Legendary Mech Armor

[mrkev]

Your reasonning is simplistic because it represent thing on a single scale where there is "good/best" in one side, and the rest on the other. But it's not like that, you have different scale, where you have "fast" and "slow" for the player to build, "fast" and "slow" for the factory to finish the products , and "efficient" and "inefficient" in energy, or ressources, and "easy" and "hard", and "require lots of UPS" - "doesn't require lots of UPS".

Imagine a player that doesn't want to use quality except for the armor and the achievement things, and another player that wants full legendary factory. They will not follow the same strategy. There is no such thing as "the best way" there. It's situationnal. That's the most important, recognizing when to use a method and when not, rather than trying to find "the best method". Because it's not the same depending on your situation.

I'm sorry, but this is just stupid. Making EM plants is the best on all the scales, especially those you've mentioned...

There are ^^ they were even mentionned on this thread, if you have already rare material and you're not interested into full legendary thing, you can just try to make a legendary armor from rare or epic material and recycle the armor when it's not legendary. 1 production area => 1 recycling area.

Nope, there aren't any. That whole "if you have already rare material" won't help you, because you need quality holmium plates. And those can be made only in three different ways - upcycling them directly, through mech armor or through EM plants.
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Let's say that you put legendary 3rd tier quality modules (all examples are gonna use them) in your foundry. For 100 000 HP produced, you'll get about:
22320 uncommon plates, 2232 rare plates, 223 HP epic plates and 23 legendary HP.

Now, you run everything that isn't legendary through a recycler and you take out only legendary plates. You'll get another 123 legendary HP. That's 146 legendary helmium plates, so after 100 000HP made, you are about half way there to get the mech armor. How many plates are you making per second? My first factory on fulgora made about 10HP/s; so this would take short of three hours.
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What would happen if you didn't run it through the recycler, but made mech armors first? Let's say that you take all the non-normal HPs and make mech armor out of them. If you have legendary 3rd tier production modules in your superconductor and supercapacitor factories, you'll need roughly 300HP per armor.
22320 uncommon plates = 56 uncommon armors, 17 rare, 1.7 epic and 0.17 legendary
2232 rare plates = 5.6 rare, 1.7 epic and 0.17 legendary armors

Recycling all this will give you a good chance to get 3 legendary armors, which means about 1 per hour (with that 10HP/s production, unless you get really lucky).
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Now, let's say that you won't use quality modules in HP production and you go through EM plants.
Swapping quality modules for production modules in your HP prodution means you get 126 000HP instead of 100 000.

After one itteration of EM plants production and recycling, you'll get:
17296 uncommon plates, 4690 rare, 765 epic and 165 legendary helmium plates

After running through the entire supply, you'll get 4210 legendary holmium plates, which means 14 legendary armors. Roughly 1 per 12 minutes.
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In other words, using EM plants is about 4.7 times faster, uses 6 times less resources, it is more energy efficient and much easier to build.

It's easier than setting up production for EM plant and the armor, and recycling the EM plant because that's 2 production area and 1 recycling.

Also completely wrong. You'd need to setup at least 3 different tiers of power armor production and 3 different tiers of superconductor plus supercapacitor production. That's not 2 production areas vs. 1. it's more like 3 vs 10.

[mmmPI]

I'm sorry, but this is just stupid. Making EM plants is the best on all the scales, especially those you've mentioned...

It takes a bit of practice to express your disagreement without saying the other person is stupid.

What i said was :

If you have access to rare material already it's probably easier and faster to just try and craft the legendary armor from rare material and recycle the armor when it's not. This allow a single recycler to work on much more holmium plate than if you try to upcycle plate individually.

Another "better" way than trying to upscale the plate directly would be to try and craft electromagnetic plant, and recycle them, because you have a productvity bonus when making them, and still allow a single recycler to work on more holmium plate.

Notice how comparing 2 things at a purpose isn't the same as saying " one method is the best ".

I carefully put the quotation mark and used a comparaison between 2 things because otherwise you'd left with a flawed reasonning like taking 1 single example between 2 method, and making a generic conclusion about it, dismissing other context where those method can be compared and others method altogether :

In other words, using EM plants is about 4.7 times faster, uses 6 times less resources, it is more energy efficient and much easier to build.

The precision of the result makes no sense to me when considering what takes time is building the setup as much as letting it run and transform the product if you want a single armor. So you would need to factor in the cost of the extra infrastructure dedicated to make the armor, minus the cost of what you already have. If you don't have many legendary quality module or if you have a lot changes the strategy ! And that's just one thing to consider.

Obviously the setup that require massive infrastructure to get started is going to be faster when you run it. But it also cost more ressource and time for you to build it in the first place, then it balances out on the long but if you only need a single legendary armor .... overall it may not be faster to get your armor, this very much depend on what you have available in your game already.

It's easier than setting up production for EM plant and the armor, and recycling the EM plant because that's 2 production area and 1 recycling.

Also completely wrong. You'd need to setup at least 3 different tiers of power armor production and 3 different tiers of superconductor plus supercapacitor production. That's not 2 production areas vs. 1. it's more like 3 vs 10.

Imagine the situation is you have "rare" material because you do scrap mining with quality, you produce "rare" power armor mk2 from those material using an assembly machine fed by robots, you use quality module on this assembly machine, so sometimes instead of making a "rare" it will be "epic" you dont need another chain, if you try hard enough you may even get some "legendary". Whenever you make a "rare mech armor" from that "power armor mk2" or a "epic" you recycle it, this can also give you "epic" or "legendary" power armor mk2. You don't need duplicate production chain for power armor.

If you want to keep things easy , you can count 1 assembly that makes "rare mech armor from rare material" ,1 assembly that makes "epic mech armor from epic material" , but it will be active very little, only when there is enough material recycled, and 1 assembly that makes "legendary mech armor from legendary material", but it's probably uncessary, because you will probably get a legendary mech armor from the other method, before getting enough legendary material.

Really you can do that with 1 assembly and a few circuit, in that case it would be "easier" to just plop the blueprint, or "cheaper to setup" because it's a single machine so you don't need many modules to get it started.

[mrkev]

It takes a bit of practice to express your disagreement without saying the other person is stupid.

I haven't said that you are stupid, but that your argument is stupid. Two completely different things.

What i said was : ...

That has nothing to do with what we were talking about. You disagreed with my post, not the other way around.

Notice how comparing 2 things at a purpose isn't the same as saying " one method is the best ".

One method is objectively the best. On all the metrics, mentioned and few we didn't even mention. There isn't a single metric I can think of, where it would be worse and you certainly haven't provided any relevant examples.

The precision of the result makes no sense to me when considering what takes time is building the setup as much as letting it run and transform the product if you want a single armor.

What precision? That calculation shows the average. The calculation of the average can be very precise. The real time is going to be +- few minutes, depending on how lucky you are.

So you would need to factor in the cost of the extra infrastructure dedicated to make the armor, minus the cost of what you already have. If you don't have many legendary quality module or if you have a lot changes the strategy ! And that's just one thing to consider.

Obviously the setup that require massive infrastructure to get started is going to be faster when you run it. But it also cost more ressource and time for you to build it in the first place, then it balances out on the long but if you only need a single legendary armor .... overall it may not be faster to get your armor, this very much depend on what you have available in your game already.

What extra infrastructure? Upscaling plates through EM plants uses much smaller infrastructure. By far. That whole argument doesn't make any sense, you can even use the other items from EM plant to make all the other stuff you need. If you'd want to use circuits, You could do it with a single EM plant, one recycler and one assembly that makes refined concrete.

The whole reason why it's so much better is in a simple fact - EM plant can be made in another EM plant. And those take 5 modules instead of 4, plus they have 50% extra productivity. So you are using (and therefore wasting) less plates to make more stuff while having a better chance to get higher quality.

Imagine the situation is you have "rare" material because you do scrap mining with quality, you produce "rare" power armor mk2 from those material using an assembly machine fed by robots, you use quality module on this assembly machine, so sometimes instead of making a "rare" it will be "epic" you dont need another chain, if you try hard enough you may even get some "legendary". Whenever you make a "rare mech armor" from that "power armor mk2" or a "epic" you recycle it, this can also give you "epic" or "legendary" power armor mk2. You don't need duplicate production chain for power armor.

Sure, imagine "the situation is you have 'rare' material becase you do scrap mining with quality" and you produce power armor from those. You have to be recycling cogs, then making pipes, from pipes and cogs motors, then recycling procesing units to get circuits and plastic for electric motors, speed and effectivity modules. All that in at least three different qualities. You have to get large number of LDS and processing units too, for each quality.

What you'll end up with? Very small number of power armor with various quality, power armor that you can't use, because you don't have holmium plates for superconductors and supercapacitors, as those are made from liquid and legendary holmium ore won't produce legendary holmium plate.

If you want to keep things easy , you can count 1 assembly that makes "rare mech armor from rare material" ,1 assembly that makes "epic mech armor from epic material" , but it will be active very little, only when there is enough material recycled, and 1 assembly that makes "legendary mech armor from legendary material", but it's probably uncessary, because you will probably get a legendary mech armor from the other method, before getting enough legendary material.

None of this makes any sense. Any sense what so ever.

Really you can do that with 1 assembly and a few circuit, in that case it would be "easier" to just plop the blueprint, or "cheaper to setup" because it's a single machine so you don't need many modules to get it started.

No, you can't. You need EM plants for superconductors and supercapacitors. Both need holmium plates and you have no good way of getting those.

[mmmPI]

I haven't said that you are stupid, but that your argument is stupid. Two completely different things.

My argument is that one need to use brain to choose method that depend on situation, you argument is :

One method is objectively the best. On all the metrics, mentioned and few we didn't even mention. There isn't a single metric I can think of, where it would be worse and you certainly haven't provided any relevant examples.

I'm not going to insist on which argument i find stupid but it's not hard to guess.

That has nothing to do with what we were talking about. You disagreed with my post, not the other way around.

I said a method was better than another one in certain condition because there is no "best" it would be simplistic to think so. And you just said the same method is "the best by far" just right after it, so i thought this was meant to contradict the approach of "using the most appropriate tool for the task" and instead you were kinda proclaiming "hammer is the best tool i'm using it for nails screw and digging holes".

What extra infrastructure? Upscaling plates through EM plants uses much smaller infrastructure.

I tried to explain once, but you said "non sense" i fear i don't have the ability to explain it in a way that you would understand.

The only thing you need to recycle to make legendary armor is "scrap" you don't need to upcycle holmium.

Everything you add is "extra infrastructure to get it faster".

[mrkev]

My argument is that one need to use brain to choose method that depend on situation, you argument is :

Nope, stop lying. Your argument was literally:

Your reasonning is simplistic because it represent thing on a single scale where there is "good/best" in one side, and the rest on the other. But it's not like that, you have different scale, where you have "fast" and "slow" for the player to build, "fast" and "slow" for the factory to finish the products , and "efficient" and "inefficient" in energy, or ressources, and "easy" and "hard", and "require lots of UPS" - "doesn't require lots of UPS".

Imagine a player that doesn't want to use quality except for the armor and the achievement things, and another player that wants full legendary factory. They will not follow the same strategy. There is no such thing as "the best way" there. It's situationnal. That's the most important, recognizing when to use a method and when not, rather than trying to find "the best method". Because it's not the same depending on your situation.

And this IS incredibly stupid. Because my "reasonning" clearly DIDN'T "represent thing on a single scale". In this case - not in general or any other case - in this very case, there are only three ways how to do it. And one of those ways is much better than the other two, on all the scales. My reasoning wasn't about single issue, but about all of those you've mentioned (and some you didn't). Because it uses less items, less energy, less space, it's faster, more efficient, easier to build, it will be usefull even after you make the armor, etc. It's at least 5 times better, on every "scale" you can think of.

I'm not going to insist on which argument i find stupid but it's not hard to guess.

Yeah, yours is stupid. Clearly...

I said a method was better than another one in certain condition because there is no "best" it would be simplistic to think so. And you just said the same method is "the best by far" just right after it, so i thought this was meant to contradict the approach of "using the most appropriate tool for the task" and instead you were kinda proclaiming "hammer is the best tool i'm using it for nails screw and digging holes".

Nope. I haven't even read your comment, I was reacting to the OP's question and giving a genuine answer. You are the one who took an issue with my comment. You are the one who is proclaiming "somethimes, when you wanna hammer in some nails, it's better to use a straw. Because saying that using hammer for hammering in the nails is always the best would be too simplistic, and using a straw could be better in some cases". - That's pretty much your whole argument. You are the one saying that using hammer for nails is "situational" and it can't be "the best".

I tried to explain once, but you said "non sense" i fear i don't have the ability to explain it in a way that you would understand.

The only thing you need to recycle to make legendary armor is "scrap" you don't need to upcycle holmium.

Everything you add is "extra infrastructure to get it faster".

Nope, you haven't. At this point, you have to be trolling. You wrote something that didn't make sense (that's why I called it nonsense) and that wouldn't at all work. You can't explain something that doesn't exist or doesn't work.

If you look up mech armor in the wiki https://wiki.factorio.com/Mech_armor It requires at least 300 holmium plates (200 directly, 60 for superconductors and 40 for supercapacitors). You can't make 'rare' mech armor from the "rare stuff you already have from elsewhere", because you're missing those rare holmium plates.

[Tertius]

My argument is that one need to use brain to choose method that depend on situation, you argument is :

Nope, stop lying. Your argument was literally:

Hey, both of you, please stop fighting this stupid fight. Just stop. You're both right, or you're both wrong, or just one of you, I don't care. It's irrelevant.

This is so a nice thread with a so nice and meaningful discussion. From both of you. I got lots of ideas how to approach quality in general and specific items specifically where I had none at all before. Lots of input from both of you. From both of your approaches and discussed aspects. Let the readers explore and decide on their own what to make out of it.

[mmmPI]

The only thing you need to recycle to make legendary armor is "scrap" you don't need to upcycle holmium.

Everything you add is "extra infrastructure to get it faster".

If you look up mech armor in the wiki https://wiki.factorio.com/Mech_armor It requires at least 300 holmium plates (200 directly, 60 for superconductors and 40 for supercapacitors). You can't make 'rare' mech armor from the "rare stuff you already have from elsewhere", because you're missing those rare holmium plates.

This is clearly missing the fact that you can use quality module in the foundry that makes the holmium plate, which means you can get "rare" holmium plate, or even legendary, without upcycling any plate nor EM plant. It require less initial infrastructure and is more efficient on ressources to do that upcycling EM plant.

[mrkev]

It isn't missing anything. Legendary mech armor needs at lest 300 legendary holmium plates to be made (if you have lvl3 legendary production modules, which is unlikely). Getting 300 legendary holmium plates from foundry with 4 lvl 3 legendary quality modules (again, you are unlikely to have those too, as they need quite a lot of legendary holmium to make) would require you to make on average 1 344 086 HP. That's gonna take ages. Upcycling through EM plants will take you there in 1/10th of that. I even provided detailed calculation for all three options few posts ago.

[mmmPI]

It isn't missing anything. Legendary mech armor needs at lest 300 legendary holmium plates to be made

It is, you can also make "legendary mech armor" from "rare" material or or "epic" material ( 25% chance).

And you don't need legendary holmium plate to make legendary superconductor the same applies so the 300 number is wrong you need 200 plate to try one armor craft.

Upcycling through EM plants will take you there in 1/10th of that.

No that's what your math says but i think they are not properly representing what i described. The only thing where it is helpful to me is that it acknowledges the fact that you don't need to upcycle EM plant, it's just extra ressources dumped somewhere to get your armor faster, but it's possible to also do without.

[mrkev]

It is, you can also make "legendary mech armor" from "rare" material or or "epic" material ( 25% chance).

Sure. And you'll need whole chain of production for every quality.

And you don't need legendary holmium plate to make legendary superconductor the same applies so the 300 number is wrong you need 200 plate to try one armor craft.

You need 0.33HP for every superconductor and 1.33HP for every supercapacitor. Mech armor needs 50 of each, so good luck crafting that from rare or epic holmium... It's completely absurd.

Upcycling through EM plants will take you there in 1/10th of that.

No that's what your math says but i think they are not properly representing what i described. The only thing where it is helpful to me is that it acknowledges the fact that you don't need to upcycle EM plant, it's just extra ressources dumped somewhere to get your armor faster, but it's possible to also do without.

Not my math, that's what the math says. And no, it's not extra resources, it's using LESS RESOURCES. Because you can get there 10 times faster (5 times than using mech armor upcycling).
The OP's question was: "What is the best way to get mech armor". Having to go through milion holmium while having production for multiple different quality of items while trying to get lucky is clearly not that... And sure, you can say "just put some quality modules into your foundry, wait for 10 hours and get the rest of the stuff elsewhere", but building 5 EM plants, one recycler and one assembler for refined concrete is still gonna be the better solution.

[mmmPI]

The OP's question was: "What is the best way to get mech armor". Having to go through milion holmium while having production for multiple different quality of items while trying to get lucky is clearly not that

I also believe this is based on misunderstanding. If you have 25% chance of making a legendary armor from "epic material", and the attempt cost you 200 plates, and you already have plenty of "rare" holmium plate. you're not 10 hours and millions of plate away from the legendary armor.

... And sure, you can say "just put some quality modules into your foundry, wait for 10 hours and get the rest of the stuff elsewhere", but building 5 EM plants, one recycler and one assembler for refined concrete is still gonna be the better solution.

Yes because op mentionned having rare material already, but since the quantity is unknown it appearedd to me unfounded to assertively claim which method is the best and try to back this up with math so i mentionned the 2 different and i prefered highlighting how it is important to take into consideration the existing situation before answering what is the "best way".

( I thought it would be quite obvious for anyone that had read the thread before posting and assumed you had when i quoted you).

[mrkev]

I also believe this is based on misunderstanding. If you have 25% chance of making a legendary armor from "epic material", and the attempt cost you 200 plates, and you already have plenty of "rare" holmium plate. you're not 10 hours and millions of plate away from the legendary armor.

You have 25% chance with 3rd tier legendary quality modules, which they are unlikely to have, because those need legendary holmium too. And even if they did, 25% chance means you can get it on the 1st try, or 9th, 11th and 13th. The likelyhood that you'll get it within first 4 tries is actually lower than you'd expect (around 50%). That said, getting to epic material is pretty much exactly as hard, as getting to legendary. Plus, every try costs 300HP, not 200.

Quality works like this - if you have 24.8% quality bonus and you produce 100 000 normal items, you'll get (on average) 24 800 better quality items. Out of those, 90% will be one tier above, 9% two tiers above, 0.9% three tiers above and 0.1% four tiers above. The chance of getting a legendary item from normal production is 24.8% * 0.1% = 0.0248%; because those module effect only the first "bump".

So yes, you absolutely are 10 hours and million of holmium plates deep. That's why we use upcycling, where you get that 24.8% chance every time you produce an item - and then again, when you disassemble it.

Yes because op mentionned having rare material already, but since the quantity is unknown it appearedd to me unfounded to assertively claim which method is the best and try to back this up with math so i mentionned the 2 different and i prefered highlighting how it is important to take into consideration the existing situation before answering what is the "best way".

( I thought it would be quite obvious for anyone that had read the thread before posting and assumed you had when i quoted you).

I was directly replying to the OP's initial post, even with quotation. I really don't undestand why would you think otherwise.
Plus, even if that was true, and they've got unlimited supply of rare holmium plates, upcycling EM plants is still better than anything else. The number of unsucessful tries to bump stuf from rare to epic or even legendary is still too high.

That whole upcycler can be really simple, something like this will work fine:

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

Copy blueprint

If you wanna add simple circuit boost and limit that whole thing to holmium production, it can be as simple as this (i did it within 10 minutes, so it isn't that pretty, but it works fine, unless you have researched really high scrap production boost):

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CRalsIaxupFjxClt4liEVoRcWWKZT/Jimky0iy3QCpZ84xhIq/GtVITSWEmt8jnKCUTv7+P+d/Vh6mqPdGnXhllWGo+uvwT+IrivL0XXsu3AMzdcFTvOFFaxe0yC2SVYFvAmrAReUVZEAYiCQhDcyQRBdEECg7miW10NbCI7l59D2gyqwZvk5YOlzPBsadfLdaqFnQ7PKE1rNMiY1Kp/aapZpqcNHHa0s0xL7LjiGpkadOrKsDN9h5HpUB4wiLAyQuW00YU4HQQwtMm/UNIylBdI6mM/z2V+tnLoh/Wf0czdPxdx9np//36UMdA/d7+bJDf/vYnanB3d68KeHrqq6mnd1b1T31P2cd0Vizk/tz3l3/ql7Ov2cd6eETk8dSw95fupEcnoKesRwfur62T2dPnN5+nzWtM6vsT6Wu6Y6TQlfy2Z/6rfzOtmUnHeFcoV9efkvWDc4xg==

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[mmmPI]

You have 25% chance with 3rd tier legendary quality modules, which they are unlikely to have,

That's the limit to where i agree x) , and is actually my point, given the amount of unknown to begin with mathing out precise odds feels pointless to me.

But i think it's nice that you show a setup and some math to back up a claim of which method is the best. It shows which assumption you make and how you arrive to your conclusion.

I also believe you can have a factory that already produce 1500 or 15000 science pack per minute, and you just have to switch modules to it to suddenly have % of the holmium already produced made into quality for your armor. As another potential situation that need to be evaluated before claiming which method is the best.

I was directly replying to the OP's initial post, even with quotation. I really don't undestand why would you think otherwise.

I thought when there are like 4-5 post on a topic people read them before posting themselves, especially when in the subsequent posts op describe the situation with more details, that can only help adress the original question. I even mentionned it my first post that you had said something that was mentionned already, in case you had missed the extra details before posting.

[jimbroof]

but what if you already have holmimn plates?

[mrkev]

but what if you already have holmimn plates?

OP specifically said that they don't. But if you do, good options are upcycling processing units or asteroids, you could combine that with batteries, accumulators or low density structures. Something that can be made in EM plant, cryo plant or foundry and that uses somewhat balanced ratio of copper and iron, preferably something that has also some plastic.
For example, if you upcycle processing units, you can recycle them to get both types of circuits, if you recycle basic circuits, you'll also get iron. If you take legendary plastic and use it to produce legendary LDS in a foundry (using molten iron and copper from normal ore or lava), you'll also get ton of legendary copper and some steel. That's pretty much all you need for mech armor.

[mmmPI]

but what if you already have holmium plates?

Obviously OP must have some holmium plate as the situation described is "late game" when wrapping up the last details end game achievement. Depending on the quality they have you may want to try and make the armor directly from those

If you already have a large factory that produce a lot of holmium for science, you can switch modules to them and get some quality plates, you can filter those out, let the regular holmium plate go to science, upcycle the uncommon to rare, and from rare epic and legendary, you make a mech armor loop and recycle it.

If you have a stockpile of holmium plate and you want to upcycle them for mass production, recycling EM plant is the way.

[Mr Wednesday]

4 lvl 3 legendary quality modules (again, you are unlikely to have those too, as they need quite a lot of legendary holmium to make)

I have those.

They come from a combination of a Q3 module upcycling plant on Vulcanus and initially running some superconductor upcycling on Fulgora. The latter was initially intended as an intermediate in upcycling holmium plate. I left it in place for a while even after finding immediately that it didn't work, with the result that I got a decent amount of legendary superconductors to make legendary Q3 modules.

[mmmPI]

I have those.

They come from a combination of a Q3 module upcycling plant on Vulcanus and initially running some superconductor upcycling on Fulgora. The latter was initially intended as an intermediate in upcycling holmium plate. I left it in place for a while even after finding immediately that it didn't work, with the result that I got a decent amount of legendary superconductors to make legendary Q3 modules.

I think if you have a small number of legendary quality module tier 3, and you want to go for the mech armor, you're better of using them to make more quality module initially, a setup with a single assembly making the mech armor and a single recycler only will already require 8 quality module to function any less than that will be annoying, with 4 you can craft a bunch of armor and then manually swap module in the recycler x).

With 8 you can have a single assembly that craft "any" quality level of armor when there is enough material starting from "normal", and a single attached recycler both machines filled with modules. Will require circuits and clever design

[Stargateur]

Believe me or not, but my first run of space age I get one lucky legendary mech armor from normal ingredient with my second or third tech armor (I didn't pay attention to the machine and forget to limit ouput and when I looked they was like one rare 2-3 normal and one legendary) and if I remember module 3 quality only. I just put them as "well maybe it's will roll a rare one" and I got a legendary. So just get lucky !

[mrkev]

Believe me or not, but my first run of space age I get one lucky legendary mech armor from normal ingredient with my second or third tech armor (I didn't pay attention to the machine and forget to limit ouput and when I looked they was like one rare 2-3 normal and one legendary) and if I remember module 3 quality only. I just put them as "well maybe it's will roll a rare one" and I got a legendary. So just get lucky !

I believe you, stuff like this happens all the time. But the probability of doing this reliably is crazy low. If you had 4 rare quality modules in, that's 4% per module, so 12% in total. The probability of getting a legendary armor is 12%*0.1% = 0.012%. So about 1 in 8333.