Rifleman Archive

At Master, I have killed things in 6 shots while they were standing in the middle of their BAF friends, and Idid sowithout being aggroed by either the mob or its friends. Before Master, the best I could hope for was 2 or 3 shots usually; though on a good day, once in a while, I could maybe get 4 shots. Likewise, you will find that, as mentioned, the lower your posture and the greater your distance, the less likely it is you will be detected.

So I believe that when you start shooting, a timer starts that increases your chance of detection. Once the timer expires, your detection chance goes up to 100%, so if you shoot after that, it will automatically aggro. But if you can kill them before then, they will never detect you unless you are too close or are detected for some other reason like posture. This would seem to be upheld by the fact that, if you shoot then go peace then start shooting again after a few seconds, you will not get as many shots as if you had just kept firing. This would also explain to some degree why they will aggro on you if you bleed them, then go peace. The initial shot is before the timer, but the bleed damage is assesed 20 seconds later, after the timer has expired. The aggressiveness of the creature, as mentioned, proabably has something to do with it, or, more likely, it is simply that aggressive creatures are more aware and more likely to detect you, so maybe they have a shorter timer.

It makes sense that they would do it this way, because otherwise, you could shoot go peace, shoot, go peace, shoot , go peace, etc. until the critter is dead (a kind of poor man's Concealshot). So there has to be some kind of timer involved which will not let you do this. The best way to prevent this and still give people a few free shots is to implement a timer that gives you a 100% chance of detection once it expires.

It is probably more complex than this, but looking at it this way seems to fit the reality of how it works.