Sort of a silly question, but... Do goggles, binoculars or cybereyes work as scopes when using a firearm? They all allow for vision magnification, and I can imagine it working well with a smartlink or a laser sight, but at the same time, I can't imagine aiming through a pair of goggles or (eek!) binoculars. And I can imagine everyone dropping their scopes if cybereyes work just as well.

So... Do they replace scopes or no?

For internal vision mag and goggles I would allow it, binoculars not so much, trying to hold both the gun and the goggles steady would be very difficult if not imposable.

Edward

with the way scopes and cybereye magnification works, i can see why they aren't allowed to be used in SR--it'd break the game. with more realistic rules (to start with, you should only be able to see targets that are within the range you're magnified to, and it should take a complex action to change ranges on a scope; simple action for cybereyes or cyber-controlled scopes), smartlinks + magnification would be more workable.

I think the main reason they made that call about the Vision Mag + SL modifiers is that with a long distance shot, in perfect, labratory conditions it's a TN 2 to hit the target. Now, add to that that most GM's I've played with that complained about the ease with qwhich Gun enthusiasts were killing things never once appied movement, lighting, environmental, cover, glare, etc. penalties to the TN. I've run some models with an excel sheet based on the rules and on a given night in Seattle, (light rain/drizzle) at night with naught but tactical lights and street lamps for lighting (partial light), at ranges of around 30m (far enough that you receive glare from the street lamps further down the road) you are looking at a TN of 6 while walking after your target, for a chracter with low-light, flare comp, vision mag 3 and a SL wielding a HP.

Not exactly an easy shot, add in the -2 from SL and now it's a 4. seems reasonable, and it's not instant death (unless the sammy rolls well)

With a decent weapon, any TN under 6 is instant death in my experience. Mind, I don't consider an HP a decent weapon . . . My players run to submachinegun bursts at a minimum, though.

I'd have no problem letting magnifying goggles reduce target numbers for range, but they don't come with a rating. I'd probably treat the things as a rating one scope for this purpose. Definitely not the binoculars though.

I don't allow any bonuses from vision magnification or goggles to apply to firearm target number modifiers. Period. At magnification, the points of reference you would use to align the gun with the target would be

A) Extremely difficult to see. When you focus on the target hundreds of meters out, the sights you use to align the gun with the target, being only a matter of inches from your face, become grossly out of focus (the higher the magnification, the worse it gets).

B) Become nearly useless at high magnification. The common "notch-and-post" or "aperture-and-post" iron sight arrangements are usually designed to be fast, relatively close range sighting instruments and are thus large and easy-to-see at no magnification. At high magnification, if you could somehow manage to keep the sights in focus while looking at the target, they will offer no help in relation to each other. In other words, instead of comfortably resting a post in the center of an aperture or notch with relatively little room for lateral and vertical movement, the notch becomes a huge hole that the post floats in freely. The sighting error becomes enormous.

If you were to use finer sights that are designed to be used at high magnification, they will be fragile and easily broken, as well as impossible to see at little or no magnification.

C) Unless you are absolutely rock steady, the sights will bounce around uncontrollably your field of vision. Not only is vision magnified, so are the minute and uncontrollable shaking movements of your body. For example, if you were to use a non-magnifying red dot sight with a very fine dot at high magnification, that dot would be very unstable unless you were lying absolutely prone and completely still. Even then, depending on how high the magnification, your own heartbeat may interfere with sight alignment.

If you want to give it a try, get a pair of binoculars (7-10x) and try to find the sights of a handgun in front of you. Good luck.

Thanks Raygun, a quick question then...

If I were to use a laser with, would A and B still be concerns? I'm guessing not.

I'm not totally clear how C would apply with goggles, but not with a standard scope. Is this because the scope on the gun is more stable than goggles on your head? Or is it because the gun AND the goggles are both moving, whereas with a scope they move at the same time?

I'd imagine that it's because the scope and rifle move together, also a rifle's sights set up for distance shooting.

IIRC, in WWII they used dyed spider silk for some sights, just to put the frailty of the sighting mechanism into perspective for you.

My impression was that you could not use smartlink with scopes, but you _could_ use it with magnification cyberware or adept powers. It rather makes sense, if you think about it -- the smartlink cyberware would not know if you're using a scope and thus would not adjust for the magnification, but if you have the adept power or the cyberware, it could be setup to adjust for it on installation.

Not only does it make sense to me, but the rulebook is... silent on the issue of it not working with cyberware magnification and/or adept powers. If you'll look at the equipment, the Smartlink prohibition is encoded in the actual scope gear (sr3.280), but the rule about image magnification (sr3.110). Of course, the smartlink not working with ANY image magnification might be yet somewhere else; sr3 is pretty poorly organized and I might have missed it.

... and as far as ease of killing with guns go... well, that cuts both ways, my friend. What a character can do, the enemy can do also. A clever GM will come up with a setup that requires you to leave most of your equipment (armor) behind, and then let you run into a nice little contingent of Ares security guards wearing security armor and sporting Ares Alphas. *shrug*

Raygun seems to have summed it up nicely, I agree with what he said, as it makes the most sense, aswell as meshing with the SR3 system near perfectly.

raygun, i always thought you aligned scopes to the weapon it's mounted on, so that you can use markings on the scope itself to aim, instead of using the weapon's iron sights through the scope--you know, the classic sniper's view, with notched crosshairs centered around the target. is this a hollywoodism?

yeah. again, it'd probably work better if scopes weren't so damn awesome. there is never a downside to using a scope except that you can't use a smartlink with them.

about iron sights + cybernetic magnification. i never thought of the fact that your sights would effectively be a dim haze, at higher levels of magnification. think it'd be unrealisitic to apply a +4 TN mod, or so, to any attempt to shoot with iron sights while using cybernetic vision mag? you'd have to use a laser sight, or some specially-designed sight system (maybe a modified reflex sight, i'm not sure) in order to take advantage of your magnification.

Well, at Medium Range, you're better off using the Smartlink than the scope, and at Long range the TN s the same either way. It's only at Extreme range that it is advantageous to use a scpoe over the smartlink.

The cyber versions do not negate all modifiers. They counter them 50%, the exception being Flare compensation seems to be 100% against flare modifiers.

Natural or Adept powers work better and more often negate fully the modifiers.

My earlier example was for a cybered runner with lowlight, thermal and flare comp and vision mag 3.

Yup, but pricey

But undeniably effective, and as such worth mentioning when discussing the effects of visibility modifiers on ranged combat.

Can't check my SR book now as a friends borrowing it, but how well do cybereyes with magnifacation 3 and smartlink 2 system with a rangefinder (what most of my gun-bunnies have) compare to a scope. I know the smartlink 2 and rangefinder are a nice combo (-1 for long range, -2 for extreme) the cyber mag. would basically allow you to see that far. Or does it give some bonus I'm forgetting?

Edit- Do scopes allow you to see farther or something?

at long range, SL + rangefinder will be TN 4; at extreme, it'll be TN 6. magnification is TN 4 across the board (since there's no reason to ever get less than rating 3 magnification).

yeah. the more i think about it, the more it seems like cybernetic vision mag should only be useful with smartlinked weapons, or partially useful with reflex/laser/magic voodoo sights.

the only way i could see cybernetic mag being useful is if you came up with a new piece of cyberware, some sort of sensory processor that would allow you to focus your eyes independently but still collate the visual data they take in. that way, one eye could keep the sights in visual focus, while the other eye zooms in on the target; the sensory processor would allow you to combine those data into a workable sight picture. you'd still take a hit, though, since you really need both eyes for depth perception, but i'd probably allow such a system to reduce the using-iron-sights-with-cybernetic-mag modifier to +2 or so.

you're right. forgot, it's -2 TN at extreme.

I was so happy to find that combo in my last game I almost peed.

Great, now he's gonna make a mess on the carpet. We just had it cleaned. This is why we can't have nice things!

Yeah, the standard LS is 150 at night and 50 during the day.

The extended range one is what, 500? Buying the standard for anything bigger than a pistol is like buying a smartlink 1.