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! 

Siobhan

Name Inspiration: Found on a Baby Name website. Gaelic in origin, pronounced Shivawn.
Class: Imperial Agent
Advanced Class: Sniper
Spec: Marksmanship
Alignment (traditional): Lawful Neutral 
Alignment (game): Neutral
Romance: Every mother-effin' body

Although I couldn't find an exact match, Siobhan most closely resembles the Judge, Jury, and Executioner trope. Her loyalty lies with the Empire, but not necessarily it's representatives. She has no qualms about going against orders if she feels her superiors are using her to advance their own agendas rather than the Empire's. She is not a fan of needless killing as she believes those left alive could prove useful in the future. However, it is better they "disappear" than help the enemy. She prefers to go about her business secretly and silently, and looks down upon the showy nature of Bounty Hunters. When possible she uses guile rather than force to further her goals as it's often less messy. She is not above using her sexuality to her advantage, with seduction kept near the top of her bag of tricks. She often infiltrates new surroundings by effortlessly conforming to others' expectations, and thus easily earns their trust. Everyone thinks she works for them and that's the way she likes it.

Siobhan didn't actually evolve until I started playing her. Unlike Tamsin and Jaliyah I didn't want to be restricted by light side or dark side on my IA. I have actually turned off the ability to see which choices lead to points on one side or the other to prevent me from using that as a crutch. I was surprised how easily I was able to figure out who she was as I had such a difficult time with Tamsin.

Jaliyah I

Name Inspiration: Don't Remember
Class: Sith Inquisitor
Advanced Class: Sorcerer
Spec: Lightning
Alignment (traditional): Chaotic Evil
Alignment (game): Dark Side
Romance: None, for now


Jaliyah is a mix between the Woobie, Destroyer of Words and the Omnicidal Maniac (with of course a dash of the Evil Sorcerer). Like all Sith Inquisitors she was once a slave, and she has never really gotten over that. Even now as a Sith people still look down on her as she is not a Pureblood. By turning all that hate and misery into power she has truly been freed by the force. 

As a girl she was frightened by lightning. She once saw a whole village burn to the ground thanks to lightning's raw energy. After realizing she was force sensitive lightning became a symbol of power that she must bend to her will. It is now her that is responsible for burning down villages, with lightning merely being a conduit. Let the slavers fear her and her new found abilities as she once feared them. 

She is very quick to point out when someone is not giving her the respect her new station deserves, and also to correct anyone who disrespects slaves in general. She feels most tasks she is given are beneath her, but she does them anyway as they offer an opportunity to hone her skills. Killing is not something she does as a job, for the good of the Empire, or out of some obligation - she simply enjoys it. 

Jaliyah is the first character I decided to play after the game was announced. I am very found of lightning and usually play classes that have it as an ability. Jaliyah being my default name for a few years now, I thought it only proper to give it to her. My Republic main shares the name which is why I refer to her as Jaliyah I. 

I knew I wanted to play a straight up evil character, and who better than a Sith? I knew I would most likely not play a Warrior as I'm not a fan of melee classes so the Inquisitor won by default. Once I learned the beginnings of the SI story it was quite easy to come up with the rest of her background and an explanation for her evil nature. 

Tamsin

Name Inspiration: The fantasy novel Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle
Class: Bounty Hunter
Advanced Class: Mercenary
Spec: Bodyguard
Alignment (traditional): Chaotic Good
Alignment (game): Light Side
Romance: Torian Cadera, Mandolorian

Tamsin is your typical Hot Blooded Hero. She is passionate about what she does, but does not take lives for the fun of it. She sees bounty hunting as her own personal form of justice that is above the law. Sometimes she even lets her bounties go if she thinks they deserve to live. She's more likely to freeze her target than kill them outright (unless she thinks those who hired her have a worse fate than death in mind). She always takes the life of Trandoshans however, as she believes it is more cruel to rob them of their jagannath points. She can be very snarky and occasionally cheesy when it comes to conversation choices. Her bark is truly worse than her bite. Although she is passionate and talks a big talk she often falters when it's time to do the dirty work.

Tamsin was one of the hardest characters for me to come up with. I knew from the beginning I wanted to roll a Light Side character, and through process of elimination it would probably be my bounty hunter. It was quite difficult for me to reconcile the Light Side choices with the bounty hunter profession as I'm not used to thinking of them as the good guys. Eventually she just sort of evolved on her own, as certain conversation choices felt more in line with her morality choices than others.

View more screenshots of Tamsin on my Google+ page!

My Sister, The Sith

My youngest sister (Sierra, 12) has a learning disability which makes playing some games more of a challenge for her. Thankfully due to SWTOR being almost completely voiced over she doesn't have to deal with her biggest challenge, reading, quite as much as she does with other games. I try and play with her just the same, since she enjoys it more that way anyhow. We also set her up with vent so we can talk easily when we aren't physically together.

She had been leveling a Jedi Consular on Sith Wrym where my Republic alts are, but last night I convinced her to give the Empire another try. Her first character in the game was a Sith Inquisitor but she quickly gave it up because she said the teachers were too mean. =P However most of my friends are on Empire and I was tired of choosing to play with them or to play with her, so with promises of pink Twi'leks I dragged her over.

I'm so proud!

She quickly picked up the SI she abandoned originally, and decided upon her character's morality. If people are nice to her, she's nice to them. If they don't speak English (or common or whatever) and she can't read what they say fast enough, she just assumes they were mean and responds accordingly. =D Before we knew it we were off to rescue her first companion!

And then my silly husband decided it was time for bed. =/

She was able to stay up a little bit later and made it all the way to the fleet before calling it a night. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't sure which Advanced Class she should pick. She asked my mother, but she is as we say... technologically challenged... and told poor Sierra to pick the wrong one. So now instead of a ranged lighting-shooting DPS her character is a double-bladed melee DPS. She's away this weekend at a funeral, so being the kind, wonderful, older sister that I am I promised to level her up a new one if I could. This time I'll make sure to be there for all the big, unchangeable decisions.

Screenshots

Cool guys don't look at explosions

One of the things I love about MMOs is taking screenshots. I don't even know how many I took in WoW, but sadly my computer fried and I lost them all. So far I've posted all my favorites to this G+ photo album, and will probably continue to do so as well as posting them here. Thankfully Google does a much better job of upholding the pictures' integrity than Facebook does, so if I ever lose these I can just re-download them!