Hey, just wondering if there's a function that'll return what's under the player's crosshair, if there's a reference there, and if not, if it'll be possible eventually with NVSE (IE is it possible with OBSE). Anyway, thanks a bunch!

Could ask Hippo in his NVSE thread in the mods forum. I think others have requested this, though.

ObjectUnderReticle probably does something like that, though I don't know exactly how it works yet. GetCrosshairRef did this in FOSE, so it's possible to do it in FVSE when it eventually comes out.

Back in Oblivion, I used GetCrosshairRef in conjunction with temporarily changing the iActivatePickLength to a really high number. I don't know if this method is feasible for whatever you want to do, though.

getcombattarget does this, if the target involved is close enough to tell the game's internal autoaim to be thinking about stuff (crosshair turns red)

Would this work even on friendly NPCs?

The aim of the mod is to make it so that pointing a gun at people causes a reaction depending on the NPC's stats and faction relation / disposition towards the player. I need a way for NPCs to know when they are being aimed at so that I can give them a token that causes them to either flee, start combat, or engage in "defusing" or "pleading" dialogue with the player.

I know that the guts of the game has a way, it can trigger a dialogue named "IRONSIGHTS". I've never tried to jack myself into that process or read if it's happening though.

As far as getcombattarget, I just checked via console and it works on my followers. Although it's not 100% straightforward. For example, one time I thought I was facing Arcade but, my combattarget picked up as being a mob which was behind him somewhere (EDE robot follower).