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Thread: From novice to master: progession of a pilot.
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GotEgg
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:40 pm
#1
I havn't seen this asked or answered yet, so i thought i'd shed some light for everyone who doesn't already know.
The pilot professions introduce a whole new way of leveling to SWG, one which i find very entertaining.
First thing's first, pilot professions use 0 skill points. Because of this (and other reasons you'll read about in a minute) they are not trainable by players, and must be obtained from NPCs.
The xp requires for pilot are as follows (i dont remember 3 and 4 very well, please correct me if i'm wrong on these numbers):
Novice: Free
Tier 1: 7,500/box (1 Given free by trainer)
Tier 2: 60,000/box
Tier 3: 200,000/box (Given free by trainer)
Tier 4: 1,000,000/box
Master: 7,500,000 (Given free by trainer)
The average experience gained per kill:
Tier 1: 100-400
Tier 2: 1000-1200
Tier 3: 2000-2500
Tier 4: 3000-4500
You are welcome to group up and try to kill things above your level, but it will prove to be very hard if you are solo. Each space sector has a range of tier levels flying around in it, these levels are denoted in their name, i.e. A Bloodwraith Ace (Tier 3).
All progression through the pilot professions is controlled by missions, and must be completed in a specific order. Here's how that all breaks down.
When you first start your career as a pilot, you'll have to seek out a Tier 1 NPC trainer, there are 9 total starter pilot trainers, 3 for each faction primary faction. Within the privateer faction, there are 3 sub factions:
RSF (naboo)
Corsair (corellia)
Smuggler Alliance (tat)
Make your starting trainer selected carefully, because you will have to spend alot of time on that planet, for exmaple, once i have spoken to the rebel trainer in tyrena, i must continue to interact with him and only him until i have completed my tier 1 training.
After you speak with your choosen tier 1 trainer, you will be given a starter ship (directly into the datapad, if you delete it by accident, they will give you a new one), and your first space mission. Missions are somewhat instanced in space, in that only you and members of your group may attack your mission targets, anyone else will recieve a 'tone' telling them they can not damage that target. There is currently a bug in beta which is causing mission targets to agro on people, leading to a scenario where the person being attacked can not fight back... the devs have assured us that this will be fixed.
During the course of your missions, you may very well earn enough xp for a box, but you will be unable to train in it until you have completed all (there's only 4) tier 1 missions. Upon completion of the 4th tier 1 mission, the trainer will offer to teach you 1 free skill (yes, it will not charge you xp, you get your first box as a mission reward), and will then allow you to spend XP on other boxes. After completing the first 4 missions, the trainer will still offer you "duty missions" which are basically perpetually renewing missions in space. After accepting a duty mission (patrol, escort, destroy, etc...) and launching into space, you will be given a waypoint to your first objective, once complete, you'll get a reward and another wp, and so on... the mission ends when you leave the zone or land.
On a side note, quite recently the devs made another change you will experience while you are still at a low level. Until you have completed all 4 of the tier 1 missions and trained in 1 or more skill boxes, you will launch into an instance of space different than those who have atleast 1 skill box. In this separate "noob" instance, there will only be people who are working on their missions, so if you're trying to meet up with a friend who is a higher level than you, you'll have to wait until you learn 1 skill box, because you wont be in the same instance of space. The 2 instances look the same, and act the same, but the spawns and population are different. Only corellia, tattooine, and naboo have instanced zones.
Once you have trained to 1111 (you will not be allowed to spend xp on tier 2 boxes until you have trained in all 4 tier 1 boxes) the trainer will tell you to visit a new person, this will be your tier 2 trainer. The tier 2 trainer is slightly different in that they will only offer you duty missions, and will train you in tier 2 boxes as soon as you have the xp.
Once you reach 2222, you're sent to a tier 3 trainer. They are located in inconvienient places:
Rebel: Abandoned rebel base on Dant
Imperial: Emporors retreat
Neutral: Jabba's palace
EDIT: Zaket issued a correction to this statement. Apparently tier 3 trainers may vary depending on which track through pilot you have chosen, as his tier 3 trainer was in the labor outpost on Yavin. Know that based on the track you follow, your trainer MAY be far from a starport, or it may not
- Thanks for the update Zaket
There will be ALOT of driving from starport to these poi's to get missions from your trainer. They'll give you a few missions, the reward being skill boxes, the tier 4 process remains unchanged until you reach 4444.
Things get very interesting when attempting to 'unlock' your master (ace) box. The mission(s) that must be completed for this box are located in the Kessel zone. Kessel is one of 2 elite space zones (the other is Deep Space), both of which are full time PVP enabled (rebels go overt, imps go overt, and neuts must choose a side to go overt on). You must complete your mission in this zone, and the mission is NOT SOLOABLE. Even without others in the zone, you couldn't do it yourself, add to that the complication of other players attacking you, and it stands to be very difficult.
Once you have mastered your pilot profession, you stop earning XP, and start earning Prestige points. At this point in the game, the only thing i found that prestige is used to is access to deep space. It costs 30 prestige points to get into deep space every time you choose to go (30 is not alot, you can get 3,000+ for master level kills, 30,000 for killing a gunship).
Kessel and deepspace have specific space station access points, when the time comes, you'll have to fly through either Endor, Dant, or Dath space (depending on faction) and /comm with a space station in the middle of the zone to gain acces to the harder zones... Always remember these are FULL TIME PVP ENABLED - The only way you could be safe in these zones would be if they allow the Sorusuub into these zones.
Hope this helps!
EDIT: Updated to reflect mis-information about tier 3 skill gains, and to thank the person who 1 stared me. Please consider this the last guide i provide for JTL from the 5 others i had planed thanks to the 1 star nazi.
EDIT2: Added information about starter zone instancing
The pilot professions introduce a whole new way of leveling to SWG, one which i find very entertaining.
First thing's first, pilot professions use 0 skill points. Because of this (and other reasons you'll read about in a minute) they are not trainable by players, and must be obtained from NPCs.
The xp requires for pilot are as follows (i dont remember 3 and 4 very well, please correct me if i'm wrong on these numbers):
Novice: Free
Tier 1: 7,500/box (1 Given free by trainer)
Tier 2: 60,000/box
Tier 3: 200,000/box (Given free by trainer)
Tier 4: 1,000,000/box
Master: 7,500,000 (Given free by trainer)
The average experience gained per kill:
Tier 1: 100-400
Tier 2: 1000-1200
Tier 3: 2000-2500
Tier 4: 3000-4500
You are welcome to group up and try to kill things above your level, but it will prove to be very hard if you are solo. Each space sector has a range of tier levels flying around in it, these levels are denoted in their name, i.e. A Bloodwraith Ace (Tier 3).
All progression through the pilot professions is controlled by missions, and must be completed in a specific order. Here's how that all breaks down.
When you first start your career as a pilot, you'll have to seek out a Tier 1 NPC trainer, there are 9 total starter pilot trainers, 3 for each faction primary faction. Within the privateer faction, there are 3 sub factions:
RSF (naboo)
Corsair (corellia)
Smuggler Alliance (tat)
Make your starting trainer selected carefully, because you will have to spend alot of time on that planet, for exmaple, once i have spoken to the rebel trainer in tyrena, i must continue to interact with him and only him until i have completed my tier 1 training.
After you speak with your choosen tier 1 trainer, you will be given a starter ship (directly into the datapad, if you delete it by accident, they will give you a new one), and your first space mission. Missions are somewhat instanced in space, in that only you and members of your group may attack your mission targets, anyone else will recieve a 'tone' telling them they can not damage that target. There is currently a bug in beta which is causing mission targets to agro on people, leading to a scenario where the person being attacked can not fight back... the devs have assured us that this will be fixed.
During the course of your missions, you may very well earn enough xp for a box, but you will be unable to train in it until you have completed all (there's only 4) tier 1 missions. Upon completion of the 4th tier 1 mission, the trainer will offer to teach you 1 free skill (yes, it will not charge you xp, you get your first box as a mission reward), and will then allow you to spend XP on other boxes. After completing the first 4 missions, the trainer will still offer you "duty missions" which are basically perpetually renewing missions in space. After accepting a duty mission (patrol, escort, destroy, etc...) and launching into space, you will be given a waypoint to your first objective, once complete, you'll get a reward and another wp, and so on... the mission ends when you leave the zone or land.
On a side note, quite recently the devs made another change you will experience while you are still at a low level. Until you have completed all 4 of the tier 1 missions and trained in 1 or more skill boxes, you will launch into an instance of space different than those who have atleast 1 skill box. In this separate "noob" instance, there will only be people who are working on their missions, so if you're trying to meet up with a friend who is a higher level than you, you'll have to wait until you learn 1 skill box, because you wont be in the same instance of space. The 2 instances look the same, and act the same, but the spawns and population are different. Only corellia, tattooine, and naboo have instanced zones.
Once you have trained to 1111 (you will not be allowed to spend xp on tier 2 boxes until you have trained in all 4 tier 1 boxes) the trainer will tell you to visit a new person, this will be your tier 2 trainer. The tier 2 trainer is slightly different in that they will only offer you duty missions, and will train you in tier 2 boxes as soon as you have the xp.
Once you reach 2222, you're sent to a tier 3 trainer. They are located in inconvienient places:
Rebel: Abandoned rebel base on Dant
Imperial: Emporors retreat
Neutral: Jabba's palace
EDIT: Zaket issued a correction to this statement. Apparently tier 3 trainers may vary depending on which track through pilot you have chosen, as his tier 3 trainer was in the labor outpost on Yavin. Know that based on the track you follow, your trainer MAY be far from a starport, or it may not
- Thanks for the update ZaketThere will be ALOT of driving from starport to these poi's to get missions from your trainer. They'll give you a few missions, the reward being skill boxes, the tier 4 process remains unchanged until you reach 4444.
Things get very interesting when attempting to 'unlock' your master (ace) box. The mission(s) that must be completed for this box are located in the Kessel zone. Kessel is one of 2 elite space zones (the other is Deep Space), both of which are full time PVP enabled (rebels go overt, imps go overt, and neuts must choose a side to go overt on). You must complete your mission in this zone, and the mission is NOT SOLOABLE. Even without others in the zone, you couldn't do it yourself, add to that the complication of other players attacking you, and it stands to be very difficult.
Once you have mastered your pilot profession, you stop earning XP, and start earning Prestige points. At this point in the game, the only thing i found that prestige is used to is access to deep space. It costs 30 prestige points to get into deep space every time you choose to go (30 is not alot, you can get 3,000+ for master level kills, 30,000 for killing a gunship).
Kessel and deepspace have specific space station access points, when the time comes, you'll have to fly through either Endor, Dant, or Dath space (depending on faction) and /comm with a space station in the middle of the zone to gain acces to the harder zones... Always remember these are FULL TIME PVP ENABLED - The only way you could be safe in these zones would be if they allow the Sorusuub into these zones.
Hope this helps!
EDIT: Updated to reflect mis-information about tier 3 skill gains, and to thank the person who 1 stared me. Please consider this the last guide i provide for JTL from the 5 others i had planed thanks to the 1 star nazi.
EDIT2: Added information about starter zone instancing
Message Edited by GotEgg on 10-21-2004 05:18 PM
calomac
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:45 pm
#2
Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.
Anyways, very nicely put together.
Terrantal
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:47 pm
#3
Unless it was changed since I last logged into beta, you dont need any xp for the Tier 3 boxes or the master box. You just need to do the quests and you will be given the boxes.
MajorReb
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:47 pm
#4
calomac wrote:
Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.
Anyways, very nicely put together.
No one's gonna force you to go into the pvp only zone
calomac
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:49 pm
#5
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:
Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.
Anyways, very nicely put together.
No one's gonna force you to go into the pvp only zone
Ya, the devs. If I want to fly a MP ship thats not a stupid glitchy piece-o-crap, I HAVE to PvP in order to get master, so I can have a MP ship cert. Its total BS.
czFool
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:50 pm
#6
calomac wrote:Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.Anyways, very nicely put together.
You could always grind out the xp and get the training that way. No need to do the missions then.
calomac
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:51 pm
#7
Read my above post. Your forced into PvP to get the Master box. Its given to you by the trainer.
MajorReb
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:51 pm
#8
calomac wrote:
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:
Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.
Anyways, very nicely put together.
No one's gonna force you to go into the pvp only zone
Ya, the devs. If I want to fly a MP ship thats not a stupid glitchy piece-o-crap, I HAVE to PvP in order to get master, so I can have a MP ship cert. Its total BS.
Im not in beta but i dont recall anyone saying you must pvp in order to gain ship certs
Message Edited by MajorReb on 10-21-2004 07:52 PM
calomac
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:52 pm
#9
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:
Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.
Anyways, very nicely put together.
No one's gonna force you to go into the pvp only zone
Ya, the devs. If I want to fly a MP ship thats not a stupid glitchy piece-o-crap, I HAVE to PvP in order to get master, so I can have a MP ship cert. Its total BS.
The missions arent pvp, they're pve.
Im not in beta but i dont recall anyone saying you must pvp in order to gain ship certs
Ugh, did you read the part about getting master?!? You have to go to Kessel. A part in space that forces you into PvP.
Mejowepra
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:53 pm
#10
You don't have to PvP but you have to go to a PvP zone to finish a PvE mission.
Zaket
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:54 pm
#11
czFool wrote:
calomac wrote:
Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.
Anyways, very nicely put together.
You could always grind out the xp and get the training that way. No need to do the missions then.
Nope, doesn't work that way. In order to master the pilot profession you are required to complete missions in the Kessel zone. Kessel is an open PvP zone.
czFool
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:54 pm
#12
calomac wrote:
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.Anyways, very nicely put together.No one's gonna force you to go into the pvp only zone
Ya, the devs. If I want to fly a MP ship thats not a stupid glitchy piece-o-crap, I HAVE to PvP in order to get master, so I can have a MP ship cert. Its total BS.The missions arent pvp, they're pve.
Im not in beta but i dont recall anyone saying you must pvp in order to gain ship certs
Ugh, did you read the part about getting master?!? You have to go to Kessel. A part in space that forces you into PvP.
Did you read MY post. You can grind out the 7.5 mil xp without ever having to go to Kessel. Get the xp and you get master, no need to do the missions.
GotEgg
Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:55 pm
#13
calomac wrote:
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:
MajorReb wrote:
calomac wrote:Boy, can I ever see some griefing in the PvP zone for this mission. Just another promise made by the devs stating there will be no forced PvP in JTL broken. Thanks alot. You'll never see any compassion from me about how well you are doing with this game ever again.Anyways, very nicely put together.No one's gonna force you to go into the pvp only zone
Ya, the devs. If I want to fly a MP ship thats not a stupid glitchy piece-o-crap, I HAVE to PvP in order to get master, so I can have a MP ship cert. Its total BS.The missions arent pvp, they're pve.
Im not in beta but i dont recall anyone saying you must pvp in order to gain ship certs
Ugh, did you read the part about getting master?!? You have to go to Kessel. A part in space that forces you into PvP.
You must enter a PVP zone to train the master box. You can try to avoid the PVP if you want (might be hard, but you can try). I'm am neither happy nor pissed about this point... The PVP zones are EXTERMELY fun (atleast imho), so i dont mind having to go there... but i'm not excited about trying to complete a mission while dealing w/ pvpers either.
Take a big group, you'll be fine.
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