Tactical Use of Environmental AR Programming, Now that I've pwned your commlink, let me load my version of Negat Options

[PlatonicPimp]

i would hazard a guess that the AR is as transparent as the user wants it to be, unless its been overridden by someone...

in the origional Star Wars: Empire strikes back, before the re-editing, theres a shot in the snow battle where the shot looking out the cockpit window as you are doing a flyby. The cockpit is a matte painting, layered over the shot. Now some detail about how they did the special effects back then, specifically regarding edge conditions where the shots meshed, required that they layerd the matte in with transparency. It's like at 90% opacitiy, and if you look closely you can make out the terrain through the cockpit. But it's like a half-second shot, and you don't notice it unless someone pauses the movie and points it out. It takes focusing on it to look through.

I kinda figure even full-opacity AR objects are kinda like that. They are layered over your real view, either as an external graphic projected on the transparent screen, or as a simfeed layered over your visual data. In the first case, every screen I've ever seen could be seen through if you tried hard enough. Even at their best they are still a little transparent. I don't know if theoretically a full opacity display could be made, but for AR goggles and Contacts, there's absolutely no reason to do so. in fact, you WANT them so that if the AR blacks out, you can still kinda see through them, as a safety feature. As for the simfeed version, your eyes are still receiving the raw data. If you focus through, you can ignore the altered feed and pick out your real vision. This was true in previous editions of the game, if you were in VR you could try to ignore it and perceive the real world instead, with a hefty penalty.

In both cases a totally blank screen is the easiest to see through, because it provides no distracting visual data of it's own. An image is harder to see through, especially a visually cluttered or "noisy" one, and one with a lot of different colors. Motion makes it even harder to adjust. Really, a black-out attack is no more effective than putting a pair of sunglasses on your opponent.

[hobgoblin]

safety is not a big thing in SR (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[PlatonicPimp]

Even in SR, when one thing is harder, less safe, and has no appreciable benifit over the other, it tends not to be done.

[hobgoblin]

unless it also makes for more profits for the corps (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Heath Robinson]

unless it also makes for more profits for the corps (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Even in SR, when one thing is harder, less safe, and has no appreciable benifit over the other, it tends not to be done.

I would say that greater profits are an appreciable benefit.

[hobgoblin]

heh, very true. sorry about that one...

[Heath Robinson]

heh, very true. sorry about that one...

I just figured you overlooked it, directly pointing it out was the only way you'd ever realise that you'd done so (believe me, I've misread certain words for decades before someone pointed out that I was spelling them wrong).

[hobgoblin]

i most likely have (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)