It's all about the color of your lightsaber

I recently got excited when I found out that you can get a white lighsaber crystal ingame. A player going by the name of CatchDeathwalker became legendary overnight after posting screenshots of the first white lightsaber ingame. His fame was short-lived when the developers confirmed that he had actually used an exploit to get that color crystal. Looking through history, it looks like CatchDeathwalker had actually found the color exploit in beta and then used it in live. According to the Devs, action has been taken on this idiot's account. If you're going to exploit, or use a known bug to get something that you shouldn't have, it's probably not wise to brag about it in the forums! It's definitely not a good idea to insult the intellect of other players for not being able to work the exploit out. Overnight CatchDeathwalker has gone from legendary to hated in both the SWTOR forums and on Reddit.

But what's all the fuss about? Why do people get so excited about the color of lightsabers? For as long as I can remember, all Star Wars games have had some way to change the color of your lightsaber. I still remember the first time I saw Luke's green saber in Return of the Jedi. It's funny but the color of that humming blade can make all the difference. I personally hate the yellow/black color crystal supplied with a pre-order of SWTOR.

Part of the reason why people are so up in arms about colors of crystals is that data mining sites originally posted lots of different color crystals. A whole rainbow variety was available, and every Jedi, myself included, was desperately seeking how to discover these elusive colors. I even know of players who dumped level 40 Republic Jedi Knight avatars for the sole reason of not being able to get a purple lightsaber! Considering that the only purple lightsaber that you see in the movies is Mace Windus, I am surprised that purple is a Sith-only option in SWTOR!

So I have started a list of the different color crystals you can get and how to find or craft them. I will keep updating the list as i find more information and please, if you have any, let me know.

Lightsaber Crystal Colors and Crafting Information

What we have here is a list of all of the currently available colors in the game, with information on how to get them (if we've found that yet). This information was gathered from both SWTOR official forums and Reddit, from a variety of different contributors.

This list is a work in progress and will be updated as more information is found.

Black Blue
Republic Rakata Gear

Black Red
Empire Rakata Gear

Black Yellow
Pre-order Bonus

Black Green
Obtained as bonus for Razer TOR hardware - http://www.razerzone.com/swtor

Blue
This crystal pattern is learnt from an artiface trainer. High quality versions of this crystal are discovered through reverse engineering.

Cyan
REPUBLIC ONLY!!! Obtained from Columi gear, listed as "Light Blue" [LTBLUE]. Champion versions can be Cyan, but not removable.

Green
This crystal pattern is learnt from an artiface trainer. High quality versions of this crystal are discovered through reverse engineering. 

Magenta
This is one of the rarest items in the game. It is not acquired through reverse engineering. Also listed as "Light Red" [LTRED], Magenta has a few steps to do before you can get this one. Gargath, on Hoth drops a +33 Power schematic. Belsavis's Worldboss's, The Primal Destroyer, drops a +33 Endurance, a +33 Crit schematic and a +33 Power schematic.. The following are the steps for the main ingredient. Thanks to Taskcommnda




Quote: Originally Posted by Taskcommnda
First Step - Tattooine: Click the base plate of any Water Vaporator (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Moisture_vaporator ) for a refresh buff (waterglass icon) -- I found mine north of Mos Ila, but they are scattered about. Note: they seem to be on a fairly long cooldown.
Second Step - Travel to the top of the really tall mountain on Hoth (X-907,Y 637) - The closest speeder is at the Leth Outpost and the mountain is clearly visible from here. Your buff will disappear and you will get the "Pure Shockfrozen Water" item placed into your inventory.
Third Step - Take a couple of level 50 friends and go to the Depleted White Adegan Crystal node on Ilum; to the west (-553,-5) and click it. A Force Ghost will spawn from the frozen pool (boss level 50 mob). A crystal will then spawn for the group a few yards away from the depleted crystal. Loot this for the Magenta Crystal.

note: the moisture vaporator's are around outpost Rennar in the Jundland area of tatooine

CONFIRMED: drops from a nearby crystal formation that appears after you defeat the force ghost, seems only 1 crystal per formation, though no one else in the group had the frozen water to summon the ghost we could only try it once.

Orange
High level Artifice (lvl 400), also drops from Corusant Worldboss, Nar Shadda Worldboss and Ulgo Siegebreaker on Alderaan [Note - "Normal" gems can be found in vendor sabers/gear as well]

Purple
EMPIRE ONLY!!! Tier 2 Empire Columi Gear, obtained via Hardmode Eternity Vault [Unconfirmed]. They can also be obtained from PvP sabers, but YOU CANNOT remove the crystal.

Red
This crystal pattern is learnt from an artiface trainer. High quality versions of this crystal are discovered through reverse engineering.

White
The white crystal "found" by CatchDeathwalker was confirmed by Bioware to be a fraud. It is not available inagme at the moment.

Yellow
This crystal pattern is learnt from an artiface trainer. High quality versions of this crystal are discovered through reverse engineering.

Let me know if you have any more information about how to get color crystals. I am going to update my 'New Players Guide to SWTOR' eBook soon and might include a complete list if I can put one together.

SWTOR Slicing: Post Nerf

Just in from our underground network:

As we all know, slicing was a great money maker before patch 1.0.1 on December 27. Now the big question, is it still worth it to make money. To find out, we did every lockbox crew mission 10 times and came up with the following. On average, the return per mission is only about 10 credits per minute. So with all 4 companions, you are only making around 40 credits a minute. You can get more from a mob at higher levels than from this skill. But there is still a silver lining. If you gather lockboxes and safes as you quests, there is a lot of money to be made. On average from the planet Voss, we were pulling in around 2K per minute just by flying around a loop and gathering the nodes. If I was to start a new character and not worry about my crafting skill till later, this would be a great way to make money by just gathering. So, from a crew mission point of view, this is no longer worth doing, but from a questing point of view, go for it.

Enjoy and happy hunting.

Data from test. All figures are averages. PPM is Profit Per Min. X is the average additional items we got.

A big thanks to our man in the underground Taao for this data.

Getting the Most out of Crafting

I've got to the stage where I have most of my crafting and Missions up to the mid-200 level.

I'm really seeing the necessity of sticking tot he triangles when crafting. I picked up artifact, treasure hunting and archaeology. Artifice is the crafting portion of my three skills, archaeology is the gathering/Mission combination and treasure hunting is the pure Mission portion.

What I discovered is that archaeology provides me with all the basics mats I need to craft a lot of the  artifice  items. If I want to craft any special items like yellow high quality lightsaber crystals, I need to collect those using treasure hunting. Without having the triangle skills I wouldn't be able to craft all the items I want. Plus, treasure hunting is providing me with the high demand items that people want.

I've also received a few purple quality Krayt Dragon pearls which will allow me to make epic level lightsaber crystals once I discover the pattern. You discover new patterns by reverse engineering items you've crafted.

So if you want to take crafting seriously, I highly recommend you to stick a triangle of skills.

If you're looking for more information on crafting, check out our guide to crafting basics video.

Crafting and Missions With Companions

This is a video guide that shows how to use the crafting system in SWTOR and also explores the best use for inactive companions, missions, and resource collection. Demonstrating all this at Lvl 50 this guide shows you the full workings of the crafting system. This guide was done using the 12/1/11 patch.