To prepare for KotET, I have put in a lot of work to figure out the fastest ways to farm Command Crates. In this post, I will explain the mechanics behind Command Experience points, or CXP.

This guide is only based on information that was visible in blog posts, livestreams and videos, so some things are still unknown, and these mechanics are probably boring to all but theorycrafters.

Once you reach level 70, your XP bar is replaced by the Command Bar. Therefore, it's best to no longer hide your XP bar in your interface but your Legacy XP bar can stay hidden.

There are four sources for getting CXP:

1. Killing Elite and Champion NPCs
   
2. Completing certain quests
   
3. Using a "CXP Pack" item
   
4. Disintegrating an item from a Command Crate
   

(I am guessing that completing a warzone/arena/GSF match will also be a source for CXP. It wouldn't make sense if only the daily/weekly quests give CXP, but this is just a guess.)

You can get a 15% bonus from the Dark vs. Light server battle if you are on the winning side. My understanding is that this bonus only lasts during the 2-hour victory state, and your character needs to have the same alignment as the side that has gotten to Dark V or Light V. The DvL toggle in the interface only determines what side you are getting points for but your character's alignment is the one that decides whether you get the bonus.

Also, you can buy a 25% CXP boost on the Cartel Market.

1. Killing Elite and Champion NPCs

Certain NPCs give CXP when they are killed, usually this is 10 CXP for elites and 20 CXP for champions.

In a group, the CXP is increased by 20% per additional player. So in a 2-player group, you'll get a 20% bonus. And when in a 4-player group with a 60% bonus, you'll get 16 CXP for an Elite and 32 CXP for a Champion mob.

We'll have to test if this scales to 8-, 16- and 24-player groups. If it does, you are looking at a 460% bonus in a 24-player group, or 112 CXP per champion mob.

For some reason, you get CXP when Alem "Whisper" Reesus dies in the Crimson Fang uprising even though he's a friendly (aka green) NPC. So maybe any dying NPC will grant you CXP, even if he's on your faction.

Also, the final boss in the Crimson Fang uprising, Elarea Aldraste, does not grant any CXP even though it looks like she is dying normally and her corpse remains visible.

Not yet sure why this happens.

Formula: floor(BaseCXP * DvLBonus * CMBonus * (1 + 0.2 * NumPlayers)), where:

• BaseCXP is 10 or 20
  
• DvLBonus is 1 or 1.15
  
• CMBonus is 1 or 1.25
  
• NumPlayers is an integer from 0 to 23
  

The CXP is awarded at the end of a boss encounter, so if an encounter has two Champions, you will only get the CXP when both are dead. This ensures that you cannot just kill one boss, stealth out to reset the encounter and quickly farm CXP.

When the last boss dies, the CXP is first summed up from all enemies and only then rounded down to an integer.

For example, one Champion with DvL bonus in a 4-player group gives 20 * 1.15 * 1.6 = 36.8 CXP, this gets rounded down and you get 36 CXP.

But if there's an encounter with two champions, it rewards 2 * 36.8 = 73.6 CXP, rounded down to 73 CXP. So you get 1 more CXP than if the two champions were in separate encounters.

Examples from the livestream/videos:

• 10 CXP - Elite NPC
  
• 11 CXP - Elite NPC with DvL bonus
  
• 13 CXP - Elite NPC in 2-player group with DvL bonus
  
• 16 CXP - Elite NPC in 4-player group
  
• 18 CXP - Elite NPC in 4-player group with DvL bonus
  
• 20 CXP - Champion NPC
  
• 23 CXP - Champion NPC with DvL bonus
  
• 27 CXP - Champion NPC in 2-player group with DvL bonus
  
• 32 CXP - Champion NPC in 4-player group
  
• 36 CXP - Champion NPC in 4-player group with DvL bonus
  

2. Completing certain quests

Certain quests will give you CXP upon completion.

It may be possible to leave a quest pending and wait with accepting until you have the DvL bonus active. We'll have to find out if this works, or if the CXP only depends on when you completed the quest, not when you accept the quest rewards.

Formula: floor(BaseCXP * DvLBonus * CMBonus)

Examples from the livestream/videos:

• 160 CXP - [sTORY] Uprising: Firefrost
  
• 184 CXP - [sTORY] Uprising: Firefrost with DvL bonus
  
• 200 CXP - [VETERAN] Uprising: Firefrost
  
• 230 CXP - [VETERAN] Uprising: Firefrost with DvL bonus
  
• 20 CXP - Chapter I: Fully Involved (Bonus)
  
• 23 CXP - Chapter I: Fully Involved (Bonus) with DvL bonus
  

The quests for the Crimson Fang uprising give the same CXP as those for the Firefrost uprising.

3. Using a "CXP Pack" item

Bosses drop different types of CXP Packs, which you can then right-click to get CXP. These packs are bind on pickup and they do not stack.

It is probably best to wait with opening them until you have the DvL bonus active, unless you run out of inventory space.

There are both normal CXP Packs and Bonus CXP Packs; the Bonus CXP packs give more CXP than normal CXP packs. I am assuming that you get the Bonus CXP Packs on the day that your activity is highlighted. (remember, each day a different actvity will be highlighted) This highlight does not appear to increase the CXP from killing enemies or completing quests; those always give the same CXP.

Formula: floor(BaseCXP * DvLBonus * CMBonus)

Examples from the livestream/videos:

• 80 CXP - Small Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 92 CXP - Small Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 96 CXP - Small Bonus Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 110 CXP - Small Bonus Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 120 CXP - Medium Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 138 CXP - Medium Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 144 CXP - Medium Bonus Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 165 CXP - Medium Bonus Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 160 CXP - Large Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 184 CXP - Large Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 192 CXP - Large Bonus Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 220 CXP - Large Bonus Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 1440 CXP - Large Bonus Operation CXP Pack
  

4. Disintegrating an item from a Command Crate

When you open a Command Crate but don't need some of the items, you can disintegrate them to get some CXP back. I am not sure whether these CXP are affected by the DvL bonus or whether they are always the same.

All tiers appears to have the same contents, always 3 or 4 slots (though the item levels will be different). Disintegrating all items from a pack will give you around 310-530 CXP

Disintegrating pack items gives the following CXP:

• 200 CXP - From the gear piece (can be anything from premium to legandary)
  
• 100 CXP - From the cosmetic armor (orange BoE with no mods).
  
• 10 CXP or 80 CXP - From the companion gift, reputation trophy or 8x Jawa Scrap
  
• 150 CXP - From the schematic (only has a chance to drop)
  

Just wanna ask a question about those packs - they are character bound, not legacy bound, right? (just to be sure)

Edit> CXP packs.

Just wanna ask a question about those packs - they are character bound, not legacy bound, right? (just to be sure)

 

Edit> CXP packs.

Yes, they're BoP unfortunately, you can't send them to your alts.

I suppose if they ever wanted to make the system more alt-friendly, these packs would be the easiest way to do it. Maybe if we give enough feedback, they can make these packs BtL but I have my doubts.

Yes, they're BoP unfortunately, you can't send them to your alts.

 

I suppose if they ever wanted to make the system more alt-friendly, these packs would be the easiest way to do it. Maybe if we give enough feedback, they can make these packs BtL but I have my doubts.

Thanks.

They won't do it in a time frame that matters to me or my guild mates. I have a bad feeling that they won't touch the game until January which is too late for me. We'll see.

Well nice, but you didnt have to bother, i mean we get patch notes next monday and game goes live in a week, so we will see for our selves.

Who says that everything will be in the patch notes? They have the habit of forgetting some changes to mention

And honestly? If the system is programmed properly(HAHAHAHA) changing the token from character to legacy bounding should be just 1 simple edit in the editor 5 minutes of work if you count in coffee

Well nice, but you didnt have to bother, i mean we get patch notes next monday and game goes live in a week, so we will see for our selves.

When have the patch notes ever included a lot of information? The only time we've ever heard about game mechanics from developers was in those very early dev blogs and Q&As that they stopped doing years ago. Most game mechanics we had to figure out ourselves.

I'd rather be prepared so that next week, I have more time for playing and figuring out the other stuff, like new vendors and new decorations. Also, I won't draw any wrong conclusion, like now I know why you sometimes get 36 CXP instead of 32 CXP. First I thought it was completely random but now I know it's because of DvL.

This article is really just the groundwork, the next step is to figure out how many elites/champions are in an uprising etc., what items they drop and how much CXP the quest gives. Then, I can fill a spreadsheet with all the data and know what activity gives the most CXP.

Until now, I calculated it manually. Like the Firefrost uprising gives 466 CXP in SM, 558 CXP in VM. The Crimson Fang uprising gives 819 CXP in SM and 1144 CXP in VM. With a spreadsheet, I can easily get those numbers for different difficulties, group sizes and with or without the activity being highlighted.

I was planning to only share my spreadsheet with my guild but if there's enough interest, I guess I can post it here as well.

When have the patch notes ever included a lot of information? The only time we've ever heard about game mechanics from developers was in those very early dev blogs and Q&As that they stopped doing years ago. Most game mechanics we had to figure out ourselves.

 

I'd rather be prepared so that next week, I have more time for playing and figuring out the other stuff, like new vendors and new decorations. Also, I won't draw any wrong conclusion, like now I know why you sometimes get 36 CXP instead of 32 CXP. First I thought it was completely random but now I know it's because of DvL.

 

This article is really just the groundwork, the next step is to figure out how many elites/champions are in an uprising etc., what items they drop and how much CXP the quest gives. Then, I can fill a spreadsheet with all the data and know what activity gives the most CXP.

Until now, I calculated it manually. Like the Firefrost uprising gives 466 CXP in SM, 558 CXP in VM. The Crimson Fang uprising gives 819 CXP in SM and 1144 CXP in VM. With a spreadsheet, I can easily get those numbers for different difficulties, group sizes and with or without the activity being highlighted.

I was planning to only share my spreadsheet with my guild but if there's enough interest, I guess I can post it here as well.

Still I bet Dufly and co already have the guides prepared and are just waiting to put them online since they have all the info they need. Im sure with the launch of 5.0 she will post all the necessary details and we can read that.

Still I bet Dufly and co already have the guides prepared and are just waiting to put them online since they have all the info they need. Im sure with the launch of 5.0 she will post all the necessary details and we can read that.

stop being a party pooper m3-r0.

its still a valid information he did, and the game surely needs people to give more love to a dying game (or so people say)

Added the P2W boosts from the Cartel Market.

Those give a bigger boost than the DvL bonus and the highlighted activities. Why oh why did the devs think it was wise to put them in?

Added the P2W boosts from the Cartel Market.

Those give a bigger boost than the DvL bonus and the highlighted activities. Why oh why did the devs think it was wise to put them in?

moar money!

Added the P2W boosts from the Cartel Market.

Those give a bigger boost than the DvL bonus and the highlighted activities. Why oh why did the devs think it was wise to put them in?

Nothing new. It was known 3 weeks ago.

Nothing new. It was known 3 weeks ago.

Yes, but only now do we have confirmation that these boosts will be sold in the CM, and are officially allowed to talk about them as facts instead of rumors. Otherwise, I would have already included them when I first wrote this guide.

They put the character transfers on sale, so we have free cartel coins to spend for other things.

Do you have any information on this sale?

Edit: Never mind. I missed that it was starting on the 29th.

about the bonus for GCXP in a group, it probably scales until 4 people, like some quests that if you have 8 only the "side" you're in counts as group progress

about killing elite/champion... can you reset a heroic and keeping getting GXCP?

about the bonus for GCXP in a group, it probably scales until 4 people, like some quests that if you have 8 only the "side" you're in counts as group progress

 

about killing elite/champion... can you reset a heroic and keeping getting GXCP?

I don't see why not, you can keep resetting operation to get experience from mobs

I don't see why not, you can keep resetting operation to get experience from mobs

Not sure if it's relevant but if it's instanced resetting the quest is not enough. You need to reset local phases too and this has a cooldown of 30 minutes or so. I know it because i tried to farm the templars or whatever they were called in the star fortresses.

Not sure if it's relevant but if it's instanced resetting the quest is not enough. You need to reset local phases too and this has a cooldown of 30 minutes or so. I know it because i tried to farm the templars or whatever they were called in the star fortresses.

yeah, but if you're in a group of 4 you can change leader in keep doing, the only problem would be if you kill mobs kicker than 4 people resetting at 30 min intervals...

or you can make a group of 8 and farm cats on EV HM

yeah, but if you're in a group of 4 you can change leader in keep doing, the only problem would be if you kill mobs kicker than 4 people resetting at 30 min intervals...

 

or you can make a group of 8 and farm cats on EV HM

Yes, it's possible but imo it would be easier to just farm elites from ow heroics. And about ops i'd say farming the droids in tfb by not killing the cores would be a good idea.

yeah, but if you're in a group of 4 you can change leader in keep doing, the only problem would be if you kill mobs kicker than 4 people resetting at 30 min intervals...

 

or you can make a group of 8 and farm cats on EV HM

Yup you need to swap the leaders for the reseting now, you cant reset till oblivion, but its manageable. I will just wait for people to find a best way to grind it and will do that then

about the bonus for GCXP in a group, it probably scales until 4 people, like some quests that if you have 8 only the "side" you're in counts as group progress

 

about killing elite/champion... can you reset a heroic and keeping getting GXCP?

I don't think it's limited to 4 players only. The devs have said that you get more points for playing in a group, and from what I understood, this also means 16 players will get more points than 8 players. But we'll find out next week.

Yes, that should be possible but I'm not yet sure if that's a good idea. If you want to farm CXP from elites/champions, it's probably best to do it in an open-world area where you can have a group of 24 players and not in a phase. E.g. the Republic bonus series on Alderaan is perfect for this, it is so big that you can kill mobs over and over again without having to wait for a respawn. And with 24 players, the mobs die faster than with 4 players. But it remains to be seen whether those mobs actually give CXP, and if it gives you more CXP than doing FPs/Ops.

Yes, it's possible but imo it would be easier to just farm elites from ow heroics. And about ops i'd say farming the droids in tfb by not killing the cores would be a good idea.

IIRC, the devs have put in a limit on the spawn, after the third group or so there are no longer any adds spawning. Instead, you probably want to do the monsters on Bestia, and wipe and walk back in every time she enrages.

Open world has the risk that it won't work. You know, like when someone finishes the bonus of heroic but he's so far you don't receive anything

I'm not sure about that. I have already a picture in my mind about 24 man ops group farming killiks on Alderaan

To prepare for KotET, I have put in a lot of work to figure out the fastest ways to farm Command Crates. In this post, I will explain the mechanics behind Command Experience points, or CXP.

This guide is only based on information that was visible in blog posts, livestreams and videos, so some things are still unknown, and these mechanics are probably boring to all but theorycrafters.

 

Once you reach level 70, your XP bar is replaced by the Command Bar. Therefore, it's best to no longer hide your XP bar in your interface but your Legacy XP bar can stay hidden.

 

There are four sources for getting CXP:

1. Killing Elite and Champion NPCs
   
2. Completing certain quests
   
3. Using a "CXP Pack" item
   
4. Disintegrating an item from a Command Crate
   

(I am guessing that completing a warzone/arena/GSF match will also be a source for CXP. It wouldn't make sense if only the daily/weekly quests give CXP, but this is just a guess.)

 

You can get a 15% bonus from the Dark vs. Light server battle if you are on the winning side. My understanding is that this bonus only lasts during the 2-hour victory state, and your character needs to have the same alignment as the side that has gotten to Dark V or Light V. The DvL toggle in the interface only determines what side you are getting points for but your character's alignment is the one that decides whether you get the bonus.

 

Also, you can buy a 25% CXP boost on the Cartel Market.

 

1. Killing Elite and Champion NPCs

 

Certain NPCs give CXP when they are killed, usually this is 10 CXP for elites and 20 CXP for champions.

 

In a group, the CXP is increased by 20% per additional player. So in a 2-player group, you'll get a 20% bonus. And when in a 4-player group with a 60% bonus, you'll get 16 CXP for an Elite and 32 CXP for a Champion mob.

We'll have to test if this scales to 8-, 16- and 24-player groups. If it does, you are looking at a 460% bonus in a 24-player group, or 112 CXP per champion mob.

 

For some reason, you get CXP when Alem "Whisper" Reesus dies in the Crimson Fang uprising even though he's a friendly (aka green) NPC. So maybe any dying NPC will grant you CXP, even if he's on your faction.

Also, the final boss in the Crimson Fang uprising, Elarea Aldraste, does not grant any CXP even though it looks like she is dying normally and her corpse remains visible.

Not yet sure why this happens.

 

Formula: floor(BaseCXP * DvLBonus * CMBonus * (1 + 0.2 * NumPlayers)), where:

• BaseCXP is 10 or 20
  
• DvLBonus is 1 or 1.15
  
• CMBonus is 1 or 1.25
  
• NumPlayers is an integer from 0 to 23
  

 

The CXP is awarded at the end of a boss encounter, so if an encounter has two Champions, you will only get the CXP when both are dead. This ensures that you cannot just kill one boss, stealth out to reset the encounter and quickly farm CXP.

When the last boss dies, the CXP is first summed up from all enemies and only then rounded down to an integer.

For example, one Champion with DvL bonus in a 4-player group gives 20 * 1.15 * 1.6 = 36.8 CXP, this gets rounded down and you get 36 CXP.

But if there's an encounter with two champions, it rewards 2 * 36.8 = 73.6 CXP, rounded down to 73 CXP. So you get 1 more CXP than if the two champions were in separate encounters.

 

Examples from the livestream/videos:

• 10 CXP - Elite NPC
  
• 11 CXP - Elite NPC with DvL bonus
  
• 13 CXP - Elite NPC in 2-player group with DvL bonus
  
• 16 CXP - Elite NPC in 4-player group
  
• 18 CXP - Elite NPC in 4-player group with DvL bonus
  
• 20 CXP - Champion NPC
  
• 23 CXP - Champion NPC with DvL bonus
  
• 27 CXP - Champion NPC in 2-player group with DvL bonus
  
• 32 CXP - Champion NPC in 4-player group
  
• 36 CXP - Champion NPC in 4-player group with DvL bonus
  

 

 

2. Completing certain quests

 

Certain quests will give you CXP upon completion.

 

It may be possible to leave a quest pending and wait with accepting until you have the DvL bonus active. We'll have to find out if this works, or if the CXP only depends on when you completed the quest, not when you accept the quest rewards.

 

Formula: floor(BaseCXP * DvLBonus * CMBonus)

 

Examples from the livestream/videos:

• 160 CXP - [sTORY] Uprising: Firefrost
  
• 184 CXP - [sTORY] Uprising: Firefrost with DvL bonus
  
• 200 CXP - [VETERAN] Uprising: Firefrost
  
• 230 CXP - [VETERAN] Uprising: Firefrost with DvL bonus
  
• 20 CXP - Chapter I: Fully Involved (Bonus)
  
• 23 CXP - Chapter I: Fully Involved (Bonus) with DvL bonus
  

The quests for the Crimson Fang uprising give the same CXP as those for the Firefrost uprising.

 

 

3. Using a "CXP Pack" item

 

Bosses drop different types of CXP Packs, which you can then right-click to get CXP. These packs are bind on pickup and they do not stack.

It is probably best to wait with opening them until you have the DvL bonus active, unless you run out of inventory space.

 

There are both normal CXP Packs and Bonus CXP Packs; the Bonus CXP packs give more CXP than normal CXP packs. I am assuming that you get the Bonus CXP Packs on the day that your activity is highlighted. (remember, each day a different actvity will be highlighted) This highlight does not appear to increase the CXP from killing enemies or completing quests; those always give the same CXP.

 

Formula: floor(BaseCXP * DvLBonus * CMBonus)

 

Examples from the livestream/videos:

• 80 CXP - Small Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 92 CXP - Small Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 96 CXP - Small Bonus Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 110 CXP - Small Bonus Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 120 CXP - Medium Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 138 CXP - Medium Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 144 CXP - Medium Bonus Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 165 CXP - Medium Bonus Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 160 CXP - Large Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 184 CXP - Large Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 192 CXP - Large Bonus Uprising CXP Pack
  
• 220 CXP - Large Bonus Uprising CXP Pack with DvL bonus
  
• 1440 CXP - Large Bonus Operation CXP Pack
  

 

 

4. Disintegrating an item from a Command Crate

 

When you open a Command Crate but don't need some of the items, you can disintegrate them to get some CXP back. I am not sure whether these CXP are affected by the DvL bonus or whether they are always the same.

 

All tiers appears to have the same contents, always 3 or 4 slots (though the item levels will be different). Disintegrating all items from a pack will give you around 310-530 CXP

 

Disintegrating pack items gives the following CXP:

• 200 CXP - From the gear piece (can be anything from premium to legandary)
  
• 100 CXP - From the cosmetic armor (orange BoE with no mods).
  
• 10 CXP or 80 CXP - From the companion gift, reputation trophy or 8x Jawa Scrap
  
• 150 CXP - From the schematic (only has a chance to drop)
  

Firstly thanks for the great write up. It is much appreciated and really allows for freedom of maneuver come opening day.

Secondly, do you have any idea how Warzones, ranked or regular, factor in to this?