I've just checked lvl45 is the max. If it's not legendary then i think the only difference would be the condition levels when created.
I did find a legendary one, but it was L25 and the legendary effect was nocturnal - more damage at night, less during the day. Useless.
I'll be OK with my L45 one then. The condition level is pretty high and I'll soon pick up the weapon artisan perk to repair to 200% condition. That'll do. It's not my rifle that breaks, anyway. It's my shotgun.
I love fallout so got this a few weeks ago on the cheap to try it. I just can not get into it, having no npc just does not seem right. I can not be bothered to read every terminal!
Are most people playing with others or going solo?
It's probably not for you, then. It is very different to other Fallout games.
Almost everyone is playing solo because that's what Fallout games are for. There are far better games for true multiplayer. A small minority of people play with others in a team at times.
In events, it's not particularly uncommon for >1 solo player to do the event at the same time. Not as a party and generally not talking with each other (most players have voice chat off) but doing the same event. For example, when I was doing an event to repair and restart a power station another solo player turned up and we mostly did repairs in different parts of the power station. We waved at each other in passing - that's almost always the limit of player interaction.
[..] Best way to play is walk & explore the epic vast map to unlock all locations then do the combat as you go to & from them then try the missions & quests last of all when you are a higher level. [..]
I'd say that's generally a good idea apart from one massive problem with it. For no known reason and without even bothering to tell players, Bethesda has put
upper level caps on plans. So, for example, if you don't buy the plan to make a hand made gun by L45 you will never be able to do so. There is only 1 vendor in the game who sells that plan and they only sell it sometimes. They're in Harper's Ferry. If you play the game as an exploration game (which is what Fallout games are designed for), it's very likely you will pass L45 before you reach Harper's Ferry. That's just one example - it's likely that many or maybe all plans have an upper level limit. Players have no way of knowing which plans do and what the limits are - the L45 limit for the hand made gun was discovered by trial and error and only really happened because it's the most important non-sniper rifle in the game. The few rifles that do more damage per shot are sniper rifles - extremely low rate of fire, extremely low magazine size (or even single shot) and lots of recoil. The hand made gun is simply the best general purpose rifle - long range, mid range, short range, single aimed shots, dozens of bullets fired from the hip, it does everything pretty well. Imagine the robustness of an AK47 with the accuracy of an M16.
A viable altenative approach is to follow the main quest line to completion and explore afterwards. You're far more likely to gain access to the plans that way, but you will find it hard going because that way is balanced for multiplayer. You might prefer this approach, since it's quest-based and the lack of NPCs is much less relevant to that approach.
Another few bits of information that might be useful:
Enemies in the forest zone are not levelled, enemies in other zones are. So you can roam the forest area pretty freely even at low levels, gaining experience and equipment.
Scrapping weapons is crucial because it's the main way you learn mods for them. I suggest scrapping every weapon you're not using until you've scrapped a dozen or more without learning a mod and so can be at least fairly sure you've learned every mod you can learn for that weapon.
Scrapping armour is far less important because by far the most viable course of action is to use power armour as soon as possible and you can't learn mods for that by scrapping it. Nor can you wear other armour or underarmour with power armour. You appear to be able to, but at best it has no effect and at worst it
reduces your resistances. So other forms of armour and underarmour are nothing more than a stopgap until you can use power armour or a useless and irrelevant option afterwards.
It is possible to collect and store power armour that you're not a high enough level to use. The method is this: Point yourself at the power armour and transfer all the pieces on it to your inventory. Enter the power armour chassis (which has no level requirement) and then exit it. This claims the chassis as being yours. Point yourself at the chassis and transfer the pieces back onto to. Wait until the chassis (now with the pieces on it) is automatically transferred to your inventory (90 seconds, I think). Job done - you now have the chassis with all the pieces on it in your inventory with a total weight of 10. You can put it in your stash until later if you want to - the pieces will remain on it and the weight will remain 10.
Power armour can be found in many locations. Your best bet is to look online for a map of power armour locations. The pieces on each chassis will be random and it's not uncommon to go to a power armour location and find the chassis empty or missing because another player has taken it. Many players resort to server hopping to find a complete set - quit to main menu, reload and you're in the same area on a different server and maybe the nearby power armour hasn't already been looted. I didn't do that, but many players do.
Raider power armour can be worn at L15, but it's rare and not very good. Most players wait until they can use T-45 power armour at L25.
Excavator power armour
plans are given as a quest reward for the Miner Miracles quest in the Ash Heap region south of the Forest region. At the Garrahan Mining HQ, IIRC. This gives you a reliable way to obtain a good power armour suit that you can make yourself and therefore will be complete. The same is true of X-01 power armour, but that's much further along in the questlines.
Don't worry about fusion cores for power armour - they're very common outside the forest area (and not extremely rare inside it). I don't even pick them up any more - I have 50 and they last a long time even without perks to extend how long they last.
Any equipment that you can craft yourself can be crafted at different levels, with higher levels being better (weapons do more damage per shot, armour gives higher resistances). Once you've learned the plan for it, when you start to craft it you'll get a level submenu. The levels are stepped and your own level must equal or exceed the item level to craft it, e.g. at L1-4 you can craft L1 pipe guns, at L5-9 you can craft L1 or L5 pipe guns, etc. This can be particularly important with early weapons, where the extra damage per shot can be significant.
I went a long way with what first seems to be a rather crappy weapon - a pipe revolver. It is a crappy weapon...without mods. Once you've scrapped some and can craft a hardened scoped pipe revolver rifle, you've got a useful long range weapon. Craft new ones at higher levels as you level (you know pipe weapon plans from the start, you don't have to find and read them) and it'll remain useful for some time. I was using it up until mid 20s level. It's accurate enough to reliably aim for the head. I preferred it to the hunting rifle, which fills the same role. Shotguns work well for short range, especially once you can get and use a combat shotgun (much higher rate of fire than the others). Melee is strong too (especially in power armour) even without melee perks. I prefer to kill enemies before they try to smash my head in with a sledgehammer, but melee is certainly a useful backup option or even a main option if you take the perks for it. I keep a melee item as favourite 1, a shotgun as favourite 2 and a rifle as favourite 3. An option for every distance.
Energy weapons seem rather mediocre in FO76 and are generally ignored.
then blew them all up watch the video as well 
Calibrated Shocks are good for extra 100 carry weight but its bugged on Excavator it should be 560 Carry Weight but only goes to 460 for some reason! You also need 1 for each leg so they are mega expensive!
I find high level plans in weird places, expensive mods just lying around this is annoying as its almost always after I have just paid 400-500 Caps for an expensive Mod or Plan then I find it just lying around ready for taking 
Wont be buying any mods for a while, only have about 200 caps! 
