Ultrasound vision and improved sense adept power Options

[Ken Takai]

Is possible to use ultrasound vision with the Improved sense adept power?

[Phaeton]

Take whatever I say as being potentially naive and misinformed, but I'd rule yes. I might even rule that the cost is lowered if you snag the High Frequency Hearing adept power along with it, much like the essence cost of ultrasound vision cyberware is lowered when you get high-freq hearing installed.

[JaronK]

I'd allow it. You can get any sense that's not completely technological... since bats and dolphins have ultrasound, it seems quite reasonable.

Basically, I'd say you can have any sense with Improved Sense that a critter could reasonably have (so no radio sense or commlink sense).

JaronK

[Ken Takai]

[Eyeless Blond]

Actually, this has been discussed in here before, and from what I remember the consensus was no. The important concept here is that ultrasound *hearing* is fine, because it's actually a sense, and is in fact no different than high-frequency hearing. Ultrasound *vision* however is something else, something more than high-frequency hearing. Ultrasound vision is high-frequency hearing, combined with an emitter and a spacial processor, so no, they're not the same.

[nezumi]

I'd agree with eyeless blond. Technically, you have ultrasound vision when you get high frequency hearing. The problem isn't that you don't have the senses to get the information, your brain is not set up to process the information your ears receive.

If you did have an ultrasound emittor and it was directional, you could probably still get some useful information by listening to the echos, but it wouldn't be as complete as ultrasound vision.

[Ken Takai]

I think that an important factor is miss, a factor that make ultrasound vision possible.
And this important factor is called Magic. Is a magical power, not an pure body sense.

[JaronK]

Well, I'd agree it wouldn't be vision, it would be hearing... but it would have the same game effects as vision. Perhaps using his mouth as the emitter? Still, I think I have to agree with Ken... it's a magical sense, so it works.

JaronK

[Zazen]

[JaronK]

[Cray74]

[Kagetenshi]

I personally would definitely allow someone to take Ultrasound Receiver as an Adept power, and it'd do all the things ultrasound vision normally would. I would, however, require a technological emitter.

~J

[Da9iel]

No technological emitter required; wear a bat. :D

[EDIT] The mammal, not the big stick. [/EDIT]

[Kagetenshi]

Wear a bat on a bat!

~J

[mfb]

i personally don't see ultrasonic emission as much more difficult a feat to accomplish than is the ability to see into the infrared part of the spectrum.

[Cain]

Call it "echolocation" and you're good to go.

[Crusher Bob]

The 'extra sense' involved would require three things:

The ability to emit ultra sounds, the ability to hear ultrasounds, and the ability to then turn what you hear into a 'picuture'. I'd say that the adept would have to pay for highfrequency hearing hearing, and pay again for the ability to emit and process the reflected sounds. This makes it cost .5 magic for the total package. Since having ultrasound 'vision' would require high frequency hearing to function at all and we don't want to give the adept this for free, we just make them pay 'twice'.

[toturi]

[Moon-Hawk]

In my game, I allow ultrasound vision as an improved sense adept power, but high-frequency hearing improved sense adept power is a prerequisite.
The cost stays the same, they just have to pick up another sense that they might not've wanted as much. This way they can't use their "ultrasound vision" to "see" high frequency sound and detect it without paying for the high-frequency power, or any other such cheese.
I know there's not much or a precident for that sort of thing in SR, but it seems to work well.

The short answer: I agree completely with Crusher Bob.

[Ken Takai]

[Moon-Hawk]

I think it's a difference of how the hardware is wired.
Say you have a device that detects high frequency sound. You can wire that device to the eye (along with some other stuff) and get ultrasound vision, or you could wire it to the ear and get high frequency hearing. If you do both, you pay essence twice because it's impacting your brain twice, both in the visual and auditory centers. Remember, essence loss isn't supposed to be about grams of metal and silicon, it's supposed to be about the things impact on you; the reason pacemakers don't cost essence.
I could definitely see a slight Nuyen discount for both devices, but not much.
Of course, someone could bring up the argument that high-frequency hearing and ultrasound might not be talking about the exact same band of sound. High-frequency hearing doesn't specify how high it goes, and ultrasound can operate at many frequencies, different ones being better than others depending on what you're trying to do with it.

[Lantzer]

I'm comfortable with the notion that there are things that Adepts can't do, the same as there are things that a Sammie can't do.

Give the Mundane's their moment in the sun - We get no shortage of folks wanting to play Adepts. Besides - An adept's other vision mods are already better than a Sam's, because they count as 'natural'.

You can't have everything. (But I want it! Waah!)

It's like the folks who want Adept versions of: Smartlinks, balance augmenters, Hydraulic jacks, chemical analyzers, Magnetic limb systems, and BattleTac. Ok, maybe not the last two. But I've heard folks arguing for the others. To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't heard anybody whining for magical bonelacing.

[shadd4d]

Look at it the other way around. Bone Lacing cyberware roughly = Enhanced physical attribute, Mystic Armor, and Killing Hands. Quite a few adept powers can be broken down into cyberware equivalents. Maybe it's in the fiction in the 2nd ed Basic Book, but I think I remember seeing something like "She had magic which the rest of us needed cyberware to match".

Don

[Kagetenshi]

[JaronK]

Well, to have thermo vision you need the ability to see infrared and then turn that into a picture... to have direction sense you need some sort of ability to detect your position on earth... to have flare compensation, well, that's even weirder.

JaronK