..hold up folks, I'm not talking about cheats.

There are three simple tools you can use to maximize your efficiency while playing Star Wars Galaxies.

1. Timer
2. Calculator
3. Stopwatch

I have an old PalmPilot M100 I dusted off, and loaded oven timer and stopwatch programs into. A good old fashioned $2 oven timer from Wal-Mart and an equally cheap $2 digital wristwatch will work equally well.

-Practical Application-

1. Timer

Survival XP for Scout/Master Scout/Ranger. Absolutely the best use of a timer. You get the most Survival XP for having your tent up for 30 minutes. What if you don't want to craft, or chat the entire 30 minutes? Or ANY of it? Use this trick. Make your camp. Set your timer for 30 minutes. Turn your monitor off and go enjoy life. Watch TV. Make coffee. Hang out with your Girlfriend. Remember her? Timers will let you enjoy the game AND those offline friends/family members you forgot you had! When the timer goes off, disband your camp, move a few meters, and open the next one. Start 30 minute timer again, rinse and repeat. You'll get Survival XP -AND- have a life. Timers ARE your friend.
**Note! Do NOT idle much beyond 30 minutes, or the game will close itself, and you may end up getting NO Survival XP if your camp is not properly Disbanded.
Why do I not consider this a cheat? I can't possibly fathom anyone going through the tedium to get Survival XP while actually playing. Sony dropped the ball on the gross amount of Survival XP needed - it's absurd. It turns camping into IRC with pretty avatars.


2. Calculator

Sometimes we grind for XP the wrong way, in the wrong spots. Case in point:
While trying to get from Master Unarmed to Teras Kasi Novice, I was having a hard time of it. I wasn't strong enough to solo Humbaba's on Corellia (my homeworld), and the things I *could* solo seemed to give poor XP. Then I pulled out my old calculator, and checked some numbers.

My home is in the Agrilat Swamp on Radiant server. The swamp is filled with Diseased Vrelts. Each Vrelt gave me 143 XP, and were relatively easy to kill. I milked the lair (an old trick for those familiar with other MMORPG's) and this is what happened:

A. Kill the 4 or 5 "guards" around the lair. Keep killing the others that appear until all gone.
B. Hit lair 1x, run off 10 meters. More will pop out.
C. Repeat in infinite loop until lair destroyed, and all guards gone.

So what's the big deal? The first time I did this the lair spit out 32 Diseased Vrelts. 32*143= 4,576 Unarmed XP, +502 Unarmed XP for destroying the lair. 5,078 total Unarmed XP.

This brings us to the third part:


3. Stopwatch

I had my Stopwatch running while I cleaned out the lair. It took 8 minutes. that's 5,078 Unarmed XP in 8 minutes. Let's call it 10 minutes for easy calculating. What's the big deal? I never had to heal 1x during that. I never had to town. I was never incapacitated or slain. I used a harvest macro to harvest every corpse very quickly after kill, and also accumulated 1,888 Scout XP in those 8 minutes.

"But Scot, I can go to tatooine and join a tusken party and get 1.8k XP for hitting/shooting a Tusken Warlord 3 times!!1111!11!"

YES YOU CAN! And the odds are *very* good that you'll end up dead. You'll spend half an hour in cantina and medical center, fifteen minutes running back to your body, and in that period of time, I've racked up 15,000-20,000 Unarmed XP and 5,000-6,000 Scout XP killing Diseased Vrelts in the swamp.

Moral of the Story: Using a stopwatch over a 10 minute period of time lets you calculate and find your optimal efficiency. If you're working on reaching that next skill (and aren't we all) this is important. Sometimes it's fun to group and go hunt those tuskans. *Sometimes* you just want to powerlevel by yourself, and that's where you'll really get the XP. Killing small animals around a nest is higly transactional. It's like McDonalds. They got their billions of dollars 99 cents at a time, very very quickly. The key here isn't just the XP, it's TOTAL LACK OF DOWNTIME. Every second you are healing, camping, towning, incapped, or retrieving corpse, you are NOT GETTING XP. YES It's fun to hunt the really big things, there is a sense of accomplishment when you kill one. But you'll get 2x the XP killing 25 SMALL things in HALF THE TIME.

That's it folks. Check the math, experiment on your own. The results may surprise you.

specific to UNARMED xp Posted @ Fri, Aug 20th 7:57 PM 2004 By: Lukeal 1 posts Score: Decent [3.00] A lot of this advise was concerning the grind of getting unarmed XP and there is a fairly steep slope in the mountian of unarmed XP at Unarmed4 and TK novice. You have a large amount of XP to get, no specials which damage multiple opponents or multiply damage, AND YOU HAVE NO CERTIFICATIONS FOR BETTER WEAPONS. You are stuck doing about 30-60 dmg to gain approximately 250,000 xp. that's a grind amigos. Grouping to gain this absolutely sucks. You have so low a damage and no p-ups attachments for speed or damage that your DPS also sucks compared to any like level character. Your share of any group XP is pathetic (I know, I tried). The best suggestion is to equip a vibroknuckler (even though you don't have the cert) with a spd p-up you actually do more dmg over time with the sucky "you aren't certed" damage than you would without a weapon. This of course rapidly kills the VKs condition and you will destroy at least 3 during this grind. Any other skill set at level 3-4 you have a weapon that does about 70-250 damage with a power up and specials that can make your damage total between 400-700. So basically unarmed takes 10 times as long to grind through and grouping is just a bad idea unless it is with all other grinders at the same melee level. Edited, Fri Aug 20 19:59:06 2004   0 Replies

Now I feel better Posted @ Fri, Jul 30th 2:59 PM 2004 By: thewylie Scholar 20 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Good tute actually...  I'll be timing my xp runs even though I'm going strickly marksman                                                                   0 Replies

Flame Thrower Posted @ Fri, Jul 30th 2:56 PM 2004 By: thewylie Scholar 20 posts Score: Default [2.00] Just felt like flaming something... Your tutorial sucks... Just kidding... But not really... F***ing Chuck Norris                                                      0 Replies

play Posted @ Sat, Feb 21st 5:00 AM 2004 By: evillepper 16 posts Score: Default [2.00] do u guys no where i can fight at i can,t find anything                                                                                ---------------------------- 500 0 Replies

Standing at a respawn point Posted @ Sun, Jan 11th 4:56 PM 2004 By: RaymzteR 3 posts Score: Good [3.50] I think many people go afk at a respawn point and kill the spawnlings... When I tried this however (I fight Unarmed) I found out this problem... (Fighting thugs) The first thug that came near my I auto targetted, (faction standing -5000), then I counter attack doing serious damage to the thug, but sometimes the thug manages to run away with a tiny amount of health left... In the meanwhile another thug(s) shows up, and my target is still the first one (now away several metres), so I hardly touch the other thugs, (only defending without any sort of counter attack) leading to a deathblow... Is there anyway to set focus on the closest enemy? Because if there is I could simply put that on when I go afk and turn it back off when I'm online... If anyone knows, please let me know. Thank you.   1 Reply

RE: Standing at a respawn point Posted @ Tue, Jan 13th 5:54 PM 2004 By: LadyGrey 2 posts Score: Excellent [4.50] /ui action targetSelf; /ui action cycleTargetOutward; /attack;                                                                    0 Replies

thanks! Posted @ Fri, Nov 14th 8:18 PM 2003 By: Fossa 4 posts Score: Decent [3.33]    i have seen a lot of flamers posting here- and i have to say that i mean that in ALL possible senses of the word. if you weren't troubled by the rate of XP acquisition, why bother to berate those who are... in fact, why did you lot even bother to read this post? and if you think you have better ideas than Sseese's, good for you. really. some were posted as friendly enough addendums, but others of you seemed to think that bettering Sseese's was a big intellectual battle. why don't you go play hide and go frick yourself? no, really. You are not a better person because you can make a macro, or because you prefer to spend longer working on your experience (purist boor!). Sseese wrote an article to help those who find the acquisition of XP troublesome. These suggestions weren't supposed to be the ultimate solutions to these problems; but they are good ones, nonetheless. i especially look forward to maximizing my wilderness survival XP by leaving my camp going for 1/2 hour. Thank you Sseese! :)   ---------------------------- Fossa novice rifleman/ ranger - Intrepid novice smuggler/ weaponsmith - Tarquinas novice carbineer/ squad leader - Radiant novice TKA/ doctor - Kettemoor novice swordsman - Naritus 2 Replies

RE: thanks! Posted @ Tue, May 25th 1:24 PM 2004 By: Tomshirk 181 posts Score: Decent [3.00] I agree w/ Fossa! If you dont like a post... dont read it!  Just like the TV ppl... But then again, that hits on me and Fossa, too! AAUGH!                                                      ---------------------------- Why do we fear death? It is the one common thread that binds all living things. We should emrace it with the love of life and desire for harmony. Or should we instead cling to life and diversity, at the cost of peace? 0 Replies  RE: thanks! Posted @ Sun, Nov 16th 1:29 AM 2003 By: Sinloi 5 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Thanks for Guide and Info. This noob enjoys a good tip.                                                                                0 Replies

You missed the point... Posted @ Mon, Oct 27th 6:26 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [1.50] The whole point is so you don't have to go to town to heal, dipsh*t. You don't waste time running kilometers back and forth.                                                                   0 Replies

Sivar Posted @ Mon, Oct 27th 3:03 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Only one problem with this whole scenario.  This is assuming that the player is doing unarmed combat. Great, but that doesn't help alot for an armed player. This whole process puts unbelievable wear on the player's weapon. Most likely they would have to replace the weapon more often than normal. The only way to remedy this would be to do kill missions so the player can have money to buy weapons on a regular basis.   0 Replies

A Macro that never was... Posted @ Tue, Oct 7th 10:50 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Um Hmmm... Grinding sucks I've never done it But, if I did... Set focus on self (It's one of the UI Actions) Set focus on nearest enemy (Ditto) Attack Peace Pause 5 (During this time, creature will come a running to you) special attack1 special attack2 special attack2 special attack3 special attack3 special attack4 Pause 5 (In case it's not quite dead yet) Harvest pause 30 loop Basicly, call a creature to you, attack til dead harvest it (it's right next to you) wait a while, repeat. Notes: * /Harvest; works fine. You get a nice assortment of Hide/Meat and a little bone * Set up by a spawn point for creatures, NOT a lair * If you do this right, pretty soon there will actually be a pile of dead butterflies/etc in a heap at your feet... * NEVER leave the macro running while you head into town... Auto-Attacking the guards as you pass em is NOT a good idea...   0 Replies

SCOUT SURVIVAL MACRO Posted @ Fri, Sep 26th 7:17 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] NOT TO FLAME BLAME OR LAME ! Forget the discussion of exploiting the game, its filled with bugs, filled with stupid GAME flaws, and when you can shoot thru a mountain, why  not shoot thru the XP-time. Why not just make 1 macro that goes like this, and place it in toolbarslot00 the topbar first from the left. NAME:INFINITE_CAMP_LOOP_00 /ui action toolbarSlot01 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot02 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot03 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot04 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot05 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot06 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot07 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot08 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot09 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot10 /pause 3600 /ui action toolbarSlot11 And another macro that goes like this, that you place in the bottom row first on you left. NAME:INFINITE_CAMP_LOOP_11 /ui action toolbarSlot12 /pause 15 /ui action toolbarSlot11 and the last macro goes like this, this one you place in the bottom row second on you left. NAME:FORGE /forge /mood serious Im working on my survival skills and still i have a life, see you in 11 hours, when i comeback and build another 11 camps and repeat this process. /mood happy Feel free to enjoy this camp its going to be here for sometime. /mood none Now all you need to do for getting survival experience is to make 11 camp place them in the top bar second from the left until its filled all the way out to the right. Empty you inventory so that you can have a maximum amount of /forged food buffs. Sell food buffs cheap to noobs. But keep the "FishBait" you will need those for my next set of macros il post when i get to the sea. THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT GETTING SURVIVAL EXPERIENCE. The reason for the camp site to go for one hour is that it will ensure the camp is closed automatically, depending on camp size you can change the numbers. When you have made this setup all you need to do is start the top left macro and the bottom left macro, take a break from SWG for 11 hours, go bone you girlfriend, avoid MC Donnalds and eat healty food. Yours truly /Gost Ga'Jol /Scout.AFK.from.SWG.getting.SurvivalXP. /Bloodfin /Ignore Master From Beta 3 (aka EGO)   0 Replies

Travel! Posted @ Sat, Sep 13th 8:24 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] I've recently taking to shuttling to a new planet/city i haven't visited, finding another city far on the map, and running there, killing what I see and harvesting.  Quite fun, see new places.                                         0 Replies

Thank you for the advice Posted @ Mon, Sep 1st 2:10 AM 2003 By: FurryJackal 3 posts Score: Decent [3.00] As someone who is having terrible difficulty getting my Master Unarmed to Teras Kasi Novice, I appreciate this advice. It's ardorous to try to take down Kaadu's and spend all the time healing and or Incapacitated and really all I can fight without trouble are blues. So any little bit helps me get closer to where I want to go efficiently. Thank you.               ---------------------------- Do you hear that? It's the sound of a 1000 terrible things headed this way! ________________________ Taliesen ::Musician/CH and Pikeman of Bria Na'loo ::Dancer/Fencer of Bria Jin'lores:: Bio Engineer/CH and Pistoleer of Kettemoor 0 Replies

why not just have fun Posted @ Sun, Aug 31st 2:15 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Decent [2.50] ok i can see how this is a good idea.... but i for one enjoy sitting in cantina and med center socializing and getting ent/medics xp while having a nice chat with them....and tipping a few times.  so for all you who play mmorpg games just to get to the top.... i need to know how that is fun. i play this game... and in the past eq to socialize to have fun and not just to get as much xp as possible. oh well have fun sitting in a stinky swamp maximizing your xp. oh and think about what you are saying making fun of people who join tusken groups and have fun... keyword=group ... instead of sitting in a swamp alone killing little rats. have fun socializing with your calculator and stopwatch   0 Replies

Zerhe Oocol ->Tempest Posted @ Fri, Aug 15th 11:46 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Hi Thanks for the idea.  I think your idea of a tmier isn't a bad idea, but spliting off for only 30 minutes isn't going to give you much of a life, although it may help for baking! lol just kidding !!! Good idea, and I plan on trying it if I ever am not working again - damn vacation too short and I just got into this :( L8r   0 Replies

But.... there is always a but ... Posted @ Tue, Aug 12th 4:45 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] All good and sound there mate, but i have to ask, if you have a stopwatch and a calculator why not revisit part 1 and write a looping macro?                                                      0 Replies

Camping Posted @ Mon, Aug 11th 10:57 AM 2003 By: ChefGroovy Scholar 26 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Umm. in a group, you can set up a camp near the lair you are attacking.  You just sit in the camp and heal members, and/or send you pet in to help. AS long as you don't fire a weapon, your camp will remain. Might not be there the entire 30 minutes, but will still get max xp because of all the ppl in your camp. Soloing and trying to get camping xp is futile, you'll end up with a stopwatch and going afk a lot, while going insane. :)   ---------------------------- My life... for the Horde! 0 Replies

Wow Posted @ Mon, Aug 11th 12:54 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Huh, who would have thought someone giving tips could be such a controversal post...                                                                   0 Replies

Response for Faster Leveling. Posted @ Fri, Aug 8th 3:25 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Great post and great ideas!  Sometimes I have fun and poke around, and other times I wanna grind it out. This definitely helps with getting the exp in the door, and I LOVED the stopwatch idea. Excellent! Those people complaining about this aughta take note. If you want to get to the bigger game and be able to explore the game more, other than just harvesting Durni's on Corellia, you'll need to be able to kick some butt, and these ideas are excellent for getting hard to get exp in a reasonable amount of time. I personally don't have months of my life to reach novice Rifleman or something, so I find what works, get the exp, and then I can deal it out, and not have spend all my time in the med center, or finding medics and begging for help. :) (Mind you the majority of people I've asked for help from in the game have always been pretty cool about it, so no slam on the medics.)   0 Replies

Flaming = You suck. Posted @ Mon, Aug 4th 7:23 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Decent [3.00] You know what I think adds fun to a game? Writing Guides, helping n00bers, such and soforth. You know what I thikn really takes the fun out of a game? Really stupid people that look at a guide, then whine about it. case in point... "way to completely and utterly sap all fun from the game. Let's turn it all into a big equation and then maximise that equation" -some jackass If you didn't want to know about it, why in God's name did you poke your head into here? do you not know how to navigate a website? Does it not say "For faster leveling" in the title? What did you think it meant if not Powerleveling? Can we say "duhhhrr"?? Pressing right along.. "I guess powerlevelers need guides like this since the whole concept of powerleveling is pretty misguided to start with IMHO. :o) Anyways, I understand the concept of xp per min calcs and so forth, who doesn't? It is "smack me in the head" simple. I would do it mentally all the time - "These monsters give good xp, but I am getting my ass kicked each time" However, getting out a stopwatch and calculator is a bit much."- some other jackass Yea, the whole concept of powerleveling sure sucks. I'd much rather play a bunch and always be a little lowbie n00b like you obviously are. I guess powerlevelers need guides like this since the whole concept of powerleveling is pretty misguided to start with IMHO. :o) Anyways, I understand the concept of xp per min calcs and so forth, who doesn't? It is "smack me in the head" simple. I would do it mentally all the time - "These monsters give good xp, but I am getting my ass kicked each time" However, getting out a stopwatch and calculator is a bit much. Perhaps Powerleveling would make more sense to you if you didn't didn't get smacked in the head so much for being a simpleton. You DID say something about that right? Perraine's Final Thought If you find a guide that you don't like, or it doesn't help you, don't waste your and everyone else's time whining about it like a little girl. Just go find a guide that WILL help you, and I won't have to come find you on the net and make fun of you. Everyone will be much happier. After all, I don't see YOU writing any guides, you lazy bastards, just bitching about the guides that people have taken the time out of thier lives to write as a favor to thier gaming peers. Yea...when I put it like that it makes you sound like a real jackass, eh? Sseese, thanks for this guide, I dig it. -Perr   1 Reply

RE: Flaming = You suck. Posted @ Thu, Aug 7th 6:17 PM 2003 By: TheFigment 1 posts Score: Decent [3.00] First: Good job Sseese on the guide.  It was helpful to me and i'm sure some other n00bs and veterans alike could use this advice(even if they won't admit it). Secondly: You tell'em Perr! Some people just don't appreciate the time that others like Sseese take out to write these things. Keep up the good work everybody! -TheFigment   ---------------------------- Owner and CEO of CaV Tech Inc. (Server: TBA) 0 Replies

THANKS Posted @ Sun, Aug 3rd 3:08 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Well instead of flaming u im going to thank you. thanks for a good guide and I appreciate it.                                                                   0 Replies

This Post Posted @ Fri, Aug 1st 7:09 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Decent [3.00] I think this post is quite enlightening to people who have not had any exp with mmo's in the past.. alot of the flames here come from people who played MUDD's and UO, and EQ before comming SWG so they have a background for what to do and what not to do.. i recently got a friend into SWG and he was wanting to quit cuz he wanted to go after the Rancors, and the other big badies... until i showed him how to "Farm" a low level destroy mission.. to get the most combat exp, and the most hides / meat / bone from each mission... granted he isnt getting 10k cred an hour doing missions as fast as possible but he is maximizing his exp and his fun play time... this post is AWSOME and more people should take a step back and realize they arent the only players out there.. and everyone playing doesnt have a history of gaming... My 1 and a half creds... Asimon Soltaire Master Artisan, Marksman, Scout, Brawler Corbantis   1 Reply

RE: This Post Posted @ Thu, Apr 29th 3:02 PM 2004 By: siecin 4 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Nice reply.  For you who are bashing the post...suk it. How much do you like starting out with your first mmo game and getting your ass kicked. This helps those people realize how to get past the crappy part and have the ability to have fun once they figure out how the game works. As for you who are making fun of him for using a calc its not like he is telling you to use it its more like setting up an example and explains his theory better than going "if you kill a lot of smaller things faster than bigger ones its good." Edited, Thu Apr 29 15:03:58 2004   ---------------------------- Taarm Kast Crazy Bothan Mutha Master Scout Master Marksman Training BH Its all for fun and screw the rest. 0 Replies

All about the benjamins Posted @ Wed, Jul 30th 2:28 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Good job.  One other thing I recommend is picking up a couple kill missions as well, that way you get credits + xp.                                                                   0 Replies

harvest macro Posted @ Mon, Jul 28th 12:38 PM 2003 By: laniria 2 posts Score: Decent [3.00] For the one that asked about a macro to harvest Slap each of the following ona buttong and pull it over to your bar :) /harvest bone /harvest hide /harvest meat                                                      0 Replies

Macro Posted @ Mon, Jul 28th 3:23 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] A good informational guide. One question though, i heard u talk about a harvest macro. I know what a macro is but i didnt know u can make one for harvesting? would u mind posting what the macro is?                                         0 Replies

Definitions of 'fun' Posted @ Sat, Jul 26th 8:59 PM 2003 By: Consular 6 posts Score: Decent [3.00] WHile I won't use this method, since I don't really care about min/maxing, I can see it's application and usefulness... I guess some people don't understand that their definition of fun is not everyone's definition of fun. You mention burn out from using this... obviously the world is full or statiticians and mathematicians who find this 'fun'... fun is subjective, thank the gods for that. Consular.   0 Replies

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