Is there a capacity limit on vision ehancements with googles,glasses, contacts etc..?

AFAIK, the only limit is availability (and price, of course), though I never liked it myself, that contacts could pack more enhancements then a pair of cybereyes.

more vision questions

Ultrasound ehancement 1000 nuyen....cyberware sensor 6000 guessing eye enhancement still requires emitter, sensor?

The implanted version of ultrasound vision is the same as the non implanted one. It can emit, letting you see in ultrasound, and it can be in passive mode where it only detects ultrasound emissions from other peoples' sensors.

I think it can hold all of them, you're just limited at first by the added availability of each additional enhancement.

I hate to say this, but I think common sense plays a part in this. Unfortunately "common sense isn't"

Just ran into this problem in middle of game yesterday, soon as I have some free time thinking about puting together capacity list , somthing along these lines.

contacts (1)

glasses (3)

goggles (5)

Nothing set in stone yet, and ultrasound really should have transmitter unit, even miniturized would be somthing along the lines of a small box. Only for non implanted version (easy to clip to web gear or place in shirt pocket).

That seems extremely low to me.

It means that contacts would only have flare comp as an option. Smartlink is never an option.

Glasses could have only smartlink, or flare comp, vision enhance 2/vision mag/low light/thermal.

Basically, it would skew the field greatly towards cyber eyes. That might not be a bad thing, though.

I'd say that contacts would be 3, which means they can have smart link, or flare comp and one other.

Glasses would be 6, which is smart link, flare comp, and mag

Goggles would be 9 - smart link, flare, vision enhance 3, low light

So you've got big clunky goggles if you want anything serious.

You could probably combine contacts and others to increase up to 12 total.

Putting capcity on eyewear is thinking like someone from 2006 - which is how people from 2006 usually think.

But it's not how you should think when looking at SR4 technology! The year is 2070. They have advanced nanotechnology. They can put whatever they want into contacts.

I find that every time someone adjusts the rules for realism, they're adjusting them for 2006 realism, which is just absurd... Capacity limits for eyewear make sense today, but they would not in 2070, which is why they don't exist in SR4.

Hey look guys... I glued my contacts to my cybereyes... now I have cybereyes without capacity limit.

Woohoo!


Commlinks are not needed to use vision enhancement contacts. The only reason to connect them to your commlink is to get information from other sources in your PAN, like your image link or smartlink, or to output info from your contacts, either to record the data or transmit it.

Commlink holding the actual hardware makes sense and im all for wipeing out idea of capacity with that in mind thanks much !

Super contact lens when cybereyes need capacity made no sense to me either.

I just ruled that contact lens could only do image overlay stuff (Like image link, smartgun and perceiving the AR) while these big ass ugly goggle we get a picture of can obviously pack every single enhancement if you feel like it.

In between? Just be reasonable.

I like having (mostly) reasonable player. They were the ones who actually brought up to me the contact lens cramming issue and how it made no sense when compared to cybereyes.

Personally, I just allow Contacts Lenses to have up to Availability 12 (chargen limit) in Enhancements as a maximum. That is the best they can do, ever! I haven't thought much about Glasses and Goggles though ... Glasses I would probably limit to Availability 18 maximum (post chargen), while Goggles could more than likely be unlimited (again, after chargen).

Cybereyes "need" capacity yes. But if you buy top of the line cybereyes, you can put every single mod (except the ocular drone I think) into them.

Just like datajacks, cybereyes are on the way out in SR4. And just like datajacks, they have some utility over the non cyber version since they can never be removed from your person (without surgery). Furthermore, you can get every mod in cybereyes straight out of chargen. About the best you can get on glasses is smartlink, low light, and vision enhancement.

Regardless, there has apparently been a large jump in eyewear technology in SR4 which makes cybereyes near obsolete. People still get cybereyes though because they're relatively cheap and they make you look cool, if you have style.

It all comes down to this malign idea of realism: the game writers created an entire future world in SR4. To say that some part of it is unrealistic misses the point: the entire thing is unrealistic because it's imaginary. You can change the world as you see fit in your game, but don't delude yourself into thinking it's more realistic. You're just imagining a made up future world differently than FanPro's writers.

I think the main angst some people are experiencing, aside from the "realism" aspect, is the that there are players out there who will brutally abuse this item...
"Yarr, I gots me my lenZes, so I saved me some .4 essence to put in an additional nano-chainsaw and sum betaware-twinkies!"

Personally, I doubt that lenses are anything gamebreaking, but still, if you cannot bicker about them here, where else?!
I mean, isn't bickering the very essence of what this board is all about? ; )

I do see it from the PoV of "why would I ever get cybereyes?" - if contacts are flat better, there's an issue.

Reasons for eyes:

1. Ocular Drone.
2. Zeiss is Coooool.
3. Can't be removed.

That's about it, that I can see.

Negatives for Cybereyes

They take up essence
They look funny
Umm... they take up essence?

Cybereyes don't look funny, unless you want them to. And in the 2070's, many people want them to. Looking funny is a positive!

Ok now i'm back to not being sure how I wanna rule this, understand both sides of the realism issue but the contacts holding power source, emmitter and reciever not to mention other mods seems to push limits of even nanotech.

But wait I'm not just trying to fuel the flames, I'll spend few days chewing on it.

Ok heres next question.....what about range and eye enhancements how far exactly do you let your players get benifits of the modifiers?

actually, once you have the image link all you really need anyways is a sensor package or two (or three).

simply have all the data relayed to your image link.

oh, and put the smartlink into your smartlinked gun's built in camera (which comes with the smartgun system... and can presumably be upgraded like any other camera).

@djinni - you went through and looked up the numbers we were all too lazy to pull up. Thanks!

The availability thing definitely makes the advantage of cybereyes clear. You can get tricked out eyes no problem, but eyewear can only be so tricked out before it becomes impossible to get.

This is only true, of course, if you rule that eyewear can't have after market conversions. This would make sense to me, because of the way the avail is listed and how the technology would work.

The avail, first of all, is listed as +x, which says to me that you have to buy the whole package at once, no after market upgrades.

It makes sense that you couldn't upgrade these things because of the way they're put together, with all the circuitry woven into the eyewear itself using nanotech. Once you build the lenses with all the goodies in them, there's no way to take them back apart and add to them.

Of course, if a GM wants to say that cybereyes are becoming obsolete and eyewear is just as good, then they could allow after market addons to eyewear.

Well unless I'm mistaken with avail dont the hits just add up untill you finally have enough to aquire the item? So if it was say, 22 avail/week you could just keep rolling till your hits added up to 22 and for every additional roll you had to make you have to wait an extra week.

THis means really that -any- gear is eventually possible to get. But it will take you ages to get it. You can also speed it up if your willing to pay more (+1 dice every 25 percent up to 10 bonus dice).

The point though really, is that for the low low price of: 100850 and .5 essence, you can have cybereyes with: Eye Recording unit, Flare Compensation, Image Link, Low-Light Vision, Protective Covers, Retinal Duplication 6, Smarlink, Thermographic Vision, Vision Enhancement 3 and Vision Magnification and still have a few points of eye capacity left over.

Your avail also never goes over 16F for the retnial duplication.

For contacts you can have: Low light, flare comp, image link, smartlink, thermographic, ultrasound, vision enhancement 3 and vision magnification for 2225 but your avail becomes: 36

So contacts are cheaper, but to have anywhere near the same enhancements you have a MUCH higher avialaiblity and you cant fit the following items:
-Occular Drone
-Retinal duplication (I could be wrong bout that one but it isnt a 'visual enhancement')
-Eye Recording Unit
-Protective Covers (though I suppose you could argue the contacts count as theses, there's only soft squishy flesh, not solid metal behind them)

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the tech is all in the lens, just projecting onto it.

Personally I've no problem with all the tech being in the lense in a world where nanite doomsday weapons have allready been unleashed uppon the world (in albiet a limited manner).

The thing is though, the rules dont state that to be able to use all these fun options built into your contact lenses you also HAVE to have extra item X (Say your comlink). The contacts will work fine, with all their options, even if your bucknaked in the wilderness and running full out from a horny Piasma.

Contact lenses especially if carrying multiple mods would require a commlink, to switch modes at the very least through wireless pan.

You could also do it via wireless datajack, since datajacks interface with all devices.

And if you wanted, you could have contact lenses which respond to a voice password, or change modes when you tap on them. SR4 technology isn't really limited; if your commlink can be woven into a pair of briefs, your contact lenses can respond to voice commands.

instead of poking herself in the eye you could have an AR set of buttons down just inside your periphreal vision that you can virtually push...hrm...that sounds like an MMORPG

Did some searching , first reference to contacts is in sota 64. First gen of contacts were simply low light, recharged via blinking and highly suceptable to glare and flash.

6 years enough to perfect the tech and do major expansion of contacts abilities..all during an unstable era in the game world?

It requires some suspension of disbelief for the technology to leap ahead so fast in a short period.

But it requires MUCH MUCH MORE to even believe that technology in 2064 was, in many cases, worse than modern technology.

Sure, it's unrealistic for the technological landscape to shift so quickly, but it's also unrealistic how crappy everything was pre crash. Having actual futuristic tech in a futuristic game improves the fun of the game. I think the crappiness of 2064 tech is something that was wrong with SR3, and I really don't care that SR4 took some liberties in deleting a lot of the old skool garbage.

First heres my current ruleing for home game allowing all mods for contacts but gonna give contacts, glasses, goggles etc a shorter ranger then cyberware version basing it on signal rateings.

As for fact that there seems to be large holes in advancement of manufactoring and research. Dont forget what lead us to 2050 to start with. Two terrible plauges, goblinization, dissolution of super powers, awakening, (plotting elves), coperate reinvention and lots more. Shadowrun world was forced to catch up in fits and starts, based on need such as cyberdecks. Guessing tech easily fell 10-20 years behind, so yea tech seems out of place sometimes but worlds only had good 20 years of "stability" to catch back up....or so my thoughts go.

That still means that contacts and implants are on different TLs in GURPS terms.

Remember, you can turn off vision types with cybereyes, (or at least you could in SR3), so if you are fighting in darkness and just leave thermo and ultrasound on, and use flash-paks with great relish.

Protective Covers can be cosmetic as well. I think you can even add vision systems to them. I would personally limit it to non-interactive systems like flare comp or vision enhancement. The listing for them is at the bottom of the cybereyes chart. They're only 100 and no availability.

I think I like the idea of giving them capacity the best over all. That's also inline with a streamlined and consistent approach (ignoring issues with capacity). And it's also the simpliest to explain.

I'm thinking I'll go with 3/6/9 as the numbers for contacts/glasses/goggles. But I think I'm going to rule that both can't work at once, so you can't put goggles over your contacts or the like (though you can over your cyber eyes - you paid essence for those, they are you).

Any thoughts on the 3/6/9 numbers?