Triumph of the Flying Jetski

My SWTOR Trooper hit level 25, and obtained his first real mount over the weekend.  It looks vaguely like a giant hovering Jet Ski, and it adds 90% to my out-of-combat travel speed.  The added effect of this boost can be overstated when you consider that all characters get a permanent 35% non-combat sprint boost at level 1 as of patch 1.2.  The mount only takes half a second to activate, but it disappears nigh-instantly upon combat, so it definitely isn't worth mounting up between packs of mobs.  Still, it's a marked increase in speed while crossing the outside world.

The big black things do not appear to be functioning cannons.

The main reason why I was able to pay the 43,000 credits for the training and the vehicle was courtesy of SWTOR's crew skill system.  Each character is allowed three professions, and it appears that the intent is to take one crafting profession, one gathering profession (which procures basic materials for the corresponding crafter), and one mission skill (which procures rare materials for the crafter, and other miscellany).  However, pretty much all mission skills appear to operate at somewhat of a net loss of credits, probably to balance out the fact that you can have two or more missions going at once while AFK. 

Instead, I've gone with Slicing - an odd gathering skill that does very little for crafting but does find literal safes full of credits scattered around the landscape.  There are also slicing missions and I've had extremely mixed luck with these, generally breaking even.  (I've heard these were more lucrative in previous patches.)  While I suppose it's hard to complain about breaking even while earning skill points, in general I'm sticking to the guaranteed returns of looting lock boxes. 

Meanwhile, my other two slots are occupied with the Biochem crafting skill and Bioanalysis gathering skill.  Bioanalysis produces all the materials I need to make common medpacks (potions) and stims (longer stat buffs) with Biochem.  There are some NPC costs associated with training and materials, but in general this is a very low cost way to obtain all of my consumables.  So, I'm basically getting everything my character needs and operating at a net profit from crewskills alone, which makes all of my quest rewards and drops pure profit. 

I hear mixed things about the other crew skills, and I can't make use of any rare recipes I learn through reverse engineering (a process in which crafters are reimbursed for destroying the common items they make for skill points) for lack of the associated mission skill.  That said, I would not hesitate to recommend this particular combination to any other newbies looking to purchase their first speeder.