Right, so, the ultrasound cyberware/vision enhancement works by sending out high-pitched noises and building a map of the area based on how long it takes stuff to bounce back. It turns this into a visual overlay which enables you to bypass some vision modifiers.

Now, I get that it bypasses Improved Invisibility, because that works (by RAW) by bending light, not high-pitched sound waves.

But why does it work against regular Invisibility? Given that the Mana spell works by affecting your mind, how come it doesn't affect your perception of the visual information created by your ultrasound system?

the same reason why you can still HEAR someone with usual invisibility cast upon them . . BECAUSE!

It makes you think you can't SEE them . . and as ultra sound works over hearing basically and is just an visual interpretation of the things you hear you can "see" someone with normal invis turned on just fine . .

But:

If I was sitting at my security desk and you walked by under Invisibility, I wouldn't be able to see you on my monitor (showing the feed from the camera overlooking the area where I'm sitting, blissfully unaware of you walking past) because of the Invisibility spell's effect.

But if I'm looking straight at you while you're under Invisibility, I can still see you on the AR overlay from my ultrasound sight? Whuh?

My take on invisibility (and my GM’s) is that invisibility affects the MIND. This means that even if you DID use ultrasound vision you would still not SEE me as your mind refuse to aknowledge the ultrasound image of me in your LOS because the spell fools you in refusing to see me.

The same would apply to a drone sending you an image of me walking past you when under the influence of the spell as your mind refuse to aknowledge that I’m there no matter how much the drone insists that I AM there – in this case I would say that a logic or intuition test from target is required as they are not stupid.

They would still be able to hear and touch me but anything that is piped through the EYES (which means anything linked with imagelink, cybereyes etc) would not find me.

On the other hand, if a remote sensor sees me and displays it on a screen the target would see me on the screen but not in his LOS as the sensor is not affected and that would raise suspicion as they could just reach out and touch the area where im supposed to be according to the display - (unless the improved version is used and fools the sensor).

hmm . . would one see somebody who is under normal invisibility, if using a portable camera which is mounted on your head and feeding you image material through your data-jack onto you image display which is in your eyes?
you paid for datajack AND image link with essence . .

Also remember that both Ultrasound and Radar work essentially the same way, and neither are eye modifications - both are headware. Also, under Radar in augmentation it specifically says that camouflage and invisibility don't affect it. Since both radar and ultrasound work essentially the same way - just one being a more powerful version, it stands to reason that invisibility doesn't affect either. Your eyes don't see them, but radar/ultrasound is a separate system from your eyes - a separate sense that your human brain interprets similarly to sight.

Now, ultrasound that is just on AR Glasses or piped into cybereyes from an outside sensor is a different story, I'd say in that case invisibility would work since it has to go through your eyes.

My issue isn't that the ultrasound system can detect them, but that the user can see the output!

Would you have a problem if the user of a cyberware scanner saw their cyberware on his HUD as they walked by?

Most cyberware scanners will give you a visible show of where each piece of ware is, like an x-ray. So I guess "look up" would be more like "Alert bells going off but user fails to see any displays on his HUD."

If you want to play that invisibility is "total invisisbility" and defeats all senses and sensor types - or even a wider spectrum - that's fine. But it'd be wise to sit down and figure out what it does and does not affect in your games. Because here's another pair:

How does an invisible guy interact with a radar sensor?
With a MAD scanner for all his guns?

As standard, the man might be invisible, but MAD scanners, cyberscanners, and ultrasound will all detect his presence. The silence spell will get rid of the ultrasound problem. Alternately, you could create an Expanded Invisibility spell that affects the non-visible spectrum, so as to defeat radar/cyberware/mad scanners. Make it work like improved invisibility with a +1 drain modifier.

It just says the invisibility spell, not spells. It is singular, meaning it is only talking about the mana spell and not the physical spell. Improved invisibility would still work against all technological sensors as long as it beats the object threshold, which is 4. So as long as the magician casts at force 4 and gets 4 hits, they are successfully invisible to all.

You're incorrect.
Imp. Invisibility only makes something invisible to sensors that operate in the visible spectrum. The spell notes that it operates like normal invisiblity but also fools mechanical devices. Regular invisibility specifically states it affects the visible spectrum.

Cyberscanners, MAD scanners, and Ultrasound are all outside of the visible spectrum. One isn't EM radiation based at all.

Ultrasound works against standard invisibility because it is a game balancing issue. The rest is just complete and utter fluff. This is also why magicians can't time travel or teleport.

-ss

Remember: invisibility is not Obfuscate.
Well. oWoD obfuscate, anyway.

I think people have been house ruling invisibility as a "you don't see me" field for so long that they have forgotten what the actual spell does. It is very speciifically a single-sense illusion.

You can still beat ultrasound, though, if you stack a hush or stealth spell with that invisibility spell.

If the spell is Mental then it effects the mind. It is basically invisibility and ignore. Your mind does not let you see that person by whatever means. The display on the screen is not going to be more believable to your mind then you looking right at them and not seeing them. An alert may make you look for a couse but the invisible guy couldn't be it.

If it is physical then they can try and see it if they can sense it.

One of the things that I haven't figured out is why people don't just rework the spell improved invisibility to be multisensory. It doesn't change the drain much at all (1 point if I remember correctly) and will work against all senses. You don't need silence. Just improve imporved invis!

I think that a better version of Invisibility is Belongs. A mental illusion that tells the people that see them that they belong. They are to be let in past security and signed in. I've worked security for 10 years and we have this all the time. We would get a memo or a call saying that someone with this company or that is going to be arriving and to give them vistors badges and let them to wear eye protection on the shop floor. They could be going through any part of the building with those badges. We are told not to stop them because THEY BELONG. It's a part of any large security situation.

...ahh, but then there's radar sense

Garrowolf seems to think that because a spell "affects the mind", it must be like a jedi mind trick. But all it does is impair one sense. As Solkari already pointed out, a guard looking at a monitor would, indeed, see an invisible character - that's the advantage of improved invisibility; it fools the camera, so that the character won't show up on the monitor, either.

Glyph has it right Garrowolf. Invisibility only affects viewers who are actually viewing the invisible guy directly. If an invisible mage walks past a security guard, the guard gets a resist check to see the mage. If the guard fails, he can't see the mage, but can smell, hear, taste, or touch him, as well as using any other non-visual detection. Ultrasound/radar, mad scanners, anything technological would see the mage. If he looks at his monitors, he would see the mage walking by, as invisibility doens't affect technological sensors. (Side note: the mages face would be all over the security tapes.) Another way, is if he habitually brought up his weapon which had an imaging scope on it. He would be able to see the mage through the scope, but not directly with his eyes.

The only problem I see w/ a lot of peoples arguments is they're ignoring the meaning of mind affecting spell. And ignoring the fact that shadowrun spells need actual LOS between caster and 'victim' to operate. It's pretty clear from the spell description normal vision, low-light vision, and infravision are all affected by the spell. Electronic cameras can clearly still see the target of a basic invisibility, and a remote guard looking at a monitor of said camera clearly sees what the camera sees.

Here's the only gray areas I see:
I have a viewer wearing goggles, the goggles have ultrasound installed in them. The mage can clearly see the viewer directly to affect him w/ his mind-affecting power. In this case, the viewer doesn't 'feel his environment with ultrasound' he sees a visual translation/superimposition of the ultrasound in the visual spectrum through his normal eyeballs. Since the invisibility is 'mind-affecting' does it mean that the viewer ignores what his eyes through the goggles tell him?! I'd argue yes.

The same situation above, but the viewer is using a weapon electronic imaging scope. The mage can see the viewer. It's the same question... only the image is on the weapons viewscreen sight (or his smartlinked goggles)... again the image is visual and the viewer is under mental control to ignore visual information. (also this has the caveat that not all imaging scopes are electronic, there's quite a few optical only ones so that mages can target spells through them!).

If the ultrasound is obtained through ear cyberware/adept power it's clearly not 'visual information' in the simple sense. For game simplicity sake the character has a 6th sense. Same goes for improved invisibility.. it warped the original light rays but can't do anything about the image drawn on the goggles. (making improved invis inferior in this case). EG: improved invis works for fooling viewers and visual sensor systems, while basic invis is for absolutely fooling people people in direct line of sight of the mage.

Here's another situation... mage sight security system. Guards aren't looking through cameras but through fiberoptics. Does the basic invisibility apply? Do the fiberoptics work in reverse? I'd argue no. An enemy mage can't target a mage wearing mage sight goggles through his own fiberoptic cable.

So you're arguing that basically, the spell ties a mind-affecting spell to each photon emitted/bounced off the mage to the viewers eyeballs and then affects the target whether the mage can see him or not. Anything which adds extra 'visual' information even if superimposed visually over the mage doesn't count as the photons don't originate at the mage. Any recipient of the photon can't see it pending on save (even through mage-sight defensive fiberoptics).

Like I said it's grey. I was raising them as a hypothetical for sake of argument. Yours does produce a cogent baseline on how to judge if the spell has an effect or not.

Though it does raise an interesting idea.... cast invisibility the patrolling corp guard... use him as a diversion... let his allies fill him full of lead. There you go, a nice blue on blue incident and the shadowrunners didn't even need to fire a shot .

I pretty much agree with Tarantula's take on it.