Star Wars: The Old Republic Developer Blog

Systems designer Patrick Mallot is the latest contributor to the Star Wars: The Old Republic website, having penned this new developer blog that gives us an even closer look at the game’s recently revealed crew skills.

Players can issue crafting orders to up to five companions at a time, and each companion can add up to five crafting tasks to their queue. You can cancel crafting progress from anywhere if you need to, and the resources your companions were using will be returned to you. Your crafting queues will even continue to progress if you have to go offline when you log back on, you’ll receive any items that were completed while you were gone.

Your companions all have different skills and personalities, and their strengths carry over into the Crew Skills system. Some companions are better suited to particular Crew Skills than others. We revealed recently that Vette is an excellent Treasure Hunter; that means she’ll have a bonus when performing Treasure Hunting missions. Companion traits in Crew Skills are designed to be story-appropriate and meaningful, but the bonuses aren’t designed to be so extreme that you’ll feel you only have one companion choice for a given task.

Companions are much more than just a block of stats to be ordered around, of course. In true role-playing fashion, what your companions think about you will affect how motivated they are to work for you. Companions with high affection will have their ability to perform crafting tasks greatly improved. For example, a companion with high affection can craft items faster this becomes really significant when crafting tasks can take hours or even up to a day to complete!

Oh, and the Jedi Wizard is now the Jedi Sage. And there was much rejoicing.