The first thing to check is how many items you have in your house? This is simple enough. Just go to your House Management Terminal and check the status. Be sure that your maintenance is paid up to date. Nothing spoils the mood like returning from vacation to find your house has exploded because you didn’t have enough maintenance. At the bottom of this status page is the number of items in the house. Unfortunately, as most of you know, houses can only hold a limited amount of items. A large house can hold up to 250 items, medium houses 150 items, and small houses 150 items. Some people say it’s better to have a small houses versus a large house, but large houses are much cooler *grin*. Note: the rule of thumb is 75 items x the number of lots, with 250 being the max.

There are a few ways to keep the clutter down. The easiest way is to use backpacks to store like items. Labeling the backpacks will enable you to find items quickly. For example, you can label a backpack as “Weapons” and place your weapons in there. When you drop a backpack in the house, by default, it will be at eye level. You can move these around to place them against the walls (more on moving items later). In larger houses, you have multiple rooms. I recommend dedicating certain rooms for certain purposes. In my large house, I have one room for combat, where I have my extra weapons, food stuffs, and armor. In another room, I have all my crafting materials, crafting station, and resources. In another room, I have all my slicing tools. That way, when I’m in a hurry, I can get to the items I need quickly. One thing to keep in mind while you’re organizing, backpacks and their contents each count against the items in your house. If you have a backpack and 5 items inside, 6 items will count against your inventory (unlike an equipped backpack on your character). The same goes when placing things in your safety deposit box at the bank.

Safety deposit boxes are available at the bank on the planet where you joined the bank. This storage gives you 100 items of storage. I treat this storage as my attic; items I want to keep, but rarely need. This is also a good spot to keep items you may need access to while away from home, but on the same planet. Factioned disks, broken items to sell at junk dealers, and emergency weapons are good things to store at the bank. If you joined the bank on Corellia, you can access your safety deposit box in Tyrena, Coronet, or any other city on the planet. If you travel often between two planets, joining a bank on the secondary planet (not the planet where your house is) might be a good idea. Or if your very wealthy, have houses on different planets. For you crafters out there, it may make sense to have multiple houses, one for your residence and one for you warehouse.

Ok, so now you have your items organized. Furniture can really spice up a sparse house. Visit your local architect shop to find all kinds of items such as table, chairs, couches, and a variety of lamps. Lamps can cast light to brighten up the place. Tiki torches can give your house a warm inviting effect. Placing a lamp post (normally designed for city streets) look really cool in houses as they can sometimes shed light between floors or rooms, if placed properly. This is a pseudo bug, but pretty cool, none the less. Be sure you have enough space before you spend too much money on furniture, though.

Those are the basics of setting up your house. Now for more advanced options. Moving items around the house can fine tune the look and feel for your domicile (or den for us wookiees). The first option to move and rotate furniture is to select the item and, via the radial menu, move them around. This isn’t an exact science, however. To move the item with precision, there are commands to move items to your exact specifications. The basic command for moving items is /movefurn <direction> <number of spaces>. So to nudge an item forward, click on the item and type: /movefurn forward 1. The directions to choose from are: forward, back, up, down. Moving items up will give them an elevated look, but can also be used to stack items (more on this later). When you move objects, they are moved in the direction relative to your character’s position. So if you are pointed at an angle to wall, the item will move diagonal to the wall (but straight ahead from your character’s perspective). Note: if you drop more than one item on the same spot, you may not be able to pick them up. I suggest not dropping items directly on top of each other (except in a few cases detailed below).

You can also rotate items in your house. To rotate an item 90 degrees, it’s easiest to use the radial menu (rotate left or right). If you want to cant an object use the following command: /rotatefurn <direction> <degrees>. So to rotate an object clockwise 45 degrees, click on the item and type: /rotatefurn left 45.

So now you can move your items around your house. Now for some fun moving objects around.

If you have a nice wardrobe of clothing (ahem…spridal!), you can put them on hangers. Well not really, but it will look like it. If you drop a flightsuit, for example, it will “hang” upright. You can move these around to make it look like they’re hanging in a closet. If you have an outfit made of more than one piece of clothing, drop all the items in the same spot. You’ll see the ensemble fully assembled. You can rotate the outfit so that each item faces the right direction. This is a neat thing to do with armor too.

For you crafters out there, you probably have a lot resources laying around. You can store the resources in a backpack, or, for a cool effect, you can stack them. Now, you have to “stack” them manually, but it isn’t that hard. First, move a crate of metal against the wall the way you want it. Next, drop a second crate on the ground. Move the item so it is next to the other crate then type: /movefurn up 54. This should place the crate just above the other one. Move the crate so it is right above the other. Take a look back and you’ll see the two crates look stacked. When you’re moving objects around, the easy way to be sure they are just above each other, but not hovering, kneel or prone just in front of the object. Zoom in or out to see the items at eye level. This way you can see the connection point of the items. Move up or down to make it look the most realistic. If you have factory crates of objects, you’ll need to change the number for moving them up. For common items (weapon power-ups, slicing tools, etc.), move the item up 38. This will place them right on top of each other. For food crates, the number up is 41. Experiment with other items to see the correct number.

If you have tables, that really serve not gaming purpose, you can place items on top of it. Place the table, then drop the item you want to place on it. Move the item up so it is just on top of the table. Have fun with this. Put little statues on table tops, potted plants on end tables, or put food on the table. This will give you house a very “homey” feel.

One final tip is placing weapons. Us hunters out there have a huge arsenal of weapons and may want to show them off. This is a good way to pay tribute to a trusty blaster that has reached condition 0. Drop the item and it will be on the ground. Move the item up and move it against the wall. It will look like the item is hanging on the wall. Many vendors use this effect in their tents. It just looks cool.

So there you have it! All the information you need to make your houses a little slice of home. Check out the galactic home for some examples of cool houses: http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/content.jsp?page=Galactic%20Home%20Show. Now I better get to work cleaning up my real house. If only it were that easy. Till next time, keep your houses clean, wash behind your ears, and leave the Jawa Beer chilling in case the Z Man stops by. May the Force Be With You!  Big Z has left the building.

By Zzyxx ©2004 gamebunny.com. 17/Jun/04