There are numerous ways to gain pistol experience, and almost everyone you talk to will give you their own version of what is best. This guide is intended to consolidate a lot of that information, and hopefully provide you with a direction in which to pursue. The first part of this guide is a general overview, providing information on each of the planets in generalized statements. The second part of this guide goes into tactics, and what many people (Thank you to everyone who has provided this information) have contributed to help make this guide better. The third part explains why some of the things people have said are helpful (such as why should you get buffs, what is the advantage of grouping with a pet or droid, etc.) and provides helpful links to other threads that I make mention of.
Section I - The Planets and Basic Information
1) Corellia
Corellia is one of the starting planets, and as such has a decent variety of creatures to hunt for experience. If you are just starting out there are plenty of Durnis, Paralopes, and general thugs (Meatlumps specifically) to keep you busy. Many people have used these creatures to hunt and gain experience solo until they reach their "Novice Elite" profession of choice. This, however, is not a very quick way to gain experience, but it does allow solo hunting and progression at a decent rate for those who do not want to feel "threatened" or "in danger" while hunting. If you want a little more of a challenge look for Wrixes, Tabages, Slice Hounds, Gurrcats, Crazed Durnis, and some higher level thugs (Swoop Gangs) that will still yield decent experience, and, once you are working on your profession of choice, are not too difficult. These last few help each other when attacked though, so watch out.
2) Talus
Talus is a moon of Corellia, and is a much better choice for fast experience. Torturs are the main creature to hunt, as they only spawn in groups of up to 3 and will go down fairly quickly, but Wrixes, Sludge Panthers, and even some of the rasps are good choices also. If you are still a "Starting" profession you will probably want to hunt these in groups, but if you prefer to hunt solo then the various mites are good experience as well. Be certain to clone though, as most of the creatures on Talus will help each other when attacked, and unless you are buffed you will probably lose some of those fights.
3) Naboo
Naboo is another starting planet, but some of the spawns here can be quite challenging. Plains Tuck Cats are definitely the best things to hunt as you progress into the fourth tier of your starting profession and beyond, as they generally net 3-4k experience per kill (once you hit "Novice Elite" this does drop some). Everything else on Naboo seems fairly easy, except for the occasionally tough NPCs, so for beginners this is another great place to start the journey up the profession trees.
4) Rori
Rori is similar to Naboo in the same way Talus is similar to Corellia. Some of the best things to hunt here are Ravenous Tortons (which are arguably the best thing to hunt in a group or with pets, as they are 12k Payout missions, and each Mission nets 9 Tortons total at 4-5k Experience per Torton), Krevols, Borgles, Gualamas, Leviasqualls, and Vir Vurs. For many of these (such as the Tortons) you may find that a good set of Ubese Armor will help tremendously. One area of importance on Rori is the Borgle and Torton Cave, which is a great place to gain experience quickly.
5) Tatooine
Tatooine is quite arguably the best starting planet to utilize for experience. Depending on your skill level there are numerous things to hunt. As a beginner Worrts and Kreetles are probably the best things to stick to. After you reach the 4th Tier in your starting profession, or even wait until "Novice Elite," many opportunities arise. Dune Lizards and Banthas are excellent if grouped, and can be done easily solo if you invest in buffs at least. Bocatts are great experience, solo or grouped. The best thing though, as long as you are grouped or at least have a Doctor with you (and I would recommend both) is Fort Tusken.
6) Yavin IV
This is my preferred hunting ground (aside from Endor)as an Elite Profession. You do not want to hunt on Yavin unless you are buffed or grouped though, as the creatures are quite difficult to solo. Mawgaxes and Mamiens are probably the easiest, but Crystal Snakes are fairly simple as well (however they do poison). Klikniks of all different varieties can be found here as well, and are also worth decent experience (they also poison).
NOTE:Pretty much none of the creatures on Yavin deathblow.
7) Dantooine
I personally do not hunt on Dantooine much, primarily because it has always seemed to be too "laggy" for me, but some of the creatures here are excellent experience gainers. This is definitely a planet you want to be buffed to go to, however. Quenker and Piket missions seem to be some of the most favored, but Huurtons and Vorritor Dashers (note, the Vorritors do poison) are also great to hunt. Bols also give great experience (not the Lesser Bols or the Seething Bols). If you are Imperial then the faction missions here are also a good source of experience.
8) Endor
Another planet to stay away from unless buffed or grouped, Endor is a great source for experience if you know what to hunt. Cowardly Gurrecks are decent, but Crimson Blurrgs (and regular Blurrgs) are a better choice if you can pull the missions. Robas and Roba Boars are probably the best thing to hunt, as the experience from them is much better and they are not too difficult to kill.
9) Lok
This one is a little tougher to classify. Most of the NPCs will kill you pretty quickly if you are not buffed (and they deathblow almost immediately), but Lok can be a great source of experience also. Gurks are probably the most highly recommended of all creatures on Lok, just watch out for King Gurks as they are tougher to kill and will deathblow. Snorballs are decent experience (better to be grouped for these guys) as are Nym's Droidekas (these are quite difficult, and I only recommend doing them in groups unless you have really good armor and are buffed). Imperial Faction missions are also a good choice here.
10) Dathomir
Dathomir is not a great place for solo hunting, although if buffed the Baz Nitch missions are fairly easy. Brackasets are also good experience, and can be done solo if buffed. This is a great planet for groups though, as Rancor Youths and Enraged Rancors are plentiful. The Rancors are tough though, so it would be best to hunt with someone who has hunted them before if you have not. Personally, I would group with one or two others and hunt Giant Baz Nitches. This seems to be the most effective way to get pistol experience on Dathomir.
I, personally, pretty much do not use armor. I don't particularly care for having the encumbrance, and just prefer the "look" I can put together with other clothing (after all, a style means a lot to a Smuggler / Gunfighter). That being said, I find that with Buffs and certain Chef Foods I don't really need armor. There are some notable exceptions though, so find what works best for you.
This is not meant to be all inclusive, mostly because eventually everyone finds their own setup that works best for them. Below you will find many contributors who have given their own methods, and I encourage you to read through and contribute your own to help those in search of this knowledge. I do, however, want to touch on a few things that will come in handy in your endeavor to climb the skill trees.
First, I recommend getting Novice Pistoleer as a Smuggler. The certifications for the DX2 (which is now a pretty nice pistol with the accuracy having been fixed) and the Republic Blaster (Being moved in Publish 7) make the expenditure in skill points well worth it, and as a Smuggler the pistol will become one of your primary weapons (at least if you want to utilize most of the Dirty Fighting Tree).
Second, decide what you want to pursue before you go any further. This will dictate your tactics, as well as what skills you should "level" first to get through faster. For the purpose of this thread, and my personal experience, I am going to work with the Master Smuggler and Pistoleer 0-4-0-4 Template. I recommend getting to at least 0-1-0-1 Pistoleer as quickly as possible. The added accuracy and speed will make a little bit of a difference, but at 0-0-0-1 Pistoleer you obtain /pistolMeleeDefense1. This attack is a knockdown (although you have to be fairly close to use it. I have managed to land it at up to 12m) and is extremely useful in progressing up the trees. When an opponent is knocked down the damage they receive is increased drastically. Be aware, though, that it is on a 30 second timer, so "spamming" Pistol Whip will not get you very far.
If nothing else, Muon Gold will become a good friend. There are many creatures that will target the mind pool, not to mention if you heal yourself you will be depleting your mind pool as well. Muon Gold gives a significant boost to mind, but after 8 minutes your mind will drop to a very low point until the "downer" passes. If you can afford it get Vaserian Brandy as well, as you can generally consume two of them at once, gaining a huge increase to the mind stats for a 38 minute period, without a downer. Also, you can consume the Vaserian Brandy and Muon Gold together, and the downer will not really affect you, as well as having a really nice mind buff for that eight minute period.
NOTE:Now, I was going to put some detailed information here about what specials I use and how I approach a target, but because of the possibility of some major changes to combat soon I will wait and revise this then. One thing I do want to mention, though, is that if you have Novice Scout be sure to utilize the examine feature. It will tell you what the creature is resistant to and whether it has armor or not. If you have Hunting 4 you will be shown whether it deathblows or not. If you have Master Scout you will also see the creature's level of difficulty. This is very valuable information, as you can then decide which weapon is best for that encounter.
Buffs - If you go hunting buffed then you can generally concentrate more on offensive output (dispatching your target quickly with specials) instead of having to worry about healing yourself. This allows you to gain experience quicker than hunting unbuffed.
Spices and Food - These are sort of mini-buffs, and definitely helps tremendously if you get the right combination. This is something I encourage everyone to experiment with, especially with the new Chef foods (one even increases the amount of experience earned for a certain duration of time). Personally I love Vaserian Brandy for a nice mind buff, and Ryschate for increased action, as specials tend to eat up your HAM. I also carry Muon Gold as a backup.
Armor - I know I mentioned I don't generally use armor, but a good set of Kinetic Resist armor (most likely Ubese as it is cheaper, but Composite is nice as well) will help a lot against melee mobs. The armor will absorb quite a bit of the damage, allowing you to focus more on offense instead of defense.
Grouping with a Pet or Droid - If you group with something, be it a pet, droid, or another person, the net experience of every creature goes up. This is to help offset the loss of experience one would have by hunting in a group, but it can be utilized to your advantage while gaining experience. If you group with something and just have it follow (or another person that goes off and hunts separately) then you benefit completely from the increased experience. A note here as well, if you are grouped with a person and are hunting separately, the mission payouts are not split, as they require you to be within a certain range of the mission to get a split of the payout.
4) Rori I never really hunted on Rori. From what I have seen in traveling it really is similar to comparing Talus to Corellia, so if someone has some experiences to share please feel free.
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Ravenous Torton missions are the way to go on Rori. Get in a large group, or group with someone with a few pets, and pull these 12k missions. They spawn 3 tortons each spawn, for a total of 9 tortons, at close to 4.5-5k xp per torton. Not great resists, and usually about 9k HAM...and they don't hit too hard...some good kinetic Ubese will do ya.
On Dantooine you can also go after Huurton Howlers and Huurton Huntresses. Huntresses giving more experience than Howlers, but very worthwhile as far as exp.
Huntresses do deathblow, but I'm not sure about Howlers. They are naturally aggressive. There is an occasionally fairly tough version of the Howler that occasionally spawns from their lairs just before it is destroyed. Spawn two at a time.
Piket Plains Walker missions are nice, just be aware that they assist each other. Passive creatures for the most part. Spawn in threes.
There are non-mission lairs that have Piket females, or a name close to that. These creatures do not assist, so if you find one of those lairs, you can leave the females for last, while taking care of the other pikets that are around. These lairs do spawn an aggressive Piket.
Savage Quenkers melee with you, and are generally easy to kill. With just fanshot and a good pistol I was destroying the lairs and all quenkers in approx 30-45 seconds.
Then there are Vorritor Dashers if I remember right. If you have good buffs and little fear of poison like me, I found these things so easy it was crazy. They would even poison each other and fight themselves for me, so it was easy to sit back and AOE them with fanshot. Excellant...excellant xp if you are up to it. They also have no acid or heat resists.
Please keep in mind I always have vesarian brandy now as well as doctor buffs when I hunt. Poison from these things is nothing to me and all they are is an exp cow.
Just for a bit of perspective on how fast you can get exp with savage Quenkers and Vorritor Dashers, last night I went out and hunting for pistol xp. I earned well over 450k pistol exp and 150k combat, in less than 2 hours doing those, and I was hardly pushing myself. I did have fanshot, a good fwg5 (prenerf) and stances 3 for speed when I did this. For some people this is not an option, but I hope the general hunting on dantooine that I've tried to share here will help.
Message Edited by Smuggler_Caylin on 02-24-200402:55 PM
Message Edited by Smuggler_Caylin on 02-25-200401:25 AM
The Infamous Caylin Borealis - First Master Smuggler on Bria One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! :The Ghost with the Most:
Punkrocker6177
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Posts: 700
Registered: 07-10-2003
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Atlan
Server: Kettemoor
Actually, the tortons are really easy. If you have novice pistoleer, and no knockdown, use your combat xp for pmd1, the pistol whip. They go down really fast. I'm at Pistoleer: 0|1|1|1 and smuggler 1|1|1|0, and they go down fast. I don't use armor either, nor was I buffed last.
edit was spelling
Message Edited by Punkrocker6177 on 02-25-200404:18 PM
Anospa Mnanilk - Freedom Fighter of Corellia
Probably one of the few without a master title ever from the days of yore ( 07-10-2003)
Excellent thread. But I think there are two "sub-topics" that you must somehow emphasize to a greater degree.
1. Bufffing. You gave this brief mention, but IMO this is a VERY important topic. Good buffs will increase your XP a tremendous amount. They will allow you to stand toe-to-toe with a high-XP animal and kill him without running, feigning death, etc.
2. Grouping with your own "pal": If you own a probot or a mount, and you group with them, then ALL XP you earn is increased by up to 25% I believe. This is a huge difference maker. Turn that 3000 XP kill into a 3600 XP kill.
Note on Tatooine: (Don't have to include this if you dont want) This is a great planet to hunt if you want XP but dont necessarily care about the money. This is because if you go out about 2000m from towns, you can often find natural (non-mission) spawns that just keep giving and giving! On one Bocatt lair, I bled it for almost 40 Bocatts before it went dry! At 3900 each (grouped with my mount), you do the math. This may be an extreme example, but it IS a good planet to bleed natural lairs.
____________________________________________ Way'ev-Da on Eclipse Came to life in Restuss, on Rori, 07/03/2003 Master Rifleman 10/18/2003 - present Master Smuggler 1/25/2004 - 11/05/2004 Dancer buffs + Muon + Musician Buffs + Vasarian Brandy = Sex, Drugs, Rock&Roll, and Alcohol (Man, I love this job!)
Thanks for the info Caylin (I tend to avoid Dantooine because it is always so laggy for me). I'll get that info into the post sometime tomorrow probably.
Wayne, I didn't want to delve too deep into buffs mainly because I didn't know how much of a response this thread would get, and I felt both of those require a little bit of in depth explanation instead of brief mention. If this seems to help out or get a good response between now and when I update the post with Caylin's information then I'll type up another section that explains this in detail. Thanks for the tip though
Also, I'll add the info on Tatooine as well, since I have noticed a lot of people don't realize static spawns are a great way to get xp, as most tend to just do missions over and over. (I personally would start with a couple of missions, then run out further and hunt everything I could).
Actually, the tortons are really easy. If you have novice pistoleer, and no knockdown, use your combat xp for pmd1, the pistol whip. The go down really fast. I'm at Pistoleer: 0|1|1|1 and smuggler 1|1|1|0, and they go down fast. I don't use armor either, nor was I buffed last.
Thanks for that tip. I'll make sure I reference that as well
XiLorith
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Posts: 324
Registered: 06-27-2003
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Piket Plains Walker missions are nice, just be aware that they assist each other. Passive creatures for the most part. Spawn in threes.
I have hunted on Dant quite a bit and I have killed plenty of Piket Plains Walkers. I noticed that if I killed the females while there were scouts or males then they would assist each other. If I left the females alone and hit the scouts and males first then they did not help out.
Also seeing on how I live on Rori, besides Tortons, you can also hunt krevols, borgles, and gualamas. The latter 2 are fair to decent xp. But while on ROri best thign to do is go to the Borgle and Torton Cave. I hvae a DX2 and am a Novice Pistoleer. Most thing sin that cave are down wiht one Helath Shot and give you 900+ pistoleer xp.
Also seeing on how I live on Rori, besides Tortons, you can also hunt krevols, borgles, and gualamas. The latter 2 are fair to decent xp. But while on Rori best thign to do is go to the Borgle and Torton Cave. I hvae a DX2 and am a Novice Pistoleer. Most thing sin that cave are down wiht one Helath Shot and give you 900+ pistoleer xp.
Leviasqualls and Vir Vurs (any type) . These mobs are SUPER slow moving... and when you group with a droid they will give out decent xp.
Even if you have zero terrain negotiation you can easily kite these mobs around all day long.
The nicest thing with these 2 mobs is you are basically invincible unless you LET them hit you (bad news with leviasqualls they hit hard for a giant rabbit)
No need for buffs... no need to even carry your armor.
Leviasqualls and Vir Vurs (any type) . These mobs are SUPER slow moving... and when you group with a droid they will give out decent xp.
Even if you have zero terrain negotiation you can easily kite these mobs around all day long.
The nicest thing with these 2 mobs is you are basically invincible unless you LET them hit you (bad news with leviasqualls they hit hard for a giant rabbit)
No need for buffs... no need to even carry your armor.
Ill second the Squalls. At 0011 pistoleer/0324 Smuggler i am finding the squalls a decent target. It takes awhile to get the mission if your wanting to get paid but they are all slow. And not very bright.
I can easily get 8-10 shots on them while prone and with mask scent before they turn. Usually they go down after 5 decent hits. My action is only 600 with 500 each secondary (really need to increase those) and can take a lair and all spawns before running out of Action using a Scout blaster.
I have armor but dont need it very often (thanks though Torq!! It has saved my ass before!) when taking on these fellas.
not the best xp grouped am only getting about 400 for the regular squalls and 900+ for the tougher varieties, but they are all slow as can be.
Thanks for the added information fellas (I almost think Rori will be receiving more attention than any other planet at this point, lol). I'll compile all of this and update everything today, and with all of the responses I'll create a section dedicated to buffs and grouping as well.
On a side note, does anyone have the exact numbers on how grouping raises experience? I'm sure it would be handy to give facts, but if not then I'll just have to test over the weekend and update the numbers then.
OK, I haven't updated this to include taking two drinks of BE Vasarian Brandy (which would make this faster and better) but this is my standard:
Here is my step by step guide to hunting Giant Baz Nitches and why I love hunting them so. It is a bit grindy, but you make money and pistol XP by the truckload. Once I got Last Ditch it was pretty easy to make 150k of pistol XP per hour of play (not counting your initial time getting buffs). Obviously there are other ways to get XP fast, but I play at odd hours and prefer soloing (and have no pets) so this fit my playstyle perfectly.
Giant Baz Nitches of Dathomir: They do kinetic damage, they give 3.5+k pistol per kill, they pay 11000 credits per mission, and have no resistance to heat damage so FWG5s will mow them down. That 11k credits per mission adds up like you wouldn't believe. The other important thing is you just need a set of high-kinetic resist (60%+) Ubese armor. You will feel a touch of peril when there is a Rancor or Nightsister lair 90m away from yours, but you learn how to avoid those pretty well.
My precise technique was this:
Wear high Kinetic resist Ubese Equip an nice FWG5 (prenerf if you can get/afford it) Get buffed by a Master Doctor Fly to Dathomir Get 2 Giant Baz Nitch Missions in a similar direction Fly out to the mission If there is anything else around that I might want to hunt (no heat resists, kinetic damage creature) I don't take my Muon Gold till I need if from my specials wearing down my mind pool Fight! Fight! Fight! Drive to the next mission during the downer from the spice
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
Heres some MORE for Rori ... LMAO
