Volumetric Sight

[munin]

Imagine you can see from all points in a volume around you simultaneously. Not shifting POV within that volume, but all points at the same time in all directions. Maybe you have a non-point form of Clairsentience, or maybe you can see from all insects within your range, or maybe you can sense light hitting dust particles and other surfaces within your range, etc. Maybe you can only focus on one thing at a time (add Enhanced Tracking), but everything else is always in your "peripheral" vision. How to model this?

There were two options I was thinking of:

• 360° Vision [25], plus Area Effect, +50%/level. Here Area Effect does what it does for Telekinesis and other advantages, turn control of a single thing into simultaneous control over multiple things (POVs here).
• Detect (Light; Analyzing, +100%; Reflexive, +40%) [72]. Maybe "No die roll required" to make it even more automatic. When remembering how Detect with Analyzing works, I remind myself of the lifesign scanner from Aliens -- it returns all incidences in range simultaneously. It's hard to imagine processing all incidences of light in range, but we do something similar with our regular vision already. It's a lot more light to process, but that's why we're paying the points.

Would those work? Any other options?

[ericthered]

I would use a scanning sense. Detect doesn't let you 'see' anything with it, because scanning sense fills that role. You should probably get your GM to invent a new scanning sense as suggested in powers page 72.

Scanning sense has a (expensive) modifier that makes it 360 degree.

You might actually be able to make para-radar work with the penetrating and 360 degree enhancements. That's pretty close to what you need.

[munin]

Like Detect, Scanning Sense doesn't by default give you an image, it's more like a relief map (and just the side facing you). Penetrating will get you through a few inches, but even if you allow leveling the enhancement it doesn't seem appropriate for something that might let you see 10s/100s of yards away through multiple buildings. Worm Skitter, for example, can't see volumetrically, but can feel and hear volumetrically for multiple blocks around her -- but she probably has massive amounts of Compartmentalized Mind and Enhanced Tracking as well.

The method by which Detect presents its results to you isn't defined. It could easily be defined as a HUD in your vision. Your brain already creates a 3D map from the light it gets through your eyes, expanding that map with Detect (Light) doesn't seem like too much of a stretch (like I said, you're paying points to get that).

[MrTim]

If we had a No Range modifier, Clairsentience with No Rang and Area Effect might do the trick.

[Andreas]

A combination of all of 360° Vision (Panoptic 2, +60%), enough levels of Penetrating Vision (Reflexive, +40%), enough levels of Telescopic Vision, Intuitive Mathematician (only for calculating images from other viewing directions, Reflexive, +40%) and Accessory Perk (able to see images constructed with Intuitive Mathematician) would probably be able to do pretty much all of what you describe.

You could also perhaps add some kind of "only for objects within x yards" limitation to 360° Vision, Penetrating Vision and Telescopic Vision.

Edit: you might need some additional enhancement for 360° Vision. From the description of that advantage, it seems like it doesn't allow you to look at everything going on above or below you, just at your sides and back.

[johndallman]

GURPS Lensman had a really high-performance version of this, which can be found in Compendium I for 3e as Sense of Perception.

[Kelly Pedersen]

It seems to me that this might call for a new enhancement. Something along these lines:

Total Apprehension: If you can perceive something with the enhanced sense, you automatically perceive all of it - if you see someone's hand, you immediately gain an image of their whole body, spotting a wall lets you see the backside of it as well as the front, and so on. Note that this doesn't let you perceive anything that you can't already perceive a part of! You could see the backside of the wall, but not the person crouched behind it.
This enhancement can be applied to any sense that counts as discriminatory (see GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses, "The Sensory Hierarchy", pp. 6-7), and can represent supernatural clairsentience of some sort, or simply an extremely cinematic ability to extrapolate data from observed evidence. +100%, or 20 points if applied to normal human vision.


Then, your ability to see in all directions within a volume would be 360° Vision and Penetrating Vision, both with this modifier applied.

Edited to add: Actually, thinking about this, I think you'd just need to buy the basic 20 points for putting this on your vision, and then buy 360° Vision and Penetrating Vision unmodified - I think, since they both improve your normal vision, it's not necessary to enhance them separately.

[Bruno]

I believe Sense of Perception made it into 4e based on Vibration Sense and a lot of enhancements.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I believe Sense of Perception made it into 4e based on Vibration Sense and a lot of enhancements.

Vibration Sense struck me more as a Faz adaptation from GURPS Humanx

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Vibration Sense struck me more as a Faz adaptation from GURPS Humanx

... I never said anything about where Vibration sense comes from?