Star Wars: The Old Republic - Galactic Strongholds Overview

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Galactic Strongholds Expansion

The new loading screen.

Well, I have to admit, I was a little skeptical when they announced this. Still, I wanted to see what it was all about. I wanted to see it enough to spend real cash for a subscription about six months ago to let me get early access. I know, it seems overboard. But, I found that it was worth it.

And, amazingly, not because of the houses themselves.

We'll start with the obvious, of course.

Houses

The Strongholds Menu

There are four available apartments at the present time: Coruscant, Dromund Kaas, Nar Shaddaa and Tattooine. These apartments can be accessed from almost anywhere in the game, through a few clicks. The subscribers got free access to Nar Shaddaa. Dromund Kaas and Coruscant run only 5000 credits for the initial rooms. Tattooine, meanwhile, is in the millions for initial access.



The view from the lounge of the Nar Shaddaa house.

The views are gorgeous, you can invite your friends to visit, and – when you leave – you can return to wherever you left from or to the planet the stronghold is located on. Subscribers can also leave directly to their ship or the fleet. This makes the houses one of the cheapest and most important resources for players with limited inventory space – they can leave their location (in most areas), sell and/or store items, then return in a short period of time. Access for the owner is literally two clicks away.

 

For friends or guild mates that you want to grand more permanent access to your stronghold, you can issue keys. These keys allow different permissions. A bronze key simply allows access (whether you're online or not), where a silver key allows the person to use your mining nodes and invite or kick other players out of the home. Your personal key ring can hold five keys from other players.

Decorations

 

Arriving home after completing the initial decorations quest.... I actually didn't know about the quests until I had already started decorating.

Inside, it's pretty bare until you start decorating. Doing so requires that you have decorations, though pets, mounts, and companions can be placed as well. The interface for doing so is accessed through clicking on Edit Mode. Placing decorations earns you prestige, as does unlocking new ones. Also earned are bonuses to your conquest points. (More on this later.)

 

Some hooks in the Nar Shaddaa Stronghold and the placement interface.

The more rooms unlocked, the more hooks you have access to place items on. (A problem for the more expensive houses, but it's fairly cheap to almost completely unlock the two starter worlds.) Different sized hooks will take different sized items. Larger hooks can be broken down into smaller ones using the Layouts tab. Rugs, however, can only be placed on the circular columns, such as the one shown in the above image.



A bedroom.

Decorations range from minimalist metal couches to more grand senatorial and luxury gear. You can gain access to some of these items by crafting Pre-fabs and exchanging them at NPCs. Others are gained through completion of flash points and operations.



Mining Nodes, a modification station, and a crafting droid in Nar Shaddaa.

Crafting mines (or nodes) are gained through a starter quest - from a holographic NPC in the Strongholds area of your faction's Fleet - and through completion of Conquest goals. These nodes grant access to resources you'd normally have to visit multiple worlds to gain. Not in large numbers before “resource exhaustion” - a four hour debuff that prevents mining – sets in, but enough to give a quick boost when needed.

Conquest



The Conquest tab of the Log.

Yes, friends, your guild can buy a flagship for the cheap price of 50 million credits. Okay, so not so cheap. But, your guild doesn't have to have a flagship to participate. Also, you don't have to be in a guild to participate. It does, however, make it more likely for you to place on the leader boards – which earns yet more stuff.

Conquest points are earned through a variety of methods. This includes crafting, defeating specific enemies, or going through war zones and flash points. The specific enemies change on a weekly basis, so it is advisable to check the conquest tab in the log periodically.

As seen in the screenshot, players gain a stronghold bonus to their conquest points. A single stronghold, fully decorated, provides a twenty-five percent bonus. Four strongholds, decorated fully, reaches a maximum bonus of one hundred percent - meaning every 1000 points earns another 1000 for free.

The typical reward for meeting your conquest point goal includes new decorations in the form of crafting mines, 25 thousand credits and scrap. Scrap, by the way, can be exchanged for crafting materials at Jawa Traders on the Fleet.

 

Actually staying on the top of the leader boards places your guild in control of the planet. This gives the players added bonuses and perks not found in other places.

Legacy Bank



The Legacy Bank, a crafting mine, and a Medical Droid NPC in Nar Shaddaa.



The legacy bank is linked to all of the account's characters. It has a maximum of five tabs, and is perfect for storing crafting materials so that the owner does not have to remember which resource is stored on which character. Only which character has the required crafting skill.

This also cuts down on the utility of the personal bank, meaning that new accounts will more likely spend on the Legacy tabs, if they want to use their credits (or money) wisely.

When crafting with a legacy bank, the system first determines whether the needed supplies are in the character's local inventory. Then, the system checks the Legacy bank to determine availability. Local inventory is exhausted first, leaving the materials for other characters if need be.

Items that are bound to character cannot be placed in the legacy bank. However, items bound to Legacy can be.

 

In conclusion, this is a free expansion but well worth the time and credits to utilize to its fullest for crafters, guild members and new players.

9/7/2014 --- Addendum: It has come to my attention that Free To Play and Preferred players do not receive the mining nodes associated with the Conquest point reward. At the present time, however, these nodes may be bought on the Galactic Trade Network (an in-game auction house) for approximately 100,000 credits. This may or may not change a player's mind as to whether or not these rewards are worth the attempt.