Total Galactic War: A Challenge over Taris

If it seemed like I fell off the face of the earth about a week ago and you were maybe wondering why I wasn't posting about recent events about which I should surely have something to say, such as last week's dev livestream or the new WoW expansion, it's because it was Total Galactic War in SWTOR again, and it ended up being another very intense one. I don't mean for these things to swallow up my entire free time, but sometimes it just happens!

As the last TGW had occurred only about a month ago, I wasn't exactly itching for a particularly tough or involved competition, but unfortunately it doesn't matter how much care I take in selecting an invasion target and avoiding the mega guilds, it seems to be becoming a trend that some relatively unknown guild likes to muscle in on our territory, and it's always one that is both very determined to win while also not really knowing what they signed themselves up for. (Twin Suns Squadron has won every single planet it invaded during Total Galactic War since at least 2022. We're not easy prey for newcomers.)

I had chosen for us to invade Taris since a couple of our members still needed the achievement for that one, and it's often one of the easier options as it's split by faction, meaning we'd only have to go up against other Republic guilds, with any Imperial competitors completely out of the picture. On top of that, the guild that was in the lead when we invaded didn't have a very high score, nor did they look particularly threatening.

Trouble on the horizon (or scoreboard) 

However, we'd barely claimed our spot when another contender appeared, a guild called "Sequels are trash". Now, I'm not going to lie: that guild name immediately made me want to beat them more than our average opponents. While I'm no fan of the sequel trilogy myself, I'm very wary of people who make disliking a certain piece of media their primary flag to fly online. (That said, it was amusing to me how whenever I wanted to check what they were up to during the event, I had to type "/who trash" and their guild name gave me an excuse to refer to them as "Trashies" when discussing the competition with my guildies.)

Initially, I thought that beating them should be easy enough. They were not a known entity in the Conquest scene, and the only achievement they had to their name was conquering Balmorra in the previous TGW, but with a relatively low score and against no real competition. So my guildies and I didn't really fret too much about it for the first couple of days. We made a point of taking part in some dedicated activities to earn Conquest points like we always do, but without too much pressure.

When my ops team didn't have a good group for master mode Dread Fortress on Wednesday for example, we decided to do MM Explosive Conflict instead "for the Conquest points". While we did complete it, we made quite a mess of it and it took us all evening to clear, which meant that it didn't really make for a very effective method of Conquest point acquisition. However, we weren't really worried yet at this point, as our competition didn't seem super organised yet either, even if they were initially ahead of us in terms of points. Like us, they visibly had some people working on Conquest but no large-scale efforts were in progress whenever we checked.

However, as we ramped up our efforts in order to catch up to and overtake them, so did they in order to stay in first place, seemingly always just a little bit ahead of us, no matter how hard we tried. When we did more uprisings for points, they also started doing more uprisings, and they always had just a few more people online - not so many that they were unbeatable, but just enough to always stay that little bit ahead.

By Saturday morning I decided to post a call to action on Discord, asking more guildies to take part in our Conquest shenanigans, as clearly more numbers were needed. That same evening, we decided to go rampaging across the galaxy as a group to mass-generate points. (I explained this concept before.) We thought that this was going to be a sure-fire way to overtake the Trashies, but lo and behold, two hours after we started, they suddenly had twenty people online rampaging across the galaxy too. We couldn't help but wonder what was going on in that guild, for them to be able to spontaneously get so many people online to grind points late on a Saturday evening (since the rampage clearly seemed to be a response to our own). Did none of them have anything else going on in their lives? Either way we had at least briefly overtaken them by this point, though somehow they always seemed to be able to pull another million out of thin air at the end of the day.

A strange proposition

Things took a strange turn on Sunday evening. We had just set out to start rampaging again when a member of the guild brought to our attention that someone from the Trashies with whom he had sometimes interacted in PvP and pugs had messaged him about Total Galactic War. Specifically, the person had asked whether we were saving our Personal Conquest Requisitions for the end, as he had heard from someone else that we had "cheated" our way to victory that way in the past. (I bet that was someone from Ace of Saints!) Specifically, he stated that if we were planning to do that again, they might as well give up now and not waste their time.

We were on voice chat when we were told about this and weren't quite sure what to make of it - it sounded almost too good to be true! Sure, we'd enjoyed the competition well enough until then, but we hadn't really intended for it to be quite so tough this time around, so being handed a win a few days in advance certainly seemed appealing, though there were also concerns that it might be some kind of trick or trap.

Either way, we advised our guildie that it was okay to answer honestly and confirm that yes, this was usually our MO during Total Galactic War. He also hinted that we'd made up pretty big discrepancies via the use of PQRs in the past, without giving away any exact numbers or what we had in store this time. For a brief while we were very cheerful at the idea that we'd practically won already.

However, not long afterwards, the Trashies once again formed up to start rampaging again too. I'm still not sure what happened there exactly, considering the guy seemed so close to understanding the situation - whether his offer to surrender had never been genuine and he'd simply been fishing for information, whether there was some kind of miscommunication or what - either way they were once again back to fighting harder than ever. We initially just shrugged it off as an oddity and continued our grinding for points as before.

Another twist and - a spy?

However, things took an even stranger turn less than twenty-four hours later, as the guy from the Trashies whispered our guildie again, this time to tell him that someone from his guild had transferred in Personal Conquest Requisitions worth thirty million points from other servers, and while he didn't exactly approve of winning that way, he could hardly stop him now, could he?

This 180 degree turn from seemingly being ready to give up to "no, you should probably give up" was very surprising, and to be honest, not very believable from our point of view. Only the day before, he'd been very incredulous at just how many points worth of tokens my guild had saved up in previous Total Galactic Wars, questioning whether that was even possible without exploiting, just to suddenly find a guildie of his own who'd had millions worth of tokens in his back pocket all along?

We had first-hand experience with what it meant to use thirty million points worth of PQRs in a single event, and while it's very much possible, it takes a lot of time and considerable effort to accumulate that many of them. In our case, it had been years in the making, after we'd missed out on our chance to conquer Belsavis again and again, and had reached a point where we were basically willing to do whatever it took to win it. The idea that someone in a guild that hadn't really been interested in Conquest before would just suddenly be able to conjure up 200+ PQRs on a whim seemed highly unlikely.

We'd barely had time to discuss this when another twist occurred - another guildie who isn't actually very involved in guild business and doesn't care about Conquest (but had taken note of all the chatter about it this week) piped up to say that he was on a lot of different Discord servers, including the one for Sequels are trash, and that someone there had just posted a screenshot of a character with a whole cargo bay full of Personal Conquest Requisitions, which he then went on to share with us.

One reason this was startling was that someone had been joking off-handedly about how we might have a "spy" in the guild, and now it turned out that we kind of did. Since the guildie in question doesn't care about Conquest either way, I doubt he was intentionally leaking secrets to the Trashies, but he might well have thrown some off-hand comments about our strategy their way, just like he'd now shared their screenshot with us.

The other surprise was that the screenshot seemed to provide proof that the mysterious Trashy with his thirty million points worth of tokens appeared to be real - though doubt remained of course, because no character or guild name were visible in the screenshot, so it really could have been anyone, or it could have been photo-shopped, or... well, you get the idea.

I'm not gonna lie: in the moment, seeing all of that was a bit disheartening. I was willing to believe that we were unlucky enough for the story to be true, and thirty million points is a lot to overcome. I was pretty sure that we didn't have that many PQRs lying around at that moment ourselves. Did that mean we had already lost?

No, giving up over mere words was not the Twin Suns way. I quickly pulled myself together and told the other officers that while I'd acknowledged the risk of losing, we weren't just going to hand victory to the Trashies without them still having to work for it. I did a tally of our biggest token holders and decided that all was not lost yet, though there was a potential chance that things could still go very wrong for us.

The final countdown

On Monday things seemed to be fairly quiet in Sequels are trash, which certainly aligned with the idea that they were confident in their victory now that this one guy had an additional thirty million points in his back pocket. I'd shared my plans with my guildies on voice chat, and they agreed that we weren't just going to lie down and give up, though we considered not bothering with a rampage that evening to give ourselves a bit of a break.

However, not much later the Trashies suddenly surged in activity again and were back to rampaging themselves - which was odd and seemed to contradict the idea that they were sure of their impending victory. We decided to follow their lead at least for a couple of hours so as not to fall too far behind, and for once, we actually had more people online than they did. We were slowly but surely catching up again - until, like clockwork, they always seemed to gain another 200k points from somewhere. This made it very obvious that for all the questioning of how legit it was to be using Personal Conquest Requisitions at the end, they clearly had no qualms about popping them like candy to stay in first place at all times - something that people had already suspected, but which to me hadn't been fully proven until that night.

There was one funny moment when both guilds ended up running into each other in the heroic area on Oricon, and things were extremely manic for a minute or two as people were surging all over the place and both friendly and hostile emotes were flying left and right. Personally I just kept yelling "follow the star" as I was worried about some of my more easily confused guildies running after the other ops group by accident.

We finished the night being somewhat behind yet again, but only by a few million. Just as I was about to log off, I saw someone from Sequels are trash walk up to me on the fleet and recognised the same guy that had been talking to our guildie. He soon whispered me too, to ask about our token stockpile once again, and happily chattered away about how it had been a fun competition but surely there was no point in either of us wasting our resources on a big token battle tomorrow. I gave a few polite but non-committal replies and then logged off. For someone who seemingly wanted us to just fold, he still seemed quite uncertain of his own guild's position.

The next morning a small number of us ground out a few more points the normal way and then gathered round just before Conquest's end. The worst case scenario I could think of was that the enemy's big PQR holder just decided to pop them all to ensure the Trashies' victory, but on the plus side, since 200+ tokens which are subject to the global cooldown actually take more than ten minutes to click, we'd be able to see it coming.

What I considered the more likely scenario, since they did have a "natural" lead of several million points and based on the previous night's whispers showing a reluctance to go all out and "waste" resources, was that they'd be at the ready to use some Personal Conquest Requisitions if we showed any sign of fighting but would probably prefer not to use too many, if any at all. This seemed confirmed when they used a few tokens to increase their lead back up to about five million and then stopped.

Meanwhile I'd instructed the guildies online with me to "play dead" and wait. Based on some of our previous token clicking wars, I had a pretty good idea of how long personal point gains took to be added first to the guild total and then to the global scoreboard, so I waited until the Conquest timer had nearly run out and then told everyone to go (as well as clicking my own Personal Conquest Requisitions). About a minute later, our guild score jumped, and with less than a minute to go on Total Galactic War, our new, massively increased total appeared on the board and we leap-frogged the Trashies' score by about ten million points. Seconds later, Twin Suns Squadron had officially conquered Taris, without our opponents having had any real chance to react. We did not get any more messages about what a great competition it had been after that.

Ultimate thoughts

And thus another epic tale of Conquest victory was added to the annals of the Twin Suns. It definitely was a bit of a weird one though and provided some interesting food for thought. I find it interesting for example that everyone is fine with Personal Conquest Requisitions being used at the start or over the course of the event, but if you save them for the end, some people consider it "cheating".

All the conversations with what I can only assume was an officer or even the GM of Sequels are trash definitely added a strange new dimension to things as well. It made me realise that I definitely prefer to not get interpersonally involved with our opponents in Conquest. "Psychological warfare" via the scoreboard is one thing (such as by pushing your score up strategically to demotivate your opponent), but trying to talk them into or out of things one to one is bit too awkward for my personal taste. I just want to compete based on the rules of the game, and maybe do the virtual equivalent of a polite handshake at the end to pay respect to a good competition.

With all the messages we got... I still don't quite know what to make of them even now. Was it all part of a grand game of deception/trying to get us to give up? The kindest interpretation I can think of is that the guy kind of thought of a stash of Conquest Requisitions as something like a pile of nukes - better used for deterrence than actually deployed - and that it genuinely pained him to think of seeing it all get burned up. But this is just a game; nobody gets hurt in Total Galactic War and the resources are there to be used.

I do think it was ultimately ironic that the Trashies had more information about us than most of our recent opponents, that we explicitly told them what our strategy was going to be - and yet they still fought until the very end just to lose to us doing exactly what we said we were going to do. If you read this, man, I hope your guildies didn't end up being too cranky, and I do still agree that it was a fun contest.

Makeb GSI Missions Guide

The below guide was originally written by FJ Brodie for his website FibroJedi. After he decided to shut the site down, I decided to reproduce this and his other GSI guides on my blog - with his permission of course. I also made a few small amendments to update them for the current level cap and to add some new information. You can still find an archived version of his original guide here. 

One of my favourite planets in SWTOR is Makeb. It’s sunny, picturesque and the music is relaxing. Although it has a few weekly Heroic Missions, once you’ve done Rise of the Hutt Cartel, there’s little reason to return – except maybe to gather crafting materials. However Makeb GSI Missions are relaxing repeatable daily/weekly missions. They also crop up occasionally in conquest. So here’s my guide, enjoy!

Makeb GSI Missions Locations Map

There are 5 GSI Missions available on Makeb. As with Tatooine, there are 4 ‘standard’ quests and one ‘Heroic’. There's also a weekly that requires you to complete 10 GSI Missions in one week and will get you bonus reputation and rewards.

Here’s the map showing where each mission is:

Quake Engines

This Makeb GSI mission takes place in the Westwater Settlements. If you’ve completed Rise of the Hutt Cartel, then the Hovertanks in this area are ‘Yellow’, meaning they don’t attack on sight. There are small regulator patrols, but you can clear this GSI Mission with minimal (and sometimes no) enemy interaction.

The aim here is to find three Vibration Emitters and dig them up using your Seeker Droid. These look like little black boxes with antenna sticking up. They rarely spawn near each other, so your best bet is to run/ride around looking for them. As with the Tatooine missions, using your eyes will save you a world of pain compared to using the droid and moving a few paces!

Here are a couple of screenshots showing what the vibration emitters look like:

Quake Engines Mission Rewards

• Repair Toolkit: Small Reputation increase with Galactic Solutions Industries
• Credits (at Level 80): 18,630

Origins of the Makrin

Makrin are a tree-like creature native to Makeb. I think they also appear on Odessen in KotFE Chapter 12 – Visions in the Dark. Young Makrin emerge from the ground shedding Proto-Bark Casings in the process. It is these barks that Galactic Solutions Industries need you to dig up.

Finding the Makrin

To find them you’ll need to travel to the Sunken Pool on Frinn Mesa. The Imperial entrance is marked below. Republic characters need to enter the clearing from a narrow gap in the cliffs to the north (around 1210,2110).

For the Imperials at least, once you’ve travelled there once, there is a quick travel point to save the hassle of the long trek. This Sunken Pool is serene and beautiful, but the creatures there aren’t always friendly!

Proto-Bark Casings can be really obvious (looking like a huge branch), but mostly they are small, unassuming shreds of wood. They do trigger a ‘tooltip’ when you hover your cursor over them.

Use your Seeker Droid to dig up three of these Makrin Proto-Bark and the mission will complete automatically once you dig up the third one. Oh and Makrin look pretty, but when you anger them, they are terrifying!

Origins of the Makrin Mission Rewards

• Repair Toolkit: Small Reputation increase with Galactic Solutions Industries
• Credits (at Level 80): 18,630

The Unbreakable Code

This mission takes you deep into Regulator Territory. You will need to defeat a few regulators and trash some droids on this one. Oh, and probably sacrifice a few lizards and Tonitrans (bring me back a steak if you do, okay?). The premise here is quite straightforward. You head to The Sanctuary area of Makeb and are looking for Four Transmission Towers. These are marked clearly on your map, but there are a lot of similar towers in this area! The Unbreakable Code is a Macrobinocular Mission. Get the towers in your sights, scan them, then upload the data to GSI Headquarters using the handy quick button in the mission list. Job done!

Unbreakable Code Mission Rewards

• Repair Toolkit: Small Reputation increase with Galactic Solutions Industries
• Credits (at Level 80): 18,630

Volcanic Metals

Time to head deep underground in the Volcanic Mesa on Makeb. Your mission here is to dig up a sample of Burnished Volcanic Metal in each of the four areas. These are hard to spot (see screenshot below). But again you are better using your eyes than relying on your Seeker Droid.

You will also have to be careful of the creatures here. There are gold- and white-level foes in this area. Even the ‘weak’ enemies have an annoying push-back ability which can send you flying into the lava. So try not to burn up during this mission!

You need four burnished volcanic metals. And you won’t be able to dig up more than one from each of the four zones. Your Seeker Droid will say that it cannot find anything to excavate, even though there are multiple samples in each zone. So be prepared to fight off (or if you have stealth, sneak around) plenty of critters.

Get your four samples and your mission will auto-complete.

Volcanic Metals Mission Rewards

• Repair Toolkit: Small Reputation increase with Galactic Solutions Industries
• Credits (at Level 80): 18,630

Guarded Research [Heroic 2+]

Guarded Research is a two-stage mission, similar to A Droid Defiant on Tatooine. You are after a set of schematics that Galactic Solution Industries wants to get their hands on, held somewhere in the Hutt Strongholds region of Makeb. As the [Heroic] tag implies, this is the hardest of the Makeb GSI Missions. Here we go…

Stage 1: Scan Three Communications Satellites

If you’re playing as an Imperial, two of these are visible from just outside the taxi area. The third you will need to travel on foot or ride around. I advise on foot as there are regulator forces, static and running around. And there are sentry cannons also manned by Regulators. So, unless you have stealth on your side, you’ll have to fight through some. Even if you do have stealth, there are stealth-detection droids scattered throughout this region.

As a Republic player, you'll have to travel a bit further to be able to scan all three targets. Be aware there are a lot of satellite dishes in the Hutt Strongholds, but you need the specific three to triangulate the location of the schematics.

Stage 2: Revealing the Schematics

Once you have all three, the location of the Schematics is revealed. And the hard work starts! I had a lot of trouble as a healer on this mission. Much easier with player DPS and companion heals, though a high influence level companion is advisable here.

Room 1: There is a panel half-hidden behind some crates. Interacting with this will trigger an alarm. Two sentry turrets will spawn and a gold-level NPC runs into the room. Despatch the turrets – they tend to target your companion so take those down as best as you can. Then kill the human. Heal up!

Room 2: There is a similar panel in room 2 as in room 1. This time however, two gold-level droids emerge from the lockers. Just focus on destroying the one with HL in its name first, as it heals the other one. If it gets stuck in its locker and you become unable to target and hit it, try running around an obstacle or a corner to break line of sight and force it to come out.

Room 3: The Rogue Mercenary Captain

Finally you get to your boss. Good time to trigger Heroic Moment. Some of his abilities are quite devastating, but the Rogue Mercenary Captain is not immune to interrupts, so make the most of that fact. Once you’ve dispatched this guy, collect the schematics from the Terminal that was behind him and the mission will complete automatically.

Guarded Research Mission Rewards

• Repair Toolkit: Medium Reputation increase with Galactic Solutions Industries
• Credits (at Level 80): 29,064

TL;DR Makeb GSI Missions

Although they took time to explain, the Makeb GSI Missions are quicker than those on Tatooine as there is less wandering around. The Heroic 2+ is pretty tough, but that balances the more easy-going four other missions. If you’d like more details about how to acquire your Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid, you can check Swtorista's guide. May the Force Be With You. 

Back in My Day: Conquest

"Back in My Day" is an (extremely) irregular series in which I muse about how certain aspects of SWTOR have changed over time. Today I'd like to talk about Conquest, a system that heavily influences the way I play the game. On any character I'll play in a given week, I try to accumulate at least 100k Conquest points to hit my personal target, and on the flip side, I often see hitting my personal target as a cue to switch to playing a different character. This wasn't always the case, however, and I think it's interesting to think about how this system has evolved over time.

The Early Days: A Different Time

Conquest was added to Star Wars: The Old Republic when it was less than three years old, with patch 2.9 in August 2014. It was part of the Galactic Strongholds update that introduced housing to the game, and to this day I wonder a bit just how these two systems ended up being bundled together, as their connection through the guild flagship - which is both a type of housing and required to take part in guild Conquests - is rather tenuous. I can only guess that the original plan for guild warfare was perhaps a bit more involved than what we ultimately ended up getting.

This original iteration of Conquest was quite different from what we have today, with the most important difference being that there were no guild targets, so the "guild component" of Conquest was entirely a matter of PvP. The guild in first place on the scoreboard would be the official conquerors of the planet, and the other nine on the board would get a consolation prize, but for everyone else there was nothing beyond their personal rewards.

Objectives and scoring were also somewhat different. As you can see in the above screenshot, everything about Conquest was contained in a single window. The personal target score varied from one event to the next from what I remember, with some weeks requiring as little as 20k points, while Total Galactic War required a whopping 50k.

Earning those points was also quite a bit harder due to the dearth of objectives (and completing objectives was the only way to earn points). There were only two types: one-time and endlessly repeatable. "Once per day per legacy" wasn't a thing yet, and the few objectives that existed were very limited in number. Crafting war supplies and running warzones were present pretty much in every event, but aside from that there tended to just be a few items like killing a specific world boss or running low-level heroics (which I thought was very pointless and boring, as this was before level-scaling, so you were literally going back to low-level planets just to farm grey mobs).

The one exception to this state of affairs, which weirdly made hitting your personal target even easier than it would ever be again later on, was crating war supplies, which as mentioned above was one of the endlessly repeatable objectives. So if your character was a crafter and you were interested and/or wealthy enough to accumulate all the right materials, you could basically send all your companions out to craft war supplies, log off for a few hours, and then come back to a completed conquest target.

The invasion bonus you got for invading a planet wasn't a flat percentage but rather a multiplier (usually 2x or 3x) tied to certain objectives. These varied per event and planet and were supposed to be loosely thematic I think, so if the event was "Clash in Hyperspace" there were bigger multipliers on GSF, or if the Nar Shaddaa world boss was a one-time weekly objective, you'd get a bigger multiplier if you'd invaded Nar Shaddaa than if you'd invaded another planet. These connections were fairly tenuous though, and most of them didn't make obvious sense to the same degree as the examples I just cited.

Other differences to today's system were that your stronghold bonus was based on how much furniture you had in your home, leading to people with no interest in decorating to stuff their houses with nothing but chairs or posters just to get the numbers up.

Also, each event only lasted six days, as the scores would lock in on Monday at reset time, followed by 24 hours of "downtime" until the next event.

The initial response to Conquests as far as I could tell was bemusement and slight confusion (my own first post about the subject was called "Conquests - what are they good for?") but the system got its hooks into people pretty quickly. I noted that "one of my guildies commented that he can't remember how he used to spend his time in the game before he started grinding conquest points" and for a while it was pretty exciting, but I think for most people a sort of disillusionment set in after a few months, as - crafting aside - Conquest did not mesh well with other in-game activities. The limited number of objectives meant that you had to play in a pretty repetitive way to earn points, and wanting to do other things like level an alt or play group content with guildies was not supported by the system. Obviously people still took part, but my general observation from the leaderboards at the time was that participation seemed to be decreasing, and my own interest kind of dropped off a cliff when the Shadow of Revan expansion came out (because there basically seemed to be a hundred other things to do than Conquest).

I then basically stopped paying much attention to Conquests for the next two years or so, except when my guild managed to secure a spot on the leaderboard a couple of times a year, but even about that I don't remember that much. The devs made the occasional tweak to the system, but it just wasn't that interesting to me anymore.

The Big Conquest Revamp of 2018

Everything changed in March 2018, when patch 5.8 brought with it a big revamp to the Conquest system that largely made it what it is today (one of the few great things to come out of Knights of the Eternal Throne). Changes included:

• Conquest being split into two windows in the UI, one for objectives and personal progress, and one for the guild invasion
• The introduction of planetary guild targets
• Lots of new objectives, including ones you could complete once per day per legacy
• Invasion bonuses for specific objectives were removed
• Stronghold bonus being based on the stronghold's expansion (how many rooms you'd opened up) instead of decoration percentage 
• Completing Conquest objectives also gave XP and credits
• The endlessly repeatable war supplies objective was no longer there all the time (and had also been nerfed I believe, though I don't recall the exact numbers)

This wasn't without hiccups - going back to what I wrote about it at the time, I'd forgotten that initially the devs had been so conservative with how many points were awarded for the new objectives that during the first couple of weeks of the new system, almost no guilds on the large and medium planets even managed to hit their targets, but this was quickly rectified in subsequent patches.

The following months actually turned into a bit of golden age for my guild in terms of Conquest, as we'd just absorbed members of another guild that were quite interested in Conquest, and our collaborative efforts to pursue the new objectives together were very successful - also largely due to the fact that it turned out that crafting had, in fact, not been nerfed nearly as much as everyone initially believed. Patch 5.10 in December 2018 also added guild perks and guild levelling, which was also based on Conquest point gains and added that extra cherry on top of our successes. 

This was not to last, however. While there hasn't been another change to Conquest as big as the revamp of 2018, some smaller changes that were made further down the line still ended up having a pretty big impact on the experience.

Conquest Points for Everything

Possibly the biggest of these came with patch 5.10.3a in June 2019. (It was actually meant to launch with 5.10.3 a week prior but had basically crashed the servers, so they needed to make some modifications before pushing it live again.) As of this patch, a "percentage of all experience earned [was] converted into Conquest Points". This included Galactic Command experience at the level cap, and kind of made Conquest objectives obsolete overnight, as you'd get more points than you would ever need just by doing dailies or killing random mobs. I was very dismayed by this, as actively being strategic about earning Conquest points no longer mattered - all you had to do was play any way you liked (as an individual) or make sure you were the biggest guild in town (as a guild).

Fortunately Bioware made further adjustments with the launch of Onslaught in October of the same year, not by nerfing anything but by massively increasing the points required to hit your personal target (from something like 15k to 50k) while also boosting the points earned from objectives, in order to put them back on the map as something that was worth pursuing.

Things swung slightly the other way again with patch 6.1.1 in April 2020 when the devs introduced the three different level brackets for Conquest objectives and added a ton of new objectives that were often ridiculously easy to complete. Again, I was personally kind of uncomfortable with this and ended up playing less since Conquest had been a big motivator for me and I could easily reach my personal target just by logging in and pressing a few buttons. My guild also went back to not being competitive outside of Total Galactic War since effortless point gains from just levelling and doing the story were too much to keep up with.

One degenerate practice that developed over the following year was that of "newbie farming" - creating a guild that invited low-level players to generate easy points, and then the GM would boot them again the moment they became inactive. Bioware eventually addressed this by making it so your personal points no longer counted towards the guild target during your first week, as well as changing it so that getting kicked would also remove that person's contribution from the guild total.

Stabilisation in Legacy of the Sith

With Legacy of the Sith, the pendulum swung slightly back the other way one more time as the devs decided to rein Conquest rewards in again ever so slightly:

• Personal Conquest targets were doubled from 50k to 100k, because people were basically overshooting their targets constantly as it was.
• Credit rewards were removed from Conquest objectives as they were apparently a massive contributor to inflation.
• Conquest objectives and completing your personal Conquest also no longer awarded XP. In the previous iteration, it had been possible to get into a loop where you earned XP for completing Conquest objectives, then got more Conquest credit for levelling up, which resulted in yet more Conquest objective completion, and so on and so forth. (One of my own alts made it most of the way to the level cap just by standing in her Coruscant apartment that way.)
• With Season 2, Conquest also became an integral part of Galactic Seasons, with the daily objective requiring you to earn 25k points. (In Season 1, all seasonal objectives had simply required you to complete distinct activities, independent of Conquest.)

And that's more or less where we've been for the last four years. It's honestly been nice to have some stability in that area of the game, and while I still feel wistful for the times when Conquest objectives were more limited and required active pursuing, I can't deny that I've had a lot of fun competing in Total Galactic War for the past few years.

We'll see whether Broadsword will feel the need to tinker with the system again when 8.0 comes around, or even with Galactic Season 10, which is supposed to mix things up in some form as well. 

Hoth GSI Missions Guide

The below guide was originally written by FJ Brodie for his website FibroJedi. After he decided to shut the site down, I decided to reproduce this and his other GSI guides on my blog - with his permission of course. I also made a few small amendments to update them for the current level cap and to add some new information. You can still find an archived version of his original guide here.

Welcome to the back of beyond – also known as Hoth! Even on this snowball, Galactic Solutions Industries has research to do. And, of course, you’ve been coopted to do that research. So here’s my SWTOR Hoth GSI Missions Guide! I’ve included notes, screenshots and a couple of videos to help guide you through the icy wastelands.

Picking up the GSI Missions

Once you arrive on the surface of Hoth from the Space Station, you’ll need to locate the GSI Missions Terminal. In the past you also had to return to this terminal to hand in some mission items, but with patch 7.0, all the GSI dailies on Hoth were changed to auto-complete as soon as you fulfil the last objective.

Imperial: Inside Dorn Base

For the Empire, the GSI Terminal is right near where you properly start the Hoth story arc.

Republic: Exit of Aurek Base

For the Republic faction, the Terminal and dropbox are found right by the TaunTaun vendors.

Quick-slotting the Seeker Droid and Macrobinoculars

If you haven’t completely finished The Shroud and the Dread Seeds questlines, you can find your Seeker Droid and Macrobinoculars in the Quest Items tab of Inventory. You’ll find GSI missions easier if you just quick-slot these, rather than keeping the Inventory UI open.

Missions

Some of the Hoth GSI Missions inter-link. This means you can often progress two of them at the same time. I’ve tried to remember to note down where this is the case to cut down travel time.

Crash Courses (DAILY)

Hoth has, apparently, a particularly strong gravitational pull. This has led to a number of starship wreckages scattered across the planet. For reasons we probably don’t want to know Galactic Solutions Industries want to figure out how to replicate the effect. The mission involves scanning wreckages and downed escape pods so GSI can reverse engineer the effect.

Crash Courses: Notes

Mission: Scan Crashed Ships or Escape Pods × 4
Region: Clabburn Tundra, one in Crescent Canyon

• If you’re playing an Imperial-faction character, the wreck at -3984,540 (Wreck 2 in the video below) is surrounded by Republic soldiers and the occasional Talz. You may need to clear a few out to scan it without being attacked.
• If you’re playing a Republic-faction character, the wreck at -2522,-465 (Wreck 4 in the video below) has Imperial mobs on the approach to it. Because of a dip in the snow you can’t really scan it from afar, so defeating some Imperials will be necessary. But I’m sure you won’t mind: there is a war going on, after all!

Note: this wreck is en route to one of the sites for Picking up the Pieces so it make sense to complete this mission at the same time as Crash Courses.

Mission Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Picking Up the Pieces (DAILY)

Despite extensive funds and influence, the White Maw Pirates have made off with research data from GSI’s Superweapons Division. Data breaches are not just our galaxy’s concern! GSI want that data returned.

Thankfully (for GSI at least), the pirates’ ship crashed into Hoth, presumably thanks to the gravitational pull mentioned in Crash Courses.

Mission Summary: Scan and Recover Crashed Ship Parts
Regions: Clabburn Tundra, High Mount Ridge and Glacial Fissure

This is one of the Hoth GSI Missions with a random element in it. There are five possible locations where the research data may have crashed. The mission will not complete until you’ve found the specific crashed ship containing it. But the “correct” ship may differ each time you do Picking Up the Pieces.

Site 1: Crescent Canyon (Clabburn Tundra)

This wreck is near the most Northern point of Crescent Canyon. It is filled with Imperials and the occasional Wampa.

Site 2: Highmount Road (Highmount Ridge) -1635,471

Road! Ha! Please note this coordinate is not in the tunnel-like section lower-down but up on top. If you can see this view, you’re in the wrong area.

Apart from the occasional Ice Cat, nothing should bother you here.

Site 3: Highmount Bluffs (Highmount Ridge) -740,1607

This crash site is South of Leth Outpost (Imperial). The path South is patrolled by White Maw Pirates and their droids. Further South are Ortolans and Talz (Republic allies). Once you’ve passed the Ortolan camp, the path is easy to the next wreck.

Site 4: Eruption Impasse (Glacial Fissure) – 620,386

This crash site is in the same area (and on the same level) as the volcanoes for Forged in Fire. So if you haven’t found the GSI data yet by wreck 4, do Forged in Fire at the same time. 

Site 5: Northern Whitelands (Glacial Fissure) – 900,-862

If you have yet to complete Warped to the Core, then the Ambria’s Fury is just a short distance from Wreck 5. Aside from the occasional Talz (Republic allies) and Ice Cat, you should be fairly safe from interruptions while scanning this wreck.

Picking Up the Pieces Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Beneath the Spires (DAILY)

Crashed ships of recent origin are one thing. Ancient starships buried under many centuries of ice and snow is a totally different matter. Galactic Solutions Industries believes unearthing (or un-icing?) these starships would be valuable to their research.

FJ’s Note: despite the Seeker Droid seeming to just scratch the surface when it “digs”, apparently that cable can excavate starship parts from under many layers of snow and ice!

Mission Summary: Dig Up Ship Components Near Ship Debris × 3
Region: Jagged Plains, Clabburn Tundra

Health Warning: World Boss Gargath may be wandering around here. He was there when I was! Aside from that there are plenty of Whitefangs lurking around here too.

All you need to do is locate 3 × Ship Debris (see screenshot below). Then excavate them with your Seeker Droid. You can hover your cursor over scrap metals. The hover text will then confirm if it’s ship debris.

Once you've dug up three pieces of ship debris, the mission completes automatically.

Beneath the Spires Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Forged in Fire (DAILY)

If you’ve wandered SWTOR’s rendition of Hoth (on a day you don’t have a headache, or didn’t before you landed on Hoth) you will have noticed some small volcanos. These volcanoes (which are pretty small) yield metallic ores that are instantly cooled by Hoth’s rather cold climate.

GSI have called this “Embersteel” that it believes only occurs near these volcanoes. Your research could assist the Empire (or Republic) with state-of-the-art plasma cannons.

FJ’s Note: Of course, your research will only give you a small discount on such amazing tech. Available exclusively from GSI, naturally!

Mission Summary: Dig Up Embersteel Ores inside Volcanoes x 3
Region: Eruption Impasse (Glacial Fissure)

• If you have not completed Picking up the Pieces, then Wreck 4 is in the same area as the volcanoes.
• The area contains groups of Hailstorm Brotherhood mobs, aggressive to both Republic and Empire factions.
• Use your Seeker Droid on volcanoes to see if any Embersteel is contained inside. I think you need to scan near the top. But you don’t have to be near the top yourself – molten rock will hurt you a bit!
• If your droid returns and you have a red ring about you, pick a volcano a fair way from where you were stood.
• There are a lot of volcanoes in Eruption Impasse/Southern Crevasse, so this mission requires patience!
• The precise point you need to dig on a volcano may take a few attempts. If you get a green circle around you after a failed dig attempt just adjust the area you’re digging slightly. Move in the direction of the solid green segment of the circle.

Eruption Impass from above

Seeker Droid digging into a volcano

Red and green circles after a dig attempt

Forged in Fire Rewards

• Credits: 18,630
• Reputation: Repair Toolkit (Small Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

Warped to the Core (HEROIC 2+)

Health Warning: This Hoth GSI Heroic is by far the hardest of all those available for Galactic Solutions Industries. There are multiple factors at play and it is timed. Timed missions are really bad for my Fibromyalgia, which is one reason I’ve taken so long to psych myself up to write this SWTOR Hoth GSI Guide!

Back Story

GSI are really interested in one particular downed Imperial ship – the Ambria’s Fury. They believe its reactor core has been affecting the ship’s durasteel hull. They intend to use this effect to help build new thermonuclear weaponry.

Yes, you’re going into an enclosed nuclear radiation box! So GSI recommend (!) finding and using any protective gear you find.

Mission Summary: Investigate the Ambria’s Fury

Instead of doing screenshots of the mission, I’ve recorded it below. But these are a few key notes:

• The Ambria’s Fury is surrounded by groups of White Maw Pirates (aggressive to both factions). No doubt they’re hoping to find some components to sell, or to improve their own arsenal.
• Pick up the Protective Headgear! Your first thing is to find and loot the piece of headgear from the highlighted crate. This can be done immediately from entering the phase. Don't forget to also open your inventory and actually equip it. Just taking it out of the crate is not enough.
• The protection lasts 15 minutes maximum. There is no timer in the quest but you can hover your cursor over the buff to see time remaining.
• A couple of doors need clearing by destroying the barrels stacked in front of them.
• Look out for (and avoid!) pools of flowing radioactive liquid.
• You need to make it to the very far end of the Ambria’s Fury, as this is where your Irradiated Durasteel Samples can be found. This area is guarded by a Champion-class Wampa.
• Once you’re done, you can use Quick Travel to exit the phase. If your Quick Travel is still cooling down or you want to save some credits, run out as fast as you can. You will have cleared all mobs so the route out should be straightforward.
• Don't forget to put your normal headgear back on once you've completed the quest! 

Warped to the Core Rewards (Assumes L80)

• Credits: 29,064
• Reputation: Energy Field Monitor (Medium Galactic Solutions Industries gain)

TL;DR The SWTOR Hoth GSI Missions Summary

From data retrieval and digging samples from volcanoes to taking on a radioactive Wampa, the SWTOR Hoth GSI Missions have a wide variety of tasks to undertake. Some can be done without defeating any enemies at all. So dust off that cold-weather gear and go do something more interesting than stringing out a pointless Empire vs Republic battle! 

Out of Bounds, Into the Volcano

Last weekend was another one of those rare occasions when I got to join the New Outriders on Star Forge for some social fun. We killed world bosses, did some dynamic encounters together and generally had a good laugh. However, the most memorable part of the evening (for me at least) was the final activity of the day, which Intisar had advertised as "breaking reality".

To facilitate this, the attendees were whisked away to Ord Mantell, where we assembled at the southern end of Fort Garnik and were instructed to look west. "What do you see?" Int asked, and after various to-be-expected smartarse responses, we were told that the thing to look at was the mountain. We were going to climb the volcano.

Climbing walls you're not meant to climb, in order to discover terrain that players are not normally meant to see, is a time-honoured tradition in many MMOs, SWTOR included, and you can find plenty of YouTube videos out there of players breaking out of the map-imposed boundaries. I think developers are usually not very fond of this, as it can lead to all kinds of exploits, but on its most basic level, players being curious about what's beyond the visible horizon is understandable and not a bad thing.

I've never really been into that particular type of exploration as I'm no good at jumping and climbing walls, but the nice thing about undertaking something like that as a group is that people can help each other out with pulls and summons, so it didn't take us too long to get close to the visible top of the mountain.

We could tell that we were getting into an area we weren't really meant to be in when "reality broke" as Int had promised, which is to say our view of the terrain started to become glitchy, and depending on the direction in which you faced your camera, you either saw the mountain in its normal form, or an alternate reality where it was somewhat smaller, everything was orange, and player characters and mounts started to disappear. This was very disorienting and it became a lot harder to make progress, but someone managed to make it all the way to the lip of the volcano regardless and summoned the rest of us to their position.

Looking into the big... vent/caldera (?) the view was slightly strange, presenting a smooth, mirrored surface that looked almost like some sort of lake. After a bit of dancing and taking screenshots, we decided to finish the evening by hurling ourselves into the volcano.

Surprisingly, not everyone died immediately - instead, we actually found ourselves on some rocks above the separatist base built into the volcano, where troopers and smugglers deal with the final stages of their story missions on Ord Mantell. It was interesting to see that the base could actually be accessed that way, even if it clearly wasn't meant to be and wasn't visible from the top.

Another summon from someone who'd landed in a good spot gave everyone an additional screenshot opportunity with better views and allowed for another round of communal dancing. Then we hurled ourselves to our deaths for good and said our goodbyes.

It was a silly little adventure that didn't achieve anything in terms of in-game progression but provided a great sense of joy and wonder for me personally. I always admire the creative ideas that Intisar & Co. come up with for these social events.

Alderaan GSI Missions Guide

The below guide was originally written by FJ Brodie for his website FibroJedi. After he decided to shut the site down, I decided to reproduce this and his other GSI guides on my blog - with his permission of course. I also made a few small amendments to update them for the current level cap and to add some new information. You can still find an archived version of his original guide here.

Welcome to my guide for the Alderaan GSI Missions in SWTOR! I really enjoy the tasks given to you by Galactic Solutions Industries here, especially digging up and testing ancient Killik weapons. But there’s a bit of everything in just five quests on this planet. There is a fair amount of travel involved, so I would urge you to enjoy the scenery of Alderaan while undertaking jobs for GSI. Relax and enjoy.

Note: Reputation gains are stated before taking any Legacy boosts.

Requirements

The only requirements for being able to pick up these Alderaan GSI Missions, and those on other planets are

• Seeker Droid: Available from Level 52 via quests Master Gend’s Mission (Republic) or An Invitation from Darth Acina (Imperial)
• Macrobinoculars: Obtained via The Shroud’s Gambit (Republic) and Shroud of Ruin (Imperial)

The quest-givers are protocol droids – some are on your faction’s fleet and some are on planets such as: Dromund Kaas, Coruscant, Makeb and Ilum. (More info on Swtorista.)

Where to Pick Up the Alderaan GSI Missions

The GSI Terminals can be found just outside
Rhu Caenus Spaceport - Imperial:

 Pallista Spaceport - Republic:

Antiquity Analysis – Find & Test Ancient Killik Weapons

The culture of the Killiks intrigues Galactic Solutions Industries so they send you to find some relics for study.

Where Are Killik Memorials on Alderaan?

To this end you need to visit one of five Killik Memorials. Choices are

• Kaamos Territory (2309,-1440): This is the closest location for Imperial characters but also requires you to make your way up a long, narrow mountain path and through a cave of Killiks.
• King’s Pass (2302,2313): This is also near a scan site for Big Red.
• The Juran Mountains (2144,-135): Overrun Mining Path, east of House Alde - a decent alternative for Imperial characters.
• Alsakan Lowlands (740,1233): Mensaav Laboratory Grounds, just north of Republic Wardpost Duvaal. And near a tower for Weather Forecast. Ignore the actual map marker here – you can’t actually reach that exact point!
• Alsakan Lowlands (1163,1488): House Teral. This is probably the most convenient location for Republic players, as it's very accessible and has three spawn points that are very close to each other.

Once there, you need to dig up 3 × Ancient Killik Weapons. There is no guesswork involved in finding where your Seeker Droid should dig. Simply look for the piled-up blocks and pottery and dig away. You will have to dispatch some Killiks to complete your excavation.

After you've collected some weapons, the fun part begins – testing them! Near to your faction’s spaceport on Alderaan is a shooting range. Simply target a droid and press the mission item icon in your tracked missions (or from Inventory if you prefer).

Antiquity Analysis auto-completes once you have tested three weapons. Sometimes you destroy a test droid and another one takes its place, sometimes they backfire!

Antiquity Analysis Rewards (Assumes Level 80)

• Credits: 18,630
• GSI Reputation: Repair Toolkit (310 Reputation)

Big Red – Where is the Giant Red Thranta on Alderaan?

In an unusal data-gathering step, GSI has attached technology to a rare Giant Red Thranta. Apparently no one on Alderaan is allowed to kill it because of its rarity. But because it is still a wild Thranta it’s not always easy to predict where it will be.

So that’s your job. On your map you are given areas where the Giant Red Thranta may be found. You will need to travel to those areas and scan it with your Macrobinoculars in order to collect the data.

Possible Locations of the Giant Red Thranta

The coordinates below and the map markers indicate roughly where you should stand and use your macrobinoculars. Not where the Thranta itself may have been spotted.

• King’s Pass: (2055,2275)
• Juuran Mountains: (2181,493) – South and a bit East of House Alde
• Juuran Mountains: (2069,-1047) – North of House Alde
• Glarus Valley: (-187,-610) – West of Wardpost Hurne
• Kaamos Territory: (320,-2780) 

Big Red is large and static, and you'll usually already be able to spot it without your Macrobinoculars. Don't get distracted by other, smaller Thrantas flying around the area; that's not what you're looking for.

Occasional Bug with ‘Big Red’

I, along with other players, have come across an occasional bug where it seems the Thranta does not spawn at all. Unfortunately you won't know that this has happened until you've visited all five map markers and found that Big Red isn't at any of them. This is a bug with the instance (not your mission), so all you can do is open your map and swap to a different instance of Alderaan. Cross your fingers that Big Red will be present in that one and revisit each quest marker again.

Enjoy the Journey

Big Red encourages you to travel around a lot – so enjoy the journey as much as the destination. Most of Alderaan’s GSI Missions are slow and relaxing, so take in the views too.

Big Red Rewards (Assumes Level 80)

• Credits: 18,630
• GSI Reputation: Repair Toolkit (310 Reputation)

Retrieve, Restore, Recycle

The legacy of Czerka Corporation rears its ugly head again. Apparently Czerka illegally dumped radioactive waste on the beautiful planet of Alderaan. Your job is to find 3 × Chemical Barrels because GSI believes they could be turned into fuel. No mention of being eco-friendly here!

Locations of Chemical Dumping Grounds

There are two sites where you can unearth chemical barrels with your Seeker Droid:

• Kings Pass: (1635,1715) – East of Republic Wardpost Luurdes
• Kaamos Territory: (144,-2196) – Just South of a scan location for Big Red.

Dig Up Irradiated Plants

Your world map will show you the region to dig in. Again, though, there is no guess-work because you just have to find irradiated plants. Use your seeker droid to dig where these irradiated plants appear and voilà, you have a Chemical Barrel.

Remember that, even if you’re Level 80 you will have to dispatch nearby mobs (mostly Killiks) to get at the Irradiated Plants.

Deposit Chemical Barrels

In order for Galactic Solutions Industries to see if the chemical waste can make a fuel source, you’ll need to deposit the barrels at the place marked on your map. Then your mission will complete.

Retrieve, Restore, Recycle, Rewards (Assumes Level 80)

• Credits: 18,630
• GSI Reputation: Repair Toolkit (310 Reputation)

Weather Forecast

From the mission log:

"GSI is interested in reverse engineering Alderaan’s famous weather towers in order to develop weather controlling technology."

Your mission then is to locate all four towers and scan them with your Macrobinoculars to send data to GSI on how they work. Here's what the towers look like:

Remember: your Macrobinoculars are super-powerful. If you can see the tower in the distance, it can be scanned. No need to wander too far into enemy territory, for example!

Weather Forecast Tower Locations

• Alsakan Lowlands: (45,1680) – West of Wardpost Duvaal.
• The Juran Mountains: (2125,-1030) – right by a scan location for Big Red.
• King’s Pass: (1990,1200) – North East of Wardpost Luurdes.
• The Glarus Valley: (450,-870) – North of Wardpost Hurne.

Weather Forecast Rewards (Assumes Level 80)

• Credits: 18,630
• GSI Reputation: Repair Toolkit (310 Reputation)

[Heroic 2+] Trade Secrets

A saboteur working for The Shroud is known to be on Alderaan, but more importantly GSI data was stolen in the process! (Sarcasm intended!) They believe the saboteur is about to send the data from one of the major “Great House” locations.

Trade Secrets: Possible Locations

•  The Apalis Coast: House Organa Cantina (Republic Ally): 809, -801
•  The Juran Mountains: House Alde (Republic Ally): 1750, -20
•  The Juran Mountains: House Thul (Imperial Ally): 1167, -1081
•  House Rist (Neutral): 589, 650

Great Houses of Alderaan – some Pointers

• House Alde: if you’re Imperial, House Alde is aligned with the Republic. You can however scan the transmitter from outside the walls (see screenshot below). Naturally if the saboteur is transmitting from inside House Alde, then you’ll have to fight your way through.

Close-up of the sort of transmitter you're looking for when scanning 

Taking on the Industrial Spy

Once you have confirmation of the Industrial Spy’s location, you’ll have to neutralise them. The boss is a Champion-grade foe with two normal-strength bodyguards. Take these out first – no more are spawned during the encounter. Then just bash the Spy into dust.

Trade Secrets Rewards (Assumes Level 80)

You have to complete at least one Heroic 2+ mission to fulfil the [Weekly] GSI Valued Partner Initiative. As this is a Heroic, the credit reward is much higher, as is the reputation gain.

• Credits: 29,064
• GSI Reputation: Energy Field Monitor (724 Reputation)

 Alderaan GSI Missions – Relax and Enjoy!

Seriously, if fast credits are your motivation, then you’re not going to do GSI Missions. By choosing to undertake them, you’re putting aside time to relax and smell the roses for a bit. The Alderaan GSI tasks are varied, interesting and enjoyable. I hope this guide has helped you out. Do let me know if anything needs to be changed or updated! Take care!