Artisans can make lots of money, fast. However, they tend to be a little bit on the boring side to develop. Hopefully, this should speed things along greatly.
The first skill you'll want to develop with your new artisan is Engineering. Once you have Engineering 4, you can craft your own harvesters, which generates a tremendous amount of crafting XP. You're going to have to do what's called 'grinding' to get your engineering up to level 4 quickly. If you just started and have no XP at all, first create as many fireworks as you can to level up to Engineering 1 (or whatever you have the most available resources to make with). Once you have Engineering 1, start grinding muzzles. To get your materials for these items, just buy the cheapest materials you can find on the bazaar or ask other players nicely if they have any they can spare.
A good way to increase your cash flow during these slow times is to sell the stuff you're crafting on the bazaar. Put them on in a large city so that they'll get more exposure. It won't be much, but it's something. You'll also probably want to run a few delivery or artisan crafting missions if your cash runs a little low. The crafting missions usually pay more, and you get a little crafting XP along the way.
Once you've gotten up to Engineering 4, make a Weapon, Droid and General item crafting kit or a structure crafting kit. Now you can start crafting things like personal chemical extractors, personal natural gas processors, micro flora farms, etc. These give out quite a bit more XP than the muzzles do, and you'll gain the rest of those crafting-dependant skill trees in no time at all. I would suggest learning Business first, then Domestic Arts.
Surveying sucks. This is the most time consuming of the artisan branches. Luckily there are a few things that make it easier on the budding artisan.
First of all, you can learn it while grinding on crafting XP. Since you're doing muzzles, take your mineral surveying device and hunt down a spot that has at least 60%-75% mineral concentration. Then start sampling. While that's going, take out your crafting kit and start making more muzzles. As you find more materials, your mineral resources will replenish, so you have to make less trips back to the bazaar.
Second of all, there are these things called macros that will make surveying XP a snap to get. Find a good spot with a high concentration and no red enemies around. (You're an artisan, remember that.) Take a sample with your surveying device, then close the tool. Stop sampling, and hit Ctrl-A. Click on 'macro' and then click 'new macro'. Let's name this one 'sampling'. In the box type:
/sample;
/pause 600;
/pause 300;
/macro sampling;
The first line tells the game to sample the last material you sampled. The next two lines can be adjusted to fit your character. Wait until your action bar and mind bar are full, then type /sample into the interface. Time how long it takes for you to run out of action (or mind). Then replace the number in the first 'pause' line with that time (in seconds), plus 30 seconds just to be safe. Then time how long it takes (in seconds) for your action or mind to recharge to full. Then put that into the second 'pause' line. The final line just loops the macro, so you can go to work or sleep and let it run. To run it, just type "/macro sampling" into the interface.
Just leave this stuff running while you're at work or asleep, and you should get lots of surveying XP fast. Surveying was my last tree to complete for Artisan. I started playing the game as a n00b and within a week I had mastered this profession. I hope you enjoy the same success I do. If you're on Sunrunner galaxy give me a /tell, my character's name is Leufo Atego.
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