Okay, this has been on my mind for a bit and wanted to see if anyone got any info. Okay in vats, after ur maxxed out in ur weapons skill and even fully repaired weapon, the max ur accuracy can get is 95% in vats. So in vats theres always even maxxed out a small 5% chance to miss. That brings up 2 questions.
1. What determines when that 5% to go off? I have been told that fallout does not use the "dice roll" combat, so if they dont use the dice roll combat....how or when exactly does the 5% chance to be forced to miss go off then? Im guessing when crits are triggered are part of the question as well.
2. Does the vats formula of the 5% chance to miss apply when u are in outside of vats and manually aiming? Since the crits triggers are in both vats and manual, woukd the forced 5% as well?

Originally [FO1] it was percentile for all attacks ~including Aimed shots; but now [AFAIK], it's percentile only for aimed shots [VATS].

VATS is internally different than the aimed shots in the early Fallouts. They used a linear difficulty progression (smaller the target, harder to hit); where VATS seems to just use proximity to the target . I am under the impression that in VATS, the percentile is used, and a shot from the center of the PC to the target is fired, and *probably* is ensured accurate or not ~not accounting for obstructions ~~This would be my guess; and it explains aiming for the exposed head, and hitting the broken wall they are crouching behind, instead.

Fallout always had a 5% margin for error ~regardless of skill; but I doubt that's adhered to in FO3's realtime mode.