[Basic] Advantage Of the Week: 360° Vision

[Otaku]

Last Week: N/A
Next Week: 3D Spatial Sense; Absolute Direction

In the vein of johndallman's threads discussing the Skills of the Basic Set, I shall attempt similar threads for the Advantages. My own references are Limited to Basic Set: Characters, Basic Set: Campaigns, Powers, and the odd "freebie" like Lite or Update. I'll be more or less following the list found on p. B297-298, but I have not decided if it is better to cover Advantages that are listed separately there but have a joint entry in the main text alongside each other or not: feel free to indicate your own preference.

We begin by looking at 360° Vision (p. B34, Powers p. 39). By default it is an Exotic, Physical Advantage that costs 25 character points, and as the name implies expands a the character's field of vision covers the entire area around them... at least with the usual vertical limits. I am uncertain about how vertical field of vision is affected, but I did find a Kromm post:

Originally Posted by Kromm

Given the actual span of human vision, it would be fair to say that the useful horizontal and vertical arcs are approximately the same, accounting for comfortable scanning motion and range of binocular vision, so it wouldn't be broken to generalize that GURPS vision arcs are irrespective of plane. Given that the overwhelming majority of combat as gamed out is 2D, though, I wouldn't give more than -10% for "no vertical arc."

In terms of game mechanics, 360° Vision removes the penalty to defend against attacks from the side or rear; you also can attack to your side or rear with only a -2 penalty (the the angle is still an issue unless its a strike designed to attack behind you) and aren't forced to make said attacks as a Wild Swing. You can only be surprised from behind if whatever it is doing the surprising is concealed, and you get a +5 bonus to detect Shadowing attempts.

Powers answered a question I had; in the Basic Set it states that the number of eyes a character has is merely a special effect, and Powers confirmed that it could be produced by other effects (chi, psi, magic, etc.) but also listed two Enhancements: Panoptic 1 (+20%) and Panoptic 2 (+60%). The former has your 360° Vision work with the need to move your head or eyes or possessing extra eyes; you see just using your default amount of eyes. Panoptic 2 ties your 360° Vision to something else, allowing you to see while your eyes would otherwise be blocked, though you still need light unless you also have Dark Vision. There is also a -20% Limitation to reflect if you do have especially vulnerable sensory organs, like eyes on stalks that swivel around to allow you to see.

I am curious if any version of 360° vision has proven useful in your characters' adventures, if anyone believes it to be under or over priced, creative uses, etc.