Hey guys I was just wondering if anyone could help me out with explaining certain game mechanics within ToR.

Flashpoints
Generally I understand these, they are group quests. Are they all limited to 4 players (or 2 players 2 companions) and if not how do I tell? Also how does the need/greed thing work and how does it affect my chances in the item roll?

Heroics
Seem to be similar to flashpoints but only take a form of sidequests, there also seems to be no actual limit on the number of players that can do them but only yield xp as opposed to good items. Not sure about heroic areas though.

Operations
No idea.

TY in advance for assistance or links to resources.

If you've ever played WoW(or similar MMOs), here's a quick comparison:

Flashpoints = Dungeons. The max player limit is 4 people, regardless if they're players or Companions. For example, a Flashpoint group could be 4 players, 3 players + 1 Companion, 2 players + 2 Companions, etc. They're generally balanced for 4 actual players.

Heroic quests: Generally balanced for 2 players + 2 Companions, but sometimes more. (It says in the quest title how much it recommends.) These quests generally feature Elite+Champion level mobs, and are done in a non-instanced area. They reward XP, and one blue-quality item, usually.

Operations = Raids. They have 8-player and 16-player variations of the same Operation, and have 3 difficulty modes: Normal, Hard, and Nightmare. The harder the difficulty, the better the loot bosses drop. 8-player and 16-player variants share the same lockout, as far as I know.

I'm not too sure the mechanics behind the Need/Greed system. I'll see if I can dig anything up.

when a green or better item drops it will give you a menu the theory is if you need it you click the need button and if you just want to sell the item you hit the greed button however you will get people who will hit need just to take the item the need roll will come before the greed roll so if people roll need their rolls are the only ones that count.

When a Green of better item drops, a window will appear with a Need icon (Dice) and a Greed icon (Credit Symbol). It may also have a loot item (Disassembly icon)

If anyone selects Need, everyone who selected another option is ignored and the people who selected Need roll for the item.

If no one selected Need, the people who selected Greed or Loot will roll off.
If you selected Greed and win, you get the item.
If you selected Loot and win, you get the results of dissembling the item. I do not think this can give new recipes.

Thanks a lot guys for clearing that up. As far as the items' quality goes I'm not sure about it anyway like what the colours actually symbolise. I have read BronyQuest's link but was not really any wiser so if you could provide like a simple hierarchy that would be useful (sorry about being such a noob)

The quality of items is thus, from least to most powerful:

Common (white)
Premium (green)
Prototype (blue)
Artifact (purple)

And then there's Custom (orange). These items have no stats, but have fully-open Mod slots, so you can put in and take out any Mods you want to determine their power.

Here it is by rarity from most to least rare. The coloring isn't exact because I am guessing, but it is very close.

Legacy
Legendary
Artifact
Prototype
Premium
Standard
Cheap

Here is a great resource if you would like to take a peak at some of the recorded weapons.

http://www.torhead.com/items/catg/1