How easy is it to judge physical world positions of physical world objects while astrally projecting? I believe that distances, and more importantly, distances between objects are warped in the astral. This makes astral recon a lot tougher. I don't remember where I read that, but it explains why you have to make a astral tracking test to find almost anything.

This has come up recently in the SR4 game I play in, and I am looking for a book reference (either 3e or 4e will be fine) and workarounds for this problem in astral scouting.

well it's worth bearing in mind that astral 'sight' isn't really a visual sense, we just equate it as such for ease of reference.

Consider a street 100m long. Visually you'd look down the street and see someone and think they're 100m away. You might also smell them and think that smell originates 100m away, or you might hear them and realise that the sound is 100m away. Obviously it would take particularly good smell or hearing to make a distance judgement like that, and the same holds for astral detection.

Gah... this post is somewhat muddled, but I don't have the time to fix it, so I just hope someone can elaborate upon it.

I don't have my books with me,

but, I don't believe that distances are warped in astral space. Your speed can be increase to, well, light speed (or it will seem that way).

As you can't read anything from the mundane world, it can be hard to judge exactly where you are.

There are ways, the astral tracking test, being familiar with the area, something with an astral precense to serve as a reference point (a cathederal where worship has been on going for centuries, a prison that does executions, etc..), manifesting and asking someone.

Remember, you can't read most things on the mundane plane, even if you manifest. Most mundane items (including buildings) are just grey poor copies of themselves. Some things can be read, if they have had emotional imput into them (the Hollywood sign, perhaps a sign that has been lovingly restored).

One way to relate it to today, is to use Google Earth, zoom into part of the city that you live in, but don't go to often, print the image, do this several times. Mix up the images, see if you can identify them after wards. See if the other players in your group can Identify them. Throw in a couple of the area where you normally game, see if those are identified.

The real world looks just that same on the astral, physically anyway. Buildings and streets are physically the same, what is different is the "feeling" of those places. An office building would look the same from the outside and the floor plan would be the same, but on the astral you get the aura too. That office building would probably be mostly cold and regimented with an undertone of stress. Streets would have the same layout but varying auras, most temporary.

So, with practice, a mage could learn to judge distances, meaning they could go through a building, get its dimensions and make a map from that. The biggest problem is that they can't read signs and such from the astral. That can make relaying the location of a target or navigating streets or buildings a problem. That can be got around by having an ally spirit that can manifest and read the signs for you, though a summmoned spirit might be able to do that too.

Finding your way around is a matter of looking at a map and memorizing the layout of streets and getting some landmarks. Searches with aerial photos would really help too, for getting landmarks right. Another option is to get landmarks and know what the target looks like, then shoot compass bearing from your location and get a range then project down that line for that distance. That should get you in the ballpark.