I love Skyrim. I know a ton about it. I've been playing 8hrs a day since it came out. I have a job that requires only a couple hours a day so I have tons and tons of time for my hobbies. My point being I've been everywhere and done so many different things I lost count on day 1. With all my knowledge I still have some questions, some very dumb questions but I can't find a straight forward answer so please help if you know.

Okay then.
When you upgrade your armor or weapons the item will light up if the upgrade is available, also if you have the right item in your inventory to do the upgrade(iron/leather whatever it is your upgrading). Well I don't usually carry these things around so even if there is an upgrade I may not realize because it doesn't light up without the item needed to do the upgrade. My question is what determines this? How can I tell when I have an upgrade available without the neccesary item.
Example. I had smithed up some dragon armor. I had some scales leftover and nothing highlighted for an upgrade. After doing some quests I went back and the upgrade was available. Why all of a sudden when it wasn't before?
This may be confusing to someone. If so I can explain in more detail.

Also with smithing there are potions and enchantments that say weapon improving 22% better for 60 seconds. Does this mean the stuff where wearing that upgrade or crafted or the stuff your about to smith? Same question goes for the enchantment potion that says enchantments are 22% better for 60 seconds.

On to my last question. Easy probably for all of you to answer. I'll start with saying I was looking to buy a master destruction robe. I went to every single merchant and could not find one. I then went back and they all had pretty much the same stuff as before. What determines when stores get new inventory? Is it a certain amount of days? I have heard that quitting the game resets the store, true?

Any answers would be great. Thank you very much. I apologize for not knowing these simple things. I will admit I am ashamed but I need answers. Happy Skyrim. Go GOTY!

Anyone else with questions that seem obvious feel free to ask here.

i think the stores restock new upgraded equipments according to your level.

i also believe that your smithing skill determines how much you can upgrade something,,,,,, fine, exquistt the rest. but if you made dragon armor so your smith is 100 most likely you didnt have the required materials to upgrade

See I'm confused because I did have the materials. It let me create them then upgrade right after. Then I still had the materials to upgrade but it didn't let me. I went on quest came back and it let me.

Maybe you later acquired + smithing gear?

Was it Dragon Scale armor or Dragon Bone. Either way, your upgrades depend on your skill level/perks, but you had 100 smithing because you could do dragon armor, so most likely you didn't have the required item to upgrade, i.e. you had a scale when you needed a bone.

For 60 seconds anything you smith will be 22% better than what you would normally do.



Not sure, but I think its 48 hours.

Thanks for the info. I think it was a bug with the dragon armor. I had the scales for light armor. I had like 4. I still have four at all times incase I can upgrade again because it's all screwed up. Like when I chose the elvin armor perk I smithed the armor. Then I still had eveything needed to upgrade. It showed on the bottom that I had 8 of what I needed. Well it didn't allow for any upgrades. I went back after a few quests and suddenly it allowed me to get legendary. I'm thinking bug. This game is so bugged on ps3. Sometimes it gets to the point of me not being able to even play. It's annoying but I still play because I love it.

Smithing skill depends on what quality of stuff you can make.

Cheers

The smithing potions I think can be used either when crafting the item or improving it (I generally make the item, then make sure I have the materials to improve it, and then take the potion for improving the item). Also, you can only improve an item once. After it's improved, you cannot improve it again. You can also use potions, and if you choose to make a "smithing set" of armor, you can enchant four pieces of armor to improve your smithing by a certain percent. This all stacks together, and using a potion, can make some really good stuff. Also note, there are around four different Blacksmith potions ranging from 20-50% improvement.

As far merchandise available from a vendor, the inventory is generally completely random. Just because they have something one time you load the game, does not mean it will be there again if you either 1.) return to the store, or 2.) reload a saved game and go back to the vendor to purchase the item. I think the master robes you're looking for will depend on your level. I didn't find any until after I hit level 50, and I think I found them in a dungeon, not necessarily from a vendor.

There are two types of dragon armor for smithing, and I think the light armor gets improved with scales while the heavy armor gets improved with bones. I'm not entirely sure on this, but I think that is how it works.

I hope this helped a little with your questions.

With the robes, I think they are available according to your skill, I have level 78 summoning, and i have access to master robes of summoning, but I only have access to apprentice robes of destruction, as my destruction skill is only 30

I did end up finding a master robe from a vendor. I'm level 42 with this character. I first started to see them around mid 30's but I spent my money on other things.

Also you say that you can only improve armor or a weapon once. My game must be bugged because I have to do it everytime, all the different levels going all the way up to legendary or flawless, whatever one is the highest I forget. So ya it's for sure bugged because like I said I have to improve stuff multiple time. That's what happens with the dragon armor. I could not do it after I made it then I came back and it let me. I didn't even level up or anything. Odd huh? Oh well. Thanks for the advice. Like I said before my game is bugged to heck. I just discovered another bug that deleted all my books I have collected. I bought the house in Solitude and I activated the book shelf, I started putting all the rare books I found since I started playing on the shelf and then a message popped up that said I couldn't put anymore books, it then backed me out and I saw there was not one book on the shelf. I continued to play thinking my books were just in my inventory. Hours and hours later I noticed they were gone. My save is way to far back to backtrack. I went to the bookshelf to see if maybe they were invisible because my mannequins hold my gear and that's invisible, well nope no books. I saved tried it again and it took the rest of my books. Luckily I had saved. Now I'm saving every ten or do minutes. My point is the game is bugged for me.

Come to think of it, I think you can improve items more than once, depending on how the skill level is being increased due to enchanted armor (Fortify Smithing) and/or taking a Blacksmith potion (or, when you have lower blacksmithing and you continue to level it up). I've never come across having to improve an item more than once (I usually just make another piece). I can use my husband as an example: when he improves and/or makes armor, he wears four pieces of fortify blacksmithing armor (chest, gauntlets, necklace and ring) each having +20% smithing, and he then will take the Blacksmith Elixir which improves his smithing another 50%. He also has 100 smithing, so this ends up stacking, so in the end, his level of blacksmithing is around 230. Everything he would make under this enhancement would be legendary. You can also achieve that status of gear from a lower set of enchanted gear, because I do that myself. There is a chance you can enchant the gear to be 25%, which would make your smithing 250, but it end in the same result of Legendary, it just will be a slight increase in stats. But, if you're just looking to increase the armor or weapons, you can wear three pieces and take a potion, and it should still be legendary. Another example: My husband's archery is 75. He has 4/5 in overdraw perks. With these stats, the base damage for a Daedric bow he creates without any enchanted armor or potions is 47 damage. If you were to place on his "smithing set" of armor and use the Blacksmith elixir (50%), the damage of this bow increases to 112 damage. He also wears a helmet that increases his damage with bows by 40%, and his ring that increases bow damage by 40%, so now that same bow does 202 damage. This example proves true with anything else you create through smithing, but may vary depending on weapon tree perks. This ends up on a large cycle, where enchanting, alchemy and smithing all work together. His current enchanting is only 84, so when he increases that to 100, and uses grand soul gems to make new smithing gear, the armor will be improved even more. It's a lot to take in, and can be a lot of work, but if you're looking to improve your armor to be the best it can be, this is how it's done. Hopefully this hasn't been too much for you. And to note about your books, I had issues in my game with the book shelves too, but the books should have gone back in your inventory. When you activate a book shelf, it tells you how many books you can place on that shelf and if you go over, it doesn't put any on. I had issues with my bookshelf in Riften, so I usually just place all my books in the wardrobe by the bed just so I know where they are. This was a known bug to Bethesda, and they said they fixed it, but it never fixed for that shelf, and I can't access that shelf anymore. But, if all of your items appear invisible throughout the game, that certainly seems like a bug, and I'm not sure what has happened for you Hopefully they fix your issues soon.