Making Credits with Crew Skills Guide

Credits are an essential component of SWTOR. Having lots of credits allows you to buy the finest weapons, the most useful gear, and the fastest vehicles. Players also are always in need of as many credits they can lay their hands on as that you need them to purchase any new or upgraded abilities as you gain levels. Without having ready access to gobs of credits, you'll be questing on planets with shabby hand-me-down gear and antiquated weapons while traveling on foot to your destination while other players, loaded with credits, whizz past you on their fancy speeders, fully decked out with state-of-the-art stereos and rich Corinthian leather, with the glare of their shiny, new armor dazzling your eyes. Facts are facts: every player needs lots of credits and there are multiple ways to get your grubby little mitts on them, such as daily quests. One overlooked area to make some credits in SWTOR is by using your crew skills, and Swtorhub.com is here to show you how.

Overall, there are three ways to make credits in SWTOR by using crew skills, and they are by crafting, gathering skills, and mission skills. Right now, you're saying, "But, Jeffprime, those are the three skill areas that make up crew skills in SWTOR!" Well, the short answer to that is...you're absolutely right. Each differing aspect of crew skills can make you credits in SWTOR, with some bringing in more credits than others. However, to make credits with all three types of crew skills, you'll need to be intimately familiar with the Galactic Trade Network.

Galactic Trade Network

The Galactic Trade Network is the auction house system in SWTOR and you will be using it constantly to line your pockets with credits. You can access the GTN by using the various kiosks found in capital cities, your personal ship if you have high enough legacy, or on each faction's fleet station. Using the auction system is a MUST if you are to make credits using your crew skills in SWTOR for a variety of reasons.

Knowing the Galactic Trade Network inside-and-out is key to making credits.

The first reason why you need to access the GTN in SWTOR is to illuminate the economic law of supply and demand. Look through the various crafting subcategories to see what's available and what items are selling for. This can vary from server to server and will also change when updates occur that impact materials and gear that players are looking for. This is why I am not going to recommend specific crew skills to take as that what is considered the best ones can vary depending upon the server, demand, and any changes. Look at what's in demand by players and what is selling for a high price and then fill that niche.

Once you've identified a need, then the other reason for using the GTN crops up, which is selling your goods on the auction house for lots of credits. You should never sell the fruits of your crew skills to a vendor. Put them up on the auction house for the maximum return you can get and start planning how to spend all those shiny new credits you'll be getting. Now let's look at using your crew skills to put stuff up for auction on the GTN in SWTOR.

Hint: When using the GTN to research prices, make sure you select a rarity level for the item type you are checking up on. Just leaving the rarity level to "any" does not enable a search, but by selecting a specific rarity level will allow you to do a search of the category and sub-category.

Gathering Crew Skills

There are four different gathering skills in SWTOR: archaeology, bioanalysis, scavenging, and slicing. All four skills can easily make you credits, but gathering skills do provide the lowest amount of return in credits. The reason for this is that most players have a gathering skill and any one that has a gathering crew skill can gather materials just by traveling across planets or defeating enemies. Since everyone can do it, the materials gathered by these crew skills tend to have the lowest demand. Still, you can make decent credits by selling gathered materials on the auction house, especially to high level players looking to quickly raise their crafting skills and not wanting to waste time running around gathering the needed components.

Hint: Archeology and slicing are two good gathering crew skills to generate credits. Archeology is useful in that most players on a server tend to be Force users. Slicing was recently nerfed, but is still a good crew skill for generating credits as you can easily sell lockboxes gained from missions for more than the cost of the mission required to get the lockbox.

Mission Crew Skills

The four mission skills in SWTOR are diplomacy, investigation, treasure hunting, and underworld trading. Mission crew skills can generate credit revenue in that you can acquire materials that can only be found from doing the missions and not found while questing across the galaxy. These materials tend to be rarer and are needed for the higher quality crafting recipes. Thus, these materials tend to sell for a higher price on the Galactic Trade Network. While it does cost money to send your companions on the missions, you will get a good return on your investment. As the old adage goes, you have to spend money to make money.

Make sure you send your companions out on missions for rare items to sell for big profits.

Companion gifts, which are not used for crafting, are a good item to sell on the GTN for a good amount of credits. While there are companion gift vendors, they only sell rank 1 and rank 2 gifts, so you can sell higher ranked companion gifts for a tidy profit. Rank 5 and above gifts sell for the most probably because lovelorn players are trying to hit that maximum affection level for a little romance.

Crafting Crew Skills

The biggest credit revenue generator is by using your crafting crew skills. There are six crafting skills in SWTOR: armormech, armstech, artifice, biochem, cybertech, and synthweaving. However, to make crafting worthwhile, you need to know the market and what players are looking for. Your best bet is to concentrate of end-game gear (armor, mods, augments, weapons, stims, medpacs, etc.) as that most players are able to keep current gear leveling up due to quest rewards and drops. However, once players hit level 50, then they really start looking to the auction house to equip themselves (and their companions) as best as they can while they're grinding out recommendations for named gear. Plus, level 50 players tend to have a good amount of credits to spend on items.

Players need to be aware of vendor prices. If you're selling stims or medpacs, make sure you're selling them cheaper than a vendor. You also should also take into account of the supply and demand for particular items. As most servers have lots of Force users, there will be a greater demand for Force items. However, since there is such a high demand, chances are that there will be lots of people supplying items to fill that demand, which means that your selling price will be lowered as there will be lots of competition. If an area is being neglected, such as heavy armor, then it might behoove you to work in that field as the competition will be less and you can charge more for your items.

Poppa needs some fancy new duds! Keep crafting, minions!

As you can see, players can make lots of credits in SWTOR by using their crew skills to maximum advantage. The vital component of generating such credit revenue is by having a familiar knowledge of the Galactic Trade Network and recognizing what is in demand and what is not. Players can use their gathering crew skills and mission crew skills to make a nice profit. The biggest profit maker is by crafting, but in order to make gobs of credits, you'll have to craft items that high level players are looking for. Keep an eye on the auction house, see what's hot and in demand, and react accordingly. If you do so, soon you'll be sipping drinks on your very own pleasure planet surrounded by a bevy of beautiful minions.