Friends, Jedi, countrymen, lend me your ears! Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies has released game update 5 which adds a lot (and this is an understatement on my part) of new features and details to the game including integrated voice chat, an in-game browser, and more.

Players can expect a number of changes with weapon crafting system. In addition, the various classes have also gotten changes which make them much more efficient then before.

Anyway, we won't keep you any longer as the patch notes are extremely long. So here are the changes in update 5. Enjoy!

Star Wars Galaxies: Game Update 5
Publish Notes, July 29, 2008

Highlights:
Integrated voice chat, in-game web browser, beast master and munitions trader updates, Create a Painting contest winners, and the 60 month veteran reward.

Integrated Voice Chat:

• With the release of Game Update 5, fully integrated voice chat can now be found in Star Wars Galaxies. Voice chat can now be used to chat with your guild and groups at no additional cost.
• The integration of the in-game voice chat brings several brand new UI elements: the Voice Bar, the Voice Users Window, and a new voice tab in the Options window.
• After a user joins a group or a guild, they are automatically given access to the associated channel and it will appear in the Voice Bar Channel Selection List. When they leave the group or guild, the channel is removed from their list and they will be disconnected if they were in the channel at the time.
• Users can also invite other players to their own private chat channels using the radial menu or /voice invite command.

In-Game Web Browser:

•  An in-game web browser has been added. Use the command /browser to open the web browser within in the game.
• Clicking 'Help' in the game menu uses the web browser to send you to the customer service web site.
• /browser also takes in an optional URL parameter. i.e. /browser www.StarWarsGalaxies.com
• /url sends your currently OPENED browser to the specified URL. i.e. /url www.StarWarsGalaxies.com

60 Month Veteran Reward:

• Players who have played Star Wars Galaxies for 60 months can choose a hover chair as their 60 month veteran reward. The hover chair is a one-person vehicle that gets its owner around in style! The vehicle cannot be used inside structures.

New In-Game Paintings:

• Congratulations to Zel of Bloodfin and Guillemette of Bria, the winners of the Create a Painting contest! Visit Navari Trik outside of the Mos Eisley cantina to claim the two winning paintings.
• These paintings are tradeable but each character can only receive one Rebel and one Imperial painting.
• Characters must be at least 15 days old to claim the paintings.
• These paintings are only available during Game Update 5, so log in and talk to Navari today!

Game Play:

• Nightsister Energy Lance schematics and Nightsister Vibro Units are once again dropping from creatures in the galaxy.
• Weapon augmentation and weapon enhancement components are dropping from creatures in the galaxy.
• Looted weapon drop rates have been reduced.
• All looted weapon draft schematics should convert to granting the player a cored version of the weapon schematic upon logging in to Game Update 5.
• Looted non-schematic weapons have had their damage ranges decreased slightly.
• Weapons that existed prior to Game Update 5 have not been changed or converted, but many looted weapons can be dismantled into tradable draft schematics that can be used in the new crafting system.
• Most non-lightsaber, non-cored, and non-profession granted weapons can now be converted into a limited use schematic so they can be used in the new system.
• Use the radial menu on the weapon in the inventory and select Deconstruct. You must confirm your decision to dismantle your weapon. The schematics are tradeable and can be given to a Munitions Trader to create a new, cored weapon.
• Bio-linked weapons can only be deconstructed if you are the one it is bio-linked to.
• Most temporary items will now display how long before they get destroyed when you examine them.
• Unpacked structures will now fit to the terrain the same way as when created from a deed.
• Using the food Kommerken Steak will now give the player advantages to finding a Treasure Map while foraging.

User Interface:

• When you examine an item that contains Stat modifiers (luck, precision, stamina, strength, constitution, and agility), those stats now appear in their own block labeled Stat Mods.
• The Network Status window is now lockable.
• The Character tab now displays the correct birth date of the character.
• The Birth Planet field has been removed from the Character tab.
• SWG now recognizes up to 8 mouse buttons for keybindings.
• OK and Cancel buttons should position themselves properly when the window is resized.
• Buttons in the Control tab of the Options window should behave properly when the window is resized.
• Fixed tooltips for Keymap and Reset Defaults buttons in the Control tab of the Options window.
• Added missing tooltips for Reset Defaults buttons in Terrain and Keymap tabs of the options window.

Beast Master:

• Mutation chances have been slightly increased.
• A collection that grants a beast dye kit has been added.
• Titles for Beast Mastery expertise have been added.
• For the first point of expertise: "Beast Handler"
• For Harmonious Understanding 3: "Beast Master"
• For Incubation Processing Time 3: "Merase Master"
• For DNA Harvesting 3: "Chief Geneticist"
• Eggs now use their type name to identify them in inventory.
• The ability to stuff a beast has been added.
• The countdown timer for reviving a pet is no longer interrupted by movement.
• Beasts may now be stored after combat without having to wait.
• Beasts may now be called in combat.
• Beast food can now be double-clicked to feed a pet.
• The happiness expertise Beast Empathy now correctly affects beast happiness.
• The happiness maximum has been increased to 50 instead of 25. This gives a 50% bonus to experience gain when happiness is maxed instead of 25%.
• The loyalty gain/loss bonus from pet happiness has been increased from 25% to 50%.
• It is no longer possible to lose beast happiness due to combat.
• Beast movement speed has been increased and added a modifier to not lower their speed on slopes.
• Added incubation time reduction modifier (minute based) for reverse engineering.
• Chubas were considered wolves and are now frogs. All old commands they learned stay on them until they are removed. Frog commands can now be trained on them.
• Condor Dragons were considered giraffes and are now griffins. All old commands they learned stay on them until they are removed. Griffin commands can now be trained on them.
• Added the new command group "Kick" for horses and camels. The kick command does considerable damage and has a one second stun associated with it.
• Added a new line of attacks called "Spit". Frogs and camel type beasts may train this ability.
• Frog type beasts now can train the "Bite" line of attacks.
• Beast incubator gauges now behave properly.
• Isomerase and Lyase enzymes now have their color as a prefix to their name for easier sorting in the Bazaar.
• Enzymes have been split up into three different game object types for faster searching on a Bazaar terminal.
• Exotic attachments that give beast experience bonuses now modify the result of happiness and supplements, in addition to the base experience bonus.
• Beast experience bonuses from exotic attachments now show up in the character's skill mods summary page.
• Bolster Armor now displays its added value to the beast's armor in its examine window.

Munitions Traders:

• The process to craft all weapons has been updated.
• Cores, similar to cores used when armorsmithing, are new crafted subcomponents used to select the level of the weapon the trader is crafting.
• Core levels range from level 18-90, depending on the core type, and the level determines the weapon stats.
• Core levels are determined in the first experimentation session. Selecting the level cannot be undone, so choose carefully!
• Elemental damage type is determined at the core level. Munitions Traders can craft the elemental type into the core to place it into weapons that don't have an element type defined.
•  All new crafted weapons are now bio-linked.
• Several new sub-components have been added and existing sub-components can be used in crafting the cores and weapons.
• Looted melee and ranged enhancements have been added as option components to weapon cores. These give bonuses to crit chance.
• Looted melee and ranged augmentations have been added as optional components to weapon cores. These augmentations give bonuses to attributes.
• All permanently learned looted drafted schematics auto-update themselves to new versions with cores upon logging in the first time in Game Update 5.
• NPCs who grant schematics as rewards now grant the cored version of the weapon schematics.
• Chest Plates can now have stat modifiers crafted into them.
• 100 points of weapon experimentation are now granted at skill box Munition Fundamentals VI.
• 100 points of weapon assembly are now granted at skill box Munition Fundamentals VI.
• Removed all experimentation/assembly skills granted after box Munition Fundamentals VI.
• Added new armor schematics for Marauder Assault Armor and Marauder Recon Armor. Seek out a Marauder named Macchbraus in the wilds of Endor to learn more about these schematics.
• Removed all craftable grenade schematics.
• Slightly decreased the minimum and maximum damage of the Guardian Lightning Cannon.
• Increased factory crate size on weapon components.
• Altered all sub 64m Rifles max range to 64.
• Altered all sub 35m Pistols to be at least 35m.
• Altered all sub 45m Carbines to be at least 45m.
• Added Acid Stream Launcher to the profession wheel.
• Added loot components to the following draft schematics:
• Geo Sword Core
• Scythe Blade
• Black Sun Executioner's Hack
• Wookiee Toothpick
  
• Geo Cube
• Geo Reinforcement Core
• Kaminoan Great Staff
• Nak'tra Crystal
• Nak'tra Crystal Rifle

Engineering Traders:

• Removed all portions of player weapon crafting from Engineer Traders.
• A new decorative knife schematic has been added.
• Altered badges granted at Master to reflect Master Merchant and Master Droid Engineer.
• Traders:
• When you are in a room containing a crafting station, an icon showing that station displays in the buff list. This is used to help determine what station to use with what tool.
• An icon displays for each station in the same area as you.
• The icon clears when you leave the crafting station area.
• The icon clears when you pick up or remove all of that station type from the area.
• Bio-linked items can now be reverse engineered.

Officer:

• /groupWaypoint is now on a 1 second cooldown.

Bounty Hunter and Commando:

• Armor Break has been improved to remove 6% armor against players and 600 armor against NPC's per debuff in a stack.

Bounty Hunter:

• The cooldown on Ambush has been lowered to 6 seconds.

Commando:

• All heavy weapons types will now properly execute a passive Damage over Time application.
• Heavy weapon damage modifiers will now correctly apply to ground targeting and directional heavy weapons.  

Storyteller:

• Reduced the price of most storyteller tokens.
• Added a few new songs to the jukebox.

Unlocked Character Slots:

• If your account has an unlocked slot, you can use the following procedures to manage the unlocked slot.
• If you currently have an unoccupied unlocked slot, whenever you start the client, at the character selection screen, a message will be displayed with instructions on how to use the /occupyUnlockedSlot command to make any existing normal slot character into an unlocked slot character, thus freeing up a normal character slot on the galaxy. This message will only be displayed once, and will be displayed again the next time you restart the client.
• If you wish to make an unlocked slot character into a normal slot character, thus allowing you to put another normal slot character into the unlocked slot, thus freeing up a normal character slot on that galaxy, log in the unlocked slot character, and run the /vacateUnlockedSlot command.
• You can log in the current unlocked slot character and run the "/swapUnlockedSlot " command to make the current unlocked slot character a normal character and make the specified normal character (on the same account and on the same galaxy) the unlocked slot character.
• The /occupyUnlockedSlot, /vacateUnlockedSlot, and /swapUnlockedSlot commands share a 24 hour cooldown.