[Enhanced Senses] Darkness, Night Vision, and flickering

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The -7 for outside observers looking in is the confusing part to me.

The -7 is for the case where you've looked at a flashlight, or a campfire, or a torch, and your eyes have adapted to that light level, and now you turn and look into the darkness and you can't see anything, because your eyes haven't adjusted.

[Anthony]

Also, the listed brightness for a torch is at 1 yard; subtract 1 for 2 yards (actual effective distance will rarely be less than 2 yards, because the light source is usually held more than a yard above the ground). I originally gave brightness at 2 yards because of that. Penalty will routinely be -3 or worse in real situations because of distance.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The -7 is for the case where you've looked at a flashlight, or a campfire, or a torch, and your eyes have adapted to that light

Makes sense. Much like my guess about spotting something else in the dark while looking at the light from a distance. (Hm, I deleted that, didn't I? At least that served the purpose of not further muddying the waters.)

How about a time to readjust? A few seconds, just in my personal experience. Or maybe the penalty fades one point per second, if someone's will to track that. Matters in combat, but negligible when you've got time.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Makes sense. Much like my guess about spotting something else in the dark while looking at the light from a distance. (Hm, I deleted that, didn't I? At least that served the purpose of not further muddying the waters.)

How about a time to readjust? A few seconds, just in my personal experience. Or maybe the penalty fades one point per second, if someone's will to track that. Matters in combat, but negligible when you've got time.

My experience is that it takes minutes, not seconds.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

How about a time to readjust? A few seconds, just in my personal experience. Or maybe the penalty fades one point per second, if someone's will to track that. Matters in combat, but negligible when you've got time.

It says in the box '2 minutes per -1'. Fast adaptation to changing illumination is mostly between levels that would both be considered 'no penalty' in GURPS (e.g. your typical 'come in from bright sun into a house interior' is dropping from something like 100,000 lux to 1,000).

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My experience is that it takes minutes, not seconds.

Originally Posted by Anthony

It says in the box '2 minutes per -1'.

So it does. That's a reasonable time for cone response. I had in mind the pupillary response, with perhaps the first point or so of the cone adaptation, two or maybe three levels of penalty. I don't have to wait for four minutes to be able to see after crossing from street lights to a normally lit residential room, or when stepping from a dim-to-normal room into a hall with no lights before becoming able to make out the stairs well enough that it's not dangerous to go down them.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

So it does. That's a reasonable time for cone response. I had in mind the pupillary response, with perhaps the first point or so of the cone adaptation, two or maybe three levels of penalty. I don't have to wait for four minutes to be able to see after crossing from street lights to a normally lit residential room, or when stepping from a dim-to-normal room into a hall with no lights before becoming able to make out the stairs well enough that it's not dangerous to go down them.

Pupillary response is limited to the equivalent of about 1 level, and mostly doesn't apply in situations where GURPS would assign darkness penalties in the first place because your pupils are fully distended even at the brighter level of illumination. The examples I can see of for rapid adaptation are mostly either "to bright to have darkness modifiers in the first place", such as sunlight to indoors, or "simple enough that it doesn't actually matter that your vision isn't entirely adapted".