Pre-CU

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Contents

Introduction

Pre-CU is a term used to describe either the time frame or the game version of Star Wars Galaxies before the Combat Upgrade was introduced on the 27th of April 2005.

Pre-CU what exactly is it?

As said in the introduction Pre-CU is the time before the Combat Upgrade or CU and the New Game Enhancements (NGE)

If you never played Pre-CU allow me to explain how it worked.

There were 33 Professions or as in most MMORPG's "classes", you could be anything from a Droid Engineer to a Bounty Hunter or a Politician or if you wanted a combination of each of those.

Unlike in most MMMORPG's SWG Pre-CU your Profession was not set in stone from your character creation, later on in your career you could change or mix and match skills.

These Professions, how exactly do they work

"If you can mix and match professions what’s to stop people from taking up every profession?"

Good question, I will follow with a good answer.

Pre-CU your character is born with "skill points", 250 skill points to be exact. Every skill box you trained used up a certain amount of these precious skill points and if you ran out, or didn't have enough skill points to train in a particular skill, you couldn't train in it.

For example say if I wanted to create a Wookiee Entertainer who was also a kickass Swordsman

To master Entertainer I need 77 skill points, so that’s 250 - 77 which leaves me with 173 skill points and a Wookiee who can dance, style your hair and play music. Swordsman is a Elite profession meaning I need to get the prerequisite skills in Brawler. The prerequisite skills in Brawler cost 29 skill points, 173 - 29 is 144, leaving me with 144 skill points left over. Now I can begin my Swordsman training, to Master Swordsman I need 63 skill points so that’s 144 - 63 which is 81 skill points remaining.

We now have a Master Entertainer, Master Swordsman Wookiee with 81 skill points to spare, now these skill points can be used any way I want so say I want to learn some Scout for some Wilderness survival, I've chosen scout 4044 in the Scout Skill tree, that’s Exploration IV: Alien Exploration Training, Hunting IV: Unconventional Methodology and Survival IV: Special Techniques. Novice Scout costs 15 skill points, 81 - 15 is 66, and each complete skill branch of the Scout Skill tree is 14 skill points so thats 66 - 14 - 14 - 14 which leaves me with an incredible 24 skill points.

So we now have a Wookiee Master Entertainer, Master Swordsman who has Scout 4044 making him pretty handy companion to have out in the wilderness of the galaxy. But wait we have 24 skill points left over. We could continue up the Scout tree or the Brawler tree or even have a crack at some of the Entertainer elite professions (Wookiee Dancer anyone?) but A small bit in Medic I think would suit our Wookiee nicely, Novice Medic is 15 skill ponts 24 - 15 is 9 skill points remaining, with those 9 skill points we can grab Medic 1111 which is First Aid I, Diagnostics I. Pharmacology I and Organic Chemistry I each costing an amazing 2 skill points each, so 9 - 8 = 1, we now have 1 skill point left which we can't spend on anything conventional so our Wookiee is complete.

Be sure to check out the Professions page to glance at all the professions, there's alot more than what I've mentioned here. And be aware that you can choose to drop a profession at will and regrind another one should you feel like it.

To long didn’t read (summary)

Summary:

  • there are 33 normal Professions
  • Each Professions is divided into a skill tree, a tree consists of a Master Box, a Novice box and 4 branches made up of 4 boxes.
  • Each box costs a certain amount of skill points to train
  • You are limited to 250 skill points worth of skills
  • If the profession chosen is not right for you then you can drop it and start grinding a new one

Crafting and Entertaining

Unlike in most MMORPG's, Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies has these professions as crucially important to the game however more on this later

But I want Jedi!

So you want to be a Jedi and dominate the galaxy?

Well I have good news and bad news for you:

The good news is you can be a Jedi! and Jedi have their own individual skill set separate from normal professions but function in the same way.

The bad news is getting to be a Jedi and getting those Jedi skills is a long and hard process, this is probably the longest grind in any MMORPG, getting a Jedi character takes alot of xp and alot of time and thats just the beginning of it, as a Jedi you can expect to be hunted by Bounty Hunters and face severe xp loss on death. You require millions of xp to get a complete Jedi template 36,460,000 thats thirty six million four hundred and sixty thousand, points of xp, couple that with xp loss on death and a reduced xp gain of 1/5 compared to normal professions and its a hell of a grind. Speaking as a former Pre-CU Jedi I can tell you this is a long hard grind, even when you complete your grind you are by no means un-defeatable.

However if that hasn't put you off, go for it, it can be a fun profession to play as and is quite rewarding to grind.

For more information on Jedi see the Jedi page.

But who would want to play as a crafter or an entertainer there is no pew pew

As I said earlier Crafting and Entertaining are crucially important to the game, unlike in most MMORPG's in Pre-CU SWG everything is crafted, or rather 99.9% of everything and anything worth using is crafted, most of the stuff you receive from a quest will pale in comparisson to the items a crafter can make, and why shouldn't it? Crafters can experiment on weapons and use the best resources to make them the best, there are no caps, if a resource is uber then the weapon crafted out of it is uber.

Who would play a craftter? Those who want to get rich and those who want to make the best items ever seen.

As for entertainers, they are crucial because as your out in the galaxy slaughtering pirates and womp rats your going to get wounded mentally, yes in Pre-CU Star wars Galaxies your character can be wounded, rather their Mind, Focus and Willpower becomes wounded and you gain Battle fatigue(BF) in other words, your maximum mind, its regeneration rate and the mind cost for specials are all affected, negatively. In addition the amount which medics can tend to your other wounds (oh yes there are other wounds) is hampered until healing does nothing at all (this is the affect Battle Fatigue has). Every time you die your wounds and battle fatigue soar as well.

Who would play entertainer? Those who are going to save your ass from dying every 3 seconds, also entertainers can make alot of money from generous fighters.

Mind? Focus? Willpower? Other wounds?? Argh! (Your Health, Action and Mind explained)

Your Health, Action, Mind (HAM), make up your 3 primary attributes and each of your HAM bars has 3 bars in it.

When any of your main HAM bars (the Health, Action or Mind bars) reaches 0 you become Incapacitated, leaving your open to a Death Blow, 3 Incapacitation's in 10 minutes results in your Death.

As I said earlier your HAM has 3 values for each

Health

Action

Mind

The Attributes with a 1 next to them are your primary attributes, that is (as said earlier) when each of them reaches 0 you get incapacitated, these are the only attributes that can be targeted and get damaged. The primary attributes all correspond to an area of your body. Your Health is your chest and arms, your action is your legs and feet, and your mind is your head. Being hit in one of these areas will drain that pool.

The Attributes with a 2 make up your secondary attributes, these affect how much of its corresponding primary attribute gets drained when you use a special (yes you can almost kill yourself by spamming specials) They cannot be targeted and attacked, but they can be wounded

The Attributes with a 3 make up your other secondary attribute, these affect how quickly its corresponding primary attribute regenerates/recharges. They cannot be targeted and attacked, but they can be wounded

When you equip armor it drains the max of your secondary stats depending on its encumberance, more will be explained later on armor and its values.

Wounds and Battle Fatigue

As said earlier, you can obtain wounds and Battle fatigue from fighting and dying, the affects wounds and BF have are always negative. A wound reduces the max value of that attribute, say if my strength got wounded then it would cost me more health to use a special, or if my health got wounded I would have less health.

Battle Fatigue reduces how effective medicine and healing is on you and how well you heal. 0 BF won't reduce it at al but a BF of 200 would bring it to a halt.

I got wounded what will I do!

No problem, wounds are not permanent, they can be fixed with either a Medic or an Entertainer

First check your Battle Fatigue (its in your character sheet, ctrl+c) is low, if not get to a cantina and relax by watching an entertainer dance or play music until it reaches 0.

Secondly check what type of wounds you've sustained (also in your character sheet ctrl+c) if you've received any wounds to your health or action attributes get to a medic and they'll sort you out. If you had wounds affecting your mind attributes they will already be gone. Why?: because Entertainers heal your mind wounds.

Easy as 1, 2 ,3

Combat (pew pew)

Here's what you've been waiting for combat

Now in Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies, your profession would very heavily determine how you fought, for instance if your Swordsman your going to be fighting with 2 handed melee weapons, but if your Pistoleer you'll be fighting with pistols. Makes perfect sense.

When you engage in Combat your targets HAM will appear on the right hand side of the screen, just like your HAM if any of them fall to 0 its over (NPC and creatures die if their HAM falls to 0) Just beneath their HAM is a box which pops up when you enter combat, this is your Combat Queue whenever you want to do a special move or use an item it goes into your combat queue and as its a queue you can list multiple moves in it.

For example say I'm a Trandoshan Teras Kasi Artist and I've come under attack by some Tusken Raiders whilst out on Tatooine. I want to dizzy them then knock them down. so first I'd use my dizzy move /unarmed dizzy 1 followed by /unarmed knockdown 1 (or you can press the corresponding buttons on the toolbar if you have the hotkeyed) But this will add unarmed dizzy and unarmed knockdown to my Combat queue and execute them in the order they were added.

Any combat move or item use when in combat goes through your combat queue, if nothing is in your combat queue you'll use your default attack.

The weapon your holding affects what type of damage you do (as well as how much damage you do). There are 9 types of damage in Pre-CU SWG, they are as follows, Acid, Blast, Cold, Electricity, Energy, Heat, Kinetic, Lightsaber, Stun. The damage types show up when you examine a weapon and most are fairly obvious e.g. a Flamethrower will do Heat damage. (Only Lightsabers do Lightsaber damage)

As you progress through your profession your skills for that weapon will increace, improving your accuracy and speed with that weapon. But you'll also get some other bonus modifiers which are self explanatory as you earn them, but these include defenses vs stun, defense vs dizzy, melee defense. As you progress your skills and defenses increace with what that profession offers, some offer higher defenses than others so to create the best combat character its often best to mix and match...

There are also certain postures in Pre-CU SWG, 3 of them to be precise they are Standing, Kneeling and Prone. If your a melee fighter its nothing less than idiotic to try and fight in any other posture than standing, but those who are fighting from a distance may wish to vary between them, here's a summary of pros and cons of the postures

Standing

  • Highest Melee defence
  • Highest mobility
  • Lowest ranged defense
  • Lowest ranged accuracy

Kneeling

  • Mid range melee and ranged defence
  • Mid range ranged accuracy
  • Can't move at all
  • Can't use melee weapons

Prone

  • Highest Ranged defense
  • Highest Ranged accuracy
  • Lowest melee defense
  • Can only crawl
  • Can't use Melee weapons

Armor In a nutshell

Ok there are several different types of armor in the game, each offers different resistances and there are some much rarer armor sets that you won't find very often.

All armor has special resistance(s) to certain damage types and most have a vulnrability to damage types (they offer no resistance) if a damage type is not in either of these 2 categories it falls into "base" effectiveness, meaning each of these damage types has the same protection offered from the armor.

Here is the list of Pre-CU armor (bear in mind that all armor has a Lightsaber vulnerability (note PSG's and Tantel armor could have a lightsaber resist but this was a bug and the lightsaber resist would be removed and become ineffective when you crossed a server boundary/logged off))

Special Resistance: Energy
Vulnerabilities: Kinetic, Blast, Stun, Heat, Cold, Acid
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Stun, Heat, Cold, Electricity
Special Resistance: Electricity
Vulnerabilities: Stun
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Heat, Stun, Cold
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Acid, Stun
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Stun
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Stun, Acid
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Heat, Stun, Cold
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Stun
Special Resistance: Heat, Blast
Vulnerabilities: Energy, Stun, Acid
Special Resistance: Blast
Vulnerabilities: Cold, Electricity, Stun
Special Resistance: Blast
Vulnerabilities: Stun, Heat, Acid
Special Resistance: Energy
Vulnerabilities: Acid, Blast, Kinetic
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Acid, Stun
Special Resistance: Energy
Vulnerabilities: none
Special Resistance: Kinetic
Vulnerabilities: Heat, Stun, Cold

All armor has encumbrances that come with wearing it, for instance if its encumbrance is "Health:100, Action:150, Mind:150" then it takes that amount of each attributes secondary statistics, reducing the primary statistics regeneration rate and increasing its cost per special.

Take caution when wearing armor and using specials, you will use up alot more of your HAM and could do more damage to yourself than the enemy.

Crafting

As I said earlier Crafting makes up a huge part of Pre-CU SWG, all those armor sets you see are created by players, player made equipment puts the stuff you get from quests and loot to shame.

Interested in Crafting? then you have to start at the start, by getting Artisan as your profession, from there you can get to any of the big crafting fields that suit your interest, From Architect to Weaponsmith.

However Crafting takes up too much space to explain here so if your interested (and want to make some good money) then check out Beginning Crafting

Money makes the world go round

For those of you wondering how to make cash in Pre-CU SWG then its relatively simple.

First find a Mission Terminal These are in every city so they are not hard to find, next choose your mission, if you don't have a group choose something relatively easy (you can see what the mission entails by clicking on the details). Happy with your choice? If not refresh the page for new missions but if you are click accept (you can have up to 2 missions at once so if you want more money then go for it) A waypoint will have been added to your datapad (ctrl+D) and it should be orange. Follow that waypoint to your mission, and proceed to kill everything in site.

Once you've destroyed the lair, nest, base or whatever it was you had to kill you'll recieve your pay.

Easy isn't it?

For those of you more inclined to crafting, craft some nice sellable items, and put them up on the Bazaar those fighters need equipment, so it will sell if its at a good price.

If your an entertainer or a medic however you rely on the generosity of other players, they don't have to tip you but it won't get them into anyones good books by not tipping you. Bad customer? They'll be sorry next time they have some serious wounds.

What is this "XP" and where can I loot one (XP and how to get it)

Unlike in most MMORPG's in Pre-CU SWG there is not just 1 type of xp there is infact quite a few. And the xp you receive correlates to what you were doing at the time, say I was out hunting Kimogila on Lok with my rifle, I would get rifle xp from using my rifle and when I skinned the creature I would get hunting xp. You get xp from most actions, crafting, entertaining, fighting, surveying etc.

Pre-CU the xp you receive can only be spent on the corresponding box for instance I can't try to train in image designing if all I've done all day is kill things with a rifle, that wouldn't make sense.

Last Words

For those of you new to Pre-CU SWG or those who just wanted a refresh I hope this has been helpful, if you need any other information feel free to PM me (Gohma) on the forums or in game

Happy Playing

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