Helpful Tips for New Players, Combatants, and Crafters

Welcome to
Star Wars Galaxies:
Restoration


Helpful Tips for New Players, Combatants, and Crafters





Whether you are a brand new player or haven’t played for 15 years, Star Wars Galaxies can be overwhelming at first. Plenty of players give it a shot for a few days and give up because it’s complicated and there isn’t a clear path. Undoubtedly, there is an incredibly steep learning curve but once you get past the basics there are beautifully deep mechanics, experiences, achievements, and sense of community that make this the best game ever created. And although there are literally thousands of web pages dedicated to every last detail of Star Wars Galaxies, here is a concise list of top things I wish I knew when I started. Welcome to Star Wars Galaxies Restoration.




EPISODE I: TIPS FOR NEW PLAYERS
EPISODE II: TIPS FOR NEW COMBATANTS
EPISODE III: TIPS FOR NEW CRAFTERS

EPISODE I: TIPS FOR NEW PLAYERS​

1. R3 SWG Era - There were 3 main eras of Star Wars Galaxies - Pre-CU at launch, a short time period of the Combat Upgrade (CU), and then the infamous New Game Experience (NGE) period. Restoration has an NGE foundation to take advantage of all of the content developed over the years, but is reverse engineered to include the pre-CU mechanics (such as the open skill point system) along with the combat system balance that the CU era had. Many consider this version the best of all worlds.
2. Jump to Lightspeed - JTL is fully working in Restoration and is essentially a full game within a game that won’t be covered much here (future episode?). There are entire professions, space battles, asteroid harvesting, tens of ships to choose from, and much more.
3. Run as Admin - The first obstacle you will likely face is not being able to launch the game. A fix is coming but for now Run as Admin on the launcher. Alternately, try running as admin on the SwgClient_r.exe after you’ve finished updating. And if you have trouble logging in for your first time hitting enter a few times or re-launching can help. After the initial troubles all should run smoothly from there on out.
4. Launcher Settings & Game Options - In the Launcher there is a settings gear and you can find options for resolution, windowing, etc. Inside the game there are hundreds of options for anything from colors to graphics to camera options. I would recommend running through them once. Note that the graphics are over-tuned and it’s almost impossible to max out. That and due to the age of the game it cannot take full advantage of modern tech.
5. Character Creation - Each account will be able to have 2+1+1 characters. The +1’s are for completing a quest (tip below) and future Jedi. Each race does have a specialty and associated bonus, however, most would agree they are very minor and don’t have an impact on the game. If you don’t like your name you can /rename after 90 days. If you don’t like your appearance a player Image Designer character and Tailor can hook you up. Lastly, if you delete a character you cannot recreate one for 24 hours. People were exploiting the new player gifts and creating new characters over and over.
6. Skill Point System - Your toon will have 250 skill points to spend on whatever you like. Want to be a sword wielding musician? Go ahead. You begin with Novice of all basic professions. Don’t sweat too much on your build you can surrender skills and respec at any time. Once you earn enough experience in the skill box you are trying to get, you go to a skill trainer to learn that skill. The basic professions are brawler, marksman, entertainer, medic, scout, and artisan. Use a skill calculator (https://swgr.org/pages/skill-calculator/) to map out your character progression.
7. Skills & Training - You gain levels and new skills by getting trained. Once you have gained the type of experience required for a skill, you can go to a trainer and learn the skill for a fee. There are many types of experience (~30 or so) such as pistol, crafting, scouting, etc depending on the activity you do. Trainers are in the guild halls (for Mos Eisley they are /waypoint 3482 -4687 for combat, /waypoint 3358 -4716 for artisan). You can also be trained for free by other players. Ask in game or Discord for training.
8. Advanced Professions - There are ~27 advanced professions all with their own prerequisites of the basic professions. Most advanced professions will require you to learn 4-8 basic skill boxes before opening up the advanced profession. Use the skill calculator to see what is required for the path you wish to go down.
9. Get a Speeder for Free - Complete the initial first few tasks given by Han Solo to get a free speeder. You will use this all the time. Do not endure the pain of walking. Once you click the deed, open your Datapad (k) and click to call the speeder. Make sure to repair your speeder by finding a garage before your vehicle is out of hp otherwise you have to buy a new one. There are dozens of vehicles and mounts in game which are fun to explore.
10. Get a Free Ship. - Head to the back of the Mos Eisley Cantina at /waypoint 3430 -4787 to get a free neutral ship. You can also get free Rebel or Imperial ships for signing up with them. You can use the ship to travel across the galaxy to different planets and battle in space.
11. How to Travel - Having a ship enables you to use the Starship Terminal to travel for free between planets and major cities. You can also use the Ticket Terminal to purchase a ticket to local destinations such as player cities or other planet Starports. Hand the ticket to the droid at the Starport and you’ll be on your way.
12. Planets - There are currently 12 incredible planets to explore. Tatooine, Lok, Naboo, Rori, Endor, Corellia, Talus, Dantooine, Yavin IV, Dathomir, Kashyyyk, Mustafar. Each have their own individual feel and special points of interest from the Star Wars universe.
13. Credits - Credits can be hard to come by initially. My recommendation is to continue on the Legacy quest line (j for quests) which will give you great experience, credits, and starter weapons in a matter of a few hours. This begins with Han Solo, then continues on with several quests for the mayor, and eventually takes you all over Tatooine. Alternately, most agree that the fastest way to earn credits is to level up in space and sell the space junk loot to the chassis dealer. As you level up as a combatant you are also able to do destroy missions from mission terminals that pay out. Being a master crafter can able be very lucrative, but a longer path that takes time to master.
14. Handy Shortcuts - Planet map (v), skill tree (u), onscreen map (m), quests (j), inventory (i), options (o), skills ( ; ), data pad (k)
15. Popular Commands - There are thousands of commands. Here are a few that might be handy: /invite (to group), /waypoint (create waypoint), /tip (tip cash), /tip $$$ bank (tip from your bank), /pvp (change faction status), /sample (collect resources), /trade (open up trade window), /duel (challenge to a duel), /chroniclesloottoggle (turn off chronicles loot), /clear (unstick vehicle), /locate (finds all of your structures), /unstick (if you're stuck somewhere), /leavegroup (exit group)
16. Planet Map (v) - Extremely helpful for navigating the world. Note the folders which have waypoints to all sorts of places such as trainers, hospitals, points of interest, player cities, etc. You can find almost anything in this map via the folder structure.
17. Waypoints - Waypoint system is very useful in navigating until you memorize where everything is. Use this format to create new waypoints: /waypoint [color] [coordinates] [name]. Leave coordinates blank if you want your current location and leave color blank for default blue.
18. Bazaar and Vendors - Red Bazaar terminals (/waypoint 3506 -4932 in Mos Eisley) are for searching for items to purchase. Artisans can sell goods in NPC cities by putting them on the Bazaar or sell goods at their own personal vendors. You can search either with different tabs on the Bazaar. Note options to search regionally, planetary, or galaxy-wide.
19. Player Housing - At some point you will likely want to create your own house. You can decorate your house, store items there, or set up your own shop with a vendor. Architects make deeds for a wide variety of housing options where you can decorate and store goods. Player cities and guilds are great opportunities to engage with the community and place your new home.
20. 3rd Character Slot - There is a questline to open up your third character slot. It will involve repeating the quest many times and solving a series of puzzles. You can begin the quest on Talus in Nashal at /waypoint Talus 4560 5153 in the basement of the cloning facility.
21. AFK Play - Playing while AFK is not encouraged at R3. Other servers have had problems with too many bots and affecting overall gameplay. Experience gain is dialed up 5x so the leveling experience should be done entirely at the keyboard. (https://swgr.org/post/redefining-and-addressing-unattended-gameplay.246/).
22. Player Voice - The R3 Player Voice system is a great way to chime in on suggestions to make the game better. Feel free to add suggestions and vote for ideas you support. (https://swgr.org/node/playervoice.5/)
23. Bugs - Undoubtedly, the game has bugs. Please report them in game using the /bug command. The developers will do their best to prioritize.
24. Multiple Accounts - Each person is allowed 1 account and must register their account to a maximum of 2 computers. Each computer may only have 1 associated account. Restoration also has a limit of 3 character slots (and eventually a 4th for Jedi).
25. Volunteer Developers & Donations - Lastly, this is of course a free game. The developers have spent countless hours of their free time creating this version of Star Wars Galaxies for us. In many cases, their personal monetary contribution as well. If you feel so inclined, donate to the project at the Open Collective (https://opencollective.com/swgr) where you can see all financial transactions for the project and set up donations.

EPISODE II: TIPS FOR NEW COMBATANTS​

1. Combat Level - Combat level is your relative strength from 1-80. The calculation involved the amount of experience required for the skill boxes you have. Generally speaking, mastering two advanced combat professions should get you to level 80. Gaining combat levels generally is slow in the beginning and eventually speeds up.
2. Experience Types - There are two types of combatant experience: weapon experience and combat experience. Weapon experience is the most common and you gain xp with the weapon you have equipped (or Unarmed for TKA). Combat experience is gained at 1/10th the rate of weapon experience and is used for the general combat skill boxes, which are typically the right-most boxes in advanced profession skill trees. The other boxes in each skill tree require the weapon-specific xp.
3. Gaining Experience - Experience is gained when a creature or NPC dies. If you have damaged the MOB at least once and it dies, you get experience. It doesn’t matter how much damage, just as long as you did some damage and you get the full xp. The combat level of what dies also matters. You get the most experience for MOBs that are within a certain range of your combat level or higher. Very low MOBs will give ~no experience, they are depicted with a Grey backdrop behind their CL. As you gain combat levels the experience gained per kill will also increase. (tip: Entertainers can buff you for an experience gain).
4. Types of Combatants - There are three primary types of combatants: Melee, Ranged, and Hybrid. Melee Advanced Professions are Teras Kasi Artist (Unarmed), Fencer, Swordsman, and Pikeman. Ranged Advanced Professions are Pistoleer, Carbineer, and Rifleman. The Hybrid Professions are: Commando, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Squad Leader, Creature Handler, and Combat Medic. Each profession has their own abilities and advantages.
5. Skill Trainers - You gain combat levels and new skills by getting trained. Once you gain enough experience in you can be trained in a skill box. Check the skill tree menu (u) to see your experience and requirements. Trainers are in guild halls in NPC cities or often times player cities have skill trainers. In Mos Eisley the combat trainers are at /waypoint 3482 -4687. Players may also train you for monetary cost if they have the skill box you desire unlocked already. This is helpful in a group to train on the go without having to travel back to a city.
6. Initial Grind - Admittedly, the grind is slow at first. The fastest path to level up is by getting a combat droid pet and following the Legacy quest line through all of Tatooine. Make sure to go to skill trainers as soon as you have enough xp for each skill box. Once you get to ~level 20 you can join a spin group and other players can help you gain a lot of experience very quickly. In general, the leveling begins slow and speeds up quickly. More on all of these subjects below.
7. Targeting - Either click on your target or hit tab to cycle through targets. Once you pick your target, select a special attack in your toolbar to begin combat.
8. Do the Legacy Quest! - Can’t recommend this enough. It will take you a few hours but it gains an incredible amount of bonus experience, credits, and a few weapons. In addition, it takes you all across Tatooine to amazing points of interest such as Jabba’s Palace, Watto’s junk shop, Obi-Wan’s house and is a wonderful introduction to the world. By the time it’s over you should be combat level ~20 and have a good amount of credits to line your pockets. It would probably take you 5-10x amount of time to get to the same spot taking missions from the mission terminal. The quest line begins with Han Solo’s speeder mission, continues in Mos Eisley with several mayor quest lines, then takes you across all of Tatooine. If you want to keep going the next planet in the quest line is Naboo.
9. Mission Terminals - Initially you just qualify for deliver missions. Once you get to a certain combat level you will be able to take destroy missions. You can typically pick up 2 missions and it’s helpful to go in the same direction (hit refresh). These missions pay out anywhere from a few hundred credits to tens of thousands of credits depending on your combat level.
10. Get a Combat Droid - Highly recommended to purchase a combat droid. This will enable you to kill creatures and NPCs in less than half of the time. These can be found on the Bazaar or player vendors. In order to use the droid it has to be within 5 combat levels of your own. Purchase the droid, radial ‘ready droid’, and call it out from your datapad (k). Common commands are /tellpet guard and /tellpet attack.
11. Gear Upgrades - As you train new skills your combat level will increase and you can use better weapons. For whatever combat level you are, you are qualified to use any weapon of that combat level (with very few exceptions). For example, if you are combat level 15 you can use a pistol, a rifle, or a sword that is combat level 15 --although you might not be very good at it if you don't have associated skill boxes. In the beginning, the weapon choices and skills are negligible. Note, only really in the beginning.
12. Junk Dealer - Early on the junk dealer, located near /waypoint 3506 -4932 in Mos Eisley can offer some additional credits for loot. Anything that says ‘can be sold to a junk dealer’ is fair game. It's especially useful to sell any looted stims you don't use or organs looted from creatures. This junk loot is also used in late-game to reverse engineer, which essentially is combining junk pieces into something more valuable. Reverse engineers may be purchasing your junk loot for ~$1k per unit so check the #Trade channel.
13. Auto-Loot - There is an option to auto-loot in the options menu (o). Highly suggested to save you time although you may also be deleting a lot of enzymes that don’t have value until they are 89%+.
14. Auto-Attack - Despite the user interface tips, auto-attack does not work in this version of SWG. The intent of the combat system in the CU is to utilize a wide variety of attacks and abilities that have associated cooldowns. During a high-level raid one would expect to utilize 10-20 different abilities throughout a combat bout.
15. Specials CrossOver - Note that you can use specials that you earn from skill boxes from one weapon and use the same special on another weapon. For example, you can use Fan Shot (a pistol special) while wielding a rifle. This makes mixing and matching professions a unique and exciting experience.
16. Wounds - While in combat wounds will show up as a black bar over your health bar. This will limit your overall health. These can either be healed in hospitals or by player doctors. If you see an AFK doctor in the hospital, type /invite on them and they will heal you (a /tip is nice!).
17. Dying - For most entry MOBs you get knocked out or incapacitated when you run out of health. You will have a 30 second timer and get back up. If you get knocked out again within a short period of time, you will die and be revived at a cloning facility. Your items will decay but can be insured there. If you ever get a cybernetic attachment, head to Theed’s hospital on Naboo and go to the top floor to have it added or removed by an NPC surgeon.
18. Jedi - With the 1.0 release Restoration implemented a Jedi unique unlock process consisting of 3 parts. 1 - “Universal Requirements” 2 - Inciting Incident (randomly assigned activity) 3 - Medidative Holocron Collection. Use /checkforce to see progress. There are sets of profession trees just for jedi. Being a jedi is an exciting experience but also dangerous as the hunt is on to eliminate jedi in this Star Wars era.
19. Armor - This won’t play much of a role until you get into an advanced profession. The penalty for wearing armor is very heavy until you gain enough skills to mitigate the burden. There are 3 primary types of armor: assault, reconnaissance, and battle. Each advanced profession has a mitigation for 1 of the 3 types. Keep in mind, Armor that has that the "Junk" quality cannot be worn so don't waste your time or credits on purchasing any that you loot or find on the Bazaar!
20. Join a Faction - In order to join the Rebels or Imperials you go to a recruiter. In Mos Eisley the Imperial recruiter is at /waypoint 3499 -4752 and the Rebel Coordinator is at /waypoint 3286 -4524. From here you can also take missions from the respective faction mission terminals.
21. Buffs - Buffs are a large part of the game and are especially helpful as you enter dangerous quests. The different types are buffs from Entertainers, Doctors, food consumption (Chef), Squad Leaders, and Spice (Smugglers). Entertainers can be found in Cantinas and Doctors are typically in hospitals giving out buffs. Food and drink can be purchased by Chefs.
22. AOE Attacks - These will be your bread and butter for leveling. As mentioned above, you get experience as long at you hit a MOB once. So with your AOE you can hit 10 MOBs at once and gain xp much much faster, especially in Spin groups.
23. Spins - These are groups of players who grab missions together all in the same direction. ‘Spin’ because you go back and forth to mission terminals. Once you are at combat level ~20 it becomes highly valuable to join a spin group and work through hundreds of MOBs and many missions in a very short period of time.

EPISODE III: TIPS FOR NEW CRAFTERS​

1. Types of Crafters - There are 9 main advanced crafting professions: Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Architect, Droid Engineer, Shipwright, Chef, Tailor, Merchant, and Bio Engineer. Other professions have minor roles in crafting such as Smugglers making spice.
2. Experience Type - There are 3 main types of crafting experience: 1) General Crafting 2) Surveying and 3) Specific Crafting. For crafting experience, the type of tool you use determines the experience type. For example, if you use a general crafting tool, you get general crafting experience.
3. Experience Gain - You gain crafting experience for each item you craft. The amount of resources and complexity of the item determines the amount of experience gain for each item you craft. For example, an item that requires 10 resources vs an item that requires 100 resource will have much different experience gain.
4. Creating an Item - Items are created using various crafting tools. Use your general crafting tool, pick a schematic, load the resources, and create the object. If you use ‘practice mode’ no item is created but you gain +5% xp bonus.
5. Crafting Tools - There are several types of crafting tools. Initially you just need the general crafting tool, but eventually as you level you will want to use the specific tool for your profession. The types are: General, Food/Chemical, Weapon/Droid/General, Structure/Furniture, Clothing/Armor, and Starship. You can make the additional tools with a General Crafting Tool.
6. Resource Types - There are several classes of resources. Creature, Gas, Flora, Solar, Wind, Water, Chemical, Mineral, and Geothermal. Within each class there are sub-types such as Copper mineral and even deeper such as Kesh Copper mineral. Creature resources come from harvesting dead creatures (right click radial on dead creature). All other resources come from using a survey tool and surveying and from player harvester structures.
7. Surveying & Sampling - Surveying tools are given to new players and can also be made from a General Crafting Tool. There is a survey tool for each class of resource. To find and collect resources initially, open up your survey tool, pick a resource to survey for, and survey to find a good concentration. The higher the concentration the more resource you will gain per sample. Once you find your spot hit /sample and you will begin to collect resources. Optionally, you can typically buy resources from players for ~1 credit/unit.
8. Resource Availability - Resources are intermittently available across the planet and galaxy. Each uniquely named resource appears for 7-10 days on average and then is replaced with a new resource. Special resources may only be available on specific planets and not all resource may be available at a given time. Once a named goes away, that specific named resource will never spawn again but a new named resource of that type with new properties will replace it.
9. Resource Quality - Each resource has associated stats. There are many but some of them include conductivity, potential energy, unit toughness, overall quality, among plenty of others. While in the beginning stages, resource quality doesn’t matter while you are gaining xp but eventually it makes a world of difference. More of that later.
10. Schematics - Each item you create will have a specific type of resource required, an amount of those resources, and details about what resource qualities matter. Depending on the item you may need a general resource like ‘metal’ or a very specific type of metal such as ‘carbonite steel.’ As you look to create better items, the schematic will have info about resource quality. For example, a weapon core typically relies upon conductivity and overall quality to determine how good it is. As you look for resources, keep in mind what you want to make and the qualities you are looking for. https://swgtracker.com/ is a new website created to assist finding resources on R3. The schematics available to you can be viewed in your Datapad (K) under the 'Draft Schematics' Tab.
11. Crafting Stations - As you advance in your crafting profession, in order to make certain schematics you will need to utilize a crafting station. You can view schematics available to you by looking in the 'Draft Schematics' Tab in your Datapad (K). Each schematic has a complexity assigned to it. Any schematic with a complexity of 0 to 20 does not require a crafting station. Schematics with a complexity of 21-25 requires at least a Public Crafting Station (Located in public places/NPC Cities). Schematics with a complexity of 26+ Require a Private Crafting Station that is crafted by an Architect and can be placed in a private residence (Many Guild Halls/Player Cities have Private Stations that anyone can use). Similar to crafting tools these come in several types such as a Ship Crafting Station, Food and Chemical, etc.
12. Harvesters - Once you save up enough money you may want to utilize an automated harvester instead of sampling for your resources. Harvesters come in different sizes and use a base extraction rate (BER) to determine how fast it pulls resources. You can make your own personal harvesters at Engineering III skill level. Each harvester will require you to deposit maintenance credits as well as power units. You can place a harvester at your chosen resource point and then move it after paying a fee.
13. Power - Harvesters utilize power to operate. There are several types of power: wind, solar, geothermal, radioactive, fusion, and petro. You can survey for these resources like all of the others. Initially I would recommend either building or acquiring a wind power generator or purchasing power from a player vendor. Later there are much more efficient ways of creating power such as fusion generators.
14. Lot Limits - Each character has a limit of 10 lots. Houses, factories, and harvesters all count toward the lot limit. Depending on the house size they can be 1-5 lots and have respective item limits (that can be increased with specialty quest items). Harvesters and factories count toward 1 lot.
15. Swgaide.com - If you are serious about crafting this may become your most visited website. Players contribute to this knowledge base and you can get information on the latest resources and quality of those resources. Consider taking the time to contribute as it does take effort to update. Another excellent web site for finding resources specific to Restoration is: https://swgtracker.com/
16. Artisan Grinding - Most artisans would agree that the fastest way through artisan is to build General Crafting Tools until you reach Engineering III which will require sampling metal and chemical. Once you have Engineering III you should build personal harvesters, which will require sampling various minerals.
17. Advanced Grinding - Each advanced profession has a guide either on the Wiki here or on the web for the fastest way to level experience gain. There are typically 2 or 3 items in each profession tree that is easy to make and gains a large amount of experience.
18. Experimentation - Once you reach an advanced profession and use a specific crafting tool, you are able to experiment on an item in order to make it better. For example, increasing the damage output of a weapon. Experimentation results and amount depend on your skill level. The limitation of experimentation is a function of the quality of resources you use.
19. Subcomponents - More advanced schematics may require sub-components to be built prior to constructing the final product. For example, to craft a jacket you need to first build a fiberplast panel. In some cases, you may even need a sub-component made by an entirely different profession.
20. Creating High Quality Items - In order to make high quality goods, there are 4 main components you should focus on: the quality of tools you are using (both the crafting station and the crafting tool), the quality of resources you are using, the skills you have (master, for example), and the results of the experimentation rolls. As you optimize these attributes you will be able to make high quality items for players to use.
21. Crafting Macros - There are a few macros out there that are helpful in making your experience gain more enjoyable. Notably, the surveying macros and the crafting macros. They help minimize the amount of clicks required to craft an item, for example. They can be found via the web.

-SoloWest