Reverse Engineering & Crafting question

When you RE that blue quality item do you then also have 3 further possible upgrades in a Purple quality pattern?
AND
Is that Purple quality pattern tied to the Blue or the Green pattern?
So working from 1 orginal Green, do you;
Have 3 Blue upgrades that RE to a further 9 Purple upgrades (for 12 upgrades total)
Have 3 Blue Upgrades that RE to a further 3 Purple upgrades (for 6 total) and are they an extension of the Blue or random based on the Green?

Its all al little confusing in my head so I hope that makes sense.

What do you mean 3 blue from green?

When you RE a green bio, there is a chance you will get a blue schematic from it.
Not just any but the upgrade schematic.
There is only one upgrade from green to blue, and when RE blue items, there is a change to get a purple (artifact).

My question is, after RE about 15 blue implants, I have yet to find a purple... is it possible? I'm doing lvl40 and 48...

I have go purple adrenal and heals, but no implants and no stims yet.

Is it possible to get these, and what can I do to improve the chances? Does affection affect this?

You didn't specify that you were talking about Bio schematics in your original post. That makes for different RE upgrade options.

You are correct with the way RE works for schematics like Biochem, you RE the green to get the Blue, then RE the Blue to find the Purple. Keep at it, 15 is not a lot of implants to RE to get a purple schematic which is an Artifact level schematic.

Vibro knives and scatterguns are currently broken and can't be RE'd.

For weapons, the RE chart is insane as noted. 1 green to 3 blues to 5 purples or a possible 19 weapons from what started out as 1. The barrels (item mods) are a simple 1:1 RE.

I've maxed out biochem and have my purples; that said, it took FOREVER AND A DAY to get the reusable squad medpack (the one that heals you and your companion); the implant purples were much quicker, as were the other reusables.

I think I was lucky, as it seems random - sometimes VERY random. I think I reverse engineered about 60 blue squad medpacks before I got my purple.

It also feels like the chance for purples IN GENERAL for all RE was lowered since launch. As I got a LOT of blues and purples during the pre-launch days, and throughout December 2011. Now (Feb 2012), it seems harder to hit that "crit" and score a blue or purple. Might just be me, using up all my good luck with implants.

That's just luck and general misconceptions about the way probability works, sadly.

It's a random chance system, not a rate system.

At a 10% chance to proc, you are looking at 1 in 5 people still trying at 15 REs, and 1 in about 75 still trying at 40 REs.

You are just unlucky this time around.

Just clarifying information on REing.
There are two types of upgrade paths, Linear, and Prefix.
Linear upgrades are Item Enhancements, Medpacks, Stims, Adrenals.... I'm not sure about Earpices and Augments.
Rarity color MATTERS with Linear upgrades. Purple is the highest level, regardless of the initial schematic rarity. (IE: Green > Blue > Purple.... and Blue > Purple.)

The Prefix path is used on Gear (Armor, weapons). Consider it 3 tiers. Tier 0 is the initial schematic. When you RE that, you get the Tier 1 prefix, of which there are 3; Critical, Overkill, and Redoubt.
REing a Tier 1 Prefix gives a chance for a Tier 2 Prefix. There are 5 Tier 2 upgrades for each Tier 1 Prefix, except for Redoubt which only has 4.
Rarity color does NOT matter with Prefix upgrades. T0 Green > T1 Blue > T2 Purple. T0 Blue > T1 Purple > T2 Purple.

I hope this clears it up for people.

Well, right now, the chance to learn a higher quality item from RE'ing is just too low to be worth doing unless you are getting ALOT of credit backing from friends and/or a guild to be the guild crafter of your crafting skill choice.

Once 1.2 goes live, it will be more viable to craft gear for you and your companions, for example, i could roll a jedi knight and then pick up archaeology, synthweaving and underworld trading and craft gear for my jedi and my kira companion, make sure to RE everything i craft to learn right up to purple quality for everything and the only thing i will need to do with the commendations is to get mods for the orange weaponry i get for me and my companion.

Right now on the live servers, getting to purple is just too expensive, because most players are likely either buying from the GTN or just sending their companions out to get the stuff for crafting and you would need ALOT of crafting materials to craft items to RE them and right now, i have needed to craft over 25 items and some friends of mine have needed to craft 150 items and RE them to learn the next quality and that is just too damn many.

I have experienced enough on 1.2 on the PTS that this problem is pretty much solved, it has been increased enough to be worthwhile, but not too fast.