How To Make Over 1mil Creds A Day
Now that the game has been out for a month and things are starting to stabalize it is becoming easier and easier to determine where all of the best money is going to come from. So far the two best Crew Skills I've found to make money from are Slicing and Underworld Trading. The reason both of these are the best is because obviously their materials are in the most demand. Slicing you get your money back 90% of the time when running a Grade 6 mission and occasionally you get an epic Crafting Mission which you can sell for 10k credits or more on the Auction House.
With Underworld Trading you get Grade 6 Silks and Metals which are currently the hottest selling item in the entire game on pretty much every server. The fabrics don't really sell that well on my server and from what I've heard it's the same on many servers... But the metals, jeeze, you can see a single Ciridium metal for 4k and a Mandalorian Iron for almost 10k on some servers! On a normal day with running both Slicing and Underworld Trading missions I can easily make over 500 - 750k Credits. If I get really lucky and can run multiple unlockable missions or I get a lot of crits, I can make over 1 million credits without even moving a single time.
Of course if you want to maximize your Credits per day you'll want to move, I'm just trying to put the awesomeness of these Crew Skills into words.
Slicing & Underworld Trading
Since these two Crew Skills will generate you the most Credits these are the only two that are a requirement for this guide. The third is a bit optional, I prefer Archaeology since that seems to be the highest grossing gathering profession when it comes to actually gathering the items. Anyway let's take a look at the rewards you will be getting from Underworld Trading first and going over them piece by piece.
Underworld Trading
This will be your highest grossing item since it is the most common metal and is also used in both Synthweaving and Armormech which are the two main armor making Tradeskills for Heavy armor. Be sure to up the price on Ciridium than what the Auction House originally prices it at, it's worth a helluva lot more than what the base price is. I can usually get 1.1k per bar (down to 800 on some servers)for this stuff which is awesome considering how common it can be.
You will only get this metal from unlocked missions or from critting normal yield metal missions. As you could imagine Mandalorian Iron sells for a ton but it depends a lot on your server. If people aren't running that many heroics then this won't sell at all on your server but if there is a lot of high levels Mandalorian Iron will be a better grossing item than Ciridium. Depending on the day I can normally get 8k or 9k credits per Mandalorian Iron.
This is the epic silk used in making a lot of the level 50 gear. This doesn't sell as well as the Mandalorian Iron does nor does it sell for as much as the Mandlalorian Iron... but it does sell, you just have to be patient. The price and frequency of how this item will sell entirely depends on how many Jedi's that use Light Armor are on your server. I can usually get 35k per 20 Denebrillan Star Silk depending on the day.
Nanosilk I have a difficult time trying to sell, I don't know what it is but I can barely sell it for the base price the Auction House recommends you put it up for. If that doesn't work I go down to 33k for 99 of them and they seem to sell at that price.
Underworld Trading will be your highest grossing crew skill of the two just because it's money is reliable. The main item netting you money with it at the minute is Ciridium and when you run a mission that rewards metal, you're going to get this item; unless of course you fail. With Slicing in order to see real income you're going to need to get epic crafting missions.
Slicing
Now Slicing will give you your money back with pretty much every mission through the lockboxes but you will see some serious bonus cash from the Mission Discovery Items that you get through Slicing. Below is a list of all the Mission Discovery items that you can expect to get as well as a little bit of information about them such as sell price and frequency
This is an extremely common mission that you get through Slicing and is almost entirely useless since it is only used in Armstech. Not saying Armstech or Investigation are useless but they aren't nearly as popular as other Crew Skills. I have trouble selling these missions for below the listing price. Currently I am just stockpiling them up for something to happen in the future and their prices to skyrocket.
These missions are fairly rare and sell for a good amount when you do get one. I usually can sell an Archaeology mission for 8 - 9k depending on the day.
These missions are much like the Archaeology ones, I can normally grab 8 - 9k each depending on the day.
Some servers are reporting that this doesn't sell that well at all, it may vary depending on your server as do tons of other missions. That is why it is important to always CHECK the Auction House before listing an item.
Mission Discovery: Diplomacy (Dark)
These missions are much like the Investigation ones, you'll be lucky to get your listing price for each one.
Some servers are reporting that these actually do sell well, (or at least the Rank 6 materials they bring in do) so they may be worth using depending on your server. As with everything it is important you always check the Auction House before listing items, prices vary from server to server and from day to day. It's impossible to always be 100% accurate with a guide.
Mission Discovery: Diplomacy (Light)
These missions are much like the Investigation ones, you'll be lucky to get your listing price for each one.
Some servers are reporting that these actually do sell well, (or at least the Rank 6 materials they bring in do) so they may be worth using depending on your server. As with everything it is important you always check the Auction House before listing items, prices vary from server to server and from day to day. It's impossible to always be 100% accurate with a guide.
These are the best selling of the gathering Crew Skill missions usually bringing in at least 12 to 13k per sale.
This is a tough one because sometimes you can get up to 30k for a Slicing Mission Discovery on the Auction House and sometimes learning the mission is better. I personally learn them and use them because I want a better shot at getting Underworld Trading missions to use or Treasure Hunting missions to sell. It's a massive gamble though, one many may not want to take.
This will be the highest selling mission you can get (unless you sell the Underworld Trading missions, which I don't recommend doing). You can get anywhere from 17 to 23k per mission and maybe sometimes even more depending on how much in demand they are on your server.
This will be the highest selling mission you can get (unless you sell the Underworld Trading missions, which I don't recommend doing). You can get anywhere from 17 to 23k per mission and maybe sometimes even more depending on how much in demand they are on your server.
This will be your highest grossing mission with this guide, it gives you every single item you could possibly want to sell from Underworld Trading. I strongly recommend learning this mission and running it because you will get much more from doing it this way than you would from selling it. On the same note, every time you go to the Auction House if you see this mission listed for under 10k (sometimes people put them up for their base price of 4k!!) buy it out and use it immediately.
This will be your highest grossing mission with this guide, it gives you every single item you could possibly want to sell from Underworld Trading. I strongly recommend learning this mission and running it because you will get much more from doing it this way than you would from selling it. On the same note, every time you go to the Auction House if you see this mission listed for under 10k (sometimes people put them up for their base price of 4k!!) buy it out and use it immediately.
That's about it for making money through this method in Swtor. At least that's it for the whole not moving from town a single time and making 1 million credits a day part of the guide. If you really want to bring in the most credits possible in a single day you will want to grab Archaeology as your final Crew Skill and continue reading this guide.
What Else You Can Do For Money
So the thought of making even more money entices you, eh? Good, you're drawing closer to the Dark Side!
As I mentioned just before this section you will want to grab Archaeology as your next and final Gathering Crew Skill to make this work perfectly. You could technically go with Bioanalysis or Scavenging if you wanted to buy I prefer Archaeology since I know Synthweaving and Artifice materials are in massive demand and will be for a very long time to come. The key to making the most money humanly possible in a single day is to farm on Ilum with Archaeology while also gathering the Slicing nodes and chests here as well. Doing this while running Missions with Slicing and Underworld Trading will get you almost 2 - 3 mil credits each and every day!
Also there is of course the dailies for each faction which you will want to do each and every day as well. You only need to do the solo ones, no reason to spend time putting together a group for the Heroics. If you would like to learn more about the daily quests available to you in this game, take a look at my Daily Quest guides which are below.
The Ilum dailies give you 10k credits a piece and the Belsavis dailies give you 7.7k credits a piece. Taking into account everything you will find while doing the dailies (assuming you're Archaeology and Slicing as the rest of the guide entails) you should expect to make about 200k a day through doing the dailies alone.
Putting aside the dailies and all the goodies they offer, let's look at what you will be doing to fill your time throughout the entire day. Your main source of income will still be Underworld Trading and Slicing missions but the items you gather through Archaeology will vastly improve your hourly and daily income. Depending on what faction you are will determine the path you're going to need to follow throughout Ilum for farming Archaeology materials.
Below are two guides that I made specifically for Archaeology, one is for Republic and the other is for the Empire. Both of these guides will have a map with the best possible farming path for Archaeology on Ilum. I've personally tested and confirmed this path.
Republic Archaeology Farming Guide
Empire Archaeology Farming Guide
If you read over those two guides and run missions while farming those paths and collecting the chests along the way I can guarantee that you will be making the most credits of anyone on your server each day. There is only a single additional way you can increase your daily income and that is by having alts and running missions on them while you farm via that path on Ilum. If you have an alt that can have at least 3 Companions deployed at once I recommend you pick up Underworld Trading on them as well or maybe even Treasure Hunting if you want to have items in a different market.