I've been messing around with the GECK tinkering with the effects of SPECIAL attributes and I have a few suspicions about mechanics that don't seem to be documented anywhere. I'm wondering if anyone else has run into them, can test them independently, or can prove that they work.

Strength Requirements on Melee Weapons

As far as I can tell, strength requirements have no impact whatsoever on melee weapon use. The effect of the fWeaponStrengthRequirementPenalty setting has been documented as having an effect on gun spread, but I see no effect on melee rate of fire, which is what the game states it should do. I am guessing this is simply not implemented. I saw now effect in vanilla of being below required strength, and no amount of screwing with that setting caused any changes. Skill requirements prevent you from making special attacks in VATS but Strength does not seem to share that effect. There does not appear to be any other game setting that might affect this.

Agility

It has been documented that Agility has no effect on movement speed. However, the game still claims that it also impacts draw speed for weapons and reload time. I can't find any evidence that it impacts either of those things. There are settings that seem as though they were intended to effect reload time, fAgilityReloadBase and fAgilityReloadModifier. Neither seem to have any impact on reload time tested with a 9mm pistol. There seem to be no settings related to weapon draw speed so I highly doubt that is implemented either.


Has anyone else looked into these things? I'm just curious. I have a feeling these were things that were toyed with in development and then neutered along the way to simplify the game but the references to their effects were never removed from tooltips.

So I figured out one part of it. For Agility affecting draw speed and reload, there is an impact. However, the game calculates it when the weapon is equipped. So any changes that occur related to Agility or settings will not take effect (including perk bonuses, that's how I figured this out) until the current weapon is unequipped and reequipped.

I'm thinking the same thing might apply to Strength requirements for melee, so I'm going to play with that a little more.