Last Week: 3D Spatial Sense; Absolute Direction
Next Week: Acute Senses
Absolute Timing and Chronolocation are found on page 35 of the Basic Set and... simply put I find them confusing. ^^' As such, I fear I risk editorializing this post and beg anyone who believes they really "get" these Advantages to weigh in.
The short description isn't bad: the character has "an accurate mental clock". It is marked as a Mental Advantage and considered mundane, though the second sentence of the description makes sure to designate both levels as "somewhat cinematic".
For 2 CP,
Absolute Timing imbues the character with the capacity to track time on par with "the best personal timepieces widely available in your culture (but never better than a few seconds). You not only know what time it is but can track elapsed time with similar accuracy. Things like time zone or sleep won't interfere with this ability, and you get the bonus of a built-in "alarm clock" to help you wake up when you want to! Absolute Timing isn't Absolute in the Cosmic Enhancement sense, however as being knocked unconscious, hypnotized, etc. can keep Absolute Timing from functioning properly and time travel is specified as throwing it out of whack until you adjust to the "new" time.
The bigger 5 point version, known as
Chronolocation, addresses that last bit; it is Absolute Timing that works perfectly well with time travel, "in an absolute sense". You can tell you've traveled X days back in time, for example, though Daylight Savings Time, calendar reform, etc. can still throw you off and if you travel back far enough so can things like leap years; apparently you just get the raw amount of days and not larger units.
In a TL8 setting, the "never better than a few seconds" makes the value of this a bit questionable: being internal versus external was part of our discussion from last week's thread on Absolute Direction/3D Spatial Sense, and not having to even glance at part of your HUD can be a life saver, but buying a good cell phone/tablet/similarly portable computer means you spend cash and not CP and get everything this Advantage provides and more. Then again... two points is "just" two points. If technology can record one's chronological position, then Chronolocation also seems a bit pricey.
Still, my main concern is that the whole thing just seems... oddly defined. Why should personal timepieces matter? It seems purely an external thing to make sure the Advantage "scales", but being only two points I am hard pressed (useful though it can be) to worry about such a thing; it would have to be a very silly setting for a character to be crowned king (or some similar benefit) because he was able to track time to within a few seconds but the best the village could do for official time tracking is the sundial. Plus, without something that can track minutes or seconds effectively, it isn't like you can easily "prove" your accuracy.
One of the issues I raised over on the previous thread lead to me wanting to compile a list of Skills that should logically benefit from Absolute Timing/Chronolocation. I failed to complete the list, in part because it isn't the kind of thing to regularly grant a hard and fast bonus to skill. At the same time, any skill where having a clock handy should receive a similar bonus from Absolute Timing. Cooking strikes me as something that should usually benefit from Absolute Timing; having a "built in" oven timer and all, even if one has access to real ones, is just useful.
Like Absolute Direction, I kind of wonder if this shouldn't start out as a Perk Level benefit of some sort and then go into the more "advanced" options. Many posters explained how I was undervaluing Absolute Direction, so I am hesitant to call it overpriced. I also would prefer it "doing less" because if we tone it down, it becomes something I believe real people have; indeed it seems like it's more the "all or nothing" nature of GURPS game terms that makes it "cinematic": some people I know are good at setting "mental alarm clocks" by which they wake up and some aren't. Some are only a few seconds off at keeping track of time, even when occupied by something else, etc.
Chronolocation does seem odd in that (per Absolute Timing), Time Zones don't bother it but Daylight Savings and Leap Year do; perhaps I am just not grasping the difference?