His crafting ability bonuses are as follows:

+5 Critical Armormech, +1 Critical Underworld Trading

You could do what I'm always doing on my characters...
Toon A is a great in-game companion, being a perfect match for you in fights. Toon B is a second companion, with whom you are either in a relationship or whose affection needs boosting.

This leads to me doing the following:
Summon Toon B
Do conversation. Accept quest.
Summon Toon A
Actually do all the running around, fighting and questing. Return to base.
Summon Toon B
Actually turn quest in.

Yes, it can be a hassle, and youhave to remember to do all the switching, but it can be worth it.

Thanks to Vic, I finally learned exactly how negative affection points work.

And that was while we were still on Balmorra.

Tanno likes it when you grumble at npcs, mock superiors, and want something for your effort. Be prepared to go outside of your routine behaviour of being nice to everyone and fighting for the republic if you want to build any affection with this guy, watch out though when doing missions handed to you whilst on your ship so that you are not greatly affecting the other companions' affection with your choices. If you really want to make a choice you know is going to go down badly with Tanno then summon a different companion before conversing with npcs or send him on a crew skill. Conversations only affect the companion you have summoned or selected at the time of conversing with the npc providing they're not busy on a crew skill.

As for gearing him up you can pretty much give him hand-me-downs but you will need to remodify them to include defense/shield absorption mods. As for techblades these are only obtained once per planet during one of the missions or crafted by armstechs. You can also buy them from weapons vendors but they're no better than the green one you'll get from the mission.

Fair question - I have a couple answers.

Troopers have 2 tanks, 4X and Vik. There are 2 big differences. 4X is a droid so needs droid parts/armor, but Vik can use heavy armor just like you - so Vik is generally easier to equip. The other is Vik runs in to take aggro, 4X harpoon pulls which can mess up aoe. Yes I know one can supposedly turn that off but...

I just reached 50 and am trying to switch to Combat Medic + tank rather than Gunnery + Dorne (which works fine but can be slow). So far it works great. Major problem is Vik's personality. I hate it. I love 4X but that harpoon pull + droid gear is a real problem. I can hardly build affection with Vik and last night I made a Light side decision and lost 84 affection just like that. Ouch. I'm V Light and enjoy my Pure title but Vik don't make it easy. I'd rather use 4X but so far Vik works better.

As far as gifts go:

Underworld Goods give the most gain (+96 for affection tier appropriate ranks), Weapons give the second most (+54) and Technology and Military Gear give the least (+24). There is no gain for anything else.

Oh my gosh. I'm leveling my affection with my companions on my lvl 44 commando with Underworld Trading, with Aric and M1-4X at max affection and Tanno at 9415 affection. I did make any real effort to even get his affection up, though! I just kept getting rank five companion gift crits for Underworld Good gifts (purple/'artifact' level items). They put up his affection by ~1500 at rank one (2000 affection and under), though they HAVE to be rank five gifts to be that awesome.

Just a bit of a tip.

Unless he's a Jedi, he doesn't use strength. For player characters, the stats make sense for the most part. For companions, they do whatever Bioware says they do. In this case, Aim makes him better at melee.

The whole idea is that if he used strength, he'd look like a Jedi. Fmeh, I call it laziness :)

Tanno Vik, Male Weequay - Balmorra

Combat Style: Melee Tank
Armor: Heavy
Weapon type: Rifle
Special: Suppression, Grenade
Gifts loved: ?

Voice Over by David Pizzuto

Great.... Why give troopers another tank? And a melee trooper at that.

Also, seeing he's melee, shouldn't his primary stat be Strength?

You receive this companion on Balmorra.

He is a melee Tank. He uses heavy armor and a blaster rifle.