Reverse Engineering, Fashion, and Set Bonuses After 1.2
Disclaimer: I could be wrong some (a lot of) things here, the “answers” are clear as mud and I didn’t try to test everything. In the interest of getting you an article while it’s still relevant, I’m taking my best guesses. I’m editing as I find out new things…
In 1.2 you can pull the armoring out of your set gear (as you can currently do with the mod and enhancement). However, the tier bonuses for the rakata/columi/tion gear stays on the actual piece and does not follow the armoring (says the devs, anyway, I haven’t personally tried this). Future gear will have the set bonus tied to the armoring, but for now, we’re stuck choosing between “stripping the mods” and keeping the bonus.
Reverse Engineering For Oranges
Now, I could not write this before I had actually tested it in 1.2. Why is that? Because the devs in the same QA, practically in the same paragraph, made contradictory statements about reverse engineering and oranges.
Many of the new end game items (and end game items going forward) can be reverse engineered to learn schematics based on the original item… Reverse engineering an item with mods leads to empty orange equivalents of the end game items. This can be done after the mods are extracted and used in a different item!
Yay right? Then…
Because we do not want players to gamble with reverse engineering custom appearances (orange items) which are often unique quest rewards, the schematics for these items are obtained via mission discoveries for various gathering skills and are set to Bind on Equip to encourage active trading.
Lolwut?
I also found this thread, which supposedly clears things up.
We have added a number of orange appearance schematics to the system through mission discoveries.
From the dev comments it seems:
- You will NOT be able to get an orange recipe from reverse engineering an item, orange or otherwise. (Some speculate that it might be possible on “end game items”, see ambiguous Quote #1.)
- Edit: More info. RE-ing orange recipes indeed will be viable for new end-game items (added in 1.2). See the QA quoted at the end of this Test Center post.
- They are adding new orange recipes for us via missions.
- Edit: the new orange PvP recipes cover all the slots. They require 70 Valor to wear. I do not know if these new recipes will be for the same slots that we can currently craft oranges (head, chest, legs) or if it is expanded to all the slots. I’m going to assume the former for purposes of writing this article, but I might be wrong. I have seen only a handful of new recipes and they appear to be PvP, limited to people with 70 valor/honor/something.
How Do We Get Oranges For All The Things?
This is what I understand:
- Orange recipes that you you have learned from dropped recipes (AFAIK, chest, head, legs) can be crafted after 1.2 with a chance to proc an augment slot.
- You can still get orange head, chest, legs from a drop, vendor, or legacy vendor but they will not have an augment slot).
- It is possible that you can RE “end game items” (whatever that means) to get additional orange schematics for these slots. (Edit – yes, see above)
- You can get bracers and belt, previously really hard to get in orange, from a legacy vendor. You can get gloves and boots from drop, vendor, or legacy vendor. These will not have augment slots.
- It is possible that there are new orange schematics, obtained from mission skills, that let you learn crafted orange items for these slots (with a chance to proc an augment slot). Again, I’m presuming here that the new dropped orange schematics will be restricted to head, chest, and legs as they are currently.EDIT: See, I told you I was wrong. The new orange schematics for the new war hero armor allow you to craft ALL the slots as orange shells. However, you must have 70 valor to wear them. That might take a while.
- It is possible that you can RE “end game items” (whatever that means) to get orange schematics for these slots.
How good is your set bonus? Or, more accurately, is your set bonus better than having 3 (or possibly more?) augment slots?
With 1.2, you can get augment slots in crafted moddable orange items (which is currently head, chest, legs). If you strip the mods out of the columi gear and plop em into crafted oranges, then you have the same stats as before, minus 4 piece set bonus, plus augment slots. You can keep your 2 piece set bonus by keeping your set gloves and boots, since those slots cannot be crafted oranges and cannot have an augment EDIT: Except the PvP recipes which, again, you need 70 valor to wear, or possibly RE oranges from “end game items”. (I am assuming, I have not seen all the new recipes).
Now, some set bonuses are pretty damn good. Like that extra 50 force for consulars, nom nom nom. Y’all have to live with your bananahands for a while. But those of you with a fucking useless bonus like mine can opt to ditch the bonus in favor of extra stats.
Do You Have Money?
You will have to pay for a few things:
- The gear with the augment slots (presumably this will take a crafter many tries)
- The augments (which might be terribly pricey right after the patch)
- Stripping the mods out of really good gear (HOLY FUCK)
As you probably gathered, stripping the mods out of the gear is going to cost an arm and a leg, while the other parts of the plan probably won’t be that bad. Many of the oranges that are pretty are also low level, so making a bunch of copies of those won’t be a big deal.
Make Sure You Like How It Looks
Now, for the love of pete, figure out which items you like BEFORE you start moving around those mods. It’s better to model the empty outfit (before mods have been removed from anything) and say “this isn’t for me” and continue the search… rather than put the mods in, equip it, and scream. That’s right, the preview window is not to be trusted with that much money.
See how it looks with and without the “Match to chest” option. Most of the time, it’s pretty obvious how the pants are going to turn out based on the chest, however, there are a few weirdnesses. Usually it still looks GOOD, but just unexpected.
- I have a set with a white jacket and the pants are also white, matching. I put on different pants, and did “match to chest.” The pants turned black, which looked awesome, but it wasn’t the same as the original set look.
- I crafted pants where I really like the cut, but they have baby-poop-brown side panels. I “matched to chest” and… nothing. They stayed exactly the same (hideous) color. Apparently, this “matches” a gray shirt? Yeah. No.
- My gross white-crotch-pants could not be saved even by this. Wearing the shirt and pants in the screenshot, I clicked “match to chest.” It turned the white crotch PINK and left the rest of the pants alone. I would have taken a screenshot, but I was too busy throwing up in my mouth.
Model it. Match it. Go in the sun. You’re going to be wearing it for a while. You’d better like it.