Sakes, thanks for even more clarification...it's becoming a lot more clear.

i appreciate the clarification. I will mess around with this more.

Sorry to be a little confused here, so hoping someone can clarify. Examples I want to use for help let's say i have an orange chest piece, armor on it is 350 with all kinds of stats from mods. I understand I can upgrade the mods but wont the armor stay 350? If that is the case, i can get endurance and aim and crit but wont i outlevel the armor number? ie..at level 24 the armor is 350 at level 40 i modded all the stuff on the piece but the armor is still 350. Wont there be better armor pieces at 40? weapon-orange, has 100-115 damage at level 24..i know I can change the barrel and mods to gain aim, endurance, crit, power etc...but does the damage go up as i change mods or is it going to be 100-115 at level 40 which wouldn't be an upgrade even if I changed mods. help, i seem to be confused. i hate to admit I think i have sold orange gear because I thought it couldn't be upgraded weapon damage or base armor....=(