Alright… so, as of 1.2, acquiring BiS (Best in Slot) gear is a little different than you might think. I wanted to take a few minutes just to clarify exactly how someone should go about setting themselves up with full BiS.
You would think that BiS would simply be drops from Nightmare Mode Explosive Conflict. Well – you’re sort of right, but there’s more to it. BiS is actually crafted orange gear with an augment slot. Then you take the mods from your Nightmare Mode EC gear and dump it into the appropriate orange gear. Theoretically, you could purchase full BiS from the Galactic Trade Market. See the post below from a Developer Q&A a couple weeks back for more details:
Reverse Engineering has also received considerable improvements with Game Update 1.2.
For one, when attempting to reverse engineer an item (for which you indeed need the appropriate profession) you will now be able to see in the item tooltip what your chance to successfully reverse engineer a new schematic is (or if such a chance exists at all).
Many of the new end game items (and end game items going forward) can be reverse engineered to learn schematics based on the original item:
Reverse engineering an item with mods leads to empty orange equivalents of the end game items. This can be done after the mods are extracted and used in a different item!
The item you learn to create is commonly Bind on Equip, as we want to encourage a more lively market on the Galactic Trade Network.
Many different mods can now be reverse engineered which will grant you a schematic to craft that mod. (This is not possible on armoring that carry a set bonus.)
Reverse engineering non-modded items usually leads to a schematic for an equivalent item.
Reverse engineering an end game item also provides materials needed to craft these items. Operations materials are also Bind on Equip now, creating a more diverse market.
A crafting critical on these schematics will usually lead to an augment slot. For item mods, it results in an extra item.Effectively, this means you can sell nearly full end game items (including augment slots on a critical success) one component at a time. However, doing so requires a significant upfront investment, it’s certainly not easy. This also means every profession now benefits from Reverse Engineering and can trade items.
Armormech produces certain Augments, Augmented Tech Armor
Armstech produces certain Augments, Augmented Weapons
Artifice produces Color Crystals, Enhancements, Augmented Shields and Relics
Biochem produces Augmented Implants
Cybertech produces Mods and Augmented Earpieces
Synthweaving produces certain Augments, Augmented Force ArmorAugment schematics (green) are found via Slicing missions and blue and purple variants of these augments can be researched via reverse engineering by the appropriate crafters. It is not possible to reverse engineer legacy augments obtained from slicing before the game update arrives, however. These are technically different items.
Because we do not want players to gamble with reverse engineering custom appearances (orange items) which are often unique quest rewards, the schematics for these items are obtained via mission discoveries for various gathering skills and are set to Bind on Equip to encourage active trading.