guide to getting 100k by level 20 for republic

[lunaspike]

Now this is how I did it. It doesn't mean it's right for everyone, it's just my preference. If you have a different way, cool. Feel free to go ahead and do that. I won't hold it against you, and I will congratulate you on making the money. For me I found that this was absolutely the quickest way to get that first 100k out of the way. It actually makes more if you stick with it, but at 20 feel free to drop some of the skills and pick up something else.

That said, let's get into the meat of it.

1. The first rule on making money is, don't spend it. You can spend your money on skills, but ONLY skills. There is absolutely no reason to ever spend money on anything else. Nope, none. Anything you need can be obtained in another way. Usually through commendations. You will obtain an orange chest piece really early on in your capital city if you are Republic. Use this, and simply buy mods to upgrade it.

2. If you have a choice in commendation, or gear for rewards pick the commendation unless the reward is blue(and a big upgrade)/orange. Always take the commendation otherwise, because gear is overly abundant. It is impossible to level through your starting city, and not get a good set even if you take the commendation every chance you get. You will be able to buy gear, mods for yourself. So you don't need to bother spending money.

3. Don't bother auctioning greens, right now blues are dirt cheap. You will make more just using the vendor for your greens. I know, it looks like it might sell. The thing is that there are blues on the GTN for a few hundred. You will make more selling that green, or using it yourself/or on a companion.

Now that those three tips are out of the way, you will need a few things to really make money. You will have 3 crew skills, none of them are mission skills. The other two are for gathering. Now, you might ask me "hey doesn't not being able to craft gimp me?" No, in fact taking a crafting skill hurts you far more than it will ever help you. The only time crafting is better is at level 50 and even then it's only under certain conditions. The exception to this is Biochem because of the reusable medpacs, stims, and adrenals. Cybertech is possibly the second one because of the ability to make mods, but there is no need because the mods you can buy with commendations are actually better than the ones that can be crafted. In addition mod vendors have mods that cybertech can not make. This used to not be the case. At one point cybertech was very important so that people could make their tanking mods, but that was switched to vendors.

So what three crew skills do I suggest?

Scavenging to begin with. You will find lots of nodes to scavenge in the wild. It also allows you to harvest some mechanical things you kill. In addition it allows your group certain areas inside instances that you couldn't get to otherwise (shortcuts etc) You will not regret this, and when you get to the point that you can farm certain areas this will be your big money maker.

Example: Bronzium is a common grade 2 scavenged metal. Yet it is required by so much (armortech/armstech/cybertech) that it is in constant demand. Combine that with the fact that it's often in demand early on your main planet, but you can't farm it till the planet after your main (usually). This creates a big demand for it. As of right now it is selling for 700 per bronzium. Once you get to Taris for republic you can farm it easily. I will spend about an hour, come back with 40 to 50. Sell it 2 at a time for 1k each. Come back later, collect my money and be on my way.

Useful places to farm
-the works on Cours for Republic, at the end is an area where the robots respawn very quickly. Each one will have grade 2 metals. You can farm very quickly there. They also have some good loot, but mostly you are going to farm the metal.
-Taris all over, just ride around on your speeder and collect as you go. There is plenty of metal.

Bioanal by itself scavenging will make you lots of money. The bonus comes in when you mix that with bio. Being able to scan and get items from that is huge. The green goo won't sell, you can just vendor it or send it to an alt. Once you get to taris though you begin to get parts that will sell really well. Scan everything. This also has the benefit of giving you certain advantages in instances. Mostly though it means that Taris, alderan, tat are gold mines for you.

The third is where most people would expect slicing, well I have news for you. Slicing didn't make as much as the two above before the nerf, and it damn sure won't now. Slicing is a waste, and it only looks good on paper because most people didn't know how to make money yet. The people like me that were out there sitting at couple hundred k early on already knew slicing was a waste. No, for a third we are going to go with archeology. Wait, what? I know you are kind of wondering what the hell I'm talking about suggesting archeology over slicing. Well, archeology is one of those sleeper gathering skills. Most people don't know about it, the ones that do are cleaning house with it. You will make (on average) more money off archeology than the two above combined. Why? It's simple, people want different color crystals. Artifice has to make them, but for that they need color crystals. Also take into account that you are providing synthweaving/artifice with what they need to craft. You will make a butt load of credits just off selling Lost ARtifact Fragments. Those sell for min 1k right now, you can get quiet a few from 1 node.

http://www.torhead.com/item/chpgDN1

Go take a look at everything that requires that one item. You can farm them so easy also, you just have to know where to do it. On Taris there are a few spots where these spawn very quickly. In fact if you make a circle you will be collecting nonstop with scavenging/biochem/archeology. You won't ever have to wait on respawn. The circle starts near the Hospital, extends east then south twoards the Endar Spire, then circles back around. You will be collecting the entire time. There is actually a fleet shuttle at the town there so you won't need to walk far to put stuff on the GTN. Then go back. You circle will net you 50k to 80k an hour (my experience). There is very little combat here, but if you want you can adjust this. There is another circle like this one that passes around X elite name here. You can farm the elite quite easily for gear/commendations, and you will be able to farm up lots of metal. I didn't suggest it before because the amount of mobs can be irritating if you don't have a speeder. Considering you can scan many of them with either bio, or scavenging though it could be a bonus.

Now to address the inevitable

-but I can make money with slicing without doing anything, well so can I. I can send my guys out on an artifice mission and make twice what you make on slicing. Actually if it's rich I could make over tripple.

-your way is all based on other players buying your stuff, what if they don't? LOL, they will. BW has ensured they will because they are actually saving money by buying it directly from me. The system is set up so that a person will slowly go broke if they try to craft in a traditional manner. They can not continue to send their guys out, it just won't work. With the current system being that you don't actually ever have to buy anything from another player, the people crafting will never gain anything. They will have to buy from you. It's not like they are going to give up the 10s/100s of thousands they have thrown away. Nope, they will buy and keep buying. Don't ever worry you will not have people to buy from you. The game is growing quickly, and there is a new sucker born every few seconds.

-what stops the market from being over crowded? Nothing, and it is on some things. The problem is that bioware has made a select few materials required in huge amounts across multiple crafting professions. Those are the ones you want to get. Do not bother with the others, target the ones that are required by multiple professions.

alum, bronzium, any artifacts, ignore rubat, all color crystals, ignore green goo, anything else from bio can be useful, chanlon, plasteel, vendor desh, laminoid is a huge one*

Laminoid is a special case, because it's required for so much early on. Yet there are very few ways to actually get it early on. It's not usual for me to sell laminoid for 1500 per, and people WILL pay it. They don't have a choice until the current bugs are fixed (might have been this patch, haven't checked) until then though squeeze the blood out of that stone.



That's the area you want to start with. There are two rare elites that spawn here, very easy to kill both drop good loot. Also good money in this area too for the mobs that get in your way. This is where the first metal spawns, you will grab that. Then move in a circle along the road coming back. There are also a few chests that spawn along the route, giving you more money/items to sell auction. Remember all greens go to the vendor, blues it's your call.

Doing the above you will make your first 100k easily by level 20. My trooper in the pic is level 25, I have riding already, mount and I have almost 100k set aside after getting riding for my other two characters. This is with buying gear as you can probably tell from looking at him, broke my own rule but once you get that first 100k go ahead and enjoy some of your credits.

I know there are other ways, I know you can do this without putting any effort into it. This is just my preferred way. Feel free to post your own tips, I don't mind at all. Just don't post stupid stuff like "hurhurr do slicing" because that actually takes longer.

This is the elite
http://www.torhead.com/npc/4uqLCZO
and a screen showing her and the loot I got from her


As you can see her respawn is about 6 minutes, so she will be up to farm every time you come back around.

For anyone interested in trying it I'm going to include a map of the route I usually take. Keep in mind this is much easier once you get your speeder.

[vizzle]

I have to agree with Delekii. This is a great guide, and I may consider using it now that Slicing has been nerfed (although it's still profitable), but to say that Slicing was not the best money maker out there is just being naive. Slicing was making people hundreds of thousands of credits per day, if their level was high and they had several companions doing it.

[Gracin]

Nice write up, and I may consider this on my next toon. However, pre-nerf there is no doubt in my mind that Slicing far outweighed your strategy.

[lunaspike]

I have to agree with Delekii. This is a great guide, and I may consider using it now that Slicing has been nerfed (although it's still profitable), but to say that Slicing was not the best money maker out there is just being naive. Slicing was making people hundreds of thousands of credits per day, if their level was high and they had several companions doing it.

I won't disagree that slicing was profitable, what I'm saying is that I could (and still can) make far more than slicing in a day. I'm making as much in around 2 hours that slicing made in a day. It's even better now. I'm also not saying this is the only way, just providing an alternative example for people that want to make money quickly. The problems they have with early missions for scavenging/bio are what make this so profitable. They may fix it in future, but as of this patch they haven't.

[Deleted]

Great guide!

As I read and memorized it by now.. can you please delete it?

[Ealyssa]

Slicing is MASS money, don't bother with GTN

[slime]

Nice guide OP. There is much wisdom there - but he is very wrong about pre-nerf slicing... it was obsurd. I have guildies that are in the millions now of credits all because of slicing. I curse that I did not go into slicing, it was on my radar - but like an idiot i went with one of the 3 bundled professions... worst move ever. But seriously slicing pre-nerf and early access means you are a millionaire by now.

[Delekii]

Please show us a screenshot of your character with that much. I can easily prove that I have in the hundreds of thousands already. Care to provide the same proof? It's not that I doubt you, but it would be nice to get some other people showing off what they have made. I don't mind you posting your screen shots showing your 500k. Please go ahead and do that.

I could, but what would be the point? I can't prove to you what I've spent on respecs (a fortune). That was 20 levels ago. Right now my main character has around 350k, full inventory expansion, level 40 riding, capped crafts, etc etc, while my alt has capped crafts as well. I'm not going to spend the time proving to you what was the case but now is not by taking 10 screenshots. Needless to say, anyone who has read the forum at any time in the past month would know that slicing was beyond ridiculous, and obviously bioware did too. It is _still_ ridiculous, if only because it brings in good money with next to zero user input. What you fail to take account of in your ideas is opportunity and time cost.

The fact that you thought it was necessary to take the time to explain places to lolfarm seems to show me enough that you didn't have any idea how ludicrous slicing was. I can't even imagine needing to farm in this game. What it comes down to, is that the prices that you can set for all your things that you say you are making money on, you can set because the slicers can afford to pay it. If this weren't the case, the prices wouldn't be what they are. Slicing was, and is, causing inflation, and setting the market rates. If it werent for slicing, people wouldn't be capping crew skills without significant issues affording speeders and skills as they level; they cost a lot of money without the slicing inflation side by side.

Edit: reading back over my posts I realise I come off as a little hostile, which isn't really intended. It's just silly to read people saying anything other than slicing was worthwhile from a credits point of view pre-nerf. Even now, if you consider time invested, there is little reason not to take slicing on atleast one character, and leave other crew skills to future characters (or future times when you have the credits to switch).

[lunaspike]

I could, but what would be the point? I can't prove to you what I've spent on respecs (a fortune). That was 20 levels ago. Right now my main character has around 350k, full inventory expansion, level 40 riding, capped crafts, etc etc, while my alt has capped crafts as well. I'm not going to spend the time proving to you what was the case but now is not by taking 10 screenshots. Needless to say, anyone who has read the forum at any time in the past month would know that slicing was beyond ridiculous, and obviously bioware did too. It is _still_ ridiculous, if only because it brings in good money with next to zero user input. What you fail to take account of in your ideas is opportunity and time cost.

The fact that you thought it was necessary to take the time to explain places to lolfarm seems to show me enough that you didn't have any idea how ludicrous slicing was. I can't even imagine needing to farm in this game. What it comes down to, is that the prices that you can set for all your things that you say you are making money on, you can set because the slicers can afford to pay it. If this weren't the case, the prices wouldn't be what they are. Slicing was, and is, causing inflation, and setting the market rates. If it werent for slicing, people wouldn't be capping crew skills without significant issues affording speeders and skills as they level; they cost a lot of money without the slicing inflation side by side.

Edit: reading back over my posts I realise I come off as a little hostile, which isn't really intended. It's just silly to read people saying anything other than slicing was worthwhile from a credits point of view pre-nerf. Even now, if you consider time invested, there is little reason not to take slicing on atleast one character, and leave other crew skills to future characters (or future times when you have the credits to switch).

I knew full well that slicing was crazy, it was during the beta as well. I also knew full well there is no way they were not going to nerf it. Now that they have I figured i would post other ways for people to make money if they are just starting. Before this there really was no need. You could make a jedi knight on your account, get high enough to get kira and then you were set. You could just play your main, switch over to him and collect, then go back to playing the game. Now though slicing isn't as crazy as it was. You can still make money off it, but it's much less and now things like this really pull ahead. I also won't deny that the reason I could sell things for such a high price is that people all took slicing, and they could pay anything I asked. They didn't bother with a gathering skill, and bet the farm on slicing holding out. Things will be different now I have no doubt, how much different I can't say. I know just by checking the gtn this morning and looking at the surge in low level crafting mats that people have switched. Still they haven't realized there are some problems with missions (like not getting enough laminoid). I can still set a high price because most people don't know where to farm it. Now will they be able to pay, that's another story entirely. I can set the price for something at 10k per, but if people don't have the credits they won't buy it.

I think people got the idea that I was posting a "lol slicing wasn't crazy good" post. That wasn't my intention at all. I wrote this with the idea of "what if my brother just started, wouldn't I want him to be able to find a good way to make money". That's all it was. No other motive than to share what I have learned. The reason I asked for a screen shot isn't to prove that you were wrong, it's so that people can see the kinds of money that can be made. I hear in the game people complaining they can't make money. Well I want them to see that they can, by slicing or whatever. I think it's important that new players not get intimidated, because then they won't bother trying. The first time I saw my skills costing over 10k to train I could have easily gotten intimidated if I hadn't planned ahead.

That said, you guys should feel free to post other ideas. Even if it's just slicing, I'm not one of those "you lolsliced your way to victory". Do it, if people make money great. I don't care if someone says "hey your guide is garbage, this is better". If it turns out to be better I will switch to it. This is just my experience so far, and what I hope can help other people.

[Courierrawr]

This entire guide is pointless, even the stupidest people will know that they'll make loads of cash if they sell what's in demand, which is basically all this thread is saying, you didn't have to write a novel to say "Pick up scavenging, bio analysis, and archaeology, then sell the goods".

Anyway, credits are easy to get in the first place, just by doing missions and selling the junk that dropped I was at 450k for level 40, more than enough to buy any skills I needed, 100% speeder training, and anything else I needed, the only point in time credits will actually be worth something is at end game, and that's to buy gear & item mods.

In the long run, you'll end up with far more cash if you just pick up real skills like Artifice/Arch/Treasure Hunting and start pumping out enhancements, hilts, and saber crystals once you get to 50 (where credits will actually matter), alternatively you could for for armormech/synthweaving and make orange-quality armor and sell that, another thing to do is go for cybertech and make mods/armoring.

[lunaspike]

This entire guide is pointless, even the stupidest people will know that they'll make loads of cash if they sell what's in demand, which is basically all this thread is saying, you didn't have to write a novel to say "Pick up scavenging, bio analysis, and archaeology, then sell the goods".

Anyway, credits are easy to get in the first place, just by doing missions and selling the junk that dropped I was at 450k for level 40, more than enough to buy any skills I needed, 100% speeder training, and anything else I needed, the only point in time credits will actually be worth something is at end game, and that's to buy gear & item mods.

In the long run, you'll end up with far more cash if you just pick up real skills like Artifice/Arch/Treasure Hunting and start pumping out enhancements, hilts, and saber crystals once you get to 50 (where credits will actually matter), alternatively you could for for armormech/synthweaving and make orange-quality armor and sell that, another thing to do is go for cybertech and make mods/armoring.

Both armor/synth are a waste. The only use they have is a crit off a purple, and then that's just for the extra slot. When you look at the amount of time/mats/effort it takes to get just one of those it's not worth it. Orange gear can be obtained easily, and early. You can have almost a full set before going to Taris. There are at least three quests (2 heroic, 1 regular for the black bisector title) that reward you with an orange chest piece. If you do the first flashpoint you can get a few pieces from there as well. Meaning by the time you head to taris you can have at minimum chest/legs/weapons that are orange. If you do hammer station you can easily get an orange head/chest/legs/weapon. You are left with just wrist,gloves,boots to get next. Those are easily done through the next fp/Taris.

I appreciate you posting tips, but you gain virtually nothing by going with armor/synth/artifice. The best piece for artifice in my opinion would have been the purple color crystals, but since you can get those with commendations/drops instead of making them I don't think there is a reason to go those. I don't know everything about the game though, so if your suggestion works then go for it.

I think the main problem with going any crafting is that commendation vendors offer superior things than crafters can make. What vendors don't offer you can get as drops very easily. Remember it doesn't matter if I go back and solo the first fp to get an orange chest piece, I can upgrade it with the mods. By making the orange pieces so easy to obtain they really removed the need for armor/synth/artifice.

I can list the reasons I say that
If you want to tank the hilts you can make with artifice are not as good as the ones you can buy with commendations. Why go with 10 str 3 endurance, when I can buy an 7 str 10 endurance hilt. I'm trading 3 str for 7 endurance. Same for healing, the commendation gear is just better. This isn't even including the Ilum stuff because I don't think they are finished yet.

Anyway, just my opinion. Feel free to flesh out your post though, what do you think is ideal to make to sell. I haven't ever purchased anything like that from the gtn. I've always just saved my money and bought commendation stuff. Usually I'm pretty far ahead of the stuff available for the most part, but you might be on to something.

[Courierrawr]

I can list the reasons I say that
If you want to tank the hilts you can make with artifice are not as good as the ones you can buy with commendations. Why go with 10 str 3 endurance, when I can buy an 7 str 10 endurance hilt. I'm trading 3 str for 7 endurance. Same for healing, the commendation gear is just better. This isn't even including the Ilum stuff because I don't think they are finished yet.

Holy shit this post is so ignorant I think my brain just melted, you do realize all the mods you buy at vendors can be made by players, right? Have you even leveled artifice or any other crafting skill beyond 100?

I'm at 400 artifice and all the level 50 item mods I can make are miles ahead of any of the mods sold at level 50 mod vendors, the only reason mod vendors exist is so people that have full orange gear while leveling can still keep their gear, no one's going to be using commendation mods for more than a month at level 50, commendation vendors don't even sell purple quality mods.

Also about synthweaving and armormech, they can make FULL SETS OF CUSTOMIZABLE GEAR, commendation vendors don't sell full sets of gear, in case you haven't heard people like wearing armor that matches, and commendation vendors don't offer that.