LE Armored NPC impacts, or getting around Impact Data Set limit

[lazyskeever]

One of the most common complaints I see for weapon impact sound mods is related to attacking NPCs. Either we have the case with my own mod, where a lot of people don't like the sound of tearing flesh when they're attacking people clad in heavy armor, or you have AOS where I saw several complaints that it sounded like they were hitting armor when they were in fact hitting wolves.

 

The problem is that Skyrim cannot make a distinction between NPCs and what kind of armor they're using. They all pull from the flesh impact (except dwarven mechanical creatures) in the Impact Data Set list, and that list is hardcoded AFAIK. So, what I'm wondering is would it be possible to use scripting tricks to somehow get around this limitation?

 

I am not a scripter though and know nothing of Papyrus. All I can do is apply some logical thinking to dream up a theoretical solution. I suppose what would need to be done is that somehow an NPC clad in heavy armor triggers a script that redirects the flesh Impact Data to a different impact, which has the unique sounds for hitting heavy armor. Of course, you'd also want it to only make that change for the relevant NPC, and not all NPCs universally... is that even possible?

 

Edit: I think I've thought of an easier solution... the regular flesh impact would instead be a basic, nondescript impact sound, and then a script determines if the target is an armored actor or not. If it is, then a new separate sound is played over the base sound which is the armor impact. If it isn't, it plays a separate flesh/blood sound on top of the base one. Is that a better solution?