Weaponsmith Archive

I recently started swg and want to begin with the crafting business and become a weapondealer.

Master Weaponsmith
Master Artisan
Novice Merchant - Adv III
(+ Hiring IV & Management II (which I plan to drop once I've placed and dressed the vendors. IF that bug/feature still exist?))

Novice Brawler, Novice Marksman --> Novice Smuggler, Slicing IV

With this I would be able to create weapons and powerupsand slicing them myself + I'd be able to place and customize my own vendors and get them on the planetary map. Problem is the plan depends on the feature/bug in the merchant tree and I guess they will fix this.

Is it worth all the points to slicing IV just to be able to slice my own weapons or should I find a smuggler partner?