About The Crew Skills

The Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ galaxy is rich with valuable
resources, high-tech schematics, and intriguing opportunities, but what
hero has time to devote themselves personally to so many pursuits?
That’s where your crew comes in. The Crew Skills system allows you to
take advantage of everything the galaxy has to offer without getting in
the way of your adventure! You’ll assign your crew of companions to
gather resources, craft useful and valuable items, and even to undertake
their own missions, bringing you and the rest of the crew a variety of
benefits and rewards. Crew skills keep you in the action while you take
advantage of all the galaxy has to offer!





Your Starship is home base for you and your crew. While you’re
exploring the galaxy and progressing through your storyline, you can
relay orders back to the ship. You’ll be able to assign tasks to your
companions to gather resources, to craft items at the ship’s
workstation, or to embark on special missions. Based on their personal
backgrounds, some companions will be more proficient with certain
skills, and the higher their opinion of you, the better they’ll perform
across the board.
(new info)
The Crew Skills trainers all like to hang out on the capital worlds,
where the player can encounter them. Each trainer will give the player a
description of the Crew Skill they teach, along with the benefits they
provide, so the player knows which Crew Skills may be most beneficial to
their play style.
Most Crew Skills missions are drawn from a random pool for the
player to choose from, and that pool refreshes from time to time.
However, some missions are unlocked by rare objects you might find in
the world. These missions are one-off, but tend to offer more
substantial rewards.
Is Artifice Crafting skill available only to Force users? Are any
other Crew Skills limited to certain classes?
Nope! There are no limits in that regard. It is the player’s call as to
whether they want to choose a skill that might not be directly
beneficial to their character.
Companions can fail on missions, which means that the player will
lose his initial capital investment (i.e. his credits and time spent).
It is up to the player to decide if he wants to play it safe with his
companion missions, or go for higher risk, higher reward missions.
Currently, items craft from and drop to your inventory. This may
change based on feedback from Game Testing and as we iterate on the
system, though.
In fact, one of the key benefits of the missions system is to
find rare crafting materials that aren’t ‘drops’ elsewhere in the world,
usually used for making very high quality items.

You will be able to select three Crew Skills for your team to train in from among these main categories:

Gathering Skills


As you explore planets in the galaxy, you’ll discover a variety of
exotic resources and valuable pieces of information. With the right
training, you and your crew will be able to scavenge for raw materials,
slice computer systems, and track down valuable artifacts. The resources
and information you gather can be sold on the open market for a profit,
or your crew can use them to craft useful and valuable items.
If you like, you can select Gathering skills for all three of the Crew Skill slots available to your team.
Gathering Skills include:

• Bioanalysis – the practice of collecting genetic material from creatures and plants
  
• Scavenging – the art of recovering useful materials and parts from old or damaged technology
  
• Slicing – a skill in accessing secured computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable data and rare schematics
  

Crafting Skills


Whether your team gathers resources or you acquire them through other
means, they’ll be the cornerstone of crafting. Depending on how you
choose to specialize, your crew will be able to construct armor,
weapons, implants, or other types of useful items and gear. You can use
these items yourself or put them up on the open market for
profit.
You’ll receive Crew Skill reports even while you’re away
from the ship, and if one of your companions returns with the schematics
for a valuable item, you can assign someone else to start crafting the
item right away on the ship’s workstation without having to return to
the ship! Crafting skills are very specialized disciplines; for your
three Crew Skills slots, you’ll be able to select one Crafting skill for
your crew to master.
Crafting Skills include:

• Armormech – the ability to work with hard metals and electronic shielding to construct all types of personal armor
  
• File:Icon crafting armorstech.png Armstech - Armstech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys, and synthetic materials to craft blasters.
  
• Artifice – the delicate work of constructing Jedi and Sith artifacts
  
• Biochem – the engineering of performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants
  

Mission Skills


Mission skills are a unique addition to the Crew Skills system. With
these skills, you send companions from your crew across the galaxy on
various missions to recover information, hunt down loot, or complete
other goals to bring you rewards. When you use a mission skill, you’ll
select a companion, choose a mission from an ever-changing pool, and
send that companion out after the prize.
You can choose from a variety of mission skills – is your crew
into conducting research? Participating in diplomatic missions? Trading
in illicit goods? There are many options, each with their own set of
benefits and rewards. Some can even earn you light or dark side points.
As with the other skills, your companions complete these missions
on their own time and bring the rewards back when they’re done. Any
number of your Crew Skills can be a Mission skill, so get ready to put
your team to work!
Mission Skills include:

• Diplomacy – the art of conducting and managing negotiations
  
• Treasure Hunting – the ability to track down and recover valuable items by investigating a series of clues
  

Crafting




In
The Old Republic you don't have to deal with collecting items and
spending hours in crafting them into something valuable - that's what
crew members are for! The complete crafting is done by your crew on your
personal spaceship while you're adventuring.

Your whole team can specialize in three skills in overall three categories:
gathering skills, craftng skills and mission skills. Depending on a
companions background and loyalty some are more successfull in certain
categories than others.

Up to five team members can work simultaneously at spaceship's work
station. Even if you're offline your companions will continue to
complete the tasks you put down on a list. Missions may take them
between 5 minutes and 23 hours. Loot you receive for missions as
treasure hunting are rewarded randomly just like other loot.

The character you're taking with can prove his/her gathering skills or
you just decide to go ahead and grab the necessary components yourself.

To create new items you're in need of recipes you receive when learning a
skill or find all around the world. There will definitely be a some
very rare and hard to recipes.


Gathering Skills

	As you explore planets in the galaxy, you’ll discover a variety of exotic resources and valuable pieces of information. With the right training, you and your crew will be able to scavenge for raw materials, slice computer systems, and track down valuable artifacts. The resources and information you gather can be sold on the open market for a profit, or your crew can use them to craft useful and valuable items. If you like, you can select Gathering skills for all three of the Crew Skill slots available to your team.
	Bioanalysis The practice of collecting genetic material from creatures and plants
	Scavenging The art of recovering useful materials and parts from old or damaged technology
	Slicing A skill in accessing secured computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable data and rare schematics
	Archeology The knowledge of tracking down valuable artifacts. (unconfirmed)

Crafting Skills

	Whether your team gathers resources or you acquire them through other means, they’ll be the cornerstone of crafting. Depending on how you choose to specialize, your crew will be able to construct armor, weapons, implants, or other types of useful items and gear. You can use these items yourself or put them up on the open market for profit. You’ll receive Crew Skill reports even while you’re away from the ship, and if one of your companions returns with the schematics for a valuable item, you can assign someone else to start crafting the item right away on the ship’s workstation without having to return to the ship! Crafting skills are very specialized disciplines; for your three Crew Skills slots, you’ll be able to select one Crafting skill for your crew to master.
	Armormech The ability to work with hard metals and electronic shielding to construct all types of personal armor.
	Artifice The delicate work of constructing Jedi and Sith artifacts.
	Biochem The engineering of performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants
	Armstech Armstech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys, and synthetic materials to craft blasters.
	Cybertech The construction of implants. (unconfirmed)
	Unknown The sixth crafting skill is still unknown.

Mission Skills

	Mission skills are a unique addition to the Crew Skills system. With these skills, you send companions from your crew across the galaxy on various missions to recover information, hunt down loot, or complete other goals to bring you rewards. When you use a mission skill, you’ll select a companion, choose a mission from an ver-changing pool, and send that companion out after the prize. You can choose from a variety of mission skills – is your crew into conducting research? Participating in diplomatic missions? Trading in illicit goods? There are many options, each with their own set of benefits and rewards. Some can even earn you light or dark side points. As with the other skills, your companions complete these missions on their own time and bring the rewards back when they’re done. Any number of your Crew Skills can be a Mission skill, so get ready to put your team to work!
	Diplomacy The art of conducting and managing negotiations.
	Treasure Hunting The ability to track down and recover valuable items by investigating a series of clues.
	Underworld Trading Trading illicit goods. (unconfirmed)
	Unknown The fourth mission skill is still unknown.

Developer Blog: Closer Look at Crew Skills




Introduction

I’m Patrick Malott. I’ve worked as a Game Systems Designer on various
titles over the years, but what we’re working on here at BioWare Austin
is my dream project: Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. In my current role,
designing and building out the Crew Skills system
is one of the biggest projects I’m involved in. As a passionate
multiplayer online gamer myself, I know that crafting is a critical part
of the experience for many of you, and I’m dedicated to making sure you
enjoy the way it works in The Old Republic. In this blog, I want to
shed some light on the design decisions we’re making with Crew Skills…
and I might just drop a few new specifics on the Armstech crafting
skill.

The Design Approach

As the System Design Team prepared to create the Crew Skills system, we
spent a lot of time examining crafting systems in other games, noting
the pros and cons of as many systems as we could find. Our primary goal
was to create a system that’s fun and rewarding, so we gathered
inspiration from the pros and scrapped the cons. During the process, we
also kept our minds on innovation, making note of crafting features we’d
always wanted to see. In the end, it took many long hours and lots of
careful consideration to decide exactly what features would make Crew
Skills into a truly exceptional crafting system.

The system has shaped up well, and we’re excited about the results. The
Crew Skills system offers crafting features that players expect along
with surprising innovations that make our crafting experience stand out.
For example, in The Old Republic there are multiple ways to gather
resources. Not only can you gather resources yourself, but companion
characters in the field can be ordered to take care of the task.
Companions stationed on your ship can also be sent on gathering
missions, freeing you and your active companion up for action. Gathering
missions will even continue while you’re offline – the ultimate in
efficiency! Allowing several gathering options enhances the crafting
experience by accommodating a variety of play styles, making crafting
interesting and useful for everyone.



Companions and Crafting

Companion characters are a key part of The Old Republic, so one of our
goals for Crew Skills is to fully incorporate them into the system.
Having companions perform crafting tasks and missions encapsulates the
approach we desired for crafting, and adds to the story and detail of
the game world.

Players can issue crafting orders to up to five companions at a time,
and each companion can add up to five crafting tasks to their queue. You
can cancel crafting progress from anywhere if you need to, and the
resources your companions were using will be returned to you. Your
crafting queues will even continue to progress if you have to go offline
– when you log back on, you’ll receive any items that were completed
while you were gone.

Your companions all have different skills and personalities, and their
strengths carry over into the Crew Skills system. Some companions are
better suited to particular Crew Skills than others. We revealed
recently that Vette is an excellent Treasure Hunter; that means she’ll
have a bonus when performing Treasure Hunting missions. Companion traits
in Crew Skills are designed to be story-appropriate and meaningful, but
the bonuses aren’t designed to be so extreme that you’ll feel you only
have one companion choice for a given task.

Companions are much more than just a block of stats to be ordered
around, of course. In true role-playing fashion, what your companions
think about you will affect how motivated they are to work for you.
Companions with high affection will have their ability to perform
crafting tasks greatly improved. For example, a companion with high
affection can craft items faster – this becomes really significant when
crafting tasks can take hours or even up to a day to complete!

Though companions are vital to The Old Republic and the Crew Skills
system, we do know that some players want to be the primary crafter for
all their crafted items, or for particularly special pieces of
equipment. It’s worth noting that players will definitely need to be
directly involved in the process when learning rare schematics, and that
Lightsabers aren’t acquired or assembled via the Crew Skills system.
We’ll have more details on this later.



Armstech

The Old Republic offers a wide variety of crafting skills, and we’ve
already revealed three of the six. Today, I’d like to show you a bit
about a fourth: Armstech. Armstech is the ability to work with hard
metals, alloys, and synthetic materials to craft blasters.

When we designed the Armstech crafting skill, we envisioned what
materials make sense in The Old Republic. We spent hours reading online,
referencing books and novels, talking with colleagues, and utilizing
all the Star Wars™ resources we could find to help define the perfect
materials for Armstech. Once we laid out the materials, the rest of the
system fell comfortably into place.

Players who choose Armstech as their crafting skill will be able to
create a wide range of blaster pistols, blaster rifles, sniper rifles,
and assault cannons. To create these powerful weapons, you’ll need to
get your hands on the right materials. Scavenging, a gathering skill,
supplies the metals, alloys, and other materials you’ll need for
Armstech.

Entry-level Armstech schematics require only a gathered resource,
allowing crafters to enjoy the game system immediately. As schematic
complexity and item quality increases, the crafter will need other
ingredients, like vendor-purchased materials and even rare resources.
The higher the item quality, the more work you’ll need to put into
crafting.

There are three quality levels for crafted blasters:

Quality	Crafting Requirements
Premium	Gathered resources and common items sold on vendors
Prototype	Rare gathered resources and other valuable items
Artifact	Rare resources (gathered or otherwise) and other valuable items – possibly acquired from other players

Premium quality blasters are relatively easy for an Armstech to make.
They generally require only scavenged materials and vendor-purchased
fluxes. At lower levels, Premium quality blasters require relatively
inexpensive materials and take only minutes to construct. They’re on par
with (and sometimes slightly better than) items commonly acquired from
completing quests and defeating enemies. We expect that casual crafters
will pursue crafting blasters of this quality, and that they’ll get
excellent use out of them.

Discovering and mastering Prototype and Artifact quality blasters takes
considerably longer and requires much more player dedication. In The Old
Republic, we want the crafting of such items – especially at the end
game levels – to be a significant accomplishment. Our goal is for
players to want to seek out renowned crafters who have learned the
rarest schematics. Prototype and Artifact quality blasters will be
exceptional, and their appearance and effectiveness will speak to their
rarity and power.

Players progressing through The Old Republic will always desire better
quality items, and crafters certainly want to provide those items to
make a profit. We’ve worked hard to ensure that crafted items have an
important place in The Old Republic’s economy, and that crafters will be
well-rewarded for the effort they put into the Crew Skills system. In
future updates, we’ll go further into detail about how we plan to
address crafted items in the economy!

Closing

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog. We’re all very excited
about Crew Skills, and I’m happy to share these details about our goals
and design ideals with you. Keep in mind that we’re always reviewing and
testing our systems to ensure their quality and fun. And, of course, we
always appreciate you taking the time to provide us with feedback, so
keep it coming!

May the Force be with you!

Patrick Mallot
Systems Designer

Extracted from The Sith Assassin's Codex. Couldn't get the ratings to copy over so please refer to main site for more info.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=636114#Infil

CREW SKILLS

Money can get you everything.

Those of you coming from World of Warcraft post-Classic are familiar with the skill layout of that game, where every single craft skill had to have a mechanically advantageous thing that it 'owned' (each of them being roughly as good as the others). Several of the crafting skills in that game effectively were worthless to anyone besides the wielder, to boot.

That is not how this game works, mechanically. Every single crew skill mechanical perk originates from the fact that you're getting the benefit cheaper or earlier than someone who does not have your craft skill. For example, anyone can use medpacks; only a Biochem producer can get a reusable medpack, which costs more to craft but will never get used up. You do not need to be an artificer to upgrade your lightsaber; artificers make the upgrades, you just buy them and insert them into the lightsaber yourself. Etc. The other thing is that all of the crafting skills have some sort of aesthetic option which is unique to them, and these are among the rare bind-on-pickup items that cannot be given to anyone else.

Therefore, there are three approaches to take when choosing your Crew Skill layout: Do I want to get something that will save me money on a reusable I want a lot of, do I want to get something that will make me a lot of money, or do I want to get something that will give me a unique visual perk? It cannot be stressed enough that crafting of any kind while leveling up will only be of limited use; you will always end up ahead in credits while leveling by not crafting anything. It becomes a question of time and money spent now, versus time and money spent later to either level up your own craft skill or constantly purchasing everything you need.

To make your decision, you need to have a good grasp of what can be made by each craft skill. You have access to three crew skills per character; a maximum of one may be a craft skill, and it's recommended that the other two be a gathering skill and a mission skill which support that craft skill. Everything is oriented around the crafting skills; mission skills provide a nice little bit of flavor, but are essentially a second gathering skill oriented around the rarer materials that cannot be obtained through direct gathering.

It's important to note that you will not automatically get all of the important recipes for Craft Skills from the skill itself, even by reverse-engineering; you will need to get some of these schematics from the Galactic Trade Network. It's also important to note that you will always lose money by sending crew members to do missions, as the point is more to raise your skill and gain materials while not being out in the field yourself. If it was strictly superior to self-gathering, no one would ever do it.

I'll go over each of the Crew Skills in brief - each section will contain the Crew Skill's codex entry, followed by my input.

CRAFTING SKILLS
You may only have one of these skills on your character. If you take one of these, it is your most important skill. As noted above, once you get to endgame, you are not getting unique mechanical perks from what you make via these skills; you're just getting it cheaper, easier, prettier, faster, or reusable. For leveling content, they do create some unique stuff for lower levels, so rich rerollers will make purchases from dedicated crafters a lot.

ARMORMECH
Recommended Skills: Scavenging. Underworld Trading (Underworld Metals).

Codex: Armormech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys and synthetic materials to construct armor for non-Force users. Vendor-purchased fluxes are used during the armor creation process to refine the materials to ensure suitability. Armormechs can reverse engineer their crafted armor and possibly discover new ways to improve armor creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Armormech.

Comments: Armormech is not your typical choice for a force user, because it provides no mechanical benefits to the Jedi or Sith whatsoever. It also has no aesthetic benefit to the Shadow or Assassin, who cannot wear its armor. I do not recommend it for you for any reason. The materials from its Gathering skill will be in high demand, and non-Force users are going to be a smaller clientele than Force users in this game, I can guarantee that. There is potentially some money to be made off of Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior ACs who want an unconventional look for their character, but that's not a compelling enough reason on its own to take this skill. For both making money and saving you money, this flunks the test.

Rating:


ARMSTECH
Recommended Skills: Scavenging, Investigation (Compounds)

Codex: Armstech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys and synthetic materials to craft blasters, blaster modifications and melee weapons. Vendor-purchased fluxes are used during the weapon creation process to refine the materials to ensure suitability. Crafted blasters include blaster pistols, blaster rifles, sniper rifles, assault cannons and shotguns. Blaster modifications include blaster barrels. Melee weapons include vibroblades and electrostaves. Armstechs can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Armstech.

Comments: What it does not tell you is that everything it makes sucks, except for the blaster specific mod (the gun barrel), and the many, many unique models of blaster that it can make. Endgame Vibroblades and Electrostaves (if they ever intend to make the latter useful to a player rather than a companion) are obtained via vendors, to prevent this from being the potentially most universal skill ever. Instead, it's possibly the only thing worse than Armormech, unless you really, really need to make sure that keeping Qyzen equipped is easy. Since, hooray, it can make Techblades.

Rating:

ARTIFICE
Recommended Skills: Archaeology, Treasure Hunting (Gemstones)

Codex: Artifice is the delicate skill of constructing lightsaber modifications, enhancements, generators and focii. Lightsaber modifications include color crystals and hilts that augment a Force user's combat attributes. Color crystals determine beam and bolt color for lightsabers and blasters. Enhancements are modification upgrades for weapons and armor. Artificers can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Archaeology provides crafting resources for Artifice.

Comments: An important skill, as it creates the color crystals used by every weapon in the game, upgrades your personal weapon, creates multiple slots (force-user off-hands, shield generators), creates endgame relics, lightsaber hilt mods, and the enhancement mod which can go on all major body parts and weapons. They can also create their own lightsabers at maximum skill, though the lightsaber hilt model is usually not as important to players as the blade color. The relics, along with the unique lightsabers, are their 'self only' perk, as these relics can also be bought from stores. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE relics are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. Because it is 'exciting', I expect this skill will be picked up by many players, including many non-Force Users. It may suffer from market dilution, and does not have a consumable to keep it useful once the economy settles, so I tentatively rate it well.

Rating:

BIOCHEM
Recommended Skills: Bioanalysis, Diplomacy (Medical Supplies)

Codex: Biochem is the skill involved in crafting medical supplies, performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants. Biochemists can create medpacs to restore health, stimulants (single-use injections) that provide a boost to physical abilities, and biological implants that enhance combat prowess by stimulating neural networks and regulating brain stem functions. Biochemists can reverse engineer their crafted implants and possibly discover new ways to improve implant creation. The gathering skill Bioanalysis provides crafting resources for Biochem.

Comments: Medkits, Stims, Adrenals, and the only skill that can make implants. Similar to Artifice's relics, these can be obtained without being a Biochemist, but it will be easier for them. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE implants are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. The real prizes for the biochemist for self-use are the reusable stims and adrenals. They will be expensive as anything to manufacture, but once they are, you'll be set for life. One of my two top picks for your one craft skill.

Rating:

CYBERTECH
Recommended Skills: Scavenging, Underworld Trading (Underworld Metals)

Codex: Cybertech is the skill to assemble droid armor, earpieces, grenades, armoring, mods and miscellaneous gadgets. Armoring and mods are upgrade modifications that augment combat ability. Earpieces are external mini-computers that are worn on or near the ear. They enhance combat prowess by giving audio and visual feedback to the wearer or through direct neural feedback via an external nerve relay. Cybertechs can reverse engineer their crafted items and possibly discover new ways to improve their creation. The gathering skill Scavenging provides crafting resources for Cybertech.

Comments: The other of my two top picks for your one craft skill. As with Artifice and Biochem, it has exclusive crafter access to improving your ship, as well as two item slots (earpieces) - both of which can be obtained in other ways for more money. Until everyone is geared up, the BoE earpieces are likely to sell well for the people who can get their skill up high enough quickly. What makes Cybertech so fantastic is that it crafts the two of the most common upgrade items - Mod and Armoring, which can go on nearly every piece in the game - as well as five different consumable grenades which each have an unshared 5m cooldown. And these grenades can be made in reusable varieties for the Cybertech.

That's right, you gain access to moderate to low damage ranged AoE attacks, which each carry a useful secondary effect: A slow, a stun, an immobilize, an immobilize, and a damage-over-time effect - periodic damage can ruin capturing objectives in PvP as well as attempts to use Force Cloak. That's pretty huge in PvP, and even in PvE, as AoE abilities which do not sap you of precious, precious Force? They're pretty awesome.

...And if that wasn't good enough, Cybertech can make you a custom speeder bike, too.

Rating:

SYNTHWEAVING
Recommended Skills: Archaeology, Underworld Trading (Luxury Fabrics, Underworld Metals)

Codex: Synthweaving is the process of fabricating synthetic materials out of crystals, various chemicals and artifact fragments to construct armor for Force users. Vendors provide premade solutions, suspensions and composites that are used during the Synthweaving process. Synthweavers can reverse engineer their crafted armor and possibly discover new ways to improve armor creation. The gathering skill Archaeology provides crafting resources for Synthweaving.

Comments: It's essentially tailoring, and every Force User will rely on this skill; you also will probably get a little bleedover from non-Force Users who want to have an unorthodox look. I think it's likely to be a little more valuable than Artifice on the market, because there are far more armor slots than weapon slots, and a lot of Force Users, and a lot of people will look at Synthweaving and go, "Ew. It's tailoring," which sounds boring and not bother. However, its mods currently cannot have expertise on them - the principal PvP stat - limiting its usefulness for PvPers.

As of the most recent build, these items no longer come pre-installed with mods, which has greatly degraded the rating for the purposes of anything but simple aesthetics. Its value is principally in early access to having as many slots as possible on your gear.

Rating:

GATHERING SKILLS

Gathering skills are skills which you or your companion may employ in the field, when you see an appropriate resource. They supply the basic materials used in crafting skills. You may send your companions on gathering missions which cost money, but provide you with skill-point appropriate resources. There is a chance for your companion to fail when deployed on missions (I believe it is related to their affection), but it will always give you a skill point even if they fail. Out of your maximum of three crew skills, all three may be gathering skills.

Spoiler
ARCHAEOLOGY
Recommended Skills: Artifice, Synthweaving

Codex: Archaeology is the study of crystal formations and archaeological finds. Crystal formations contain crystals that an Artificer can use to construct lightsaber modifications and armor for Force users. Archaeological finds contain artifact fragments of Force-imbued technology. These valuable items contain ancient formulas and algorithms used in the crafting skills Artifice and Synthweaving. Archaeologists can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: Archaeology is an essential skill for Artifice - the craft skill that everyone wants - and is easy to level up. Synthweaving will be high in demand as well. My personal experience is that you get Archaeology materials faster than needed to keep up with your mission skills if you're going at a good clip of leveling speed, so it may be a less satisfactory choice for a pure gatherer.

Rating:

BIOANALYSIS
Recommended Skills: Biochem

Codex: Bioanalysis is the practice of collecting genetic material from creatures and vegetation. Genetic materials include cell fibers, bacterial strains, toxic extracts and medicinal fluids. Biochemists use these materials to create medpacs to restore health, stimulants (single-use injections) that provide a boost to physical abilities, and biological implants that enhance combat prowess by stimulating neural networks and regulating brain stem functions. The crafting skill Biochem utilizes Bioanalysis resources. Bioanalysts can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: Let's be clear right now: Biochemistry is going to be very important, so even though this is only tied to one skill, gatherers may wish to take it anyway, to either sell their goods or trade the materials to a Biochemist in return for manufacture of goods. Also, Bioanalysis can be performed by you or your companion on many dead creatures, so while you won't get to use this skill much on your capital, it'll catch up pretty quick on Taris.

Rating:

SCAVENGING
Recommended Skills: Armormech, Armstech, Cybertech

Codex: Scavenging is the art of salvaging useful parts and base materials such as metals, alloys and synthetic compounds from potential technological resources--junk piles, fallen droids, abandoned cargo and broken-down vehicles. The crafting skills Armormech, Armstech and Cybertech utilize Scavenging resources. Scavengers can send their companions on missions to gather resources.

Comments: You can easily progress your scavenging by killing everything in sight when you see droids - which dovetails nicely with roleplay for lightsiders, who are more hesitant to kill fleshies, and the fact that stealthing through droid missions is slightly more difficult and annoying since Mind Maze won't work on droids. Along with Diplomacy, Slicing, Investigation and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. It also fuels one extremely critical and two useful tradeskills, so it's a strong recommendation.

Rating:

SLICING
Recommended Skills: Cybertech

Codex: Slicing is not a skill required for crafting. Slicing is the art of accessing secure computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable items, credits and rare tech schematics. Common slicing targets include electronic safes, data stations, security mainframes and biometric footlockers. These targets contain credits, rare tech schematics used to construct Cybertech gadgets, vehicles and space upgrades, and mission discovery objects that unlock challenging missions that can potentially yield great rewards. Slicers can send their companions on missions to retrieve these valuable items. Other possible mission rewards include augments that can be slotted into exceptionally crafted items.

Comments: It's Investigation's cousin, more or less. Getting schematics from slicing missions is a rarer occurrence than in Investigation, so I wouldn't worry about taking Slicing as part of a normal set of three as a crafter, but it's basically an essential for people just looking to make a buck. You still have a net loss of money by sending companions on Slicing missions, as the point is to raise your skill without doing any work for it.

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MISSION SKILLS

Mission skills function identical to Gathering skills which cannot be personally collected; you need your companion to do them. They provide the rare resources used in crafting skills as well as providing a host of other benefits, such as giving you companion gifts to raise their affection, rare schematics, and sometimes rare equipment. Out of your maximum of three crew skills, all three may be mission skills.

Spoiler
DIPLOMACY
Recommended Skills: Biochem

Codex: Diplomacy is the art of conducting and managing negotiations. Sending your companions on diplomatic missions can influence your light side or dark side standing. In addition to light side and dark side influence, possible Diplomacy rewards include medical supplies used to construct prototype and artifact implants, medpacs, stimulants, adrenals and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Gets you materials for one of the two most important skills in the game, gives you Light Side/Dark Side farm points, and can still be used to get gifts. What else do you need? Along with Investigation, Slicing, Scavenging and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters.

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INVESTIGATION
Recommended Skills: Armstech

Codex: Investigation is the skill of researching, gathering, analyzing and decoding secret information. Sending your companions on Investigation missions can yield valuable items in the form of researched compounds used to construct prototype and artifact weapons and blaster barrels, prototype schematics for all crafts, and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Investigation finds rare schematics for every single type of crafting skill, as well as materials for Armstech. Along with Diplomacy, Slicing, Scavenging and Underworld Trading, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. It could substitute for a normal mission skill, since you rarely need the normal mission skill to simply level up your craft, or a gathering skill if you're willing to purchase those materials off of the Galactic Trade Network.

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TREASURE HUNTING
Recommended Skills: Artifice

Codex: Treasure Hunting is the ability to track down and recover valuable items by following a series of clues. Companions sent on Treasure Hunting missions can return with rare gemstones used to construct prototype and artifact enhancements, hilts, color crystals, focii and generators. Other possible rewards include lockboxes that can contain valuable items or credits and gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: It only goes with one craft skill, and everything that it is used to make is pretty much reusable. Great if you're going with Artifice, I wouldn't bother otherwise. It can be fun to randomly receive relics or other rare items from this skill, but it's a constant gamble.

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UNDERWORLD TRADING
Recommended Skills: Armormech, Cybertech, Synthweaving

Codex: Underworld Trading entails the exchange of goods and services on the galactic black market. Sending your companions on Underworld Trading missions can yield luxury fabrics and underworld metals used to construct prototype and artifact armor, earpieces, grenades, space upgrades, and weapon and armor modifications. Other possible rewards include gifts for companions to raise their Affection rating.

Comments: Covering both armor creating professions as well as one of the two best professions in the game, it makes a solid choice for someone not interested in personally crafting and instead making money off of crafters. Diplomacy, Slicing, Investigation and Scavenging are good partners for that.

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If you read all that and are confused still - or didn't read all of that, because it's a lot to chew through, that's okay. You just want the bottom line on which three crew skills I recommend, right? I've arranged them into sets of three based on what your main selling market is.

PvE Endgame: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Diplomacy.
PvP Endgame: Biochem, Bioanalysis, Diplomacy // Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading
Self-Leveling: Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading // Artifice, Archaeology, Treasure-Hunting // Synthweaving, Archaeology, Underworld Trading
Simple Money-Making: Pick any three: Slicing, Investigation, Diplomacy, Bioanalysis, Scavenging
Selling to Roleplayers: Armormech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading // Synthweaving, Archaeology, Underworld Trading // Artifice, Archaeology, Treasure-Hunting
Do not pick: Armstech