Some back of the napkin calculation says that sound goes about 300 meters a second (in air), this means that sonar would 'lag' 2 seconds at 300 meters, 1 second at 150 meters, and .5 seconds at 75 meters. So it's useful range is very limited, don't expect to detect incomming cars or anything. IIRC shotgun ranges top out at 100 meters, maybe using the range table for shotguns as a perception modifier for sonar?

The speed of sounds in water is around 5 times as fast, which is one of the reasons that sonat works so well under water, much less lag.

Your reception of sonar also depends on the percision and size of your receiver. Since the sound will be scattered and reflected a lot of the reflections will 'miss' you receiver if it 's not too big, this means that you will have a hard time figuring out very vurvy or angeled objects, you'll know something is there but nor it's exact shape or size. For stuff like 4 walls, ceiling, floor, etc it'll work quite well, since the shapes are very flat.

Assuming a very large parallel computing array (like the brain), you can still generate very good real time data... O/c it will be greatly inferior to light based vision. If I were writing the rules i'd say something like +2 ts compared to normal vision with additional TN penalties based on range (starting at around 5-10 meters) Additional +1-2 TN for detecting 'soft' or heavily angeled or rounded targets (+1 for most people not waring 'hard' armor, +2 for 'spongy' type stuff or sound dampening materials).

O/C ultarsounds sights will have the same problems with receptor size. On the plus side, if your whole team was using ultra sound, the receptors could probably be tied together b y computers and you'd get a much bigger 'synthetic' receptor (at least if your team was close together).

JaronK jumped on my response to this, which is a shame because I wrote that first post to illicit an opportunity to say it.

Ultrasonic pulses certainly enhance a sense meant to detect their echoes, and things that enhance a sense without being senses themselves are allowed. There has to be some other reason that it's invalid, since you can't just say "it's not a sense" anymore. You have to say why one way of enhancing a sense is more valid than another way. That's a blurry distinction, leaving plenty to GM opinion and whim.

No, but the sense does naturally occur, making it fair game as an adept power.

I should hope so! When submerged and traveling at speed, that's the only way they can tell where they're going. Dolphins and whales can navigate an underwater obstacle course, regardless of lighting conditions; submarines don't even *have* any visual sensors other than the periscope!

AFAIK, nowadays computers do help in the positioning and plotting of objects. However, the old fashioned sonar stations were run by guys with good ears and a slide rule. To a large extent, that's still true today.

Sorta. As others have pointed out, sound travels much better in water than air. I'd say that the effective range would be reduced, but it would work.

Underwater? Most definitely. In the open air? Well, bats manage the trick, so the answer would have to be a qualified yes.

Define "more accurate". I'm not trying to be obnoxious here, but IIRC it's not that simple. Active sonar does help clarify objects, but you don't have to be the one pinging to get the benefits of that. If you can find any other functional noise source, you can use that for echolocation as well.

Passive sonar is basically just a set of very sensitive microphones, that trained sonarmen turn into 3-D maps. The frequency of the sound is irrelevant; in fact, sonar frequencies occur within the normal human range. Bats use high-frequency hearing and high-frequency screeches as their fixed sound source, but in theory you can do it with normal frequencies without a fixed sound source.

Way to utilize the hyperbole. Smashing success.

Here's a clue. High Frequency hearing can not create anything visual. Two different senses.

I do believe Bitbasher has the right of this. See his response.

Take a look at the Ultrasound Vison "sense." It's actually three different things rolled into one.

Sensor: This would be the HF hearing.
Emitter: Vocal manipulation to send out the requisite pulse.
Processor: The thing that turns the sound into a visual output.

Only one of those things is an actual "sense." And it's already included as the High Frequency Hearing sense. The rest are not senses.

Game breaking? No. Pushing the balances issues out of whack? Hell yes. Adepts have enough of their own unique advantages as it is. They do not need to plunder the few advantages of cyberware.

It comes down to the fact I will not have fragging Ace Ventura at my table if I'm trying to play a serious game.

It does not fit within the tone, nor theme, to have a runner making silly clicking sounds to get around.

Talk about hyperbole.

In any case, that's your perogative. It has no bearing on the power or the fact that it qualifies for it, regardless of the technological requirements for all of the cybernetic senses the power can replicate. Nor does the power require any silly clicking sounds from the adept anymore than Low Light Vision requires them shining a flashlight.

No I didn't, because they were both moot. That's the point of the word "moot." Besides, after reading his post twice more, the only thing he's saying is 1) it could go either way and 2) he allows it.

I have to totally agree with this. Ultrasound hearing does not give the ability to echolocate nor does it grant spatial recognition. It just lets you hear ultrasonics, not to emit them. That's a very good preakdown IMHO of the requirements.

Except those that involve radio or simular technological phenomena.

Such as the emitter required for Ultrasound Vision.

I had no idea bats and whales were a race of humans.

I don't support thermosense, but metahumans in SR can have natural thermo, theres a precedent for it.

Well, enless yer going to support the Humanis, last I checked Trolls and Dwarves were humans too. They have Thermographic Vision.

And we all have Thermosense. It's the reason why we bitch when it's 100 degrees outside. Improvement and refinement can lead to a viable sense. However, balance issues might make me say no as it's a cultural bioware and if it's not allowed for character creation, it shouldn't be allowed across the board.

And a note on editing your posts. Dammit man, click the "Included edited on" box or make a note in the actual field when you do it.

So rephrased:

"It's okay for one metahuman race through an adept ability to have a sense that another metahuman gained naturally through the awakening but it's not okay for a metahuman race to gain through magic a sense that no other metahuman race posesses yet exists in other wholly unrelated mammals, reptiles, or fish?"

Yes. That sounds good to me.

"It's in nature" is not a blanket okay for me to approve an adept improved sense. That could lead to some pretty goofy stuff IMHO. Besides, Ultrasound Vision doesn't exist in nature, echolocation does but that's not nearly as cool or useful.

They're all homo sapiens man. They are all human subraces. All part of homo sapiens.

Because it specifies race not species in the Improved Sense write up. Being found in nature has nothing to do with Improved Sense at all. So that point is, as you so like to say, is moot.

It's been shown in the SR world that scientifically Trolls and Dwarves are subraces of Homo sapiens. This opens up Thermographic as an Improved Sense for the other races. Metahumans as a term, is a colloquialism.

Actually human hearing is variable. Some humans can hear dog whistles and some humans can hear subsonics, it's just rare. That's not a new human sense. It's nothing more than a refinement of an existing one.

The eye's ability to adjust itself to take in less or more light is also innate to all humans and some can adjust faster than others. Some people when walking out of a dark movie theatre can adjust to sunlight faster, flare compensation is again, just a modification to an existing system.

Sound dampening however I'm out to lunch on, no decision there.

It would behoove you in the future to not make a sarcastic remark about "my logic" when as evidence for said remark you use three abilities none of which I have even mentioned AFAIK. This makes your remark speculation, and bad speculation at that. Instead, why not ask "Hey, well then how do you feel about these powers?" instead of telling me what my opinion is before you ask.

Click Bitbasher's link in his sig.

Read the Strawman Fallacy.

Try again.

You didn't have to mention them. They're all established senses of the Improved Sense adept power. If you're going to argue that because humans or metahumans don't have a listed sense (refined or not), then you have to deal with the fact that that logic is erroneous because 1) the power clearly includes senses that aren't and 2) it's magic despite the preference of many to argue that "its magic" is no excuse for magical effects.

And neither did you. It's already established that the following are acceptable Improved Senses.

• Low Light
• Thermographic Vision
• High Frequency Hearing
• Low Frequency Hearing
• Direction Sense
• Improved Scent
• Improved Taste
• Flare Compensation
• Sound Dampening

Low Light and Thermographic Vison are found in other races of humanity. High and Low Frequency Hearing are an expansion upon the audible spectrum of sound. Direction Sense is a refinement of our sense of balance. Improved Scent and Taste are obvious. Flare Compensation and Sound Dampening just provide quicker, more reactive adjustments to the extremes of sound and light, the pupil in the eye contract and I'm not quite sure how the ear does it, but after going to many a rock concert, I have experienced the ears desperately trying to save itself. I call it the "WHAT'D YOU SAY?" effect.

All are natural outgrowths of what a human, in shadowrun, can percieve.

You have yet to prove that in any shape or form.

Uhm. I'll take No for a thousand, Alex. The power does no such thing. Read the entry again.

Not quite sure one what your trying to communicate here but magic is based upon observable "rules." One of said rules is that Adepts with Improved Senses can not replicate technological senses. Such as the emitter required for Ultrasound Vision.

This monosyllabic negation is shorter than its commonly-accepted opposite.

~J

When you read the power as strictly as you do, those mods start sounding valid.

For example, eye guns are certainly technological but the power only limits "radios and other similar technological phenomena", and guns are certainly not similar to radios.


Obviously we can't just take the rules at face value.

And we all have ultrasound. It's the reason why we bitch when it's really loud outside. Improvement and refinement can lead to a viable sense.

I suppose one could argue that, but the senses as described rely on techonlogy and so are negated by the power and I believe the intent is clear even if the wording isn't. But one certainly could argue the rules are only talking about radios, I suppose. Not a very good argument, but a possible one.

Camera (SR3 p. 299): This eye enhancement allows a digital copy of any image viewed through the eye to be captured in a still photo. The image must be stored in headware memory, transfered through a datajack to any data system, or recorded in a small image-storage chip inside the eye.

Recorders and Opti-Cams have similar requirements. Eye Guns require ammunition which is a technological requirement, and Eye Lasers require batteries and are likewise a null choice. etc.

You realize that, regardless of your point, the above statement is utterly, totally false?

~J

Yes, we can hear, obviously. Therefore we can theoretically hear into the high-frequency range that bats use for echolocation; thus high-frequency hearing is a possibility. With two ears, we can even figure out to a certain extent where the sound is coming from; thus directional hearing is a possibility.

We do not, however, emit high-frequency sounds to use as active sonar or echolocation. In addition, this can in no way be mistaken for a sense, and is therefore inelligable for the adept's Improved Sense power.

We also do not process sound into a visual overlay. This, along with the ultrasound emitter, is the core of what ultrasound vision does, and why it is an *eye* modification, and not an *ear* modification. Nothing in nature has the ability to actually *see* sound, nor process it into a isual overlay. The closest anything ever gets is echolocation, which although useful is not as specific or powerful as actual vision.

I was refering to the statement that we all have thermo vision. We don't. We have the very beginnings of it (the ability to sense heat), but not full thermo. Along similar lines, we don't have ultrasound, but we do have the ability to sense sound... in fact, we sense sound a lot better than we sense heat.

JaronK

Furthurmore, Barghests have this ability. Barghests are basicly a type of awakened dog, and dogs do not normaly have sonar. The power is purely magical

Yes, but it doesn't have to be that loud, either. Normal footsteps might be enough for it. So could chewing gum. Heck, subs can take readings off of another sub's active sonar, so why not allow Adepts the same trick? They may be able to gauge distances based off the echoes from another noise source.