I'll buy that argument, although I will mention the usual penalties for being astrally perceptive and trying to fire a gun: blanket +2 to your shot, background count modifiers (+1 to +5, depending where you are... most violent gunfights are background count of 1 minimum), and astral visibility penalties, as well as the fact that you will be an "astral beacon" for astrally active entities unless you are also Masking. Also, you would still suffer the usual penalties for your normal vision, like smoke, flashpacks/glare, etc. In most cases, it's just not worth it.

Well, about the extreme emotion: On page 83 and 84 of MitS, it lists extreme emotion, positive or negative. It specifically mentions "the emotions common during acts of violence also generate this effect." Under Level 1 in the Background Count Levels Table, it says any place where background count was briefly or recently generated, which includes any site where violence was committed within the past hour. At the very least, I'd say the death of a metahuman life leads to a temporary increase in the Background Count by one... multiple/mass deaths may lead to an increase by two points. This is assuming an astrally-naive area that doesn't already have an established background count... different effects would probably apply depending on the location. For example, a hospital would have a background count of 2, and probably would only increase to 3 if unspeakable acts of violence were committed.

Aren't the gun cam and range finder part of the smartlink system able to see an invisible target automatically as they are highly processed technological devices?

Isn't the Astral effectively, "well lit" or purposes for vision to Perception/Projection? I'd replace the vision modifiers with background count, or the growing one as you gun down opponents.

This is not quite true. If you have thermovision active (cybernetically or with magic/adept power depending on your game) and you run into Thermal Smoke or Thermal Glare, you take additional penalties by virtue of having Thermovision on. You can shut off the thermovision but you will still suffer the penalties for Glare afterwards.

Same thing with Astral Perception. You cancel out light/dark visual penalties, but you will take astral vision penalties, just as you would if you had Thermovision on and you ran into thermal smoke or thermal glare.

Damn man is English NOT your first language or are you just too lazy to spell?

Agreed, but the improved invis spell (invis it would work just fine on) would have to meet or exceed half its OR to affect it.

This is still highly debatable.

I would point out first that you don’t get greater penalties for thermal smoke if you have thermo vision. If you don’t have thermo vision it is the same as smoke, the thermo smoke means that thermo vision is no better than normal vision.

I would break down modifiers into 2 categories. Cat 1Things that stope you from seeing (darkness, smoke) and cat 2 things that distract or blind you (glare, background count).

When perceiving astraly your vision modifier incorporates all cat 2 effects and the lesser set of cat 1 effects.

Eg, vision modifiers active.
rain 1
Pore lighting 1
Background count 4
Distant flash pack 1
Astray preserving and performing physical action 2

Because the heavy rain and bad lighting are not problems on the astral it can be removed. The back ground count, the flash pack and the preserving penalties are all distractions that draw your attention away from your task and will still apply.

For convenience I would probably use the lesser penalty with the 2 point penalty for using boath

As to wether the SL works, I believed a SL didn’t incorporate a rangefinder or gun cam as slandered (these being separate optional extras you can buy). Thus I believed that the SL mapped your body position and marked in your field of vision the projected points of impact at various ranges.

The gun doesn’t know where the target is so instead of telling you when you will hit it draws a line in your field of vision that the bullet will travel. Evon the goggles could do this while you are perceiving and grant the bonus

This would allow you to shoot even a purely astral target and gain the SL bonus, of cause the bullets would pass threw it harmlessly unless they where made out of something like compressed bio fibre or fab 3. the extra bonus for SL2 and rangefinder would not apply unless there was something the rangefinder could detect the range of.

Edward

I agree with what you are saying, but I'd argue that heavy rain would impose a visual penalty similar to Thick Fog. If it blocks LOS in the physical world, then it blocks LOS astrally. The degree to which it affects astral vision is listed on the p82 table of Magic in the Shadows.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree, then.

no

yes

yes (use whichever is better for you, close your eyes if it helps)

yes when tying to target or observe the physical world at least.

yes, in all above scenarios. However if you are blind with the blind flaw you can not have a display link so your smart link will not work. If you are blind due to other causes (blind fold, corneal problems, anything else that dose not affect the optic nerve) you can have the display link and you can get the benefits of a smart link system.

Obviously the above is only my interpretation

Edward