So I stood on the edge of the throat of the world and I tried shooting a ton of arrows towards whiterun to see if I would get a lucky kill. I shot well over 200 arrows, slightly moving my crosshair up, down, left and right after each shot and just as I expected I didn't hit a thing.

I looked on YouTube expecting to see a ton on videos with people getting kills across the map but I couldn't find any. If there is one that u know of please post a link.

But this got me wondering is it even possible ? I figured for it to be possible there would have to be 2 things happening.

1. Each province goes on as it does with npcs going about there daily activities even though your not there to see it. does the game work like this or do provinces and npcs only exist at all when u are there to witness it.
2. Even though the arrow has gone miles beyond ur line of sight after u shot it is it still flying through the air or does it just disappear after a while ?

I understand none of you made the game and probably won't know but I've realised this is the best place to ask about anything and everything skyrim.

You cannot interact with an unloaded cell. Your arrows wouldn't leave the cell you are in.

Hmm and this is changeable when using the uGrids ?

whiterun is in a seperate cell, meaning you can't kill any one in whiterun even if you were right outside the gate because until you enter there is no-one inside.

Exactly this. It might sound weird, but when you are in a cell like the Throat of the Word, every single thing in Skyrim disappear. It's only you and the sky. NPCs are loaded when in their cell, not out of it.

I had a feeling this was how skyrim worked. Suppose having every cell be active all at once would take Tons of processing power lol

Doesn't the arrow disappear after a certain distance? Like when you're shooting right through a mammoth because it was a little too far.

AFAIK, uGrids are just what you can see. You can never load more ugrids than are in a named cell - ie uGrids from another cell.

I figured this was how it worked.
yeah just as I put in my original post 'It only exists if u are there to witness it'.

Just had to clarify. Thanks guys.

Yes. Even if you seen them you can't hit them lol you must be pretty near your target.

Yes, and it is very annoying. Same thing happens to spells.

Ever since the 1.6 update for xbox my arrows seem to go straight through a lot more people than before the update. I use to be able to take people out from a pretty long distance before the update but now I have to be literally cupping there balls lol

NPCs do show up as moving between indoors and outdoors from the other side of the map. If you have an item for someone in Riften, and you're in Solitude, the quest marker on the map will change every so often as they move from indoors to outdoors. So yes life goes on.

Same here. My wood elf archer keeps getting kill cams from long distance archery but every time the arrow goes right through the target .

For RP purposes this is my explanation as well, but for a question about sending something into another cell, the arrows move because their schedule updates, not because they are being rendered in another cell.

Yeah but the quest marker only changes when u enter a door or fast travel etc. It doesn't change in real time as u roaming a province