That's correct. I have to admit that due to my limited resources I can only go off of the 60+ RE's I've attempted so far with no success for a second blue of a different trait. But at 20%, that is very unlikely... about 1 in 100,000 chance in fact. So there is something else underneath the math I think... if at 10%, I'm at 1 in 1000 which is not great either but I have a little less heartburn over. Even so, if most of my greens pop a blue within the expected 1 to 10 tries (i.e. a reasonable curve) and everyone's second blues and even puprle's seem to come up on extreme ends... I think there is a problem with the success curve (again it all boils down to math which BW won't tell us).

I'm sorry, but this is not correct. You do not need to take into account any other crafter. For a given statistical test, you only need one person's attempts in order to determine if things are working as intended statistically. Recently a Las Vegas roulette wheel hit 19 7 times in a row, then 15, then 19 again. You can be sure that roulette wheel has been taken down and examined. You aren't going to be able to convince anyone that they should take into account all other wheels as those eight 19's in nine spins would disappear in the wash. Outliers are the bane of any statistic and most people want to sweep them under the rug, usually by grouping them into larger sets and showing that they are a small and insignificant number. But this is wrong as the 20/10% are intended for the individual, not the larger set of all people. It is clear that there may be some issues with RE'ing as some testing by some people has indicated. However, those issues may be as simple as BW not explaining the math behind the crafting. I should be even more clear on this for my case: As an artificer, I find that the 2nd and 3rd blue of a given green wieldable item (the foci, generators and shields) seem to be on the 10% RE line instead of 20% although I have yet to learn a 2nd version of any of my wieldable items. Since I have limited resources, I have only been able to do about 20-25 of several different wieldable items. If the tool tip is indeed wrong and it is 10% once one is learned, then the math works out much more correctly.

I'm afraid you are correct and incorrect. In this case, the 20% chance as listed in the tooltip is not correct for all RE's. The proof is in the math which has been posted many times before.

I just reread your post... I haven't tried since the last server transfer patch asn I've been prepping for the transfer.

There is a problem, but it is not clear what it is and unfortunately Customer Service says that all is working as intended. My experience has been as follows: Artificer - All greens (both linear and non-linear items) will RE at 20% on average. Blue linear items will RE to purple at 20% average. Blue non-linear items will RE to purple at 10% average. Green non-linear items have yet to generate a second blue non-linear type (i.e. overkill and redoubt). I am currently outside of the 1 in 10000 chance if the % chance is 20% and a bit better than that if the % chance is 10%.

Sort your list by level. You should be able to construct the lowest level of items.

It is possible that we have succeeded but the learned schematic is one already learned. I didn't put that in the total list of possibilities of which BW has not told us. However, the where RE'ing 100 items and not getting a schematic is considered okay, is not within the normal 3 standard deviations for 20%. Please read the previous posts for the math. What I have been saying is that Bioware either has a broken system or a hidden component to the learning % which is not represented in the tool tip. And because it is not in the tool tip, I think BW needs to spell out the exact % chances.

I haven't been able to do OPs, but I have crushed some of the FPs in hard mode. You can follow the suggested gear flow just fine as a Shadow Tank (pre 1.3) from what I've been told. For FPs, you can go with Orange Gear with purple mods or even the entire rookie PvP gear set. Then over time collect your Columni/Rakata set pieces through the FP HM's, Dailies etc. With near full Columni/Rakata gear you should be able to do the story mode OPS, then with full gear from story mode OPS, you should be able to do Hard Mode. This link gives a good gear progression for 1.2. I have to assume 1.3 will be similar. http://dulfy.net/2012/04/13/dailies-and-pve-gearing-in-1-2/

Create three or four alts and have them only do arifice missions. Email them the cash they need to do the missions. You'll get the colors you want faster, though it will cost you more. Sell off the colors you don't want to help mitigate the costs.

I'm doing artifice and of the three crafting type you mentioned of your time, none of them are artifice. What I'm trying to point out in this thread is that something is amiss, whether it be Artificing itself, the crafting system itself or perhaps a person-to-person error, we don't know. But the math proves out that the tool tip of 20% after the first blue is learned is not accurate.

I agree with this post, even if I haven't run the numbers myself, they sound about right off the cuff. I don't think the Devs understand damage mitigation versus avoidance and the different ways to go about it. As a cloth wearer, armor is not the way we mitigate damage. We either mitigate it through shield/absorbtion or self-healing. We don't bother with avoidance (because it uses up the spots for shield/absorbtion bonuses) and (obviously restated) we don't do it through armor mitigation because we are cloth wearers. We don't have access to their number crunching (thank Bioware for not giving us adequate tools for that) but we have to assume that they are seeing some imbalance. And I'm okay with them tweaking the numbers. But I think they've tweaked them too far in the opposite direction and Shadow Tanks will because unviable even in PvE.

Again, I'm not Armortech, but I think some skills are 10% even though the tool tip says 20%. So 25 attempts at 10% would be: 1 - (9^25/10-^25) = 92.8% or about 93% of the time you should get a new schematic. I would expect something more along the lines of 10-15 being more reasonable as at a 10% chance of success, you have a 65-80% chance of getting one. You should try switching up to a different schematic to see if you get it quicker than the other schematic you are trying for. I wonder if certain schematics are truly harder to learn than others.

15 - 20 is about the make you should have to do to get your first blue schematic from a green. If you are going for purple, I'm not sure if the 20% rate is correct or not, I haven't done enough of them. I am nearly certain 20% is not the actual number for crafting the second and third blues from a given schematic (Artificer is my experience, not Armortech, there could be differences).

I would agree with this sentiment if it wasn't for the fact that I have yet to learn a 2nd blue version of a given item, having tried (for the most part at least 20 tries each) at 98.8% one or more of these should have resulted in a second blue. When you add this up collectively (as you must) the odds of success indicate I am an extreme outlier, which should not exist in the simplified 20% chance of success. If the success rate gets changed to 1% (or something similarly small) to learn each of the other two blues, I would imagine the math would make more sense since I haven't gotten to 100 tries (or perhaps more) for any given schematic.

This is just unfortuante bad logic. Don't use this going to Vegas (I kid, I kid.. well a little anyway). Each individual crafting attempt has a 20% chance of success is true. However, you must take into consideration the sum of all attempts. If you try 100 times with a 20% chance of success and you fail 100 times, you have an outlier situation outside of 3 sigma!! (or 99.99% chance of success). I'm not saying I've done RE'ing 100 times for any particular blue, but I think you get the jist. If you want a better illustation, think about rolling a pair of dice. To get a 7 you have a 6/36 chance of success or 1/6. To roll a 7 ten times in a row is not 1/6, it is 1-(30^10/36^10) (or 1 minus the chance of failure). So again, you MUST take in the consideration of all attempts made to determine the likliness of getting a success. No one should ever fall into the extreme end all of the time. Lastly, I am talking about these % chances only going after the 2nd or 3rd blue after learning one. I fully agree that the 1st blue learned seems to fall within the expected 20% success chance.

It's not just luck. I did some more experimentation and though I don't have numbers in front of me, almost all of the greens which I attempted to get the first Blue version did so within 5 tries, and all of them within 10 tries. Once I had learned a single blue of a particular green, that green will not RE another blue for 20 tries (and still haven't). It's very clear that there is a % chance modifier for learning schematics once you learn one. The lucky ones are the few who have gotten multiple blues right away. There, either luck was on the player's side or was prior to the 1.2 patch or that particular item has a crafting bug where it spawns the blues without the modifier. I should say, all of this experimentation I have done is on Foci/Shields/Generators as they are the only non-linear RE items that Artificers get. It is possible this is localized to Artificers only.

You are correct, it's a sucky system, not broken. It's clear to me now that the Devs have added some sort of hidden adjustment to the 20% once you've learned one of the three blue schematics.

Right.. it's always 20% regardless of the number you do. Therefore the math is real easy. If you RE 10 items, then the odds of you getting a schematic is as follows: (1 - (4^10/5^10)) or 1 - the chance of failure. To illustrate (and make my math easier) if I RE 5 items. My odds are not 100% that I will get a schematic. My odds are: 1- 4^5/5^5 or 1 - 1024/3125 = 1 - .328 = .672. Effectively If I have my companion craft 5 items, I should get a new schematic about 67% of the time. If I craft 20 of these things like I have done, my odds go to 1-0.011 or about 98.8% chance of getting one. Therefore, it's not just luck... the schematic should have popped up by now. There is another factor not accounted for or a mistake in the RE math. I'm going to make 20 more of these. A new schematic should pop up. If not, there is a break in the math. Most greens pop up a blue in the first few tries... I usually get a blue in 3 - 6 tries, which is about right for "average". In fact, I just started a different (higher level foci) and just got the blue Overkill version. I'm going to build 20 of these as well. Between the two foci, I should get two new blue schematics (non-Overkill versions). If not, there is direct empirical evidence that RE'ing is not as it seems.

I've been attempting to get two of the three blue versions of a Focus. Specifically, the Focus of Masterful Insight. I have the Overkill version, but neither of the other two. I have crafted and RE'd some 20-25 of these now and still have not received a schematic, though several successful augments. Is the learning chance really 20% or is there some hidden value that reduces this chance significantly? Anyone have any thoughts?