Hide, Sandswimmer Legs, Sandswimmer Fins, Womprat Claws, Tusken Leather
As you can see INT/WIS are a pain to reassemble, since the easily farmable materials only give +2 respectively and the max component slots are 4 you can only get 8 onto a piece of gear for reassembly, so you need 1 fuel for every 8 stat points in reassembled material
Where do I get Stat or AC Gemstones?
→ Scan any node (Tree, Ore, Gemstone). If it is at least High/Dense or Very High/Very Dense Quality, harvest it. You can increase chances by having Scanners and Harvesters with +Scanning and +Harvesting on it respectively. (+Scanning as a stat DOES NOT WORK on other gear!). That being said harvesting for perfect green gemstones is an absolute pain and can take more than a month if you do 1 gemstone colelcting run of the entirety of Mon Cala a day (takes about 30 minutes), so beware.
Where do I get Yellow Coonlank or Regvis gemstones?
→ They are salvage from space salvaging. Get a spaceship, fit it with 4-5 cannons, additional Strondium tanks, a Scanner and a shield module. Fabricators/Engineers can make these. Fly to asteroids and you have a random chance of getting loot.
How do you actually calculate for or make the stat pieces?
A “stat piece” generally refer to a slot of gear that can be nearly entirely used to put as many attribute points onto it as possible (except for Light Armor, because Boots and Necklace have +1 AC on them at T4).
The way reassembled material works is that it will add a level requirement of +1 per point of stat it provides, so reassembled Leather Dex +3 takes up 3 levels. You may notice in the list above hwoever that for example using Sandswimmer legs you get +5 Dex for 10 levels. Reassembled material is much more level efficient, why does this matter?
The max crafting level of any crafting “profession” is 50. For the best chances of actually applying all of the attributes you want to add to a piece of gear, you want the “final” level to be 47, which is Trivial and gives the best changes. 48 and 49 are possible for crafters with very good crafting gear, anything above is basically gambling.
Now as an example a Leather Belt T1 starts at Level 7, adding the required Light Armor core will bring it up to 8, which means we technically have 39 levels to add stats to it till it hits 47. Some might notice that a Leather Belt T1 has no modification slots or enhancement slots though. Problem: If our primary goal is to max stats, we don’t care about any of that.
Why?
Example 2: Leather Belt T2 starts at Level 14, adding the required Light Armor core will bring it to 15, so now we only have 32 levels to add stats to it till it hits 47. In return we gain 1 blue and 1 yellow modification slot. Problem: The max stat modification one can slot into a blue slot would be a +3 INT/WIS/CHA, so we lost the ability to add 7 stat points, to gain the capability to add +3 to it, essentially loosing 4 stat points. So unless we need the enhancement slot to put +HP on it or something else, we don’t do that.
As a result stat pieces should nearly always be made at T1, unless the enhancement slots or mod slots are specifically required (for example for Yellow Coonlank, Perfect Greens, Cooldown Reduction, or other such application). For example Chest and Helmet will nearly always be made at T3/4 to have the Enhancement slots to add Gemstones, or Yellow Slots for AC modifications
You keep talking about modifications, what the hell are modifications?
Modifications are made by engineers and can be slotted into colored slots. How many slots a piece of gear has is dependant on the type and tier. Common modifications include:
RED: +3 Strength/Dex/Con, +1 BAB (only Gloves and weapons) or +AB and Damage (only Gloves and weapons)
BLUE: +3 INT/WIS/CHA, 5/10/15% Cooldown Reduction
YELLOW: -3 Level requirement, +1/2/3 AC ((Helmet/Chest only for AC, gets converted to DI on shields. Caps are: +10/11/13 for Heavy/Force/Light respectively))
The highest tier of modifications generally adds arround 10-13 levels per modification slotted into gear, so make sure your character can still wear it before applying them. That being said you can still wear gear, but you will loose a % of its benefits depending on how many skill points you are missing. (If your gear needs level 50, but you have 40 it is very likely to still be better than what you are currently wearing because you are only loosing a % of the stats)
Okay, sounds good so far, how do I actually know what stats I need, and how many points in each to cap?
I might expand on this later but the base answer is: It’s complicated. To make an example, if you are a blaster wielding light armor user you would want:
DEX: For AC, AB and 1/2 added to Damage
CON: To max out your HP
INT: For Force Resistance
STR: For some carry weight and potential melee abilities
In addition to that:
+HP on leftover Levels/Slots
50% Cooldown Reduction for permanent Dash/quicker Cooldowns (so 4 Blue mod slots)
If you take your base character stat (lets say 17 DEX), then calculate for the attributes gained through your skills (let’s say 10 DEX from Light Armor 100, 9 Dex from Blasters 90 and 10 DEX from crafting/others) you would be at 17+10+10+9 = 46 naked. Your max DEX is 17+55 ((ALWAYS MAKE CHARACTERS WITH UNEVEN VALUES BECAUSE OF THIS)), so 72. 72-46 = 26 stat points required on gear, quite easy.
Do this for every stat and hand those requirements to your crafter (if you’re not doing it yourself) so they can figure out what you need on your gear. It is generally recommended that the stat that you will ALWAYS NEEDS ON EVERY BUILD (aka DEX) is on Chest and Helmet because those are most expensive to produce. If you forgot the base values for your character a DM can hand you a ring that caps all your stats temporarily so you can -55 them and figure them out.
The great section of “what not do”
Max CDR per piece is 20%, Character cap is 50%
Max HP per piece is +150 (or 100 for regular crafted, unsure)
Don’t use perfect green gemstones on intermediary gear. They are super rare, keep them for your eventual maxed out set
Make sure you build in some overlap for important stats if you are changing skills soon (for example swapping from a +DEX primary to a +STR primary weapon will mean you loose 10 DEX. Be aware of this)
But +DEX on pieces expensive to replace (Chest/Helmet), because you will always need it. Period.
Try to avoid mixing too many stats on one gear piece, it will make it difficult to redo/replace it with exactly what you need or passing it on to a newer player when you no longer need it.
CONFIRMED Bugs/Traps:
Sneak attack on gear doesn’t work
+Harvesting only works for reassembly chance, does nothing for actual harvesting
+Scanning only works on the scanner itself
Dark Side/Light Side potency aren’t a thing anymore even though they can be found on space components
What about weapons?
IDK maybe I’ll bully Ambrose to write a section for Blasters/Melee Weapons here. I’ve never done weaponsmithing/engineering, don’t ask me.