great! thanks dotnet for that explanation...that's kind of what I was thinking. I'll rework the formula tomorrow to see if I can get it working with 3 or more item junior/superior compounds.

I bet with 4 or 5 items it's probably similar.

say for 4:
W + X + Y + Z

W is first base material if it's the highest rank:

then the X Y and Z could be in any order. It's going to be very confusing to code this. I'm looking to probably getting a headache trying tomorrow.

I'm off to bed for tonight though. I need to rest my brain after this last update.