It must have alot to do with the tool, I see the problem most on ammo craft with Rubbarn tool and the degrades are very frequent. When you can carry only 2 clips, you shouldn't get this many degrades.
Degrades arent only with op mats - the code appears to have been changed or corrupted as I have got runs of Q85s when crafting Q220 jewels at lvl 227 and 83% "success" - six degraded to exactly Q85, and a run of Q100 amps when crafting Q250 at lvl 250 and 80% "success" - crafted 37 and got about 30% degrades and 8 of the 11 fails were Q100s. Neither of these results appear to be random and cause me to regard the code has been changed for the worse recently.
Also, not just the Q level of the item degrades, but the stats on the item as well rendering them completely useless. Trash Q250 mats to get a Q100 items is already unacceptable to my mind - we level to 250 and can fail 150 levels???? But we dont even get a useable Q100 item from our Q250 mats, since the code is set to degrade the degrade as it were.
Needs to be changed for sure Scar as is unacceptable to put in the huge time to get the mats to make nice items, not to mention the time to level up, and have degrades as they are at present.
Degrades do that no matter the level anyway ... was it different before? I'm still low-level, but if it degrades, it goes to NPC (except once for personal use and running low on the right mats).