SWTOR 6.3 brings two Fleet Penthouse Strongholds. They can be purchased with Galactic Season Tokens and offer tons of hooks for decorating!
BioWare released two new Fleet Strongholds with SWTOR Game Update 6.3 “The Dark Descent”. One on the Imperial Fleet and one on the Republic Fleet, both look similar, but with unique and distinctive details added to them to match the style of the Fleet and faction they belong to.
In this guide you will learn how unlock and access them as well as what each one has to offer in terms of interior space, decoration opportunities and overall quality – full walkthrough and tour with videos and plenty of images!
Table of contents
What is a SWTOR Stronghold and how to use it
A quick opening segment for the newer players among us. Strongholds in SWTOR are personal housing environments that allow you to purchase a piece of property (some times moving, I am looking at you Umbara Train!). You can decorate and make them match your character’s personality or turn them into a role-playing environment for yourself, your guild and friends.
Strongholds can be used by all of your characters. You can opt to invite your friends to a party or just to take a look at your decorations skills. Yeah, of course you can decorate your Stronghold! You can also purchase Strongholds for your entire Guild to serve as a meeting place.
Strongholds can be purchased by a few different methods. The most common one is to visit a Stronghold terminal. They are located in the Strongholds section on the Empire and Republic Fleet. Some are also available on the planets, which do offer Strongholds.
Purchasing Strongholds can be done with Credits and Cartel Coins. A few of the Strongholds can be earned through gameplay such as the Umbaran Train I mentioned earlier as well as the new Fleet Penthouse Apartments that are the main topic of this guide!
What are the Fleet Penthouse Strongholds
The Fleet Penthouse Strongholds in SWTOR are uniquely designed legacy-wide apartments. Located on a higher floor on the Republic and Empire Fleets they guarantee you some privacy, while watching beautiful vistas at outer space or the Fleet’s interior. Released with SWTOR Game Update 6.3, they are an important part of the Galactic Seasons system through which you earn new tokens and can then spend them to get the deeds to these spacious Apartments!
The two strongholds have windows both to the interior of the Fleet, overlooking the VIP section and everything below it on one side. The other side has a great vistas allowing you to admire the whole Fleet along with other objects in the vicinity.
How to unlock and access the Fleet Strongholds
You will only be able to get one of the Fleet Strongholds during the first Galactic Season. This is by design. BioWare stated that they do not want players to be able to purchase both Fleet Strongholds in one Season.
Over the course of PTS, we increased the amount of tokens that you were able to receive during the season from 12 to 15. We have noticed that this led to assumptions that this increase will allow players to purchase both Fleet Strongholds. It is intended for only one of the Strongholds to be obtainable during one season, so you will be able to acquire the other in the following season. This will remain even with the increase of tokens. When Galactic Seasons goes live, each Stronghold will cost a total of 8 tokens. The cost for the Stronghold was set to 1 credit during PTS for testing purposes only.
JackieKo wrote on the forums
A Positive change for the Stronghold enthusiasts and Decorations Masters among you is that with the 6.3 patch SWTOR now allows up to twenty (20) Strongholds, up from fifteen (15) previously. The Guild purchased Strongholds cap remains unchanged.
How to earn Galactic Seasons Tokens
During the course of the Galactic Season you will earn a limited amount of Galactic Season Tokens. These are a new currency released with SWTOR 6.3. You will only be able to earn up to fifteen (15) Tokens throughout the course of a single Galactic Season. Seasons are designed to last for a few months (four to five at least).
Each of the Fleet Strongholds cost eight (8) Tokens. This means that you will only be able to purchase one of the two strongholds after you have completed the Galactic Seasons leveling and have earned the maximum amount of Tokens (again – 15).
Earning Tokens happens as you level up in the Galactic Season. Leveling is done by simply completing designated objectives, marked and placed at the top of your Conquest tab.
How to purchase a Fleet Stronghold
After you have collected enough of the Galactic Seasons Tokens, you can visit the new Seasonal Rewards Vendor, located on the Fleet. The image below is for Republic Fleet, but the location of the Seasonal and Non-Seasonal vendors is identical for the Empire Fleet – the Supplies Section.
Check the contents of the Non-Seasonal vendor and look for the following items:
- Carric Station Penthouse Deed – costs 8
- Vaiken Spacedock Penthouse Deed – costs 8
The two deeds are available for both Republic and Empire players at the same time, from the same vendor. You can purchase either Stronghold and visit it with any character, regardless of their faction.
How to travel to the Fleet Penthouse Strongholds
Once you claim the deed you purchased from the Non-Seasonal Vendor on the Fleet, you will have the Stronghold added automatically to your Strongholds catalog. You can freely visit the Fleet Apartments from there any time you wish to.
Fleet Penthouse Strongholds full overview
In the next segment of the guide I will show you the map layouts, interior space and decoration possibilities for both the Republic and Imperial Fleet Apartments.
When you purchase one of these two strongholds, it arrives to you fully unlocked and without any additional spaces you can further purchase / unlock / discover. There might be some secrets and Easter eggs inside the two Fleet Apartments, but we will talk about that later.
There are decorations hooks all over in both Strongholds – large, small, on the floor, walls, ceilings. Literally everywhere.
You can have up to fifteen occupants at the same time. It may be a Stronghold, but it’s on the smaller size. It’s a Penthouse apartment after all, not nearly as large as the jaw-dropping Rishi Stronghold for example.
The Fleet Penthouses are not available for Guilds, they are personal only – for your Legacy characters.
The two strongholds behave in the same manner as a Stronghold that is purchased with Cartel Coins when it comes to transferring them. You will not need to repurchase it, but you will need to redecorate it
Carrick Station Penthouse Layout and Interiors
The Republic version of the new Fleet Apartment Stronghold is called “Carrick Station Penthouse”. It perfectly captures the feeling that you’ve always had while on the Republic Fleet. And it has the following layout:
You enter from the small circular area with the elevator, this is a traditional entrance point to many of the Strongholds in the game. It is located in right-hand-side end on the map.
A long narrow corridor grants you access to the three additional rooms – one on the left (Fleet Interior View Room), one on the right (Space View Room) and one at the end of the corridor (Round Room).
The room on your right (the top one on the map) has a large window showing the outside of the Fleet – a great visual of the space along with the other Republic ships located nearby.
The left room offers a beautiful view of nearly the entire interior of the Fleet and directly in front of your window is the VIP section.
At the end of the main hallway is what I would call the “round room”, although it’s actually shaped in the form of a ctagon. It is a closed confinement with tall ceiling and tons of hooks for decorations.
Video Walkthrough
In the video walkthrough below you can see full interior space with and without all of the hooks in every single room, including the elevator area.
Images gallery
In case you prefer images, lots and lots more images, here you go:
Vaiken Spacedock Penthouse Layout and Interiors
Empire players get to enjoy this gorgeous private penthouse overlooking the Imperial Fleet’s VIP area and everything below it on the one side and on the other you can stare at the beauty of the space and admire the might of the Imperial Fleet itself. The interiors of this stronghold resemble the interior of the Imperial Fleet’s main area.
The elevator leads you to the main hallway, which, similarly to the Republic penthouse, has a staircase and three doors.
The door to your left leads to the Fleet Interior View Room (my own naming). It features wall-to-wall windows on the side of the Fleet’s interior and if you look around through it, you will see literally everything on the Fleet
The door on the right allows you to enter the Space View Room. The window here is much smaller, but allows you an awesome outer space view, hence the name I gave to this room.
And the door at the end of the hallway, on the opposite side of the elevator, is to the Round Room (which, again, is actually an octagon, but I like calling it Round Room for simplicity).
Video Walkthrough
In the video walkthrough below you can see full interior space with and without all of the hooks in every single room, including the elevator area.
Images gallery
In case you prefer images, lots and lots more images, here I have a ton:
Are the Fleet Strongholds worth purchasing
The two strongholds look identical in terms of layout and decoration opportunities. They are distrinctively different in the textures, lightning and overall feeling you get while inside. The Carrick Station Penthouse is a typical Republic apartment, while staying in the Vaiken Spacedock stronghold will always give you that darker imperial feeling.
I personally think that it’s a cheap shot on BioWare’s part to limit the players to only be able to purchase one of the Fleet Strongholds during the first Galactic Season.
I also don’t think you really would want to purchase both. True, some players are altoholics, but most of us would have a stronger preference towards one of the Strongholds for sure.
The Seasonal and Non-Seasonal vendors offer a lot more interesting items and some of them, I dare say, are way more interesting and valuable than having two (almost) identical Strongholds.
My preference leans towards the Vaiken Spacedock Penthouse. Why? I like the dark blue environment and the design of the window overlooking the Fleet’s interior space is way better modelled compared to the one on Carrick Station Penthouse.
So, which SWTOR Fleet Stronghold did you end up getting and why?
If you are curious to learn more about the new game system released with SWTOR 6.3, I have an in-depth guide to the Galactic Seasons – what it is, how to access it, how to level up, how to earn rewards and are they worth it, new seasonal vendors contents overview and more!
