Starting Space Combat at 45

In the Captain's Chair

At level 45 on my BH I found myself in a predicament - I was out of level appropriate quests. All my quests were recommended for level 47+ which meant I could no longer solo them. So what was I to do? As I saw it I had four options:

A) grind out two levels by killing random level appropriate mobs

B) attempt to PUG flashpoints 

C) space combat

D) PVP

Grinding is obviously very grindy and slow, and also not very fun. If I'm going to grind mobs for hours there better be a mount or vanity pet waiting for me at the end of the tunnel. PUGs are notoriously finicky things. It might take hours to find one, during which I would need to do one of the other options anyway. Once I found one the other players might either suck or be mean. Since I'm pretty constantly on prescription pain meds at the moment that's just not something I want to deal with. I'm not great at space combat and find the experience to be a bit intense. PVP... well, let's just say I'm not winning any matches. 

I decided if I have to be bad at something it might as well be space combat. At least then I'm the only one who would witness my character burn up and die in a fiery explosion of suckitude. I heard that it gives pretty decent XP so I shouldn't have to do it too much before catching up to my quests, right?

Wrong.

Pictured: Fiery Explosion of Suckitude

You can't just go right on in and start running level 45 space combat missions without any experience. First you need to upgrade your ship. According to my husband (who is a space combat veteran) I needed to go to the fleet and buy some Grade 5 ship parts. I would also need like 200 commendations to get some sort of fancy Proton Torpedo Module. >.<

So, off I went. I started running all the old grayed out missions which still gave me fleet commendations. I also slowly earned a bit of experience. I'm up to 108 commendations now, and almost level 46! Soon I think I'll even be able to attempt some of those level appropriate missions. Overall it probably hasn't been faster than grinding mobs, but it has felt like more of an adventure. I've even earned the titles Flygirl and The Pilot, and you can never have too many titles!