I have a question about the damage done when sneak attacking in the [Caution] mode. When I'm sneaking around an area, sometimes the enemy will hear me and my bar will go from Hidden to Caution. At this point, any enemy I shoot, I still get a bonus multiplier for a sneak attack. I've even had enemies look at me and deliberately shoot at me, while still being in Caution mode and getting sneak bonus damage. Is this normal or am I missing something?

They haven't actually spotted you yet but they will shoot at the location they think you are at (even if the animation sometimes shows them looking directly at you.) . .. If you have a lot of space to maneuver this can be kind of cool as you can switch positions and they might still fire on where you were instead of where you are at. I once had a bunch of gunners throwing grenades at a spot where I was no longer at. .. This is much more prevalent outside. Inside stealth acts quite quirky sometimes. I've had inside enemies in caution pinpoint my location and just not let go even though I'm supposedly undetected. Lots of times inside enemies totally detect you but they won't ever leave a room to try to chase you down and you'll go back to being hidden even though they were just screaming at you to die and totally saw you kill their buddy. All this leads to stealth actually being much more fun outside than inside.

same thing happened to me the more I invested in sneak perk. at max perk, im practically right in front of the enemy doing sneak attack bonus.

Indeed, enemies still receive stealth bonus damage while in [caution] mode. That's because they did not spot you yet. They are just aware you are there. If you continue shooting while in [caution] mode, enemies will start returning fire at the position they think fire is coming from. But they still did not detect you yet.

As others have said, [CAUTION] means you're still undetected, so you still get sneak attack damage.

Ah okay, that makes sense now. I never thought about them shooting at the perceived location I was at. I had just really noticed it earlier today when killing a bunch of super mutants at one of the satellite arrays and thought it was odd.

Just change your position and they will be shooting at the empty spot. They however will readjust as soon as you fire again. And beware enemies with fatmen

Yeah it's a neat touch in the stealth mechanics, it kinda shows they improved the AI for stealth gameplay this time around.

Caution work like Skyrim half open eye.

In Skyrim I regularly get sneak atack damage even with the eye open. This might be as I was not shooting at the enemy who had detected me or they had detected only the follower.

Unlike older games enemies might shoot supressive fire at your position or throw grenades.

If they don't find you the caution will fade away over time unless enemies move closer.