The target audience for this video is SWTOR noobs who know nothing or almost nothing about crafting armour sets with synthweaving and armormech. I will talk about crafting armour and take you through the process of crafting armour in real time. I’ll talk about a number of things related to crafting which may be useful for you to know.

Game version 6.2a.

If you catch me saying anything in this video that is wrong please let me know.

Also in the video accompanying this post is much tangenting and other little facts that I drop and a bit of ranting about the bugs in the game which the programmers don’t bother to fix because they are too busy snorting the profits up their noses.

Your toons need armour. They can run around in their underwear but that’s not so helpful in a fight. Where and how are you gonna get armour?

1. You can use the stuff you get via loot.

2. You can buy armour from vendors.

3. You can buy armour from the GTN.

4. You can craft armour if you have a toon (or toons) with synthweaving or armormech.

In this video and post I examine the economics of crafting armour for your toons. How many credits does it cost to outfit a toon with a full set of adaptive armour. How does that armour compare to what you will find when looting, receive for completing missions and conquest, and buying from vendors or the GTN?

Math.

Here are some numbers regarding the cost of crafting armour. The costs you see below are what I calculated based on my tracked mission results and the costs of the missions.

If you didn’t know: Adaptive armour will provide differing stats for armour based on the armour proficiency level of your toon. I didn’t find this out until about 9 months into the game.

Vine-silk Force Expert

I made a full set (seven pieces) of Vine-silk Force Expert’s armour. This is a level 40, rating 108 armour made with grade 5 crafting materials. The cost of the armour was 40,296 credits.

I also made 6 augments to fill the augmentation slots of the armour set. The cost of 6 augments was 20,148 credits. I got a critical on all the augments and ended up with 12 augments for the price of 6.

Thus the full cost of a set of armour and 6 augments was 60,444 credits.

I then sold 5 of the augments on the GTN for 54,330 credits each. That’s after the GTN took its cut of the sales price. That works out to me making a profit of 210K credits in the process of crafting armour for my toon.

Lashaa Silk Force Expert

I made a full set (seven pieces) of Lashaa Silk Force Expert’s armour. This is a level 16, rating 62 armour made with grade 2 crafting materials. The cost of the armour was 21,720 credits.

I also made 6 augments to fill the augmentation slots of the armour set. The cost of 6 augments was 10,860 credits.

Thus the full cost of a set of armour and 6 augments was 32,580 credits.

Shadowsilk Force Expert

I made a full set (seven pieces) of Shadowsilk Force Expert’s armour. This is a level 10, rating 46 armour made with grade 1 crafting materials. The cost of the armour was 7,008 credits.

I also made 6 augments to fill the augmentation slots of the armour set. The cost of 6 augments was 3,504 credits.

Thus the full cost of a set of armour and 6 augments was 10,512 credits.

What can we learn from my experiments?

1. Crafting armour, especially at lower levels, seems to be very cost effective. I have attempted no crafting of level 75 armour and indications are that it’s not worth it. Also do not bother with crafting the level 64 Defiant armours. They are very expensive and you can find armour on the GTN that looks the same (other than a different colour scheme) for next to nothing. Go the the GTN and search of “onslaught” in the armour category. Otherwise the armours up to level 66 have a reasonable cost.

2. When I craft armour for my toons I almost never happen across armour via loot or reward that is an upgrade until I start getting near the level where I would be able to equip new crafted armour anyhow. Thus from the perspective of effectiveness crafting your own armour seems to be a good investment.

3. Some of the armour looks great and can be used in your outfit(s). All my toons have multiple outfits and much of the armour they have outgrown sticks around because it looks great.

About augments:

1. On one hand I’m not convinced augments do enough, especially at low levels to make them important. On the other hand augments, especially at low levels are so inexpensive to craft it’s not that big of a deal.

2. I think (and have no evidence to support this) that as you level up augments start adding enough to your stats to make them worth the effort. I think (and have no evidence to support this) that at the lower levels augments are so inexpensive there’s no reason not to craft them.

3. I have so far only created augments for armour or other items that were crafted with an augmentation slot. I have not crafted any augmentation slot kits and I can’t comment on how much it cost to do so. If you don’t know: When you get a critical crafting armour the result is an armour piece with the augmentation slot kit installed.

Things that will bring down the cost of crafting an armour set are:

1. Getting a critical when crafting the assembly components. A critical gives you two assembly components for the price of one.

2. Scavenging crafting materials from a planet instead of getting them from sending your crew on missions. You can get your scavenged metals, scavenged compounds, power crystals, colour crystals, and artifact fragments from scavenging on the various planets.

3. Getting a critical when crafting augments. This will give you two augments for the price of one.

About cosmetics.

Some of the armour you can craft looks amazing. Some of the armour you can craft looks like poop. I have my opinions on which is which but since this is a question your aesthetics might differ from mine. There is no wrong answer. In addition to crafting armour for your toons based purely on stats you can also craft based on aesthetics.

If you didn’t know: Some armour looks the same on all toons. Some armour looks different based on the alignment (Republic or Imperial, not dark/light) or the sex (boy or girl, there are only two sexes) of your toon. Much, but not all, of the adaptive armour you can craft will look different on Republic and Imperial toons.