How exactly does Armory Farming work?

[AZM]

ok so my friend and I just beat Borderlands yesterday and we're working on beating the DLC's now. (So far we're only on Zombie Island DLC) But I see people posting about Armory runs occassionaly and I was curious as to how it works. From what I know its looting the Armory without the time limit but I want to know if I can still do it after we finish all the missions for that DLC.

[Kargor]

Yes and no. Restrict that to "all the important missions" and you'll be fine.

Thing is, as you go through the DLC, some lady named Athena will eventually give you the quest and the means to destroy said Armory. When she does, you do it. When you do, the end credits for the DLC will roll, and Crawmerax will be unlocked.

However, you will get another quest afterwards, from Marcus. It's basically the same thing (the armory will be destroyed again) except that the "story" makes no sense at all. But that doesn't matter, since you DON'T destroy the armory! As long as the quest is active you can loot the armory, provided you do it right.

Doing it right means you do ANYTHING to prevent any of the quest objectives (the checkboxes) getting ticked off. This involves two things that you must never, ever forget or compromise:

• You do NOT enter the armory through the elevator. Instead, there's a secret hole in the floor that you use to enter
  
• You do NOT, ever, enter one room in the armory (I believe that would be the room where said elevater takes you, but I've only done this twice so I really don't know the regular sequence of Armory events. I only know how to farm it :-))

For both there should be plenty of videos on Youtube, for example here (I didn't watch all of it, just checked that he showed the 'dropping through the floor' and the evil room. That video starts after killing Knoxx, so the walking in beginning is the actual approach to the Armory). Prepare to spend some time there initially to familiarize yourself with the layout of the Armory, and how to cover all the rooms including the top floor (which has a good number of Lance chests). Basically, you'll be using the alcove section with the platform that you can move around to access all the alcoves, then jump off the platform at the top onto the floor there and use the elevator up after clearing that level.

Do note that the evil room has two entrances; I'll try to see if I can find a video that shows both...
EDIT: that above video actually does, although he's doing things in a less efficient order (I always do the top floor last, instead of going back down). At 11:11 he says "Yes! It's safe" while looking into the evil room. Don't enter that room, the comment is about the room he's currently in :-)

Of course, being on the PC platform means you can make backups of your savefile in case your screw up, or use a savefile editor such as WillowTree or the more specialized WillowShrubbery (which bascially knows how to make certain common changes, so it's easier to use but less powerful) to fix screwups.

Note: to get out of the Armory, just quit the game.

Note 2: "obviously" you have to drive to Armory every time, clear out the Lance troops on the way (which also has two Lance chests, although one is a 'trap') and kill Knoxx every time. Thus, if you're still having problems with any of these, that would be a good time to get some field practice :-)

[Bacchus]

Chest levels are scaled to game stage. If you are low level, weapons can be useless for your level.
"Farming" is more for playthrough 2.5.