Nope cannot transfer, I'm just that desperate to play with a friend that I'm willing to start completely fresh LOL.
Okay, so you want to know about Item modifications eh?
1) Orange gear (orange outline) is gear that is modifiable. NEVER EVER throw these away. for lower levels it is essential you keep most of the orange gear you get.
2) Planetary Commendations. You earn these by doing quests and random drops on NPCs. 90% of the time when you're given an option of this or an item, choose this or a free mod (if its a high level mod) or orange item. These can be spent on mods, weapons, or armor. I recommend only spending them on mods, gear is overly-expensive and rarely good enough to spend 14+ comms on. The mods are sold by the planets vendors (for that level) on the fleet in supplies area.
3) How to mod. CTRL Right Click and it will open the mod menu. It costs to take mods out of the item but not too put mods in. Just right click, hit yes, and then apply.
Types of mods =Armor:
Armoring
Mod
Enhancement
Weapon:
Hilt (lightsaber/melee) or barrel (Gun) I believe.
Mod
Enhancement
Crystal
These all can be made with their respective crew skills. But the decent ones need a higher level, so I'd stick to just collecting crew skills for materials. The trick to mods, is to collect ones that have skill modifiers that impact you type of play. For example: I'm a sorcerer, so I need willpower, endurance (which is on every single mod), and critical rating. A warrior/knight that specs in DPS needs strength endurance and power. if they spec in tank, strength, endurance, and defense rating. Now you can mix and match to make a hybrid, but a very well made template and proper distribution of mods are needed to be effective.
Another thing to look out for is the Purple (Artifact/Prototype) gear. Very good gear that is SOMETIMES moddable but always worth the trouble of getting (don't spend comms on them)
Green gear is still worthwhile though, to get all the mods and orange gear takes time. To fill in the gaps you need decent green gear which is easy to find, but expensive to buy (Sort of)
Here's a tip, always keep your companion up to date on gear, it will save your life. And in flashpoints, heroics, ops etc if there is a decent piece of gear dropped that your companion can use, get it. Doesn't matter if someone else needs it, you go for it. Goes for any gear you find, even if you cant use it, a companion can. This also requires you to spend comms on them for mods if you equip them with orange gear. But your character always comes first.
Another tip, Crew skills, scavenging, archeology, and biochem, get them. They're material gathering skills that once you hit a certain level in, the money starts pouring in once you sell them on the Galactic Trade Network.
I probably missed quite a bit, but If you have anymore questions feel free to ask. Hope this helped!