Smuggler (pre-NGE)

Profession Overview
Smuggler is perhaps the single greatest profession to RolePlay with in this game. Unfortunatly that's about all you'll do with it.

In its current form smuggler is also one of the most broken proffesions in the game. It has never had a single update to it since the game came out except to fix an exploit. This has caused the smuggler community to become very jaded as the develpoment team has time after time stated that a revamp would be comming.

NOTE: The SWG Developers have again promised to revamp the profession and address it's many problems and shortcomings, but many smugglers are frustrated at continual empty promises spanning well over a year now. Currently the Smuggler Revamp is speculated to go live January or February at best, if it will happen at all.

Further Update It's now March 2005. Latest data says after the COmbat Upgrade/Rebalance. As far as we know, that is not even at the Beta stage yet. The more cynical among us suspect nothing before Q4 2005 with "at some point"-2006 more likely.

CURB Profession Role Summary
Smuggler Primary Role: Crowd Control Specialist Secondary Role: Medium Range Damage Dealer

Offense: Moderate (3) Defense: Minimal (1) Crowd Control: Very Strong (5)

All's fair in love and war is the motto most Smugglers live by. Smugglers use what is generally perceived as dirty fighting to keep their targets off balance while they defeat them. Smugglers have very low defensive ability and only moderate offensive ability, but when combined with their unique fighting style they can comfortably hold their own.

Notes On Abilities
(for details on a specific skill, select the corresponding skill box in the table above)

Slicing
Slicing allows a smuggler to increase the stats on a weapon's speed or damage and also increase the effectivness or decrease the encumberance of pieces of armor. As a smuggler progresses up the slicing tree the range of quality for his slices will get better, however the individual results will still be a random result within that range. At its max (at Master) the highest a smuggler can get is a 35% on weapon speed or weapon damage, 35% on armor effectivness, and a 45% on armor encumberance. These are the HIGHEST one can get. If someone gets a higher slice they've exploited. Also to quote our former smuggler correspondent Smuggler_Caylin

"NOTHING effects slicing! It is RANDOM. There are no hidden patterns nor changes to the system!"

The current average price for slicing anythng on many servers is 10k per item. As a customer, remember you are paying for not only the smuggler's time (slicing takes a long time when we can't auto pull from crates), but also for a permanent upgrade to your weapon (not just a short lived buff).

NOTE: Slicing a weapon or a piece of armor DOES NOT increase the rate at which it degrades through use. (For a DEV statement that clarfifies this see this post), however a sliced weapon or piece of armor does have a lesser chance of getting a good result on a repair. Therefore, getting an item sliced may not always be the right choice if you value its longevity.

Underworld
Requires all pistol xp. This is mainly used to allow a smuggler to purchase faction from a recruiter. It also allows a smuggler to hear what a twilek says in lekku and play the Jawa junk game. That's about it.

Dirty Fighting
This is all pistol xp. It is recomended to get the fan shot skill and some of the pistol speed tree from pistoleer as it goes much faster. Low Blow is a ranged knockdown, Feign Death can be useful in getting out of a scrape, and Last Ditch is the most powerfull pistol special in the game.

Spices
This is pretty usless for anything but making Muon Gold and Neutron Pixie. Sadly, anything spice can do a chef's food or Doctor's buff can do better. Spice, however, also has a downer period which negatively affect your stats. The single advantage to spice is that is has no filling (and so can be consumed even when you are full of food and drink already). Because of its downers it is not advised to use spice execpt for emergencies.

Master
Gives you the cool title of Master Smuggler which will make you a magnet for tells in every major starport int he game. Masters do however have a bonus to slicing over the slicing 4 box although no mention of it is in the skill tree. (Dev statements on the official forums have confirmed this.) If you decide to walk around with your Master title up /anon is your friend.

Smuggling
Something which does not exist in SWG. New players should be aware that currently there is no game mechanic that allows for actual smuggling in Star Wars Galaxies. However, this may or may not change to a limited degree with Publish 11.3, set to go live the week after Thanksgiving. In the patch notes, there was a mention of the Talus Space Station giving missions out to ground smugglers that are Alliance or Privateer members. We'll just have to see exactly what this means and how much "Smuggling" this is. It has recently been confirmed that the Talus Station missions are in fact "smuggling" missions and not "Smuggling" missions.

Which means that the devs are making a difference between the words Smuggling and smuggling. Basically Smugglers still haven't had an update since the game launched.

Community Information
Important Links, Guides and FAQ's from the offical Smuggler Forum

Link to the post that explains slicing is random

A Special Note to Bria Smugglers
You can type /chatRoom join swg.Bria.chat.Smuggler in game to join a special Smuggler chat tab.