Everything you need to know if you’re considering buying the Umbara Train Stronghold in SWTOR!
Table of contents
Umbara 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.
| Expansion Count | 2 |
| Max Decos | 425 |
| Centerpiece and Starship Hook Count | 14 |
| Maximum Number of Occupants | 30 |
| Layout | Linear |
| Style | Train |
| Source | Oddesen |
| Release Date | Game Update 5.4, 2017 |
| Usable by Guild? | Yes |
The Umbaran Mobile Base also features more Centerpiece hooks per capita than any other stronghold.
Floorplan and Appearance
The Umbara Stronghold is a train. It is literally just the first section of the Crisis on Umbara Flashpoint with most of the cargo stripped out. You can decorate the interiors and roofs of 11 cars, though the front cab has almost no hooks.
With nearly the same max deco count, the overall size of the Umbara stronghold is most similar to that of Mek-Sha and Nar Shaddaa. However, the decorating experience could not be more different because it’s just a line of rooms.
How to Obtain the Umbara Train Stronghold
The mere existence of the Umbaran Mobile Base is a bit of a secret. Unlike all other strongholds, it’s sequestered inside an exclusive area within the Alliance Staging Area on Oddesen.
The exclusive area is called the Trader’s Quarters, and you have to purchase an invitation from the nearby Recovered Goods Vendor, Nessl Vaccan, for 3,010,000 credits.
When the Stronghold was first released, access to it was gated behind farming the Umbara Flashpoint to earn a special token. Currently, the Invitation costs only credits, not tokens.
Hooks and Room Alignment
Hook and room alignment are pretty solid, at least in the capacity that they exist. The only real issues with the Umbara stronghold are that some rooms just don’t have enough hooks or their hook layouts can’t be transformed into another that adequately fills the space.
Limited and Missing Hooks
Some rooms just don’t have nearly enough hooks, forcing you to have gigantic center aisles that aren’t even representative of the flashpoint AND gaps on the wall.
These inside rooms could easily be coated with 3 columns of Large Hooks that would make the space far more flexible to decorate.
The couplings don’t have any hooks in them other than the Floor Covering, which happens to be the only place in the entire game where I’ve been able to make use of the Forge Tile.
The front cab blows everything else out of the water only has a few small hooks, like it’s forced to be empty. Better pony up for a couple of Basic Republic Chairs to match the one in the cockpit.
Centerpiece Layout Woes
The Umbara train has the same issue other modern strongholds with a lot of centerpiece hooks face because you can’t change those layouts into a, preventing you from changing the layout to anything else that works well.
The only saving grace with the Umbara stronghold in this regard is all the construction equipment decos you can plop down here from Ruhnuk.
Matching Decorations
Crisis on Umbara takes place during KotET, so it’s designed with the Alliance at the height of its power and Wild Space in mind. You’ll get a lot of great decos by searching the decoration catalog with the following terms:
- Star Fortress
- Zakuul
- Iokath
- Forge
- Ruknuk
- Copero
- Czerka
- Purple Frame (as fake windows)
In addition, the following Cartel Market bundles and specific sources match the stronghold particularly well:
- The Distant Worlds Decoration Bundle
- Shipyard Decoration Bundle
- Deepwater Essentials Bundle
- Imperial Fleet Penthouse Wallset
- Imperial/Republic/Underworld Essentials Bundles
- Star Fortress Decos
- Ruhnuk Reputation Decos
- Kessan’s Landing Reputation Decos
- Iokath Reputation Decos
- Regal Banquet Decos
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.
| Easy to Decorate | Hard to Decorate |
|---|---|
| Thoughtful hook layouts | Floors and walls are covered with hooks |
| More variety of hook sizes | Less variety of hook sizes |
| Hook sizes match room sizes and shapes | Huge open spaces and tight quarters |
| Appropriate deco maximum | Excessive or insufficient deco maximum |
| Close attention to geometric alignment of architecture | Misaligned architecture and pointless asymmetry |
The rigid structure and limited hooks make it fairly easy to decorate, though you are more restricted in what you can do with it.
Unlike other “modern” strongholds, Umbara stands out as having a very appropriate deco placement maximum. You’ll hit 100% when you’ve filled out most of the available hooks.
The room sizes can be a bit big, at least for the number of hooks you have, resulting in some weird scaling issues, but there’s nothing to be done unless the devs were to add more hooks.
At the same time, the rooms are large enough that you can create a full space without it feeling cramped, so it really is just a hook issue.
Umbara Stronghold Ideas and Inspiration
The Umbaran Train stronghold is incredibly flexible, though you have to be thoughtful and thorough if you choose to incorporate non-mechanical elements.
- Freight and/or Passenger Train
- Mobile Research Facility or Laboratory
- Jedi | Sith Archaeological Dig Transport
- Centerpiece Museum
As a side note, I don’t feel that there are any Stronghold Labels that adequately describe the train. Don’t let this stop you from checking out the Public Listings for more ideas!
Review and Recommendation
The Umbaran Mobile Base is a middle-of-the-tracks stronghold that’s easy enough to decorate with solid visuals. The train is really only held back by its restrictive hook layouts.
Category
Score
Ease of Decorating
Hook and Room Alignment
Visual Appeal
I recommend the Umbara stronghold to any decorating fiend that’s looking for a fresh experience, though it’s too small to be a guild stronghold.
