Ben has been a geek all of his life, and as such, his expertise tends to fall into gaming and technology.

Their Love Is Only a Gift Away

One of the most interesting parts of leveling a character is having your companion standing next to you and listening to their unique insights as you're leveling up. A lot of the time, you can almost feel like you're building a rapport with them. Sometimes, though, you can really tick them off with your actions. There is a way to fix that: You can raise their affection by buying your companion a gift.

Each companion likes an assortment of different gift types, with some more pleasing then others. In this guide, I'll be breaking it down by companion and telling you what will make them love you—and what will make them look for the nearest trash bin.

Imperial Agent Companions

1. Kaliyo D'jannis
2. Vector Hyllis
3. Doctor Lokin
4. Ensign Raina Temple
5. Scorpio
6. 2V-R8
7. HK-51
8. Treek

Why Should I Care If They Like Me?

There are two main reasons to get your companion's affection up:

1. The first is that they give you specific missions as you gain more affection, letting you not only get additional experience but also add a little more flavor to things as you're leveling up.
2. The second reason is to make them more effective at crew skills. The higher their affection for you, the faster they'll be able to perform their tasks, and they're more likely to be critically successful in the process.

As you get their affection higher, the effect of each gift lowers. There are five ranks of gifts, and you'll want to give your companion the appropriate level of gift. You can tell what's a good gift by taking a look at their affection score. Each level is an even 2000 points and is graphically shown in segments on the companion tab of your character screen.

1. Kaliyo D'jannis

Kaliyo is your first companion and fills the role of Ranged Tank. Although necessary for your first levels, lots of players have different needs at later levels, and Scorpio can be tougher then Kaliyo. Kaliyo is one of the romance options for the male Imperial Agent and best for those with a dark slant.

2. Vector Hyllis

Vector is your second companion but he's a long time in coming. He fills the role of Melee DPS and is recruited on Alderaan when you're about level 32. Vector is the single romance option for the female Imperial Agent.

3. Doctor Lokin

Lokin is a unique companion in that he can fill either the role of Ranged Healer or the role of Melee DPS through his transformation, but most find him most useful as a healer. You find Lokin on Taris and get him somewhere around level 36.

4. Ensign Raina Temple

Ensign Temple fills the role of Ranged DPS and is recruited at the end of your Hoth missions at around level 41. Temple is the second romance option for the male Imperial Agent with a light side slant.

5. Scorpio

Scorpio is your final companion and fills the role of Melee Tank. I've you've been running with Kaliyo you'll find Scorpio is quite solid for a companion tank. You pick up Scorpio on the planet Belsavis at around level 44.

6. 2V-R8

Your ship droid can only have its affection raised through gifts, but unless you plan on buying the legacy sensor units and send him on specific crew skill runs it's likely not worth it to max out his affection.

7. HK-51

HK-51 is the first additional companion added to the game. You must have a level 50 character to unlock him initially, but after that he can be unlocked on every character on your account. This character is mainly a ranged DPS type with some fun extra abilities. Due to the generic bonus to crew skills in both critical and efficiency rating its well worth it to raise his affection to the max.

8. Treek

Treek is the second optional companion character that you can get. Treek is the exact opposite of HK-51 in that where HK only holds a DPS role, Treek's roles are only that of either Healer or Tank. Treek can be acquired through credits if you have a Legacy level of forty or above, otherwise you must use Cartel Coins to purchase her. No matter the way you first get her, you can unlock her in your collections menu and make Treek available for all of your characters once they can reach the fleet.

Imperial Agent Companion Top Gifts

Are You Just Interested in the Top Gift?

Sometimes you don't really need to know every possible gift for your companion; you just need to know the best type in order to maximize your investment. To make it easy, I've assembled the information in the table above. This details the top gift that you can get for each individual companion. Some companions don't have a gift that gets top results, and some gifts only work if you're in a romantic relationship with them, but your best shots are right here.

Who's Your Favorite Companion?

More Companion Gift Guides and Other Guides

• Sith Inquisitor Gift Guide
• Jedi Consular Gift Guide
• Jedi Knight Gift Guide
• Imperial Agent Gift Guide
• Smuggler Gift Guide
• Bounty Hunter Gift Guide
• Trooper Gift Guide

(A quick-glance top gift summary is located at the bottom of each page.)

• Crew Skills Guide

References

All images are from within the game Star Wars: The Old Republic or from the swtor.com website

Comments

Nick on August 15, 2020:

How do 34% of people like Kaliyo best??? That's wild, she's the most disdain worthy companion in the game that I have played (basically all non-jedi/sith, only a little of trooper).

She's such an entry level version of a "dark" edgelord girl...anyone liking her is solely doing so because she's a lady and so Bioware tries to add a slight edge of sympathy to a horrible character (cuz you know....women don't know any better/she was just being strong...ugh). Playing even a neutral agent should leave you wanting to distance yourself from the terrible lady. I'm not against evil female companions, I think SWTOR has too mant versions of the exceptionally boring main female goody good companion and intended love interest. But Kaliyo is maybe worse. Not only is she just as boring as a character, she is also a complete POS where any look at her actions shohld make you wanna toss her out the airlock. Female villains are great, not done often enough...but she is so uncomplicated and a pseudo, try-hard edgelord that along with bordeom I felt like I was cringing for her at how uncool she was.

Agent has some great ones though. Scorpio is a great evil female alternative. Raina, while seeming the "goody love interest girl" at first has a lot more complexity than I thought (her dad), Vector was tied with scorp for #1. Also seemed uncomplicatedly good but his whole killik thing is very cool. Doc is cool but nothing super unique.

Ben Martin (author) from Nova Scotia on February 24, 2015:

No, if something is listed as indifferent it means they won't like anything from that category. If you give Kaliyo a Cultural Artifact, it doesn't matter if it's a level 1 green, or a level 5 purple, she'll just turn it down. Something they like might give you 50 points, a favorite might give you 100, and something they love might be 150. Those are numbers I pulled out of the air, but it explains how things go. Always give them what they love when possible. It's the fastest and cheapest way to do it.

Rocio on February 19, 2015:

I think I understand now. In aoidtidn to being listed as Likes, she was also listed as indifferent. I think this just means that some of the items in that category she'll like, and some she wont care about.