PVE Gearing 1-50, 55-60 tips

I've been playing SWTOR since beta, and I've found some great tips for gearing PVE. Some of the stuff was bound to rub off on me... ;)

Gearing 1-50

You don't really need to worry about orange gearing (adaptive armor) until the later levels (55-60). The green gear drops are adequate to get you through the whole game. If you go for orange armor, then you have to worry about keeping your mods up to date. Nobody needs that!! You're too busy questing!! I know what you're saying... "But I want to look cool while playing the game!!" I know you do, but it's more of a hassle to keep track of coms & mods that way.

Keep ahead of the leveling curve. Which is to say, be 3-4 levels AHEAD of where you're supposed to be. During the first 10-15 levels, take every mission you can get your hands on. After you leave your capital planet you can start picking & choosing missions. Use GTN to buy greens, or have someone craft them for you, as needed if the drops aren't coming. Each slot at this point is only 1K-10K credit cost.

Gearing 55 - 60

So you've finished your class quest up through Chapter 3. Congrats!! You still shouldn't be using adaptive at this point... I'm sure you picked up some cool stuff along the way. Put it in your Cargo Bay. Continue using greens.

By this time you should be right around Level 50-55. After you end Chapter 3 go right to Makeb (You need the Rise Of The Hutt Cartel expansion for this!) Use the GSI armor and HP bolster to your advantage. That is to say, that it will bring you upto the appropriate armor and HP level needed to complete it. Bypass all of the dailies (Section X, Black Hole, Makeb dailies,etc) until later. It's worth it. The payoff will be phenomenal. All of the main story missions should be soloable.

After Makeb, you should be at 55 or above (if you have the Shadow Of Revan expansion pack).. At this point, STILL use greens for gearing. (Don't worry! Adaptive armor is coming!!)

Go through the Shadow Of Revan experience. They will GIVE you 172 then 178 rated adaptive armoring. plus 300 - 600 basic comms. SAVE YOUR COMS!!! You'll be level 60 half way through Rishi. Personally, i think the adaptive armoring they give you looks dumb. if you have a set you want to use, transfer the mods to the new set. It'll cost some credits.

60 and Beyond

Now, you go to Fleet & grab the Basic Armor: Class Here mission. This is where you do Section X, Black Hole and the Makeb dalies. You will get enough coms to buy a full set of 186 purple (also moddable!!) gear from Fleet!! It's your choice to transfer the mods to your adaptive armoring gear or keep it with the Purple gear. it gets expensive though (11K per mod if your a Sub!!) but if you have alot of credits built up, it's worth transferring it. Now go do all of the dailies and Illum.. you'll breeze through them! HardMode Flashpoints will be a breeze too.

Augments
Now would be a great time to augment your gear. This WILL get expensive. Buy (or craft) 9 Mk-10 augment slots. Head to a place that has a modification table & install them. It will say MK-1. scroll down to Mk-10. Put them in. This is the most expensive part of gearing. then craft or buy the appropriate augments. Augments are ridiculously cheap right now.

Hard Mode Flashpoints

Regular story Mode Flashpoints are level appropriate, but Hard Mode Flashpoints require you to pay attention to armor ratings. Level 50 Flashpoints require a 148 rating and Level 55 Flashpoints require a 156 armor rating. THEY ARE SOLOABLE AFTER YOU GET YOUR 178 GEAR!!! HM FPs are a great way to grind up extra coms, cash & sellable equipment on GTN.

Operations

To be honest I haven't had too much experience with Operations, but you can get 198 rated gear doing these.

Thanks for reading and feel free to add anything into this. This is by no means the only way to do the gearing, but it is the best way I found out for me.