SWTOR Mek-Sha Stronghold Buying Guide

Everything you need to know if you’re considering buying the Mek-Sha Stronghold in SWTOR!

Mek-Sha Stronghold at a Glance

Fully unlocking most strongholds costs tens of millions of credits. We don’t list specific prices for each stronghold because the amount you’ll spend unlocking all the rooms is nothing compared to the money you’ll have to spend on decorations. Unfortunately, this is a case where if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

Floorplan and Appearance

The Mek-Sha stronghold is essentially oceanfront property, only instead of water, it’s ocean of stars. The entrance to the modern house is a veranda with two docks, each long enough to moor four airspeeders.

The overall size of the Mek-Sha stronghold is most like that of Nar Shaddaa, though it feels very different to decorate and is more reminiscent of the Kaas City and Coruscant Apartments.

Hooks and Room Alignment

The hook and room alignment in the Mek-Sha stronghold aren’t perfect, but they are solid enough to facilitate some multi-room shared perspective with a bit of manual adjustment.

The sheer variety of room shapes and sizes foster creativity. Masterfully placed corners, railings, and changes in elevation subtly imply natural divisions in the open floorplan that make actual walls unnecessary.

Actual Architecture!

The Mek-Sha Safehouse feels more like an actual house than any other living space in SWTOR, stronghold or otherwise. Makeb and some Zakuulan interiors are the only places that come close.

The level designer of this stronghold clearly has some sort of background in architecture, or at least knew to source an existing real-world blueprint to serve as a starting point.

It never ceases to amaze me how every single stronghold seems like it was made by a different person, and it seems like the Mek-Sha stronghold was made by a senior dev or lead (or ought to be paid like one).

Hook Layout Blunders

Before we discuss problems with the hook layouts on Mek-Sha, I want to make it clear that I do not oppose the hook system in SWTOR.

“Many cultures don’t fully appreciate the clarity of the Chandrilan marriage—even our own people are confused at times—boundaries can be liberating. The old ways have value.”

Davo Sculdin to Mon Mothma, Andor S01E10 9:40

Please ignore the part where he was insinuating a silver lining around child marriage for financial gain. My point here is that hooks can be helpful because they can provide a sort of scaffolding for interior design, and, when used correctly, protect the world from hideousness.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of cases in the Mek-Sha stronghold where available hook layouts are unnecessarily restrictive, either because they lack reasonable alternatives or the normal ones don’t exist.

Missing Hook Layouts

Below are some examples where the normal set of hook layout alternatives are inexplicably missing. It’s primarily an issue where double large wall hooks could fit, but that option just aren’t made available.

I assume some of it has to do with fitting on the wall properly, as the walls are bumpier than what you’ll find in most other strongholds, but that sort of texturing ought to be instilled in a decoration.

Large spaces feel empty, with no way to crowd them due to the limited alternatives to Centerpiece Hooks. This is particularly problematic in the entryway on the first floor, especially when contrasted with the overlook directly above it.

The main room has similar problems. The only way I’ve found to fill the space is by making use of decorations that are significantly larger than the hooks normally allow, like the Mek-Sha Walkway Light and Large Mek-Sha Cantina Bar, both of which fit on Medium hooks.

It would be less problematic if more decos with seating had NPCs sitting in them, or worked like the Remote Trading Outpost Cantina and its purpose-built Centerpiece hook layout.

Thankfully, that and the fact that Broadsword added decos featuring NPCs sitting in chairs to the Feast of Prosperity vendor in 2024 indicate that they’re aware of the issue, but it’s not nearly enough.

We need retroactive changes of some sort, combining some of the following:

• Offering reforged variants of existing bar and table decos with seated NPCs
• Removing barstools and chairs from existing arrangements and selling
• Adding deco variants of each existing couch and chair with NPCs seated in them
• Improving Centerpiece hook layout options

Ramps

While it isn’t strictly related to room and hook alignment, I also desperately need to point out that Mek-Sha almost exclusively uses ramps instead of staircases, and that’s true both in the stronghold and out in the open world.

No railings is a Star Wars staple, but this kind of thing makes no sense. It’s way too steep for a wheelchair!

Matching Decorations

Mek-Sha features a myriad of muted colors cobbled together with neon holos and a unique emphasis on navy blue and rust orange. I have yet to find a deco that looks bad in this stronghold, but metal does match better than stone, as does tech better than Force.

Below, you’ll find a list of deco bundles that match particularly well or are purpose-built for the mined-out asteroid:

• Mek-Sha Decoration Bundle
• Mek-Sha Holo Signs Decoration Bundle
• Shipyard Decoration Bundle
• Shady Character’s Goods
• Galactic Season 2 Decos (on rotation with Jaleit Nall)
• Republic Fleet Penthouse Wallset
• Nar Shaddaa Holo Signs Decoration Bundle
• Nar Shaddaa Nightlife Decoration Bundle
• Daimyo Decoration Bundle
• Mandalorian’s War Camp Decoration Bundle
• Underworld Essentials Bundle
• Exiled Mercenary Decoration Bundle
• Junkshop Decoration Bundle
• Stronghold Cantina Decoration Bundle
• Cantina Performers Personnel Bundle
• Underworld Patrongs Personnel Bundle
• Mandalorian Clan Personnel Bundle
• Mandalorian Rebels Personnel Bundle

Ease of Decorating

Any stronghold can be decorated easily by just plopping down a thousand Basic Beds, but that’s not what I mean. When I say “ease of decorating”, I am referring to how easy or hard it is to make the stronghold look good.

Some strongholds have well thought-out Hook layouts, reasonably sized-rooms, and a variety of Hook sizes. These sorts of things make it easier to decorate because you don’t have to think as much about where to put things and it’s more about what you want to put in each room.

Other strongholds, particularly the more recent ones, are more difficult to decorate. It’s harder to decorate a stronghold when you aren’t given a lot of space to put decorations, or the room size doesn’t match the hooks, or you can’t line anything up because the devs slapped the thing together in half a day.

Since you need to hit 100% decorated for the Conquest Bonus and get all of your Prestige for Public Listings, the maximum number of decos you can place in a given stronghold also affects how easy it is to decorate.

If the deco count is too high, you’ll be forced to hide a bunch of small decos inside walls and larger decos or end up with a super cluttered stronghold. If the max deco count is too low, your stronghold will likely feel barren or you’ll be forced to leave some rooms undecorated.

The experience of decorating Mek-Sha is uneven. Some rooms are easy to decorate, like the southern room with the curved windows and the entrance docks, but others are quite challenging, like the open spaces.

Much of this unevenness has to do with the afforementioned hook layout issues, but some of it is an inherent tradeoff between a blank canvas and a paint by numbers situation. Less structure demands more creativity.

I’d also say that the deco maximum was too high, at least for the hook layouts we currently have, though it’s not as egregious as most of the other recent strongholds. A limit of 450-475 would be more appropriate.

Mek-Sha Stronghold Secrets

The Mek-Sha stronghold does not have any proper secrets, though it has a couple things that are easy to miss.

Starship Hook

There is a Starship Hook on a platform below the first level connected to the north face of the stronghold. It’s really only visible from the balcony near the upstairs arrival point and the edge of the northern dock.

Unlike the platform on Nar Shaddaa, this space is unreachable by conventional means.

Slugfall Harbor Vista

The Mek-Sha Safehouse overlooks Slugfall Harbor, which gets its name from the fact that the Hutts were executed by being forced to walk the figurative plank, concluding Huttbreaker’s uprising.

The stronghold is kinda visible from Slugfall Harbor, but the tower it’s supposedly a part of is not an exact match. You can see the yellow awning and purple and gold holo ads, but they aren’t composed the same. The blue holo ad is also moved up and displayed as a regular sign.

Special Speeder Decos

Speeders are usable as decos, that’s nothing new, but some speeders, like the B-44 Marshall, Vectron Hunter, and Opulent Dar’manda Skiff pictured below have unique deco appearances.

This one is not specific to Mek-Sha, but the docks are such an incredible place to put speeders that I had to mention it.

It saddens me that we can’t moor speeders that only fit onto Large hooks, like the majority of KDY Lifters that would match the Shippyard Decoration Bundle perfectly.

Mek-Sha Stronghold Ideas and Inspiration

The Mek-Sha stronghold works best as an abode for elements of the criminal underworld, like Bounty Hunters and Smugglers, but its broad deco compatibility and open concept make it quite flexible.

• Clan Headquarters
• Smuggler’s Hideout
• Cantina/Night Club
• Hunter’s Respite
• Safe House
• Black Market
• Illegal Laboratory
• Spice Den
• Logistics and Shipping Facility
• Hutt Prison

Be sure to check out public listings for more ideas and inspiration!

Review and Recommendation

Mek-Sha’s open floorplan and horrendous hook selections make it harder to decorate, but it’s not as bad as some of the others.

The backwater asteroid is not conventionally beautiful, making it less welcoming to upstanding Imperial and Republic citizens, but it’s one of the best strongholds in the game for seedier elements of the criminal underworld.

Category

Score

Ease of Decorating

Hook and Room Alignment

Visual Appeal

With improved hooks, the modern floorplan would also work great in an apartment on Zakuul, ideally retextured to exist in one of the luxurious spires, though it could pointlessly work as-is in Breaktown.