UPDATED AS OF 2/2/12

Hello all!

I've only recently discovered the proper way to gain affection with my companion characters using Companion Gifts! I was just sort of haphazardly using what I thought was right regardless of the results and if it failed, I chalked it up to experimentation.

AFFECTION
The first thing that needs to be discussed is the Affection Meter you have for each companion. When you open your Crew Skill window, you'll have a list of all your companions, the skills you have and below their portrait an bar that fills in with green as their affection for you increases. It goes from 0 to 10,000. Every 2000 points, your character has reached a new rank with you and this will affect what gifts will do for them.

Rank 1 - 0 - 1999
Rank 2 - 2000 - 3999
Rank 3 - 4000 - 5999
Rank 4 - 6000 - 7999
Rank 5 - 8000 - 10000

GIFTS
There are 5 ranks of gifts in each of the 10 categories as well as three levels of availability.

To give a gift to a character, make sure that the companion is summoned and just simply click on the gift you want to use and a small timer will go off and you'll see some flying text telling you how much affection you just gained. There will then be a 30 second debuff before you can give another gift.

Categories: Weapon, Luxury, Republic Memorabilia, Imperial Memorabilia, Underworld Goods, Technology, Trophy, Courting, Military Gear and Cultural Artifacts.

Rank 1 and Rank 2 Green gifts can be purchased at the vendor on the Fleet and you'll sometimes find vendors on various worlds that sell them as well. Blue and Purple can only be discovered through missions that you send your companions on (at least, that I know of). Sometimes there will be vendors on worlds that will sell Rank 3 and up gifts, but I haven't been able to compile a list of them yet. If you have any knowledge of them, post here and i'll update the list! You can always check the Galactic Trade Network as well. Companion Gifts are listed under the Miscellaneous category.

CHARACTER PREFERENCE
Every companion character will have certain categories that they Love, Like, or is their Favorite.

If it's their Favorite they will gain +54 affection.
If they Love it, they will gain +96.
If they Like it, they will gain +24.


ALL THESE NUMBERS ARE BASED ON USING A RANKED GIFT OF THE SAME RANK AS THE COMPANION.

MECHANICS
If Qyzen Fess were at 1500 affection and I gave him a Rank 1 Green Weapon, he could gain +96 affection. If it were Technology, he'd gain +24. Qyzen has no category that he Loves.

NOTE: If you use an item that is lower than your current rank, it's effectiveness goes down as well. One rank below will be 50% less and two ranks below is 75% less. Take the same Qyzen and make him have 2750 affection. Giving him the Rank 1 Green Weapon would only get you +48 even though Weapon is his Favorite category. If he were Rank 3, that Rank 1 Weapon would only give +24 affection. While it's tempting to use the higher Rank gifts on lower Rank characters, saving them for when you HAVE to use them without the penalty is probably for the best.

AVAILABILITY
As I said earlier, there are three types of item availability: Green (common), Blue (uncommon) and Purple (rare).

Green will give you the full amount of affection (taking into account what's already been stated above).
Blue will give you an additional 50% of what the Green would give you.
Purple will give you an additional 300% of what the Green would give you.

If you had Kira Carsen of Rank 3 affection and gave her a Green Rank 3 Luxury item (of which she Loves), she would gain +96 affection. If that item were of Blue quality, she would gain +144 affection (50% more). If it were of Purple quality, she would gain +288 affection (300% more).



You may be asking where i'm pulling these Favorites, Loves and Likes from. I found these amazing charts that I will gladly share for all of your benefit! I've also included the Imperial chart for those Imp alts that some people have!






IN CLOSING
I think that about covers it, folks. You have the charts for your companions. You can always print it out or if your machine is good enough, you can always save it and just Alt+Tab out to get to it. I have it saved to my phone so I can just pull it up when I need to.

I certainly hope that this guide helps out everyone and gives you a better idea of what you need to do to get those ranks up as efficiently as possible!

Also, as an Underworld Trader myself, sending my companions on missions to get the appropriate ranked gifts I need usually nets me two and sometimes of better quality because the quests are grey to me at this point for Ranks 1-3.

~D

EDIT: Some new information...basically, read this chart with LOVE as the best affection gain and FAVORITE as the second best.

Gift Multiplier Quality
"Cheap", value 0.5
"Standard", value 1
"Premium", value 6
"Prototype", value 10
"Artifact", value 24
"Legendary", value 25
"Legacy", value 26

Gift Multiplier Delta Rank
"0", value 1
"1", value 1.1
"2", value 1.3
"3", value 1.5
"4", value 1.5
"5", value 1.5
"-5", value 0
"-4", value 0
"-3", value 0
"-2", value 0.2
"-1", value 0.5

Gift Multiplier Category Interest
"Indifferent", value 0
"Like", value 4
"Favorite", value 9
"Love", value 16

Companion Affection Rank Map
"Rank 1", value -1000
"Rank 2", value 2000
"Rank 3", value 4000
"Rank 4", value 6000
"Rank 5", value 8000

Doombah wrote:

While it's tempting to use the higher Rank gifts on lower Rank characters, saving them for when you HAVE to use them without the penalty is probably for the best.

So does that mean that the penalty for using a rank 2 gift on a rank 1 comp also has the 50% reduction, i.e. does it work both ways?

Darth Dreselus wrote:

Doombah wrote:

While it's tempting to use the higher Rank gifts on lower Rank characters, saving them for when you HAVE to use them without the penalty is probably for the best.

So does that mean that the penalty for using a rank 2 gift on a rank 1 comp also has the 50% reduction, i.e. does it work both ways?

No it means that there is no bonus for giving higher ranked gifts. That's why it would be a waste of giving your higher ranked gift when you could use a lower ranked one.


@Doombah: ty for the helpful guide. I had no idea what the ranks were for and now I do

crazyBE wrote:

@Doombah: ty for the helpful guide. I had no idea what the ranks were for and now I do

Always glad to help the guild out in any way I can. I may end up doing a Space Mission Guide as well down the line once i've unlocked all of them.

~D

Blizz op bounty hunters have it the easiest! Change it now BW!1!!111!!
(Not to be taken seriously)

Judging from the numbers I see, Luxury is a Like for Vette, not a Favorite.

Chewbacabra wrote:

Judging from the numbers I see, Luxury is a Like for Vette, not a Favorite.

And Qyzen seems to only have Love for Weapons, not Favorite. I'll see if there's an updated guide out there somewhere. This info may have been based off the Beta weekend.

~D

Swtor-spy.com has a companion gift guide, as well as pictures of the different customisations.

Added an addendum to the bottom of my original post.

Basically, on that chart, if it says LOVE, that's what's going to give you the most affection for your companion.

~D

Awesome, thank you for this! I've been kinda guessing what Vette and Corso would like just by going off of their profiles.

It makes sense that Vette would love anything that's a luxery, being a rogue and a slave most of ther life.

Lemon Ranger Blue wrote:

Awesome, thank you for this! I've been kinda guessing what Vette and Corso would like just by going off of their profiles.

It makes sense that Vette would love anything that's a luxery, being a rogue and a slave most of ther life.

Just take into account the addendum I made yesterday: FAVORITE isn't what's going to give you the most affection. LOVE will do that. You're better off giving her Underworld Goods.

~D

On the swtor-spy guide it sometimes gives 2 different qualities for Courting.
It might be different depending on gender.

Your images are really inaccurate. This is very accurate on the other hand.