Max Beneficial SPECIAL Skill
Is missing from game.
Background
The max beneficial skill of a weapon determines at what skill the maximum benefit to damage can be attained using a weapon.
eg. The Customized Desert Reet 3000 has no defined beneficial skill. This means that for skill of up to 1000 the damage rating will be
(pistol skill)/400 *damage range
After 1000 skill, there is a new template. But, this one is fine for example purposes.
For other low level pistols, a max beneficial skill might be 750.
In this case, the damage range of the user will recieve no extra bonus if the skills is higher than 750.
The Issue
Consider an Agent weilding a high powered, scoped rifle. The rifle has a max beneficial skill of 1200 rifle. The agent can attain 1200 rifle skill fairly easily, and he uses the rifle with excellent proficiency. The agent also has extremely well developed aiming skills. In fact, he has extremely good aiming skills. The agent's aiming skills in fact, because there is no Max Beneficial Special Skill, VASTLY increase the damage range on this rifle, even though, he has reached the max beneficial skill for standard rifle operation.
In the case of the agent, this is a very peticular difference: standard operation of the rifle is imperitive for attaining standard damage. BUT, because of the agents exemplary ability for aiming and sniping, the agent can vastly increase the weapons damage rating; in fact, he can damage CAP with his weapon.
Is this fair? To me, the agent is the MASTER of this skill. I think, that a master of this skill should be able to produce incredibly damaging hits using his unprecedented sniping ability using the weapon for which it was designed. Yes, It IS fair.
Lets Look at another example:
The Aimed Shot pistol. The Aimed shot pistol requires significantly more skill to use than your Customized Desert Reet 3000. The aimed shot pistol is a very high quality pistol that can produce very balanced damage, and, it also has the enviable option to produce a sniped shot. The aiming on this pistol requires fair amount of skill, and, due to mechanistic limitations, can not pruduce huge amounts of damage, as seen by the low damage critical hit amount.
Users of the aimed shot pistol can enjoy reliable damage from normal shots, and reliable damage from aimed shots, with the occasional large damage hit from aimed shot as a result of exceptional skill with this weapon.
Is this fair? On the surface, it seems to be ok. The aimed shot skill is applied to the pistol, and the multiplier is used to calculate critical aimed shot hits.
The maximum damage is not that large, so it requires high multipliers to attain large criticals.
No problem, except, last time I checked, doctors, engineers, bureaucrats and adventurers were better at OTHER things than aiming pistols. Furthermore, how in HELL did someone ever think that a doctor who was busy casting 100k nanobot heals was capable of achieving the same kind of skill a trained sniper has, and subsequently achieving the percentage of landed hits via the aimed shot attack as a TRAINED SNIPER!?
Agent with a high powered scoped rifle: Infinite Aimed Shot Skill Max Benefit. no problem.
Doc/eng/crat/advy with a pistol: Infinite Aimed Shot Skill Max Benefit. HUGE EFFING ISSUE.
Biggest Bullsh*t weapon in game needs a 900 Max baneficial special skill attached.