- Hit [ESC] to exit a conversation before its done allows you to rechoose moral choices, or avoid getting an affection-penalty from a companion.
- [Spacebar] allows you to skip dialog scenes with NPC's.
- If you expect a conversation to turn into a fight, static barrier (or similar defensive ability) yourself before conversations begins. Ability timers seem to freeze during interactive dialog.
- You can turn on light/dark enabled on choice, so you don’t have to mouse over to see which points you get.
- You can actually press 1,2,3 etc for the choices in conversations.
Social
- Searching with "/who" shows who is "LFG" (Looking For Group).
- While chatting, use the up and down arrows to scroll through what you've previously written.
- Galactic Republic and Sith Empire characters can communicate, but only in local (/say).
- /clubdance is cooler than /dance.
- To keep from getting a bad reputation when grouping, only choose "Need" on an item if your character can use the item. If your companion can use the item, choose "Greed". Thanks.
- You can create a new channel by typing "/cjoin channelname".
- RP servers tend to do a lot of RPing on the RP channel which can be joined anywhere by typing /cjoin RP.
- Don't spam lfg every 30 seconds and everyone won't ignore you.
- Press z to run with weapon out.
- To find out the class/level of someone -that is for instance looking for group in the General Channel- Type /who, then in the Search field of the window that pops up, type their name. It will return the class and level of the person.
- Stating “I got a bad feeling about this” is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
UI and game preferences
- Hit [Ctrl]+U twice to reset the User Interface.
- [Alt]+Z hides / shows the User Interface.
- Clicking on stairwells and entrances on the map allows you to browse those areas.
- You may turn the nameplate tags of various mobs and player types on and off in your preferences.
- Going into 'Preferences' and then 'Controls' you can change the max camera distance (it’s default is pretty close).
- [Ctrl]+[Shift]+F shows your frames per second. It appears as very small green numbers in the bottom left corner of your screen.
- Preferences -> Controls -> Combat: Adjust your Action Ability Queue Window time to meet your playstyle.
- To set keybinds, look for the tab at the bottom of your Preferences window.
- Right click on your general chat tab to open up chat options. Then you can select chat options, click on the chat channel color box to open up the color scheme window.
- You can turn on auto loot/loot all in same area via the options. The Area loot option is amazing.
- Reward windows that dissapear are waiting for you in the upper right hand corner of your User Interface (Pending).
- Under preferences there is an option to set advanced tool tip information.
- To move the chat window: Mouse over the General Tab at the top left corner of the chat box. Left click, hold and drag to anywhere on your screen!
- You can change the rotation speed of your mouse in preferences.
Commendations
- Commendations can be worth hoarding as they can help not only you, but also your companions. Additionally items gotten from lockboxes are not bind On Pickup but bind on Equip, so they can be sold or given to alts.
- Warzone commendations max at 1000.
- Warzone commendations can be converted into mercenary commendations at fleet pvp vendor. 30 warzone for 10 mercenary.
- There are commendation vendors for every planet at the fleet.
- Fleet Commendations (those tokens you get from completing space combat missions) are turned in for ship upgrades at the same place where the starship upgrades vendor is on your fleet.
Vendors, GTN, inventory and equipment
- You do not need a mod station to modify your gear.
- There is a cross-faction Republic / Imperial Galactic Trade Network located on Nar Shaada.
- You may split stacks of materials by holding [Shift] and dragging the item with your left or right mouse button. Using the left mouse button also links the item in chat.
- You may purchase multiple amounts of an item from a vendor by holding [Shift] and dragging the item with your left or right mouse button.
- Using an alternate character parked at the GTN and the mail system can help reduce travel time.
- [Ctrl]+Left Click an item allows you to preview how it looks on your character.
- [Ctrl]+Left Click a customization mod allows you to preview how it will look on your companion.
- You can [SHIFT]+Left Click to link an item into whatever active chat channel you have selected.
- You can Left Click an item that has been linked in chat to view its stats.
- You can upgrade mods in Orange and Purple gear. Useful if you like the look of an item.
- When using the GTN, right clicking item in your bag moves it to sell window and inputs a "suggested" price; does not change default length of sale from one day.
- Low level orange gear is priceless. It has a base level restriction only viewable with empty mods. Otherwise its level is altered by the level of its mods. Only its armor type or class restriction information stops you from using it.
- You can get "slave/dancer" armour from Nar Shaddaa cantina, it requires soc lvl 2. (HOT TIP)
- Once you reach light/dark side lvl 2 you can buy artifacts from the light'dark vendors on the fleet.
- You can activate gear with "Use" bonuses by dragging the item into a quickslot.
- Prototype (purple) items with only mod and enhancement slots can have an armor mod added to them. If you open the Customization window of the gear and right click the armor mod it will allow you to add it to the piece of gear. The only thing you cannot do is view the current armor mod or remove it but you can add a new one to it.
- PvP gear at lvl 20/40 can be better than regular gear early on.
- When sending items by mail, you can just right-click on them in your inventory to have them added as attachments. You do not need to click and drag.
Crafting
- You may craft with materials stored in your ships cargo.
- If your inventory becomes full while crafting, items will be mailed to you and sent as attachments.
- The color of the little circle next to the item determines the crafting difficulty, and how much skill will be gained. You can sort by "Difficulty" or you can sort by "Rating".
- Reverse Engineering your crafted items has a chance of learning the "Blue" version of that item which is better than the normal version and has a higher threshold of leveling your profession.
- A critical craft will yield an item with a mod slot. The item is labeled (Exceptional). Biochem items can’t get a slot for obvious reasons; a crit will instead produce multiple stims.
- Companions can craft and run missions when you are logged out. Send them out to work for you before logging out of the game!
- Companions can also craft while you are PVP’ing or while running a flashpoint or operation with a full group.
- When using your companions to craft, you can queue up to 5 crafted items per companion.
- If you want to cancel a companions Crew-Mission, clicking the X to the right of the progress bar will cancel the action currently being done, while right-clicking the tiny icons underneath will un-queue those particular actions.
- If you cancel a crew skill mission midway through (including crafting), you get a full refund (and all materials back).
- Several companions may use the same crew-skill at the same time. So, for instance, all of them could be out Scavenging at the same time.
Companions
- Companions have their own Codex entries explaining likes, dislikes and stats. It does not state which gifts they like directly, but read this thoroughly it might give hints.
- The 'N' key opens your companion window when you are on your ship. Use the arrows next to the companions name to browse all your different companions.
- If a companion wants to talk in private, visit either a cantina or your ship. (Sometimes your ship is required).
- You can open your companion's skill tab by pressing ` (tilde).
- Your companion gains new skills with levels, but sometimes forgets to use them. You have to enable them manually. Remember to check once every couple levels if there's something new. For instance, if you thinks your DPS companion isn’t really doing good DPS, you likely forgot to turn on his AOE abilities. Some even come with abilities turn off, so always check them out.
- Dismissing a dead companion and summoning them back restores them to full health. So does mounting and dismounting your mount.
- In the preferences, you can enable the tooltip comparison for equipment/gear for your active companion.
- You can quickly target your companion (for healing etc) by double tapping F1.
- Gear bound to you can also be used by your companions (if they meet the other requirements such as Armor type, etc.)
- The droid you get with your ship is a healing companion. Just remember to gear it up.
- [Ctrl]+Left Click a customization mod allows you to preview how it will look on your companion.
- Right click - companion gathers.
- [Shift]+Right click - your character gathers.
- If you have a companion out and you see a gatherable at any distance, you can right-click on it and your companion will go over to it and loot it so long as he can walk over to it. (The companion will still aggro mobs though).
- You can also gather another node yourself while your companion gathers theirs.
- Med Units not only heal both you and your companion, but will revive your companion in combat.
- Don't forget Command Stims (the once boosting Presence). They really boost the effectiveness of your companions.
- If you don't want to anger your companion, send them on a mission before dialogue.
- Companions will never leave you no matter how bad you treat them.
- Companions never come fully equipped and often lack easy-to get items, such as a pair of gloves or a wrist item.
Space combat
- [Spacebar] makes your ship do a barrel roll in combat.
- You can use the WASD keys to manually pilot your ship instead of your mouse.
- You can fly around using BOTH keyboard and mouse. Helps navigating while shooting.
- You can and absolutely should buy a power converter module (cost: 30 commendations, req. level 25). It allows you to switch between more firepower and more regeneration.
- There are a lot of bonus missions in most of the missions, but in order to see them you need to destroy the first objective, so remember to shoot one of all sorts: special ships, capital ship turrets, capital ship shield generators, capital ship engines.
- You can shoot enemies you don't see even through obstacles (like meteors or whatever). All you need is your crosshair to turn red.
- You can shoot objects outside your range of vision (especially capital ships). Point your guns towards the enemy ship and wait for the crosshair to turn red, then fire.
- Hold down the right mouse button to 'paint' multiple targets for missile attacks (up tp 4), release and fire on multiple targets simultaneously.
- Shield does not regenerate when you are firing.
- Upgrade your ship! You can buy parts at the Starship Upgrades vendors, found on most planets.
- You get fleet commendations for completing space missions, which can be spent for some ship upgrades as well as orange pilot's gear.
- Fire your blasters in short bursts of three to four shots. That's usually enough to take down a small ship and lets your shields recharge.
- Blaster shots will travel through solid objects, but missiles will not. When firing missiles, make sure you don't target something on the other side of a ship or asteroid, as your missile won't reach its target.
- Try to take out capital ship turrets early. Most capital ships will show up multiple times in a given space mission.
- If you take out a capital ship's engines, it'll veer around and won't be able to fire at you as readily. Sometimes the ship will even wander off course and plummet in flames, though you can't outright destroy capital ships yet. Plus, hey, it's fun.
- As you level up, you get new space missions, and you also get new optional objectives in your old missions. Try destroying one of everything early on to see what has bonuses attached.
- Missiles do more damage than blasters, so you might want to save those for harder targets until you get a larger missile magazine.
- For Empire, all enemies’ haves yellow trails. For Republic, all enemies have red trails.
- You can rotate the galaxy map with mouse2 button pressed down / move.
Combat and Abilities
- [Alt]+F sets your focus target.
- [Ctrl]+F targets your Focus Targets Target.
- Your focus may clear during a conversation. To get it back, hit the focus swap button twice.
- Static barrier yourself before mounting your speeder helps prevent being dismounted from attacks.
- The 'Emergency Fleet Pass' is located under the 'General' tab in your 'Abilities' window ([Ctrl]+P).
- You may use this once every 18 hours to travel to the fleet. Your ship will travel with you and be docked there.
- You may buy single use Fleet passes from the Security Key vendor at the fleet for 1,000c each.
- If you have used a Fleet pass and cannot leave the fleet, relog to regain the ability to leave again.
- Combat fly text has different colors and sizes. White is normal weapon damage. Yellow is tech damage. Grey is companion damage. Green is healing. Red is damage taken. Small text is damage over time. Medium text is a regular hit. Large text is a crit.
- You can solo Flashpoints that are grey in your quest log (below your level range) to easily obtain Orange gear, now simply replace the low level mods with some that fit your current level.
- Anyone can place marks/icons on targets (even party members). To do so, right click the targets avatar-image.
- There is also a social item you can buy that lets you put a mark on your enemy target.
- In Settings you can set tab targeting to select the enemy in the center of your screen.
- When taking cover the vertical angle of the enemy also counts, not just horizontal.
- There is an option you can uncheck to stop auto-target on nearest enemy.
Moving, exploration and datacrons
- There are 3 Datacrons per starter world that give permanent stat bonuses. There are other Datacrons throughout every other planet.
- [Spacebar]+W allows you to perform a short, controlled jump. Useful for acquiring Datacrons.
- The /stuck command teleports you backwards a few steps, but has a cooldown.
- The /stuck command will kill you when in a flashpoint.
- Do NOT jump while moving down on an elevator!
- You can quickly exit a flashpoint using an icon on the top of your minimap.
- Logging out in your ship gives rested XP. Rumor has it reduces login times.
- A Sith Inquisitor can jump slightly higher and farther by using the ability 'Overload' while jumping.
- Don’t roll a size 3 or 4 character if you want all the datacrons. Size of body affects hit box and can prevent you from making it through some gaps.
- In the fleet, there are elevators going directly to your classes starship hangar.
- When reading maps, the lighter blue areas are higher than the darker blue areas.
- If stuck and nothing else seems to work, try opening fire on a mob. It will turn on your combat stance animation and sometimes unsticks you. (Pressing Z will also put you in combat stance).
- Duelling a friend means that you can use move combat abilities, such as force-jump to get quickly to your friend or cable-pull to get your friend to where you are. Very useful for helping out a friend with datacron hunting.
Other hints
- The official game manual is online. Good for digital owners: http://www.swtor.com/gamemanual/how-to-play
- All heroic quests are daily quests.
- In the Warzone with the three turrets there are boosts (speed boost ftw.) under the middle turret.
- You can check an option to click ground to remove target instead of [Esc].
- There are fleet shuttles on many planets that instantly send you to the flashpoint transfer area on the space station.
- When you select your advanced class, you get a gear bag. Open it, use it.
- Higher level speeders lowers the risk of being thrown off when aggroed, this is an unlisted bonus that means you get more than the +10% speed increase for your money.
- There's a button at the top-level of the mailbox window to loot all items and credits from mail.
- Running SWTOR.exe as an Administrator fixes many issues with mouse and keyboards.
- If you get killed near a green zone(group or story quest) you can stealth in, but you can't go in during combat.
- If you can't figure out how to activate a quest objective, it might need you to use the item in your mission gear (second tab in the bag.)
- [CTRL]+S mutes all sound.
