SWTOR Crew Skills are a little different than other MMO professions since you don’t have to do any of the gathering or crafting yourself. The crew skills allow you to assign the task to your companions while you continue questing, PVPing, or doing any other part of the game you are interested in.

Once you hit level 10 you will be able to pick your crew skills. There are 3 types of skills to choose from, Crafting, Gathering, and Mission. You may only have a total of 3 skills at once and you are limited to 1 crafting skill. So basically you will have either 3 gathering, 3 mission, 1 crafting with 2 gathering, 1 crafting with 2 mission or 1 crafting with 1 gathering and 1 mission.

Gathering Skills: You can choose up to 3 gathering skills for your character.

• Archaeology: Allows you to find imbued items like Lightsaber crystals and ancient artifacts. The crystals that are mined provide resources for Artifice and Synthweaving.
• Bioanalysis: Allows you to collect genetic material from creatures and plants. These items are used by Biochem.
• Scavenging: Allow you to recover useful materials and parts from old or damaged technology. These materials are used in Cybertech, Armstech, and Armormech.
• Slicing: Allows you to access secured computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable data and rare schematics. The information is mainly used in Cybertech.

Mission Skills: You may have up to 3 mission skills for your character

• Diplomacy: the art of conducting and managing negotiations. This provides medical supplies, companion gifts and light/darkside points.
• Investigation: the skill of examining evidence and following clues to discover valuable secrets. This provides prototype schematics, research compounds and companion gifts.
• Treasure Hunting: the ability to track down and recover valuable items by investigating a series of clues. This provides lockboxes, gemstones, and companion gifts.
• Underworld Trading: expertise in the trading of illegal goods and services. This provides luxury fabrics, custom schematics and companion gifts.

Crafting Skills: You may only have 1 crafting skill for your character

• Armormech: This skill allows you to craft personal armor using hard metals and electronic shielding.
• Armstech: This skill allows you to craft various weapons such as blasters, assault cannons and sniper rifles. You can also make weapon upgrades and modifications.
• Artifice: This skill allows you to construct Jedi and Sith artifacts such as lightsaber modifications.
• Biochem: This skill allows the creation of performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants.
• Cybertech: This skill allows you to create droid armor, earpieces, grenades, armoring, mods and miscellaneous gadgets.
• Synthweaving: This skill allows you to creating lighter outfits and armors that are imbued with supernatural qualities for Force users.

After choosing your crafting skills, you’re given the ability to reverse engineer certain items in your inventory. Reverse Engineering breaks items down into components you can then use to craft new items, including a higher quality version of that same item. You can reverse engineer most items that you craft and some items that you find in the world. When an item is reversed engineered, the item is destroyed in the process so be careful what you select.

Here are some suggestions for matching up SWTOR Crew Skills to your class:

Jedi Knight – Artifice, Synthweaving, Biochem, Cybertech

Jedi Consular – Artifice, Synthweaving, Biochem, Cybertech

Smuggler – Armormech, Armstech, Biochem, Cybertech

Trooper – Armormech, Armstech, Biochem, Cybertech

Sith Warrior – Artifice, Synthweaving, Biochem, Cybertech

Sith Inquisitor – Artifice, Synthweaving, Biochem, Cybertech

Bounty Hunter – Armormech, Armstech, Biochem, Cybertech

Imperial Agent – Armormech, Armstech, Biochem, Cybertech

This provides you with a basics understand of the SWTOR Crew Skills.