What if you replaced all cones with rods?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Actually not. Acute Vision adds to your Sense rolls. Night Vision *negates penalties*. This is an important difference, Acute Vision doesn't do anything to reduce the penalties you suffer for combat in low light, Night Vision does. If your GM ever applies penalties for doing something in bad light, as many levels of Night Vision as he'll let you buy is almost a no brainer.

That is a very easily missed fact. I kept forgetting it so many times over the years.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's twice as expensive and less useful.

I wouldn't go that far. It's subjective.

Is the campaign never about fighting in darkness but instead you often have to spot small details or see long distances? Now which is more "useful"?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The fact is human vision (and hearing and touch) are quite good as animals go, and smell isn't bad, particularly for the stuff primates specialize in - we're actually pretty amazing at smelling esters ("fruit flavors"). We tend to exaggerate how fantastic animal senses are.

Even human nightvision, often assumed to be poor or terrible is quite decent. We have fairly large eyes, and thus good light gathering capability, and that counts for quite a bit. To be sure, other large animals, especially those that have adaptations specifically for low light vision do better, but most animals are smaller than us, and most do not have massively outsized eyes (like some owls do).

Originally Posted by malloyd

Actually not. Acute Vision adds to your Sense rolls. Night Vision *negates penalties*. This is an important difference, Acute Vision doesn't do anything to reduce the penalties you suffer for combat in low light, Night Vision does. If your GM ever applies penalties for doing something in bad light, as many levels of Night Vision as he'll let you buy is almost a no brainer.

One of the first things my players have their characters buy is the best night vision gear they can get their hands on. If they have to choose between 'good but bulky' and 'small but poor' (like you often do with UT's gear), they'll often by both and swap as needed.

IMO their poor characters probably find normal vision very strange, as they seem to spend their entire adventuring careers inside hard armour suits looking at the world through hyperspectral vision devices. They're probably serious agoraphobic, too, in a specific way. Maybe the universe of the far future has a word for "phobic about being outside their hardsuit".

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by (E)

A special effect that is obviously different between placental mammals and marsupial mammals is the colour of the light that is reflected when a light source is directed at the eyes. A subtle bit of flavour for a change to the structure if the eyes.

Or, how you can tell the difference between a cat and a possum in your spotlight.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Maybe the universe of the far future has a word for "phobic about being outside their hardsuit".

Common Sense?


;)

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Ottriman

3) How would you stat this? Something like Night Vision X (Switchable, temporary disad: colorblindness) right?

Wouldn't need Switchable. An advantage that has an inconvenient side effect when in use (either built in or added via limitation) is assumed Switchable unless it explicitly says otherwise.

[khorboth]

Wouldn't this also grant a level or two of telescopic vision? I always understood that the primary reason eagles had such good distance vision was that they had dense rods in the forward-looking portion of their eyes. You're effectively doing the same thing to the human. I couldn't say anything about specifics, just memories of junior-high science.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by khorboth

Wouldn't this also grant a level or two of telescopic vision? I always understood that the primary reason eagles had such good distance vision was that they had dense rods in the forward-looking portion of their eyes. You're effectively doing the same thing to the human. I couldn't say anything about specifics, just memories of junior-high science.

I'm pretty sure that eagles have cones in their foveae, not rods. They hunt almost entirely by daylight; low-light receptors wouldn't be all that useful to them.

It's true that raptors have better visual resolution than humans, but it's not by all that much. Raptors, primates, and cephalopods are at the peak of the animal kingdom for vision. Raptors have a neat little trick that gives them an extra boost: instead of the retina being a simple spheroid, it has an extra little dimple where the main fovea is (they actually have a second side-looking fovea to track potential hazards in flight), whose curvature gives them more surface to hold neurons, and a little extra focal length. You could justify Telescopic Vision 1 that way, I think. But you'd need to duplicate that design for humans to mimic the benefits; human foveae already have an incredibly high density of neurons.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm pretty sure that eagles have cones in their foveae, not rods. They hunt almost entirely by daylight; low-light receptors wouldn't be all that useful to them.
.

They have more cones and they're biased towards the red and yellow rather than the sky-blue.

A lot of the Telescopic Vision appears to come from the ability to physically change the shape of the eyeball.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

But you'd need to duplicate that design for humans to mimic the benefits; human foveae already have an incredibly high density of neurons.

Human vision is already more limited by the lens than the retina. That's why Lasik can improve vision beyond 20:20.