Weapon stats and skill in .71

For those of us who want to backward engineer the game mechanics. This is based on my testing in .71. I have a couple different builds im running to test stuff out. None of which are that strong. I turned off skill rust on one of them to test out different skills as they go up too. Others I have it on.

  1. what does dispersion mean in a weapon? I think it has something to do with accuracy, but not sure. Even bows have them, so its not an ‘automatic’ vs. semi-automatic
  2. anyone know how ‘inaccuracy’ works in terms of formula and combined with skill level?
  3. When I see my penalties to melee and dodge(mainly from torso encumbrance), I can see a -6 when Im at 6 encumbrance. This cant mean I lose 6 points of melee or dodge, since I still hit stuff and dodge stuff. anyone know more specifically how this works? looks like at 5 melee and dodge. carrying a 6 torso encumbrance doesn’t really matter. I dont get hit much.
  4. anyone know the formulas for weapon skills as they go up? Combined with 'sub-skills (such as firearms or bashing).
  5. anyone understand how armor works exactly and what the trade offs are on ‘dodge’ from encumbrance or inaccuracy for range with arms encumbrance for hard arm guards. Its really hard to tell for sure.
  6. speed of weapon vs. damage accuracy. Looks like the game functions similiar to others where you have damage per second or something like that, but we dont get to see the calculation. I have a build with quick. If I use a combat knife I get multiple attacks most of the time before zombies respond. This weapon does less damage and is less accurate than a machete. However, I have noticed that with a melee of 5, I a better with it. anyone else play with different speeds of weapons?

This I noticed in .71

  1. arm encumbrance above 3 has a huge affect on bow accuracy. Have not found enough ammo to test this yet. Anyone else test arm encumbrance on firearms? Id be curious what the formula is. This may not have changed. In the past you got large bonuses to range from dex and perception. Those are gone. So this may just be more noticeable
  2. The to-hit bonus you get from dex in melee is huge. you now get a to-hit bonus for each point. used to be every 2. Dex is the best attribute now.
    This means if you want to be a great melee high str and dex and is more important. Dex probably more important. Speed is important too.
  3. no reason to bring perception above 12. doesn’t seem to do anything. I would have to check all the code (this will probably change)