Cartel Market Armor Guide in SWTOR

Cartel Market armor refers to gear originally obtained from the in-game Cartel Market in Star Wars: The Old Republic, either through direct purchase or from random drops in Cartel Packs. Most of these armor sets are purely cosmetic, meaning they don’t have any stats by default, and can be worn by players of any level or class. You can easily identify Cartel Market armor as it has a tiny Cartel Market symbol in the bottom left corner of the icon.

What Cartel Market armors are there?

There is somewhere around 600 different armor sets, and probably somewhere close to 4,000 individual Cartel Market armor pieces… wow! You can mix and match these and any other armor pieces you want to make a unique look.

I have a full list of Cartel Market armors on the armor site!

Ways to Obtain Cartel Market Armor

There are four primary ways to obtain Cartel Market armor:

1. Buy from the GTN: Players can sell Cartel Market armor on the Galactic Trade Network. Start here!
2. Purchase directly from the Cartel Market: Some sets are available for Cartel Coins. But only sometimes.
3. Cartel Packs: These are random packs purchased with Cartel Coins that may contain Cartel Market armor.

Buying Armor on the GTN

The GTN is a player-run market, where players can buy and sell un-bound items, including Cartel Market armor that has not been equipped yet. You can access it starting at level 10 by heading to the Galactic Trade Network section on either the Republic or Imperial Fleet.

When searching for Cartel Market armor on the GTN, it’s best to search by part of the armor’s name rather than the full piece name. For example, if you’re looking for “Sinister Warrior’s Upper Robes,” searching for just “Sinister Warrior” may bring up a full boxed set, which could be cheaper than buying individual pieces. Always remember to sort results by price, lowest to highest and compare! In the example above, if we wanted just the chestpiece, buying it individually would be a lot cheaper. But if we wanted the mask, the mask is not even available for sale individually, so we’d need to buy the boxed set if we wanted the complete look. Other times, you can find every piece, or at least the pieces you want, for sale individually.

In addition to the GTN, players can buy or sell Cartel Market armor via the trade window or by mail, but it’s more common to just use the GTN.

Cartel Market

The Cartel Marker is the in-game “cash shop” for Star Wars: the Old Republic, where you can spend Cartel Coins. The stock of the Cartel Market is very random – you never know which items will be available or not from day to day, and sometimes items go on sale. There’s no schedule or calendar of what will be available on the Cartel Market or a schedule of what will be on sale, so you kinda just have to check in-game to see what’s there.

What if neither the GTN nor Cartel Market have the armor I’m looking for?

Because the GTN relies on other players to list their items, and the Cartel Market does not sell every item all the time, you may run into a situation where you simply can’t find a way to get a specific armor or set. All you can do is either find another set you like that is available, or bide you time and keep checking the GTN! I recommend checking about once per week as players can list their items up to 7 days.

Cartel Packs

Players who sell Cartel Market items on the GTN usually have gotten them either directly from the Cartel Market, but commonly also get them from Cartel Packs.

Cartel Packs, including Ultimate Packs, are purchasable from the Cartel Market and contain a random selection of items, including armor sets. Each pack can drop one of many possible items, making the process luck-based.

Older Cartel Packs, which contain items from a limited pool of armors, are mostly retired and harder to find.

Free Cartel Packs

You can also earn free Ultimate Cartel Packs through Galactic Seasons. These packs are non-tradeable, but any items you get from them can be sold or traded after the timer runs out.

The Galactic Seasons track also has some Classic Cartel Armor packs in bronze and silver which will also have a random set of Cartel Market armor in them. These packs are also non-tradeable, but any items you get from them can be sold or traded after the timer runs out.

This is why you can sometimes find good deals on the GTN – players open up packs, and sell the items they do not want.

Can you unlock Cartel Armor across your account / characters? Yes!

The Collections System allows you to unlock infinite copies of Cartel Market armor sets for your character(s):

• For your current character: Once you’ve collected every piece of a set and equipped it, the set will be available in your Collections. Be careful, as some sets have different versions of their helmets, chest pieces or leg pieces, you will need to equip all versions for this to work. From there, you can claim free copies of the armor at any time, meaning you can safely destroy the original pieces to free up inventory space. Just make sure the armor doesn’t have any dyes or mods you want to keep – for example, if I use an expensive dye in a chestpiece, I tend to keep the chestpiece in my bank just in case and destroy the rest.
• For all characters on your account: You can pay Cartel Coins in the Collections window to unlock the armor set for all characters on your account across all servers. This means you can generate copies of the armor for each character, no matter where they are. This costs anywhere between 60 to 400 Cartel Coins and depends on the armor set and its rarity.

There are a few older Cartel Market items that don’t follow the usual Collections rules. Some rare chestpieces and a few sets from long ago come with stats attached and have a purple border. These specific items cannot be unlocked in Collections and function more like traditional gear. 99% of Cartel Market armor follows the regular rules though.

More info in the Collections Guide!

SWTOR Collections Guide

Are Cartel Market armors the only cool armors in the game?

No!

I will say, many of the coolest armors are Cartel Market items. Don’t forget though that you can often buy them with Credits or Cartel Coins you get for “free” for being a subscriber, so you do not need to purchase them with real money.

There is also a LOT of really cool non-Cartel armors. It’s one of the reasons I built the armor site! Check out all the categories there that are not Cartel Market – my favorite is probably the Reputation category and Star Fortress Category.