Buying the best gear in SWTOR can take a lot of credits. It isn't necessary to complete the main story, but anyone who wants to fight in PvP at the highest level or complete the hardest raids will need to put some serious time into getting equipped. Efficiency matters for people who want to get to the highest level as quickly as they can, and there are a few great ways to farm credits and get there fast.

Heroic Missions

Heroic missions are the best way for people who like running PvE content in small groups to farm for credits. They're especially good as a way for new characters to farm credits as they level up through the game, since they also offer excellent experience. Be sure to do them in a group whenever you can. Everybody who gets involved with the quest can get some loot, and that means that guildmates who already have all of their gear can pass that loot on to a newer friend to get them into the game faster. These missions also offer bonus rewards when they are done in groups, so everybody profits by working together.

Not all heroic missions are created equal. Some of them are much faster than others, and some offer significantly better rewards for your time. Harder missions offer better rewards, but they can also take longer to complete. Doing the most difficult missions that you can reliably finish will usually give the best payout, but you should always be aware of how long the different missions take you to run. If a hard quest is taking too long to complete, you may be better off switching to an easier, faster one. Focus on the number of credits that you get per minute, not the number that you get per quest. Remember that most heroic missions can only be run daily, so you're going to have to do some that are less than optimal if you want to farm credits over the course of days rather than months.

Sell the Right Items

Farming and selling valuable items can often be more effective that farming credits directly. You can and should combine the two whenever you can to make sure that you get the best possible return on your time investment. The value of any individual item tends to fluctuate over time, but there are two broad categories that tend to be valuable: companion gifts and crafting components. They tend to sell quickly over the GTN because people like to buy them in bulk, and they tend to reach high prices relative to the time that it takes to farm them.

Crafting Materials

The best way to farm crafting materials is to run heroic missions that feature a lot of gathering opportunities. Slicing is almost always the best skill to make money this way, since slicing opportunities are both reasonably common and produces valuable resources. Other skills can make significant profits through materials as well, but rarely to the same extent as slicing.

Average gains from crafting materials should be factored into the potential loot from heroic missions and help to guide your choices there. They won't make a huge impact on their own, but they will help to get your hourly gains a little bit higher.

Companion Gifts

Companion gifts are the hidden gold mine in heroic missions. They're a common loot item in those missions, and they can sell for a lot of money if you don't use them for your own companions. You probably don't need to maximize the affection on every one of your companions, so you should sell most of these gifts on the GTN. If you do need to make one of your companions like you, then make sure to farm the gifts yourself rather than buying them. Saving money is the first step on the road to getting rich, and this is one way to save a lot of it.

Companion Missions

Be sure to take one of the crew skills that allows you to send your companions on mission. These can be a major source of credits at high skill levels, and you don't even need to work to get the credits. Just make sure that all of the companions that you aren't actively using are deployed on missions whenever possible. There isn't much you can do to optimize your earnings with them except to be aware of the value of the items that can come from these missions. Just know what the items are worth and send your companions on whichever missions offer the best value per minute.

Scheduling Matters

The best missions for farming credits are restricted to daily or weekly completion. Be sure to do them every day or week. They are restricted because they give the best value, so don't let your completions go to waste by skipping days on them. This includes most heroic missions, but also the PvP missions and everything else that can only be completed once per day. If you're pressed for time and have to choose between these quests, always prioritize weekly quests over daily ones. It starts timer counting down to unlock the next completion earlier than if you have waited, and weekly missions tend to offer better rewards than the daily alternatives.

Loot Everything

Simply killing enemies and looting the bodies for vendor trash is almost never anywhere near as good as questing for farming credits, but the money does add up. Always loot everything that you can when you are questing. There are a few rare places, such as heroic Ilum, where farming credits by killing random enemies can be efficient. Do that if you have completed all of the worthwhile heroic missions for the day and still want to spend some more time farming credits. It won't be as efficient as missions, but it's the next best thing after all of the good missions have been finished.

So the very first strategy you will be learning is perhaps the most risky one of them all. The reason why you should learn this one however is to show you how exactly the Galactic Trading Network works for a lot of players. It is not just a place to sell items that you gather from professions and various other methods, but you can actually make money by just investing into the Galactic Trading Network itself.

Think of the Galactic Trading Network as the stock market, except for it is a little different. The goal of this strategy is to make money with the minimal amount of work, after all isn't that the American dream? That is pretty much why people invest in the stock market, to make money without needing to actually work. However, this is the riskiest form of making money and often results in a loss of money for people that are not wise investors. People lose money in the stock market all the time to do something happening to a stock that they did not expect, or did not think would happen. This will be similar to you experience within the game, however, in the end you want your earnings to far outweigh the amount you lose in investments. You can not always expect to make money because there is a risk factor, but when you do you can plan on bringing in outrageous amounts.

To actually invest in the Galactic Trading Network you need to find items that are selling for a low amount, at least a lot lower then what they usually go for. This however, is easier said then done. In order to know if a product is selling for a lot lower then it typically is, you have to know exactly how much it is usually worth. To do this you need to pay attention to the Galactic Trading Network before you even begin investing. Keep an eye on prices and make note of how much things usually sell for. Also, keep track of how much your items sell for. These will be the items that you will be the most familiar with, so they may be the smartest products for you to invest in. Keep a written record of how many different products are worth on average so that you can come back and check on it daily.

Once you have gained the needed knowledge and have kept an accurate written record of how much various things are worth, you can begin to start investing into different items. Look through the Galactic Trading Network and search through the items and try to find one that has a ton of listings, or a lot of undercutting. Undercutting is the key to lowering the value of a product, which is how you will be able to buy products as such low amounts. Purchase a ton of low-value undercut products, and then store them for later. You do not want to resell quite yet since demand for the product is low due to the low prices, not to mention you would be selling the product for how much you bought it which wouldn't earn you any money at all.

Not is the time to play the waiting game, which does take patience. Wait for a few days, or maybe even weeks, and keep an eye on the product in the Galactic Trading Network. Over time the undercutting problem should resolve itself because people will not want to sell their products for such little amounts, so they will stop posting them. As time goes by people will by the cheap products, which will gradually work its way up to the more expensive ones as the low priced products become sold out. Finally, the products will be back to either normal price or maybe a little higher, making it the perfect time to strike.

You need to time it right if you want to make money using this method. You have to sell at just the right moment to make the most amount of profit, or any profit at all. Once prices are back to normal, or preferably even higher then they were previously, you need to put your items back into the Galactic Trading Network. Now once again, you need to play the waiting game. You now have to wait for somebody to come along and buy your product. Once the sale is complete you will receive your money, making your first profit by using this method.

Tips
- If somebody undercuts your product by only a few Credits, undercut them back. This will make you earn less profit in the end, but it will make it so that your products actually sell. This is why you need to constantly keep an eye on the prices of your product, even during the selling process.

- If another player puts up the same item but drastically undercuts you, do not try to re-undercut them. Instead, buy their items and bring the price up to yours. You will profit from their need of a quick sale.

- If a players puts a bunch of items on the Galactic Trading Network and the undercuts are causing the prices to lower quickly, do not get caught in the undercutting, as this will end up making you go right back to where you originally bought the product from. Instead, wait it out until prices go back up rather then offering your goods for less then they are worth.

- Try to focus on selling material items that are required for crafting skills, as people are typically willing to pay high prices when there is no other option because they do not want to have to gather the materials themselves, otherwise they wouldn't be searching for materials in the Galactic Trading Network!

Now that you have gone through the entire process, and since you are a great investor, you brought in some money! This is known as profit, and is what you are shooting for. You can now take the money you earned and reinvest it, saving some on the side just in case things do not go well. Reinvesting is an important part of this strategy, as this is not a one time deal. You need to constantly invest and work towards making money.

Just like in the stock market, you should never invest in just one thing. While you will make a ton should that one stock, or in this case that one item, go up in value dramatically, you are eventually bound to lose ALL your money at this rate. There will come a item that you just do not make money on, and if you are constantly investing all your money into single items, if you come across that item during this time it will cost you a ton of Credits and will be an incredibly large waste of time. You are not in this to lose Credits, so be smart and put your money into multiple items that you believe will go up in value.

While this method may seem easy and profitable when written out and laid out simply like this, it is actually very difficult. It is hard to find the best undercut products at the right time and you actually have to invest a lot of time into searching for these products. Sometimes there will be absolutely no undercut products and you will find that you have just wasted your time. This is also a time when many people become desperate and invest into a product that isn't undercut, so they either end up losing money or not making any money at all. The key to not becoming one of these people is to be patient and wait these tough times out. This credit earning technique works off of supply and demand, except you make things work in your favor.

Since this method is all about patience, there are other things you can do during your free time. Use this time, while waiting for either a products price to skyrocket or for a sale to be made, to use some of the other money making strategies listed in this guide. This does not have to be your sole method of earning money, in fact you can use it just to bring in extra cash alongside your other money making methods.

This method also requires a money investment, which requires that you first have some money to invest. You will need to use some of the other money making techniques before you can use this one, but this may not be such a bad thing. This will give you time to familiarize yourself with the Galactic Trading Network, as well as giving you time to find specific products of interest.

Overall Pros of this Technique
It is the easiest way to make money and requires the least amount of work. It is also the very best way to earn Credits, especially since it doesn't require you to go out and find certain things or search for specific nodes. This method can also be a lot of fun for those that like to mess around within the Galactic Trading Network, or any other player trading type of network.

Overall Cons of this Technique
This method requires that you have money to invest, otherwise you will not be able to purchase the large quantity of items it requires to actually make money. This method is also the riskiest as you can lose just as much money as you can make. It requires a wise investor to make intelligent decisions, as well as to try and avoid other players who are doing the same thing with the same product so that both players do not end up losing profit. It also requires the player to be able to research prices of specific items and memorize the average pricing.

SWTOR players are prepping for the arrival of the online game's first digital expansion, Rise of the Hutt Cartel. The content-packed expansion promises tons of new items for which players will gladly pay SWTOR Credits.

Expansion release date
The first Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel, which retails for $20 for free players and $10 for subscribers, is set to go live sometime this Spring. The expansion raises the level cap and introduces a fascinating new planet Makeb that will be the new battleground between the Hutts, the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire.

New planet: Makeb
Makeb is a resource-rich planet that has so far remained neutral to the intergalactic conflict. But not for long. The planet will experience the ravages of war as allegiances and factions across the galaxy attempt to lay claim to its prized wealth. The new expansion continues where the player storyline ended in the base game and adds new plot twists and turns, new nemeses and even more powerful item rewards.

Increased level cap
The new expansion increases the level cap to 55 from 50, which means 5 whole levels for players to work for again. Many will want to speed through to level 55 in order to jump right into the endgame raids, and will likely purchase SWTOR Credits so they can buy the best leveling gear and breeze through the grind.

New items
SWTOR developers are unleashing a trove of level 50+ gear and upgrades, with distinctive new looks and improved stats. Players will want to upgrade their old gear as quickly as possible, which is where SWTOR Credits come in handy. Those who stock up on the new currency can obtain the newest and most expensive items right when the expansion launches, and not have to worry about spending the first week earning enough SWTOR Credits to get what they want.

New raids
While there is no definite confirmation yet, it is almost guaranteed that the new expansion will offer new raid-type Operations to coincide with the increased level cap. Probably 2 to 3 new raids will be added to the line-up. Progression raiders will stock up on SWTOR Credits to fuel their runs.
Double XP weekends
SWTOR Credits sellers worried about whether there will be enough level 50 players to drive demand should know that there is a big push to bring the majority of players to the current level cap.

BioWare is implementing the game's first-ever double XP weekends starting March 15 and lasting four weeks until April 8. Players who log in during the following weekends will receive double XP:

- March 15, 2013 to March 18, 2013
- March 22, 2013 to March 25, 2013
- March 29, 2013 to April 1, 2013
- April 5, 2013 to April 8, 2013

The double XP weekends aim to fast-track the leveling of fans who have yet to hit level 50 so they can purchase the new digital expansion and explore its exciting content.