I've wondered with metahumans if they can only see in their respective eyesight or if they can see in both visual and their respective eyesights.

Eg/ Dwarf has natural thermographic vision. Does that mean that is all he/she can see?

I don't have a book handy, but we've always played that they get normal vision as well. Otherwise they couldn't read without some special thermo ink. They couldn't observe stop signs or tell which street they're going to turn on to.

I have always understood it to mean that they can naturally see in to the infrared spectrum of light in addition to the visible spectrum. Lowligth vision has meant an eye evolved to be far more sensitive to light and therefore able to see with much lower light levels. What I've been more curious about is how well natural lowlight handles very bright situations, like say a white sand beach on a bright summer day.

I've always sort of just assumed that metahumans with low-light and thermo vision had a sort of superimposed view of normal vision and their special, simultaneously, and their unique metahuman brain could simply process them both without getting confused.

Humans with implants, however, get to use one or the other.

I think with lowlight that you can safly assume that it is their vision (like a cat). But I'm torn on the thermo.

In previous versions, it was said that elves' low light worked much like normal human night vision; meaning that it is virtually B&W but that they can see at much lower light levels.

Thermo was described as a "brightening" of color from heat. In winter a guy in a santa suit will seem like he is lit from within while the plastic santa won't. So trolls & dwarves don't get the artificial red/blue thermographic vision. A thermal heat source in complete darkness will be perceived as bright white with cold items being dark.

I believe natural low-light works by just letting you see better in the dark.

In 3rd Ed Natural Thermographic was described as a Halo of "Heat" around each object/person, getting brighter and more intense in color, the hotter the object. I see no reason for this to change.

Cybernetic Thermographic Vision is the same vision as The Predator.

One key disadvantage of natural thermo is that you can’t turn it off to escape thermal glare.

Edward

It's an interesting switch. I mean, I understand why they did it, simplicity and all, but it used to be that the natural visions were better than the cybernetic ones. Now, they're slightly worse because they can't be turned off.
Oh well.

Which is why in our SR2/3 games we allowed the flare-comp retinal mod to apply to all natural visions, though we usually considered it more of an iris mod. Should still work for SR4.

I think natural low-light would be protected by flare-comp contacts and it seems like LCD shutters tuned to IR would be possible to protect natural thermographic but it would be pricey.

All you'd have to do is tune the sensors in the flare compensation to go into the infrared ranges, and you'd be able to do both (near-spectrum infrared is usually used for "low light" vision, far-spectrum infrared is what is usually used for "thermographic" vision).

You know what people with low-light vision really hate? When your character (without low-light, cuz he's an unaugmented skag) breaks out an infrared strobe light...

I think SR low-light is traditional light amplification, vs the near-IR of nightvision. Natural low light and light amplification would be unphased by an IR strobe.

Folks with thermograph, on the ohter hand, will find it highly annoying.

I always assumed flare comp would apply to low light and thermograph vision. But flare comp only halves the penalties.

I like the thermal flash grenade idea thow, especially or gang wars. Human gang verses troll gang you see what I mean.

Edward

Nightvision these days is also pretty much flare proof.

Depends on the quality of the night vision. I've got a pair of Gen I goggles (hey, they weren't too expensive) that really just wash out if you look at anything bright. The more advanced stuff (in SR terms) has "Flare Compensation" built into it.

Those are first generation which is fairly old. Most 3rd and 4th generation systems don't have that problem. By 2070 there should be no such thing as nightvision that is more susceptible to bright light unless you are using an antique.

Of course, we still play it like the book says because when possible the best house rule is no house rule.

Keep in mind, though, that natural night vision is vulnerable to bright light. Having "flare comp" and "low light" be seperate is an easy way to prevent giving a couple of metatypes a bizarre ability (flare compensation) for free.

Or hell... maybe the reason that a pair of NVGs without flare comp are less expensive than those with are, is because they're antiques

Nah, antiques are always expensive. Keeping them seperate is cool, but they could have put a note in the equipment section that says low light comes with flare comp and avoided giving it to metahumans or adepts.

Not a big deal though, as flare comp is really cheap. You can get it on goggles for the same price as a high class hooker. For cybereyes it costs as much as 4 nights in a hotel. And it's legal for both of them, so as llong as you have a fake SIN you can ignore availability.

Remember, low light vision in SR doesn’t make you more vulnerable to bright light. It just doesn’t give you protection from any thing that would damage eyeball mark one.

I think most vision augmentations allow natural light to pas threw while overlaying there advantage. This is necessary for mages to avoid loosing LOS.

Even if it was a complete block and re create glare and flash penalties would represent lens flare and overload light sensors.

Edward