You do eventually get to interact with your companions as a group aboard your ship. I kinda wish we could also selectively disable helmet visuals on companions -- if we could, I'd probably disable Corso's and Risha's (Wookies don't seem to change visually except maybe with belts). "Blackjack Blackjack" seems silly (Legacy surname choice), but I figured I'd want that in my nameplate and folks that know me by that ID would see it's me. I've run into a couple other players doing the same.

There's an option to change it so that it says "Captain Blackjack" as the character name and then right below it, it will say on a different line "The Blackjack Legacy".  Bioware says this is a per-character option.  So your other characters can have Blackjack as their last name (if desired), whereas Captain Blackjack can just have "The Blackjack Legacy" listed (or I believe there's an option to turn off legacy display altogether).

Completely agree on disabling companion helmets.

Thanks, I'll look through the Preferences more closely to see if I can find a setting like that.

It's under the Social Tab, listed as Legacy Display.

I screwed up at the beginning and had some light-side points where I wish I hadn't. But now I always pick dark side option if there is one. But really the only benefit I am seeing is the two relic slot items you can purchase from the dark side vendor. I do like how your character's look changes with each level of dark side, but thats just a cosmetic change.

You don't have to worry about that - just run any repeatable that grants Light/Dark side points (like say, any Flashpoint), and you can earn the points a second (or third, fourth, etc) time.

Re-run Esseless if you want the double bonus of getting social points along with light/dark points.  Esseless seems to give literally 8-10x more Social Points than any of the other Flashpoints.  Our Guild ran through it twice yesterday and we were averaging around 125 Social Points per run.  I think it's also around 250 L/S points.

You do eventually get to interact with your companions as a group aboard your ship. I kinda wish we could also selectively disable helmet visuals on companions -- if we could, I'd probably disable Corso's and Risha's (Wookies don't seem to change visually except maybe with belts). "Blackjack Blackjack" seems silly (Legacy surname choice), but I figured I'd want that in my nameplate and folks that know me by that ID would see it's me. I've run into a couple other players doing the same.

There's an option to change it so that it says "Captain Blackjack" as the character name and then right below it, it will say on a different line "The Blackjack Legacy".  Bioware says this is a per-character option.  So your other characters can have Blackjack as their last name (if desired), whereas Captain Blackjack can just have "The Blackjack Legacy" listed (or I believe there's an option to turn off legacy display altogether).

Completely agree on disabling companion helmets.

i'm also getting a bit bored of the questing. kill this, collect that. the world just feels so dead too. the server is listed as heavy to full even at 2am and yet i see no one. a pvp server is useless because i've seen a sith 3 times. there's just no sense of danger of having to watch my back. makes questing even more boring. i'm only lvl 34, i assume that's about average for people who play a few hours a day since early access. monday was really the only day i've played for a long stretch since then too. this phasing thing for the world is stupid and needs to go like right now.

I think you're way, way ahead of the curve.  I've been playing since the first 15 minutes of early release and since I'm on Winter Break, I've put in a huge amount of time -- /played says over 7 days! -- and I'm only a few levels over you at 38.  Our 76 person guild shows only 9 players over 30. 

I don't think most of the higher level planets are currently being phased.  Right now, for example, I am in the only Hoth instance and there are only 34 players on.  And that's with a Heavy load on one of the most popular servers out there (The Harbringer) -- it is admittedly early in the morning, but our server load is still Heavy and we are one of the unofficial Oceanic servers.

[Loading Stopping At 50%. Won't Move.]

We just got word in game they're bringing servers down for maintenance in a few minutes.

I suspect it might be related to this "emergency patch" mentioned at forums:

Loading Stopping At 50%. Won't Move.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=912451#edit912451

I wanted to give you folks an update on this. We currently have something in the works that should alleviate this issue in the next Emergency Patch, which will be going out soon.

I'm not certain though. "Soon" may mean a few days, not a few hours.
*This is about an issue where the initial loading goes a certain % and then stops.

Lot of people still having Error Code 9000 disconnects (I get one or two of those a day), and they're supposedly trying to figure out a fix:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=911491#edit911491

And Guild/Party chat is still messed up for some (worked for us in the GT Heroes guild tonight), with "log out/log back in" as the workaround for now.

Apparently the server going down message was a false alarm.

-The mostly useless medical droid on the smuggler's ship (or does every class get him?) isn't considered a companion per se, so he's (it's?) not listed here, even though you can bring him along on missions and he can do all the crew skills stuff that regular companions do.

C2-N2, the obsequious C3P0-like droid?  Yeah, all Republic characters get him.

How does one go about learning new crafting recipes?  I heard it had something to do with reverse engineering items, but I have yet to find anything that I can reverse engineer, except for the mods that I pull from my orange items when upgrading them.

My Jedi Guardian should hit level 20 tomorrow, which will mark the longest I've ever stuck with an MMO.  

The crafting master either on the fleet or at Coruscant has a lot for you to buy, with the number increasing as your skill level goes up.  Slicers also find the and put them on the market, although this seems to vary by vocation -- I've seen lots of armor recipes, but only one artifice recipe ever.

Also the main way to improve your skills is to reverse engineer the stuff that you yourself make.  This will unlock a blue version and then ultimately a purple version -- odds of an unlock are estimated to be about 1 in 10.  Depending on the specific item you are reverse engineering, there may be multiple possible blue and purple recipes.

Finally got my first orange armor as part of a long quest line on Coruscant, and bought a new lightsaber as well.   

I'm a little confused about how armor is calculated, though.  The orange armor I picked up was listed as Armor 24 (rating 44), but when I threw on a "+40 armor" mod, it made the final armor total  256.  Is there some sort of multiplier that comes into play with higher level equipment?  I'm just a little fuzzy on how 25 (base armor) + 44 (mod) comes out to 256.

AIUI Orange Equipment gets their primary statistic determined by one of the mods.  For Lightsabers the damage is determined by the quality of the Hilt mod.  For clothing the armor value is determined by the Armor mod.  I'm not sure what the "primary" mod for guns are, as I don't have an Orange gun for my Smuggler alt yet.

Cross-posted on Qt3

There's a rather lengthy interview with Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer care of Giant Bomb.  Among other things he talks about technically how the servers work and hints at a Chapter Four in progress.  He mentions that the writers and artists finished the work that's currently in the game long ago and have been working on future SWTOR work for quite some time.

One thing he mentions that I didn't realize is that apparently there is supposed to be quite some time between the chapters.  He didn't mention how long, but my impression is that it would be something like -- end of chapter one, chapter two starts with "ten years later" or something along those lines.  Which I guess makes sense.  In the movies I think there's supposed to be some time between Episodes 4 and 5, and Episodes 5 and 6.  And for sure there's enough time between Episode 1 and Episode 2 for Anakin to change from an annoying little kid to become an annoying semi-adult.

I keep seeing references to the droid healer companion.  C2-N2 is not intended to be a combat companion.  The fact that he can be taken out and does some healing is deceiving. He is not a full fledged companion.  His intention is purely for crafting to be honest.

The Tatooine Royal Navy (Qt3 Republic Guild) took him healing on a Flashpoint and he mostly did okay.  He takes almost all the same gear as T7 (the Jedi Knight Companion) so I transferred all of T7's equipment over for the Flashpoint.  He certainly does put out heals, and he seems fairly survivable (caveat -- I've got some pretty good equipment).  The main problem I've seen with him is the one Blackjack referenced -- he has a tendency to wander off and start beating on mobs that no one else is attacking, instead of concentrating on our targets or better yet just hanging back and concentrate on healing.

I'm sure he's no match for a full healer companion, but we found he did work in a pinch.

Man, the difficulty really ramps up at around level 28/29 or maybe I just poorly specced my character.  I hit what I believe to be the final Smuggler mission on Tatooine (involving two force users) and after repeated attempts could not beat that mission.  Instead I abandoned it and flew to Alderaan to pick up some more missions and level up.  After leveling to 29 and picking up some new, higher level gear for my companion I went back to Tatooine and tried again and still got wiped five times in a row.

Same thing is true of the Jedi Knight.  The story boss before heading to Tatooine tore me a new one.  It wasn't even close, he threw me around like a rag doll.  I went back to the station and through 20k credits into gear and was just barely able to beat him.

Do you guys know if you get social points for any grouped conversation or only in Flashpoints?

Stupid question time.  I came across this article which talks about assigning stats for maximum effectiveness.  From everything I can see, the game assigns your stats automatically when you level up.  Is there a way to manually go back and adjust that?

I don't believe so.  In some sees you'll be adjusting them based on the gear you choose to wear though.

Blackjack, you're playing a Scoundrel right?  How is it for soloing?  

I've just started up a new Smuggler.  I know my Guild is short on healers.  OTOH I know I'll probably do 95% of my game play solo.  So I guess the questions are (1) do you think the Scoundrel feels appropriately Han Solo'ish (I certainly don't think Han Solo does much healing, so will I be able to do other Han Solo type stuff in addition to healing), (2) if I dump all my points into healing support am I going to be solo play viable and is that play going to feel like fun, (3) if I don't dump all my points into healing support and do some sort of hybrid how much am I going to suck for running Flashpoints.

I'm Gunslinger (focusing mainly on Sharpshooter and Damage Adv. Class tiers) all the way.  

So I can't really speak to your Scoundrel questions firsthand. I think any type of smuggler you roll will be solo-viable.

It's maybe more a question of whether you enjoy the cover fire mechanic (Sharpshooter tier) or wanna throw all sorts of detonation charges (Saboteur tier in the Gunslinger tree); or if you'd rather be constantly running around out of cover, shooting enemies in the back (scattergun) and doing melee stuff. You could even be Scoundrel and skip the Sawbones (healing) tier altogether, although that'd probably confuse other players in groups as they'd assume a Scoundrel had healing.  

Don't forget with Scoundrel heals, at least some of them work on you and your companion as well. That could be really useful in solo play as well as groups.

I did try Scoundrel in my first weekend beta test, just a couple levels. While it was fun using that scattergun (the animation is awesome), I enjoy the cover fire mechanic too much to de-emphasize it. I think long term it's something I'd like to try with an alt some day.

As far as feeling Han Solo-ish goes, I think more of that comes through in the class quests and the general dialogue choices, along with the fun idle animations (spinning your pistols when in rest mode etc.).

I mean, while I don't see Han as "healer," I also don't have any visions of Han Solo running around with a portable force field and wielding John Woo-style dual blasters. But it's fun and addictive.  

Thanks for the info Blackjack.  Not quite sure what I'm going to do with this guy.  Maybe I'll make him a Sawbones and then play another Smuggler later as a dark side Gunfighter.

I've heard it's on the bubble and it may or may not get renewed.  Any way a quick Google check says that was the case as of the dead of November.

I'd assumed that they're giving out the episodes for free in an attempt to help build audience interest.  I don't see why else they'd give out all the episodes for free.

The Hark and Kato Duo!

Agent Hark (Left) and Bounty Hunter Kato (Right)

You guys look pretty bad-ass.  I particularly like that Bounty Hunter outfit.

IIRC you can also use Fleet Commendations to buy a Luke Skywalker classic pilot suit -- all Orange components so good all the way to level cap.

Blackjack, you're playing a Scoundrel right?  How is it for soloing?  

I've just started up a new Smuggler.  I know my Guild is short on healers.  OTOH I know I'll probably do 95% of my game play solo.  So I guess the questions are (1) do you think the Scoundrel feels appropriately Han Solo'ish (I certainly don't think Han Solo does much healing, so will I be able to do other Han Solo type stuff in addition to healing), (2) if I dump all my points into healing support am I going to be solo play viable and is that play going to feel like fun, (3) if I don't dump all my points into healing support and do some sort of hybrid how much am I going to suck for running Flashpoints.

I guess my obviously mistaken reasoning was that Trooper's "high tech" armor and weaponry would benefit from cunning rather than the glorified leather we Smugglers tend to use. Other than portable cover, and the AC Dampeners absorption stuff for cover, my Gunslinger has very little I'd consider high-tech.

I just haven't really seen this spelled out in-game. I dunno, maybe a big fast asterisk next to my Smuggler's Cunning stat saying "Hey big dummy Blackjack, you want more of this!" would help?   Maybe I should've extrapolated that from all the Smuggler quest completion rewards that had Cunning in the stats but often you'd get choices of two, one with Cunning and one with Aim or something else.

I'll have to admit I wasn't thinking about it in terms of class abilities and more just a descriptor for what we think of when thinking of a particular class, i.e. "A Smuggler should be a Cunning Rascal."  Of course if that doesn't match with how the class works, I could see how that could be a bit of a problem.

\Speaking of which, Aim is apparently next to useless for Smugglers (Cunning is a key stat, dunno what the reasoning is). So I might need to re-work my equipment at some point.

I think the thinking was each class has a different key stat.  Strength => Jedi Knight, Wisdom => Jedi Councilar, Aim => Trooper, Cunning => Smuggler.  While it might have made sense to give Smugglers Aim, it would have made less sense to give Trooper Cunning.

Anyway AIUI it's not that Aim is useless for Smugglers (it still increases ranged weapon damage and critical hit chances) , it's just that Cunning does much more since its the prime stat for Smugglers.  AIUI the classes prime stat gives additional bonuses to some of your other characteristics (not quite sure what all is included) whereas the non-class prime stats just does what you'd expect.  So increasing your Smuggler's cunning not only increase your tech damage it does some other stuff as well, since it's your prime state.

Warning to any Jedi Knight players.  It's possible to get Kira into a bugged state.  The Defector quest discussed gets handed out just as you leave Nar Shadda.

Until we can get the fix up, don't flirt with Kira during The Defector quest! (she will stop giving affection conversations)

The underlying issue has already been fixed internally, and should be showing up on our known issues list in a moment. It will take us a few days to roll out the fix so new players won't encounter the issue. It'll take us a bit longer to get a fix out for characters already experiencing the issue, but don't panic -- you should be able to hit the ground running with Kira as if nothing had ever been wrong (affection accumulated between now and then should not be harmed). Free to continue using Kira if you don't mind cashing in on your investment at a later date, or perhaps you might get to better know your cheeky T-7 droid!

Pan Am is currently free on iTunes to download all 9 episodes of the first season.  I haven't watched it, so I can't vouch for it, but I've heard it's decent.

Servers are back up.

[The space stations are identical except for signage too]

Reading the boards, it sounds like they did a bit of cut and paste with some quests on Coruscant/Empire 1st planet. The space stations are identical except for signage too, which I thought was convenient for knowing where things are, but a bit lazy.

The ideas behind the start of the Esseles and the intial Empire flashpoint are also similar, but they turned out to be very different.

Are they?  I know they're shaped exactly the same, but I thought the art work was quite different.  I haven't been on the Imperial one since beta, but I remember it being all clean and sleek looking, whereas the Republic one kind of has a junk yard look to it, like someone just slapped the thing together from random crap and then left it to rust a bit.

Well yeah, I was mostly talking about the design. I'm sure the textures are a bit different. The Empire seem to like neon. Although I haven't noticed the Republic base looking run-down exactly.

It's most noticeable in the shopping stalls.  The walls look rather rough and, at least to my eye, they look like they're starting to rust.

well damn!  I decided to try to register my game code since the next time I play it will be release day.  Of course they not only took the game servers down but SWTOR.com is down as well. 

   Well the good news is there is now a 48-hour Grace Period.

[Guide to Space Combat]

A player's fairly useful Guide to Space Combat (there's no "tutorial" in game about it):
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=497090#post497090

Thanks Blackjack.  I had no idea about the Barrel Roll thing.

He doesn't mention that if you right click and drag you can target multiple targets with your missiles.

Wow, would never have figured that one out.  Doesn't that turn things in to easy mode -- at least until you run out of missles.

[The space stations are identical except for signage too]

Reading the boards, it sounds like they did a bit of cut and paste with some quests on Coruscant/Empire 1st planet. The space stations are identical except for signage too, which I thought was convenient for knowing where things are, but a bit lazy.

The ideas behind the start of the Esseles and the intial Empire flashpoint are also similar, but they turned out to be very different.

Are they?  I know they're shaped exactly the same, but I thought the art work was quite different.  I haven't been on the Imperial one since beta, but I remember it being all clean and sleek looking, whereas the Republic one kind of has a junk yard look to it, like someone just slapped the thing together from random crap and then left it to rust a bit.

That's something geeks will say in chat all the time - "there are no rebs". Bleh, then why does the game itself call them rebels at times? Plus it's easier to say rebs than republic.

In certain Sith storylines there are true rebels -- Imperial citizens working to overthrow their own government.

I love this game but it's almost literally made me physically ill from playing it so much (I wake up groggy each morning like I've been out drinking and eating the wrong things). Is that a testimonial or a warning?  

Oh man, that sounds like me exactly 

The other nifty thing about SWTOR 4-mans is if you're missing a 4th you can sometimes get by with a companion.

Hey if you guys ever figure out how to reach the special CE vendors in the Republic Fleet hub, let me know. I see the icons "faded," which presumbly means they're above or below that central hub. But I just can't reach it. I tried the elevators that go way up high, but it still didn't seem to give access to them. I've asked, done searches, etc. just can't figure it out. 

It's above the ground level.  If you look at the central bar, it's actually composed of four separate sections with small elevator platforms between each bar section.  Only CE and Digital Deluxe users can take the elevators to an upper level section.  That's who the CE only vendor is.  Digital Deluxe users can see the vendor, but can't use him.

Although I'm really not a collector of these (I have a Vault-Tec bobblehead from Fallout 3, and a cheap Iron Man figure, that's about it), if they did one of these for each class in the game, they could sign me up.  

Oh, and the CE DVD case includes a 30% off any other Gentle Giant statue. Maybe I'll give in. I think I'm officially hopeless now. 

If it had been a Jedi instead of a Sith, I definitely might have gone for it.

I thought they should've done one of each, but I guess maybe economics necessitated sticking with one type.

Gentle Giant LTD's SW collection's here:
http://www.gentlegiantltd.com/Star_Wars_Collectibles_s/1.htm
*Didn't really see anything quite like the CE statue in a Jedi form, alas.

I figure if the game ends up being popular, there are a couple possibilities.

(1) They might make more of them with other characters
(2) Someone might do something like WoW FigurePrints.  Has anyone seen one of these?  I'm kind of curious whether they look good or not.

Just opened my CE package. Everything's intact. In fact, the statue was packaged like Fort Knox (solid styrofoam, taped shot).

The metal Darth Malgus statue is totally awesome!   I'll have a few  photos to share after dinner. It's very stout, very heavy, solid base. Long metal pegs on the feet holding it in place. The glossy base ships with a protective film on it.

Yeah when we talk about crafting, we just mean your companion's doing it but you're directing all that. So basically you're crafting, the companion system just takes the drudgery out of it, imho.

Yeah, but this is just another way BW has cut things short..and will leave the avid crafters wanting more. Until there is a paradigm shift in MMO's, we will still have to have grinds of various colours and shapes.

All it takes is in game currencies to craft. From what I've seen it doesn't cut into any of my gameplay at all..very simple and easy.

I've spent a huge amount of time getting my purple recipes and getting my crafting stuff together.  Probably an entire day of gameplay.  So it's definitely cutting big into my regular gametime.  I've probably spent half the time doing real regular play and half the time crafting.  We'll have to see how things go toward level 50.  The crafting and mission times go up by quite a bit.  Some of the tier 3 missions (for stuff in the mid 20's range) can take 20 minutes or longer.

Has anyone put any time into figuring out crafting?

I'm trying to decide if it's feasible to have my main as a gatherer and a few crafter alts produce the items.  I don't know if crafting levels are restricted by character level - in WoW you had to be a certain character level to be able to advance in crafting.

Are crafted items mostly BoP or BoE?

I've read that you can find rare patterns with some of the gathering professions - are those BoE or BoP?


Thanks to anyone who knows more than the tiny bit I know. 

As far as I can tell there are no level restrictions on crafting.  I'm crafting 140/400 but only level 20, there are lots of things I can craft that I'm not high enough level to use.  The main issue you'll run into is that while you can get "gathering skill" items by sending companions on missions, that's relatively expensive and it's easier to pick them up on your own by finding them on planet.  I suppose you could also check the auction house.  It's also possible that you'll make enough money crafting that the cost of missions won't be an issue.

All my recipes including my purple ones create Bind on Equip items.  I don't know about recipes "find in the wild."  I can't imagine that they'd be Bind on Pickup.  For example the Slicing craft is supposed to be able to find recipes for other crafting skills.  Since a slicer is unlikely to have the matching crafting skill, they'd be useless unless they could sell them.

Although I'm really not a collector of these (I have a Vault-Tec bobblehead from Fallout 3, and a cheap Iron Man figure, that's about it), if they did one of these for each class in the game, they could sign me up.  

Oh, and the CE DVD case includes a 30% off any other Gentle Giant statue. Maybe I'll give in. I think I'm officially hopeless now. 

If it had been a Jedi instead of a Sith, I definitely might have gone for it.

[crafting wise]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/police-arrest-man-accused-light-saber-assault-toys-162829995.html

BJ taking the game too seriously?

Hey I'm a dual blasters guy who doesn't like to hurt people in real life -- so more likely I'd go nuts with a couple of those Nerf-projectile pistols, firing from cover.  

Besides, 33 years old, man? Damn, I only wish it was still 1998.  
=================
So what are you guys (once you've reached the point of crew skills) trying so far crafting wise? I'm trying armstech but early on, can't really seem to make anything as good or better as what I've already gotten from quest rewards for my smuggler or his companion.

I've heard the biochem crafting is pretty useful if you're not a healer type (longer lasting stims, lots of useful consumables of this and that), and I'm thinking that might be more useful to my smuggler as I advance further into the game and fights get a little tougher.

I don't know if I grasp how to get better at armstech. I'm not sure if making a bunch of the initial weapons you can make is improving Corso's skill or if he's just spinning his wheels.  

I'm an artificer, currently level 160.  So far I've found it to be very useful, a lot of my recipes are better than the commendation items and some of my recipes are a lot better.  I will admit though I've wasted a ton of time and credits on crafting.  For artificer the green recipes generally only need items that you can harvest using a gathering skill.  But the blue and purple recipes need extra items that you can only get from missions.  The missions cost a lot of money to run.  Sometimes over 800 credits, but mostly a lot less.

To unlock blue and purple recipes you'll need to craft a lot and do a lot of reverse engineering.  

I'm having fun but so far am losing a lot of money and spending a huge amount of time harvesting.  So far I've got 2 purple recipes (one at level 19 and one for level 17) and then 12 blue recipes.

Are there many GT Sith players?  Are you all on the same Dreshdae Cantina server as Blackjack's GT Heroes guild.

I'm playing Republic with the Qt3 group on The Harbringer, but I was thinking perhaps I should have my Sith characters on another server, since they can't help with crafting anyway, and based on the fact that I've played through Mass Effect 5 times, I'm not sure having only 4 Republic characters and 4 Sith characters is going to be a realistic limit for me.

Hey Blackjack, just wanted to say that I appreciate your tracking down all this info for us! 

One thing kind of annoying me is when you have your companion's character panel tab up, the tooltip "comparisons" when hovering over equipment or loot rewards is still comparing to what YOU have equipped, not your companion. I end up having to do quite a lot of juggling of panels and inventory windows to figure out if something would improve on what my companion's already using. If I'm missing something obvious about that, you guys let me know.  

Check the preferences, there's a setting to compare to both your equipment and your companion's.  Also, not sure, but I think if you've got the companion tab open and the inventory window open, right clicking equips to your companion, not yourself.

Well, evidently I didn't cancel my pre-order quick enough because I still got in the first day and started playing (hey it was there ).  Of course it got my interest going again and I think I'm probably going to be playing it after all.  Stupid Star Wars.  Anyway, I noticed they did something to the graphics compared to the last open beta and it looks much less cartoony now.  I really like it the change.

Yeah, it seemed like that to me as well.

Bit of a warning on Jedi Knight.  The first planet story line is pretty mundane.  I'm really loving the storyline on Coruscant though, so if you're trying to evaluate if you want to stay in, don't do it just based on first-planet Jedi Knight.  Plus hey, lightsabers, got to have a lightsaber.

I thought the Imperial Agent first planet storyline was great.  I didn't get far enough into the second planet to evaluate.

Does anyone know where to go to get skill points reset?  AIUI this is in game, but I sure can't figure out how or where.

Nevermind, found it from old forum posts ressurected via Google cache -- thanks Google   The answer is you need to talk to someone called a "Skill Mentor"  these guys do not have icons over their heads, but are usually in the vicinity of the other trainers.  In the fleet star base there's one all the way at the end of the row of rooms with regular class trainers.

...You'll definitely know when you've put enough points in because the row of skills above it will "un dim" and become available to distribute points to. ...

Pretty sure if you mouse over a second tier, or higher, row it will tell you what you need for points

I don't think so.  I tried doing a mouse over since this seemed like the obvious way to find out how they were unlocked.  [Edit]. Double checked in game, and there is definitely no indication on the skill tool tips.  That's certainly the obvious place to put an indication of how they work, so I'm rather surprised they didn't do that.