What affects crime success rate in Torn, and is there a cap on it?

No cap on personal crime success rate is documented in the sources. In Crimes 2.0, success depends on hidden crime experience (CE), per-crime crime skill (CS, 1 to 100) and crime-specific factors. Bonuses raise CE and CS gains, so they affect success only indirectly. The 99% figure is an organized-crime checkpoint cap only.^[1][2]

What sets success in Crimes 2.0

• Crime experience is hidden and partly dictates how much you succeed or fail at different crimes.^[1]
• Each crime has its own crime skill, starting at 1 and rising to 100. Skill in one crime does not affect another.^[1]
• The Shoplifting announcement says it may be inefficient to shoplift at some shops until you have a higher skill level.^[3]
• Every Shoplifting attempt raises notoriety in that shop, making later attempts more challenging.^[4]
• Nerve, level and battle stats: no 2.0 source found shows them affecting personal crime success. Older 1.0 stat effects are history.

Bonuses, merits and items

Under Crimes 2.0, company, education, merit and faction bonuses that once passively raised success chance now raise CE and CS gains instead (developer announcement at early access, no document in this pack). The 2.0 Education page says PSY3690 gives a 10% increase to crime exp and skill progression.^[5] The Crimes 1.0 pages still say success rate for the same course and judge job.^[6][7]

• Crime chain: up to a maximum of +20% CE and CS gains, per a player guide.^[8]
• Crime Progression merit: +1% crime experience and skill gain per level.^[9]
• Faction Criminality: up to 25% on the tree, but players in 2.0 receive at most 10% (finding from a source not in this pack).
• Each crime has its own enhancer; the Shoplifting one is the Mountain Bike.^[4]
• The wiki caps 2.0 enhancer perks at 13.^[10]

Failures and the crime chain

A failure does not decrease CE or CS, but halves the chain.^[1] A critical failure cuts CE and skill by ten times the expected gain, per a player guide, and zeroes the chain.^[11] Because CE partly dictates success, a critical failure can lower later odds indirectly.^[1] Demoralization after a critical failure lowers later gains.^[12]

Real caps versus non-caps

• Personal crimes: no maximum success rate is stated.
• CS is capped at 100 as a progression level. Skill gained past 100 currently has no effect.^[1]
• Organized crimes: Checkpoint Success Rate is up to 99%, based on Crime XP and hidden role modifiers. This applies to organized crime only.^[2]
• Not success caps: the natural nerve bar grows in steps of 5.^[13] In 1.0 it maxed at 60, and only the natural bar raised success.^[14]

Crimes 2.0 went live on 20 June 2023.^[15] The 1.0 merit wording about "increased success rates" was ambiguous even to players.^[16]

Where sources disagree

• The 1.0 wiki pages say bonuses raise crime success rate^[7]; the 2.0 Education page says they raise progression^[5].