Talk:CreateDetectionEvent - ObjectReference
I tested this out a little bit and made a slight guide to how far away a detection event can be "heard" based on magnitude. If the NPCS are in idle non searching AI, they will react to detection events by searching and moving towards the location if it's loud enough. Here is a small guide relative to the bandits found in the first room of bleak falls barrow to help show how loud a detection event needs to be
A detection event of 0 will be noticed if placed on the bandit directly, but not anywhere else no matter how close. A detection event of 20 is heard from the ground they are standing on A detection event of 30 can be heard from the campfire A detection event of 40 can be heard from the closest part of the nearest pillar A detection event of 65 can be heard from the Altar with their dead friend on it A detection event of 120 can be heard from the pillar closest to the door A detection event of 200,000 can be heard from the first shallow stairs down No detection event, no matter how loud, can be heard from the candle by the door ` Detection events placed on the objectrefrence of actors seem to have a different pattern of detection for some unknown reason
A detection event of 0 will be noticed from the 3 nearest skeevers and their friend on the altar. In fact, they can even hear detection events with negative loudness. A detection event of 1 can be heard from the skeever closest to the door, even though the candle right next to it required one of 200 A detection event of the body closest to the door can be heard with a detection event of 200, even though the snow bellow them requires a detection event of 280
Detection events on the player behave the same way when you stand over the body I'll have to check if detection events work differently outdoors.
I'm not entirely sure why it is that detection events that draw to the location of actors are louder than ones attached to non actors, but they seem very distinct. When investigating the location of a detection event assigned to a non actor object, they explore multiple points around that location in around a 15 foot radius sometimes never getting that close to the point the detection event was on. But when drawn to the detection event on an actor, alive or corpse, they walk right up to that actor as close as they can immediately bumping into it before they engage in that same look around behavior.
Detection events also don't seem to be the only package guiding actors search AI. Actors always search detection events from orders of newest to oldest regardless of loudness. Once they arrive in a detection event, if they don't see anything they immediately start searching towards the next oldest detection event, but reacting to stealth archery seems to take some sort of priority over detection events. Alert actors will ignore detection events in order to always search towards the direction of the arrow that hit them, prioritizing moving towards the location the bow is fired from, and only reacting to detection events again once they reach that location and change to a searching behavior (sometimes causing them to turn around and investigate the sound the arrow made when it hit them in their original location, or other detection events that were waiting to be searched).
Of course, the package to investigate stealth archers as we all know, tends to not have the npc investigate all the way to the archer, and get stuck after moving a short distance for some reason.