Looking for credits or gear? Why not craft it yourself? But with all the choices available, which ones do you choose?
Star Wars: The Old Republic has 14 crew skills to assign to your player’s NPCs aboard your starship as you galavant across the galaxy. While you and your main/favorite/beloved companion will go on daring missions to save the galaxy (or to crush your enemies), the rest of the lazy freebooters can be put to work to pay their rent aboard!
There are three classes to crew skills: crafting, gathering, and mission skills. While these skills are best used in unison to create powerful and rare items, below we are going to rank the top 5 skills to have based on their use both on their own and as part of a necessary process.
These are highly subjective, as the difference between subscribers, preferred, and free to play players can also affect the usefulness of various skills.
5. Underworld Trading
Underworld Trading: Seek out the hives of scum and villany to make some cash.
Send your least liked companion into the dangerous underbelly of the criminal world to bring back rare fabrics, crafting materials, and companion gifts! Perfect for making some credits or gathering necessary materials for several crafting skills.
What Makes Underworld Trading Awesome
- Useful for pulling items that can either be used for crafting or can be sold outright
- Extremely useful for free to play/preferred players who cannot use a trifecta to craft
- Useful for subscribed players to gather materials for crafting armors and upgrades
- Companion gifts are always useful outside of crafting; perfect for strictly PVE/solo players
- Passive - Make your leftover companions do this while you enjoy the story and gameplay
Skill details
- Provides: Underworld Metals, Luxury Fabrics, Gift Items, and Synthweaving Recipes
- Complementary skills: Armormech, Cybertech, and Synthweaving
- Cost credits to run missions, but missions are run by companions
4. Cybertech
Cybertech: Why trade for unique speeders and armor mods when you can make them yourself?
Construct armor mods, earpieces, and even speeders with Cybertech! The first crafting skill on this list is more player engaging than simply telling your companions to go do things for results. Now the player has to do things for results, like speeders!
What Makes Cybertech Awesome
- Make speeders and other gadgets
- Useful for subscribed players who can gather the required materials for crafting
- With the proper materials, create earpieces, and modifications for weapons and armor, all of which are essential in maxing out stats for min/maxing builds
- Make a pretty profit with the sale of mods, which are always in high demand throughout the life cycle of endgame content
- Speeders. You can craft unique speeders. Which is awesome.
Skill details
- Provides: Leveled modifications, earpieces, grenades, armor, ship upgrades, and speeders
- Complementary skills: Scavenging, Underworld Trading
- The player can actively take part in the crafting process
3. Bioanalysis
Bioanalysis: Who says things are useless when they are dead?
Collect genetic material from creatures and vegetation necessary for crafting or for the coin! Search through the bodies of fallen creatures and through the flora of alien planets. This is especially useful with the Bioanalysis/Biochem/Diplomacy combination!
What Makes Bioanalysis Awesome
- Collect materials for crafting medpacs and stims or just sell the results for credits
- Extremely useful for free to play/preferred players who cannot use a trifecta to craft
- Useful for subscribed players to gather materials for biochem crafting
- Find the materials as you naturally explore and play the game, good for people who are not interested in hardcore crafting
Skill details
- Provides: Biochemical compounds, biochemical samples, medical supplies, first aid kit, and hypo-syringe
- Complementary skills: Biochem, diplomacy (if aiming to maximize the usefulness of biochem)
- Collect actively or use credits for missions to passively collect material as well
2. Scavenging
Scavenging: Start off your Star Wars lifestyle like multiple movie heroes have - by digging up old fossils.
Scour the deserts and tundras of distant planets to collect materials for crafting and selling such as synthetic compounds, metals, alloys, and flux. Another skill perfectly fit for both casual players and hardcore crafters alike!
What Makes Scavenging Awesome
- Mini-game like collection of materials while already playing the core game perfect for casual collection from nodes and dead droids
- For free to play/preferred players, a great way to collect and sell materials for credits in-game
- For subscribed players, skill is a necessity for three major crafting skills of armor and weapons
- Find materials either on your own or via missions for those companions not cool enough/not romantic enough/you just hate to gather materials for you while you and the cool companion do the same while out in the world
Skill details
- Provides: Compounds, metals, and flux for crafting
- Complementary skills: Armormech, armstec, cybertech
- Can be done actively or passively through missions for credits
1. Biochem
Biochem: Why buy medpacs and stims when you can just make them yourself?
Perhaps the skill that constantly makes it to the top of various lists, biochem is a crafting skill that allows the player to make implants, medpacs, and stims. These items are seen as some of the most useful in the game for hardcore raiders and casual PVE oriented players alike.
What Makes Biochem Awesome
- Craft reusable medpacs and stims which are some of the most useful items in-game
- Perfect for both free to play/preferred players and subscribers as materials can either be gathered or purchased via GTN
- No locked out items like Artifice for non-subscribers
- Craft on your own or via companions
Skill details
- Provides: Implants, medpacs, and stims
- Complementary skills: Bioanalysis and diplomacy
- Can be done actively and passively
As you can see, each skill has its own use and complementary skills to help maximize the results that you do get. As an added bonus, check out the chart below to see what other skills complement the others and which combinations you’d like to try out!
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