Sith Warriors

I have three Sith Warrior characters, although only one of them is in "semi-retired" state; in fact, he's the next character to go into "post retirement" once I activate him. Another one is almost level 60 and almost halfway through the story, wrapping up Tatooine in the next day or two. The third is still on Korriban and hasn't even started his story yet, but I'm waiting until I get Phovos Maledict into semi-retirement before I start him. He'll be at least level 20 when he starts, maybe even closer to level 25. My "just started" characters, who actually haven't yet started, are all hovering at around 20. Some are closer to 25. None of them are about to start yet, but they still do their starting planet heroics most weeks, so they still get a level or two every week when I'm actively playing.

Before I show my three Sith, I didn't do what I expected again today. I did a lot of my "business" stuff, and am over 300M now in credits. I got some more seasons stuff done. I played a bit of Beorn on Dromund Kaas, although certainly I didn't do the whole planet yet. I finished Saxon on Hutta. He should have been at the "just started" stage, but because they had recently redone the Hutta graphics, I wanted to see them, so I kicked him off early. He's now on the fleet and ready to go to Dromund Kaas. I'll show it later, but agents are a little odd. He, like many of my characters, has an outfit for each of the main twelve planets, but agents don't really have a Hutta outfit; they wear their Dromund Kaas outfit for a little while until they go undercover as "the Red Blade" and then they wear a Red Blade disguise the entire rest of the time that they're on Hutta. I'll show—in another post—both my Red Blade disguise, and my normal agent in uniform outfit, which is really for Dromund Kaas mostly.

And, of course, I played a lot of Phovos on Tatooine. Playing even just a little bit with my son-in-law while he was doing the Sith Warrior story made me want to get back into the warrior moreso than some of the other characters.

Mat Thew is the original Sith Warrior, and was played as a marauder (fury). He has one of the stupidest names of any character that I still have, but... y'know. It's too much money to change it, so it stays. In my "translation" of him into Capes & Rayguns, his "real" name is now Castant Grene. 

Most of Castant's outfits are armored and have a face-covering mask. This "privateer" Sith outfit is one of the few that shows his face.

Castant is a reformer, so I played him as a powerful and overbearing guy who's more or less OK and doesn't do the ridiculous mustache-twirling evil Nazi Sith parody vibe that the game wants to push on you. But he's also not "straight up" light side because that's nearly as stupid in most cases. He did not casually murder people just because he could, he did not corrupt Jaesa, etc. 

In fact, he's one of the characters that I actually really do want to get through the post-retirement story and get Jaesa back. I did the "light side" romance of Jaesa with him, and that doesn't actually get to its denouement until into the expansions.

Phovos Maledict is arguably a bit less serious. He has Elvis hair, for one thing, and often dresses in a space disco suit with bell-bottoms, and open-shirted jacket, a pair of sunglasses, etc. that's all white. I looks more like John Travolta from Stayin' Alive with a goatee than what you'd expect from a Sith Lord. I'm playing him similarly except that for Castant I didn't romance Vette, because he's a good-looking, aristocratic, powerful Sith lord and romancing a mouthy teenaged blue alien with tentacles instead of hair was stupid. So Phovos will, in fact, romance Vette, so I can see what that's like. He's a Juggernaut (vengeance).

A newly designed Phovos Maledict outfit that's more or less playing it straight. It replaces one that I created in the beginning that I liked less and less the more I looked at it. 

Goth Severax is my darker Sith warrior. I plan on romancing "dark Jaesa" with him, and keeping Vette as a slave for as long as the game lets me do so. He still won't be cartoonish evil, because that's stupid, but he'll certainly be darker and meaner than either of the other two. Like my other wave V character, he's a repeat in mechanics, so he's the same mechanically as Mat Thew.

I've been fascinated since learning about them with my Western Hunter-Gatherer ancestors who had darkish skin and hair, but blue eyes. Goth is that kind, but of course, the dark side has turned his eyes yellow. Phovos has the "bright blue eyes" customization that was meant, I'm sure, to be Dune-esque. Although you can't see them super well through his shades above, you might see it in the other image of him from yesterday.

This doesn't show off Goth's serious 'stache, but it certainly has the darker, meaner Sith vibe going for it.

Also, I've been too caught up in Dynamics achievements so I can get all of those three speeders, as well as doing more Seasonal objectives than I expected. I'd like to unlock the blaster rifle and pistol before the season ends, although I won't get to the end of the string. I started with less time than needed, and I haven't been very focused on it. 

I do have the speeders for Ord Mantell, Hutta and Korriban unlocked, though. 

Sigh. Most of the rest of the planets are considerably more complicated. But I kill two birds with one stone by working on Tatooine this week.

UPDATE: My wife has a friend coming over for a Wicked marathon tonight, so I've got the evening mostly to myself. Plans for the night? A bit more Phovos Maledict on Tatooine. Maybe a bit more Mirabeau Tane on his next destination, which after a transition, should be Balmorra. I'd like to play through his transition, at least, and land him on Balmorra. And bring Gändalf Greyhame back from the Fleet to Tython, where he can run Dynamics for a while, although probably not tonight. But I'll place him where he needs to be.

Oh, and Mirabeau did two thirds of the GSI last night. I need to go to Hoth and finish that. Which is awkward, because he's high enough level at level 70, but hasn't been to Hoth yet in the story, so it's his first time there. Let's actually do that first, then do some Phovos.

Legacy of the Sith

Not that I'd ever completely abandoned it, but I was shuttering towards "I've done enough SWTOR for a long while" before Legacy of the Sith came out a few years ago and decoupled the Advanced Class (which is now just your class anyway) from your story. When I first started playing, the game was quite new, and your class was your story. Partway through, you could pick an advanced class. So, for instance, my trial Smuggler later picked up Gunslinger before I decided that I didn't want to pay for a subscription and the 20-level demo wasn't worth playing.

When I joined for real after reading about how Game update 4.x had made the game considerably more solo player friendly; although I think I was early in game update 6.x at this point, so Onslaught, you no longer picked a class and then after a few levels graduated into an advanced class. You now picked a class and immediately at character creation picked an "advanced" class. So, if you wanted to play as a smuggler, before you did anything else, you had to decide if you were a gunslinger or a scoundrel rather than playing for a few levels or so as a "generic" smuggler. But Legacy of the Sith, in game update 8.x, or maybe even 8.0; the first part of it (I don't remember anymore) decoupled your story and your mechanics. Your "advanced class" became your mechanics and your actual class became your "origin story" so now if you picked smuggler, you could pick any of the tech advanced class options to run your character through. If you wanted to be a commando and carry a giant Jesse Ventura cannon while running around as a swashbuckling gunfighter, that was kind of ridiculous, but the game allowed you to do it. As minor a change as this was, I nearly doubled the number of characters that I have after it launched, because of all of the mix and match options that I wanted to try. All of whom are still "in play" status; I haven't maxed level or finished the class story (yet) with any of them, although some of them are relatively close to max level and at least halfway through the story. (Once they max level, they can do the story much more quickly, because I can focus on only doing the class story missions.)

These were my Wave III characters, and my to-be-built planned Wave V characters. My Wave IV characters, on the other hand, are two characters that are recreating specs from my original Wave I, so they are not mixed/matched characters, but are playing class mechanics that match the original class story as they did for the first seven versions of the game. 

In no particular order, except that my spreadsheet ordered Wave III as such, these characters are:

• Saxon Hettar - A sith species bounty hunter using the smuggler gunslinger advanced class and dirty fighting spec. Fairly new started character. Still on Hutta.
• Vash Galaide - A human Imperial agent using the bounty hunter powertech advanced class with the advanced prototype spec. Mid-level character, on Balmorra.
• Gändalf Greyhame - a human Jedi consular using the Sith inquisitor sorcerer advanced class with the lightning spec. Fairly new character who just finished Tython and is on the fleet waiting to travel on the Esseles as soon as I get back to him.
• Beorn Hengest - a Republic zabrak bounty hunter using the Imperial agent sniper advanced class and the virulance combat spec.
• Wulf Hengest - a human bounty hunter using the trooper vanguard advanced class and the virulence combat spec.
• Haul Romund - another human (my favorite, obviously) smuggler using the bounty hunter mercenary advanced class and the innovative ordnance combat spec.
• Gael Heckett - a cyborg (so mostly human) smuggler using the bounty hunter powertech advanced class and the pyrotech combat spec.
• Mirabeau Tane - another cyborg trooper using the smuggler gunslinger advanced class and the saboteur combat spec. (Which is one of my favorites at the moment.)
• Codon Veile - a chiss trooper using the Imperial agent sniper advanced class with the engineering combat spec.

Waves I, II and IV are all non-mixed/matched characters, but for Wave V I wanted to fill in a few holes where I didn't have characters doing certain combat specs that I wanted to do. Wave V might grow because I have more holes than I currently have plans to fill. That said, none of these characters have yet been built in the game, so among other things, I'm still messing around and tweaking their names. Given how unhappy I've been with some of the names that I've been stuck with, I'm happy to have the opportunity to play around with them before committing to them in the game itself. 

And what the heck. Because I haven't built any of these, I can go ahead and plan for all of the Force user and other holes that I'm missing; more commandos, more Jedi and Sith, etc. I'll make an inventory of what advanced class and specs I still don't have, and then make a character plan who's point is to main that combat spec. When—or even if—I getting around to making all of these planned characters is a separate issue. So far, I haven't made any of them. I'll add more "plans" in the next few days.

• Jado Vikunn - I want to try a lot of the new Mirialan colors, so some very dark color (don't know which one yet) will go here. He'll play the agent story, but be a smuggler scoundrel advanced class with the ruffian combat spec.
• Kenth Odon - another Mirialan who'll be specifically designed to look kind of like Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy; blue skin and red mohawk. He'll play the trooper story, but be an Imperial agent operative advanced class with the concealment spec.
• Gaul Pavanik - another Mirialan new color; this time a red one, like a Sith. I might, if I don't love it, actually make him a sith species character, however. He'll play the bounty hunter story and be a smuggler gunslinger with the saboteur combat spec. I already have a gunslinger saboteur, but I thought it was "important" to have a bounty hunter playing a gunslinger, so I needed another one. I've got all three specs, so his spec will be repeated. That's OK. I'm biased towards this spec and the powertech, obviously. 
• Donnall Sunn - One last new Mirialan color; this time, I want to make a pale character. What I'd like like is a rattataki that didn't need tattoos and who had hair, but I'm going to try and get as close as I can to that idea with him, I think. Because I haven't done much with the force characters, relatively speaking, this one will play the Sith inquisitor story but will use the Sith marauder advanced class (two lightsabers) with the annihilation combat spec. This will actually also round out my Sith marauder specs; I'll have one character of all three specs.
• Tycho Javand - I'll finally revisit the Jedi consular story again. TBD race, but he'll be a Jedi guardian with the cigilance combat spec.

Combat specs that are missing: 

• Jedi Sentinel - concentration
• Jedi Guardian - defense
• Jedi Shadow - kinetic combat, infiltration, serenity
• Jedi Sage - seer, telekinetics, balance

• Sith Juggernaut - immortal, rage
• Sith Assassin - darkness, deception, hatred
• Sith Sorcerer - corruption, madness

• Vanguard - shield specialist
• Commando - combat medic, gunnery
• Scoundrel - sawbones
• Mercenary - bodyguard, arsenal
• Operative - medicine

This is kind of ridiculous, though. It would nearly double my number of characters again. The changes that I'll actually make a character for all of those specs is very low. The characters I've already identified as Wave V are the ones that I see as priority.

In a pinch, I can make do with Jedi Shadows, Sith Assassins and even the last scoundrel and operative specs as my backup second combat spec on existing characters.

A few more menu shots...

...just for archive. When I want to use them on posts, I want to have them handy.

Mirabeau Tane without blinking

Vant Galaide in the same chestpiece (different color)

Iakar Kodo in his winter coat

A fancy Luukke outfit. He's made a lot of money by now, of course

Hutran Thanatos in a gas-protected suit

Luukke in a thuggish outfit

Vant Galaide's Mandalorian armor is unique

Luukke again, in a Han Solo esque outfit. With traveling neck pillow

Mirabeau in a similar outfit to Iakar below

Iakar's tactical suit

SWTOR Journal 1/26/2026

I changed my plan just a bit. For one thing, I didn't play quite as much as I anticipated. I watched a lot of TV with my wife, for instance, which normally I can't do super well, but I was in the mood to sit and get many, many hours of it and not complain about being restless. So, finished Stranger Things once and for all, and watched most of an entire season of Big Bang Theory. Of course, I did a few minor things with my "business" in SWTOR, but not much. I haven't been motivated to craft and sell, and my pistols haven't budged, even though they're the only copies for sale on the GTN right now. I guess I got lucky with my earlier sale, and there isn't demand for them at that price. Sigh. When they expire, I'll probably try again at $4M instead of $5M and see how it goes.

I also got more invested in Seasonal stuff than I expected, and ran around doing the Yavin IV dailies, which took a bit of time. I hadn't done those in quite a while, and I'd never done them with Johhn, so he didn't have a Yavin IV map uncovered at all. I also had a few characters on Ilum; another Season objective was 15 dynamic missions on Ilum. That took an hour or two as well. It was all reasonably fun.

But on to story progress. I took Vant Galaide, who just finished his class story, to the fleet and pick up the Ilum mission, after doing the Ilum dailies with some other guys and feeling motivated. I didn't really think about it until I got there, but I also picked up the Black Hole and Section X missions, because they're right there too. However... I skipped the faction stories on Belsavis and Corellia, so in theory, that character has no context. In reality, I've skipped the faction stories on those planets most times that I've played through the game, so I thought it might be nice to go back and actually do them. Vant went to Belsavis and picked up both the faction story string and the bonus series string and is working through them. I'm even doing a lot of the exploration missions (although not Heroics) with him there. Once I do that, I feel like I can skip several more Imperial characters on that and not feel bad. I'll also do Corellia with him before I do The Black Hole. I need to also run someone through the Voss stuff, since it's been a long time since I've done those. But probably not Vant. This was both surprisingly satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time. Satisfying in the sense that I feel no pressure to really accomplish anything quickly. I'm max level, semi-retired, and I'm just doing this because it's open and I haven't done it in the long time. Unsatisfying, because... well, it doesn't feel like making real progress. I am, of course. It's story material. But it's also side quest story material. The Belsavis stuff at least will lead to Oricon, but the Corellia stuff is completely unnecessary, and if you skip it, it has no impact on the expansion story stuff that comes next.

Vant's Mandalorian style custom suit

Then I played Phovos Maledict a bit. Finished Nar Shaddaa, except for the bonus series, which I'll go ahead and do before leaving the planet. But he's also way over-leveled at level 53, and he's on his way to Tatooine, which is one of my favorite planets. I may also grind some heroics and the Black Talon with him again to get him another level or two. (Or three.) Although he's unlocked enough abilities to feel pretty complete, I want to add the Vandinite Asylum helmet to one of his outfits that I've had from the beginning, but I can't equip it until he's level 61. Plus, I'll "relax" a little when he hits max level. That's still a ways away, but I want to get closer with him. It'd be great to be far enough ahead that I can skip some more of the faction stories coming up if I feel like I don't want to do them. And maybe he's the Imperial character who should do the Voss stuff. I don't have a new picture of Phovos, but I also played a fair bit of Mirabeau Tane, who's now level 68, and who finished both his class and the faction story on Alderaan. Which wasn't as tedious as I recall it being, although it'll be nice to not necessarily have to do it with everyone going forward because I just did on one recent Republic faction. (Although the Imperial side is almost the same anyway.) I'll stay on the planet with him long enough to do the Bonus Series. Then tomorrow, I can do Heroics on Ord Mantell and Coruscant again with him, get him up over level 70 and finish up the Act I story missions that we have between the planets before going to Balmorra. 

I know Imperial and Republic Balmorra aren't exactly the same, but because I have so many Imperial characters on or just finished with Balmorra, I'll probably let Mirabeau "rest" before doing it. I'll get burned out on that planet if literally almost everyone who's not retired is doing it all at once. 

Mirabeau in spec ops fatigues. I dislike troopers in heavy armor. That doesn't seem appropriate for the more spec ops stuff that they actually do in the story.
I'm kind of amused that I caught him mid-blink, but I'm leaving it for now.

So, I didn't get as far with Phovos as I kind of hoped/thought, I didn't play with my son-in-law at all, I didn't do anything with Beorn like I thought I might on Dromund Kaas, I didn't finished up Vash on Balmorra or even open him at all to double check that I'm remembering exactly where he is, and I didn't do anything with Gael Heckett either. Vant on Belsavis and Johhn on Yavin IV kind of took the place of what could have been quite a bit of that, though. 

SWTOR Journal 1/23

Let's be honest; what I'm really using this for lately is as a journal about what I've done in game and what I plan to do in game. I made a big, ambitious plan for the weekend (considering, dubiously, yesterday as part of the weekend) and already did a few things a little bit differently.

First off; I have a bunch of stuff for sale. I didn't actually sell much of it, at least not much that was worth anything. We'll see if the surge in players over the weekend gets me some hits, or if I'm just asking more for these things than they're worth. I think I've probably tossed a lot of perfectly good and maybe even lucrative fitted pieces over the years that I can sell. Not really the bracers, gloves, boots or even pants; the pieces that seem to actually be in demand are torsos, heads, and weapons. Everything else can be sold to an in-game vendor, I think. Or maybe the gloves, boots and pants can be thrown on the GTN at a minimal price, but if they don't sell, then it's not worth trying to move them anymore. After getting a really good price on a crafted Defiant MK-16 pistol, I hoped for better luck with two more that I'd crafted, plus a Defiant MK-26, but so far no bites. Otherwise, I kind of forgot about trying to get my biochem stuff moving, and didn't feel like doing grenades again, so I just left those be. It's a little interesting, but every time I log on, I spend at least some time on my "SWTOR business"; trying to hustle for more credits in game. Those expensive GTN wants take some grinding, after all. I need to get more tech fragments too; I'm close to selling those for a big bundle of OEMs, which I can also sell for a decent amount of money.  With any luck, in a few days, my ~300million will be more like ~400million.

Other than spending some time managing my "business" I decided to play both Gael Heckett and Mirabeau Tane, take them to the fleet, pick up the Ord Mantell and Coruscant Heroic missions, do them, but do it kind of like I'm redoing the past, with a Esseles run in between the two planets. This was a little time consuming. I don't play for speed runs, I play for low effort runs, sometimes, but I did all of this with two characters in, I dunno, two hours or so. Including all of the running around, selling crap I picked up while playing, etc. Got some improved gear and both of them went up two levels, and probably half of another one. Gael is now level 69, I believe, and Mirabeau is level 66. If I remember correctly. 

I also picked up a couple of the world drop versions of the Defiant MK-5 pistols while doing this; basically the same pistols that I mentioned above, but all in silver gunmetal rather than two-tone silver and dark gunmetal. I also reworked one of Mirabeau's more dubious outfits, which was a similar one to one that lots of other characters have anyway, to be something else, so he could use those guns with them (he's a gunslinger playing the trooper story, as a reminder.) I do get kind of annoyed with the people who flippantly talk about "space barbie" but honestly; there's something to it. Then again, was Ralph McQuarrie's concept art "space barbie?" Doing what you can to get good visual design isn't a game, it's an important part of successful science fiction, and always has been. 

Hutran Thanatos (above) and Saxon Hettar showing off their Red Blade disguises

Although in SWTOR, maybe it's more like a game. And you're not creating exactly; you're mixing and matching elements that already exist. It's not quite the same, but y'know. You see what I mean. 

Then I picked up Phovos Maledict and did most of the stuff that's out in the Duros sector of Nar Shaddaa, which is where I am. I have one more mission on the Flame storyline to do before I move completely to the next sector for exploration, faction and class story, and I was tempted to finish it before bed, but it was already getting late and honestly this has been an exhausting week, and I didn't feel up to staying up an extra half hour or so. I did get some good video; I need to probably spend a little bit of time this weekend editing some of it too. I've got a lot of raw, unedited video since I OBS up cutscenes fairly frequently. Maybe too frequently, honestly. I think I sometimes spend too much time worrying about recording and not enough worrying about just playing. Otherwise, my goals are still pretty similar for the remainder of the weekend; get Phovos through Act I, if I can, and do a bit more with Mirabeau and Gael. I'm a bit less concerned than I was about getting all of the wave 2 characters finished before I finish wave 3 characters; if Mirabeau and Gael are the next closest, then they should feel free to keep going and lap some of the wave 2 characters. Whatever. If it happens, it happens. 

Mirabeau in particular is fun for me to play. He's a saboteur gunslinger, and I'm really liking that combat spec. I realized that I don't have a gunslinger bounty hunter, so wave 5 will include another saboteur bounty hunter. Gael is a pyrotech powertech; another fun one. I think that's how they got ahead; I just like playing with them and their combat specs. I didn't really need another smuggler playthrough, while I was still doing Anstal Tane, but I did kind of need another trooper. I've only finished one trooper all the way through. Maybe instead of worrying so much about Revecca Arden and Elemer Kell, I'll do more of these three; Phovos Maledict, Mirabeau Tane and Gael Heckett. The latter two can probably hit max level in the next couple of weeks at most, and if I play plenty of Phovos, he will too. Plus, I'm enjoying my second playthrough of a Sith Warrior. I've only ever played one of them through the story before too. I think I may have somewhat under-rated the warrior due to my tech class bias. It's a really good story. By far, the best of the force users. 

Although two of the four force user stories are the lowest rated two in the game, so maybe that's not saying that much. I like the warrior better than the Jedi Knight, at least.

Great Snow Freakout

Everyone where I live is freaking out about some snow on the forecast for this weekend. 

Most of the people that I work with have lived at least some years in the northern Midwest, like Chicago, Michigan or Ohio, so we're all amused by the antics of the Southerners. Even if the Southerners are my people, I mean c'mon. A little snow and ice for a single weekend isn't the end of the world. I guess I better hit the grocery store and buy some extra toilet paper while I still can, lol.

Anyway, where I live the roads are admittedly really hilly and windy. Put some ice on them and it's not that fun to go out.  I anticipate that church will be preemptively canceled sometime in the next day or two, and that there's a decent chance that I'll work from home on Monday. Of course, the ice won't last more than three or so days. By Tuesday, the high is significantly above freezing and it's supposed to be sunny. But for a couple of days or so there, staying home isn't the worst idea. Which means... I'll binge some TV with my wife. Probably finish the last two episodes of Stranger Things V (which I'm not excited about, but it'll be nice to just have it done and not hanging over my head. And some Big Bang Theory which we've been watching in a kinda bingy fashion for a couple of months before she was out of town, and have picked back up again since. And, of course, I anticipate playing a fair bit of SWTOR over the weekend. 

Last night, I made some decent—modest, but decent, a few million—credits with sales of crafted stuff. Luukke, my main Armstech crafter, made some of the high level crafted pistols that look like Colt M1911s; Defiant Mender/Onslaught/Transparisteel Blaster Pistol MK-16. I was surprised that it sold for over 5 million. I had some other Fitted stuff that Johhn was selling that sold for another few million. Made a cool 8 million or so in total with just a couple of sales. Of course, in the SWTOR GTN economy, that's not necessarily a ton of money. There's a lot of stuff that sells pretty cheap, but that's mostly because people don't really want it. There's some stuff that sells modestly, for a few hundred thousand to a few million or so, and the stuff that you really want sells for tens of millions. The really in demand stuff, like black/black dyes or hot armor sets, can easily surpass a hundred million or even hundreds of millions. So I'm pretty happy to be sitting on around 300 million on my Legacy bank, and to be able to add a few million to it every day without spending too much time on it, but the reality is that that can spend in a heartbeat. I've only ever had one black/black dye module, and I found it ridiculously underpriced, bought it immediately before someone else could, and held on to it for months before using it in a very carefully vetted situation; for a very specific look that I wanted on an agent playthrough, Vash Galaide (Gavenk). I ended up creating other outfits for him too, but then I also ended up reverting back to this as his main look which he'll wear almost everywhere, because it really is that cool. I've posted it before, so I'll just add this smaller version for now. Although if you click on it, it should expand to full size.

After that, I started up the Phovos Maledict Nar Shaddaa stuff. He's approaching level 50; I think I rolled over 47 last night, and I'd like to keep him running pretty much as my main guy that I'm playing until I finish Act I which means two more planets still after Nar Shaddaa; Tatooine and Alderaan. I don't know why; I really like Tatooine, but Alderaan always feels like a big pain to me just to even get around for some reason. I think that the graphics create a little bit of lag on my computer too. As I've said many times, when I built this (by which I mean, when my brother built it) for some reason, he couldn't get the graphics card I had to work, so he ended up just leaving it out, and telling me that my processor would be fast enough to do most of what I wanted to anyway. I do, however, get a little bit of lag on a few planets; Alderaan just a bit, Mek-sha a lot, and the revised Voss graphics (which don't even look better, or even different so it's stupid) all cause lag. I also have to wait on my video editing software a fair bit without a graphics card, obviously. My son-in-law says that if I replaced the motherboard, I could probably get a graphics card to work, but if I'm buying both of those, I'd just as soon buy a new computer altogether. I'm probably about due for that anyway, honestly. Although I'm not excited about being forced on to Windows 11. I wonder if I can get Windows 10 LTSC? Sounds even better than my normal Windows 10, honestly. To be fair, I haven't been a huge fan of any version of Windows since XP. I tolerate it, because it's the default standard that will actually run my software without any problems. I'd like to investigate if I can do everything that I want to in Linux Mint without having to do a ton fo command line stuff, though. I guess I could convert my account to Steam and play SWTOR that way. I already use stuff like Brave and Libre Office otherwise. I have a lot of old Windows stuff, though. I'd be worried that it'd be DOA if I made a major OS switch.

Anyway, yeah—I'd like to do the following this weekend (dubiously referring to tonight as part of the weekend too), although we'll see if I can actually get it all done. 

• Do Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine and Alderaan with Phovos Maledict. 
• Run Mirabeau Tane and Gael Heckett through some Heroics or repeat Flashpoints to get them a few more levels, and up to 70.
• I just did Black Talon recently with Beorn Hengest. I'd like to do Dromund Kaas with him. 
• If I still have time, I finished Balmorra with Vash Galaide. I'd like to play some more of him too.
• Uh... what about Elemer Kell and Revecca Arden, who you're supposed to be focusing on? I dunno. I'm not going to do all of this in one weekend anyway.

Nobody is in danger of finishing their class story for a long time, so I've just got a bunch of guys that are still in the first half that need to make some advancement. Gael and Mirabeau are within reach of max level, which is something. Once I get them there, they can do the rest of the class story quite rapidly, skipping explorations, Heroics, faction story, etc. and just doing the class story. I do think that it's about time that I have someone on each faction run the exploration, faction and bonus series on Belsavis, Voss and Corellia though. It's been a long time since I did that. Although I've done it at least twice each faction.

And here's a few more screenshots just for fun. Mostly of new characters and new outfits that are kind of "just for the heckuvit." I'm not really even playing these characters yet. I do have Johhn in a cosplay as Cyclops outfit too, though. I'm not normally a fan of that kind of thing, but this one amused me.

An Iakar Kodo outfit that I mostly copied from someone else's idea.

An Iakar Kodo outfit that I mostly copied from one of my own Vandal Guent outfits

Another Iakar Kodo outfit. Not sure which I want to use to actually do his opening cut scene recording with. Maybe I'll record, esc out at the last second, and do it again with another outfit to get them both?

Johnn as Cyclops. It's not really quite the right shade of blue; way too dark, and the big gray part of his shirt is... well, I wish I didn't need to have it. If there was a more medium blue/blue, that would have been perfect for the torso piece. But there isn't. Maybe I can find a Light Blue/Medium Blue on the GTN and see how it looks?

$ales

I stumbled across a fitted gun that seemed like a bit of a hot item. Someone had it listed at almost a billion credits. I put a listing up for 800m, but then the other guy canceled his listing and undercut me by another 100m. I decided that I thought the price he was asking was probably insane anyway, so I canceled my listing and listed it again for 100m. When I came back, it was sold. For all I know, the same guy bought it hoping to resell it for a lot. Whatever. I'm happy with almost tripling my bank with one sale. 

The economy in SWTOR's GTN is pretty messed up. But if I keep my eye on fitted pieces that drop, I can probably do OK. I've got a bunch of stuff listed, and I also make a steady but modest income from advanced V-9 seismic grenades. And I'm trying to unlock the highest adrenal schematic for critical and shield, at which case I'll grind those with my biochem guy. Apparently those sell for a less modest amount than the grenades, although they also are more difficult to gather for and craft, so it takes longer. Still; these modest gains are sufficient to keep me moving. 

A heavily armored Phovos Maledict image.

Other than that, on Tuesdays, my routine is to grind new heroics, especially with my low level characters who are in the "Just Started" status, so Vandal Guent, Karr Tanus, Iakar Kodo and Goth Severax. I also consider Saxon Hettar as just started... kinda... even though he's actually done many of the Hutta missions in his story and is advancing pretty quickly. But until they actually go to the fleet, take the Back Talon or Esseles Flashpoint, and arrive on the second planet, they're still in play to do the heroics. So, I spent some time managing my SWTOR "business" with crafting, banking and GTN transactions, built a few new outfits for some of my newer characters that still needed some, and did all of the Heroics on Hutta with Saxon and Iakar, all of the Heroics on Ord Mantell with Vandal and Karr, and all of the Heroics (plus a couple of dynamics) with Goth. All five of them got at least one additional level. That's my strategy for new characters, in part because I still have so many that aren't semi-retired; they sit in a waiting queue, but rather than just sitting there at lame-o first level, I run around with them doing Heroics and killing random enemies. They get to level 10 in no time flat, usually, and then they've unlocked weapon crystals, travel to the fleet to pick up stuff that's on the fleet, etc. Usually when I create a new character, I do that in about an hour or two, along with creating a few outfits so I have a look or two for the character before I start the opening cutscene. I record a lot of my cutscenes in OBS for "archival" footage, so having a cool look is certainly an important part of the activity. It's important to me anyway, and I get annoyed at the people who disparagingly (even if fondly so) call it the "space barbie" game. 

Anyway, once I do that, I've got plenty of companions for my character even without having even started my story; Darth Hexid, HK-51, Treek, the Probe Droid, Master Ranos, Nico Okarr, Paxton Rall, Shae Viszla, Fen Zeil, PHA-LANX, and maybe another one or two that I'm not remembering right now. I have a cool look, and decent gear (for my level) and I'm pretty much the meanest thing (other than even higher level PCs slumming it) on the planet already and I still haven't even started my story. So they go to the back burner. But, once a week, usually on Tuesday nights, which I set aside for that, I'll run them through their Heroics. But then I usually play my more advanced characters through their story missions, because I want to get more of them done before I start more characters.

Sigh. But, of course, I started Saxon Hettar, so he's kinda sorta "Just started" but technically he's "In play." I oughtta do myself a favor, get him finished on Hutta, do the Black Talon and park him on Dromund Kaas while I go back and finish Vash Galaide as my agent playthrough first. He's level 48 and just finished Balmorra, I believe, so I've got plenty to do with him still. And I really like him; he's got one of my most iconic agent looks out there; one that I borrowed from the internet where it was also seen as super iconic; a Republic Protectors chestpiece (Makeb reputation) and the Remnant Resurrected Agent headgear (Heroic crates RNG) with a black/black dye module. The other parts don't matter as much; the chestpiece, headpiece and color make the outfit; the pants, belt, gloves and boots are nice, but are more flexible. 

Anyway, the screenshot taker is kind of iffy, so I took some, but they didn't all save. I'd like to have shown some others than the one that I have, but here's what's available right now. I'll try and take some more later. 

And an aside, I can grind Heroics (and solo flashpoints) to level up with anyone at any time, too. I just tend not to bother with anyone except the lower level ones, who are then significantly over-leveled as they start their stories, and will tend to hit max level with several planets in the main story still to complete. As I said before, I usually tend to start skipping faction stories and exploration missions once they hit max level, and just focus on doing their class story, or origin story as they now call it. I need to make sure that I do go back and occasionally do them, though. You can go back after the fact that pick up any of those that you want with semi-retired characters, although... I tend not to be very motivated to do so. But sometimes when I'm feeling in the mood for just some pretty brainless combat, I'll take mid-level characters and grind heroics or flashpoints just to get them a level or two. There were even some guys where I'd run Black Talon or Esseles and then go back to the fleet when it was over instead of on to the planet, and do it again two or three more times, just to grind XP. It's not the funnest way to play, but sometimes when you don't really want to think too hard about what you're doing, it's an easy way to grind.

For Empire characters, there's at least two Dromund Kaas Heroics that are pretty quick, plus four on Hutta and two on Korriban. For Republic characters, there's a pretty nice bundle; four or five, on Coruscant that are relatively quick. Those are my usual grinds for XP and gear for mid-level characters that have their ship available, but still have levels to get.

Phovos Maledict

Last night, my wife, who was exhausted, fell asleep while we were trying to watch TV. I knew she was tired, but I didn't know she was that tired. So I had more time to play SWTOR than I thought. I did some crafting and then mostly played Phovos Maledict, my Sith Warrior, famous recently for his fancy Disco Sith outfit.

I hadn't played him nearly enough. He was in the low to mid 30s for level, and had just gotten his ship and finished Dromund Kaas. Now, he's in the very high 40s and just landed on Nar Shaddaa. Still got plenty to do with him, and I probably "overdid" Balmorra just a bit by adding the Bonus Series and most of the Heroics to my playthrough. I even took a mission request for Hammer Station, which I almost always skip, although I haven't tried to play it yet. 

Anyway, I feel pretty productive with him. In about three hours or so of play, I leveled him up at least ten levels, maybe more (well, actually I played him for a couple of hours a few days ago too; it's really a combination of the two evenings). I think I want to keep working with him for the time being, and maybe keep pushing until he's either 1) max level, or 2) done with Act I or 3) both. I can get him to max level early by doing extra heroics or flashpoints with him, I think. This is especially agreeable to me because for whatever reason, I don't really enjoy doing Alderaan all that much, which is of course the last planet of Act I for all character class stories. I noticed that for both Vant and Anstal on my recent playthroughs that I'd hit max level on Hoth and then dropped out of doing faction stories, bonus series, heroics, and even most exploration missions. I just did the class story after I was max level and that was all that I did with them. 

I do need to occasionally do those things, because that's the point of replaying, after all, but because most of those are the exact same across every character in the faction, it's too much repetition if I do it every time. But if I frontload a lot of that, I'll be less inclined to do it in the later planets, of course.

Also, Alderaan and Voss in particular tend to run a little slow on my rig. It definitely encourages me to play them less. I get some graphical lag. I'd really like to maybe get a new motherboard so I can install the graphics card that I have, and then it'll all run the way it's supposed to; but at that point, why not just get another PC altogether?

After I do some of this Phovos Maledict stuff, I think I'll turn back to Revecca Arden, another character who's woefully behind where she should be right now, and then after playing her a bit, Elemer Kell. Once I've got those two played up a bit, I'll go back to Mirabeau Tane and Gael Heckett. I can state plans for after that, but let's see before I even articulate them, much less commit to them.

SWTOR character customization options I'd like to see

Why did all those new colors go to Mirialans? If they'd been human (and cyborg) options, out beyond the "realistic" human colors, they would have been much more flexible, because you wouldn't be stuck having to have face tattoos, and you could have more eye color options. That's my #1 customization request; make those colors human colors!

Number 2; we need some more hairstyles. One in particular that chafes because the asset has clearly been in the game for a long time now is Theron Shan's original hairstyle. 

#3 request would be red eyes. The Sith species already has them. Why can't we buy them as an unlock like the yellow eyes or white eyes options? I'd love to have a blue-skinned human with red sith eyes—sounds like it would be Chiss-like, but subtly, no, it wouldn't be. Or a rattataki gray-skinned (color on a human) with hair and no facial tattoos.

Sigh. As easy as all of those would be to do, they haven't been done in fifteen years, and I'm not holding my breath now.

SWTOR to Capes & Rayguns name conversions

I've been thinking for a long time about converting my SWTOR characters into "iconics" for Capes & Rayguns, but some of them have names that simply don't work. So, I went into a Star Wars name generator, did some work and some manual massaging, and came up with my name conversion for all of my SWTOR characters, including the three that I haven't yet made. Although there's no reason why those can't have names that work for both. Most of my Wave 2 and beyond characters need very little change; the only ones I'm changing are ones where I borrowed names from Capes & Rayguns planets or some other source to begin with. I did leave one, even though the name is also a Capes & Rayguns background character. If it even comes up, the same name can be a source of comedic confusion on occasion. With trillions and trillions of people in the galaxy, mostly all speaking the same language, the same name coming up sometimes isn't ridiculous. Even if all he does is get weird questions and have to say "no relation" like Michael Bolton in Office Spaces, well... it adds a slight level of verisimilitude that it happens on occasion. He'll make a big deal about the double r pronunciation, since the "king" of Outremer is Kar Tanus VII—not exactly the same name. I dunno. Little in-joke, I guess.

Anyway, here's the list of SWTOR characters and their "new" Capes & Rayguns name. If it wasn't ridiculously overpriced to do, I'd actually change the names of the characters in the game to match too, but... y'know, it is ridiculously overpriced, so I won't.

The last three are in gray; I've planned those characters but haven't yet created them. For all of them, I'm thinking of using the new Mirialan colors to make them look like new kinds of alien humans in funky colors. I wish that I could do that with the actual human and cyborg selection, but Mirialan is better than not even available at all, I suppose. And the bold, red ones are ones where the names changed. Sometimes, the name change was minor. Even for the terrible names from my Wave I, I tried to keep them as part of the name so it's easy for me to immediately remember who it was, unless that wasn't doable.

Wave I characters

• J'ohhn → Johhn Tanau
• Graggory → Gragg Typho
• Lu'ukke → Luukke Denor
• Phillip'pion → Ran Walden
• M'at Thew → Castant Grene
• M'aar'k → Maark Halcyon

Wave II Characters

• Hutran Thanatos → Hutran Cthonall
• Vant Galaide → Vant Gavenk
• Taul Kajak → Taul Kajak
• Anstal Tane → Anstal Tane
• Embric Stane → Embric Stane
• Revecca Arden → Tiona Jissard
• Phovos Maledict → Daivik Mal

Wave III Characters

• Vandal Guent → Vandal Guent
• Karr Tanus → Karr Tanus
• Saxon Hettar → Saxon Hettar
• Vash Galaide → Vash Gavenk
• Gändalf Greyhame → Drice Orden
• Beorn Hengest → Crix Menall
• Wulf Hengest → Wulf Hengest
• Haul Romund → Haul Romund
• Gael Heckett → Gael Heckett
• Mirabeau Tane → Maxir Remarch
• Codon Veile → Cadan Vael

Wave IV Characters

• Iakar Kodo → Iakar Kodo
• Goth Severax → Goth Severax

Wave V Characters

• Jado Vikunn → Jado Vikunn
• Kenth Juun → Kenth Juun
• Garo Pavanik → Garo Pavanik

I also changed my tracker to be color coded by stats, which is much easier to follow.

For some of the characters from Wave II and III that are changing names, here's some notes:

• Thanatos is a planet in the setting already. Kind of the equivalent to Korriban, in fact. It's also a Greek personification of death, and the word has been used in D&D as Orcus' realm. It's a little too on-the-nose, and I needed another option for Hutran's last name.
• Galaide is a confederation of planets. I had two characters with that as a last name; I changed them both to Gavenk—similar enough, yet not repeated with the planetary group, where I might well set Capes & Rayguns action, after all. I still haven't decided if they're long-lost brothers or cousins or something.
• Revecca is a name from another fantasy setting of mine that I just borrowed, and is obviously based on Rebecca. Arden is from Dale Arden, Flash Gordon's love interest, so it's a "literary" reference. The whole name being changed for Capes & Rayguns made sense.
• Phovos Maledict was a similar spelling tweak to Phobos, the name of Mars' moon and a companion of the Roman God Mars, named for the Greek god of fear. Maledict is from malediction, an unusual English word that is more or less equivalent to curse. Since Benedict, the good equivalent was a name, I thought why not Maledict? The name works fine as a Sith warrior in Star Wars, but is a little too in-jokey for Capes & Rayguns.
• Gändalf Greyhame is obviously the same character from Lord of the Rings. Even adding his "late name" I had to have a special character to make the system take it. I tried to make my character look as much like him as I could too. I don't know that I'd even use him as an iconic, but if I do, he needs a new name for obvious reasons.
• Beorn Hengest is a little bit too on the nose too, especially if I keep Wulf Hengest. Beorn is well-known from The Hobbit, but the name is just the Anglo-Saxon word for bear followed by the Anglo-Saxon word for stallion. The name was fine, but one of the two of the characters needed to change, I think.
• Mirabeau Tane was a little bit of an esoteric historical reference, and Tane is already the last name of another character who's clearly not related. Mirabeau is kind of a stupid name anyway, in retrospect. 
• Codon Veile is actually a cool name, but both Codon and Veile are planetary systems in the Capes & Rayguns setting. 

It's also worth noting that some of my characters' races do not have Capes & Rayguns equivalents, really, so they'll have to be just a little bit different, or they simply won't become Capes & Rayguns iconics at all, without being race-swapped anyway. Visually, they may not be an exact match because of that. And I explicitly didn't even use the more exotic looking races in SWTOR like twi'leks or nautalans or whatever, but still.

(Also because you have to buy those, and I wasn't interested in buying something that I wasn't really all that interested in anyway.)

• Psarians can stand in for the Sith species (sometimes) and the Imperial zabraks (Darth Mauls)
• Altairans can stand in for Chiss, although the eyes will be wrong. I guess with the new customization, you can make blue-skinned Mirialans too. And red-skinned ones, for that matter. Thank you upcoming Wave V characters...
• Sereans don't really have an exact equivalent in SWTOR, although they take the place, mostly, of the Sith species in the fiction, and they look more like Rattataki with white hair.
• I have two green-skinned Mirialan characters, but not really much going on with green skinned aliens in Capes & Rayguns. In theory I have the Ubrai, but I've never actually used them. Maybe I need to have a green-skinned "ethnicity" of Altairans who are just a different colored race among them or something?
• What about the Republic zabraks? I have one character of them. Maybe he can be a skiffer? I imagined them as more inhuman than that, but I dunno. Maybe it's the closest I can get in SWTOR. Or maybe I just need to race-swap Crix Menall to be something else.
• If they'd given all of the exotic skin tones to the human/cyborg characters instead of Mirialan, I'd be able to make pretty much all of the characters that I want to from Capes & Rayguns in SWTOR, and mostly using the human race even. I'm still a little irked that they did it that way.

Blue is post-retirement, i.e., doing or having done expansions after Shadow of Revan, where your companions reset and your companion menu changes. Right now, I've only got one, but M'at Thew will probably join this group when I get around to it. Whether I do more than just those two or not is unclear at this point.

Green is semi-retired, i.e., finished the class story, but still farting around somewhere in the expansions previous to Knights of the Fallen Empire. M'at Thew is the most advanced; literally his next mission, when I play it, is to start Knights of the Fallen Empire. Vant Galaide, who I just finished, is literally the least advanced. I haven't done anything at all with him, not even gone to the fleet, much less picked up any new missions.  The rest are somewhere in between those two endpoints.

Yellow (admittedly pretty pale) are characters who are in play. They are somewhere between the beginning and the end of the class story, but they've at least done some missions. Mirabeau Tane and Gael Heckett are the most advanced here; at level 60-something and either through or on Tatooine. Which means that they're not even halfway done, but... y'know. I want to get some of my wave 2 characters to leapfrog up to at least as far as they are before I play them, though, meaning Elemer Kell, Revecca Arden and Phovos Maledict. Embric Stane will continue to be the red-headed stepchild of Wave 2 that I've almost deleted several times but didn't; he's supposed to start Balmorra, but I wouldn't be shocked if most of Wave 3 finishes before him.

Orange, which is admittedly more like a darker maize-colored yellow, are the just started characters. I literally need to start their opening cut-scene mission, but I've run around on the starting planet doing heroics and other things that gave them some levels, and even taken them to the fleet for gear and companions, etc. These are the least advanced with the exception of...

Red, faded to a brick-like color, are characters that I am planning to build, but haven't done so yet and can't until I buy three more character slots anyway. It'd be nice to buy four, so I've got a spare. It actually kind of bugs me that I don't have a spare right now.

So, if Elemer Kell, Phovos Maledict and Revecca Arden are the ones that I really kind of want to catch up on, and Mirabeau Tane and Gael Heckett are the ones that are moving along quite well, who else am I especially interested in advancing? All of them eventually, but I need to prioritize. All of the "Just Started" characters can remain at Just Started until I've moved at least two or three more characters into semi-retirement. I'm thinking that once Phovos Mal goes into semi-retirement, that will be the trigger to start Goth Severax, for instance, and since Karr Tanus and Iakar Kodo are both powertechs, they shouldn't start until Vash Galaide goes into semi-retirement either. Vandal Guent might be the next, but I don't want to start another smuggler until I finish one; either Haul Romund or Gael Heckett. 

On the other hand, Vash Galaide is someone that I have played around with a bit recently, and I'd like to see him keep moving. I'd like to see Gael and Mirabeau keep moving. And I'd like to see Wulf Hengest advance. That does mean that there are still seven characters that I want to see make some significant progress in their class story before I go quiet again, which means quite a bit of playing. Sigh.

I literally haven't read anything yet this year, or even finished a few books that I was reading in 2024, and we're three weeks into the year in a couple of days. SWTOR is mostly to blame. At this rate, it'll keep going for many more weeks before I cool on it a little and do something else. 

Darksabers

Most of my force characters, Jedi or Sith, use "darksabers" with most of their outfits; lightsaber crystals that have a black core rather than a white one. For no other reason than because I think that they look way cooler. Keep in mind too that all of my Wave 1 and Wave 2 characters were created when there was no weapon in Outfitter, or Outfit Designer, or whatever they called it back in the 6.x era. Everyone had one weapon, and you had to make it make do for all of your outfits. So, my older Jedi and Sith characters don't really have much in the way of weapons in outfitter, even though I could add them now, of course. And I haven't really created many Wave 3 force characters, and only one Wave 4 Sith Warrior. Maark, my main, has a blue darksaber. Mat Thew, my original Sith Warrior, has twin orange darksabers. Elemer Kell and Taul Kajak, both Jedi Sentinels, have twin red darksabers and twin green darksabers respectively. 

My less advanced Wave 2 and 3 characters have more variety, but still mostly use a single color. The images below are of Phovos Maledict, a Sith Warrior Juggernaut from Wave 2, showing off four outfits that all use a red darksaber, for instance.

These are pretty classic "Sithy" outfits, unlike, say, his white jumpsuit or his Sith Disco outfit. Sometimes you want to play to type, and sometimes you don't. Anyway, I'm playing a fair bit of him right now, thinking that he was sadly behind where he should be in the low-40ss for level and having just gotten his ship at the end of Dromund Kaas. I'd like to at the very least do Balmorra and maybe Nar Shaddaa while he's "hot" and I turn to someone else. Many of my wave 2 characters who haven't already moved into semi-retirement are sadly behind, and aren't even keeping up with some of the wave 3 characters. I want to specifically advance a few of them, particularly Phovos Maledict, Revecca Arden, and Elemer Kell. That leaves only Embric Stane of the Wave 2 characters left, but honestly; I've come close to deleting him several times, so he's not important to me for whatever reason. Phovos is sitting just shy of level 50 now. I grinded a few Heroics, because I also noticed that some of my gear is behind. Sadly, my lowest piece of gear, chestpiece, didn't drop. It's barely better than half the gear rating of my higher stuff; 54 vs 98. More work to do, obviously. More heroics to grind. I'll probably wait until they reset tomorrow and do the same ones again, though. Two on Dromund Kaas and two on Korriban that are fairly quick and easy to pull off.

On that note, Vant Galaide finished his story and officially moved into "semi-retired" status, just yesterday. I'll probably take him to Ilum and do those missions, though. In fact, I think I want to finish Ilum with all of my "semi-retired" characters, because... why not? It's a pretty short planet, and I like it. Wave 2 characters are about half and half now; four semi-retired ones, and four active ones who need to advance their story. I have ten in total of all waves who have finished their class story, nine in "semi-retired" and one in "post-retirement" who's done Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne. (Not counting the three that I deleted, who also finished their class stories, of course.) Mat Thew might soon join that crowd; the "post retirement" guys. When he does, that count will rise from one character to two. 

Nobody else is super close to semi-retirement, however. Mirabeau Tane and Gael Heckett are in the 60s for level, so they're at least threatening reaching max level, but they're still a much farther cry away from "retiring" by finishing their main class story. I don't even think any of my other characters have finished Act I yet, which markes the halfway point. Last night, I mostly played Phovos Maledict, and I've done about half of Balmorra now (half if you consider the Bonus Series an integral part of the planet. Which I think that I do at least up until I hit max level.) And I mostly did him in my Disco Sith outfit. I'd also like to run him through some of the non-story Flashpoints and see how he does. In theory, I should have already done Hammer Station with him, and Athiss isn't too far away. I've played Hammer Station with some characters before when I was grouped, but I'm not sure if I've played Athiss before. I probably have, but I don't remember. I wonder how well I can play them solo. Some of these Flashpoints aren't doable very easily by yourself, which I think is still a major mistake. Every flashpoint should have a solo mode with a combat support droid. I don't know why they did that for "story" flashpoints but not all of the flashpoints, honestly. How hard would it be to add a mode that already exists? You probably don't even need to rebalance the difficulty or anything, just add the combat support droid and you're good to go.

That said, I'm going to try it anyway and see how it goes. At least for Hammer Station, and if that's successful, I'll try Athiss, Mandalorian Raiders, Cademimu, Colicoid Wargames, Kuat Drive Yards, Red Reaper, etc. Might give me a chance to either 1) flex my stealth character options, or 2) group with my son-in-law and see how well two characters do. I probably can't make it work forever, but the lower level flashpoints, maybe. I've failed in the past to run through CZ-198 Flashpoints by myself. The difficulty was simply too hard and I got killed repeatedly before giving up.

Finally, on SWTOR news, although I doubt that I'll do another Wave 4 character, I might do a Wave 5 where I do a few more combat specs for stealth characters. I enjoyed finishing up Anstal Tane and playing around with Hutran Thanatos recently. I use these specs a lot as my "second" spec, but I don't really count those; what I want is a character who plays through the entire story using the combat style as his "main" for me to feel comfortable with them. Since I've only actually played one scoundrel and one operative, in theory, I should have two more of each to try. Sigh. That's four more characters. And they have to be tech origin stories, which I've already done or am doing in many, many iterations. Nineteen of my twenty-seven characters are already tech characters. I clearly am biased towards them. 

But I'm out of character slots, and those cost 600 cartel coins, so I won't be buying new slots anytime too soon. At a minimum, it'll take me a couple of months to have enough cartel coins that I don't plan on using somewhere else just to have access to enough to buy another one.

On a completely different note, I'd like to convert all of my SWTOR characters into potential Capes & Rayguns characters, but of course even the ones with good names, like Vant Galaide, use geography names from Capes & Rayguns, the Galaide Worlds being a small confederation of half a dozen or so star systems. So, I can do it, but I'll need to do some renaming here and there. But that's a topic for another post and another time.

Capes & Rayguns

While I obviously haven't changed the URL of the blog (although I suppose there's no reason why I couldn't) (edit: and now I have) and I haven't changed every reference to Space Opera X on the blog, I did change all of the posts tagged Space Opera X to Capes & Rayguns, so that tag will replace the older one.

I may yet change the URL, and if I do, it'll be something that I just do real quick. We'll see.

Anyway, here's two more of those outfit tabs that I was referring to. Both agents, but that's just coincidence. I use Johhn a lot because he's my "banker" and my cybertech main who makes most of my money, and I use Vash Galaide because I was playing him through Balmorra yesterday.

I did finish Balmorra, including all exploration missions, all story missions, all faction story missions and even the bonus quest faction story, since I was high enough level. Vash Galaide is pretty much done with the place for good and off to Nar Shaddaa now, and is sitting pretty at level 48; nearly at max level when the game was new, and certainly he's "over-leveled". But that's where I like to be; with the level synching, being overleveled is still good because you have more abilities unlocked, and better gear. It plays well, but a little easy.

But let's be honest; who plays a game like SWTOR for the challenge? It's a heavily story-based game. You play it to play through the story. It's supposed to be fun and relaxing. If it's too challenging; well, that's a different kind of game for a different kind of personality, mostly.

I saw some people complaining about the new Dantooine spore zone daily area and how badly designed and managed it is. It probably is. I've gotta be honest; I don't really care that much about expansion stuff. I do some of it. I enjoy some of it. But mostly what I'm about is running new characters through the original class stories. I don't mind going back and doing them again, because that's the best content in the game. Just like I used to play Knights of the Old Republic all over again ever year or two when I still had a working Xbox, I come back to this and play it with new characters again. 

The expansion stuff that works like more of the story is the best expansion stuff, but it's still not nearly as good or well organized as the original class stories, honestly. I've only once started Knights of the Fallen Empire because that makes the game "wonky" after you start it, and once you do, you're stuck in having to do a lot of grinding just to get that character back to where he's as useful as he was before you started it. And while that story is actually pretty good, the rest of the story that's followed it has been... well, mediocre at best. 

What's more useful to me than more daily areas and crappy and gay minor story updates about some plot that I can't even follow very easily and don't know that I even care to is more character slots.