What is the Expertise System?

The overall goal of the system is to offer new and exciting choices for players to make about the development of their characters. These choices offer players the chance to further customize their character creating more diversity between characters of the same profession and give the player an additional goal when leveling.

Beast Master Overview

The Beast Master expertise system is an exciting feature added to Star Wars Galaxies in Chapter 6: Masters of the Wild. These are creature-centric abilities available to all players, regardless of profession or level, through a third expertise tree. 

Beast Masters can choose to focus on growing and incubating custom creatures, training their creature and using them to aid in combat, or both. No matter which path the beginning Beast Master chooses, the first step is always the same: the Incubation expertise.

Walk on the Wild Side

Any player who wishes to have a new beast pet must spend a point to learn the Incubation expertise. The Beast Master can't hatch an egg or call a beast without knowing this basic skill. Open the Expertise window by pressing U on the keyboard, select the Beast Mastery tab, and choose the Incubation expertise at the top to begin wrangling wild beasts.

Next, the fledgling Beast Master can use the Extract DNA skill to harvest DNA cores from creatures. This DNA, combined with enzymes, is <a href="http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/content.vm?id=66936&resource=features" target=_blank>grown in an incubator</a> to create an egg.

This is the only time a beast can be given to a new master, so keep the baby creature safe in its egg until it reaches its new owner! The creature inside the egg can be developed into a mount, or hatched to begin its life at the Beast Master's side.

Once the beast has hatched, the datapad shows information about the beast that can be used to monitor its happiness, skills, bonuses, and more. The datapad also shows the amount of available skill points for training new skills, how many points can be used per skill, and how many have already been spent.

Let's take a look at the different ways to explore the Beast Master expertise system to develop the incubation process as well as your newly hatched creature.

Beast Raising and Engineering Skills

The right side of the Beast Mastery Expertise tree focuses on raising and engineering new beasts.

These skills allow the Beast Master to keep their pet happy, teach the beast tricks, create a mount, and also affect the incubation period.

	Incubation: This is your first step in starting your journey as a Beast Master! This ability allows you to use an Incubator to bio-engineer new beasts. You will also receive the "Extract DNA" and "Revive Beast" commands when you learn this skill.
	Beast Empathy: Learn this skill to improve your ability to keep your beasts happy. Your creature's happiness can range from furious to ecstatic and has a direct impact on its loyalty and how quickly it gains levels. This ability is important to any Beast Master, regardless of the ways they put their creatures to work.
		Incubation Quality: Beast Masters who enjoy making the best creatures during the incubation process will want to spend points in this skill, which can provide up to a 20% bonus to your enzyme qualities. Increasing the quality of enzymes can affect the points available for stats during incubation. You must spend three points in Beast Empathy to learn this ability.
			Genetic Engineering: Grants a bonus to Genetic Engineering. Learning this skill gives the Beast Master a bonus toward the effect of hydrolase enzymes during the refining process of incubation. Train in Incubation Quality three times in order to take advantage of this bonus.
	Stupid Pet Tricks: You can teach an old beast new tricks – two, to be exact! Beasts under your control will do tricks at your command when you spend a point on the Stupid Pet Tricks ability. Pet tricks aren't just for show. Some pets enjoy performing tricks for their master so much that it can improve their happiness.
		DNA Harvesting: Once your beast has learned some new tricks, you're ready to use this skill to receive a bonus to DNA harvesting. Learning this ability increases your chance to obtain higher quality DNA from a creature in the wild. Every 10 points will give you a 5% bonus to the minimum quality of the DNA you are extracting.
	Create Mount: Experienced Beast Masters who have taught their pet a trick or two can then use their skills to teach a beast to become a mount. The Create Mount ability allows you to make an incubated egg into a mount. Use the radial menu on the unhatched egg and select "Convert Egg into Mount" to create the mount. Beasts such as the Bantha, Bol, Bolotaur, Brackaset, Carrion Spat, Cu Pa , Dewback, Eopie, Falumpaset, Graul, Kaadu, Kashyyyk Bantha, Rancor, Tulrus, Varactyl, and more can become mounts. (Some of these beasts are only obtainable through mutations.) Remember, creature mounts must be sold to another player as an egg. You must spend one point in Stupid Pet Tricks to gain access to this ability.
		Incubation Processing Time: Train this skill to reduce the time required to incubate and hatch a beast. If you spend three points in this ex