Chapter 4: "Armed and Ready for Action!"
Publish Notes Thursday, November 30th

On Thursday, November 30th at 4:00 AM PST all U.S. and European galaxies will be taken down for server maintenance and a live update.

When the update is complete, all galaxies will be live but unavailable while we complete final testing. All galaxies will be made available after that time.

4:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) / 6:00 AM CST (Austin) / 7:00 AM EST (New York)
12:00 PM GMT (London) / 1:00 PM CET (Berlin) / 8:00 PM (Tokyo)
[Click here for a Time Zone Calculator]

Always remember to check the Announcement Forum for the latest information.

Chapter 4 Major Features

• New Commando Expertise System - The commandos are the heavy weapons experts in Star Wars Galaxies and the commando Expertise System gives them the power they crave. Commandos will be able to take advantage of new weapons, attack abilities and group buffs. Commandos will receive new weapons including all types of grenades and heavy weapons. And, since the Commando is a master of armor and demolition the primary commando tree offers the ability to control the timing of remote explosives through expertise like “Remote Detonator” and to increase accuracy/radius through “Flash Bang” and “Angled Shrapnel”. Plus, the commando expertise tree also includes new armor buffs, de-buffs, DOT attacks and heals. The second expertise branch, the assault tree, focuses on heavy weapons, grenades, and stat enhancements. Commandos will become extremely powerful adversaries and even more valuable allies! Click here for more information on Commando Expertise.

• Introduction of the Kill Meter Power Boost - Now, when Commandos go into battle the kill meter starts ticking. The kill meter amplifies your power with each kill up to a maximum of 50 kills. But, if you stop fighting it decays over time – there's an incentive to keep fighting the good fight! Click here for more information on Commando Expertise.

• New Spy Expertise System - The Spy Expertise system takes undercover over the top. The first tree is the Spy specific tree called Covert Operative. It allows the Spy to improve all aspects of being stealthy including a new speed burst, “Burst of Shadows” and to deal damage from stealth through two new combat abilities: “Ambush” and “Snipe”. The second tree is the Spy general tree and contains items that strengthen armor and survivability, traps and damage outside of stealth. Through this path the Spy can acquire skills like the new heal, “Cloaked Recovery”, and the ability to remove any damage over time effects like “Run Its Course” which removes all DoTs. Plus, the spy will become harder to detect and will become better at detecting others. Check out the new spy skills, if you can find them! Click here for more information on Spy Expertise.

• New Medic Expertise System - The medic will also receive new abilities. The new abilities will reinforce the medic's role as the primary group support by allowing them to build healing/enhancement, debuffing/crowd control and effect cancellation abilities. The thrust of both new expertise trees is on improving the Medic's ability to keep their group safe and strong and/or keep their group's enemies suppressed and wishing they were dead. Key new abilities include the single-target heal, “Bacta Grenade”, and the super-heal, “Bacta Bomb”. Enemies will be contained using skills like the “Serotonin Boost” and the uber-cool power, “Stasis Field”, which essentially functions like a straight jacket preventing the target from taking or dealing damage. Now, being a medic is more than just healing - it's a strategic component of combat. Click here for more information on Medic Expertise.

• Chapter 4 Gift: Holo-pets : Upon logging in during Chapter 4, you will receive a Holo-pet Data Cube and Emitter that can be placed inside your house. When the holo-pet emitter is deployed and a data cube is inserted, a holographic pet will wander a small area in the room. Holo-pet emitters are not tradeable, but data cubes are! Trade them with your friends! Click here for more information on Holo-pets.



Chapter 4 Update Notes

Combat

• Bug Fix: Expertise should no longer allow weapons to acquire ranges of greater than 64 meters.

• Bug Fix: Fixed an issue that under some circumstance can cause a player not to receive combat log messages.

Creature Harvesting

• User Interface: The Creature Harvesting skill modifier is now visible on your character sheet.

G-15 Keyboard

• Support added for the G15 LCD keyboard. If you hit any of the 4 soft key buttons, it should switch to displaying a variety of data, including: your hit points, your action points, whether you have mail pending, your GCW points, kills, and time remaining until update, your faction and PvP status, and your cash on hand and bank balance. If you have no G15, you should see no change in functionality.

Galactic Civil War

• Factions: When leaving the Imperial or Rebel factions, you must now wait 5 days before joining the opposing side. You can still rejoin the side you left without waiting for the timer to expire.

• Imperial Crackdown scans will no longer be confused about your correct GCW rank.

Profession: Smuggler

• Dizzy 1 should now hit for the correct amount of damage.

• Camouflage Ally ability no longer displays a factional error message when used on self and creatures.

• DOTs should no longer remove snares.

• Removed delay attack (daze) from Concussion Shot and Dizzy as it is not a functional debuff effect.

• Removed the attack animation for non-attack commands Sly Lie and Fast Talk.

• Snare immunity from Dizzy and Concussion Shot has been removed.

Profession: Jedi

• The profession skill wheel now displays the correct icons that represent the rewarded abilities to match the changes made when Jedi Expertise was introduced.

• Added Recourse effect to all DoT Immunity buffs.

• More powerful heals provide longer Dot Immunity buffs.

• Less powerful heals provide short Dot Immunity buffs.

Profession: Spy

• Renamed the non-expertise skills so they appear in alphabetical order in the command browser.

Profession Trader - Engineering

• Droid Engineering: The Creature Harvesting module schematic is once again available.

• Droid Engineering: Added an Auto-Harvest feature for droids equipped with harvesting modules.

Quests

• The "Graver Robbers" Quest on Talus can now be completed once more. The missing crate is back.

• Fixed an issue that was caused by deleting the quest "Old Republic Droid Modules: The Gungan Battle Droid" before it was complete. If you are stopped on this quest at Boss Nass and you have tried deleting the quest "Old Republic Droid Modules: The Gungan Battle Droid", then return to the RSF computer in Theed and accept the quest "Old Republic Droid Modules: The Gungan Battle Droid". Then return to Boss Nass. Boss Nass will now correctly update that quest to your point.

• The main quest from the Hero of Tatooine quest now is now tracked in the quest journal.

Space

• Pilot trainers will check for the proper GCW faction instead of positive faction standing before signing a player to a pilot profession.

Targeting

• Beneficial commands now assume self if your target is not valid for the command.

• Corpses can now be set as the intended target (green bracket target).

• Currently your target's health and action bar is displayed next to your character's health and action bar.

• If you are not using auto-aim mode, that target is the look-at target (i.e. your mouse over target indicated by the blue targeting bracket). If you are in auto-aim mode, that target is the intended target (indicated by the green targeting bracket).

User Interface

• Console command: Added /gameTime. This returns the game time approximated as earth time in the format HH:MM.

• Changed the order of "Yes" and "No" buttons in common dialog boxes to match a common UI standard.

• Changed the location of the "ok" and "cancel" buttons on the options window to match a common UI standard.

• Made some minor changes to the layout of the initial character creation screen.

• Made some minor layout changes to the character selection screen.

• Revised the layout for the initial character selection screen.

• Switched the location of the "add" and "close" buttons on the permissions windows.

• Switched the location of the "ok" and "cancel" buttons on the trade window to match a common UI standard.

• Bug Fix: Graphical glitch that appears periodically on some waypoints, particularly those associated with quests. Causes a brief "hiccup" where the moving particles appear to freeze and change position for a brief moment.

• Bug Fix: Certain inventory activities, in particular listing and delisting items from the bazaar while having your inventory open, could cause invalid "blank" entries to appear in the inventory. These entries could cause the client to crash to desktop.

• Bug Fix: Erroneous tool tip shows up on the third box of any expertise that has skill modifiers associated with it.