He lives!! I was wondering about you

I do agree Astral Perception needs to be fixed. Right now it's better called Astral Vision, which is an early assumption I'm not sure we should make. I don't think it should go quite as far as you take it, but certainly it needs to be toned down...

-You 'see' everything
This is definitely a problem. It's super vision. The rules in the book need to reflect better that stealth still works against astral vision, even if it's at a penalty, and that all soft cover is completely effective (I would argue, including glass). Astral perception should be more confusing, and I don't see why a mundane standing in an empty room should be like a 'beacon of light'. Magic should definitely be easy to notice, but mundanes should just fade into the background clutter, even if it's in a place without a lot of other living stuff. Perhaps require a perception check to notice anything, even the most basic stuff, while using astral perception?

Related, using astral perception to aim a gun or to sword fight is silly. Again, this shouldn't be astral vision. A +2 modifier is not enough for 'I know there is something alive there that is threatening to me, I can shoot it with my eyes closed with this gun'.

Instantly recognizing auras - This would seem to be a two-sided problem to me. On the one hand, it shouldn't be so completely easy and instantaneous. On the other, it needs to be communicable to others. I imagine that an aura has several 'threads' in it, some which are more or less permanent, some which are very volatile. It should be possible to study the more permanent parts and be able to recognize that signature (using aura reading). There should also be a specialized thaumaturgical language to describe such things to other people, so Lone Star for instance can actually keep some reasonable record of people to compare spell signatures to.

Invisibility and the astral - On this I disagree. All spells should be more or less clearly visible on the astral.

Astral perception being a 6th sense - not sure on this one. In my 'pre-SR' game I'm running, the character was/is psychic, which fed into her being able to awaken before the actual awakening. Certainly they should be related. In the Mercurial adventure, we saw an instance where any awakened character are thrown into an astral vision even when they're not perceiving, so it has canon basis as well. I have no problem with awakened people being subject to suddenly being thrown into visions, feelings, etc. even while not perceiving.

On the other hand, because of the nature of the dual-natured rules, we do need to be able to turn perception off, even if the general 6th sense is still on. When astral perception is on, you're vulnerable to spells from the astral, etc. When it's off, you aren't. In both cases, you're still vulnerable to other 6th sensey sort of things.

The problem with astral perception stems from it being a 'new sense'. I mean, try explaining to a blind person what it's like to see. I think the first thing that needs to be done is to break that barrier if we go further into re-defining Astral Perception.

To do that, perhaps best to begin by an analysis of what it's based off of. Instinct is as close as I can get in a word. The hairs on the back of your neck/arm, my fav description of it for the 'blind'. The cat-like sense cats are proported to have for detecting the supernatural. An emotion detector that works like sound, making it hard to identify the source. Etc, etc.

Instantly recognizing Auras: Agreed. Recognizing an aura is like remembering an 8+ digit number. I tell you 58392756 and 3 weeks later you see 58392576, you might remember that it looked like the first number but chances are better that you simply won't remember those 8-digits at all unless you took the time to store them on a medium somewhere. If there's not a way to store the info, and compare it later, it's pointless. Maybe if you had a photographic memory, but even then, Auras are suppose to change based on emotions and actions. Recognizing it in 3 weeks based on a moment of time seems an impossibility and simply a manner that GMs can use to trap players. Seems to me it's time to come up with a more realistic trap, but not more abuseable than tracing the source of a bullet. If you find the mage, he casts a spell, you can compare this thaumaturgical note against the newly cast spell.

Invisibility: The problem there is 'visible'. I'm ok with them 'detecting' someone invisible, but 'seeing' them goes against Astral Perception in my opinion (Ie: your shooting them with a gun PoV)

Shutting off Astral Perception: Agreed, it has to be shut-off at will (like closing your eyelids). But it should still be that 'sense' that the 2nd sight is suppose to give people, even when it's off. However, that part is irrelevant really, it's mood/theme, not mechanics.

I think once we figure out if astral perception is vision or not, the invisibility issue will solve itself.

I agree. So basically, if a mage were walking around with a sustained spell, and an investigator were to see them, they could recognize the signature to a spell-death they're investigating. But not just by seeing the Mage's aura. Sounds right to me.

I didn't see "Fix Anchoring" on the list. I saw a comment about going back to how it worked in SR2 and about reinstituting the flow chart concept for it from SR2. Also a comment about making it an advanced metamagic.

As it works now, it is good for time related spells. That is about it. Even the example given would create all kinds of problems for the user because the focus is astrally active all the time - even when the spell is not active. Also, upon re-reading about it (because I now recall thinking what a gimped piece of shit this has become after initially reading it), I see that the spell has to be re-cast and re-linked every time the damn thing is put into use. This makes it all but useless for mundanes, which I mistakenly advocated in the other thread concerning power levels between magic and mundane.

Perhaps an advanced anchoring advanced metamagic that allows the focus to not be astrally active when the spell is not active, and allow it to retain the spell after the spell has been ended. How to implement? Have the astrally active part mimic how a weapon focus is astrally deactivated, if nothing else, by removing it from your body. To balance the spell being re-used without being re-cast and re-linked, have the Magician take drain every time the spell is activated. You may say this is how it already works, and I agree. I think the way it works now is unbalanced in that it is too difficult. Also, as it is now, once the spell has been activated, the magician knows he won't face any further drain from that focus until the guy brings it back (if the magician is using it himself, he already controls when he is going to trigger a Drain test) for re-casting and re-linking. Letting the user turn it on and off at his discretion would make possible Drain Tests much more interesting.

I must agree, Anchoring is a bit fubar'd right now, not a meta I even consider taking despite always playing a mage-type...