Surprise BSOCK!

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

Has this ever happened to you?

NPC: So what are you up to?

YOU: (choices)

  1. Saving the universe because I’m awesome like that.
  2. None of your business, jerk.
  3. [Flirt] Nothing much…

You pick 3 and bam!  Fade to black!

Wait, what?  All I said was…?  ESCAPE ESCAPE ESCAPE!  Oh crap, too late, the quest completion popup is up.  I guess I have space herpes now.

Congrats!  You got BSOCKed (Black Screen of Carnal Knowledge).  It can be pretty disconcerting if it’s unintentional or unexpected.

How to avoid the dreaded Surprise BSOCK.

  1. [Flirt] via holocom. If you’re on your ship and you’re talking to some dude halfway across the galaxy, you can be as suggestive as you want.  I doubt he’s going to materialize and drag you back to your bunk.
  2. Avoid [Flirt] if you don’t intend to give it up.  Be warned, that might not avoid all BSOCK, but should help avoid the surprise variety.
  3. Look at the question first!  Even without a [Flirt] before it, some answers will still lead to the BSOCK.  If the question is “do you want to come to my quarters?” and you say yes… well DUH.  “Wait, I thought we were going there to play Scrabble?”  Not in this galaxy.
  4. Don’t send your companion away.  If your companion offers to leave, and you say “sure, I want to be alone with this guy” you might as well paint your screen black.
  5. Hover over the escape button when you [Flirt].  If things don’t go your way, ESCAPE!  Now if only there were such a do-over IRL for bad dates…

Don’t let space herpes happen to you!

Did I Get On The Right Ship?

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

I swear I’m in the twilight zone.  First, I see Risha, my companion whom I customized.

Then I see Risha the NPC.  On my ship, in a different room.  Where she used to be BEFORE she became my companion.

One Risha is bad enough.  Two is intolerable.  I put in a bug report.1

And then there’s this weird Rattaki guy in my sick bay whom I can’t even interact with.

How the fuck did he get there?  Has he always been there?  Is he supposed to be there?  So I put in another ticket (separate from the Risha issue), figuring that if he’s intentional, they’d tell me that he was intentional and that I should STFU.

The response:

Greetings Njessi,

I am Protocol Droid [redacted] of Human-Cyborg Relations.

Thank you for contacting us regarding the issue of having an NPC inside your ship.

Your report has been forwarded to the relevant department, who will investigate further. We regret we will be unable to provide you with further updates on this issue, but recommend checking future patch notes for any up to date information.

We would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and to thank you again for the valuable feedback you have provided. Please do not hesitate to report any other issues you may encounter during testing.

Thank you for helping us to test Star Wars: The Old Republic!

Please do not hesitate to contact us again if there is anything further we can help you with.

Galactic Support is our specialty.

Sincerely,

Protocol Droid  [redacted]

Star Wars: The Old Republic Customer Service

Which doesn’t really tell me whether that freeloader is supposed to be on my ship or not.  Plus, notice the bolded part.  Any issues I may encounter during testing?  Thank me for helping test? I am paying!  Not testing!

I need to toss all 3 of them in the airlock.  Possibly along with customer service.

  1. Which, if you are interested, was “locked” without response and then disappeared from my queue. ↩

Let The Companion Heal

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

I’m a healer and the husband is a tank.  One would think that, for questing, we’d grab 2 DPS companions and just go from there.

Yech, that did not work.  It was much better to have his companion heal.  I felt a little inadequate.

(1) They Can Target Better

Ok, it is bad enough that we don’t have mouseover macros.  But at least in flashpoints using ops frames with 4 people, I can see all the bars together and heal accordingly.

When it’s just me and another person and our 2 companions, it’s not so easy.  The ops frames are one place.  My companion is on the bottom left.  His companion is nowhere.  As a workaround, I can use Alt-F to focus his companion but the focus frame is clear on the other side of the screen.  Not to mention, the focus disappears every time we get on a speeder.

Which leaves me looking in 3 different places for health bars.  The companion has no such problems with its cheater AI

(2) Range

This is a perpetual tank problem.  The tank wanders off and starts pewpewing and you’re back going where did you GO?  If we use the tank’s healing companion as our healer, he can never get out of range of his own companion without some serious maneuvering.  So that solves that.

(3) My Companion Management

If I’m healing, I usually start out HEALING people.  But then my companion just stands there and doesn’t get the memo to join the combat.  So I have to be sure to click on the appropriate mob who isn’t already dead, send the companion, then retarget health frames.  Honestly, it’s a hassle.  If I go in DPSing, on the other hand, my companion simply follows my lead and I don’t need to do much with the companion interface.

(4) Exception: C2-N2

Ok, you CAN outfit C2-N21 to heal, but it’s only effective for comic relief.  You can use droid parts with +aim and +endurance to make him more effective and sturdier but he does not use a weapon of any type.  And, indeed, he technically can heal.

However, he’s kind of a moron.  Even with heal mode toggled on, he will find time to neglect his healing duties and punch the mobs (remember, he can’t hold a weapon).  If you put him on passive, he will not punch.  He also will not heal you, and will watch you croak.  Lovely.

In Summary: A real-person healer will shine in flashpoints with a full group of real people, but for duoing quests, I am finding the companion-healer far better.  What about you?

  1. For you dirty imps, that’s your ship droid ↩

Frivolous Expenditures: Companion Customization

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

So, everyone has their thing.  Some people want the coolest mount, others want some sort of glowy glowstick that is a different color, some like minipets, etc.  I’ve decided my thing.

Each companion will receive a customization.  It doesn’t matter that the companion looks fine now.  Or if I almost never use that companion.  Or even if it’s a wookiee.  Each companion gets customized.1

Now, this seemed expensive at first, but it’s actually quite reasonable if I have my main fund my alts.  Even with the more expensive kits, it’s under 100k per toon, spread out over 50 levels.  And the first companion gets a freebie, so if I’m satisfied with that, I’m set.

It can get a little awkward.  Like… I’ve known Risha as an NPC for 15 levels and then she became my companion.  We’ve had extensive interactions while she had her “default face.”  So it’s going to take some adjusting to think of this new look as “Risha.”

Why?  Well I’ve noticed that many people, maybe most people, aren’t bothering with it.  and I really want to have a “unique” experience, so what better way than surrounding myself with customized companions.  Plus, if I end up rolling another toon of the same base class, I can customize my entire crew in a completely different manner.  Funsies.

Where to Get Customizations

OK, here’s a great list.  I know for a fact that the Taris, Balmorra, and Belsavis vendors are in “safe” places in the intro towns when you first arrive on the planet.  Once you have a ship, you can trot out to a planet that might be well above your level in order to get a customization  kit for a companion you just acquired.  I went to Belsavis at a way lower level than I should (to get Akaavi’s customization), and the customization vendor is right in the starting area and accessible without running into any nasties.

About Freebie Kits

For some first companions, you get a freebie kit as a quest reward.  You choose 1 of 3.  However, do not fear if you choose the wrong one!  The others that you did not choose ARE still available at the appropriate vendor.

Previewing Customizations

You can preview customizations for your companion regardless of which companion you have out.  Control-left-click on the companion customization (as the tooltip says) and your preview window will pop up.  Then switch to the “companion” tab.  At the top of the preview screen, there are arrows.  Use those to scroll through your companions until you find the right one.  (You will probably have to control-left-click again to toggle the preview if you don’t see it.)

Yes, the preview is crappily small and there’s no way to zoom.

Pictures of them all?

I know it would be so convenient to have screenies of all the customizations rather than squinting at the preview.  SWTOR Spy is gathering pictures of all the companion customizations, but it’s not filled out completely.

Continue reading »

  1. Ok, if the customizations are truly all foul, I will not do it… but that hasn’t happened. ↩

That New Trailer and the UI

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

SWTOR released a new trailer about upcoming features including (these are the high points for me) guild bank and UI customization.

While I’m thrilled with UI customization, it’s… a start.

What it addresses:

  • Resizing all the things.  IDEALLY this will include buffs/debuffs in ops frames, but there’s no way to tell.
  • Moving all the things (YES!)

What it (probably) does not address.  At least from what I can tell…

  • Mouseover macros
  • Targeting companions (i.e. putting companions in ops frames)

So… yeah… I think these improvements are great for the general playerbase and will probably deal with a lot of the issues for DPS and Tanks, the UI still needs more work to be healer-friendly.

Yes, I Backtracked To Get A New Jacket. Don’t Judge Me.

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

With every jacket uglier than the last, I was stuck in my weird jacket with the doodads on the back and the horrendous neck roll…

A stylish neck roll. I have whiplash, officer, make that other starship captain pay for my pain and suffering.
I mean, what is that? A mini-backpack? We're gonna party like it's 1995!

Which, I might remind you, is still better than the higher level crap that I keep looting:

Metallic boobs are srs bzns.
A cape! Here I come to save the daaaay...

Then, as luck would have it, my sentinel finished a level 15 quest that I had skipped on my smuggler and the reward was a fully moddable chestpiece.  Hrm… brain connecting dots… fully moddable chest… from level 15 quest, probably not too ornate.

I have never logged back to my main so fast ever.  I abandoned my sentinel in the senate building and hauled my smuggly-butt back to Coruscant, picked up the quest, and got my very plain looking level 15 jacket.

Very normal...
No backpack included.

Sometimes the simplest low-level items do look the best.

Bad Fashion: Companion Edition

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

There are at least 2 things wrong with this outfit.

Yes, that’s Corso’s butt.

(1) Green & Red?  It’s the Corso Holiday Edition, available for a limited time only.  If you pull the string on his back, he sings carols from Space-Georgia. I mean Ord Mantell.  Totally…

(2) Um, red butt?  Like a monkey.

I’m going to have to farm commendations so he doesn’t look like a festive holiday primate with a bucket on his head.

Edit: Ok yes, after posting this I realized today is SOPA day and I was intending to go dark or do something, but then Little Jedi got sick, and I mean up all night puking sick, and it completely skipped my mind, so I ended up posting random fluff as I sit here in my up-all-night-with-sick-kid stupor.  She’s fine now, by the way, and chipper, which is more than I can say for me.

Upper Hand: How the Eff Does That Work?

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

Upper hand1 is difficult.  I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around it and it will take even longer for it to be second nature.  But I’m assuming that everyone else is having the same problem, right?

The “Build and Consume” Model

Simple premise.  You build up stacks of upper hand (up to 2) with certain abilities and consume upper hand with others.  Upper hand also provides passive bonuses with certain talents just for being up.  More on this later.

How You Build Stacks

For purposes of this article, I’m only including heals that build, not offensive abilities.

What You Spend It On

Well, all sorts of fun things!  Remember each of these eats one charge of Upper Hand, not 2.

How Do I Know That It’s Up?

Now, when it was only put up by Underworld Medicine, you knew it was up because you had just cast… Underworld Medicine.  Not rocket science.  But now that it can proc off slow release medpack, it’s less predictable and you have to pay more attention.

Buff Icon

There’s a teeny weeny buff icon that appears on your character’s buff bar with all the other buffs.  It’s frightfully small and annoying.  I rarely notice it.

Oh hay, 2 stacks
Just 1 stack

Abilities Lit Up

This is the “ghetto Power Aura” so to speak.  If your Kolto Pack/Emergency Medpac is available, you have upper hand.  If it’s grayed out, you don’t.  This won’t tell you how many stacks you have or how long it will remain up.

Now it’s up

Now it’s not

Sound

This is crazy but… there’s a giggle or a snicker.  A little titter when you proc upper hand off slow release medpac.  Listen for it!  It helps me know that I have a stack to spend, even if I’m focusing on health bars at the moment.

Keeping Up Versus Spending ASAP

You get passive bonuses for having upper hand up.  Healing Hand gives you a boost to healing which is the same regardless of whether you have 1 stack or 2 stacks up.  So it’s good to always have a stack up.

But if you don’t spend it, it’s a waste and a drain on energy.  What is the best course of action, but might be difficult, is to spend a stack only if you are at 2 stacks.  So you always have 1 remaining stack of upper hand up for the bonuses but you can still use it.  Once you get the second stack, feel free to spend it again.

Another reason you might want to keep 2 stacks active is that it takes time for the game to register that it’s up.  If you have zero stacks, then hit underworld medicine and then try to cast Kolto Pack at the end of it, there will be a delay where the game insists that you do NOT have upper hand active at all.

  1. For you Imperial Scum, it’s “Tactical Advantage” and should be basically the same deal. ↩

Fashion Police Officers Are Knocking At My Door As We Speak

Hawtpants of the Old Republic Posted on by

Yay a new orange fully moddable chest piece.

Wait.

That’s right.  The cape is part of the chestpiece.  It’s attached.  One guildie says “that looks like Dark Helmet.”  If Corso could have given me the -1 of shame for wardrobe, he would have.

And with that, I stripped out the mods and stuck em in my old jacket.  A cyborg’s gotta do what a cyborg’s gotta do.