Confusion on 'maxing out' problem

"This doesn't make sense to me. It seems that 'the EU system' is forcing me into either constantly renewing 'limited' high-end weapons like the Isis, or being relegated back to ...unlimited (weapons)"

You got it exactly right there, if you are wanting to use maxed weapons.
As far as I know, the unlimited, non SIB weapons basically require 10,000 skill points or higher probably in multiple skills before you would achieve 10/10 hit ability with them. You have the option of using unlimited weapons, paying only repairs and ammo, to very slowly gain the skills, or paying the TT +markup and ammo to use (L) weapons which may give you better average loots when hunting, or paying TT +markup for skill implant chips which raise your skills but with no possible loot to offset the cost.

Perhaps a good solution is to equip yourself with unlimited weapons that have reasonable damage and low decay, using them for normal hunting and then treat yourself to a good (L) weapon when you want to hunt bigger, or when your spidey-sense tells you loots are good.

If you can afford it, forget ever repairing any weapon and only purchase (L) weapons, which is a nice but possibly expensive way to constantly be doing your best damage against the mobs.

There is a good SIB chart at,
http://www.eu-chronicle.com/cmps_index.php?page=sibguide
Big thanks to Solaris for the charts. :ok:

 

Good advices from Burgerman!

All limited weapons are SIB-weapons. They have a range of levels where you get SIB (Skill Increase Bonus) when using them. For example the Riker UL2 (L): it will give you SIB when you are between level 8.7 and 11.2 in the professions "Laser Sniper (Hit)" and "Ranged Laser (Dmg)". When you are at level 11.2 or higher, you have the Riker UL2 (L) maxed (you got 10/10 hit ability on it).

As you know, there are also some unlimited weapons that are SIB-weapons; the Trade Terminal guns Sollomate Opalo and Omegaton M2100 for example. But with all other unlimited weapons, you need to be at level 100 in both the (Dmg) and (Hit) profession to have them maxed. It's a linear curve:
Level 0 = 0/10 Hit Ability on unlimited (non-SIB) weapons,
Level 10 = 1/10 HA,
Level 50 = 5/10 HA,
Level 100 = 10/10 HA.

So it is depending on what profession level you are on, not the skill points per se. And you can see it will take almost forever to max the unlimited weapons nowadays. Because you need an unbelievable amount of hunting hours to get to level 100.

 

It is expensive when you start paying too high markups for the (L) guns, otherwise it is much more economical than using a far from maxed unlimited gun, because of the Hit Ability. As it is now, the bigger (L) guns do have a significantly high markup, but hopefully this will change in the future when MA introduce even more (L) weapons.

What profession levels are you on Nexus7 (in "Ranged Laser (Dmg)", "Laser Sniper (Hit)" and "Laser Pistoleer (Hit)"? If we know this we could maybe give you some tips about suitable weapons.

 

Ok this gets into Older "Standard weapons" and newer "SIB Weapons" Up untill fairly recently most weapons were "Standard Weapons" these have a level range of 0 - 100 professional levels. Now this was MA's first attempt to make skills do something with the guns you should choose. You could use a lower end weapon but at a cost of DPS however since the range of damage was smaller the eco hit was smaller then say using a larger weapon lets say 100 damage at level 1 which would actually cause the damage to be something like 10 - 100 which would have an average damage of 55. Now when you maxed it out i think it should go to something like 50 - 100 average damage 75. Recently there was the addition of "SIB Weapons" Now these are level dependent and max within a few levels of the dependency. Ok i feel ive rambled so ill try and simplify this.

Lets take 2 weapons with similar stats. The Opalo and Jester D-1. I chose these to show the differences in an extreme setting. As your levels increase this effect lessens.

Opalo
Damage 8
Level 0 - 5

Level 0 hit = 0/10
Level 1 hit = 2/10 1/5 = 20%*10 = 2
Level 2 hit = 4/10 2/5 = 40%*10 = 4
Level 5+ hit = 10/10


Jest D-1
Damage 8
Level range 0 - 100

Level 0 hit = 0/10
Level 1 hit = .1/10 1/100 = 1%*10 = .1
Level 2 hit = .2/10 2/100 = 2%*10 = .2
Level 5 hit = .5/10
Level 10 hit = 1/10
Level 50 hit = 5/10
Level 100 hit = 10/10

As you can see the Opalo is much better for lower levels then the Jester D-1 because of its reduced level range.