Welcome, traveler! If you're looking to dive into the shady world of smuggling, you’ve come to the right place. Smugglers in the galaxy offer a unique blend of combat, crafting, and underworld skills. While not the most powerful fighters on their own, they shine in supportive roles and in specialized areas like spice crafting, slicing (upgrading equipment), and some of the best pistol skills available.
If you're ready to live on the edge of the law and make a profit doing it, this guide will walk you through the Smuggler profession, from starting out to mastering its unique abilities.
Smuggler Overview
The Smuggler is a hybrid profession with a mix of combat, crafting, and special abilities. This makes it an ideal support class, complementing other combat-heavy professions, but don't expect to dominate the battlefield solo. What the Smuggler lacks in raw power, it makes up for with versatility and unique skills such as:
- Spice Crafting: Create powerful buffs for yourself and others.
- Slicing: Upgrade weapons and armor.
- Pistol Skills: Specialized in quick, precise damage with pistols.
Whether you're slicing into a locked container or crafting illicit substances, the Smuggler is the go-to class for those who want to operate in the shadows.
Getting Started as a Smuggler
Step 1: Preparing for Novice Smuggler
Before you can become a Smuggler, you’ll need to build up the necessary prerequisites:
- Brawler’s Unarmed IV
- Marksman’s Pistol IV
These skills will open the path to becoming a Novice Smuggler. Start by choosing a Brawler/Marksman class and fight low-level creatures outside the city. During this time, you’ll also want to focus on a few important secondary professions to complement your Smuggler journey:
- Scout: This will let you harvest materials (organics) from creatures. These resources can be sold or traded on the Bazaar to fund your early ventures.
- Medic: This gives you the ability to heal yourself in combat, which can be a life-saver, especially when you're on your own.
Tip #1: Earn Credits Early On
Running missions and harvesting resources is essential. As a novice, you won’t make a lot of credits from missions, so use the Scout profession to harvest organics and sell them on the Bazaar.
Tip #2: Choose Your Gear Wisely
You’ll also need some solid gear to survive. Here’s what you should look for early on:
- Pistols: The DH17 Pistol is one of the best you can find at this level, though it might be rare. Search for Weaponsmiths in your area or on the Bazaar for pistols.
- Armor: Avoid Bone armor! It's ineffective against kinetic damage (melee attacks). Instead, look for Mabari Armorweave. It’s affordable (5-8k credits) and provides excellent protection in melee combat. Once you can afford it, Chitin Armor offers even better defense against kinetic damage, but costs around 20k credits.
Advancing as a Smuggler
Step 2: Becoming a Novice Smuggler
Once you’ve acquired 50,000 Pistol Experience, you can become a Novice Smuggler. This opens up access to Spice Crafting, Slicing, and advanced Pistol Skills.
Smugglers need to advance in three areas:
1. Pistol Experience: Kill enemies using pistols.
2. Spice Crafting: Create Spice by gathering and using organics and inorganics.
3. Slicing: Play a mini-game to upgrade weapons and armor.
Tip #3: Build Your Network
At this point, it’s vital to build relationships with other professions:
- Weaponsmiths: For better pistols.
- Armorsmiths: For stronger armor.
- Surveyors: To help you find resources for spice crafting.
Special Moves and Combat Tips
By now, you should have access to some special moves like bleed attacks that target your enemies' health over time. Use these moves strategically:
- Health Bar Specials: Target your enemies' health bar to wear them down more effectively.
- Bleed Attacks: Use these early in a fight to add damage over time.
- Spin Attacks: When enemies get too close, your unarmed skills come into play. Spin attacks are great for taking down multiple enemies at once.
Spice Crafting
Step 3: Advancing the Spice Line
Spice Crafting is one of the fastest skills to level. The process involves creating substances that provide temporary buffs to attributes like health, strength, and focus. Here’s what you’ll need:
Set up Harvesters: You’ll need Flora Farms (purchased from Artisans/Architects) to harvest organic resources. These require power which you'll have to buy or harvest. Don’t worry too much about resource quality; just focus on quantity.
Crafting Tools: Get yourself 2-4 crafting tools (either Generic or Food and Chemical tools) and start crafting Shadowpaw Spice. It requires minimal resources and offers the best experience gain for the effort.
List of Spices
- Shadowpaw: Action/Quickness +250, Strength -100
- Giggledust: Action/Quickness +300, Focus -100
- Booster Blue: Action/Quickness +400
- Neutron Pixie: Health +1000, Strength/Constitution +200
Keep crafting these to advance through the Spice Crafting skill tree. Once you’ve mastered spice crafting, you’ll be able to produce some of the most potent buffs in the galaxy!
Slicing
Step 4: Mastering Slicing
Slicing is an art that allows you to upgrade weapons and armor, giving them a boost in power or defense. It starts off as a tricky mini-game, but with the right tools and some practice, you’ll soon be slicing like a pro.
The Slicing Mini-Game
When slicing, you’re given a choice between two wires—red or blue. Guess right, and you’ve successfully sliced the item. Guess wrong, and the item can never be sliced again. But don’t worry—at Slicing II, you get a Flow Analyzer Node (FAN), which boosts your success rate to about 70%. By Slicing IV, you unlock the Molecular Clamp, giving you a 100% success rate.
Tip #4: Prepare for Slicing
- Laser Precision Knives: You’ll need these to slice items. They can be crafted at Novice Smuggler using 14 Metal.
- Locked Containers: At Novice level, you can slice locked containers that drop from enemies. These can give you 250 slicing experience each, so save them up!
Final Thoughts
Becoming a Master Smuggler takes time, patience, and a lot of networking. You’ll need the help of other professions and a good stash of resources to make the most out of slicing and spice crafting. While the Smuggler isn’t the most combat-heavy profession, it offers a deep and rewarding experience for those who like to operate on the fringes of society.
With these tips in hand, you’re well on your way to becoming one of the galaxy’s most notorious smugglers. Good luck, and may the credits flow your way!
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