GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's basically covered by Bad Sight (Low Resolution), possibly combined with Peripheral Vision.

Perhaps not sufficiently. A dragonfly is at the peak of good sight for an insect, and its resolution is worse that most mammals. A typical insect is worse than that.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Perhaps not sufficiently. A dragonfly is at the peak of good sight for an insect, and its resolution is worse that most mammals. A typical insect is worse than that.

Add a low Per score. It's not like insects have a large sensory cortex either.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Perhaps not sufficiently. A dragonfly is at the peak of good sight for an insect, and its resolution is worse that most mammals. A typical insect is worse than that.

But they do excel at motion detection. Not to mention the value of localize damage still allowing some vision as opposed to simple eye damage obliterating all functionality until and if it heals.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Here's Kromms answer:

What I mean is,
"Provides a mental database of
sensory signatures, giving an extra +4 to rolls to analyze and
recognize targets using vision or a discriminatory sense. All
attempts to memorize new signatures succeed automatically
without an IQ roll"
seems very close to
"Eidetic Memory: You automatically
remember the general sense of every-
thing you concentrate on, and can
recall specific details by making an IQ
roll. It is possible to “learn” this advan-
tage in play (bards and skalds often
acquire it to recall poems and songs).
5 points.
Photographic Memory: As above,
but you automatically recall specific
details, too."
I.e. Photographic Memory seems to automatically let you recall an earlier sensed phenomenon, and thus compare them 'side by side', which by Abilities Enhancing Skills would provide a +2 to +4 to your rolls.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

What I mean is,
"Provides a mental database of
sensory signatures, giving an extra +4 to rolls to analyze and
recognize targets using vision or a discriminatory sense. All
attempts to memorize new signatures succeed automatically
without an IQ roll"
seems very close to
"Eidetic Memory: You automatically
remember the general sense of every-
thing you concentrate on, and can
recall specific details by making an IQ
roll. It is possible to “learn” this advan-
tage in play (bards and skalds often
acquire it to recall poems and songs).
5 points.
Photographic Memory: As above,
but you automatically recall specific
details, too."
I.e. Photographic Memory seems to automatically let you recall an earlier sensed phenomenon, and thus compare them 'side by side', which by Abilities Enhancing Skills would provide a +2 to +4 to your rolls.

Here's what I asked:

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

If you have profiling for all 5 senses, does that effectively include Photographic Memory [10]?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Here's what I asked:

My point is that I'm not quite sure whether Profiling (a) should have a significant cost and (b) should be an enhancement of a sense instead of a limitation of Memory. That's beyond the scope of the book, though. So, sorry about that.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

My point is that I'm not quite sure whether Profiling (a) should have a significant cost and (b) should be an enhancement of a sense instead of a limitation of Memory.

Profiling gives a +4 bonus to some things, but neither eidetic, nor photographic memory gives any bonus to these things.

[Irioth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

One set of eyes cannot possibly have a suitable refractive index for that range. In fact, biological lenses are not effective at all in refracting thermal infrared. There are no animals whose eyes see thermal infrared; pit vipers can perceive thermal infrared, but they do it with separate organs, the pits, which have a very simple structure with no lenses, amounting to that of pinhole cameras. There are animals whose eyes can see NIR, but there's a wide gap between NIR and thermal infrared where animal sensors basically don't exist.

So (a) I don't believe in it as a biologically realistic ability, even one attained by combining biologically realistic abilities; (b) it would require radical transformation to produce an organism with suitable structures; (c) even if in my judgment what you're asking for were plausible, I couldn't write up every ability for this book.

If you really want such an ability, Kromm's lightning bolts will not smite you from on high for making one up.

I may have misexplained my intent. I am thinking of a biological, Enhanced Senses version of Hyperspectral Vision with a set of eyes that perceive the spectrum from near infrared to ultraviolet with optimally-enhanced color discrimination in that range and night vision. In addition there would be a separate sense organ (akin to the pit viper one) to perceive the thermal infrared. The input from the two sense organs would then be neurologically combined in one "vision".

To my knowledge there would not be any biologically realistic design barrier for sufficiently advanced genetic engineering to provide this kind of system. It would just be a matter of duplicating, combining, and optimizing the sensory abilities of various animals, nor radical transformation of the kind necessary to make you a shapeshifter or a plant-human hybrid would be required to provide an individual with this set of enhancements.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Irioth

I may have misexplained my intent. I am thinking of a biological, Enhanced Senses version of Hyperspectral Vision with a set of eyes that perceive the spectrum from near infrared to ultraviolet with optimally-enhanced color discrimination in that range and night vision. In addition there would be a separate sense organ (akin to the pit viper one) to perceive the thermal infrared. The input from the two sense organs would then be neurologically combined in one "vision".

To my knowledge there would not be any biologically realistic design barrier for sufficiently advanced genetic engineering to provide this kind of system. It would just be a matter of duplicating, combining, and optimizing the sensory abilities of various animals, nor radical transformation of the kind necessary to make you a shapeshifter or a plant-human hybrid would be required to provide an individual with this set of enhancements.

Well, at any rate, you certainly could buy all of those abilities separately. I don't have a definite opinion on the propriety of "biologically realistic hyperspectral vision." In a way what you'd get with the separate abilities is actually superior: if you get both the NIR and UV bonuses you have +4 rather than +3, and your ability to sense thermal IR isn't shut down by covering or damaging your eyes.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Well, at any rate, you certainly could buy all of those abilities separately. I don't have a definite opinion on the propriety of "biologically realistic hyperspectral vision." In a way what you'd get with the separate abilities is actually superior: if you get both the NIR and UV bonuses you have +4 rather than +3, and your ability to sense thermal IR isn't shut down by covering or damaging your eyes.

That last bit is subsumed into the many eyes zero point feature. If having four eyes with all forms of vision doesn't give/cost points, then splitting your vision types among them shouldn't either. Right?