Last Update: Patch 4.5 on 2 Jun 16
This is a guide to the Cartel Market and its associated reputation. You can view items available on the Cartel Market on the main menu under Cartel Market, Items or items available from the Cartel Market reputation vendors under Vendors, Both, Reputation. There is also a guide to the Cartel Bazzar Vendors.
How the Cartel Market Works
The Cartel Market is SWTOR’s in-game shop for cosmetic armor, weapons, mounts, pets, decorations, unlocks, consumables, and other miscellaneous items. The armor and weapons do not have stats associated with them. They are shells that you must modify with AMEs obtained from crafting, trading commendations, or extracting from other armor/weapons. (There are a few older sets that have stats and a level requirement and are sold directly on the Cartel Market.) The Cartel Market is not pay-to-win. All items are convenience or cosmetic only.
You can access the Cartel Market by clicking on the Cartel Coin icon located next to the menu bar.
New items or those on sale are usually posted under Featured and are the first things you will see.
To purchase items in the Cartel Market, you must buy Cartel Coins with actual currency. You can do this on the SWTOR website or, if you activate this feature, through the Cartel Market in-game by clicking “Add Coins”. You can earn Cartel Coins from being subscribed to SWTOR, using an authenticator, or by referring people to the game. If you are not already a subscriber, once you purchase your first Cartel Coins your account goes from free-to-play to preferred access.
Cartel Coin cards are also available from some physical stores (Best Buy, Game Stop, Target, Walmart, etc.) and some online stores (Amazon, Origin). These cards contain a code for an in-game pet. These pets are phased out and new ones brought out from time to time.
You can purchase items from the Cartel Market in various ways:
- Direct purchase from the Cartel Market
- Cartel Packs
- Bundles
- Dye Module Kits
- Grand Packs
Cartel Market items are Bind on Equip (BoE) and can be sold on the Galactic Trade Network (GTN).
Direct Purchase
Items purchased directly from the Cartel Market are available for a fixed price (frequently discounted). Some items are only available for a limited time (usually associated with a seasonal or in-game event). You can find out which items are available and the current cost by checking SWTORCartel.
- Authorizations are for F2P and preferred access players to lift restrictions not placed on subscribers.
- Unlocks allow players to unlock various items including slots, species, etc.
- Legacy Perks unlock something for your entire legacy (all of your characters on one server)
- Passes are for F2P and preferred access players to life restrictions not placed on subscribers
Cartel Packs
Cartel Packs are released on a monthly-ish basis and contain a random assortment of items per pack. Originally, there were five packs grouped together in one shipment with the first two packs released at the same time. The cheaper of those two packs did not contain all of the Super Rare / Ultra Rare items. Currently, shipments correspond to an expansion with each pack dropping with a chapter release. Packs are eventually embargoed (disappear from the market), but items from those packs are available in Grand Packs and Grand Chance Cubes. In addition to armor sets, weapons, weapon tunings, mounts, pets, dyes, starfighter customizations, companions, companion customizations, emotes, titles, and toys, Cartel Packs can yield:
- Scavenged Scrap, Assorted Droid Parts, Jawa Junk (Nightlife Packs and beyond)
- Rank 5 Companion gifts (Contraband Packs and beyond)
- Random grade 6 crafting materials (Contraband through Starfighter Packs)
- Cartel Market Certificates (Contraband through Explorer Packs, not including Nightlife Packs)
- Credit Boom, Credit Explosion (Contraband through Explorer Packs)
- Random experience buffs (Contraband through Explorer Packs)
- Reputation Trophies (Contraband through Explorer Packs, not including Nightlife Packs)
You can view the items available in each shipment of Cartel Packs on the main menu under Cartel Market, Items or by clicking the link in this table.
| Shipment | Pack | Patch | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cartel Packs | Crime Lord / Black Market | 1.5 | 15 Nov 12 |
| Cartel Packs | Blockade Runner | 1.6 | 11 Dec 12 |
| Cartel Packs | Skip Tracer | 1.6.2 | 8 Jan 13 |
| Cartel Packs | Space Pirate | 1.7 | 12 Feb 13 |
| Contraband Packs | Enforcer / Regulator | 1.7.2 | 12 Mar 13 |
| Contraband Packs | Vice Commandant | 2.0.1 | 24 Apr 13 |
| Contraband Packs | Archon | 2.2 | 12 Jun 13 |
| Contraband Packs | Supreme Mogul | 2.2.2 | 10 Jul 13 |
| Bounty Packs | Contractor / Freelancer | 2.3.1 | 21 Aug 13 |
| Bounty Packs | Pursuer | 2.3.3 | 26 Sep 13 |
| Bounty Packs | Tracker | 2.4.1 | 21 Oct 13 |
| Bounty Packs | Opportunist | 2.4.3 | 21 Nov 13 |
| Starfighter Packs | Dogfighter / Wingman | 2.5.2 | 14 Jan 14 |
| Starfighter Packs | Galactic Ace | 2.6 | 11 Feb 14 |
| Starfighter Packs | Space Jockey | 2.6.2 | 1 Apr 14 |
| Starfighter Packs | Hotshot | 2.7.1 | 6 May 14 |
| Nightlife Packs | Star Cluster | 2.8 | 10 Jun 14 |
| Nightlife Packs | Club Vertica | 2.8.1 | 1 Jul 14 |
| Stronghold Packs | Gatekeeper / Builder | 2.9 | 19 Aug 14 |
| Stronghold Packs | Constable | 2.10 | 16 Sep 14 |
| Stronghold Packs | Seneschal | 2.10.1 | 14 Oct 14 |
| Stronghold Packs | Architect | 2.10.2 | 4 Nov 14 |
| Shadow Packs | Pilgrim / Initiate | 3.0 | 2 Dec 14 |
| Shadow Packs | Acolyte | 3.0.2 | 13 Jan 15 |
| Shadow Packs | Apprentice | 3.1 | 12 Feb 15 |
| Shadow Packs | Master | 3.1.1 | 24 Mar 15 |
| Explorer | Deep Core / Core Worlds | 3.2 | 4 May 15 |
| Explorer | Mid Rim | 3.2.1 | 9 Jun 15 |
| Explorer | Outer Rim | 3.2.2 | 21 Jul 15 |
| Explorer | Wild Space | 3.3.1 | 1 Sep 15 |
| Alliance | Underworld | 4.0 | 20 Oct 15 |
| Alliance | Force | 4.0.2 | 17 Nov 15 |
| Alliance | Strategy | 4.0.3 | 8 Dec 15 |
| Alliance | Anarchist | 4.1 | 8 Feb 15 |
| Alliance | Disavowed | 4.2 | 8 Mar 16 |
| Alliance | Visionary | 4.3 | 5 Apr 16 |
| Alliance | Plunderer | 4.4 | 3 May 16 |
| Alliance | Revenge | 4.5 | 1 Jun 16 |
| Alliance | GEMINI | 4.6 | 28 Jun 16 |
| Alliance | Battler | 4.7 | 9 Aug 16 |
| Alliance | Manipulator | 4.7.2 | 4 Oct 16 |
| Alliance | Scavenger | 4.7.3 | 25 Oct 16 |
Bundles
Bundles are essentially Packs, but always contain the exact same items and are only sold on the Cartel Market.
Dye Module Kits
Dye Module Kits contain two random dyes. They decided not to continue offering new dye kits and all new dyes available from the Cartel Market are offered in the Cartel Packs or straight from the market. They do occasionally bring back the Dye Modules Kits for sale on the Cartel Market, but they contain the same dyes as the original kits.
Grand Packs
Grand Packs contain only the type of item indicated in the pack title. These were items originally sold on the Cartel Market or available in Cartel Packs. For armor sets, it contains the entire set rather than the individual pieces of upper, lower, and supplementary packs available from the Cartel Packs. For a short time, rarity (bronze, silver, gold) packs were also available, but those were discontinued. The rarity packs contained the item indicated in the title, but only of one rarity. For instance, the Gold Armor Pack contained one random gold rarity armor set.
Grand Chance Cube
Grand Chance Cubes replaced bronze rarity items in Cartel Packs with the second half of the Alliance Packs. These contain one random item or armor set of any rarity from any Cartel Pack, Cartel reputation item, or the Cartel Market.
Cartel Market Certificate
Some items from in-game vendors (Cartel Bazaar and Strongholds and Crews Skills section of Fleet) also sell items that require Cartel Market Certificates. These certificates were rare drops from Contraband through Explorer Packs. They are also extremely rare drops from the Contraband Slot Machine. This is a decoration available from the Acolyte’s Shadow Pack that uses Contraband Cartel Chips sold by Feulsia Stato (Decoration Merchant) for 750 credits. Felusia Stato is a decoration available for your stronghold or is found in the Strongholds and Crew Skills section of Fleet.
Collections
Collections is a list of all of the Cartel Market items (along with other items available as rewards or gifts). This window allows you to purchase an account-wide unlock for most of the items with Cartel Coins. You can find the Collections window at the bottom left of your inventory or the top right of the Cartel Market. To unlock an item in Collections, you must first have equipped that item on one of your characters. NOTE: For armor sets, you must equip every piece of the set before you can unlock it.
Rarity
Each Cartel Market item is assigned an item rarity: bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. This indicates drop rates within packs and collections account unlock costs. Bronze items within packs have been replaced with Grand Chance Cubes. No new bronze items are available. Platinum items are extremely rare drops. With a few exceptions, collections account unlock costs are:
- Bronze: 60 CC
- Silver: 240 CC
- Gold: 400 CC
- Platinum: 400 CC
Reputation
Starting with the Contraband Packs and ending with Explorer Packs, you could get Reputation Trophies and Cartel Market Certificates in the packs. Each group of packs (not including the Nightlife Packs) offered Reputation Trophies for a different faction. Once you obtain a certain amount of reputation with the faction, you can purchase items from the vendors located in the Cartel Bazaar on Fleet. Many of these items require Cartel Market Certificates and credits to purchase. Cartel Market Certificates are also used to purchase decorations from the Cartel Certificate and Personnel Vendor located in the Strongholds & Crew Skill section of Fleet. The Reputation Trophies are Bind on Pickup (BoP), so cannot be traded. You can view the reputation requirements and items available on the vendors on the Reputation vendor page.
When Cartel Reputation was removed with 4.0, the vendors were consolidated and a few items were removed. They are only available from Grand Chance Cubes now.