Stronghold Starter Guide

Additional Info

Table of Contents

Ready to get started on your first stronghold? Strongholds are SWTOR’s version of player housing – you can buy a house, and then decorate it the way you’d like with decorations found all over the game. You can then invite others to see your stronghold, or place it on the public listings so people can find it and tour your house. Strongholds are also a very convenient because you can set up useful tools like your legacy bank and a GTN in whatever arrangement you want.

Table of Contents

How to Get Your First Stronghold

To get your first stronghold you must do the initial quest. You must be LEVEL 15 and able to get to the fleet to start this quest.

swtor 2015-05-16 11-00-51-89Crafting & Strongholds section of the fleet (flipped for Imperial side) swtor 2015-05-16 11-00-45-27Look for a holographic NPC with a quest symbol swtor 2015-05-16 11-01-22-23After you start the test, go to the stronghold section nearby and buy your first stronghold – Coruscant or Dromund Kaas are only 5,000 credits

You can buy multiple strongholds and have real estate across the galaxy. Your strongholds are legacy-wide, and all your characters can visit them and see the decorations you have put down.

You can do this quest on every one of your characters for free decorations!

swtor 2015-05-16 11-03-03-68

How to Use the Strongholds Panel

Once you have your first stronghold, you can use the strongholds panel. To open it, click the icon on the menu that is shaped like two little silos.

panel-strongholds-button

On the left, you can switch between Personal and Guild strongholds. If you are in a guild, they may also have a stronghold or flagship you can visit!

swtor 2015-05-16 11-01-47-55

To go to your stronghold once you have purchased it, click the “Travel” button in the strongholds panel. It will teleport you there.  The best part is once you go to your stronghold, you can then “Travel Back” to your original location – so if you are questing, you can make a quick run to your bank, your mailbox or the GTN then travel back to exactly where you were. However “travel back” will only bring you back to the correct planet (NOT the correct location) if you log out in between.

How to Decorate

Once you are in your stronghold, a new box will pop up on your screen. You can click ‘Edit Mode’ to decorate.

swtor 2015-05-16 11-09-54-71Click ‘Edit Mode’ to decorate a stronghold you own swtor 2015-05-16 11-10-01-74You can now click on a ‘hook’ to put a decoration there swtor 2015-05-16 11-11-08-65Clicking on a hook will open the decorations panel

Once you click it a bunch of colored boxes will pop up on the floors, walls and ceilings. These are called hooks – they are locations where you can place a decoration. Right-click on any of these squares to add a decoration. When you do, the decorations panel should pop up, where you can look through the decorations list of things that fit in that hook. The best way to sort is with “Sort by Available“, because it will show you what decorations you have unlocked.

How to Unlock Decorations

If you have completed the initial stronghold quest, the first time you travel to your stronghold you should receive a bundle of starter decorations. To make them useable in you stronghold, you need to right-click the items in your inventory. Be careful – once you use them you can no longer sell them or give them away, so think before you right-click! Once you have right-clicked them, they will be added to your decorations list. That decoration will now be accessible by all your legacy characters in any of your strongholds.

Once you place a decoration down, it will subtract 1 of those decorations from your available decorations. However you can pick it back up again and put it down somewhere else. You can have multiples of the same decoration as long as you acquire multiples of the item and use them. For example, you can have 4 Basic Metal Chairs as long as you buy four from the vendor, and you will be able to place a total of four down across all your strongholds.

To view all your decorations, open the Stronghold Panel. On the left sidebar, click the ‘Personal’ button with a score under it. You can then sort by All, Unlocked and Available.

How to Get More Easy Decorations

  • You can do the initial stronghold quest on all your characters for free basic decorations
  • Visit the “Credit” vendor for some cool, cheap decorations – the credit vendor is located near where you originally bought your strongholds, in a trio of vendors
  • For every Flashpoint or operation boss you defeat, you will get a Trophy decoration to hang on your wall
  • Check the GTN! Go to the decorations category, then check each sub-category. Sort by lowest to highest to find some cheap decorations you can buy.
  • A ton of decorations can be crafted! The materials for them are slightly rare but you can gather them yourself with gathering missions. If you happen to be completing your conquests, you will receive Jawa Junk which can be used to buy extra crafting materials.
    Industrial Prefab decorations, Synthetic Prefab Decorations, Universal Prefab Decorations
  • Completing your personal Conquest for the week will net you three crafting node decorations every week
  • If you’ve finished a class’s chapter 3 storyline, you’ll have 50 copies of their class sign! you can also get cheap decos if you are light side or dark side.
  • Like warzones? There are decorations for number of killing blows in each warzone. You can also buy decorations with warzone commendations.

The Most Useful Decorations

The most useful decorations to get are the ones you can use! I highly recommend placing down your legacy bank and mailbox first, which you get from your intial quest. You should also get a personal bank (green one), a guild bank (purple one, if you are in a guild), a GTN, and an augment kit station if you are max-level. You can view all the “useful” decorations here.

To get a personal bank, you can either craft one, buy one from the GTN, buy one from the Cartel market, or get one from the Security Key vendor.

To get a GTN, you can craft one, buy one from the GTN, or buy one from the Cartel Market. There’s two versions, a big one and a small one. They’re the same thing, they just look different.

You should also get a vendor of some kind you can sell junk items to – choose one here or use the Felusia Stato decoration you get from the initial quest!

How to Craft Decorations

You do not directly craft decorations – you craft “prefab kits” which can then be traded to a Fabrication Droid for the decoration you want. These kits can also be bought and sold on the GTN. The droids can be placed in your stronghold as an interactable decoration, or can be found on the fleet in the Crafting & Strongholds section.

How to Get Flashpoint Decorations

Flashpoint decorations are a potential drop from certain flashpoints. They have a small chance of dropping from the final boss of the flashpoint, and a high chance of dropping from the bonus boss if the flashpoint has one.

The flashpoints below can be solo’d by a max-level character with some decent gear if they are being careful. For the newer level 60 flashpoints you will likely have to team up with a friend. Make sure to run them on hardmode and to do the bonus boss! In our personnel non-scientific experience, the more people in the party the more likely a decoration is to drop.

How to Get a Flagship

Flagships are accessed from the same panel as strongholds, but it’s a lot more work to get them! View the Flagship Guide

How to Invite Friends to Your Stronghold

There are three ways to invite someone you know to your stronghold:

If they are in your group or nearby, you can right click their name and invite them.

stronghold-invite-right-click

You can open your stronghold panel and click “Invite” under your stronghold. Or, you can invite your whole group!

stronghold-invite

You can give your friend a ‘key’.

stronghold-key A bronze key will allow them to visit whenever they want.

stronghold-key-silver A silver key will allow them visit whenever they want and to invite others.

Only you can have a gold key to your stronghold which allows you to decorate. You can not let friends decorate your stronghold. (need keys screenshot)

How to Show Off Your Stronghold

Have you made your stronghold awesome? Decorated every room? Have more than just basic decorations? It’s time to show off!

The funnest way to show off your stronghold is to post in general chat on the fleet that you are giving a tour, then invite people. Make sure your house is well decorated and you are ready for strangers to come in – many people will comment or criticize on your stronghold if you are there. Be prepared to deal with strange people – if they annoy you, you can kick them out of your stronghold by entering their name in the Strongholds panel.

stronghold-lock

Publicly List Your Stronghold

You can list your stronghold so people can visit it without you inviting them. When you publicly list your stronghold, others can go to the stronghold terminals and find your stronghold on a list of public strongholds. They can then go and visit. You do not have to be present – you can be away questing or pvping, but still allow people to see your house. Be warned – they don’t have to leave once they have entered! If you do not want strangers in your house, do not list your stronghold publicly!

To publicly list your stronghold click the key symbol in the stronghold panel beside your stronghold. The symbols that appear below it will denote which faction can visit it.

What is Prestige?

Prestige is a score that is made up of multiple things related to strongholds and decorations. Strongholds with higher prestige are listed higher on the public strongholds listing if you choose to list your stronghold there. For example, my stronghold with a 1,000 prestige will be listed a lot lower than someone who has unlocked a ton of decorations.

stronghold-public-listing

Legacy Stronghold Prestige – Legacy prestige is made up of how many decorations you have unlocked. Every unique decoration you unlock will increase your Legacy’s Prestige by 100, and subsequent unlocks of the same decoration will increase your Prestige by 2.

To see your legacy stronghold prestige, open the Stronghold Panel. It will be beside a ‘medal’ symbol under the world ‘Personal’ on the left sidebar.

stronghold-legacy-prestige

Legacy Stronghold

Individual Stronghold Prestige – Each of your Strongholds is scored by multiplying its completion percentage by your Legacy’s Prestige score. You can increase your Stronghold’s completion percentage by unlocking rooms and placing decorations.

stronghold-prestige

Stronghold Prestige

In theory, strongholds that top the Public Listing will therefore be the ones that are the most ‘complete’ that are owned by players who have the largest variety of decorations. Collectors often use this score to compete and compare their decoration collections.

Note: There is also a score that is colloquially called ‘prestige’ that involves legacy achievement points. This is completely separate and unrelated to strongholds.