Crafting Upgrade Question

[Mark Speed]

I have three of my toons with crafting in the Level 12-13 range and have started to delve into crafting items and creating upgrades.  However, I still don't fully understand the mechanisms of upgrading despite some pretty good posts in the STO forums.

If I want to have an item that is Very Rare or Epic, am I better off upgrading an item that is relatively low level (Mk 1/2/3/4/5/6), spending the dilithium and materials to increase its Mk level and hopefully its chance of upgrading from rare to very rare to epic, or do I have as good or a better chance of getting an item to upgrade its quality if I start with something that's already a high Mk level (ex: Mk 11/12)?  

Appreciate any explanation as to the mechanics and math of the upgrading part of the system - thanks!

[Morgan Shackelford]

Every time you increase an item's rank, the quality has a chance to upgrade as well; however, when upgrading a rank, if the quality does not improve based on that chance, the chance to improve quality will go back to zero.  So, the next time you try and upgrade it, the quality-meter will be back to zero.

When an item hits mark 14, you can continue to dump tech upgrades into it to improve it.  Since each successive upgrade is not improving the rank anymore, the quality-meter does not reset.  Eventually, you will be able to get the quality to upgrade.

I don't know that upgrading a lower ranked item is going to help.  You'll get more chances to upgrade quality because you're ranking it up more, but that chance is usually only gonna be a couple of percent each time.

[Mark Speed]

Thanks.  If the quality reset to zero when it upgrades a rank, there's no benefit upgrading a low-level item to Mk14 hoping for epic - so I can focus on starting with higher level items. 

[Captain Moonlight]

it also depends on the quality of the upgrades you are using. Basic Upgrades add little point value and cost Dilithium to implement. Improved upgrades add more points for the Dil spend, Superior better still and experimental are the best to use and have the best chance at bumping to Ultra or epic levels.

[CAPT Huckabee]

It still takes quite a good bit to even upgrade so I've been discouraged.  I've got 4 schools to lvl 15, with the others at 6.  I've got all my beams to Mk XIII and just 2 of my consoles.  Everything else is just Mk XII still and do just find even on a canon-style beam escort build, so I'm still probably going to wait till prices on some stuff come down.

[Mark Speed]

I've finally gotten to the point where I have some Mk XIV Ultra-rare items (rifle and arc beam array) that I want to upgrade to Mk XIV Epic.  However, when I preview the stats, the Epic item looks exactly like the Ultra-Rare (other than the change in font color).  Are there only certain items that have a benefit to upgrade to Epic, or is it intended to be a random upgrade that you won't know until you do it?