Gathering Skills are Crew Skills that involve collecting raw materials for use with Crafting Skills. Players can use any or all three of their Crew Skill slots for gathering skills.
The Gathering Skills are:
The SWTOR system provides several ways to gather resources. Players can gather resources themselves. Companion characters with you in the field can be ordered to handle gathering. Also, companions stationed back at your ship can be assigned gathering missions. Gathering missions assigned to companions will continue even when the player is offline.[1]