Your Guide To Starting Galactic Strongholds
I learned a few tips and tricks while getting started with Galactic Strongholds that I think are worth passing on. Before you do anything (else) with Galactic Strongholds, give this guide a quick read. It will save you some serious credits, and it’s incredibly easy.
Getting Started
You’ll need to be level 15 to start your Galactic Strongholds experience. The first thing you should do is go to the newly named ‘Crew Skills and Galactic Strongholds’ section of the fleet and pick up the starting quest. Do not buy anything from the GTN. I will explain why a little later on. This starting quest will get you a nice starting set of furniture and some other items. It will also start the process getting you some vendors and items in the mail. They will be important to decking out your Stronghold. Be sure to use the items once you put them into your inventory.
- Felusia Stato
- Fabrication Droid (Industrial)
- Fabrication Droid (Synthetic)
- Fabrication Droid (Universal)
Felusia Stato sells furniture. You buy it with credits, and it’s very cheap. A great way to start setting up your first few rooms. You can also use her to vendor junk from leveling and daily quests when you’ve moved beyond the furniture she sells!
Fabrication droids work on a different currency, prefabs. Industrial or Synthetic prefabs are crafted by different Crew Skills, where Universal Prefabs can be crafted by all. Universal prefabs are the most expensive because they are a combination of Industrial, Synthetic, and other materials. Prefabs are the currency of GSH. There are three levels of prefabs, (1, 2 , 3) and the Fabrication droids sell items that require different levels of prefabs. You can of course save some credits and craft your own prefabs.
You will also get nodes for gathering Grade 1 crafting materials. You can gather from one of them every 4 hours, and there is one for each gathering skill. Later on, you can acquire higher level ones for higher grade materials. Just use them as decorations!
Once you’ve picked up your quest, you’ll want to do a little shopping before you travel to your Stronghold.
Cheap Extras
Furniture is nice, but you’ll want a little more to to make your Stronghold worth visiting. Cheaper is better because GSH is a big credit sink. You’ll need lots of credits coming in. You can check out my daily hub guide for the best credit-per-minute daily area(s).
Force Alignment Vendors
Remember those awesome Light Side and Dark Side points you’ve been working on? Well the Light Side and Dark Side vendors on the fleet sell signs for 5,000 credits. As decorations go, that’s a great price.
Character Class Signs
If you have completed your character class story, you will have a sign you can use to decorate your stronghold. Go to your achievements, and then the Location tab. Find the General section, and then chapter 3. You will see the decoration image in the reward area. Right click on it 50 times, and you will have 50 character class signs for each character class story you have completed!
Other Items
There is a BIG statue on the Collector’s Edition vendor for 50,000 credits. If you have any Cartel Market Certificates, there are two vendors in the Crew Skills and Strongholds area where you can buy furniture and NPCs.
Complete Your Starting Quest
Now that your shopping is done, you’re ready to travel to your Stronghold. Click on the little icon at the top of your screen, or return to the Crew Skills and Strongholds area. Unlock the Stronghold you want to start with. Coruscant/Drommund Kaas are the cheapest ones, and Nar Shaddaa has several rooms unlocked if you subscribed early enough. Coruscant and Drommund Kaas have similiar layouts. You can go to a cross-faction Stronghold, but it will cost you 250 credits. It’s not a big deal, so don’t let it affect your decision.
Continue to avoid the GTN. I’ll explain why in the next section.
Once you get into your stronghold, you’ll complete your starting quest. The items should start to arrive in the mail. You’ll also notice an extra UI element that lets you go into ‘Edit Mode’. Click that button and start tinkering away with all the squares/hooks. It’s an easy system to learn. Put your mailbox down first so you can get your items as they arrive. Do this quest with each of your characters, because you will get all this awesome startup gear for every character! Everything is added into a shared Legacy collection, so you can access it from any character.
Tred Lightly On The GTN
You’ll notice I’ve been very adamant about steering you away from the GTN. Eventually you will have to hit the GTN to get new decorations that you can’t buy from the vendors. I warn you about the GTN because it will suck your credits faster than a hoover vacuum. A lot of people are trying to make crazy amounts of credits and your (and my) expense. The ‘Basic’ furniture you can buy for a few hundred credits from a vendor, is being sold on the GTN for thousands of credits. Basic furniture is super cheap. Don’t buy it from the GTN unless you are sure it’s cheaper than Felusia sells it for. There is a ton of it to go through.
As I mentioned earlier, the Fabrication droids will trade you various items for your prefabs. As of this guide, prefabs on my server are selling for:
- Synthetic Prefabs 40-50k
- Industrial Prefabs 40-60k
- Universal prefabs 150k-180k
People are selling the items traded for prefabs for several hundred thousand credits more. Don’t fall for this. If you mouse over an item on the GTN, it will tell you where it came from. If it says Fabrication Droid, don’t pay more than the particular prefab is worth. Visit your droid, write down what you want, and what prefab it takes. Then visit the GTN and buy prefabs. Save yourself hundreds of thousands of credits. You’ll need them.
Stronghold Boot Camp Complete
Now you’re armed with the basic information you need to start building, rearranging, and color-matching. The learning curve with this expansion penalizes your credits. Buying an item that is too expensive is your biggest rick. If you drop a decoration, you can always pick it back up, so don’t be afraid to tinker with the system. Galactic Strongholds is a great expansion. The day before the expansion came out, I didn’t care about it. Today, my friends make fun of me for how much time I spend decorating my Stronghold. No matter what you like to do in game, try out Galactic Strongholds. It won’t cost you a single credit to try, and I think you’ll be surprised at how much fun it actually is.
Please leave your best tips for Galactic Strongholds newcomers in the comments. Let’s make it as fun as we can for new players to try GSH!
Regarding the GTN – while mats are currently expensive on the GTN, and some players are listing furniture for far more than vendor / prefabs are worth, you shouldn’t steer clear of the GTN entirely.
This will very from server to server, but many of the prefabs are better being bought off the GTN rather than crafted. Why? Because the mats are selling for more than the finished article.
Check your server, for at least some (if not most) of the prefabs this will be the case. If this is the case on your server, you’re better selling your crafting mats and buying prefabs.
I camp my GTN terminal relentlessly, waiting for something to drop in price! I don’t mean to have people avoid it entirely. I just want them to get their mail rewards before they start buying stuff. That way they know what they’ve got to work with. The GTN is a must unless you want a ‘basic’ stronghold. Good advice Olib, thanks!
Indeed, I’ve seen people listing vendor decorations for 10-20k a piece when they cost 500 credits from the vendor.
Unfortunately this kind of thing is always going to happen in an MMO; personally that doesn’t bother me much, but people listing things for 600k like you pointed out is very annoying, relying on players miss clicking basically.