UPDATE: Level 20 Skills

[Mooncalf]

All skills can now be levelled up to 20.

PLEASE NOTE: You are advised not the buy a restat just yet, as we will be issuing a final free restat at the end of beta. Only restat if you simply can't wait a few weeks.

In addition to the new skill caps being 20, there are a few things to note about higher-level skill usage:

Business
A business skill of 20 now allows you to own 4 businesses. In addition, the net worth of your business will also give an automatic boost to the exp gained from solving daily dilemmas.

Firearms and Martial Arts
No added features. You'll just be much better in a fight with 20 in either / both of these.

Hacking
No additional features (yet!). Simply gives better systems and better exp / loot as a result of those systems. Also decreases scripting time.

Rituals
As previously stated, a high ritual skill stat will automatically uncover runes. You can uncover up to 5 constant runes of a ritual incantation if you have a rituals stat of 20. In addition, a new ritual has been added which allows you to send out a demi-fae spirit to steal some valuable loot. This ritual has very common ingredients required, and gives a respectable amount of experience for its completion, allowing ritualists to use rituals to level up and get rich more effectively.

Mechanics and Metalworking
Crafting most things now gives an additional exp bonus if you are able to craft things with a high quality. It is also now very feasible to craft weapons with 15+ stats.

Speechcraft
No additional features, other than what you would expect of having a high speechcraft stat. Speechcraft and charisma will soon play a very big part in missions.

Stealing
As previously mentioned, a high stealing stat will give you a chance of facing a reduced number of guards (up to 3 less, if you're lucky) per burglary. At 16 you have a chance to encounter 1 less guard in medium security (or less) buildings, at 18 you have a chance to encounter 2 less in high sec buildings, and at 20 you have a chance to encounter 3 less guards in very high sec (or less) buildings. In addition, security 8 and 9 buildings have been placed around the city (2 of each), which give a better chance of decent loot, and much better experience points.

Tracking
Tracking has been made more useful at last. At levels 15-17, tracking costs only 0.4 energy per attempt. At 18 or 19, tracking costs 0.3 energy per attempt. And at level 20 tracking skill, it costs 0.2 energy to track for a target (PC or NPC). This makes it very feasible to use tracking to find NPCs much faster, and gain exp at a faster rate as a result.

As a result of this, all skills except for speechcraft should now give much better exp returns if used correctly at high levels.

Please report any bugs you see. As we are nearly done with beta, the bugs are piling up a bit at the moment because we're working on the major updates before we attempt to clear the vast majority of bugs.