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Crew Skills

Crew Skills can be divided into three categories. Crafting Skills, Gathering Skills, and Mission Skills. You must have an available crew member in order to perform crafting or missions.

Crafting - Crafting is basically the same as a lot of MMOs and is probably closest to Fallen Earth and Grand Fantasia in nature. You select a recipe, make sure you have the proper materials, and send a crew member off to craft the selected item. You can do other things while the item is being made, including log off. You can queue up to five recipes per crew member. You can learn new recipes from the skill trainer, through special item drops, and from reverse engineering. The skill trainer generally has new recipes to teach you every 10 to 20 skill points.

The crafting skills in the game are:

Armormech - Armor for Troopers, Smugglers, Imperial Agents, and Bounty Hunters. Covers chest, waist, legs, head, hands.
Synthweaving - Armor for Jedi and Sith. Covers the same slots as armormech.
Armstech - Blaster pistols, rifles, sniper rifles, and assault cannon. Item modifications for blasters.
Cybertech - Earpieces for all classes. Shields and Generators for all classes. Armor for droids. Wrist and boot armor for Aim/Cunning classes. Armor modifications for Aim/Cunning classes.
Artifice - Foci for Sages/Sorcerers. Wrist and boot armor for Jedi and Sith. Item modifications for melee weapons and jedi armor.
Biochem - Implants for all classes. Adrenals for all classes.

The gathering skills are all linked to gathering for specific crafting skills. To gather, find a node in the world and right click it. You can also open the crew management interface to send crew members to gather items, although the yield is low enough that I'd suggest using this as a last resort.

Scavenging - Metals and synthetics used in Armormech, Armstech, and Cybertech
Archaeology - Crystals and fragments used in Synthweaving and Artifice.
Bioanalysis - Chemicals used in biochem.
Slicing - Lockboxes that contain either credits or a small item. Right click a lockbox to open it. Rare materials for Cybertech.

Mission skills are also linked to crafting, but not to the same skills that the gathering skills are. All mission skills have missions that reward companion gifts, and all have missions that reward something used by a crafting skill. To send a companion on a mission, select the mission skill from the crew management screen and select the mission you'd like the companion to go on.

Treasure Hunting - Gives lockboxes like slicing does. Also finds gemstones that are used in blasters and cybertech items, and may be use in artifice items.
Investigation - Finds rare plastics used in creating armor for Smugglers, Agents, Sentinels, and Marauders. Also finds random schematics for any crafting skill.
Underworld Trading - Finds rare metals used in creating armor for Troopers, Guardians, Juggernauts, and Bounty Hunters. Finds spices used in creating Biochem implants.
Diplomacy - All diplomacy missions give dark side or light side points. Some diplomacy missions give rare silks used in Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor armor.

Slicing is a mission skill as well as a gathering skill. Once you get slicing to around 80 skill level, missions start appearing which reward "Mission Discoveries". Other players can use these items to unlock special one shot "bonanza" crew missions that reward more and rarer items than normal missions.

Reverse Engineering

SW:TOR has a fairly unique feature in its crafting system called Reverse Engineering. The way it works is fairly simple. Once you learn a crafting crew skill, a Reverse Engineering icon appears in the upper right hand corner of your inventory. Clicking the Reverse Engineering icon will gray out everything except what you can reverse engineer. Right clicking an item will then disassemble the object and return materials of the appropriate level and item category.

What makes the RE system interesting is that reverse engineering an item you are capable of crafting gives a small chance of learning to craft an even better version of that item. Disassembling a Premium(green) item gives a chance to learn a Prototype(blue) version. Disassembling a Prototype item gives a chance to learn an Artifiact(Purple) version. The better version will consist of the original item with a prefix added. The item will have its original stats, and stat points related to the prefix added on to the item to make it equivalent to an item of the same rarity and level. For instance, if a Jedi belt normally has 30 total stat points, and a rare version of a belt the same level has 40 total stat points, than a Gammorean rare version of the belt would have the original stats plus approximately 5 Strength and 5 Endurance.

The crafting skills can currently reverse engineer the following items.

Armormech - Any armor with aim or cunning.
Armstech - Any blaster.
Synthweaving - Any armor with strength or willpower.
Artifice - Any lightsaber. Any focus. Any wrist or boots with strength or willpower(unconfirmed)
Cybertech - Any earpiece. Any shield generator. Any wrist or boots with aim or cunning(unconfirmed)
Biochem - Any implant (Unconfirmed)

Currently item modifications can not be reverse engineered. Most random item drops with prefixes can not be reverse engineered, but the number that can is growing.

Recommended crew skill combinations.

This is a simple list of combinations for providing gear for yourself or your companions, with a general goal of self sufficiency.

All:
Stims - Biochem, Bioanalysis, Underworld Trading
Droids and Shields - Cybertech, Scavenging, Slicing or Treasure Hunting

Smuggler/Imperial Agent:
Armor - Armormech, Scavenging, Investigation
Weapons - Armstech, Scavenging, Treasure Hunting

Trooper/Bounty Hunter:
Armor - Armormech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading
Weapons - Armstech, Scavenging, Treasure Hunting

Jedi/Sith:
Weapons: Artifice*, Archaeology, Treasure Hunting

Sentinel/Marauder:
Armor: Synthweaving, Archaeology, Investigation

Guardian/Juggernaut:
Armor: Synthweaving, Archaeology, Underworld Trading

Consular/Inquisitor:
Armor: Synthweaving, Archaeology, Diplomacy**


*Artifice is an odd duck right now. The lack of crafted Prototype item modifications is fairly crippling to the skill's usefulness. Power crystals are supposed to improve your lightsaber damage but this feature is currently bugged. Right now the skill is primarily useful for minor armor items and color crystals for your lightsaber.

**Enough people are taking Diplomacy for the Light Side/Dark Side points that the auction house is always well stocked with silk, so you can easily take a different skill with no real impediment to your crafting.