Those of you coming from World of Warcraft post-Classic are familiar with the skill layout of that game, where every single craft skill had to have a mechanically advantageous thing that it ‘owned’ (each of them being roughly as good as the others). Several of the crafting skills in that game effectively were worthless to anyone besides the wielder, to boot. That is not how this game works, mechanically. Every single crew skill mechanical perk originates from the fact that you’re getting the benefit cheaper or earlier than someone who does not have your craft skill. For example, anyone can use medpacks; only a Biochem producer can get a reusable medpack, which costs more to craft but will never get used up. You do not need to be an artificer to upgrade your lightsaber; artificers make the upgrades, you just buy them and insert them into the lightsaber yourself etc. The other thing is that all of the crafting skills have some sort of aesthetic option which is unique to them, and these are among the rare bind-on-pickup items that cannot be given to anyone else. Therefore, there are three approaches to take when choosing your Crew Skill layout: Do I want to get something that will save me money on a reusable I want a lot of? Do I want to get something that will make me a lot of money? Or do I want to get something that will give me a unique visual perk? It cannot be stressed enough that crafting of any kind while leveling up will only be of limited use; you will always end up ahead in credits while leveling by not crafting anything. It becomes a question of time and money spent now, versus time and money spent later to either level up your own craft skill or constantly purchasing everything you need.

To make your decision, you need to have a good grasp of what can be made by each craft skill. You have access to three crew skills per character; a maximum of one may be a craft skill, and it’s recommended that the other two be a gathering skill and a mission skill which support that craft skill. Everything is oriented around the crafting skills; mission skills provide a nice little bit of flavor, but are essentially a second gathering skill oriented around the rarer materials that cannot be obtained through direct gathering. It’s important to note that you will not automatically get all of the important recipes for Craft Skills from the skill itself, even by reverse-engineering; you will need to get some of these schematics from the Galactic Trade Network. It’s also important to note that you will always lose money by sending crew members to do missions, as the point is more to raise your skill and gain materials while not being out in the field yourself. If it was strictly superior to self-gathering, no one would ever do it.

I’ll go over each of the Crew Skills in brief – each section will contain the Crew Skill’s codex entry, followed by my input.

Crafting skills

You may only have one of these skills on your character. If you take one of these, it is your most important skill. As noted above, once you get to endgame, you are not getting unique mechanical perks from what you make via these skills; you’re just getting it cheaper, easier, prettier, faster, or reusable. For leveling content, they do create some unique stuff for lower levels, so rich rerollers will make purchases from dedicated crafters a lot.

Armormech

Recommended Skills: Scavenging; Underworld Trading (Underworld Metals).

Codex: Armormech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys and synthetic materials to construct armor for non-Force users. Vendor-purchased fluxes are used during the armor creation process to refine the materials to ensure suitability. Armormechs can reverse engineer their crafted armor and possibly discover new ways to improve armor creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Armormech.

Comments: Armormech is not your typical choice for a force user, because it provides no mechanical benefits to the Jedi or Sith whatsoever. It also has no aesthetic benefit to the Shadow or Assassin, who cannot wear its armor. I do not recommend it for you for any reason. The materials from its Gathering skill will be in high demand, and non-Force users are going to be a smaller clientele than Force users in this game, I can guarantee that. There is potentially some money to be made off of Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior ACs who want an unconventional look for their character, but that’s not a compelling enough reason on its own to take this skill. For both making money and saving you money, this flunks the test.

Rating: Avoid

Armstech

Recommended Skills: Scavenging, Investigation (Compounds)

Codex: Armstech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys and synthetic materials to craft blasters, blaster modifications and melee weapons. Vendor-purchased fluxes are used during the weapon creation process to refine the materials to ensure suitability. Crafted blasters include blaster pistols, blaster rifles, sniper rifles, assault cannons and shotguns. Blaster modifications include blaster barrels. Melee weapons include vibroblades and electrostaves. Armstechs can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Armstech.

Comments: What it does not tell you is that everything it makes sucks, except for the blaster specific mod (the gun barrel), and the many, many unique models of blaster that it can make. Endgame Vibroblades and Electrostaves (if they ever intend to make the latter useful to a player rather than a companion) are obtained via vendors, to prevent this from being the potentially most universal skill ever. Instead, it’s possibly the only thing worse than Armormech, unless you really, really need to make sure that keeping Qyzen equipped is easy. Since, hooray, it can make Techblades.

Rating: Avoid

Artifice

Recommended Skills: Archaeology, Treasure Hunting (Gemstones)

Codex: Artifice is the delicate skill of constructing lightsaber modifications, enhancements, generators and focii. Lightsaber modifications include color crystals and hilts that augment a Force user’s combat attributes. Color crystals determine beam and bolt color for lightsabers and blasters. Enhancements are modification upgrades for weapons and armor. Artificers can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Archaeology provides crafting resources for Artifice.

Comments: An important skill, as it creates the color crystals used by every weapon in the game, upgrades your personal weapon, creates multiple slots (force-user off-hands, shield generators), creates endgame relics, lightsaber hilt mods, and the enhancement mod which can go on all major body parts and weapons. They can also create their own lightsabers at maximum skill, though the lightsaber hilt model is usually not as important to players as the blade color. The relics, along with the unique lightsabers, are their ‘self only’ perk, as these relics can also be bought from stores. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE relics are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. Because it is ‘exciting’, I expect this skill will be picked up by many players, including many non-Force Users. It may suffer from market dilution, and does not have a consumable to keep it useful once the economy settles, so I tentatively rate it well.

Rating: Popular choice

Biochem

Recommended Skills: Bioanalysis, Diplomacy (Medical Supplies)

Codex: Biochem is the skill involved in crafting medical supplies, performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants. Biochemists can create medpacs to restore health, stimulants (single-use injections) that provide a boost to physical abilities, and biological implants that enhance combat prowess by stimulating neural networks and regulating brain stem functions. Biochemists can reverse engineer their crafted implants and possibly discover new ways to improve implant creation. The gathering skill Bioanalysis provides crafting resources for Biochem.

Comments: Medkits, Stims, Adrenals, and the only skill that can make implants. Similar to Artifice’s relics, these can be obtained without being a Biochemist, but it will be easier for them. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE implants are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. The real prizes for the biochemist for self-use are the reusable stims and adrenals. They will be expensive as anything to manufacture, but once they are, you’ll be set for life. One of my two top picks for your one craft skill.

Rating: Top pick

Cybertech

Recommended Skills: Scavenging, Underworld Trading (Underworld Metals)

Codex: Cybertech is the skill to assemble droid armor, earpieces, grenades, armoring, mods and miscellaneous gadgets. Armoring and mods are upgrade modifications that augment combat ability. Earpieces are external mini-computers that are worn on or near the ear. They enhance combat prowess by giving audio and visual feedback to the wearer or through direct neural feedback via an external nerve relay. Cybertechs can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Cybertech.

Comments: The other of my two top picks for your one craft skill. As with Artifice and Biochem, it has exclusive crafter access to improving your ship, as well as two item slots (earpieces) – both of which can be obtained in other ways for more money. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE earpieces are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. What makes Cybertech so fantastic is that it crafts the two of the most common upgrade items – Mod and Armoring, which can go on nearly every piece in the game – as well as five different consumable grenades which each have an unshared 5m cooldown. And these grenades can be made in reusable varieties for the Cybertech. That’s right, you gain access to moderate to low damage ranged AoE attacks, which each carry a useful secondary effect: A slow, a stun, an immobilize, an immobilize, and a damage-over-time effect – periodic damage can ruin capturing objectives in PvP as well as attempts to use Force Cloak. That’s pretty huge in PvP, and even in PvE, as AoE abilities which do not sap you of precious, precious Force? They’re pretty awesome …And if that wasn’t good enough, Cybertech can make you a custom speeder bike, too.

Rating: Top pick

Synthweaving

Recommended Skills: Archaeology, Underworld Trading (Luxury Fabrics, Underworld Metals)

Codex: Synthweaving is the process of fabricating synthetic materials out of crystals, various chemicals and artifact fragments to construct armor for Force users. Vendors provide premade solutions, suspensions and composites that are used during the Synthweaving process. Synthweavers can reverse engineer their crafted armor and possibly discover new ways to improve armor creation. The gathering skill Archaeology provides crafting resources for Synthweaving.

Comments: It’s essentially tailoring, and every Force User will rely on this skill; you also will probably get a little bleedover from non-Force Users who want to have an unorthodox look. I think it’s likely to be a little more valuable than Artifice on the market, because there are far more armor slots than weapon slots, and a lot of Force Users, and a lot of people will look at Synthweaving and go, “Ew. It’s tailoring,” which sounds boring and not bother. However, its mods currently cannot have expertise on them – the principal PvP stat – limiting its usefulness for PvPers. As of the most recent build, these items no longer come pre-installed with mods, which has greatly degraded the rating for the purposes of anything but simple aesthetics. Its value is principally in early access to having as many slots as possible on your gear.

Rating: Viable

Gathering Skills

Gathering skills are skills which you or your companion may employ in the field, when you see an appropriate resource. They supply the basic materials used in crafting skills. You may send your companions on gathering missions which cost money, but provide you with skill-point appropriate resources. There is a chance for your companion to fail when deployed on missions (I believe it is related to their affection), but it will always give you a skill point even if they fail. Out of your maximum of three crew skills, all three may be gathering skills.

Archaeology

Recommended Skills: Artifice, Synthweaving

Codex: Archaeology is the study of crystal formations and archaeological finds. Crystal formations contain crystals that an Artificer can use to construct lightsaber modifications and armor for Force users. Archaeological finds contain artifact fragments of Force-imbued technology. These valuable items contain ancient formulas and algorithms used in the crafting skills Artifice and Synthweaving. Archaeologists can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: Archaeology is an essential skill for Artifice – the craft skill that everyone wants – and is easy to level up. Synthweaving will be high in demand as well. My personal experience is that you get Archaeology materials faster than needed to keep up with your mission skills if you’re going at a good clip of leveling speed, so it may be a less satisfactory choice for a pure gatherer.

Rating: Popular choice

Bioanalysis

Recommended Skills: Biochem

Codex: Bioanalysis is the practice of collecting genetic material from creatures and vegetation. Genetic materials include cell fibers, bacterial strains, toxic extracts and medicinal fluids. Biochemists use these materials to create medpacs to restore health, stimulants (single-use injections) that provide a boost to physical abilities, and biological implants that enhance combat prowess by stimulating neural networks and regulating brain stem functions. The crafting skill Biochem utilizes Bioanalysis resources. Bioanalysts can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: Let’s be clear right now: Biochemistry is going to be very important, so even though this is only tied to one skill, gatherers may wish to take it anyway, to either sell their goods or trade the materials to a Biochemist in return for manufacture of goods. Also, Bioanalysis can be performed by you or your companion on many dead creatures, so while you won’t get to use this skill much on your capital, it’ll catch up pretty quick on Taris.

Rating: Popular choice

Scavenging

Recommended Skills: Armormech, Armstech, Cybertech

Codex: Scavenging is the art of salvaging useful parts and base materials such as metals, alloys and synthetic compounds from potential technological resources–junk piles, fallen droids, abandoned cargo and broken-down vehicles. The crafting skills Armormech, Armstech and Cybertech utilize Scavenging resources. Scavengers can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: You can easily progress your scavenging by killing everything in sight when you see droids – which dovetails nicely with roleplay for lightsiders, who are more hesitant to kill fleshies, and the fact that stealthing through droid missions is slightly more difficult and annoying since Mind Maze won’t work on droids. Along with Diplomacy, Slicing, Investigation and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. It also fuels one extremely critical and two useful tradeskills, so it’s a strong recommendation.

Rating: Popular choice

Slicing

Recommended Skills: Cybertech

Codex: Slicing is not a skill required for crafting. Slicing is the art of accessing secure computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable items, credits and rare tech schematics. Common slicing targets include electronic safes, data stations, security mainframes and biometric footlockers. These targets contain credits, rare tech schematics used to construct Cybertech gadgets, vehicles and space upgrades, and mission discovery objects that unlock challenging missions that can potentially yield great rewards. Slicers can send their companions on missions to retrieve these valuable items. Other possible mission rewards include augments that can be slotted into exceptionally crafted items.

Comments: It’s Investigation’s cousin, more or less. Getting schematics from slicing missions is a rarer occurrence than in Investigation, so I wouldn’t worry about taking Slicing as part of a normal set of three as a crafter, but it’s basically an essential for people just looking to make a buck. You still have a net loss of money by sending companions on Slicing missions, as the point is to raise your skill without doing any work for it.

Rating: Popular choice

Mission Skills

Mission skills function identical to Gathering skills which cannot be personally collected; you need your companion to do them. They provide the rare resources used in crafting skills as well as providing a host of other benefits, such as giving you companion gifts to raise their affection, rare schematics, and sometimes rare equipment. Out of your maximum of three crew skills, all three may be mission skills.

Diplomacy

Recommended Skills: Biochem

Codex: Diplomacy is the art of conducting and managing negotiations. Sending your companions on diplomatic missions can influence your light side or dark side standing. In addition to light side and dark side influence, possible Diplomacy rewards include medical supplies used to construct prototype and artifact implants, medpacs, stimulants, adrenals and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Gets you materials for one of the two most important skills in the game, gives you Light Side/Dark Side farm points, and can still be used to get gifts. What else do you need? Along with Investigation, Slicing, Scavenging and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters.

Rating: Popular choice

Investigation

Recommended Skills: Armstech

Codex: Investigation is the skill of researching, gathering, analyzing and decoding secret information. Sending your companions on Investigation missions can yield valuable items in the form of researched compounds used to construct prototype and artifact weapons and blaster barrels, prototype schematics for all crafts, and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Investigation finds rare schematics for every single type of crafting skill, as well as materials for Armstech. Along with Diplomacy, Slicing, Scavenging and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. It could substitute for a normal mission skill, since you rarely need the normal mission skill to simply level up your craft, or a gathering skill if you’re willing to purchase those materials off of the Galactic Trade Network.

Rating: Popular choice

Treasure Hunting

Recommended Skills: Artifice

Codex: Treasure Hunting is the ability to track down and recover valuable items by following a series of clues. Companions sent on Treasure Hunting missions can return with rare gemstones used to construct prototype and artifact enhancements, hilts, color crystals, focii and generators. Other possible rewards include lockboxes that can contain valuable items or credits and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: It only goes with one craft skill, and everything that it is used to make is pretty much reusable. Great if you’re going with Artifice, I wouldn’t bother otherwise. It can be fun to randomly receive relics or other rare items from this skill, but it’s a constant gamble.

Rating: Interesting

Underworld Trading

Recommended Skills: Armormech, Cybertech, Synthweaving

Codex: Underworld Trading entails the exchange of goods and services on the galactic black market. Sending your companions on Underworld Trading missions can yield luxury fabrics and underworld metals used to construct prototype and artifact armor, earpieces, grenades, space upgrades, and weapon and armor modifications. Other possible rewards include gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Covering both armor creating professions as well as one of the two best professions in the game, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. Diplomacy, Slicing, Investigation and Scavenging are good partners for that.

Rating: Popular choice

Too long, didn’t read

If you read all that and are confused still – or didn’t read all of that, because it’s a lot to chew through, that’s okay. You just want the bottom line on which three crew skills I recommend, right? I’ve arranged them into sets of three based on what your main selling market is.

• PvE Endgame: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Diplomacy
• PvP Endgame: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Diplomacy // Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading
• Self-Leveling: Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading // Artifice, Archaeology, Treasure-Hunting // Synthweaving, Archaeology, Underworld Trading
• Simple Money-Making: Pick any three: Slicing, Investigation, Diplomacy, Bioanalysis, Scavenging
• Selling to Roleplayers: Armormech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading // Synthweaving, Archaeology, Underworld Trading // Artifice, Archaeology, Treasure-Hunting
• Do not pick Armstech