The Galactic Senate recently convened and shared their best tips and hints for their respective areas of expertise. Check out what some of them had to say and take your game play experience to the next level!

The Galactic Senate's Tips and Hints

Officer- eargosedown

Timing of AoEs:

It is very important for an Officer to be able to time their Area of Effect attacks for the maximum damage potential.  The best way to understand this, is to learn the 'fuse.'  The 'fuse' timer is the time it takes from hitting the special and putting it on timer, to it actually doing damage to the target.  Here is a rundown of the fuse timers:
Core Bomb - 3 seconds. 
Artillery Strike - 3 seconds.
Shock Grenade - 3 seconds. 
Dioxis Grenade - 1 second.
As such, you should use the ability that best suits the situation if forced to choose one.  For a quick damage spike, you may wish to use Dioxis over Shock or Artillery strike.  You can also deliver a quicker 'spike' by counting the seconds between them.  For example, use Artillery strike on your target, mentally count out two seconds, then execute Dioxis Grenade on your target.  If done right, they should strike at about the same instant.
Be sure to practice these timings to get a better feel on the order of how you use your AoE abilites.

Domestic Goods- 0nyx

The Right Resource for the Job:

When choosing resources for a specific slot, remember that you only have to meet the criteria of each stat only once in a schematic. So, for chef tissues for example, since both meat and flora food have all three of the required stats, you can use wood or hide or bone in the "organic" slot.  Those only have OQ and therefore can greatly increase the quality of what you are making and lets the other two resources take care of the PE and FL parts of the equation for the tissue--which means their OQ can be lower.

Jedi- Glzmo

Aggro Management:

Hello, I'm Glzmo, the current Jedi Senator. Today I would like to share with you how to use aggro management skills to help you become a more efficient group tank.

By design, as a "Stance Path" Jedi your primary (and arguably only) group role is that of a tank, not a damage dealer. That means you have to change your thinking and playstyle to fit that role. Contrary to popular belief, tanking doesn't encompass solely soaking damage. As a tank your Job is also to pull enemy aggression away from your groupmates, especially the Medics, and onto yourself in order for you to even be able to soak all that damage. Aggro management skills like Force Enrage , Mind Trick , Cloud Minds and Force Cloak are quite possibly your most important skills next to your defensive abilities, so make sure that you learn to use them properly. Even Jedi skilled primarily in the "Focus Path" are able to use Force Enrage when the need arises for them to fill in as the tank (in case the primary tank went down or isn't available). Simply switch to a Stance and spam Force Enrage away.
A looping macro that spams Force Enrage around every second is extremely helpful to get the job done in various PVE encounters. Here is an example of the Macro. It's named ForceEnrage_Loop and assumes that your Force Enrage ability is located in the fourth Slot of the first toolbar pane (feel free to adjust it to your preference):

/ui action toolbarPane00;
/ui action toolbarSlot03;
/pause 1;
/macro ForceEnrage_Loop

Mind Trick , Cloud Minds, and Force Cloak can be used to switch aggro to the secondary tank for a little bit when the need for it arises to gain a couple of seconds until the cool down period of Force Heal and/or Saber Block has completed.
A skilled team of Jedi will be able to use their aggro management skills to their full potential by bouncing aggro from one to the other buying each other time to recover from the damage they have taken.
It is also very useful to the tank to go to Options->Interface and set Secondary Target

Status Window to Target of Target . This will allow you to see who your target has currently targeted and will be able to use Force Enrage or Guardian Strike if it isn't you!
Note that the aggro Management skills of the Jedi, except Force Cloak, only work in PVE and are useless for PVP at the time of the writing, unfortunately.

Rebel- ace426

PvP hints/tips:

Buff up! 3 most important buffs to any PvPer:

Power ups - clothing, armor and weapon. When in doubt, go for healing potency. No amount of Critical stacking will help you if you're dead.

Entertainer buff - Each profession has their "standard" buff and most players customize them more, but if in doubt...Both Armors, Glancing Blow and Critical chance always work well. If you're an Action Heavy profession (like Medic), get Action Reduction in place of Glancing or Crit.

Medic buffs - Get all 7 buffs. If you don't know where a Rebel/Imp buff house is, ask in your faction chat channel.

Other tips:

• If you're a ranged profession...STAY AT RANGE! Let melee professions engage in melee fights.
• Use the terrain - Hide around the corners of buildings if you need to heal.
• ESC+TAB a lot! That allows you to target the closest enemy.
• Never chase someone in a straight line - always follow off to one side to avoid traps, mines or clouds.
• Watch your debuffs. If you have a stack of Commando DoTs of 5+, use LOS or distance to drop the stack(s).
• Heal often, even if it's a minor heal.
• Patience - Let THEM come to you when necessary.
• Learn your role - Every profession has a specialty. Officers = AoEs, Medics = healing, Spy = recon or picking off Medics, Commando = AoEs, Jedi = tanks and DBs, BH = traps and snares

Most Important Tip: Have Fun!

PvP depends on the other faction for content - be respectful and you'll get respect. Whether you're cloning or camping, enjoy what you're doing! One kill or one million, you can beat anyone and you can be beat by anyone.

Gameplay­- Vincent76

Lag is something that 15% of the playerbase is extremely frustrated about. In order to eliminate any confusion when talking about server lag I wrote this guide: [Guide] Understanding Serverlag, and you

Here's an extract from that guide...

Packet Loss

Packet loss is something that happens in any MMO due to the protocol used for network traffic. UDP is a protocol used for MMO's because it doesn't need confirmation of packets on arrival. Server will transmit packages to you and the result you see on your client is a result of the packets received/sent. If confirmation was used, the game would be running considerably slower due to the higher amount of network traffic required. Every packet would need confirmation of arrival.

Packet loss should be at 0% at all times. If it isn't you should reset the path to the server by resetting your network adapter or router. Failing that, reboot the PC. If that still doesn't work, run a pathping (thanks Bulba ) to locate the problem. Somewhere along the line you'll get an error.

Using pathping from the command prompt will poll the entire path for a period of 225 seconds, giving a much better indication of the route and the problems it may have. Once % drops below 100%, thats where the problems are located.

Packet Loss at 10%

Packet Loss at 0%

Packet loss is not Server Lag, it can be equally frustrating though because your toon can be dead on arrival.

Munitions- nebaf

When making weapons and weapon subcomponents, always place all your experimentation points into the maximum damage line first, and then use the remaining points in the minimum damage line. However, one exception to this rule is ranged weapons, where you will usually get an extra point or two of damage if you experiment with 7 points in maximum damage and 6 points in minimum damage.

Many resources have stat caps much lower than 1000, which is often a source of confusion for players who try to determine if that stats on a resource are "good" or not. For example, plumbum iron has a conductivity cap of only 82. Therefore, any plumbum iron with a CD of 82 is actually equivalent to the resource having a CD of 1000. See this thread for more info on resource caps.

Neutral- Lord Bane

Know your buffs. All buffs are permissible, but not all buffs are beneficial. Each and every npc you go up against in game has its strengths and weaknesses. You can get 4 rows of buffs to be safe, but if you have neither the time nor patience for 4 rows of buffs just learn what you need to get the job done.

Examples: You're going into a high end instance that consists of a lot of high level energy blasts. You don't want to get a kinetic armor buff. That can be used elsewhere like glancing blow. If you are stacking glancing blow as high as possible for the same instance you want to try to avoid block chance as if you block a shot you will not glance it as well. However if you are stacking glancing blow as a backup to block then feel free to stack both as high as possible.

Entertainer- Ikewe

Regardless of expertise chosen, the key to being a successful entertainer is to create a unique and enjoyable "persona" that allows you to be instantly recognized by fellow players.   Careful attention to costumes (both clothing and armor), choice of instrument, and choice of props can all add to solidifying your image as an entertainer.    Don't get stuck in a rut where you are constantly performing the same dance or the same song.  Keep in mind that some players have been with SWG for 6 years and aren't going to be interested in seeing the very same dance with the flourishes all performed in numerical order that they've seen a million times before.   So be bold and have fun, you'll help the other players around you have fun as well.

In addition to being creative with your performance, take the time to become knowledgeable about the game and about your server.   As an entertainer you are uniquely positioned to be a focal point for information for other players.   From assisting a new player by knowing where various pilot trainers are located or how to use the galaxy wide vendor search to helping players fill a heroic instance group or reporting on the location of the enemy faction, you can be the single most important information source a server has available.   You can even utilize the various server chat channels to help players connect all across the Galaxy.  

Politician- Cigaran

Looking to join a Player City?

Once you've found a city that you'd like to join, use the City Voting Terminal to find out who the current Mayor is.  Simply /examine the City Voting Terminal and you'll know just who to contact.

Need an easy way to remind your citizens about an upcoming event?

GU 8 brought us the Message of the Day feature.  As a Mayor, you can use this as another way to get the word out to your citizens about city meetings or events.  When used in conjunction with in-game mails about events, the MOTD message serves as a great way to offer a reminder a few days before the event.

Medic- DrDista

1. When in a group, don't worry about attacking or debuffing. Keep your eyes on the group interface; don't worry about targeting anyone but your group members.
2. Learn how to unlock your mouse quickly and target group members in seconds. It takes a while to master, but it is one of the essential Medic skills.
   1. If you use the "alt" key or rebind it to another key, you can unlock your mouse very quickly
   2. You may also use the F keys, F1 through F9. These target your group members. Either works.
3. Know what the most important debuffs to remove are in situations; being able to remove the serious ones is important.
4. Clear DOT stacks with Cure Affliction when they hit 5 to conserve action.
5. Try melee for a change. The added parry, while it only affects incoming melee attacks as you're not a Jedi, can be the difference between life and death when you have melee professions attacking you. The majority of debuffs and skills are ranged for a Medic, making going melee not as hard as one would think.
6. Drop your nerve gas consistently, or keep it on a macro, to do extra damage and rack up PVP kills if necessary.

New Player- Lasod

Join the popular Chat channels:

Right click on existing chat tabs as shown in the first pic - select add tab

then right click on the new tab and select join chat channel.

Open the list of channels and as shown some of the most popular channels on servers are the rebel/ imperial and heroic channels and select join on the right.

You must be a member of the faction to join either the rebel or imperial chat.

You can also modify any of your existing chat tabs to also display any of these channels in that chat tab so you can view all the chatter across the galaxy without switching tabs.

There is currently no LFG or HELP chat that is default to every server but look though the user created tabs to see if someone has created one or join your Profession specific Chat channel.

Engineer- Rasal

Most high-level players don't ever consider using their combat level 60 droids when getting into a serious battle, because their combat level is considerably lower than what they will be going up against.  In essence, the common misconception is to compare the droid to the enemy they are fighting.

Instead, view the combat droid as a free DPS special that never expires and rarely requires maintenance during battle.  Even though it will deal mostly trivial hits to a higher-level enemy, the damage adds up quickly because it is mostly ignored during battle.

Pilot- MasterTexiria

Know and use your droid commands, a lot of pilots will call these overloads.

These generally change the status of your ship components with trade offs.  For example, engine overload will increase your radial acceleration and speed but at the same time greatly increase the drain of your engine on your reactor.

You can add and remove droid commands from your faction any time you wish, and you can use the other two factions' droid commands by getting an Engineer to create you some Unprogrammed Droid Command Modules.  You can have other faction pilots burn their commands into it and then you can load your droid or flight computer with the newly programmed modules.   As you level your pilot you gain new commands and gain higher access to astromechs and flight computers with more storage capacity.

Ace Pilots will generally run with the following commands :

Reactor Overload 4, Engine Overload 4, Capacitor Overload 4, Weapon Overload 4, and Capacitor to shield shunt 3 or 4.

Depending on what class of ship you are flying you may be interested in using the shield commands.  For more complete information and guide visit the Pilot FAQ , Pilot Academy and the Droid Commands FAQ

Events- Jod Iegemai

Storyteller: The event forums are a wonderful source of information and pictures for storytellers.  See the weekly sticky with the latest Storyteller Challenge and all of the past ones in order to get ideas on your next story.

Using an alias can improve the speed and accuracy of placing storyteller props.

/alias rsl /rotateStorytellerObject left
/alias rsr /rotateStorytellerObject right
/alias msu /moveStorytellerObject up
/alias msd /moveStorytellerObject down
/alias msf /moveStorytellerObject forward
/alias msb /moveStorytellerObject back

Would you like to get the word out on an event you are having?

Post your event information in the  Player Events Update Thread and every Wednesday, the community staff updates the SWG Homepage here.