What has been your experience with Crafting?

I'm new to MMOs so I've been doing some research on Crafting and how it works with TOR. I have a good understanding for what I should choose for my character (SI Sorcerer) - archaeology, synthweaving, underground trading.

The problem is that the idea of crafting just doesn't really intrigue me. I'm debating whether or not to pursue crafting or just choosing crew skills based on other reasons...

For example, I was thinking about not choosing a craft at all, and just going with Slicing (for credits), Diplomacy (for LS or DS points), and Treasure Hunting (for Companion Affection/Influence). Would I be doing myself a disservice by going this route? Would I miss out on anything worthwhile?

I need one of you experts to help me out.

At the end of the day, skipping a crafting crew skill wont harm you, especially if you join a guild with people already working on crafting. Even if you don't though, you can easily get by without crafted equipment and slicing gets you more than enough credits to buy crafted stuff off the Galactic Market anyway. Long story short, crafting isn't necessary.

Can you change your crafting or Amy of the others choices or are they perminate?

You can change them *nods*

But if you do you'll lose all progress you've made with them so if you do change, it better be because you made a mistake and chose the wrong profession at the beginning and are just fixing the mistake early on.

To be honest, there's probably no point trying to craft while levelling anyway. Unless they've changed things recently, the material requirements don't scale equally with the character level progression, so you're always behind the curve. Just wait to level 50 and do it then. I'd probably take a couple of harvesting skills and one mission skill.

As far as Slicing goes, I'm not sure if it is worth it any more. They nerfed it after all the crafting whiners constantly complained about how unfair it was (completely missing the point that it was a valid alternative to those that don't want to craft and a supply of credits to pay those that do actually craft), plus every man and his dog has it so what nodes remain get ninja'd as soon as they appear.

At the end of the day, skipping a crafting crew skill wont harm you, especially if you join a guild with people already working on crafting. Even if you don't though, you can easily get by without crafted equipment and slicing gets you more than enough credits to buy crafted stuff off the Galactic Market anyway. Long story short, crafting isn't necessary.But I recommend doing it. Most of the gear I currently am using is from crafting because it's been better than what I get from questing. Only thing as good is commendation gear so far.

I plan to play around with the crafting with one toon and if I decide to change the crafting skill and lose the progress, it's all good. I'm planning to sign up for the 6 month subscription option so plenty of time.

Plus I will be rolling every class and probably even some Alts of them...lol
I need a second trooper... Can't pass up femsheperd voice, plus my female shepard was a bad ass so my female trooper will be a tough hard ass who will threaten to shoot the kid if NPC doesn't say where the meds are

Thanks for the help again - very much appreciated. It's too bad slicing wasn't left alone... and that the nodes have been having some issues. I think I'm going to bypass crafting as well... maybe I'll change my mind once I become more comfortable with everything.