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! 

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!

Someone Kidnapped my Fiance!

After adventuring on Belsavis my Bounty Hunter Tamsin returned to her ship to find her fiance had gone missing. According to Mako (another one of her companions), Torian had gone to visit a friend at a cantina. Thinking it was unlike him to run off with out her, she tried to contact him via holo with no luck. Suddenly someone else came through the line and and announced that they had kidnapped him! If she ever wanted to see him again, she better go to Hoth. And quick. Anybody able to kidnap a Mandalorian isn't someone to be messed with.

During the quest's duration he cannot be summoned
nor is he present at his normal spot on the ship.

This quest caught my eye because the fact that my BH is courting Torian actually affects the conversation options. My IRL husband is leveling a BH with me so I can see the difference between his dialog choices and mine. Tamsin is able to wonder if the "friend" he went to meet is actually another women with marked jealously,  while my husband asks the same question more approvingly. The way Mako responds to the question is also vastly different. The kidnapper makes jabs at my character, saying her actions will prove whether she believes Torian is husband material, whereas he obvious says no such thing to my husband. Prior to this it seemed whether my BH courted him or not only affected my conversations with him, so it is refreshing to see it affects the broader game as well. This just adds to the replayability of the game, which I think is a very fine thing indeed.