Armor Crafting is the equivalent of forging in other MMOs, this one will be aimed primarily at classes that do not use force. Indeed this crew skill will allow you to manufacture intermediate armor with trick as well as heavy armor with Aim.
The skill is learned like any other in the Imperial / Republic Fleet and is one of 6 crafting skills available in the game at this time.
Every 10 to 20 skill levels approximately your skill master will have new crafts to teach you, a color code to indicate how many skill points you will earn for a craft is also available:
Orange : Two points per craft
Yellow : One point per craft
Green : Higher or lower chance of obtaining a point
Gray : Will not earn you any more points
You cannot make your own items yourself, you will have to send your Companion to do it for you, which is not bad in the end because you can queue up to 5 craft, each of them. takes some time to craft and is dropped into your inventory as soon as your pet is finished. (Tip: You don't need to wander all of your comps in your inventory, just leave them in the hold, your pet will dig into them if necessary.)
Note also that each familiar has predispositions for certain crew skills. These predispositions are called Efficiency Bonuses and Critical Bonuses. But what do these bonuses do for you?
Take this companion as an example, he has a bionalayse efficiency bonus of 10 and a critical recovery bonus of 2.
- Efficiency bonus: This number increases the speed at which your companion will complete his task, the higher it is the faster it will go in the relevant crew skill.
- Critical bonus: The critical bonus is the most important, this one allows your pet to have a chance to make a "critical" when performing a task, when this bonus concerns a crafting skill it allows you to obtain a item of improved quality (Item with an "Increase" slot) or "Double item" when it is a consumable (stims for example). When it concerns a harvest / mission skill it affects the yield. (More objects)
For example Xalek above will go faster than your other companions during his Bioanalysis missions and will have a chance to bring you more components when he goes on a recovery mission. Each companion (except 2V-R8 and C2-N2) has unique attributes that it would be a shame to overlook.
Regarding Armor Crafting more specifically, Crit Bonuses seem to manifest themselves by adding an "exceptional", "advanced quality" or "virtuoso" suffix to your item. The only difference with a normal item is that the critical item will have an "Augmentation" slot which will allow you to upgrade it.
- [d'exception] : Concerns green crafts
- [advanced quality] : Will affect lower level blue craft / artifact
- [virtuoso] : Mainly concerns higher-level Artifact objects
Reverse engineering
Reverse Engineering will allow you to destroy your crafted items to retrieve some of the components and have a chance to get the boss of an improved version, to do this open your inventory and select Reverse Engineering located at the top right, this will highlight reverse engineering objects, then simply click on the object of your choice to start the process. For armor crafting in particular, there are three different recipe steps.
(Note first of all that "orange" quality Items do not unlock anything via reverse engineering)
- "Simple" stage : Green or blue quality item, learned by your skill master
- Stand 2 : Blue quality item / artifact with random secondary stats (3 possible item types: Critical / Kill / Protection type) Unlocked via reverse engineering of a single stage item.
- Stage 3 [Top quality] : Artifact version with random secondary statistics that will complete the stage 2 object (Each "type" of blue quality object allows you to unlock 5 new types of artifact crafting, or 15 in total, so you will need patience or a cheeky chance to unlock the recipe that's right for you.) Unlocked via reverseconfection of a stage 2 item.
Note, however, that there is a small exception when you learn a blue recipe from your skill master, the reverse engineering will give this:
In the example above the blue object will be stage 1, the middle one in stage 2 artifact version with 3 possible combination and the last will be stage 3 artifact version with 15 possible combinations.
Assemble Armor Crafting
The essential crew skills to mount Armor Crafting in full autonomy are:
- Recovery: For recovered compounds & metals (green quality materials used for all crafts)
- Illegal Trade: For illegal metals (Blue / Artifact grade materials used for all Blue / Artifact crafts)
The easiest and fastest way to build Armor Crafting is therefore to take the aforementioned crew skills, and especially to start these as soon as possible (ideally being level 10 from your first pass to the Imperial / Republic Fleet) The amount of metals picked up throughout your pexing will help you a lot and should even in the best case exempt you from recovery missions, so you can focus all your companions on Trade illegal. Of course, take the time to stop to collect whatever you come across in order to recover and manufacture your armor more easily. If you start early enough and never let your companions twiddle your thumbs you can very easily be 400 in all 3 crew skills before you reach level 50.
What to do after 400?
Once you have reached 400, you will have access to Artefact quality "Rakata" armbands and belts. Note that Rakata type armor pieces are the best at the moment (equivalent to what you could loot in Operation HM / Nightmare)
This beautiful equipment will require you to for each of these pieces several metals / compounds of rank 6, illegal metals of rank 6 as well as a Biometric Crystal Alloy that you can find on the last boss of each Flashpoint in hard mode or on all of them. bosses in the Eternity Chamber in Normal mode (2 per boss). Note, however, that the item is bind when picked up and is subject to "random" so try to make arrangements in advance with your playmates or just try your luck at the dice, with a little patience you will end up getting them.
It is also possible to get your hands on a few bosses that unlock Artifact quality items (but which will unfortunately be bound when picked up) These bosses can be found in Operation / World Loot / ZL and most often via Illegal Trade Mission or Investigation (Rather illegal trade as far as you are concerned) You can also find quite a few in the galactic market.
For players wishing to trade in armor, you will therefore have to do a lot of reverse engineering on the green / blue quality items learned in the last levels before unlocking better ones that will surely interest a large number of players.
Ultimately, I would recommend the manufacture of armor to players who wish to do PvE once reached the maximum level, Rakata pieces are very powerful pieces that it would be a shame to do without. Also note that they do not require having the crew skill to be worn, so you can change crew skill without problem later if you wish without losing your precious parts. Some concepts, especially on reverse engineering and unlocking recipes can sometimes seem blurry but clear up quickly with time and practice!
Thank you for following this guide, see you soon?
