Volumetric Sight

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by MrTim

Where is this spelled out? I was sure I'd seen something to that effect, but I've checked Characters, Powers, and Enhanced Senses and not found anything.

PES page 6.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Human brains don't process information about what's behind your head at all, but 360 degree vision still lets you use that information to form a full picture of your environment, instead of getting confused and thinking its all in front of you.

Being able to use the sense is a function of having the sense at all.

That is still only from your direction. By default 360 vision and penetrating vision doesn't let you see objects from another direction (such as seeing what someone's face looks like when you are facing their back). In order to do that, Intuitive Mathematician is used to claculate what the seen object would look like from another direction.

You can indeed use the senses in that build without it, but you can't use them in ways which the advantages don't allow.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Human brains don't process information about what's behind your head at all, but 360 degree vision still lets you use that information to form a full picture of your environment, instead of getting confused and thinking its all in front of you.

Being able to use the sense is a function of having the sense at all.

QFT

Whales and bats build a continuous real-time 3d sonogram of their environment, and don't appear to be especially good at doing integral calculus on the fly otherwise.

[MrTim]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

PES page 6.

Aha! I was looking in the section on Modifiers starting on page 8.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Andreas

That is still only from your direction. By default 360 vision and penetrating vision doesn't let you see objects from another direction (such as seeing what someone's face looks like when you are facing their back). In order to do that, Intuitive Mathematician is used to claculate what the seen object would look like from another direction.

If you have a sense that "sees" in 3d it should include the ability to process that information. Abilities assume you can make full use of them by default.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If you have a sense that "sees" in 3d it should include the ability to process that information. Abilities assume you can make full use of them by default.

You can make use of the abilities without seeing it in 3d like that. The Penetrating Vision advantage descripes how it works for the user and that does not include being able to see objects from other directions, so you clearly need something more in addition to that.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

QFT

Whales and bats build a continuous real-time 3d sonogram of their environment, and don't appear to be especially good at doing integral calculus on the fly otherwise.

Which is why the advantage would be limited to that use only. That way it wouldn't come with an ability to do integral calculus.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Andreas

You can make use of the abilities without seeing it in 3d like that. The Penetrating Vision advantage descripes how it works for the user and that does not include being able to see objects from other directions, so you clearly need something more in addition to that.

I think if you paid to be able to see everything in an area, getting that information in a usable form is part of the cost of the ability in the first place. It doesn't really matter how you perceive it, because you can.

3d perception of everything in an area without the ability to correlate the input into a coherent picture seems both nearly impossible to describe and nearly useless. I don't think that is a good default case.

Which is why the advantage would be limited to that use only. That way it wouldn't come with an ability to do integral calculus.

What game mechanical benefit would that give you?

Also why don't any of these animals have this, if it is required?

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I think if you paid to be able to see everything in an area, getting that information in a usable form is part of the cost of the ability in the first place. It doesn't really matter how you perceive it, because you can.

3d perception of everything in an area without the ability to correlate the input into a coherent picture seems both nearly impossible to describe and nearly useless. I don't think that is a good default case.


What game mechanical benefit would that give you?

Also why don't any of these animals have this, if it is required?

You haven't paid for the ability to see everything from every direction if you don't include something else (such as the IM Advantage and perk I suggested). Without it, you have only paid for seeing through objects etc.

It is not a 3d perception ability on top of which IM is added. It is a collection of advantages which does specific things.

It would, in combination with the other advantages I listed, give you the abiltity to see objects from other directions.

Because it is by default part of Scanning Sense. However being able to see objects from different directions is clearly by default not part of Penetrating Vision. The description for Penetrating Vision directly described how the user perceives it.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Andreas

You haven't paid for the ability to see everything from every direction if you don't include something else (such as the IM Advantage and perk I suggested). Without it, you have only paid for seeing through objects etc.

It is not a 3d perception ability on top of which IM is added. It is a collection of advantages which does specific things.

It would, in combination with the other advantages I listed, give you the abiltity to see objects from other directions.

Because it is by default part of Scanning Sense. However being able to see objects from different directions is clearly by default not part of Penetrating Vision. The description for Penetrating Vision directly described how the user perceives it.

Which tells me that Penetrating Vision is the wrong ability in the first place. I would try either an imaging scanning sense or Clairvoyance instead

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Which is why the advantage would be limited to that use only. That way it wouldn't come with an ability to do integral calculus.

Which is why it's confusing to say you need IM to use the ability. If you gave the character IM, they would get that ability to do integral calculus in their head. Any creature with the sense is also a great mathematician and can use that ability on any topic.

If you put a Limitation on the IM so as to avoid that incongruity, it's already part of the sense, because all senses include mathematical processing. I don't do 2D convolutions or optical flow analysis every time I look at something -- but it happens. By this logic, all senses will require you to take IM, appropriately limited, before you can use them.

If you think a sense somehow doesn't include that processing, it really means you built it incorrectly (if you're arguing that AE isn't the way to include multiple points of view, say -- though it would seem to be pointless otherwise, as most senses cover an area as it is) or that the basic form is incorrectly priced -- not that you need to throw in other vaguely-related advantages to get the CP cost back where you want it. Just call it Unusual Background, or preferably just adjust the prices for the sense directly for your game.