04-02-2017, 05:15 AM | #31 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
Technological devices are noted as granting Night Vision x, up to Night Vision 9 for the newest Gen III devices. I'm not sure if I've seen any explicit note that this Night Vision and the unmodified Advantage are identical.
In particular, technological Night Vision allows one to see IR illuminators and within the effective range of such an illuminator, darkness penalties are reduced by a further 2. Should Night Vision bought as an Advantage allow this? Or would that require a a Perk or an Enhancement to the Advantage? If an Enhancement, what would the value be? Personally, I'd be inclined toward making it a Perk, by analogy from other Perks in Enhanced Senses. I don't think it ought to be more expensive to add the capability to spot IR illuminators (and IR lasers) to Dark Vision than Night Vision.
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 04-02-2017 at 05:27 AM. |
04-02-2017, 06:50 AM | #32 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
Quote:
So they're Night Vision 9, for a base [9], plus a limited Infravision worth [7] Technological -10%, Temporary Disadvantages worth [-10]+[-15]+[-15]%, total cost [8] or so. The Green Eyes perk (Tactical Shooting, p38) takes off 20% of the limitations, making NVGs worth about [11]. The raw advantage has none of those problems noted, although I'd find it hard to object if a GM ruled that it gave No Color Vision. I reckon you need to buy Infravision, likely with limitations, to get the IR illuminators effect.
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04-02-2017, 07:07 AM | #33 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
Quote:
None of the game benefits of Infravision accrue to someone using light amplification or starlight scopes. Notably, they do not work at all in total darkness, there is no bonus to spot warm targets, there is no bonus to Tracking, etc. The way NVGs have always been written up in GURPS, only thermal-imaging sights give what GURPS calls Infravision (even then, it's a limited version). It seems pretty clunky to have to buy limited Infravision to get something that has none of the game mechanical benefits that Infravision grants. As an example of this being typical Perk fare, being able to hear lower or higher sounds than normal for humans is treated as Perks in Enhanced Senses. There are Advantages that do the same thing and also have more concrete game effects, but just the ability to hear a slightly wider register is a Perk. It allows you to use dog whistles as signalling devices, etc. It seems to me that this is pretty close to what the ability to see IR lasers and illuminators is. Though I do grant that the ability to get an effective +2 bonus to Night Vision within the range of IR illuminators is useful, but that's simply being able to use certain equipment without having another gadget at hand, which seems typical for an Accessory Perk.
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 04-02-2017 at 07:11 AM. |
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04-02-2017, 08:52 AM | #34 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
Quote:
NVGs are Night Vision x, for a base [x], Technological -10%, Temporary Disadvantages worth [-10]+[-15]+[-15]%, total cost [x/2]. The Green Eyes perk (Tactical Shooting, p38) takes off 20% of the limitations, making NVGs worth about [7x/10]. Yes, a perk for adding the limited IR capabilities of NVGs to Night Vision seems utterly reasonable.
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04-02-2017, 11:28 AM | #35 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
It's not a pure advantage either as super intense near IR flares would blind your sensors and probably hurt your eyes as well.
I vote for perk. It's nice and gives a +2 bonus in very specific circumstances along with a vector for "blindness".
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04-02-2017, 11:48 AM | #36 | |
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
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*Demons, animate fungi... |
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04-02-2017, 11:54 AM | #37 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
Realistically, everything animate and obeying even the most basic of thermodynamics will produce some waste heat.
Obviously, magical threats don't have to, but a setting allowing hyperspectral vision and said monsters would make for an odd campaign, thematically.
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04-02-2017, 12:10 PM | #38 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
However, inanimate objects normally have a temperature higher than zero kelvin and thus emit some electromagnetic radiation, too. And a lot of organisms have metabolic activity that produces just enough heat to keep them in thermal equilibrium with their surroundings. Mammals and birds spend a huge amount of energy keeping their body temperature high to support fast chemical reactions; organisms that don't do this will fade into the background.
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04-02-2017, 12:28 PM | #39 |
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
Reptiles are faint in modern low res mediocre thermal vision, but they're still detectable, from what I've seen of such videos.
Gurps Thermal vision is as discerning as base line vision, so they're much better than anything we have now.
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04-02-2017, 12:49 PM | #40 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#38): Dark Vision, Night Vision
Quote:
Thermal infrared is what things like bolometers detect. It doesn't allow good image resolution; on the other hand, animals and indeed common inanimate objects emit in that band, so you can see them even without a light source. Near infrared, in contrast, allows much better resolution, and I believe it's what things like "night vision" systems detect—but there's almost none of it being emitted after the sun sets; you start getting a dull glow at 350°F. I believe that a common configuration is to have a light source whose visible light output is block, so that it emits NIR, which is then reflected off of objects and allows imaging them much like imaging with visible light. I'm not entirely sure which type of system you're describing; if reptiles emit a modest glow, it's probably thermal IR. I'm pretty sure that technological "night vision" systems work with NIR emitters and detectors, and at those wavelengths, neither reptiles nor mammals emit at a significant level, any more that either species has a visible glow from its body heat.
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Tags |
advantage, advantage of the week, dark vision, night vision, vision, [basic] |
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